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400 Questions and Answers About the Life & Times of Jesus Christ by Susan Easton Black beginning on page 18 (emphasis has been added) 

“1. After the birth of Jesus, his mother “wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7).   What are swaddling clothes? 

Before being wrapped in swaddling clothes (a banding process), a newborn baby was washed and rubbed with salt.  Jewish mothers believed the skin of their babies would be preserved if salted immediately after birth.  The baby was then placed on a square cloth and the swaddling began.  Four-inch-wide strips, five to six yards long, were wrapped tightly around the infant. 

For the first six months of life, Jewish babies were confined in long linen strips called, in the King James Version, ‘swaddling clothes.’  Swaddling restrained movement of the arms and legs.  Jewish mothers believed that the infant’s limbs would ‘grow straight and strong’ if kept in swaddling clothes. 

2. Was Jesus speaking metaphorically when He said, ‘Take my yoke upon you and learn of me…for my yoke is easy’ (Matt. 11:29-30)?  Page 154 

The word yoke had three common definitions at the time of Jesus.  The first was a wooden beam made by a carpenter and fastened with leather or rope straps to two animals.  According to the Mosaic Law, the yoking of two different types of animals, such as an ox and an ass, was forbidden.  An unequal pull caused the weaker animal discomfort and pain. 

The second definition was the Yoke of the Law.  This definition was a common rabbinic phrase used to describe the burden of legal requirements and ordinances.  Rabbis believed that an act of piety was to request that the Yoke of the Law be as heavy as possible. 

The third definition was an Aramaic expression describing discontent over taxation, levies and other financial burdens extracted by overlords. 

Jesus assured His disciples that His yoke, meaning ‘Yoke of the Law’ was easy and not a ‘multitude of burdensome ordinances like that of the Law and of the Pharisees.’ 

3. What type of cross did the Romans use in Palestine?  Page 213

There were three types of crosses commonly used throughout the Roman Empire.  One type was shaped like an ‘X,’ another like a ‘T’ and a third like a ‘t.’  It is not known which type of cross was used in Palestine from 30 to 33 AD but it is known that the cross was not the lofty structure depicted in artistic renderings… 

It was made from indigenous wood like olive or sycamore.  It was placed low to the ground so that the feet of the condemned would be less than two feet above the ground, enabling passerby to physically and verbally abuse the crucified. 

4. What were the first words spoken by Jesus from the cross?  Page 216 

Jesus hung on the cross for six hours, from nine in the morning until three in the afternoon.  During these agonizing hours, Gospel writers report that He spoke seven times.  His first words, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23:34), were an expression of charity.  Forgiveness was directed toward the soldiers, ‘not to Judas or Annas or Caiaphas or the chief priests or the Sanhedrin or Pilate or Herod or Lucifer or any who have rebelled against him.’ 

5. Which female disciples witnessed the crucifixion of Jesus?  Page 218 

Listening to the accusations, watching the soldiers cast lots, and hearing Jesus speak to the thief were the following women:  1) His mother Mary, 2) the wife of Cleophas, 3)  Mary Magdalene and 4) Salome, the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and John (see John 19:25). 

As Jesus looked down from the cross and saw His mother standing near, He said, ‘Woman’ (John 19:26).  The word seems impersonal today, but anciently to be called a woman was a mark of honor and respect.  An old Eastern saying clarified, ‘To every son the mother ought to be preeminently the woman of women.’… 

6. At the death of Jesus, ‘the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake and the rocks rent’ (Matt. 27:51)  Was the temple veil rent by the earthquake?  Page 220 

The Talmud (the body of Jewish civil and ceremonial law) describes the temple veil as actually two veils hanging in front of the Holy of Holies.  The veils were sixty feet long, thirty feet wide and about one inch thick.  They were made of fine material and beautifully embroidered with white, scarlet, blue and gold thread. 

The veils were so heavy, due to the seventy-two plaited squares sewn onto the fabric that it took three hundred priests to immerse just one veil before hanging it in the Holy Temple.  If the temple veils were as the Talmud described, an earthquake would not cause them to be ‘rent in twain,’ or to be torn from top to bottom.  ‘Indeed, everything seems to indicate that, although the earthquake might furnish the physical basis, the rent of the Temple Veil was, with reverence be it said, really made by the Hand of God.’ 

When the veils were rent, the Holy of Holies was exposed.  The exposure revealed an empty chamber except for a large stone on which the high priest sprinkled sacrificial blood on the Day of Atonement.  

Rending the veil symbolized ‘the rending of Judaism, the consummation of the Mosaic dispensation and the inauguration of Christianity under apostolic administration.  (Dummelow, Bible Commentary page 718)” 

Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote that in addition to the Savior entering the presence of the Father, “the Holy of Holies is now open to all, and all, through the atoning blood of the Lamb, can now enter into the highest and holiest of all places, that kingdom where eternal life is found.  (New Testament Student Manual, 2014)