Romans would brake the legs of crucified victims to check if they were still alive. In Jesus case they instead pocked him with a spear.
The person that wrote this part of the gospel (as in, very likley, made it up), had to write this in because they needed to keep the story of Jesus in line with old testament prophecies about the Messias, one of which speaks of said Messias beeing “unbroken”. So they came up with an alternative to the leg braking.
It’s one of several examples where gospel writers tried to write things into the gospel that made it look like Jesus was the Messias by inventing events about him that made his life line up with existing prophecies about the jewish messiah.
The stabbing thing happened after he died.
Romans would brake the legs of crucified victims to check if they were still alive. In Jesus case they instead pocked him with a spear.
The person that wrote this part of the gospel (as in, very likley, made it up), had to write this in because they needed to keep the story of Jesus in line with old testament prophecies about the Messias, one of which speaks of said Messias beeing “unbroken”. So they came up with an alternative to the leg braking.
It’s one of several examples where gospel writers tried to write things into the gospel that made it look like Jesus was the Messias by inventing events about him that made his life line up with existing prophecies about the jewish messiah.