Posted by CROSS vs STAKE on March 22, 1999 at 14:00:01 {MWKQmDRkic4cM}:
In Reply to: ****More Curiousity.... posted by Gredees on March 22, 1999 at 13:41:13:
G,
: It's amazing that we don't have something for definite to confirm this. There must have been thousands of executions.
Oh, there is enough evidence around. Crucifictions are described in many religious and secular sources, and as you note, there is medical evidence that an upright stake would have killed the victim quite instantly. See below!
First, let us note that the WTS is quite alone in asserting this view that Jesus was killed on a simple stake. No religious denomination that I know of supports the WTS here, except some very few "Name"-groups in the United States. More importantly, no historian in the world (secular or religious) currently agrees with the WTS that there is any evidence whatsoever that Jesus died on a stake without a crossbeam. Neither have the WTS ever presented the slightest bit of real evidence for its claims.
Biblical evidence
The Bible gives no direct description of the stauros, but contains a few pointers.
Let us look at one text:
John 20:25 "But he [Thomas] said to them: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe""
Please note the plural here: "nailS". So Thomas here says that Jesus' hands had been penetrated by more than one nail. One can wonder, then, why Watchtower publications consequently depict Jesus with his hands penetrated by one single nail. While not being conclusive, this verse shows at least that the Watchtower is ignoring the little testimony we have from the Bible itself. A bad start, isn't it?
The second piece of evidence is given here:
Matthew 27:37 "Also, they posted above his head the charge against him, in writing: "This is Jesus the King of the Jews.""
The most natural understanding of this event is that he was hung with his hands out, nailed to the crossbeam. This sign Pilate posted could then be located above his head. If he was hung as the WTS claims he was, it would be more correct to say the sign was posted above his hands. Again, this is not conclusive, but both verses we have from the Bible giving any indication whatsoever, points towards the traditional understanding: that Jesus was killed on a traditional cross; a stake with a crossbeam.
Early Written Sources
A fact quite ignored by the WTS, is that there is definite extrabiblical evidence to the exact shape of the "stauros," and this shape is the cross, a T with a lowered crossbeam.
First, there are quite a few descriptions in early Christian texts. Note that these were written while the Biblical Greek language was still alive, and while the cruel execution practice we call crucifixion was still carried out by the Romans.
The Christian apologist Justin, writing about 160 CE (long before Constantin) made mention of the shape of the cross at least twice:
"And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having its hands extended . .. and this shows no other form than that of the cross." (Justin Martyr: "First Apology" in Roberts & Donaldson (ed): Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I, Eerdmans 1969, p. 181)
"For the one beam is placed upright, from which the highest extremity is raised up into a horn, when the other beam is fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both sides as horns joined on to the one horn." (Justin's "Dialogue With Trypho", Chap XC in ANF, p. 245)
A few decades later Irenaeus wrote:
"The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in bredth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails." (Irenaeus' "Against Heresies", Chap XXIV in ANF p. 395)
In 197 AD the Christian writer Tertullian wrote:
"Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat." (Tertullian in "Ad Nationes" Chap XI in ANF, Vol III, p. 122)
Note that these writers lived in a period when Crucifixions were still carried out, and could see these horribly executions firsthand. Both Justin and Tertullian referred to cases where Christians were crucified (See ANF, Vol I, p. 254; Vol III, p. 28).
Another, even
more definite and earlier piece of evidence comes from the Epistle of Barnabus (here from J. B. Lightfoot's transl. of the
Ante-Nicene Fathers):
9:36 And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and
three hundred
What then was the knowledge given unto him?
9:37 Understand ye that He saith the eighteen first, and then
after an interval three hundred in the eighteen I stands for ten,
H for eight.
9:38 Here thou hast Jesus
(------).
9:39 And because the cross in the T was to have grace, He saith also
three hundred.
9:40 So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining
one the cross.
The explanation of this strange argument is that Barnabus tries to make Gen 14:14's reference to "300" (318) a prophecy about the cross, since the letter 'T' (tau) means 300 in the Greek number system. The oddity of Barnabus' 'exegetical' argument aside, this is definite evidence that when Barnabus was written (and it is commonly dated to around 130AD, and is possibly even earlier; some date it as early as 75 AD) the cross was understood to be shaped as a T.
We even find testimony about the form of the cross by early non-Christian writers. The Greek writer Lukianos (c. 120-180 AD) wrote that the letter T had received its "evil meaning" because of the "evil instrument tyrants put up to hang people upon them. (Lukianos in "Iudicium Vocalium 12", in Martin Hengel in Crucifixion, Fortress Press, 1982, pp. 8,9)
As if this was not sufficient do we have evidence from the early Bible manuscripts themselves. The manuscripts P66 and P75, that are traditionally dated around AD 200, but may date from as early as the last part of the first century. (See BIBLICA , Vol. 69:2, 1988; which dates the much related P46 this early, and preliminary information from Professor George Howard by letter stated P75 and P66 are "not far behind" in date.)
Anyway, in P75 the word "stauros" is changed so the T and R together depict a cross with a person on in three places where it occurs, and P66 put a cross into the word "stauros." You can yourself see how this was done in the p66 manuscript, taken from the book Encountering New Testament Manuscripts by Jack Finegan (Eerdmans 1980, p. 33) by pointing your web browser to:
http://home1.swipnet.se/~w-11660/lwik/Artiklar/Stauros.gif
Together, this overwhelming evidence speaks for itself. Why the Watchtower Society has gone to such great lengths to create a completely imaginary case for a "stauros" with no crossbeam is puzzling, but it no doubt have something to do with a need to distinguish itself from other denominations. It should also demonstrate for all how little regard the WTS have for truth. All this information has been made available to the WTS many times.
Medical Evidence for Crucifixion
It is a fact that the way Jesus' execution is depicted in Watchtower publications would have killed him in about six minutes.
Already in 1948 did the Austrian doctor Hermann Moedder demonstrate that if you hang a person with his hands right up, he will die from suffocation within about six minutes. This has been confirmed a number of times, lately by a professor in pathology with the University of Columbia, who also demonstrated experimentally that if the person is nailed with his arms outright in an angle of 60-70 degrees, he can live for several hours. His work also showed that it is possible to nail a person to a cross through the hands, not necessarily the wrist as earlier indicated. (Frederick T. Zugibe: "Two Questions About Crucifixion" in Bible Review , April 1989)
So this evidence shows definitely that it isn't even anatomically possible for Jesus to have been crucified as shown in Watchtower publications.
Is the Cross a Pagan Symbol?
Sure. And among these ancient pagan nations who had crosses were the Romans, who selected the torture device that was used to kill Jesus.
It's very strange that the WTS has this obsession with the cross being a "pagan phallic symbol", and then argues that a pole which is described many times as a pagan fertility symbol in the very Bible, was used to kill Jesus.
Is it Right for a Christian to Worship or Venerate the Cross?
That is another question. I think all Christians will agree that it is wrong to worship it, and no Christian will admit doing so. I assume some may worship it; it is not my job to judge. It is however a historical fact that from practically as early as we have sources, Christians used the cross as a major symbol for their religion, and it was venerated.
Unfortunately, the Jehovah's Witnesses have surely demonstrated the truthfulness in these words by Paul:
1 Cor 1:18, 23, 24 "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . . but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
If JWs want to criticize those who made an important Christian symbol out of a pagan one, they should start with the apostle Paul, who said about his preaching "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and
him crucified." (1Co 2:2) and "I have been crucified with Christ" (Ga 2:20). To Paul, the cross was a powerful and potent symbol of Christ's death and resurrection, the focusing symbols for the whole Christian gospel. I cannot possibly see
how anyone who claims that the veneration of the cross is a pagan practice avoids accusing Paul himself of idolatry.
