Do Jehovah witness believe in Crucifixion of Jesus?

Answer 1

Yes.

The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses believes strongly in the redeeming power of Christ's sacrificial death by impalement on the torture stake. Witnesses generally do not refer to Christ's impalement as "crucifixion", although they do believe that the instrument of Jesus' death was a "crux simplex" ("crucifixion is from the Latin term "crux").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Justus_Lipsius_Crux_Simplex_1629.jpg

Of course, Witnesses believe that the bible plainly forbids idolatry of any kind, including the worshipful use of icons such as crucifixes.
http://watchtower.org/bible/1jo/chapter_005.htm?bk=1jo;chp=5;vs=21;citation#bk21
http://www.watchtower.org/bible/ac/chapter_017.htm?bk=ac;chp=17;vs=29;citation#bk29

(1 John 5:21) Guard yourselves from idols.

(Acts 17:29) We ought not to imagine that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, like something sculptured by the art and contrivance of man


The exact shape of Christ's instrument of death is hardly a central doctrine of the faith, but Jehovah's Witnesses do happen to believe that Jesus was almost certainly impaled on a crux simplex, rather than a cross of two intersecting beams. Of course the Romans had the ability to create a cross, and probably did. But ask yourself: why they would have bothered when a simple stake would have worked just as well or better?

The bible most assuredly does NOT offer any proof that the stake was actually a cross of two intersecting beams. The actual facts of the bible may be enlightening to examine...

You may be interested to see how your own copy of the bible translates Acts 5:30, Galatians 3:13, Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, and Acts 10:39. The King James, Revised Standard, Dyaglott, and Jerusalem Bible translate the instrument of Christ's death simply as "stake" or "tree" because the original wording simply does not support the idea that this was more than a piece of upright wood.

It is also eye-opening to examine how the first-century Christians felt about idols of any kind, much less one that glorified an instrument of death.

Learn more:
http://watchtower.org/e/200604a/article_01.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/20050508a/article_01.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/rq/index.htm?article=article_11.htm
http://watchtower.org/e/19960715/article_01.htm

Answer 2

Yes, but they don't call it crucifixion, they call it being impaled on a stake.

The Greek word stauros was used to describe torture stakes of various kinds. Originally a torture stake didn't have a crosspiece; eventually some used crosspieces, and this same word - stauros - was used for them, also. The basic meaning of stauros is "stake", but since a cross is basically a stake, adding a crossbar didn't change it from being primarily a stake.

Another word used in the Bible for Jesus' stauros was "xylon". The Greek word for wood is "xylo" and a xylon is something made of wood. Sometimes, as above, Bible dictionaries are quoted, but only partially, giving one the impression that a xylon was only a stake or tree, but that isn't so. A xylon was anything made of wood including a wooden cross which would consist of a wooden stake (xylon) and a wooden crossbar (xylon).

The Bible doesn't describe Jesus torture stake, although it does say that a sign was nailed above his head which conflicts with the Jehovahs Witness pictures of Jesus with the sign over his hands, and not his head. Some people feel that is proof that JW's are wrong but I don't think it proves anything, any more than some of the flimsy things that JW's point to and call 'proof'.

And really does it matter anyway? Whether it had a crossbar or not is only a technicality that seems to concern Jehovah's Witnesses; most other Christian religions focus on the cross as a symbol of his sacrifice, and do not focus on the crossbar as having any meaning in intself.

Whether pagans used crosses as religious symbols really doesn't have anything to do with how the Romans executed prisoners. Also, I've never seen any kind of proof that the cross was adopted as a symbol of Christianity because of pagan influence, although that seems to be a widespread view.

Many people try to say that Constantine is the one who brought the cross to Christianity, but if you read the writings of early Christians who lived centuries before Constantine, you will find that Christians were respecting what the cross stood for, long before that. The apostle Paul sometimes referred to Jesus stauros' with respect, such as at 1 Cor 1:18 where he calls the message about Christ the message of the 'stauros' (cross, or torture stake). Also, in Galatians chapter 6, he speaks of boasting or glorying in the stauros of Christ. Later in the same century, Clement of Rome who often quoted from Paul's writings, wrote that he would die for the doctrine of the 'stauros'. A few decades later in the early part of the second century, the writer of the Epistle or Letter of Barnabas describes the stauros in the shape of a cross. In all the early Christian writings, it doesn't appear that anyone ever doubted that the cross was the shape of Jesus' death stake. It seems reasonable that someone would have questioned such a teaching back in those very early days of Christianity, if crosses were not in use at the time Jesus died. Possibly even refuted by someone who witnessed the event. No one did, apparently.

Early Christians didn't make crosses or use them in worship. But they respected what the cross symbolized - the sacrifice of the Son of God.

I don't know if it was a cross or not and if someome makes the statement that Jesus did NOT die on a cross, that person is either ignorant of all the facts or is unwilling to accept them. Any REAL authority on ancient Roman history would tell you that the evidence is inconclusive for either the stake or the cross. (It's doubtful that the History Channel ever said that crucifixion wasn't practiced from the time of Spartacus until 72 CE. If they did say it - which I doubt - it was probably presented as a possibility and not a fact., At least, it should have been, since there is no way to prove it. )

Answer 3

Something I saw on the Discovery Channel that the Roman people were very sickened by the crucifixions after the put down of the Spartacus slave revolt, some seventy years before Christ. It takes days for a person to die on a cross, as compared to a few hours on a stake. The cross was not again used as a regular form of execution until 72 A.D., nearly 30 years after the execution of Christ.

Jewish religious law says that a man committed to death must actually die before the end of the day, which ends at sun set. This simply is not possible with a cross. On a stake, your lungs are collapse and you suffocate, unless you try to push yourself up with your legs, at which point the guards are to break them.

Rome would not have forced Israel to use their form of execution, any more than they would have forced Israel to change any of their other religious traditions.

Regardless of what you may think, Christ did die on the day he was nailed up there, and that would have required a stake, not a cross. Unless you think the Bible is wrong about when he died.

Answer 4

The very first Watchtower was printed to establish why and how we need the ransom sacrifice of Jesus.

It is only through Jesus' death that we can approach Jehovah.
It is only through Jesus' death that we can have a relationship with Jehovah.

It is through the death of Jesus that Jehovah's name was made holy.

It is through the death of Jesus that Satan was proved a liar.

It is through his death, that Jesus passed the test as was able to become Jehovah's appointed King.

Rev 5:9 And they sing a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, because you were slaughtered and with your blood you bought persons for God out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, 10 and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth.”

Answer 5

Yes, but unlike the person above.

The King James Bible says Jesus was put to death on a tree.

Acts 5:30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Acts 10:39 And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:

Acts 13:29 And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre.

Galatians 3:13 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:

Michelangelo and the Cross

Italian government art experts are said to be “90 percent sure” that a sculpture recently found in a monastery in Lebanon is the work of the famous Italian artist Michelangelo. The small wooden carving is said to be worth $2.5 million (U.S.) if it actually is Michelangelo’s work. According to an Associated Press report, “the figure is unusual because it represents Christ with his hands stretched out above his head instead of to the side, as he usually is depicted on the cross.”

Whether the wooden sculpture is the work of the 16th-century artist Michelangelo or not, it illustrates that the impalement of Christ on a cross frame has not always been so certain as Christendom’s leaders today would have people believe. For example, the 16th-century Roman Catholic scholar Justus Lipsius illustrated impalement on an upright stake in his book “De Cruce Liber Primus.” This fits the meaning of the Greek word used in the Bible to describe the impalement of Christ, “stauros”, which “denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake.”, “An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words.

Jesus Christ did not die on a cross. The Greek word generally translated “cross” is stau·ros'. It basically means “an upright pale or stake.” The Companion Bible points out: “[Stau·ros'] never means two pieces of timber placed across one another at any angle, There is nothing in the Greek of the [New Testament] even to imply two pieces of timber.”

In several texts, Bible writers use another word for the instrument of Jesus’ death. It is the Greek word xy'lon. This word simply means “timber” or “a stick, club, or tree.”

Explaining why a simple stake was often used for executions, the book Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (The Cross and the Crucifixion), by Hermann Fulda, states: “Trees were not everywhere available at the places chosen for public execution. So a simple beam was sunk into the ground. On this the outlaws, with hands raised upward and often also with their feet, were bound or nailed.”

The most convincing proof of all, however, comes from God’s Word. The apostle Paul says: “Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: ‘Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake [“a tree,” King James Version].’” (Galatians 3:13) Here Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, which clearly refers to a stake, not a cross. Since such a means of execution made the person “a curse,” it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled.

There is no evidence that for the first 300 years after Christ’s death, those claiming to be Christians used the cross in worship. In the fourth century, however, pagan Emperor Constantine became a convert to apostate Christianity and promoted the cross as its symbol. Whatever Constantine’s motives, the cross had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The cross is, in fact, pagan in origin. The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “The cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures.” Various other authorities have linked the cross with nature worship and pagan sex rites.

Answer 6

Hi,
As an Ex-JW I can say they believe that Jesus was hung on a tree. The fact is, that the Romans used the cross as their means of putting people to death. And oh yeah, crosses were made from wood, so there's the tree they here tell about. You call it potato, I call it nit picking. Either way, Jesus died, and that's the rest of the story!

Answer 7

Yes we believe he was crucified.

Answer 8

The Greek word rendered “cross” in many modern Bible versions "torture stake" is stau·ros′. In classical Greek, this word meant merely an upright stake, or pale. Later it also came to be used for an execution stake having a crosspiece. The Imperial Bible-Dictionary acknowledges this, saying: “The Greek word for cross, [stau·ros′], properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.”—Edited by P. Fairbairn (London, 1874), Vol. I, p. 376.
Was that the case in connection with the execution of God’s Son? It is noteworthy that the Bible also uses the word xy′lon to identify the device used. A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott, defines this as meaning: “Wood cut and ready for use, firewood, timber, etc. . . . piece of wood, log, beam, post . . . cudgel, club . . . stake on which criminals were impaled . . . of live wood, tree.” It also says “in New Testament, of the cross,” and cites Acts 5:30 and 10:39 as examples. (Oxford, 1968, pp. 1191, 1192) However, in those verses King James Version, Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible, and Dyer's translate xy′lon as “tree.” (Compare this rendering with Galatians 3:13. Deuteronomy 21:22, 23.)

The book 'The Non-Christian Cross', by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), says: “There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as ‘cross’ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting ‘cross’ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible (London, 1885), Appendix No. 162.

Thus the weight of the evidence indicates that Jesus died on an upright stake and not on the traditional cross.
What were the historical origins of Christendom’s cross?

“Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples . . . The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times and among non-Christian peoples may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship.”—Encyclopædia Britannica (1946), Vol. 6, p. 753.

“The shape of the [two-beamed cross] had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the cross of Christ.”—An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (London, 1962), W. E. Vine, p. 256.

“It is strange, yet unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol. . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device.”—The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art (London, 1900), G. S. Tyack, p. 1.

“The cross in the form of the ‘Crux Ansata’ . . . was carried in the hands of the Egyptian priests and Pontiff kings as the symbol of their authority as priests of the Sun god and was called ‘the Sign of Life.’”—The Worship of the Dead (London, 1904), Colonel J. Garnier, p. 226.

“Various figures of crosses are found everywhere on Egyptian monuments and tombs, and are considered by many authorities as symbolical either of the phallus, a representation of the male sex organ: or of coition. . . . In Egyptian tombs the crux ansata (cross with a circle or handle on top) is found side by side with the phallus.”—A Short History of Sex-Worship (London, 1940), H. Cutner, pp. 16, 17; see also The Non-Christian Cross, p. 183.

“These crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god, and are first seen on a coin of Julius Cæsar, 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Cæsar’s heir (Augustus), 20 B.C. On the coins of Constantine the most frequent symbol is, but the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the four equal arms vertical and horizontal; and this was the symbol specially venerated as the ‘Solar Wheel’. It should be stated that Constantine was a sun-god worshipper, and would not enter the ‘Church’ till some quarter of a century after the legend of his having seen such a cross in the heavens.”—The Companion Bible, Appendix No. 162; see also The Non-Christian Cross, pp. 133-141.

Is veneration of the cross a Scriptural practice?

1 Cor. 10:14: “My beloved ones, flee from idolatry.” (An idol is an image or symbol that is an object of intense devotion, veneration, or worship.)

Ex. 20:4, 5, Jerusalem Bible: “You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them.” (Notice that God commanded that his people not even make an image before which people would bow down.)

Of interest is this comment in the New Catholic Encyclopedia: “The representation of Christ’s redemptive death on Golgotha does not occur in the symbolic art of the first Christian centuries. The early Christians, influenced by the Old Testament prohibition of graven images, were reluctant to depict even the instrument of the Lord’s Passion.”—(1967), Vol. IV, p. 486.

Concerning first-century Christians, History of the Christian Church says: “There was no use of the crucifix and no material representation of the cross.”—(New York, 1897), J. F. Hurst, Vol. I, p. 366.

How would you feel if one of your dearest friends was executed on the basis of false charges? Would you make a replica of the instrument of execution? Would you cherish it, or would you rather shun it?

In ancient Israel, unfaithful Jews wept over the death of the false god Tammuz. Jehovah spoke of what they were doing as being a ‘detestable thing.’ (Ezek. 8:13, 14) According to history, Tammuz was a Babylonian god, and the cross was used as his symbol. From its beginning in the days of Nimrod, Babylon was against Jehovah and an enemy of true worship. (Gen. 10:8-10. Jer. 50:29) So by cherishing the cross, a person is honoring a symbol of worship that is opposed to the true God.

In several texts, Bible writers use another word for the instrument of Jesus’ death. It is the Greek word xy′lon. (Acts 5:30. 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13. 1 Peter 2:24) This word simply means “timber” or “a stick, club, or tree.”

Explaining why a simple stake was often used for executions, the book "Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung" ("The Cross and the Crucifixion"), by Hermann Fulda, states: “Trees were not everywhere available at the places chosen for public execution. So a simple beam was sunk into the ground. On this the outlaws, with hands raised upward and often also with their feet, were bound or nailed.”

The most convincing proof of all, however, comes from God’s Word. The apostle Paul says: “Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: ‘Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake [“a tree,” King James Version].’ ” (Galatians 3:13.) Here Paul quotes Deuteronomy 21:22, 23, which clearly refers to a stake, not a cross. Since such a means of execution made the person “a curse,” it would not be proper for Christians to decorate their homes with images of Christ impaled.

There is no evidence that for the first 300 years after Christ’s death, those claiming to be Christians used the cross in worship. In the fourth century, however, pagan Emperor Constantine became a convert to apostate Christianity and promoted the cross as its symbol. Whatever Constantine’s motives, the cross had nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The cross is, in fact, pagan in origin. The New Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “The cross is found in both pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures.” Various other authorities have linked the cross with nature worship and pagan sex rites.
Why, then, was this pagan symbol promoted? Apparently, to make it easier for pagans to accept “Christianity.” Nevertheless, devotion to any pagan symbol is clearly condemned by the Bible. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18.) The Scriptures also forbid all forms of idolatry. (Exodus 20:4, 5 - 1 Corinthians 10:14) With very good reason, therefore, true Christians do not use the cross in worship.

If you would like further information, please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall. Or visit http://www.watchtower.org