by sacolton 250 Replies latest watchtower bible
God would have inspired a further description from at least one of the writers under inspiration elaborating on it IF IT WAS IMPORTANT.
It's evidently very important to JWs. They've exerted a lot of time and energy, and wasted a lot of paper trying to prove this ever important fact- that Jesus' hands were upright instead of outstretched. Because believing otherwise makes your worship impure somehow. This is more important to them than what Christ's death actually meant.
Yes leolaia but I still stand by my original point the writers would have known the word they used was stake only and they used giving no further indication of shape so using cross gives a false impression of the original words used by suggesting a shape.
And now my addition research into bible reference to it as with Jesus's words on the following still make me think stake was the likely candidate.
Numbers 21:8
The LORD said to Moses, "Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live."
Numbers 21:9
So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.
John 3:14
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,
lol emphasising right words for my point now hehe
I would believe it if you could show me an original transcript with the word cross in it but you can't they all use the unglamourous word stauros aka stake until the third century writers changed it to cross even crux in original meaning is latin for stake only.
What you write here is very confused. "Cross" is an English word. There are no "original" writings in Greek or Latin with this word. Second, you are completely wrong that word stauros meant "stake until the third century writers changed it to cross". Although you say later that stauros "made no indication of shape", you here assume a contrast between a "stake" and a "cross". Now what kind of contrast do you mean here? Do you mean "stake" referring to a pale of wood that is not used for execution and "cross" referring to a pale of wood that is used for execution? This would have a functional denotation of the word and so it doesn't matter what kinds of attachments there are to a "cross"; a "cross" could have a crossbeam or it could not. That is how I use the word "cross" (as "the instrument used by the ancient Romans to execute people alive by displaying them publically with their hands and feet either nailed, tied, or both"). But I don't think that's what you mean. I think you are still thinking in terms of "stake" meaning one beam and "cross" as two beams. Regardless of what you mean, both understandings are incorrect. Stauros was used to refer to the instrument used in execution as far back as the fifth century BC. And second, stauros WAS used anumbiguously to refer to an execution instrument that had a patibulum before the third century AD. The Society likes to claim that the meaning of stauros changed in Constantine's time, but this is completely false.
By the way, in saying that the use of the term stauros "made no indication of shape", you need to take care to distinguish between denotation and connotation. Stauros did not denote execution instruments with a particular shape but one can certainly make the case that it connoted crosses that had crossbeams. If you look especially at how the term is used by Lucian, he presents the stauros without qualification as shaped like a T. This indicates that in his time, it more commonly resembled a Tau (as opposed to an Iota), and that crossbeams were rather widely and generally used. The same can be obtained from early patristic sources. This suggests that a crux simplex was rather exceptional and this of course fits well with the copious evidence of patibulum use in Latin sources.
Finally, in saying that "crux in original meaning is latin for stake only," this is wrong as well; Plautus is one of the oldest sources using crux and he clearly uses it to refer to executions that involve the use of patibula. The same can be said for Seneca and other first-century AD writers.
Reniaa..Did you know people being nailed to cross`s in Ancient Roman times,couldn`t be proven untill this century?..No one had ever found an Ancient Roman crucifiction nail until recently..In Ancient Roman days,nails were expensive..So once a person had died,the nail was removed from the wood and used again and again...............I do my research..I learn from exceptionally educated people......Your not one of them.........You ignore anything that does not support your pre-concieved WBT$ Conclusion.......If the WBT$ told Jehovah`s Witness`s,they had New light on the Crucifiction of Jesus..And..He died on a Cross..You would support that..Every Jehovah`s Witness would..Or..Be disfellowshipped.......................Your not interested in Truth......Your only interest is in proving the WBT$ right at any cost..Including your own credibility........Thats why no one takes you seriously on this board...........................................OUTLAW
Reniaa...
I find all of this discussion by you regarding stauros being a stake or a cross interesting, but irrelevant. WHAT does it matter if Jesus died on an upright stake or a stake with a cross member?? I thought the entire reason Jesus died was to pay the price of Adam's original sin thus paving the way for Christ's brothers to be with him for eternity. I don't recall anywhere in the Bible where there is any significance paid to the shape of the instrument of his death. This is a total red herring that takes away from the actual importance of the REAL issue at hand...the sacrificial death of Jesus!
I am a bit disappointed that you and other JW apologists would focus on this rather than the very salvation issues Jesus preached about while on earth...after all, you claim him as your Redeemer (sort of).
The frustration in this is caused by the huge linguistic fallacy created by the Watchtower. What would it be like to translate the Bible into Black Ghetto English? or TexMex Slang?
Koine or Common Greek was the daily language of whores, fishermen and soldiers. It is NOT A MODERN TECHNICAL-SCIENTIFIC 20th Century language. You can't distinguish similar words with any precision or certainty. Parousia can mean presense. It can mean arrival. Stauros can mean stake. Stauros can mean cross.
When will this stupid Watchtower pretense of Greek scholarship ever end?
metatron
Yes leolaia but I still stand by my original point the writers would have known the word they used was stake only
"Stake only"? You see your problem? You say, yes, stauros made no indication of shape, and yet you say that it was used for "stake only," implying that the word was not used at all to refer to instruments of a shape that differed from that of a simple "stake", so you make it denote shape after all. Your claim that it meant "stake only" also is factually untrue.
and they used giving no further indication of shape
In the case of the NT, there are indications. Jesus carried his cross. From everything that is known about Roman execution practices, this pertains to the patibulum that the Romans forced the condemned to carry to the execution site (where it would be attached to the upright stipes). We know that Greek did not borrow the Latin word to refer to the patibulum; ancient writers like Plutarch, Artemidorus, and Chariton used stauros to refer to it. Hence the reference to Jesus bearing his stauros far, far better fits a stauros involving the use of a patibulum than one without one. In addition to saying that Jesus carried his stauros, the gospel of John also obliquely implies that crucifixion involves a stretching out of the hands — a detail that again better fits the execution involving the use of a patibulum. Matthew 27:37 also may offer another indication.
And now my addition research into bible reference to it as with Jesus's words on the following still make me think stake was the likely candidate.
The analogy between the Nehushstan and Jesus on the cross was that both were (1) lifted up (notice the same wording used!), and (2) people were saved through this act. People were "lifted up" on the stauros regardless of whether it had a patibulum or not.
this really show the WTS lack of scholarship and their presumptuousness. Thanks for breaking that down Leolaia.
Though I stand by my statement that the argument over shape is irrelevant, I find Leolaia's comment on Christ carrying his "cross", "stake", etc., very interesting.
Logic would tell you that it is unlikely that Jesus, even though a perfect man, would be able to carry a "stake" large enough to be crucified on to his execution site. I would suggest that even a cross-member would be very heavy and unwieldy for a man to carry any distance...especially a man who had been tortured and beaten!
Throughout history, specified execution sites had "re-usable" instruments of death in place, ie: hangman gallows, firing squad walls, electric chairs, gas chambers, etc. Would it not be reasonable to believe that the Romans had set areas for crucifixion? Would it be reasonable to think that they had the stakes already in place and then the person being crucified could be placed on the stake via a cross-member?
Again, I don't know why the shape of the instrument of death is so critical, but I think there are PLENTY of reasons to believe that an upright stake was not a very feasible method of crucifixion...
I quite agree with tenyearsafter that the shape of the instrument used is irrelevant to the main point of Jesus' death. However, there is one consideration which may suggest an upright stake rather than a cross is the fact that Christ died much sooner than was customary for crucifixions, which could sometimes survive for days. That is why it was not necessary to break his legs. The argument that he would have died within an hour from asphyxiation is assuming there was no other support for his feet or body, but such support was often provided to extend the period of suffering.
