Jehovah's Witnesses, have you done your own research regarding the way Jesus died?

Question

The WBTS writes in 'Beliefs and Customs that Displease God' that "Jesus did not die on a cross. He died on a pole, or a stake. The Greek word translated "cross" in many Bibles meant just one piece of timber. The symbol of the cross comes from ancient false religions."

The 'Kingdom Interlinear' reads on pg. 1155: "There is no evidence that the Greek word "stauros" meant a "cross" such as the pagans used as a religious symbol for many centuries before Christ to denote the sun god. ... There is no proof to the contrary."

HOWEVER, Justin Martyr, who lived from 100 - 165 (and who many believe was taught by Paul), wrote:

"Moses first exhibited this seeming curse of Christ’s by the signs which he made. ... When the people waged war with Amalek, and the son of Nave (Nun) by name Jesus (Joshua), led the fight, Moses himself prayed to God, stretching out both hands, and Hur with Aaron supported them during the whole day, so that that they might not hang down when he got wearied. (cont.)

For if he gave up any part of this sign, which was an imitation of the cross, the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross. For it was not because Moses so prayed that the people were stronger, but because, while one who bore the name of Jesus (Joshua) was in the forefront of the battle, he himself made the sign of the cross."

Why is this not "proof to the contrary?"

The full text may be found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.xc.html

JR, you are quite incorrect. Justin Martyr DID NOT teach that Jesus was a created angel. So I call your bluff -- PROOF, PLEASE.

Justin Martyr taught again and again that Jesus IS God.

A follow-up for JR: it seems you didn't read the ENTIRE Chapter written by Justin Martyr; he clarifies below what you quoted that Jesus "being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God."
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.ii.lxiii.html

CMW, that's an AWESOME resource. I recommend that everyone read it. Good job!

Hi, DelFuego. I'm confused by your math. Can you please clarify? Thanks.

And DelFuego, my point was this: JWs say there is "no evidence" that early Christians taught Jesus was crucified. Justin Martyr affirms He was crucified on a cross, not a stake, via his example.

Answer 1

If they researched the November 22, 1976 Awake, page 27, they would learn that the words 'stauros' and 'crux' are both used to describe cross shaped objects.

By researching other WT material, they would also learn that the Letter of Barnabas was written quite soon after the death of the apostles, and says that Jesus died on a "cross" - the word used by the original writer was "stauros", but from the description, there's no question that he's speaking of what we today in English would call a "cross."

Further research would show them that Jehovah's Witnesses adopted the belief that Jesus didn't die on a cross because their 2nd president, Judge Rutherford, was a "fan" of Alexander Hislop, and based much of his anti-Catholic rhetoric on Hislop's book The Two Babylons.

Also, that Judge Rutherford didn't know anything about the word 'stauros' - he just decided that Jesus died on a "tree" (to be a curse) because that's what the King James Bible said. He didn't know that the word 'xylon' which was translated "tree" didn't specifically mean "tree", but actually meant "wood".

The book Riches which officially announced that Jesus died on a "tree" makes no mention of a pole or stake - it HAD to be a tree. It was another decade or two before the Witnesses changed the "tree" to a stake or pole.

To trk.......................

The Nov 22, 1976 Awake, on page 27 says that Justin Martyr described the stake on which he believed Jesus died, and indicates that it was a cross.

To TeeM....

Wouldn't "going beyond the thngs written" apply equally to using Daniel chapter 4 to calculate the year 1914?

keiichi....

Justin Martyr died in the 2nd century; Jesus died in the first century; .....where did you come up with six centuries apart?

Answer 2

I studied with JW's for a while, and as a result, have done much research on the cross.

They constantly quote references about the SHAPE of the cross being a pagan symbol thousands of years before Jesus was born. . Even if that's true, it has NOTHING to do with the method of execution used by the Romans.

They have a ton of information about it, and overlook most of the evidence from the first century. Because the most BASIC bare-bones meaning of "stauros" is stake, they try to limit its use to a stake without a crosspiece, This is in spite of the fact that any Bible dictionary will tell you that even though the basic meaning is "stake", it is also the word used for torture stakes with crosspieces.

Just as a pole today can have a crosspiece and still be called a pole - not a cross - a stauros with a crosspiece was called a stauros. (When you drive down the road and see stakes with crossbars, no one calls them "crosses" - they call them "poles".) The writer of the Letter of Barnabas used the word "stauros" - probably between 100 and 133 AD - and described it as a T shape.

I have yet to hear a JW explain how "Barnabas" could use the word 'stauros' to describe a T stake, if it's true that a stauros never looked like a T. Also, Lucien Seneca of the first century says that there were DIFFERENT kinds of stauroses.

Justin Martyr , writing in Greek, also used "stauros" for the instrument of Jesus' death. And it is obvious from his writings that he was talking about a stake with a crosspiece. .

I've never seen a History Channel program where anyone made the statement that crosses weren't being used at the time of Jesus. Admittedly, I haven't watched every show, but if someone made that statement, it was only their opinion and couldn't be proven by them. And although the History Channel programs sometimes present conflicting ideas and opinions, the information they present is usually presented as a POSSIBLE explanation, especially in cases such as this where no definite evidence is available.

Answer 3

I'm glad you asked this question because there is a very important point that needs to be made.

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHETHER JESUS DIED ON A POLE/STAKE OR A CROSS. The only thing that really matters is that he was obedient unto death, and laid his life down as an atoning sacrifice, so that sinners such as you and I could live.

Having said that, let me now take issue with the JW claim that the cross is a symbol of ancient and pagan religion. What they conveniently forget is that the cross has been used for centuries as a means of execution. The Romans used crosses as instruments of torture and execution all over their empire. They were well known for it. Oh, and it was usually an upright post with a transverse piece to which people were nailed or tied by their hands and feet. Just dig into the historical facts - they are there to be found.

What the JW's are really getting at is their abhorrence of being associated in any way with Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. To them, the cross is a pagan symbol and because it is venerated (and they would claim, worshiped) by Catholics, they wish to disassociate themselves from such idolatry. Also, they believe the symbol of the cross is linked to polytheism, the worship of more than one God (they claim the Trinity is polytheism, but then they have misinterpreted and misrepresented the doctrine). Perhaps now you can begin to understand why they wish to distance themselves from the cross - even if Jesus did actually die on one.

The whole JW argument is a smokescreen, folks. The point is not, HOW did Jesus die, but WHY did he die?

Answer 4

Jesus gave his life for a ransom sacrifice for mankind. How he died is not as important as the fact that he did die for the forgiveness of sins. In Jesus day, Crucifixion was the common way of execution regardless of whether it was on a cross or a pole. If Jesus came for the first time today, and he was going to give his life today for a sacrifice, I suppose it would be done by lethal injection, or the gas chamber, or a firing squad (depending on the country). The cross is a graven image. No father (or mother) would want the device used to kill their son put on display in every corner of the house.

Answer 5

Justin Martyr, What did he teach?.

He rejected the book of Revelation as being inspired.

Taught that the holy spirit was an ‘influence or mode of operation of the Deity' (Hippolytus likewise ascribed no personality to the holy spirit.)


Called the prehuman Jesus a created angel who is “other than the God who made all things.” He said that Jesus was inferior to God and “never did anything except what the Creator . . . willed him to do and say.”

Dr. H. R. Boer, in his book A Short History of the Early Church, comments on the thrust of the Apologists’ teaching:

“Justin [Martyr] taught that before the creation of the world God was alone and that there was no Son. . . . When God desired to create the world, . . . he begot another divine being to create the world for him. This divine being was called . . . Son because he was born; he was called Logos because he was taken from the Reason or Mind of God. . . .

“Justin and the other Apologists therefore taught that the Son is a creature. He is a high creature, a creature powerful enough to create the world but, nevertheless, a creature. In theology this relationship of the Son to the Father is called subordinationism. The Son is subordinate, that is, secondary to, dependent upon, and caused by the Father. The Apologists were subordinationists.”

Note, however, that while Justin calls the Son “God,” he never says that the Son is one of three equal persons, each of whom is God but the three forming only one God. Instead, he says in his Dialogue With Trypho:

“There is . . . another God and Lord [the prehuman Jesus] subject to the Maker of all things [Almighty God]; who [the Son] is also called an Angel, because He [the Son] announces to men whatsoever the Maker of all things—above whom there is no other God—wishes to announce to them. . . .

“[The Son] is distinct from Him who made all things,—numerically, I mean, not [distinct] in will.”

An interesting passage occurs in Justin’s First Apology, chapter 6, where he defends against the pagan charge that Christians are atheists. He writes:

“Both Him [God], and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore.”

A translator of this passage, Bernhard Lohse, comments: “As if it were not enough that in this enumeration angels are mentioned as beings which are honored and worshiped by Christians, Justin does not hesitate to mention angels before naming the Holy Spirit.”—See also An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.

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As to stauros, Yes I have done a lot of research on this.

To make the Greek word stauros and the Latin crux into a cross you have to add other words to the sentence.

The eye witnesses of Jesus' death said stake or pole and not a cross.

Are we to believe the eyewitness or your interpetation of something that was discribed 70 years later?

If Justin had adopted the pagan practice of angel worship, why not the pagan use of crosses?


Edit ------

I just read Ex chapter 17, and there is nothing in this verse that points to the Christ and the sign of the Christ.

As far as the inspired scripture reads

"11So it came about when Moses held his hand up,"

This could have been above his head.

vs 12 shows that Moses then sat down on a rock

'and Aaron and Hur (U)supported his hands, one on one side and one on the other.

Again this can show that Moses had his hands above his head and not out to the side.

Did Moses have his hands above this head or out to the side.

I don't know, nor did Justin, This is why you aren't to go beyond what is written.

I do know this verse has nothing to do with the sign of Jesus.

To make stauros into a cross you also have to go beyond what is written.


.

Answer 6

So, a man born 70 years after the death of Jesus and writing about situations that ALLEGEDLY occurred 1600-1300 years prior to that time, is PROOF to the contrary?

Methinks not.

Answer 7

Yes I have and thats something I always do.

Justin Martyr has said many things about Jesus the books he wrote. He stated that Jesus was a angel, and created. So yes, I done my research on the early church fathers and the history of the cross too and how it was formed.

Where did the cross come from, then? J.C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols, p.45, aptly summarizes it, "Cross--A universal symbol from the most remote times; it is the cosmic symbol par excellence." Other authorities also call it a sun-symbol, a Babylonian sun-symbol, an astrological Babylonian-Assyrian and heathen sun-symbol, also in the form of an encircled cross referred to as a "solar wheel," and many other varieties of crosses. Also, "the cross represents the Tree of Life, the age-old fertility symbol, combining the vertical male and horizontal female principles, especially in Egypt, either as an ordinary cross, or better known in the form of the crus ansata, the Egyptian ankh (sometimes called: the Tau cross), which had been carried over into our modern-day symbol of the female, well known in biology.

If you want to take Justin Martyr statements to disprove our beliefs, then so be it.

Justin Martyr
"Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And He is called Angel and Apostle;"

"The Jews, accordingly, being throughout of opinion that it was the Father of the universe who spake to Moses, though He who spake to him was indeed the Son of God, ;"who is called both Angel and Apostle;""

Justin Martyr did Call him God, but never said that he was father, nor God almighty. The early Church fathers always called Jesus God, but clearly stated that Jesus was nothing more than a angel, begotten by god and created.... Which a God is not.


--UPDATE--

Actually I did read the entire chapter, and I have read MOST of his books, but what you don't know is that most early Church Fathers did not believe in the trinity, but most of them believed in the 2 in 1 God (Without the Holy Spirit) Based on Justins' history, he fell in the Philosophy, which is condemned in the bible.

The Apostle Paul himself stated that

2 Timothy 4:3-4
3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

****Even though Early Church writings support both Jesus being God and Jesus being created - the facts show they fell into apostasy and left the teachings of the early disciples.

***Back to the writings -

"who also, being the first-begotten Word of God, is even God."

1 - If Jesus was begotten, then he was created, because he had to be beget from a high source.

2 - Justin call Jesus a angel and apostle, and as you know, a angel is not God.

Answer 8

It doesn't matter to me as a Christian a Cross or a stake it was the fact he died for me that matters the Romans had many ways to crucify a person all of them barbaric.

Answer 9

Justin Martyr missed Christ death from about six centuries (typo: ment decades) so he clearly was not an eye witnesses to the means of Christ death. That being the case since the bible does not state the date of Christ birthday or the pacific means of death by our savior then the first century Christians found it to be irrelevant for not recording it in their letters to the early church.

It is only after the Jesus associates started to die off that the trinity, cross, Christ deity became stumbling blocks to the early Christians dividing themselves up to decide on these non-biblical questions.

If Jesus taught these beliefs as Born-Agains suggest then there would be no need to argue about them. They would be facts outline by Jesus own words.

However, Jesus own words said he is on par with the Jewish religious leaders as being "gods", God's representative. Not God as the men that Jesus labeled as Satanic, accused him of.

Answer 10

Mormons will never place a cross on their temples for the same reason that Jehovah's Witnesses teach Jesus died on a stake.

Both groups claim to be the one and only true Christian religion, thus do what they can to separate themselves from historical Christianity.