Cross or a Stake - which was it?

by KAYTEE 120 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  scholar

  Leolaia and her deotees

  Listen here, the issue is quite simple. Did Jesus die on a stake or cross? Never mind the maybe's or the couldbe's. Was it a stake or cross. pure and simple?

  The biblical and lexival evidence proves overwhelmingly that it was a stake that was the instrument of our Lord's execution and the ancient sources demonstrate that stakes and impalement were contemporary with that early Christian era.

  Now of course lexicons and refernce works give cross as a secondary or alternate meaning to cross but this is the result more of tradition than anything else even though a cross wouls have been used in ancient times. But because stauros is a synonym with xulon it was definitely a piece of wood or tree that our Lord hung and he was impaled also to boot and that word means fastened to pole, plank or stake.

  Leolaia's theory is pointless because it cannot circumvent the obvious scriptutral and lexical facts.

  If one wishes to prove that it was a cross their is no evidence that can overpower what has already been written on this subject but simply second guessing or a lot of maybe's. Scholar is only interested in facts, hard raw data is what impresses scholar not wishful, feminist theories because some one has a girly fascination with Marti n Hengel.

  scholar JW
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  jgnat

  At least you stopped calling me an idiot. Here's a simple example for our fellow readers.

  In 2004 I had a car accident. There are several documents and eyewitness accounts plus my own memory of this accident. There are the police reports. There's the other driver's account of the event. All of us speak English.

  1. Of all the pieces of evidence available, which is most reliable?
  2. Would my memory be as reliable today as it was three years ago, immediately after the event?

  Now let's say it's a hundred years from the event. The English language still exists, but meanings have changed. There is no such thing as a meridian, wheeled vehicle, let alone an Alero.The original police report was destroyed. There exists fragments of e-mails from me to my daughter retelling the event, also the other drivers. There are a few dictionaries around, but the original meaning of "Alero" is lost. Not to worry, contemporary catalogues hinted of the existence of a vehicle called the Alero, production stopped in 2003. For some unfathomable reason, this particular car accident has become a "historically significant" event.

  3. An eminent scholar produces an essay that "proves" that an Alero could not have been involved in the car accident in 2004 because production of the Alero was definitely stopped in 2004. Does the scholar's eminence make his thesis more reliable than the original account?

  It is now a thousand years after the event. The contemporary catalogues, e-mails, and original dictionaries are all gone. Scholars rely on excerpts quoted in later works.

  4. Another eminent scholar questions the date of the car accident, saying it had to have been in the early seventies, because "everyone knows" that the oil crisis in 1973 ended the production of gasoline vehicles shortly after. Does the scholar's superior qualifications supercede contemporary accounts?

  5. Another scholar questions the existence of the "Alero" at all, doing an extensive study of the etymology of the word and determines it was not a car at all, but a chocolate cookie with a creamy white centre. He produces strong evidence for the existence of the "Oreo". Is the scholar's study of the oreo cookie flawed? How?

  6. Of all the dictionaries, studies, and evidence over the centuries, is it even possible to assign "fact" to any of the information remaining a thousand years from now?
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  Daunt
• 

  Daunt

  "The biblical and lexival evidence proves overwhelmingly that it was a stake that was the instrument of our Lord's execution and the ancient sources demonstrate that stakes and impalement were contemporary with that early Christian era." Provide the dang Scriptures Scholar and stop being an idiot. You're credibility is near zero on this forum so saying something like this isn't helping your point. And I'm terribly pissed that You called Jgnat an idiot because your incomprehensible and plain ignorant views will not be automatically accepted by us. I have no idea why you are not banned.
• 

  Hellrider

  No point in trying to use analogies either, Jgnat, this guy is as thick as my sisters bullterrier.

  Listen here, the issue is quite simple. Did Jesus die on a stake or cross? Never mind the maybe's or the couldbe's. Was it a stake or cross. pure and simple?

  The biblical and lexival evidence proves overwhelmingly that it was a stake that was the instrument of our Lord's execution and the ancient sources demonstrate that stakes and impalement were contemporary with that early Christian era.

  No, it`s not that simple, but for some reason, you are unable to understand it! The word stavros and the word cross had several meanings back then, and all people with knowledge on this issue, understands that. It is also demonstrated by Leolaias excellent essay on the issue, the link is provided in the beginning of this thread. Also, you keep refering to "biblical and lexical evidence", but you make no effort to provide this evidence. The "biblical" evidence has allready been shown to be no evidence at all. The bible simply says "stavros", nothing else, and this word means, and meant back then, both cross (-I-), pole (I), and the T. The lexicons show the same thing. Historical research shows the same thing. Hence, there is no "was it a stake or a cross, pure and simple". You see, in the real world of academics, of research and science, there is usually no "either - or". The real world is a little more complex than the intelectually challenged Watchtower-world.

  Now of course lexicons and refernce works give cross as a secondary or alternate meaning to cross but this is the result more of tradition than anything else

  Celebrated WT Scholar, you are the one that brought up lexicons, and then, afterwards, when you realise that lexicons actually translate stavros as both pole and cross, you blame it on tradition? You sir, truly are pathetic!

  I would also like to note, that (celebrated WT) Scholars comments to Leolaia and Jgnat, more than indicates that he doesn`t like having his Bethel-butt intelectually kicked by women. He definitely seems to react more to them, than he does to me and the guys here, although the women here have been polite, while I, for one, have told him to impale his faithful and descret backside on an Awake-magasine and jump into the Gehenna. This would indicate that he has some serious issues with women (which would seem perfectly reasonable, as he likes to refer to himself in the third person. I have still to meet a woman that appreciates that, ha ha).
• 

  Leolaia

  Listen here, the issue is quite simple. Did Jesus die on a stake or cross? Never mind the maybe's or the couldbe's.

  It is a maybe, could be question. The literary and historical evidence is not unambiguous. That doesn't mean we can't say which alternative is more or less probable. But it means that "dogmatism" (like the dogmatism you are displaying and the "dogmatism" you falsely ascribed to me) is inappropriate here.

  The biblical and lexival evidence proves overwhelmingly that it was a stake that was the instrument of our Lord's execution and the ancient sources demonstrate that stakes and impalement were contemporary with that early Christian era.

  What does the lexical evidence show? Stauros = "stake" AND "cross". Crux = "stake" AND "cross". I provided the texts that prove this. You can only be willfully stupid not to grasp such a "simple" concept.

  "Stakes and impalement were contemporary with that early Christian era". Well, duh Sherlock. So were crosses and cruxificion with composite crosses.

  Now of course lexicons and refernce works give cross as a secondary or alternate meaning to cross but this is the result more of tradition than anything else

  I have to ask this. Who do you think you are fooling? I've presented the primary sources extensively. I've presented scans of the original texts. Everyone here who cares to look at them KNOWS you're full of it. Tradition my ass. I've posted text after text of stauros and crux being used with reference to composite crosses. There's no tradition in that....they were describing crucifixion as it was practiced in their own time. Why do you go on acting the part of a dishonest, disingenuous idiot? Doesn't trolling get boring after a while?

  even though a cross wouls have been used in ancient times.

  Well of course they were, and stauros and crux were used to refer to them. Can you manage to get just a few brain cells around this concept?

  But because stauros is a synonym with xulon it was definitely a piece of wood or tree that our Lord hung and he was impaled

  So certain you are. Yet the Romans referred to their crosses -- yes, even two-beamed crosses (cf. Seneca, Epistle 101.12-14) -- as "trees". And a stake is a "piece of wood" and a cross is not? Xulon was used to refer to wooden objects made out of several pieces of wood, such as "tables, benches" or what not. This was a word that referred to an incredible range of different wooden items. Barnabas (early second century AD) refers to the two-beamed cross as a xulon. So much for your uninformed insistance that xulon must necessarily refer to simple stakes.

  But most importantly, as scholars have generally noted, the use of xulon in the NT and in the Dead Sea Scrolls to refer to the execution instrument is due to midrashic interpretation of the law in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 which of course did not originally refer to crucifixion (or "impalement" as the Society uses the word) but which was subsequently extended to the practice of crucifixion in the Second Temple period. Since you place great importance on published and peer-reviewed "scholarly" articles, I am sure you would appreciate reading Max Wilcox's "Upon the Tree -- Deut 21:22-23 in the New Testament," Journal of Biblical Literature (1977), the TDNT entry on xulon, Yigal Yadin's "Pesher Nahum Reconsidered," Israel Exploration Journal (1971), Joseph Fitzmyer's "Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran Literature, and the New Testament," Catholic Biblical Quarterly (1978), etc. All of these papers discuss how the use of xulon is due to allusion to the law in Deuteronomy which was felt to be binding to the crucifixion practices of the day. If the crux simplex was felt to fall under this law, why not the crux compacta? Why would the addition of another piece of wood to the stake suddenly nullify the application of the law? No matter what its shape (e.g. whether it had a patibulum, sedile, titilus, etc. attached), if a man was "hanged" on such an apparatus, such a man was probably felt to be "accursed" and must be buried the same day.

  Leolaia's theory is pointless because it cannot circumvent the obvious scriptutral and lexical facts.

  It's not "Leolaia's theory". I'm presenting information that can be found in countless sources.

  Scholar is only interested in facts, hard raw data is what impresses scholar not wishful, feminist theories because some one has a girly fascination with Marti n Hengel.

  pseudo-scholar needs to take a swim in the delightful waters of New Orleans and think about finding better ways to spend his time....
• 

  ChristianObserver

  Dear Scholar
  
  Thank you for your definition of 'impaled':
  
  Scholar "he was impaled also to boot and that word means fastened to pole, plank or stake."
  
  I note that the Insight book appears to agree with you and defines impalement as follows:
  
  "In the literal sense, the fastening of a victim either dead or alive to a stake or pole".
  
  But is this actually the true meaning (or literal sense) of "impale" as defined by the majority of dictionaries?
  
  I am afraid it is not, as a search through any reputable English dictionary will confirm.
  
  The verb impale comes from the Latin (in and palus (stake)) and has 3 meanings:
  
  1 To enclose, as with stakes or pales - to surround (hence stake a claim. Also to provide safety around habitation where bodies/heads of enemies can be 'impaled' - ie transfixed on the pales as a warning)
  
  2 To pierce with a sharp object - a pale, stake, spear, point - in order to kill, torture or render helpless
  
  3 A term used in heraldry - to join two coats of arms on one shield palewise (ie divided by a vertical stripe or pale).
  
  If you search in dictionaries - and there are several online free versions, although the Oxford English Dictionary, generally regarded in academic circles as authoritative, requires a fee - I think you will have difficulty finding support for the organisation's definition of "impalement" as "fastening to". The OED defines impalement as "transfixing" a body (etc) upon/with a stake, especially as capital punishment. And 'transfix' is defined as 'pierce with a sharp implement'.
  
  I consider that it is misleading to suggest that Jesus was 'impaled on a torture stake' as he was not impaled at all, as a 'stauros' was not driven into his body according to the gospels. Jesus was fastened by nails to his implement of execution according to those accounts.
  
  I have followed (above) your suggestion to
  
  1. Find and establish the meaning of the key terms
  
  - ie 'impalement' and I hope that you are able to do the same.
  
  I wonder if this error in terminology arose due to reliance on John Denham Parson's book.
  
  Thank you for answering one of my queries. Any thoughts on the translation 'torture stake' for 'stauros' by the organisation?
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  jgnat

  I had considered Hellrider, Pseudo-Scholar's obstinate inability to see the "light", so addressed lurkers reading this thread. I want to show the simple, who dearly hope that someone else will do the serious scholarship for them, that Pseudo-Scholar's hyperbole has no substance. Now I am a Leolaia acolyte? I would dearly hope so. But I have not directly defended Leolaia's work or intelligence on this thread. I have only criticized Pseudo-Scholar's glaring lack of similar eptitude. I know it took Leolaia many years to collect the information in to it's comprehensive whole. Have we seen similar effort from Pseudo-Scholar? No. We have watched him use big words, and spell most of them correctly. He has even imitated AlanF's biting language without the correspondingly scintillating wit. When cornered, P.S. repeats his original argument.

  Very much like a cornered thief firing an empty gun at his pursuers.
• 

  scholar

  Leolaia

  The simple facts are that the lexicons ascribe stake as the meaning for stauros and xulon means tree or piece of wood. The words are used in bothe the OT and NT in reference to the death of Jesus. The eyewitnesses who saw Jesus on the instrument used the word stauros to describe what they saw. There was no mention of any additional features such as another piece of wood which would refer to a cross but we are limited by not only by the vocabulary used but the fact of eyewitness testimony. They saw a stauros and stauros always means stake. Because Jesus death had to fullfill the Mosaia Law which required that the accurse one be hung not on a cross but a stake or tree. The evidence therefore for the use of stake is incontrovertible.

  You foolishly make use of ancient sources to sowmhow justify your perverted thesis but I canread back into all of those texts the word stake or impalement instead of the traditional cross or crucify in order to support the biblical viewpoint. There is no evidence whatsoever to suppose that anything else than a stake was used as the instrument for our Lord's death. All that you have is a fishing expedition for a false story.

  scholar JW
• 

  Leolaia

  The simple facts are that the lexicons ascribe stake as the meaning for stauros and xulon means tree or piece of wood.

  No. As "a" meaning. Alongside "cross". This has already been amply shown in this thread.

  The eyewitnesses who saw Jesus on the instrument used the word stauros to describe what they saw.

  Stauros, which referred to both "stakes" AND composite crosses.

  There was no mention of any additional features such as another piece of wood which would refer to a cross

  False.....I already pointed out in my thread "additional features" in the passion narratives that make a composite cross much more likely than a stake.

  They saw a stauros and stauros always means stake.

  Everyone who reads this thread who has looked at the original sources KNOWS that you're telling a lie. Why do you persist in making "an ass of yourself" (to paraphrase the "celebrated WT scholar" Clayton Woodworth) in front of people just incredulous of your dishonesty? You're like a kid who proudly displays his dunce cap for all in the class to see.

  Be glad your nose is not made of wood.

  Because Jesus death had to fullfill the Mosaia Law which required that the accurse one be hung not on a cross but a stake or tree.

  Oh is that so? If the Mosaic Law has to be fulfilled as originally stated, then Jesus would not have been nailed to a "stake" at all....he would have been killed some other way (such as stoning, Leviticus 20:2, 24:16, Deuteronomy 17:5, 21:21) and then hung postmortem on a literal tree, for that is what is assumed in Deuteronomy ("If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree") and described in Joshua 10:26, 2 Samuel 4:12 and other texts. Obviously, that was not the case. Rather, the Jews at the time applied this scripture (as binding) to the contemporaneous practice of crucifixion as practiced by Jews during the Hasmonean period and subsequently by Romans under Roman rule. The extension of the scripture to crucifixion (such that crucifixion victims were viewed the same way as those hanged the old-fashioned way) does not in any way demand that crucifixion practice conform to this scripture. The Romans were going to crucify their prisoners the way they wanted to. But this didn't prevent the Jews from viewing the crucified as "accursed" or try to hasten death before sundown (cf. John 19:31).

  You foolishly make use of ancient sources to sowmhow justify your perverted thesis but I canread back into all of those texts the word stake or impalement instead of the traditional cross or crucify in order to support the biblical viewpoint.

  Yeah, right. Just you try do this with Lucian, both his "Prometheus" or "Trial in the Court of Vowels", or Artemidorus. Those sources are utterly explicit that stauros referred to the composite cross as well. Any fool can see this. But since you admittedly "read into the text" your own preferred conceptualization, no wonder you blindly miss what everyone else can see. You also show that you have not a clue how to read ancient texts. Which is funny, since you earlier said that scholars are supposed to "find and establish the meaning of key terms" and "survey and determine their use in the primary text," and not decide on an a priori meaning and read it back into the text regardless of what the text itself might say.

  All that you have is a fishing expedition for a false story.

  All you've got is your deceit, bluff, and bluster.