t2000kw

To answer the Op's question, the statue is one shown in the Louvre (a museum in France) as someone else explained. We believe that the idea of using a cross came only after pagan beliefs were introduced during the great apostacy and then sort of "retro-fitted" the belief Jesus was killed on a cross into church history. There appears to be no real records of crucifixion at that time, and hanging completely vertically actually served to kill a person faster than would happen on a cross, with less strain on the chest muscles that help you breathe.

You can choose to believe that or not, just as you can with how we pronounce God's name in the English language. In some other languages, it sounds more like and can even be Yahweh. It was common in English speaking countries during the formation of the colonies as can be seen in some old hymnals in re-enactments of those times. Naysayers won't usually tell you the actual pronunciation has been lost and we only know the Hebrew consonants that make up the name due to a superstition that it was too holy to pronounce or even write out completely. An example of a scripture passage where the Jewish equivalent of Lord crept into the Bible is found at Psalms 110:1, where, in the King James version says, "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."

Note the two different spellings of the word "lord" in that verse in the KJV. One uses a large capital letter and the rest are three smaller capital letters (not lower case). The second occurrence in that verse capitalizes the word but uses lowercase letters for the last three letters. Some easy research should turn up why this is, but the first occurrence is one of the many places where Adonay ("Lord" in Hebrew) was inserted and the tetragrammaton (the 4 Hebrew consonants of the divine name) removed.

In addition to finding the name spelled as Jehovah in old hymnals in the 1600s and 1700s, the King James version of the Bible does explicitly use "Jehovah" instead of the tetragrammaton or even any form of the word "Lord." This is in only 4 places, but the same book (or collection) of Psalms, in chapter 83 and verse 18, states, "That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth."

We use the name of god as is understood in our own language, and that is not always Jehovah or even Yahweh. There is actually no evidence on how we should pronounce God's name, so we use the one familiar to us in our language.

An example of this is most people who speak English pronounce the name of Jesus as Jesus, and the name of Joshua as Joshua. And we pronounce Jeremiah as Jeremiah. These names could have been Yeshua (for either Jesus or Joshua as they are likely the same name), and for Jeremiah it could have been "Yirmeyahu" or "Yirmeyah," among other possible pronunciations. We don't see many people making a fuss about us pronouncing all those names, and probably all the names in the Hebrew scriptures as well, wrong.

Again, the reader can take it or leave it, these responses to the Op's post and some others, too. I tried to not step on anyone's toes here. (Really!) I appreciate that most people will never believe as Jw's do, and my comments here won't satisfy those who don't want it to satisfy them. I still wish them my best, and hope that someday, they, too, may believe like we do.

pokertopia

In the teachings of Watchtower Corporation, Jesus' dead form was replaced by the term straight pillar instead of a cross. The reason is that the Greek word 'stauros' corresponding to the cross means a single pole without a cross. But this is a very hasty conclusion. Stauros includes a straight column, because it does not exclude other additions to the straight column. It can be inferred that the scripture itself is natural that the shape of Jesus' execution means that the straight pillar is the main pillar Y and the addition is placed horizontally on the X-axis.

In John 20:25, the number of nails is not clear, but in all English Scriptures, including NW, there is a plural number of nails, so it is natural to think that the nails were done separately in both hands rather than gathering hands on pillars. Moreover, it is much more natural to say that the sign "King of the Jews" is on the head in Matthew 27:37 when both hands are nailed to a cross stick. Because if both hands were nailed to one pillar, it should be said that there was a sign above the hands, as shown in the picture below, not above the head.

https://youtu.be/5wz1C4TSRNE

BluesBrother

That statue of Marsyas is a story from ancient mythology

“Apollo, of course, defeated Marsyas. He then exacted a savage punishment, exemplifying the jealous and petty nature of the Greek gods: he tied Marsyas to a tree and flayed him alive. It was said that Marsyas’ fellow woodland creatures wept a literal river for him”

It is not a real event and the story of having him tied to a tree is nothing like a death by impalement / crucifixion.

Journeyman

My stance is that to me that's not relevant. If you believe or not in Jesus, how is his sacrifice affected by the position in which he was murdered?

I agree with this. I don't see it's such a big issue. Whether he died on a cross or a stake is irrelevant to the meaning behind his death.

Yes, it has to fit the type of death ordered at Deuteronomy 21:22–23 and restated at Galatians 3:13, but there is debate over whether that meant only a single pole/stake or could include a crossbeam, so either means of execution could still fulfil that scripture. The additional points about the sign being placed over his head, and about "nails" (plural) being referred to do tend to suggest a crossbeam, but not necessarily.

Even in the debate over whether to wear a crucifix or bow before images of Christ crucified, the reality of whether it should be a stake or cross depicted does not matter - the principle is about using the objects themselves as the focus your worship. The illustration often given by the org was "would you wear/bow before an image of a gun if your parents had been murdered by a gunman?" but that principle would apply just as much whatever the murder weapon.

smiddy3

12000Kw,

I appreciate your sound reasoning on how different languages might use different pronunciations to names in the Bible, ,however you would think the Almighty GOD would like his name pronounced correctly no matter what language was used.?

I think you do well to remember my friend also that the WT / JW religion is an American man made sect ,of the late 19th early 20th Century that spawned a few such sects about the same time.

punkofnice

The Corporation(tm) will use any old thing they can to keep their enslaved feeling superior with fake 'accurate knowledge(tm)'.

It's so totally pathetic.

Rattigan350

The issue is that back in the 1920s Carey Barber and the other directors decided to move from the stauros as cross to the stauros as stake. Which is fine with me. But they because dogmatic about it just to separate them from other religions. I don't see that as Christian.

But I don't think of it as a doctrinal issue. The Romans used both the cross beam and non-cross beams in their executions. Which was used with Jesus? Since no drawings were provided by the eyewitnesses, we don't know.

But what we do know is that which prefigured this, the copper serpent, was on what was called a signal pole. It had to have some method to suspend the object. So a cross piece just does that.

What is significant is 2 Kings 18:5 "He also crushed the copper serpent that Moses had made; for down to that time the people of Israel had been making sacrificial smoke to it and it used to be called the copper serpent-idol."

The object that prefigured Jesus' death (Nu 21:4-9, Joh 3:13-15), was wrongly used as an idol. What I am against is the continual display of the cross as it has become an idol, and people don't realize that.

Sea Breeze

Welcome to the board Charity.

Here area some early references to the cross:

Alexamenos graffito

Pompeii, Roman and Herculaneum

Acluetofindtheuser

I understand why they wanted to get rid of the word cross. Too many people were venerating it as a way of salvation but Deuteronomy 21:22-23 was as an eye opener for me on whether it was a cross or a stake.

The NWT(Revised) reads:

"If a man commits a sin deserving the sentence of death and he has been put to death and you have hung him on a stake. his dead body should not remain all night on the stake..."

The older NWT version reads about the same but you have to get out the old 1984 Reference Bible to see the footnote of where the work "stake" is present. The footnote reads, Lit., "tree"; or, "wood".

If you look at the original Hebrew word used it is "eyts" which is nothing other than a tree. The exact same Hebrew word is used for the tree(s) in the middle of the garden of eden.

https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/definition/tree.htm

It was more likely a tree instead of some cut up wood in the above passages. A living tree has limbs which makes it easy to mount the deceased criminal for public display. A tree has limbs to hold out arms and so does a cross. The majority of the translations I looked up on Biblehub use the "tree" rendering.

At this point they were still wandering in the wilderness when Deuteronomy was being penned by Moses and so there was an abundance of trees all around the camp of Israel to use as warning sign posts. There was no need to cut some trees up as lumber (wood) and later use them as execution posts.

Biahi

Shepherdess is correct, I saw this in Rome. And yes, he was whipped to death, not impaled. Brutal times. ☹️

Anyone know what this sculpture is of the "torture stake?"