ROMANS were PAGANS.
Why wouldn't Pagan Romans use a pagan CROSS to execute Jesus?
Should Pagans have spared Jesus a Pagan means of execution?
HELL NO!
So why doesn't anybody ever point this fundamental oversight out to Jehovah's Witnesses?
WHEN IN ROME DO AS THE ROMANS DO
by TerryWalstrom 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Ding
I have made this point to several JWs.
The universal response is the deer in the headlights stare.
Doesn't compute...
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Half banana
Terry your logic is impeccable. It would however come as a great shock for JWs to realise that the Jesus story of crucifixion is just a copy of the earlier solar religions where all god-men get crucified at the spring equinox. The cross being a symbol of that moment in the solar year. The whole of the Jesus story is pure paganism. Just removing the cross element cannot restore the account to an imagined pure state uncontaminated with pagan folk belief.
As the learned and influential Saint Augustine admitted, writing probably around the beginning of the fifth century; “The same thing which is now called the Christian religion existed amongst the ancients”.
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Phizzy
Spot on Half Banana, and as to the Cross, I would have thought the Romans did not think of it as any kind of symbol, just an instrument of torture to ensure a slow death.
As usual the whole JW thinking is totally wacko, they want to prove that the Cross as used by Christians should not be used, as it is a Pagan symbol, but, if Jesus had been hung, the noose would be used by Christians. The Cross is used to bring attention to what the death of Christ means to Christians.
As Cardinal Newman argued, almost two centuries ago, it matters not the origin of a symbol or practice, it has been sanctified by being adopted by the Church.
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OnTheWayOut
Dismissing the cross wasn't about saying the Romans wouldn't use a "pagan" symbol.
Dismissing the cross was a way for JW's to say that Christianity was corrupted by Satan and the cross is part of his corruption. The way they decided to do that was to demonstrate that it is a pagan symbol and say that it wasn't even used on Jesus.
Any symbol was a pagan symbol before it was adopted by those that declare they are not the pagans.
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TerryWalstrom
Thanks OTWO, I've been thinking back on when I was a teenager hearing all the wacky JW revelations about
"true Christian teaching" and wondering how I managed not to laugh.
The most outrageous bit of puffery has to be when the Watchtower Society decided it could get away with teaching that there was NO CROSS involved in the crucifixion of Christ.
I can hear my grandfather's voice even to this day inside my head saying, "So, what you're really saying is everybody else is wrong. Everybody is marching in the wrong direction. . . except you. Don't you realize how outrageously conceited that sounds?"