The narrative is that he died on a cross, with a nail in each wrist.
Oh, the cross is a symbol that clearly had meaning long before the first century AD? Cool. That is part of the narrative too, then.
To me, the whole thing about no graven images or magic reeks of revisionist politics on the part of perhaps the Deuteronomical class more than anything. You can take out the high places all you want. The Tabernacle was still designed after Egyptian temples.