Da cross....hee hee

by emmamess22 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Elsewhere

  My research made me conclude that the Romans did not use only a cross to execute criminals... they used any tember that happened to be handy regardless of its shape. It could have been a cross, or stake, or X, or even an odd-shapped contraption that they threw together. Sometimes they would even nail a person to a fince that was near by, or a doorway. Sometimes the person was right-side-up, sometimes up-side-down, and sometimes any odd position that happened to be convinient for the sape of the wood used. Basically they wanted to nail up the person somewhere public so as to make an example of them. They did not really care how or in what position.
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  Leolaia

  CROSS is most consistent with Christian tradition, biblical evidence, and Roman practice. John 20:25 itself strongly points to a cross with a patibulum (crossbeam).

  From an earlier post:

  I have done extensive research on this subject, looking up references in the original Greek and Latin sources. The Watchtower claim is not only erroneous, but it is also disingenuous.

  1) The Romans did crucify prisoners and slaves in the first century with a two-beamed cross and the words crux and stauros did denote such an execution instrument (cf. Plautus, Lucian, Artemidorus, Seneca, Tacitus). The Society's repeated claim (1950 NWT, 6/22/1984 Awake!, 1984 Reference NWT) that Livy used crux to only denote impalement is totally without merit; I looked up every time Livy mentioned crux and he never was specific the way the Society claims he was. The claim (cf. 1950 NWT, 1984 Reference Edition) that Lucian used anastaroo to denote impalement in his play on Prometheus is also false; Lucian actually indicated a two-beamed cross. The Jewish historian Josephus described the Romans crucifying the Jews "in different postures" when they attacked Jerusalem (Jewish War, 5,450-451). By claiming that crux and stauros did not mean "cross" until the third century, the Society is intentionally distorting and hiding the facts.

  Here are some ancient Greek and Roman references to crucifixion (stipes is the Latin word for the upright pole and patibulum is the word for the crossbeam):

  "Being crucified is auspicious for all seafarers. For the stauros, like a ship, is made of wood and nails, and the ship's mast resembles a stauros." (Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, 2:53)

  "Men weep and bewail their lot, and curse Cadmus with many curses for introducing Tau into the family of letters; they say it was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified. Stauros the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but supplied by his own shape--that shape which he gave to the gibbet named stauros after him by men." (Lucian, Trial in the Court of Vowels, 12)

  "Suppose we crucify [anestaurosthai] him half way up somewhere hereabouts over the ravine, with his hands out-stretched from crag to crag....Do you suppose there is not room on the Caucasus to peg out a couple of us? Come, your right hand! Clamp it down, Hephaestus, and in with the nails; bring down the hammer with a will. Now the left; make sure work of that too." (Lucian, Prometheus, 1-2)

  I suspect you're doomed to die outside the gate, in that position: Hands spread out and nailed to the patibulum....Oh, I bet the executioners will have you looking like a human sieve, the way they'll prod you full of holes as they run you down the streets with your arms on a patibulum, once the old man gets back! .... I'll give two hundred pounds to the first man to charge my crux and take it ? on condition his legs and arms are double-nailed, that is....I shall bear the patibulum through the city; then I shall be nailed to the crux." (Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, 359-360; Mostellaria, 55-57, 359-360; Carbonaria, fragment 2; Plautus wrote about 250 BC)

  "Though they strive to release themselves from their crosses (crucibus)---those crosses to which each one of you nails himself with his own hand--yet they, when brought to punishment hang each one on a single stipes; but these others who bring upon themselves their own punishment are stretched upon as many crosses as they had desires. Yet they are slanderous and witty in heaping insult on others. I might believe that they were free to do so, did not some of them spit upon spectators from their own patibulum!" (Seneca, De Vita Beata, 19,3)

  "I should deem him most despicable had he wished to live up to the very time of crucifixion (ad crucem). . . .Is it worth while to weigh down upon one's own wound, and hang impaled upon a patibulum? . . . . Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree (infelix lignum), long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumours on chest and shoulders, and draw the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? I think he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the crux!" (Seneca, Epistle 101,10-14)

  2) The Gospel accounts assume a two-beamed cross, especially in the motif of Jesus or Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross on the way to Golgotha (cf. John 19:17) which is nothing other than the widely-attested practice of patibulum-bearing (the patibulum was the crossbeam). This practice pre-existed the invention of crucifixion as a method to torture disobediant slaves (cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch) and was widely adopted as a prelude to crucifixion (cf. Plautus, Plutarch, Artemidorus, Chariton). The Society would instead require Jesus or Simon to carry a pole to Golgotha (actually pictured in the Greatest Man Who Ever Lived book (1991, chapter 124), which is utterly without any historical support and ignores the copious evidence of patibulum-bearing. The traditional Christian picture of Jesus carrying the whole cross over one of his shoulders (seen in the Passion of the Christ movie) is also unhistorical....what the Romans did was have the prisoner stretch out his hands, nail or tie the hands to the crossbeam, and then having him bear the beam over his back or chest to the stationary stipes (vertical beam), and then hoist him up to the cross. This practice is also possibly alluded to in John 21:18-19 which also assumes a two-beamed cross. Details in John 20:25 and Matthew 27:37 are also best explained by assuming a two-beamed cross.

  3) The use of the word xylon "tree, wood" in Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29, Galatians 3:13, and 1 Peter 2:24 does not indicate the kind of stauros Jesus died on, only that the Bible writers understood Roman crucifixion in terms of the law in Deuteronomy 21:23-23. Other Jewish writers referred to Roman crosses in exactly the same manner (including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus), and Roman writers also referred to Roman crosses metaphorically as "trees" (cf. Seneca, quoted above).

  4) There was a strong tradition in late first century and second century Christianity that repeatedly looked for prophecies and prefigurings of the two-beamed cross of Jesus in the OT, and described the stretching out of the hands from side to side as a sign of Jesus' cross (cf. Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Odes of Solomon, Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.). Even the pagan Romans, in mocking the Christians, depicted a two-beamed cross (cf. the Palatine graffito).

  There is lots more evidence, but this covers the basics.
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  Kenneson

  Thank you Leo. Excellent research.

  You write: "...what the Romans did was have the prisoner stretch out his hands, nail or tie the hands to the crossbeam, and then having him bear the beam over his back or chest to the stationary stipes (vertical beam), and then hoist him up to the cross."

  In addition to the Scriptural passages you mention there is still another that lends credence to your statement. It is John 12:32 and 33. I quote the NWT: "And yet, I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw men of all sorts to me. This he was really saying to signify what sort of death he was about to die." This certainly seems to support that Jesus was hoisted up.
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  Will Power

  Its sad to see a JW behaving like a "dracula" would wherever a crucifix is displayed.

  who is the master of such slaves?

  will
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  gumby

  So is wearing a cross necklace etc... a form of idolatry?

  I think wearing a lapel card for the assembly is idolatry. What has always pissed me off is the motive the society puts behind their statements of what idolatry is. I've never met a christian.....other than a catholic, who bows down to, kisses, or speaks to their cross neckless. I've never seen a birthday child worshipped on their birthday, I've never seen a JWkid worship a poster of his favorite celebrity either. Idolatry to the Organisation is giving too much attention to anything other than their bloodthirsty god Jehovah. As for Jesus crucifiction....why not use the obvious to determine his manner of death? The bible says they put a sign....."above his head" NOT his hands. Also James said..."unless I see from prints in his hands from..."the nails(plural) I will not believe". Josephus knows the normal manner criminal jews were executed.....why not look at what he wrote about it? Gumby
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  _Atlas

  There is also abundant archeological findings that lean towards the usage of the traditional cross:

  Here are just a few:

  http://www.leaderu.com/theology/burialcave.html

  http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/crucifixion.html

  http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/alex_graffito.htm

  I think the archeological and medical evidence speaks even louder. The testimony of first century historians added to all this leaves one wondering why has the WTS been so dogmatic about their belief in the torture stake.

  Regardless of their choice of not wearing a cross I think the WTS fears accepting that is even possible that Jesus was crucified in the traditional manner because they would be adding to their reputation of faulty research and undermining their status over the rank and file.

  Amazing what a little individual research can show.

  BTW I invested a couple of bucks on patibulum-less crucifixes to sell on the last district convention. No one bought them. Anyone interested?
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  emmamess22

  Thank you all so very much!
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  garybuss

  Not sure what Jesus was killed on if there was such a person, but history does a good job of establishing the cross as the instrument used by the Romans to murder thousands of people. Some days there were over 700 people on crosses. See Jewish history books such as Paul Johnson's.
  
  This crucifying thing was not a unusual event nor was record of it it limited to Bibles. It's all as subjective as anything that happened 2000 years ago in another county, in another culture, in another language, recorded by people we don't know can be. What's important is . . . . it's not important. GaryB
  
  
  
  
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  Carmel

  What does it matter?

  carmel
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  Markfromcali

  So is wearing a cross necklace etc... a form of idolatry?

  Idolatry is not about a particular form of an object or wearing it, it's about worshipping that form.

  Now here's the tricky part, worshipping isn't even about a form of behavior, such as bowing down to an object as the Catholics might do - because their intention may very well not be directed toward the object.

  This view of idolatry, which has of course been promoted within the JW world, is in fact a materialistic view of spirituality. Actually, it implies that God is shallow enough to get angry at the way a person is acting without looking at what's in their heart. It's all about appearances.