Impalement or Crucifiction? Opinions please?

by Tired of the Hypocrisy 28 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  As we all know, the jw religion teaches that Christ was impaled on a torture stake rather than crucified on the cross. I have my own views on this and have recently been approached by a friend who also has certain views on the murder of Jesus. From my own reading of history and some recent internet sources, the discription of what the bible says happened to Christ bears little resemblance to what impalement on a torture stake actually was. The opening of the torso between the genitals and the anus and forcing a blunt pole through the trunk, which pushes the organs aside without piercing them. Then the pole is let out of the body through a hole cut under the sternum to pass up to below the chin for a nice place to rest and hold the poor soul to suffer and scream to death over the course of days. What the Bible describes in its gory detail is actually more along the lines of a crucifiction in my view.

  What I would like to do is start this thread with the idea of getting as many views from as many folks as possible. Especially an historians in the group who have better insights into the finer points of crucifiction and impalement. Which came first? Whish was the one practiced at the time of Jesus death?
• 

  undercover

  the discription of what the bible(you mean WT Society?) says happened to Christ bears little resemblance to what impalement on a torture stake actually was. The opening of the torso between the genitals and the anus and forcing a blunt pole through the trunk, which pushes the organs aside without piercing them. Then the pole is let out of the body through a hole cut under the sternum to pass up to below the chin for a nice place to rest and hold the poor soul to suffer and scream to death over the course of days.

  I'm not a historian, nor do I play one on TV, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But that won't stop me from chiming in...

  I remember learning what "impalement" meant after I started researching more on the impalement/cruxifiction debate. I realized that "impalement" as the Society always taught us did not jive with what most descriptions of impalement were.

  But, if I remember correctly, both forms of nailing someone to a cross or stake was in existance at that time period in Rome. There are statues in some museums in Rome (can't remember if it was the vatican or somewhere else) that depict someone being nailed to a stake instead of a cross.

  The term "impalement" might signify being run through on a stake or pole, but I think there's enough evidence to support that people were nailed on to stakes as well.

  Whether Jesus (if he existed...if he was executed...)was hung on a stake or cross will always be a subject for debate becaue there's no way to know for sure either way.
• 

  avishai

  I think the stake vs. cross thing does'nt matter anyway, it's a red herring to make them seem "different".
• 

  Fadeout

  The style of impalement you are referring to is the "Vlad the impaler" sort of thing. Very nasty, and certainly a widespread method of execution when the monarchs wanted to send a message to the masses about what happens to rebels.

  I think Jesus was crucified. There are a couple lines of evidence that I use to form that non-expert opinion. First, the earliest Christian traditions dating from the first century and shortly thereafter all point to crucifixion. Second, the Bible mentions nail prints in his hands. Third, the Bible mentions breaking legs as a means to hasten death. Fourth, from a historical standpoint, it seems apparent that crucifixion was being practiced by the Romans at that time, including the discovery of a heelbone with a nail through it.

  Now I will grant you that one Jewish form of execution seemed to be impalement, for example, in Esther I believe that's what is referred to. But since the Romans carried out Jesus' execution, I'd think they'd stick with crucifixion.

  New evidence is welcome, though.
• 

  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  I actually meant the bible version of his last day.

  Whether Jesus (if he existed...if he was executed...)was hung on a stake or cross

  for me it does not matter how he died. If he had been beheaded, crucified, shot with a machinegun, or bored to death during the washtowel study. He died and that was the real thing of importance. However, since the washtowel society amkes such a big stink about it, I have had to develop my own sense of what happened and try to reason it out.
• 

  Fadeout

  I have no idea if he was crucified on a stake or a cross, and you're right, it don't matter. Rutherford wanted to create the Bizarro-Christendom, and since they used a cross, he used a stake.

  I am leaning toward cross being the correct answer but unless a bootlegged video surfaces on Youtube we'll probably never know.

  A surprising number of JWs feel the same way and don't agree with the WTS making such a big stink about it.
• 

  Robdar

  Oh, fer sure, Christ was impaled not crucified. The Romans, knowing that the son of God wouldn't want to die on a nasty phallic symbol like a cross, decided to change the rules and impale Christ. It was a one-time only exception.
• 

  Leolaia

  Actually, the kind of execution that the Society calls "impalement" was practiced by the Romans -- using the English word "impalement" to refer to it is misleading to many English speakers. To the Romans, a crux was a crux -- it didn't matter how many pieces of wood it had or how they were arranged; what mattered was that the device was used to crucify a person, i.e. the wooden device to which a person is nailed while still alive and displayed therefrom. The Society claims that the word referring to the execution instrument could only refer to those consisting of a single beam, but this is like saying that the word "car" can only refer to vehicles with two doors (as opposed to those with four doors). It's an invalid claim. In fact, the instrument frequently did have a crossbeam; the Romans even had a specific word for it, the patibulum.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/92381/1.ashx
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I think the stake vs. cross thing does'nt matter anyway, it's a red herring to make them seem "different".

  I fully agree.

  Also, the Gospels, in the opinion of many, were written long after the event. Possibly quite a
  long time after the event. So they could have been written with the prevalent attitude that a
  cross was used. There really is no telling. And I don't think it adds up to a hill of beans.
  If Christianity wants to use it as a symbol of their belief system, the cross is no more of an idol
  than this:

  

  The cross may be used as an idol, but it is properly used to make the viewer remember
  Jesus and his sacrifice, just as the WT symbol is properly used to remind the viewer
  who their leaders are.
• 

  Leolaia

  The Society totally confuses the execution instrument with the use of a simple geometric shape as a symbol.

  The execution instrument was not worshipped by anyone at the time; it was revilved by most as a disgusting device. The Christians however came to revere it as the vehicle of their salvation. This comes through in what Paul says about it in the NT.

  The geometric shape was widely used in different ways as a religious symbol throughout the ancient world, just like any other simple, basic geometric shape (like circles, triangles, swastikas, etc.).

  To say that the execution instrument was a religious symbol confuses the two things. Of course, the most common form of the execution instrument included a horizontal crossbeam, but the resemblance is just one instance out of a plethora of others where the simple geometric shape can be found in nature, technology, construction, art, etc. Christians later drew symbolic meaning from the shape (such as the fact that it embraces the four directions of up, down, left, and right), but their attention to the "cross" was from the very start pertaining to the execution instrument.