Jesus Died on a Stake or a Cross?
Posted by J.H. [Jan S. Haugland] on August 03, 1999 at 21:38:04
In Reply to: Cross or Stake? posted by Mike on August 03, 1999 at 21:33:14:
Here's something I wrote on the cross/stake question some time ago and posted on various Usenet groups.
First, let us note that the Watchtower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses) is quite alone in asserting this view that Jesus was killed on a simple stake. No religious denomination that I know of supports the Watchtower Society here, except some very few "Name"-groups in the United States. More importantly, no historian in the world (secular or religious) currently agrees with the Watchtower Society that there is any evidence whatsoever that Jesus died on a stake without a crossbeam. Neither have the Watchtower Society ever presented the slightest bit of real evidence for its claims.
Biblical Evidence
The Bible gives no direct description of the stauros, but contains a few pointers.
Let us look at one text:
John 20:25: "But he [Thomas] said to them: "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe""
Please note the plural here: "nailS". So Thomas here says that Jesus' hands had been penetrated by more than one nail. One can wonder, then, why Watchtower publications consequently depict Jesus with his hands penetrated by one single nail. While not being conclusive, this verse shows at least that the Watchtower is ignoring the little testimony we have from the Bible itself. A bad start, isn't it?
The second piece of evidence is given here:
Matthew 27:37: "Also, they posted above his head the charge against him, in writing: "This is Jesus the King of the Jews.""
The most natural understanding of this event is that he was hung with his hands out, nailed to the crossbeam. This sign Pilate posted could then be located above his head. If he was hung as the Watchtower Society claims he was, it would be more correct to say the sign was posted above his hands. Again, this is not conclusive, but both verses we have from the Bible giving any indication whatsoever, point towards the traditional understanding: that Jesus was killed on a traditional cross; a stake with a crossbeam.
Early Written Sources
A fact quite ignored by the Watchtower Society is that there is definite extrabiblical evidence to the exact shape of the stauros, and this shape is the cross, a T with a lowered crossbeam.
First, there are quite a few descriptions in early Christian texts. Note that these were written while the Biblical Greek language was still alive, and while the cruel execution practice we call crucifixion was still carried out by the Romans.
The Christian apologist Justin, writing about 160 AD (long before Constantin) made mention of the shape of the cross at least twice:
"And the human form differs from that of the irrational animals in nothing else than in its being erect and having its hands extended... and this shows no other form than that of the cross." (Justin Martyr, "First Apology" in Roberts & Donaldson (ed): Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, Eerdmans, 1969, p. 181)
"For the one beam is placed upright, from which the highest extremity is raised up into a horn, when the other beam is fitted on to it, and the ends appear on both sides as horns joined on to the one horn." (Justin Martyr, "Dialogue With Trypho", Chapter XC in Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 245)
A few decades later Irenaeus wrote:
"The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in bredth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails." (Irenaeus, "Against Heresies", Chapter XXIV in Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 395)
In 197 AD the Christian writer Tertullian wrote:
"Every piece of timber which is fixed in the ground in an erect position is a part of a cross, and indeed the greater portion of its mass. But an entire cross is attributed to us, with its transverse beam, of course, and its projecting seat." (Tertullian, "Ad Nationes", Chapter XI in Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. III, p. 122)
Note that these writers lived in a period when crucifixions were still carried out, and could see these horribly executions firsthand. Both Justin and Tertullian referred to cases where Christians were crucified (see Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 254; Vol III, p. 28).
Another, even more definite and earlier piece of evidence comes from the Epistle of Barnabus (here from J. B. Lightfoot's translation of the Ante-Nicene Fathers):
9:36 And Abraham circumcised of his household eighteen males and three hundred. What then was the knowledge given unto him?
9:37 Understand ye that He saith the eighteen first, and then after an interval three hundred in the eighteen I stands for ten, H for eight.
9:38 Here thou hast Jesus (------).
9:39 And because the cross in the T was to have grace, He saith also three hundred.
9:40 So He revealeth Jesus in the two letters, and in the remaining one the cross.
The explanation of this strange argument is that Barnabus tries to make Gen 14:14's reference to "300" (318) a prophecy about the cross, since the letter 'T' (tau) means 300 in the Greek number system. The oddity of Barnabus' 'exegetical' argument aside, this is definite evidence that when Barnabus was written (and it is commonly dated to around 130 AD, and is possibly even earlier; some date it as early as 75 AD) the cross was understood to be shaped as a T.
We even find testimony about the form of the cross by early non-Christian writers. The Greek writer Lucian (c. 120-180 AD) wrote that the letter T had received its «'evil significance' by the 'evil instrument', shaped in the form of a tau, which tyrants erected to 'hang men on'». (Lucian in "Iudicium Vocalium 12", in Martin Hengel's Crucifixion, Fortress Press, 1982, pp. 8, 9)
As if this was not sufficient do we have evidence from the early Bible manuscripts themselves: the manuscripts P66 and P75, that are traditionally dated around AD 200, but may date from as early as the last part of the first century. (See Biblica, Vol. 69:2, 1988; which dates the much related P46 this early, and preliminary information from Professor George Howard by letter stated P75 and P66 are "not far behind" in date.)
Anyway, in P75 the word stauros is changed so the T and R together depict a cross with a person on in three places where it occurs (see photo below), and P66 puts a cross into the word stauros (see photo below). You can see how this was done in the P66 manuscript in the book Encountering New Testament Manuscripts by Jack Finegan (Eerdmans, 1980, p. 33, see scan below).
Together, this overwhelming evidence speaks for itself. Why the Watchtower Society has gone to such great lengths to create a completely imaginary case for a stauros with no crossbeam is puzzling, but it no doubt have something to do with a need to distinguish itself from other denominations. It should also demonstrate for all how little regard the Watchtower Society has for truth. All this information has been made available to the Watchtower Society many times.
Medical Evidence for Crucifixion
It is a fact that the way Jesus' execution is depicted in Watchtower publications would have killed him in about six minutes.
Already in 1948 did the Austrian doctor Hermann Moedder demonstrate that if you hang a person with his hands right up, he will die from suffocation within about six minutes. This has been confirmed a number of times, lately by a professor in pathology with the University of Columbia, who also demonstrated experimentally that if the person is nailed with his arms outright in an angle of 60-70 degrees, he can live for several hours. His work also showed that it is possible to nail a person to a cross through the hands, not necessarily the wrist as earlier indicated. (Frederick T. Zugibe, "Two Questions About Crucifixion" in Bible Review, April 1989, pp. 35-43)
So this evidence shows definitely that it isn't even anatomically possible for Jesus to have been crucified as shown in Watchtower publications.
Is the Cross a Pagan Symbol?
Sure. And among these ancient pagan nations who had crosses were the Romans, who selected the torture device that was used to kill Jesus.
It's very strange that the Watchtower Society has this obsession with the cross being a "pagan phallic symbol", and then argues that a pole, which is described many times as a pagan fertility symbol in the very Bible, was used to kill Jesus.
 The staurogram, a combination of the Greek letters tau and rho, looks like a human figure hanging on a cross and stands in for parts of the Greek words for "cross" (stauros) and "crucify" (stauroō) in Bodmer papyrus P66, a copy of the Gospel of John (200 AD). The staurogram is the earliest visual reference to Jesus' crucifixion. Photo: Foundation Martin Bodmer |
 The staurogram combines the Greek letters tau-rho to stand in for parts of the Greek words for "cross" (stauros) and "crucify" (stauroō) in papyrus P75 at Luke 14:27. Photo: Foundation Martin Bodmer |
 Encountering New Testament Manuscripts Jack Finegan, 1980, p. 33 Click image to enlarge |
