by Witchs Son 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
and what would you say about the book often referenced by the society as a backing for the stake theory, The Non-Christian Cross by J. D. Parsons ?You can also download it here if you prefer. I know that book was written in 19th century so I hope that won't be used as an argument against it after all Sir Isaac Newton's Principia was written in 1687 and we aren't holding that against it either.
I don't have opinion one way or the other but have read Parsons book.
I haven't read the book but I've read Leolaia's scholarly review and this is what I know.
Well, lets just say that historically the Romans did use a upright stake AND a cross beam as a means of punishment, that the JW's deny. I've seen various articles including watching the History channel that show this fact. The fact the JW's strongly refute this makes me believe that it is true. As a general rule (not always) I believe that when they refute a general Christian church's doctrine, they're are lobbying hard for people to unlearn a historical truth of the ages. That's my thoughts. Blessings.........
I own that book by Parsons. I believe Jesus died on a cross. Crucifixion was a common Roman practice. Crucified bodies have been discovered by archeology. As for the WT explanation using the Greek word stauros. Here is some food for thought:
An essay written around 160 AD, attributed to Lucian, a mock legal prosecution called The Consonants at Law — Sigma v. Tau in the Court of Seven Vowels contains a reference to the attribution. Sigma petitions the court to sentence Tau to death by crucifixion, saying:
- Men weep, and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up structures on which men are crucified. Stauros (cross) the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape — that shape which he gave to the gibbet named stauros after him by men.
Witchs Son....As I said yesterday in the other thread, the facts demonstrating the truth of the matter were available to Justus Lipsius back in the 16th century, so the 19th-century date of Parsons' book is not a priori an argument against it, although it naturally would not include evidence discovered after it was published. But the vintage of the book is still noteworthy because nearly all the authorities the Society quotes to support its argument (such as Parsons, the Companion Bible appendix, Alexander Hislop, etc., and let's face it -- the Society only makes its argument from authority, it never actually discusses the facts of the matter) are old, going back at least a century or more. Why can't the Society make its case by quoting from contemporary sources? The Society would probably cite them if they could, but they are stuck quoting the same tired sources over and over because they come from a time when such views were more readily expressed than today.
When the Society tried to expunge "pagan" practices in the 1920s and 1930s (which was when they began to eschew the cross symbol and claim that Jesus died on a stake), they were actually latecomers to a movement in Protestantism that began many decades earlier, which manifested an anti-Catholic spirit in divesting Christianity of all perceived "pagan" influences -- including practices then accepted by Protestants as Christian such as the holidays of Christmas and Easter and the use of the cross as a Christian symbol. The Plymouth Brethren were one group that especially manifested this ideal and it is noteworthy that they published Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons (originally published in 1853) which the Society repeatedly quoted as an authority throughout the 20th century (in fact, as late as the '80s, a JW could order this book from the Plymouth Brethren through the Kingdom Hall). This incidentally was a shoddily researched book and perhaps in recognition of this fact the Society has ceased quoting it as gospel. The authors of the Companion Bible appendix, E. W. Bullinger and Charles Welch, were also Darby dispensationalists strongly influenced by the Brethren. Even Pastor Russell was influenced to some extent by them, especially in his dispensationalism and two-stage parousia doctrine. As for John Denham Parsons (whose book was a direct source to the Companion Bible piece), he was a Unitarian who rejected both orthodox Christianity and the Theosophy movement but who, as a member of the Society for Psychical Research, was interested in the same spiritistic and pantheistic topics as Blavatsky's theosophists. In 1895, he published Our Sun-God or Christianity Before Christ, in which he tried to prove that Christianity as a whole was of "pagan" origin, and in 1906 he published his philosophical treatise The Nature and Purpose of the Universe, where he speculated among other things on what temperature it is in the spirit world (p. 468). I don't think we'd find the Society quoting from either book, yet Parsons is nevertheless regarded by them as an authority on the subject of the cross. Yet Parsons was just as motivated as the Brethen were in trying to prove a "pagan" basis for Christian practices. Today the only people I can think of that are similarly motivated are traditional WCOGers (as Herbert W. Armstrong was influenced by the same sources as the Society, or influenced by the Society itself), Christ-myth atheists, and New Agers, and I don't see the Society openly quoting from either group. And of course, current scholarship is poles apart from the views of these 19th-century writers.
Since the Companion Bible appendix plagiarizes from Parsons (if he was not the ghostwriter of it), it may be worth your while to read my post yesterday giving a critique of it:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/152368/2784479/post.ashx#2784479
Offering a book-length treatment of the subject, however, Parsons also offers more grist for discussion. Parsons' book is also significant because he makes several claims later repeated by the Society. It seems that Parsons was the source of the Society's mistaken claim (cf. 1950 NWT, pp. 770; 22 June 1984 Awake!, p. 17; 1984 NWT, p. 1577) that Livy used crux to mean only "stake":
"It is therefore noteworthy that even this Latin word 'crux,' from which we derive our words 'cross' and 'crucify,' did not in ancient days necessarily mean something cross-shaped, and seems to have had quite another signification as its original meaning. A reference, for instance, to the writings of Livy, will show that in his time the word crux, whatever else it may have meant, signified a single piece of wood or timber; he using it in that sense" (Parsons, The Non-Christian Cross, from chapter 2, "The Evidence of Minucius Felix").
In my thread devoted to the subject, I proved this claim false. Interestingly, Parsons gives in a footnote a citation of Livy, indicating that he is referring to "Livy, xxviii. 29". But in fact Livy here used palus, not crux, to refer to execution on a stake: "Bound to a stake (deligati ad palum) they were scouraged and beheaded" (28.29.11). I don't know where Parsons got the mistaken idea that Livy was using the word crux here; the word crux does appear in 28.37, but this relates an altogether different event sometime later by a different individual (the Carthaginian general Mago, whereas 28.29 concerned the Roman general Scipio). So this looks like a mistake made by Parsons that was picked up by the WTS and repeated ad nauseum.
Parsons also quotes Lucian to support his position, tho a different passage than the one cited by the WTS (Prometheus 1.12, cited in 1950 NWT, p. 769 and 1984 NWT, p. 1577, but cf. 1.12-13 and 2.3-8 which indicates that Lucian had in mind a stauros that had a horizontal timber):
The side light thrown upon the question by Lucian is also worth noting. This writer, referring to Jesus, alludes to "That sophist of theirs who was fastened to a skolops;" which word signified a single piece of wood, and not two pieces joined together.
This is a citation from De Morte Peregrini, but what Parsons does not seem to realize is that the verb anaskolopizoó in the text he quotes is the same one used in Lis Consonantium, 12 to refer to the crucifixion of people on a two-beamed stauros (which explicitly was described as resembling the Greek letter Tau, which as the author noted itself occurs in the word stauros).
There are also other dubious statements. Here is an argument from silence that is quite unreasonable:
Had there been any such intimation in the twenty-seven Greek works referring to Jesus, which our Church selected out of a very large number and called the "New Testament," the Greek letter chi, which was cross-shaped, would in the ordinary course have been referred to; and some such term as Katà chiasmon, "like a chi," made use of.
There is no compelling reason to necessarily expect such a comparison; whereas other writings dating to the time when books of the NT were still under composition (such as Barnabas) do compare the stauros to the Greek letter tau -- not chi.
The author frequently intimates (without evidence) that Constantine played a dominant role in introducing the cross and even claims that crux simplex remained the primary meaning of stauros through the Middle Ages:
Even as late as the Middle Ages, the word stauros seems to have primarily signified a straight piece of wood without a cross-bar.
This plainly goes against all patristic use of the word and secular usage, as indicated by among other things, the coining of words like staurikos, stauromarphos, and staurótos in Byzantine Greek to refer to the cruciform shape of the stauros. The author seems to also have no idea that the word crux clearly referred to a two-beamed cross in Plautus and Seneca.
Jesus..
..Dined on a Steak!..
...............
...OUTLAW
I've always been a bit confused about what they mean by "the cross is pagan".
If the pagan romans crucified Jesus, then why wouldn't the shape be called pagan?
Then if a christian had a cross/crucifix because it is immediately identifiable (worldwide just about) as the recognition of the great sacrifice - what better way to identify yourself as a believer?
sounds like it has a whole new meaning now.
works better than a convention badge or a bad suit & bookbag
wp
Okay, I am going to do my thing of coming from left field...
Given that the Watchtower has a fascination with blood and impaling torture death on a stake, and an aversion to the cross, I have to wonder.
Do they have any connection to Vlad the Impaler? He was the man who was the source of vampire and Dracula legends.
Just kurios
I believe in a trinity - steak, potatos, and veggies.
W
Both history and the Greek of the Bible actually disprove what the Witnesses teach about Jesus dying on a stake, and there are many good references here to prove that (good work everyone).
While I don’t recommend Wikipedia as a most accurate resource, its article on the cross and crucifixion is quite well-documented and has enough resources to shoot down any of the Witness beliefs on the matter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucifixion
Here’s a photo from a book about Christian history that has what is considered to be one of the first drawings of what the instrument of Christ’s death looked like (click for better resolution). Interestingly, it was not drawn by Christians but by Romans who were ridiculing Christianity. It was found scribbled in an army officer’s quarters on Palatine Hill in Rome. It is from the early 200s. The caption reads: “Alexamenos worships his god.”
The image is of a man with the head of a donkey, and he is crucified, not impaled. If Romans really impaled instead of crucified people, these army men would not have drawn a cross. Also the Witnesses claim that “Christendom” introduced the cross, however as history and this photo show, it was well known to non-Christians how Jesus died.
