The horror reveals itself slowly. At first glance, the object found by an archaeologist from Israel's Ministry of Housing in 1968 appears discolored and shapeless, like a piece of fossilized wax.

Look closer, though, and you'll see a thick, rusted iron nail, 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) long, its tip bent over into a hook, embedded in something yellowish - not wood or stone, but bone.

A human heel bone.

This is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence we possess that proves the story of the Gospels is factually true. It is also graphic confirmation that Jesus Christ must have died in unspeakable agony.

And it is just one of 50 artifacts detailed in a new book supplying proof upon proof that, as well as its supreme spiritual importance, the Bible is one of the most reliable contemporaneous accounts of life in the ancient world.

Archaeology, says the author, Professor Paul D Weaver, 'brings the Bible into 5K view' - giving us a high-definition picture of the past.

Discovered in an ossuary or box of bones approximately 2,000 years old, the mutilated heel bone was part of one foot of a man named Yehohanan, who was between 24 and 28 years old.

He died a gruesome death - nailed to a wooden cross, he hung there till his own weight crushed his lungs and he suffocated.

To speed his death, his legs were smashed. This was done, not by the Roman legionaries who oversaw Yehohanan's execution, but by his family or friends.

Crucifixions often took place on a Friday, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath. If the victim wasn't dead by nightfall, his body could not be taken down and entombed until after dark the next day.

According to St John's Gospel, the two thieves who were crucified alongside Jesus also had their legs broken. But Christ died more quickly, and this final, brutal stroke was not needed.

Most Christians know how Jesus's body was removed from the Cross on Good Friday and hurriedly taken to a tomb in Golgotha. What far fewer realize is why this was done.

For about a century, until the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, writes Professor Weaver, 'Jewish people employed a two-step burial process. Initially, the dead loved one would be buried on a flat stone bench in a tomb. This was the first burial.

'A year later, after the flesh had decayed and all that remained was the bones, loved ones would then return to the grave, collect the bones and place them in an ossuary.'

This is what Jesus's family and His Disciples must have expected would be the fate of his body.

Scholars have long argued whether the Biblical account of Jesus's crucifixion is accurate. Some have claimed that victims were not nailed to the cross but instead were always tied with ropes, which were cheaper and reusable.

Yehohanan's heel bone disproves that theory. A sliver of olive wood trapped under the head of the nail provides a glimpse into the brutal techniques used by the Roman executioners: according to Professor Weaver, a piece of wood about 2cm long 'would have been placed against Yehohanan's ankle bone before the nail was struck. The nail would have been driven through the olive wood, then through the ankle bone, and finally into the upright crucifixion beam.

'This small piece of olive wood was probably utilized to ensure that the nail would be driven through the ankle bone correctly and that the ankle bone would not tear away from the nail.'

Usually, the nails were extracted and reused. In this case, it was left in place, presumably because the tip was bent.

The fact that Yehohanan's bones were preserved in an ossuary also undermines another claim by skeptics, who have said victims of crucifixion were regarded as cursed and unworthy of burial rites.

Jesus's death was ordered by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate - a man who might have vanished from history if he had not played such a crucial part in the Bible story. His name is mentioned 51 times in the Gospels and four times after that, but for centuries there was almost no other evidence of his existence.

That changed in 1961 when Italian archeologist Antonio Frova was excavating a Roman theater at Caesarea Maritima, on the Mediterranean coast in modern-day Israel. A stone about the size of a breezeblock was discovered, with letters carved into it and partially erased.

Close study revealed the words, 'Tiberium ... ntius ... ectus ... Iuda.' It appears these were part of an inscription reading, 'Tiberium Pontius Pilatus Praefectus Iudaeae.'

'Tiberium' was the title of the building, originally a temple dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius, who ruled the Roman Empire when Jesus was crucified. Translated, the rest of the legend reads, 'Pontius Pilate, the Prefect of Judea.'

One interesting detail: the Roman historian Tacitus, writing about 70 years later, did mention Pilate but gave him the title procurator. The Gospel of St Luke calls him a 'prefect' which matches the inscription - more proof of the Bible's accuracy.

The smallest details can corroborate the most dramatic stories in archaeology. St John, who as one of the 12 Apostles knew Jesus personally, described one of the most famous of his miracles so vividly that it seems certain he was there when it happened.

The setting was a pool in Jerusalem, known as Bethesda, where people with disabilities came to bathe and, they hoped, be cured. The local belief was that anyone immersed in the waters while they were stirred up would get well.

When Jesus visited the spot, he met a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years and was unable to get into the water on his own. Instead, he lay on a bed or mat, helpless. Instead of helping him into the pool, Jesus simply told him, 'Pick up your bed and walk' - and the man was cured.

John's description of the spot, with its five covered colonnades or rows of pillars, was precise. When the Pool of Bethesda was uncovered by archaeologists in the 1880s, the remains of five colonnades were also found.

Although we associate Jerusalem with the Gospel story, and Bethlehem and Nazareth, he spent much of the three years of his ministry in a town called Capernaum. Sited on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, this is in the north of modern-day Israel, close to the Lebanese border.

He lived in Capernaum at the house of his disciple Peter and tradition has long held that, as Christianity took hold over the centuries, a church was built on its foundations. The ruins of Capernaum were excavated in Victorian times, but it wasn't until the 1920s that an octagonal church was uncovered, with a beautiful mosaic at its center.

This church dated to the fifth century - but in 1968, Franciscan priests Virgilio Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda discovered it was built on the ruins of an even older church, from the first century.

And under that, they found evidence of a house. Curiously, the oven in the main room had been removed to make more room, suggesting the building had been used as a meeting place.

More than 100 pieces of ancient Christian graffiti were carved into the walls, with inscriptions such as, 'Lord Jesus Christ, help,' and 'Christ have mercy.'

Two ancient sources identify the site as the former home of St Peter. In AD 385 a pilgrim named Egeria wrote, 'In Capernaum, the house of the prince of the apostles has been made into a church, with its original walls still standing. It is where the Lord healed the paralytic.'

And in AD 570 an anonymous pilgrim from Piacenza wrote, 'We likewise came into Capernaum into the house of blessed Peter, which is now a basilica.'

There seems no doubt that this site was Jesus's headquarters, two millennia ago.

Not every piece of evidence proving the accuracy of the Gospels must be directly associated with Jesus. Sometimes, the most surprising finds are the ones that corroborate facts we might never have considered.

Both St John and St Luke tell the story of a miraculous fishing expedition. On the banks of Galilee, Jesus greeted some of the disciples as they returned from a fruitless fishing expedition.

In one version, he boarded their boat. In the other, he called out from the shore. Either way, when the men obeyed his command to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, they came up with such a catch of fish that they almost sank.

But the story would sink too, if it turned out that Judaean fishermen used small boats, suitable for a crew of only two or three.

In 1986, after a two-year drought, the Sea of Galilee had almost dried up. Two brothers in their 30s, Moshe and Yuval Lufan, went searching for treasure in the mud and found a handful of bronze coins.

Digging deeper, they began to expose the skeleton of a wooden boat, preserved by the mud. Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority took over and, over the course of ten years, uncovered and preserved a vessel about eight meters (26.5ft) long, built from oak and cedar.

This boat was large enough for an eight-man fishing crew, and was carbon-dated to about 40 BC, give or take 80 years.

It's known now as the Jesus Boat.