Another meaning for the cross?

Question

My mormon girlfriend got me a a gold necklace with a gold rectangular pendant on it with a cross cut out the middle. It's beautiful and it really compliments the neckline but the deal is I'm strictly agnostic and everyone who knows me knows it. I heard that the cross had pre-christian significance. Do you know it?

Answer 1

There is a great website called Symbols.com, where you can search by words or by graphical description. Here is one of many cross descriptions, but also take a look at the source index for "cross" - you may find more meanings there.

"The Latin cross, crux immissa, crux capitata. The latin word crux is derived from "cruciare", meaning to torture. This cross since at least one thousand years has been the Western world's symbol par excellence. It is chiefly associated with the torture and killing of Jesus Christ, and thus with the Christian religion and Christianity.
Before the time of Jesus, represented, among other things, the staff of Apollo, the sun god, son of Zeus, and appeared for instance on ancient coins.
Crosses with arms of equal length were used frequently since time immemorial in pre-Columbian America, the Euphrates-Tigris region, and other parts of the world. That cross seems to have been associated with the sun and the powers that controlled the weather. In Babylon, the equal arms cross was considered one of the attributes of Anu, god of the heavens. In the mighty Assyrian empire, which seems to have originated as a Babylonian colony in the second millennium B.C., the sun cross in the wheel cross form of and was one of the attributes of the national god, Assur. When was used as the staff of Apollo it lost its ring, and one of its arms was lengthened to form . That seems to represent the first use of the Latin cross form in the Hellenic sphere. However, variations of crosses of the Latin type are fairly common elsewhere in Europe during, or even before the Bronze Age period, as witnessed by for instance such rock carved signs as .
Sometime during the first centuries of the Western calendar the Latin cross was adopted by the Christian ideology. Still being associated with heavenly, almighty lords, both and even more so , the sun god's staff, gradually became symbols for death, sin, guilt death, sin, guilt, and burial. But, and in accordance with the law of the polarity of meanings of elementary graphs the cross also came to mean resurrection, rebirth, salvation, and eternal life after bodily death.
On gravestones and in genealogy the sign means dead, deceased and date of death. Compare with six-pointed and five-pointed star signs for born, or date of birth, on tomb stones and in genealogy. "

Answer 2

Paradise is not heaven per se, but a portion of the spirit world for those righteous souls to rest while performing needful works until their resurrection and then judgment by Christ. The Bible clearly mentions that Christ, immediately after His crucifixion, visited the spirit world and preached to the inhabitants--meaning those that were righteous. He dispatched other priesthood holders to preach to the unrighteous spirits in the spirit prison.