Thinking of becoming a Witness again and my reasons for doing so :( (page 34)

reniaa

erm just click on the smiley face next to quote thingy lol

chikikie

thats how you do itsilly me im all embarrased

Sirona

Chikikie:::
so are you and sirona reincarnations of trevor? lol

I was here years before Trevor's insane delusions ever infected this board.

Gary and I live in the same house, hence the same IP code. You and Reniaa however apparently live 330 miles away from each other but managed to post from the same computer (or as pointed out, computers attached to the same firewall).

Its all fun!

Sirona (or Dawn with a bump )

chikikie

lol sirona,

Im not trevor nor am I my sister, I am me.

I dont know how the ip came out the same, as we are 330 miles away might be more than 330 as i live near plymouth. anyway my only guess is that it is a tech/comp system error, at first when that message came up showing the same ip i thought it was a joke, but no, me and my sister are who we say we are, genuine.

chikikie

By the way, that sexy trevor is mine ok, hands off.

sf

Sinis,

I am printing THIS out and glueing it to my teenage {16} daughters mirror:

First off, the lot we make in life is a reflection of not only who we are but who we hang out with. I do stand by the premise that the things you have described are atrributed to who you hang out with, thus, boiled down the problem becomes yours and yours only. Granted, the nicest person, who may have been a friend for years, can turn on someone. Yet you list several relationship issues that raise red flags. In my opinion it is who you hang out with, or makes friends with, which ultimately reflects upon YOU. YOU control the situation.

Much oblige,

sKally

Leolaia

Well, before we get to the case of Jesus, I think we still need to get the meanings of the terms straight in our minds. A stauros originally had one basic meaning, a "stake" or "pole" used for building, or making fences, or as a stand-alone pole for other purposes, but not as the name for a kind of execution. This is the meaning you will find in Homer and all the early classics. Prior to the Greeks' encounters with the Persians, the practice of crucifixion did not exist in the Greco-Roman world. The new sense of meaning occurred when the word began to refer to Persian/Phoenician/Punic, and finally, Roman crucifixion, so that now it became a specialized term referring to an execution device. The exact form of the device was not essential to it being called a stauros, and in the early days, it probably only consisted of a single pole, particularly in the case of mass crucifixions associated with warfare. The crosspiece was something of a Roman innovation and it antedated the Roman adoption of crucifixion. The patibulum was already a device of torture in its own right. When the Romans adopted the cross in the third century BC, in the midst of the Punic Wars, they no longer only paraded people around carrying the patibulum before whipping them to death, they now hoisted the patibulum on the cross with the victim suspended from it. Bear in mind, that I am not using the word "cross" as necessarily implying a cruciform shape. I'm using "cross" the same way as the word was used in Latin (i.e. "cross" is the English form of Latin crux). Same thing with "crucifixion", this term does not imply that the execution necessarily involved a two-beamed cross. It is a form of execution involving a crux -- which came in various forms (crux simplex, crux commissa,crux immissa, etc.). If you see a dictionary saying that the primary sense is "stake" and then gives a second sense as "cross, the Roman instrument of crucifixion", that does not imply at all that the device used in crucifixion only had a cruciform shape in contrast to the "stake" given as the primary meaning of the term. Rather, the contrast is between the ordinary use of a stauros as a stake or pale, such as in building or forming fortifications, and the specialized use of a stauros as an instrument of the execution. That kind of device is known in the classics as a "cross". But the exact form of the cross is usually not described in ancient sources.

I hope we're on the same page, cause I know that this can be confusing. You ask, "were all prisoners at jesus's time been confirmed as always been executed on a cross form of stake?" We just don't know precisely how frequent one form of the cross was than the others....the sources do not tell us. Usually we are just told that criminals were in cruce suffixi, fixi cruci, defixi cruci, and so on, without telling us how they were put on the cross. But it is certainly not true that ALL cases of crucifixion involved a crosspiece. That's just not what the sources tell us -- they show that a variety of forms were used. What we do know is that the Romans did use the patibulum very often. Otherwise, Lucian would not have been able to simply compare the shape of the stauros to the letter T (Tau), as opposed to, say, the letter I (Iota). At least for Lucian, T was the basic form of the cross. Similarly, Seneca frequently mentioned the patibulum when he talked about crucifixion, so it probably was widely used where he lived. Same thing with Artemidorus, who described the cross as resembling a ship's mast and yard.

Regarding the source you quoted (which probably is another JW site), it again makes the error of saying that "each of these methods [that include crosspieces] clearly seem to contradict the Biblical record that states the Messiah was executed on a stauros (one beam). As was mentioned earlier stauros means 'stake' not 'cross' ". I think you should understand now that it is fallacious to restrict the meaning of stauros to "one beam", and that the term was used to mean "cross", i.e. the Roman form of execution involving the nailing or tying of a victim to a wooden apparatus -- and while the form of the "cross" varied widely, it certainly isn't true that stauros could not refer to crosses that included crosspieces -- we have already seen evidence that it did.

As far as the crucifixion of Jesus himself is concerned, the strongest indication from the NT that his cross included a patibulum is the repeated reference to stauros-bearing. As I mentioned yesterday, it was the patibulum that the Romans forced the slave or criminal to carry to the execution site. This kind of punishment goes back to pre-Republican days, before the Romans first encountered the practice of crucifixion. So Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century BC) describes how this was done: the executioners led the slave to his punishment by "stretching out both his hands and fastening them to a piece of wood (tas kheiras apoteinantes amphoteras kai xuló prosdésantes) which extended across his chest and shoulders as far as his wrists" and then they prodded him along, dragging him throughout "the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him ... tearing his naked body with whips" (Roman Antiquities, 7.69.1-2). This piece of wood that was placed across the victim's back and shoulders and which extended as far as wrists was the patibulum, what would become the crosspiece of the cross. There is no indication in any source that it was the stipes (upright beam) that the slave was forced to drag behind him (as depicted in The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived book, which pictures Simon of Cyrene dragging the stake over one shoulder -- very different from the real practice of placing the beam squarely across the shoulders to the wrists).

The references to this punishment in Roman sources consistently refer to the object carried by the condemned man as the patibulum, to which both arms are tied. Hence Plautus humorously referred to a crucifixion victim as looking like a human sieve because the executioners would prod him full of holes "as they run you down the streets with your arms on a patibulum" (Mostellaria, 55-57). "Let him carry his patibulum through the city (patibulum ferat per urbem), and then let him be fastened to the crux (adfigatur cruci)" (Carbonaria, 2). The first century BC Roman historian Clodius Licinus described the same thing: first victims were bound to the patibulum (deligata ad patibulos), and once bound they were then made to go around (circumferuntur), and then finally they were nailed to the crux (cruci defiguntur). Note especially that here Licinius distinguishes between the technical terms for fastening a person to the patibulum (patibulum deligantur) and affixing a person to the cross (cruci defiguntur); the former alludes to the use of ropes to tie the arms to the crosspiece, for the purpose of carrying it through the city. And never in Latin was there a reference to ferre crucem (carrying the crux), only in Greek is there the expression pherein stauron -- and that is due to the fact that Greek did not have patibulum or an equivalent as a word. So the Glossae Servii Grammatici uses the word stauros to translate the Latin patibulum. But it is still clear that Greek sources still refer to the same patibulum-bearing practice known in Latin sources. Chariton descibes the prisoners being chained together at foot and neck, each carrying his own cross (ton stauron ephere), and having taken up their own cross (ton stauron bastazón), they were led to the place of execution (Chaereas and Callirhoe, 4.2.6-7). Plutarch says that "every criminal who goes to execution must carry his own cross (ekpherei ton hautou stauron) on his back"; this clearly is not a description of a log being dragged over one shoulder but the placing of a patibulum on the victim's back. Similarly, Luke 23:26 says "the cross was laid on him" (epethékan autó ton stauron) in order to carry it (pherein). The verb pherein "to bear" is the same one used by Chariton and Plutarch and it is cognate to the verb ferre used by Platutus to refer to the carrying of the patibulum. The verb epethékan "placed upon" is especially suggestive of a patibulum placed squarely upon the victim's back (as Plutarch described it) or across his chest and shoulders (as Dionysius of Halicarnassus put it). Compare with the use of the same verb in Luke 15:5, describing a shepherd placing his lost sheep on his shoulders (epitithésin epi tous ómous)", or its use elsewhere to refer to the soldiers placing the crown of thorns on Jesus' head (Matthew 27:29, John 19:2). Artemidorus (Oneirocritica 2.56) says that "the cross (ho stauros) is like death and the man who is to be nailed carries it beforehand (proteron bastazei)". What is interesting about this passage is that the author already referred to the stauros as having a patibulum a few paragraphs earlier (2.53), where he said that the stauros was made of multiple pieces of wood (xulón, plural) and nails (hélón, plural), and resembled a ship's mast. So either Artemidorus was describing the carrying of the patibulum alone or the carrying of the whole cross -- not the carrying of the stipes alone. I know of no Latin source that refers to the carrying of a stipes or crux -- it was the patibulum that was taken to the place of execution, to which the victim was nailed. Hence Plautus refers to the victim as dying with "hands stretched out and nailed to the patibulum" (Miles Gloriosus, 359-360), Seneca notes that some executioners stretch out the arms of their victims on a patibulum (De Consolatione, 20.3), such that they die with their "hands extended on a patibulum (sive extendendae per patibulum manus)" (Fragmenta, 124), Tacitus referred to victims "nailed to the patibulum" (patibulo adfixi) (Annals 4.72, Historia 4.3), and Lucius Apuleius described described dogs and vultures dragging out a victim's innermost bowels as he hangs nailed to the patibulum (patibulo suffigi)" (Asinus Aureus, 4.19, 31-32, 6.31).

I mention all this because the apologist website argues that the references to stauros-bearing in the NT must imply the bearing of the stipes alone, not the patibulum, and not the patibulum + stipes, since Jesus commanded his disciples to carry the stauros and not "part of the stauros". This ignores the fact that the stauros was the term that referred to the Roman practice of patibulum-bearing (hence stauros pherein = patibulum ferre, not *crucem ferre or *stipitem ferre, which are unattested in Latin), and the fact that stauros translated the Latin word patibulum (as the Glossae Servii Grammatici shows). Chariton, Plutarch, and Artemidorus do not word the references to cross-bearing as a carrying of "part of a stauros", and Artemidorus was clear that the cross included a patibulum. If the argument is being made that references to stauros-bearing must refer to the entire cross, Artemidorus would prove that, at least as far as he was concerned, the victim DID NOT carry just the stipes (stake). If he carried the whole cross, then he had to have carried the stipes + patibulum, because a stipes would only be "part of a stauros". It was just as much a part of it as the patibulum. The same could be argued with respect to the cross of Jesus -- unless you excluded the use of a patibulum a priori, the insistence that Jesus must have carried the entire cross would not rule out the use of a patibulum -- it would just require that he carried stipes + patibulum. That is already what the website requires of the references to stauros-bearing in Artemidorus. But indeed, this is not a reasonable position because, as the website itself admits, "the weight of an entire two-piece cross to be between 200 and 300 pounds". That was probably too much for a man weakened by whippings and torture. So it is more likely that Artemidorus was referring to the carrying of the patibulum and used to word stauros to refer to it. That is what we would expect since Servius claimed that stauros was the word that translated Latin patibulum. It doesn't make any sense to argue, as the website authors do, that Jesus' reference to stauros-bearing could not be to the carrying of a patibulum because that would have been too lenient. This was a brutal form of torture -- carrying a 100-pound weight placed on the nape of the neck and shoulders, tightly bound to the wrists, while being whipped and prodded with spears. Moreover, when Jesus asked his disciples to take up their cross, he was alluding to what was being done by Roman executioners. If they forced the victim to carry the patibulum, that is what he referred to. To suppose that the Romans instead made their prisoners carry the stipes, one should show that they even did such a thing.

To respond to your next question:--

2/ secondly given the importance that the Cross has in modern Christianity wouldn't they have taken time to have refered to it more detailed in form than to casually refer to it, instead taking time to use more detail into how he died and the resurrection? (this might be an unfair question but I am meaning in looking at the language they do certainly spend not much time on the instrument used to kill him using as I think you have showed a commmon word that can denote just the general execution romans used?)

No, not much effort is spent in the gospels in describing the stauros used by Jesus. There are a few hints here and there, such as the reference to the titulis being placed above Jesus' head rather than above his hands (Matthew 27:37), or the reference to nails (hélón, plural) that pierced his hands (John 20:25; cf. the description of Jesus being removed from the stauros in the Gospel of Peter, early second century AD: "The Jews drew the nails from the hands of the Lord and laid him on the earth", 6:21), but neither of these references are definitive, only suggestive. If it were not for the fact that Jesus had to bear his stauros prior to execution, I would have said that the matter is entirely ambiguous in the gospels themselves. But the reference to stauros-bearing is the one piece of information that indicates that Jesus' stauros did indeed include a patibulum.

But very quickly, we do find more detailed references to the patibulum of Jesus' stauros. So the anonymous homily attributed to Barnabas, written either in the late first century AD or around c. 130, refers to the stauros of Jesus as shaped like the letter T (Barnabas 9:7-8). The author also tries to find it prefigured in the OT, saying that the Holy Spirit induced Moses to make "a representation of the stauros" (cf. Exodus 17:8-12) by having him "stretch out his hands" (exeteinen tas kheiras) in front of his people (Barnabas 12:1-2). He also found what he thought was a prophecy of the stauros in Isaiah 65:2, in which the prophet says: "I stretched out my hands (exepetasa tas kheiras) the whole day to a disobedient people". One of the earliest apologists, Justin Martyr (c. 150), also had the same view. When the prophet says that "the government will be upon his shoulders", Justin took this to prophesy Jesus carrying the stauros on his shoulders: "This testifies to the power of the stauros which, when he was crucified, he took upon his shoulders" (1 Apology, 35). The patibulum is what the criminal carried across both shoulders, rather than dragging a long stake behind him over just one shoulder. A few sentences later, Justin continued: "Jesus Christ stretched out his hands when he was crucified by the Jews, who contradicted him and denied that he was Christ". Then he compared the stauros of Jesus to all sorts of objects in the world that looked similar. "The sea cannot be traversed unless the sign of victory, which is called a sail, remains fast in the ship" (1 Apology, 55). This is exactly the same similarity that Artemidorus noted, that the stauros looks like as ship's mast. He further says that when "a man stands erect and stretches out his hands ... this exhibits precisely the figure of the stauros". In another passage, he describes how the stauros is fitted together. He says: "One beam stands upright (orthion to hen esti xulon), and at the highest extremity there is a horn where the other beam is fitted onto it (hotan to allo xulon prosarmosthéi) ... and the part which is fixed in the middle, on which are placed those who are crucified (eph' hói epokhountai hoi stauroumenoi), also stands out like a horn", i.e. the thorn-shaped sedile on which the crucifixion victims must rest their weight (Dialogue, 91). Notice that he refers to two pieces of wood, or xulón, plural (i.e. the orthion xulon, the stipes, and then the allo xulon, the crosspiece), just as Artemidorus referred to the stauros as made of xulón, plural. And all the other subsequent writers made similar comments about the shape of Jesus' cross, including Irenaeus (Demonstration, 34-36, 56, 79), Tertullian (Apologeticus 12.3, Adversus Marcionem 3.18.3-4, 3.18.6, "the letter Tau of the Greeks, which is our T, has the appearance of the crux", 3.23.6, De Idolatria 12, Minucius Felix, Octavius 29.6, Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation 11, etc. See also the Acts of Peter, 38, and the Acts of Andrew 14:3-11.

All of this shows that it is plainly false that, as some claim, Christians only began to refer to Jesus' cross as having a cruciform shape centuries later, such as the time of Constantine in the fourth century AD. This is what the website you quoted as a source says:

"So if the Greek word for 'cross' actually means a 'stake' or 'post', how did it get changed to 'cross'? What is the history behind this distortion? How did this term (stauros) become so corrupted? And how did this deception grow to a point to where it touches the pages of almost every Bible? To answer these questions, one must take a brief tour of 3rd and 4th century Roman history. By the middle of the 3rd century the Roman Catholic Church had grown in prominence and influence. This great religion would play a key roll in the introduction of paganism into Christianity. At this point a unique marriage between church and state was about to play out. The principal player in this marriage was Flavius Valerius Constantinus. Constantine would ascend to the throne of Western Rome in 306 A.D....
Soon thereafter he would dedicate his energy to unifying Rome under a common religion. The chief symbol of that faith would be the cross. Those who agreed were blessed by the Empire; those who disagreed and held to the truth were hunted down and killed.... But why was it so important to change a stake or tree into a cross? What made this particular image so important? On the surface, the change to defining both words (stauros and xulon) as “cross” was a small one. A cross, after all, is just two pieces of wood nailed together. How could that make any difference? While it may seem like a little thing, it was this precise change that allowed pagans to keep their religion in tact and still 'embrace' (at least on the surface) this new faith."

As you can see, this is completely untrue! Stauros had already referred to two-beamed crosses LONG, LONG before then, and Christians already talked about Jesus' stauros as having a crossbeam before Constantine's great-great-great grandmother was even a sparkle in her parents' eyes.

KW13

4/ I miss the honest friendships of the truth, I had friends of all ages from 14 to 80 years old and they genuinely cared for me, many trying to keep me in the faith a long time after I left but I was determined to fade so moved away completely, but I find friendships in the world so shallow in comparison and very hard to sustain :( I've never been a drinker and sometimes thats what friendship means you being a companion for them to goto pub with.

I've answers for all you've said, its not all black and white. There are people who've been hurt by people 'in the truth' as bad as people 'in the world' get hurt and sometimes worse.

For example a 'Wordly' person who is a Pedophile is no less of a Pedophile if they are a Jehovah's Witness are they?

The fact you find the real world and life so hard to accept is because its like being thrown into the deep end of the pool without knowing how to swim. JW's are not taught the full picture and because of this the Society can say what they like based on half truths.

For example

A serious Car accident. Two Observers approach one of the drivers, what happened? Oh the guy in the other car basically didnt brake and ran into me. You go to the other driver and he says 'Oh that idiot didnt give me enough room and i didnt have time to stop'.

Who's right? No one? Logic says someone is to blame and someone is telling the truth.

Notice how these 'true' friends abandoned you when they found you weren't coming BACK? If that is all a friendship is based on then unfortunately it has no substance.

I have a good reason for not being a witness. basically my little boy was born out of marriage and i wouldnt have met my wife if i was a witness and we certainly wouldnt of got together, if you believe the bible then read Job which teaches that God formed each and everyone of us with a purpose - so if my son was an accident and God had nothing to do with it, then how is he here?

Life is hard, hiding under a rock doesnt change a thing it just lets you pretend it does.

quietlyleaving

fantastic research and argument Leolaia

inkling

hmmm, If I go down this road I'd end up an atheist and I'm honestly not ready for that

This statement really says it all. If you can hear yourself type this and not feel pangs of
intellectual guilt, this conversation has nowhere to go. I guess long as you accept the vast
irrationality of ignoring evidence solely on the grounds that it scares you, feel free to
feel warm and fuzzy with your wishthinking.

lol at least witnesses aren't creationists

Creationism is defined as:

The doctrine or theory holding that matter, the various forms of life, and the world were
created by God out of nothing and usually in the way described in Genesis

and:

A doctrine holding that the biblical account of creation is supported by scientific evidence

This is precisely what Witnesses believe.

Jehovah's witnesses are creationists.

Now, I know- They will try and split hairs on the fact that they don't
hold that the universe was created in 6 literal days, but all that does
is make them Old-Earth Creationists as opposed to Young-Earth Creationists.

The WT teachings about the origin of life and the universe clearly fall within
the camp of the creationists.

[inkling]

Thinking of becoming a Witness again and my reasons for doing so :(

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