First-century people experienced many sources of acute and chronic pain. Ancient medicine offered some remedies, but there was nothing comparable to modern anesthesia, antibiotics, diagnostic imaging, or the wide range of medications available today.
Greek and Roman medicine included treatments for wounds, fractures, inflammation, digestive illness, and other painful conditions. Some plant and medicinal preparations could relieve symptoms, but severe pain remained difficult to control.
Manual labor itself placed stress upon the body. Farming, fishing, construction, craft production, travel, childbirth, accidents, burns, wounds, and dental problems could all produce significant pain.
Skeletal remains reveal fractures, joint degeneration, dental disease, trauma, infection, and other conditions that could have caused substantial pain during life.
Ancient medical and literary texts discuss wounds, bodily suffering, pain, medicines, bandaging, and attempts to relieve symptoms.
Pain and bodily suffering appear throughout Scripture, especially in laments and narratives involving illness, injury, childbirth, persecution, and death.
The Gospels show Jesus responding compassionately to people who suffer. The passion narratives also portray Jesus Himself enduring beating, scourging, crucifixion, thirst, wounds, and extreme physical pain.
Archaeology and texts demonstrate that painful injuries and diseases were common features of ancient life.
The degree of pain experienced by a particular individual cannot usually be reconstructed from surviving remains or brief literary descriptions.
Remembering the physical reality of pain keeps biblical accounts of sickness, healing, injury, and crucifixion from becoming merely abstract religious scenes.