Adherents of Pro and Anti Cross Teachings ...Take Note

by itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat

  Often in posts, I see ones referring to "The Cross" or the JWs view of an "Upright Stake" in posts on this and other sites. A few years ago I saw "Prince the rock entertainer" draw attention in a concert to "a lie told over and over" and then a cross appeared in a large picture behind him on stage demonstrating his epiphany through studying with the JWs, about the instrument of death actually being an upright stake...to cite just one example.

  All researchers and biblical enthusiasts should take note of the work accomplished by Gunnar Samuelsson and his team. The publication was released in 2011 entitled Crucifixion in Antiquity and examines all scholarly works previously done on the subject as well as exaustive research by a team of people looking for facts and archeology to support one view or the other. If you have belief in one side or the other you may feel pangs of derision because of previously held beliefs, but the truth is the truth, and unless someone finds evidence to definetively settle this debate it remains a mystery and is as yet unsolved. So I guess it doesn't matter so much really.... as long as you don't disparage others cherished beliefs and denegrate what they believe as "true".

  The book is expensive and so many have not read it. As an ex-jw it was a surprise and reassuring to see that yet again, so many things portrayed to us as the indesputable truth, was actually a matter of popular opinion or doctrinal bias, etc...but in reality unknowable.
• 

  PSacramento

  That work is by no means a definite study but one of many.

  There is enough evidence to show that Romans used many methods of crucification and continued to do so after the death of Jesus.

  That the cross shape was used since the earliest times by not only believers but ridiculers, gives some weight to THAT being the shape used on Jesus and the 2 criminals.

  The majority of people that have done the study tend to conclude that Jesus bore the cross beam (stauros) and was nailed to it and it nailed to a vertical stake.

  This bares more in line with how Jesus and the 2 criminals died (time it took) and the testimony in the Gospels.

  The reality is that He was crucified and that what was viewed at the time as a shameful death and symbolising being a criminal, became a symbol for eternal life and hope and God's love for all of Us.

  What the JW"s have gotten 100% wrong is that they take the symbol of the cross and make it something to desdain instead of the symbol of hope an dlove that it is.
• 

  Dogpatch

  This might be helpful:

  http://freeminds.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13:the-cross&catid=18:jesus&Itemid=705

  Randy Watters

  http://freeminds.org
• 

  Theocratic Sedition

  As an ex-jw it was a surprise and reassuring to see that yet again, so many things portrayed to us as the indesputable truth, was actually a matter of popular opinion or doctrinal bias, etc...but in reality unknowable.

  I hear ya. Subjects like this illustrate to me just how much the WT during the days of Rutherford and onward would make a stink over anything for the pettiest of reasons. That same mentality is present within JWs today. Arguing over whether Jesus was impaled with or without a cross-beam is like debating whether the wood used was timber or cedar. I can understand the WT's argument against religious paraphernalia and idolatry regarding crosses, but to argue over a cross-beam is just retarded. By making such an issue over the cross-beam, their points about idolatry and paraphernalia gets lost as a result.
• 

  PSacramento

  http://freeminds.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13:the-cross&catid=18:jesus&Itemid=705

  I've always liked that article Randy, it hits all the major points on the head, the crucial one IMO, being:

  A Symbol Of Victory

  While the Jews may have considered the cross a shameful thing, the apostle Paul boasted of the cross of Christ. In Galatians 6:14 he says:

  But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

  The Greek word translated as "boast" is kauchomai, which is translated to boast or glory over something. Paul plainly gloried in the symbol of the cross; it was a sign of victory, not defeat. In 1 Cor. 1:17,18 he tells us that Christ sent him to preach the message of the cross, and that people would stand or fall according to their response to such a simple message! He goes on to say that some (like the Jews and the JWs) would stumble over the cross (because of its shameful significance in their minds), while others would consider it foolishness (verses 21-23). But to Christians the cross meant the power and the wisdom of God! He says that this is because God deliberately chose the weak, foolish and despised things of the world to make his point, so that his children could glory in what others consider despised!
• 

  Satanus

  De cruce libre is pretty good, too. It has a lot of old woodcut pics in it. The scan of it is floating around somewhere.

  S
• 

  orangefatcat

  Peter himself was hung on a cross upside down because he felt himself no where worthy to be hung as Christ Jesus.
• 

  prologos

  there was the question on the 2 nails (not one) and the sign ABOVE his HEAD (not over his hands) that made the middle ages STAKE illustration questionable on scriptural grounds. But the hands could have been nailed with 2 nails on the sides of the post rather with one on the front, leaving a place to nail the sign directly above his head. With Christ our mediator, why would we be prompted to pray to/through a symbol? One "sister" topped it by wearing a diamond-studded miniature stake as a pendant, brosche.

  idolatry is idolatry.
• 

  itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat

  PSacramento have you read this book?
• 

  zed is dead