thank you. So it's the story of WT quoting from or referring to Parsons, who has "got it wrong". WT not researching or going the sources themselves, but relying upon what other - at times questionnable publishers - have written about them. OK. Much like the Life book "thing".
Jesus not crucified on torture stake. Impossible!
by sacolton 250 Replies latest watchtower bible
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quietlyleaving
and what does wiki have to say about the secondary sources the WTS uses?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Denham_Parsons
John Denham Parsons was an English writer. He was a member of the Society for Psychical Research. He attempted pamphlet controversy with Sir Sidney Lee and authorities at the British Museum over the Shakespeare authorship question.
and Alexander Hislop (discussed on pg 10 of this thread - last post)
and from wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Hislop
Main article: The Two Babylons This book was initially published in 1853 as a pamphlet, then greatly revised and expanded and released as a book in 1858. Hislop's work has been described as conspiracy theory propoganda which mixed "sketchy knowledge of Middle Eastern antiquity with a vivid immagination." [ 1 ]
And I used to be so impressed with these sources when a witness. Is it any wonder that we xjws seem to lean towards conspiracy theories.
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Leolaia
TheOldHippie....The Livy thing they got from Parsons. The selective citation of Lucian is in the NWT appendix and other articles:
*** w50 11/1 p. 426 Was Christ Hung on a Cross? ***
In the classical Greek the word stau·ros′ meant merely an upright stake or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation. The verb stau·ro′o meant to fence with pales, to form a stockade or palisade, and this is the verb used when the mob called for Jesus to be impaled. To such a stake or pale the person to be punished was fastened, just as when the popular Greek hero Pro·me′the·us was represented as tied to a stake or stau·ros′. The Greek word which the dramatist Aes′chy·lus used to describe this means to fasten or fix on a pole or stake, to impale, and the Greek author Lucian used a·na·stau·ro′o as a synonym for that word.
*** Rbi8 p. 1577 5C “Torture Stake” ***
It was to such a stake, or pale, that the person to be punished was fastened, just as the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to rocks. Whereas the Greek word that the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this simply means to tie or to fasten, the Greek author Lucian (Prometheus, I) used a·na·stau·ro′o as a synonym for that word.The problem is that when you actually look up Prometheus, I, you can also readily see that Lucian was describing a composite cross in that passage — not a simple stake. I presented the relevant quotation earlier in this thread. Prometheus' arms are outstretched from side to side and the left and right hands are nailed separately. The citing of Lucian is also selective because Lucian was the writer who explicitly compared the form of the stauros to the letter T. In another passage, they quote Lucian's De Morte Peregrinii and interpret anaskolopizó as meaning "impaled on a crux simplex":
*** w51 5/1 p. 282 Christianity’s Non-Christian Witnesses ***
The Greek rhetorician by the name of Lucian, born toward the end of Trajan’s reign, attacked the teachings of Christians and ridiculed their form of worship. Writing to Cronius concerning the death of Peregrinus Proteus, a famous Cynic, Lucian says, among other things, that the Christians "spoke of him [Christ] as a god, and took him for a lawgiver, and honored him with the title of Master. They therefore still worship that great man who was crucified [impaled on a crux simplex] in Palestine, because he introduced into the world this new religion".But the facts are that Lucian used anaskolopizó to refer to crucifixion on the T-shaped stauros in Lis Consonantium. He did not use it to specifically mean "impalement on a crux simplex". Here the Society is following Parsons' erroneous characterization of the meaning of anaskolopizó.
I don't think they are intentionally being intellectually dishonest. I just think they never did any proper research into the subject.
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Earnest
Leolaia, thank you for the clarity and breadth of your most recent reply to me above. It is what I am accustomed to (from you) but be assured it is not taken for granted.
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OUTLAW
Reniaa escaped from the Milk Carton!!.........................LOL!!...OUTLAW
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isaacaustin
She is out in service today...doing her service and covenant-keeping ritual to the GB
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isaacaustin
She is out in service today...doing her service and covenant-keeping ritual to the GB
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Leolaia
I just found out something really fascinating about the use of xulon in reference to crucifixion. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, xulon "wood, tree" appears in the NT and Philo of Alexandria as a synonym of stauros on account of the interpretation of Deuteronomy 21:22-23 as pertaining to this form of execution. This scripture is applied to crucifixion in the Dead Sea Scrolls and it is quoted in Galatians 3:13 as applying to the xulon of Jesus. Now Deuteronomy 21:22-23 did not really refer to crucifixion because it was written before this form of execution was practiced in the ANE outside of Persia (where it is thought to have originated). It clearly pertains to the postmortem exhibition of corpses on trees or stakes, not to execution on them. This applies as well as to the other references to "hanging" and "hanging on a tree" in the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua 8:29, 10:26-27, 1 Samuel 31:10, 2 Samuel 4:12, 18:10, 21:12), where the bodies were removed from the trees before sunset in accordance with the law in Deuteronomy. But even though this law did not originally refer to crucifixion, it was applied to it halakhically in the Second Temple period. The law was extended to refer to this new situation, like so many other laws that were stretched to cover changing social circumstances.
But it wasn't just that the OT references were applied to a new form of execution; they were read as actually referring to crucifixion. Even though it is plain from context that 1 Samuel 31:9-10 refers to a postmortem display of bodies, Josephus used the terminology of crucifixion to refer to the hanging of the bodies as "crucified to the walls (anestaurósan pros ta teikhé)" (Antiquitates 6.374), and he similarly used anastauroó to refer to the hanging of the baker in Genesis 40:22 (Antiquitates 2.73). What is really interesting however is how the hanging in Joshua 8:29 is depicted in the LXX. The translation of the book of Joshua into Greek was later than that of the Pentateuch and is thought to have been completed around the early second century BC. The hanging was described in terms that suggest not only crucifixion but possibly execution on a composite cross (in contrast to the Hebrew MT which has only "tree"):
Joshua 8:29 LXX: "And he [Joshua] hanged (ekremasen) the king of 'Ai on a twin wood/tree (epi xulou didumou), and he was on the wood/tree (én epi tou xulou) until evening. And when the sun set Joshua gave instructions and they took his body down from the wood/tree (katheilosan autou to sóma apo tou xulou) and threw him into the hole and set over him a heap of stones until this day".
This might refer to a forked gibbet but in light of the common interpretation of OT hanging as crucifixion, the "twin wood" referred to here is probably that of the composite cross (also dikraios "forked" would have been the more appropriate adjective for a forked gibbet; didumos gives the impression of two separate pieces of wood used together). This interpretation is in fact explicit in the Latin rendering of this verse in Jerome's Vulgate:
Joshua 8:29 Vulgate: "And he hanged (suspendit) the king thereof on a patibulum (in patibulo), until the evening and the going down of the sun. Then Joshua commanded, and they took down his corpse from the crux (deposuerunt cadaver eius de cruce) and threw it in the very entrance of the city, heaping upon it a great heap of stones, which remains until this present day".
The use of patibulum together with crux points uniquely to the composite cross, as we saw above in Plautus, Licinius Macer, Seneca, and many other writers. One thing also that is worthy of note in the LXX version is the fact that the xulou didumou "twin wood" is twice more referred to as a xulon. So the use of the term xulon, which frequently was used to refer to manufactured wooden objects, does not by itself imply that the object referred to has only one piece of wood; the xulon of Joshua 8:29 LXX first is described as a duality of wood. This contradicts statements like that found in the 8 April 1963 Awake! that claim that the use of xulon in the NT describes Jesus' stauros as "merely a piece of wood" (p. 28).
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Dagney
I just want to say how much I am enjoying the information on this thread. The cross was one of the things I researched when I left, (no comparison in the very least to Leo's and Nark's research).
What I decided was that execution was carried out on various forms referred to as stauros. And unless you are an eyewitness to an event and have the photo to prove it, it is foolish to assume that this event happened one way without question.
This was actually a comforting thought to me after preaching the evils of the cross for sooooooooo many years.
"Here the Society is following Parsons' erroneous characterization of the meaning of anaskolopizó.
I don't think they are intentionally being intellectually dishonest. I just think they never did any proper research into the subject."
I concur with this. The problem with the Society is that "Jehovah" didn't comply with any of their timelines, for anything. They could never have anticipated the wealth of knowledge that would soon be available to everyone with just a click of a mouse. The average person (me) has more research available now than Russell and the Oracle ever had. Their arrogance in not admitting to providing erroneous and limited information is so irresponsible to me. But it is what it is.
Thanks again for your work in bringing this information to light.
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purplesofa
comments on a blog where the JW's and exJW's are going after it
The New World Translation was produced by the New World Bible Translation Committee. The New World Translation has received both commendation and criticism. In its review of bible translations released from 1955 to 1985, Harper's Bible Dictionary listed the New World Translation as one of the major modern translations. Academic reviewers of the New World Translation have made statements in favour of the translators. Dr. Bruce Metzger stated for the NWT of the Greek Scriptures: "On the whole, one gains a tolerably good impression of the scholarly equipment of the translators.Charles Francis Potter has stated about the NWT: "Apart from a few semantic peculiarities like translating the Greek word stauros, as "stake" instead of "cross," and the often startling use of the colloquial and the vernacular, the anonymous translators have certainly rendered the best manuscript texts, both Greek and Hebrew, with scholarly ability and acumen.