None of these questions can be answered, because of a massive, massive gap in the historical records when it comes to Jesus. In fact, the gap is so massive that there is actually no contemporary records of him ever existing. The few that we do have come from people like Tacitus and Josephus, written years after his alleged death.
Yes, I said alleged. You see, there are problems there, as well. There are no records of Jesus’ birth or death. No records of taxes, no writ of execution, no record of a trial. Nothing. Obviously, there is also no body to examine (this would kind of undermine the whole Christian principle of a bodily resurrection). All of these things have led a few historians to conclude that Jesus never existed as a man, but might have been cobbled together from different people, or might have been purely a myth figure. That’s really a debate for historians.
Here is what we do know. If Jesus existed, he wasn’t a six foot white guy. He was likely short, at least by today’s standards, at around 5′ 7″, probably would have had curly hair, since he would have been Jewish, been olive complected (think middle eastern), and probably would have had brown eyes (statistically). In fact, his depiction as a white guy is relatively recent, as Eastern Orthodox churches historically depicted him as Arabic or black. The Western Catholic church just happened to win that battle because they were more focused on generating art and images, so that’s what spread. Those depictions really took off after the Shroud of Turin was unveiled (which is most definitely a fake). Average height of Ancient Roman Men and Women?
Now let’s look at the cross. There are historical issues with Jesus being crucified, as that was the traditional punishment for treason. As a religious heretic, Jesus would have been more likely to be killed through beheading, because it was quick, ignoble, and worked pretty well at shutting other people up. After all, cults were popping up all over the place back then, and the state couldn’t very well put on great pageants every time they needed to kill a leader. There are also issues of how long it took to die from crucifixion (hint, a lot longer than the bible says it did), but that’s getting off topic again. So, let’s say that Jesus was crucified. We also don’t have any record or remnants of the cross, so the best that we could do is go off of what we do have. The entire cross weighed in at around 300 lbs, so it wasn’t carried. If the condemned did carry anything, it would be the crossbeam only, which was about 100 lbs. They would then be nailed to it and hoisted up. I couldn’t find a uniform height for a cross, but based on the average height (a little less than mine), and how high you would need to hang someone so that they could be displayed as a warning (that was the point, after all), I would guess that the height would be anywhere from 8 to 12 feet tall, depending on how high you would want them to be. It is noted that the posts were generally reused, so that the crossbeams could be cut uniform to fit them, and because burying posts so that they stick upright is fairly labor intensive (they would have to be buried deep enough not to tip over when the top half started swaying). The girth is similarly unknown, as the only real requirement is that it be enough to hold the persons up without breaking.
That didn't stop early Christian churches, though, as fragments of the cross, bits of wood and nails, popped up everywhere as huge money making schemes for tourists (religious pilgrims) and everyone, it seemed, had one. As far as we know, none of those were real, either.
All in all, an interesting story, but if you are looking for facts about Jesus, you are going to run into a lot of problems.
