Jehovah's Witnesses view of Jesus' death

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Main article: Cross or stake as gibbet on which Jesus died

The Jehovah's Witnesses view of Jesus' death is that Jesus was crucified on an upright stake or pole, and not, as has been traditionally believed at least since the early second century,[1] on a cross.

[edit] Arguments

The New Testament was written in Koine Greek (Κοινή), the common language of commerce during the first century. To understand the Jehovah's Witness view that Jesus was not crucified on a cross, one must recall that the Greek word "stauros" (the original Greek underlying the rendering as "cross") can, at least in pre-Koine Greek, be translated as "stake". However, in Koine Greek, the form of Greek spoken at the time of Christ, the word was in fact used of a cross, as by the writers quoted in Liddell and Scott, a standard lexicographical work of the ancient Greek language.[2]

Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers, and the evidence of Roman crucifixion indicates that the use of a patibulum (crossbeam) was normal.[3]

During the Siege of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70, Josephus reported seeing hundreds of victims that were crucified simultaneously. However, despite the horrific account, no report was given that executions were carried out on a single stake of wood. In effect, this was seemingly not the popular Roman method. Pontius Pilate's decision to 'wash his hands' of Jesus' execution suggests[citation needed] that the manner of execution would have been under Jewish law rather than Roman law; but the Gospels accounts indicate that the execution was carried out by Roman soldiers, not by Jews. Whilst the Romans tended toward crucifixion, the Jews tended toward impaling (or nailing to) a single beam, or stake.[citation needed] When the Apostle Paul wrote: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Galatians 3:13, King James Version), he used the Greek word "xylon", which means timber in general, most often not that of a live tree.[4]

The earliest writings that speak specifically of the shape of the cross on which Jesus died describe it like the letter T (the Greek letter tau).[5] Second-century writers report the shape of the cross as consisting of an upright and a transverse beam, together with a small ledge in the upright.[6]

Christians generally accept the description of the shape of the cross of Christ given by these early Christian writers. Jehovah's Witness, for whom, perhaps alone, the question of the shape is significant, claim to know that these writers had the wrong notion.

  • According to Jehovah's Witnesess, the Greek word "stauros" doesn't refer to a cross;[7] according to Greek-English dictionaries it did, at the time of Christ, refer to a cross.[8]
  • Jehovah's Witnesses affirm, without basis in early texts, that the cross was a pagan symbol later adopted by the churches.[7]
  • Jehovah's Witnesses affirm that archaeology shows that Jesus died on a stake, not a cross,[7] but archaeology has in fact found the skeletal remains of a man crucified on a cross in first-century Palestine.[9]
  • The Bible doesn't say that Jesus died on a cross.[7] The Bible doesn't say that Jesus died on a stake.
  • According to Jehovah's Witnesses, the torture stake (cross) was insignificant and should not be used in worship.[7] In actual fact, the cross, while not being worshipped itself, is used in worship because of being associated with Jesus, as the name "Jesus", while not being worshipped itself, is used in worship because of being associated with Jesus.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Epistle of Barnabas (Chapter 9), etc. See below.
  2. ^ stauros
  3. ^ Mayo Clinic Report
  4. ^ Xylon
  5. ^ Epistle of BarnabasChapter 9. Historians have collectively dated the document to around the end of the first century.[1]
  6. ^ "The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails" (Irenaeus (c. 130–202), Adversus Haereses II, xxiv, 4[2].
  7. ^ a b c d e The Cross—Symbol of Christianity?, The Watchtower, November 15, 1992, p.7.
  8. ^ Liddell and Scott
  9. ^ Crucifixion in Antiquity - The Evidence

[edit] See also

Cross or stake as gibbet on which Jesus died – a fuller examination of the views of early Christian writers on the matter