Dominic Enyart exposes Watchtower deception regarding their demonization of the Cross. Information packed. Interesting take on paganism as well.
Did Jesus Die On a Stake or a Cross?
by Sea Breeze 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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TonusOH
I think it shows where the priorities of the WTS leadership have always been. Symbols are very powerful and effective tools. The WTS replaced the cross with the watchtower as a symbol. They could then criticize others for using 'graven images' while plastering that simple tower logo on their magazines and correspondence.
It is also another way in which they pushed Jesus to the side. The symbol of his redemptive sacrifice and his role in humanity's salvation gets replaced by a corporate logo. That may well be the most cynical thing they've ever done.
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Sea Breeze
Interesting comment from the video remarks:
I am a linguist of Jewish ancestry who has worked in Bible translation. You are correct about the "cross" problem with the JWs.
Remember that the incidents reported in the New Testament took place in the languages of Aramaic, spoken by the Jews, and Latin which was the language used by the Romans--nothing happened in Greek. (The Jews stopped speaking Hebrew before the Babylonian exile and only used it when reading the Bible in the synagogue like today.)
Greek was used as the "lingua franca" so that people across the Roman Empire who spoke a plethera of different tongues could understand the gospel (it was the "common language" of the Empire due to the previous Hellenization under Alexander the Great.)
Everything that happened, including the crucifixion, had to be translated into Koine Greek--but the cross was a new invention by the Romans and there was no word for it in Greek. So they used the word STAUROS for it, but it was imprecise. as STAUROS only means pole.
The Roman instrument of torture, the cross used a pole, a crossbeam, and a small foot rest to induce a slow means of suffication to victims who were stripped nude and forced to urinate and empty their bowels upon themselves over a period of several days until they died in front of passersby.
Another word, XYLON meaning "tree" is used by Luke and Peter after Jesus is resurrected for theological purposes because Christians likened the Cross to the "Tree of Life" from the Garden of Eden. The Church Fathers also used XYLON for the Cross and created an entire theology based on this.
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peacefulpete
It is a bit funny how the guy sees no anachronism in the use of the Babylonian calendar in the story about Noah. Remember there was only "one language", Hebrew, in all the earth at that time according to Genesis.
In reality the stories were redacted and compiled in the 6th-5th centuries BCE, a time when the Babylonian culture was pervasive.
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slimboyfat
If Jesus could ride into Jerusalem on two donkeys then I don’t see why he couldn’t be executed on both a cross and a stake? 💡 If this turns out to be the correct answer I want credit. 😁
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MeanMrMustard
Mmmmmmm... steak
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careful
Leolaia's post linked by peaceful Pete above has all you need to know. It's superbly comprehensive.
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scholar
Sea Breeze
Dominic Enyart exposes Watchtower deception regarding their demonization of the Cross. Information packed. Interesting take on paganism as well.
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What bunkum. Scholar is wary of a fellow who purports to represent scholarship wears a cap for it is not a good look.
Seriously his arguments are weak and absurd. The simple fact of the matter is that the lexical evidence for stauros in both its noun and verbal form means 'a upright pole or stake'. Over time the word came to mean a two-pieced instrument, a cross and this is given as second meaning for the Greek word. The Gospel writers who witnessed the execution of Jesus described the instrument as a stake- a single piece of wood and not as two-pieced instrument. It would have been impossible for Jesus to carry a cross over some distance over a rough road for some distance in a severely weakened state. The argument that he carried the patibulum is fanciful.
Although we cannot be dogmatic about the instrument of Jesus 'execution the NWT was quite correct in rendering the Greek word as 'torture stake' based on lexicography rather than 'cross' which is based on tradition.
Leolaia's thesis is simply nonsense failing to comprehend the compelling lexical and testimony of eyewitnesses relying mainly on a translation of the Greek word as 'cross' or 'crucify' in her use of the historic materials. which has become a trap for many scholars writing on this subject as an assumption. A good example of such folly is Marin Hengel's Crucifixion, 1977, Fortress Press.
For the latest scholarship on this subject, one should read Gunnar Samuelsson's PhD' thesis.'Crucifixion in Antiquity An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology', 2011
scholar JW
scholar JW
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PioneerSchmioneer
I actually studied Samuelsson's thesis and sat in on what turned out to be an overblown reaction to his work that ended up being AP getting "egg on their face," so to speak.
The work is a philosophical work not an etymological one (based on the science of language). It is not a critical theory nor does he claim it to be. He does suggest that religion and iconography more than language has more to do with what people know about the crucifixion, and this has shaped what people know about what the gospels say about the event.
Unfortunately, the media claimed that his thesis stated that he wrote that Jesus was 'never nailed to the cross,' which is something he never claimed.
There is a huge difference between a philosophical work and a critical theory about etymology. Gunnar's work is philosophy, not about language.