Stake or Cross? How did Jesus die? What proof do we have?

[JW Insider]

4 hours ago, Outta Here said:

Similar to Origen's observation? Hardly! "Effectual" means : successful in producing a desired or intended result;

LOL! You are even pickier than I was about this phrase. Immediately after writing it, I looked back on it and literally said to myself, "Wait, I can't use the word 'similar' because @Outta Here might even point out that Origen referred to successful pronouncers of Jesus' name and Acts/Luke refers to failed pronouncers of Jesus' name." (Or words to that effect.)

In fact, I nearly re-edited the word "similar" on the spot to "related" but didn't because I had said:

• Similar idea in Acts from the seven sons of Sceva.

This idea "from" the seven sons of Sceva is that they, too, wanted to be successful and effective pronouncers of Jesus' name. And, of course, the Origen quote that you offered is from the same article that's attached to the picture of the coin-like amulet. And this particular quote from Origen starts immediately after the quote from Acts about the sons of Sceva. (Both references start 4 to 7 lines further down in the article from the point where the picture left off, but still seen here: https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/the-staurogram-correcting-errors/)

In any case, I was offering a point about how we do not immediately deny the accuracy of all information that comes from mystical or apostate sources. As you indicate, we might even expect that someone transforming themselves into an "angel of light" may get a lot of things right, while misusing and misapplying other things.

4 hours ago, Outta Here said:

But it does indicate that any seeming influence thay had over demonic spirits was just an illusion.

I believe you are here admitting that this is a similar idea between both Origen's examples and the seven sons of Sceva.

4 hours ago, Outta Here said:

and certainly by the time this amulet was produced, the apostate legends clustering around the Jesus account would be like maggots in rotten meat.

And the same point again that one of those apostate legends might have been that Jesus had been executed on a crux simplex, as the Watchtower has promoted for several years now. This does not mean that the Watchtower itself is apostate, but that we must always be on the lookout for mistakes in our teachings that might have been tainted by false or apostate thinking. Otherwise we would not need the following admonition:

• (Colossians 4:17) . . .“Pay attention to the ministry that you accepted in the Lord. . .
• (1 Timothy 4:16) Pay constant attention to yourself and to your teaching.. . .
• (Hebrews 2:1) . . . That is why it is necessary for us to pay more than the usual attention to the things we have heard, so that we never drift away.
• (Philippians 4:5) Let your reasonableness become known to all men.. . .

3 hours ago, Outta Here said:

Getting something wrong is not the same as being an apostate.

True. But standing for something that is right and then drifting away from that stand is the basic, simplest definition of "apostasy" based on the meaning of the word in Biblical Greek ("standing from").  We don't have to be an apostate to be affected by apostasy. You will recall that we now believe that when the Watch Tower publications promoted the celebration of Christmas and birthdays that they were not being apostate, but that it was a matter of getting something wrong due to the long effects of apostasy. Also, recall that you had said:

• "And whether consciously or not, given the spirit behind apostates, the inroads are far too subtle for humans to discern strategically. "

You were speaking of the writer of the Letter of Barnabas specifically and pointing out the possibility that he could have been consciously or unconsciously transforming himself into an angel of light, and therefore we would expect that misleading or false information would be combined with information that was very true. But your statement just quoted shows the difficulty in discerning such subtle inroads. Therefore, I never claimed that Rutherford was apostate, but that he got clearly got some things wrong due in part to the supposedly indiscernible inroads of apostasy. If they are not humanly discernible, then we must even more carefully follow those "pay attention" scriptures just quoted, and perhaps that's the best we can do. Your logic admits that there may still be much humanly indiscernible apostasy anywhere. 

Personally, I have stated my belief that choosing between one or the other direction based on the preponderance of evidence is merely a choice that comes out of "letting our reasonableness be known" "guarding our hearts and our mental powers" and "paying close attention to ourselves and our teaching." It does not mean that either choice is an apostate choice, yet you did bring up that one of the choices might be related to apostasy. So I merely state the obvious: that if it's humanly indiscernible, then we don't really know which set of evidence is the one that might be leading us in that direction. But we do know that by paying closer attention the Watch Tower publications could have avoided being led astray from a more correct stand on Azazel,* pyramids, the superior authorities, the "generation that will not pass away," 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, the 6000 years, the Elder arrangement, the Gentile Times, Zionism in Palestine, the identity of the faithful and discreet slave, etc. And who is to say how many issues remain, if they are truly indiscernible?

*Azazel was just an example that "Letter of Barnabas" evidently had right, then J H Paton got wrong in Russell's Watch Tower magazine, then Russell himself came closer to our current teaching, then Rutherford drifted back in the direction of Paton's teaching, and now, today, by coincidence, we are closer to the "Letter of Barnabas" in our current teaching.

[Evacuated]

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

This idea "from" the seven sons of Sceva is that they, too, wanted to be successful and effective pronouncers of Jesus' name.

They are as similar to true Christians as darkness is to light. The aim of their attempt to be "successful" in their abuse of Jesus' name was to further their charlatan career. Their complicity with the demons was with or without their full knowledge of what they were doing. Many who work with the demons in their deception think they are actually controlling the activity of these creatures. All they are doing is furthering that illusion. Jesus wasn't theorising when he asked the scribes who enabled their sons to expel demons. Luke 11:19.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

we do not immediately deny the accuracy of all information that comes from mystical or apostate sources.

Neither do we deny that sewage contains water.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

we must always be on the lookout for mistakes in our teachings that might have been tainted by false or apostate thinking

Absolutely. But I think we would by now have agreed fully on that? It still doesn't change the fact that the apostasy associated with the two bar cross is far greater than a crux simplex which has not become the brand mark of "Christian" apostasy.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

there may still be much humanly indiscernible apostasy anywhere.

Agreed, but we have Jehovah's spirit to enable us to discern apostasy. That is what I was driving at. Apostasy against Jehovah is Satanic in origin and is actively promoted by him. That is why it is difficult, even impossible to discern humanly. It is like carbon monoxide. We can only discern and protect our thinking from it's influence by means of God's spirit. And Jehovah will decide on how and when erroneous thinking will be corrected. He assesses the priorities and directs our action accordingly.

18 hours ago, JW Insider said:

closer to the "Letter of Barnabas" in our current teaching.

I think this is a mistake. The Letter of Barnabas is like a car driven over a cliff. Any shred of truth in it is not a touchstone to evaluate our understanding  today. At best, it is just a piece of untainted flesh in an otherwise rotting carcass. If the teaching is "true", it is because God's word is true. Psuedo-Barnabas may have got that bit right, we may have too. There the similarity ends.

As for the stocks/xylon thing? well it appears the wheel has already been invented on that one. The Septuagint apparently equates xylon with the Hebrew word for stocks (Job 33:11) and even the classical greek of Aristophanes gives a clue in referring to this instrument of restraint. "Sometimes it was what Aristophanes calls πεντεσύριγγον ξύλον, "stocks with five holes," two for the feet, two for the hands, and one for the neck." (Pulpit Commentary).

So somewhere a while back I indicated that my instincts lean me toward the single stake view of Jesus' executional implement. The fascinating and at times obscure detail unearthed in this discussion has not swayed my preference on this issue yet, but I recognise at the end of it all we cannot be definitive on what it was .....yet.

This whole excercise reminds me of those poor people who make a living scavenging for gold on the streets of Mumbai. They do find some, but I think we can agree there are better ways to make a living.

😊

 

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Two pieces of notched wood is  MONEY, and a LOT of hard work with the tools available.

...... think about it .....

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

... of course, the wood was re-usable, and to save nails, you could execute someone on BOTH sides, and just bend the nails over.

With a one piece pole, without a cross arm, by varying the elevation, you might get 4 people on the same post, without splitting the wood!

ANYBODY can execute criminals by torture ... good engineering is doing it at the least possible cost !

And remember , there probably was not that much of a market in the home building industry of Jesus' day for blood soaked cross arms with a huge notch in the middle.

 

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Outta Here said:

They are as similar to true Christians as darkness is to light.

I hope no one was thinking that any comparison was being made (by Luke or Origen) to true Christians. The comparison was always between what was being practiced by the seven sons of Sceva, and what was being practiced by the "bad men" in Origen's reference. We don't know much about the success rate that the Scevason boys had in their exorcisms prior to their attempts to add the pronunciation of Jesus to their repertoire, but it doesn't matter.

We know that Jesus would reject some who claimed to cast out demons in his name and say he never knew them. We also have the verses in Mark saying:

• (Mark 9:38-40) John said to him: “Teacher, we saw a certain man expelling demons by the use of your name and we tried to prevent him, because he was not accompanying us.” 39 But Jesus said: “Do not try to prevent him, for there is no one that will do a powerful work on the basis of my name that will quickly be able to revile me; 40 for he that is not against us is for us.

Not really knowing anything about their motives, I'll limit my comparison the the original reason I gave for comparing them.

5 hours ago, Outta Here said:

It still doesn't change the fact that the apostasy associated with the two bar cross is far greater than a crux simplex which has not become the brand mark of "Christian" apostasy.

True. If, as we say, 99% of apostate Christianity calls itself Christian, then even the word "Christian" itself has become a brand mark of "Christian" apostasy. But it's also the term that true Christians should use. Apparently, a brand mark representing a small fish could have also survived as a brand mark of Christian apostasy, but I agree that dual-beamed cross symbol is the most popular brand mark, whether this was the incorrect version of the instrument of Jesus' death, or the correct version. You have already said that we don't know for sure. 

I sometimes wonder why no one ever thought to create a "compendium" (staurogram, christogram, etc) that made use of the letter "I" which was the actual initial of Jesus' name, and which would have been rationalized against the words of Paul:

• (1 Corinthians 1:17-18) For Christ dispatched me, not to go baptizing, but to go declaring the good news, not with wisdom of speech, that the [STAUROS] of the Christ should not be made useless. 18 For the speech about the [STAUROS] is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it [the STAUROS] is God’s power.

• (1 Corinthians 1:22-24) 22 For both the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks look for wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ's [STAUROS], to the Jews a cause for stumbling but to the nations foolishness; 24 however, to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

• (1 Corinthians 2:2) For I decided not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and [his STAUROS].

Combining those words of Paul (which the unsteady were already twisting to their own destruction) it would have been easy to imagine creating a symbol from the "I" of "Iesous" and the possible "I" shape of the "STAUROS" and try to symbolize that they were following Jesus, who also, like Paul, is seen treating the STAUROS as a "symbol."

• (Mark 8:34) . . .“If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and pick up his [STAUROS] and follow me continually.

Would it be right to assume that your primary reason for favoring a one-beamed cross is not so much about the variety of uses of the term STAUROS, but because the two-beamed cross has long been associated with apostate Chrsitianity? Associated with this might be the fact that the Watchtower displayed the two-beamed STAUROS, or cross, for about 52 years, and has since has dropped the symbol, due to its association with apostate Christianity. 

The original reason that Rutherford spoke out against the CROSS however, was that it was so closely associated with the cult of "Russell worshipers" and Russell often spoke about this need to remove the Russellite cult elements from the Bible Students. The Leolaia paper, on the first two pages, reminds us that Rutherford campaigned for 8 years against this symbol of the dual-beamed CROSS while still teaching that Jesus had died on a dual-beamed CROSS. The symbol was removed from Watchtower covers after 52 years of showing, but even this was at a time when the WTS still taught that Jesus had died on a traditional two-beamed CROSS.

That situation reminds of the time we are in now, where we don't like something because of its idolatrous associations, but we still haven't reached a point where the have the scholarship to back up our reasons to dismiss the possible "fact" of the stauros. But I have a feeling that, due to the way the Watchtower has worded the topic, that many Witnesses have already come to assume that the scholarship is there already. That could easily make other Witnesses think that even my own acceptance of the evidence in favor of a two-beamed stauros is somehow related to promoting the use of the symbol, or even promoting idolatrous worship.

So our current stance is understandable. "Flee from idolatry" should have a high priority and based on our correct prejudices against anything used in idolatry, it would be very difficult to imagine the WTS ever looking into whether the dual-beamed stauros might have more scholarly, historical and linguistic support. We might rightly hope that it does not.

[JW Insider]

5 hours ago, Outta Here said:

The Letter of Barnabas is like a car driven over a cliff. Any shred of truth in it is not a touchstone to evaluate our understanding  today. At best, it is just a piece of untainted flesh in an otherwise rotting carcass. If the teaching is "true", it is because God's word is true. Psuedo-Branabas may have got that bit right, we may have too. There the similarity ends.

I think it might be useful at some point to discuss the "Letter of Barnabas" ("Pseudo-Barnabas") in more detail. Not to defend it or even to defend its assumption that the Stauros was T-shaped. I think you will have noticed that there have been more statements recently from the WTS, even the recent JW Broadcast, that indicate that we can sometimes find points of value and interest in these "early Christian" writings. And even where clearly apostate, it should not hurt us to be able to discern some of the history of these apostate inroads into pure Christianity.

I read Pseudo-Barnabas and see a lot of problems with it, some of which you have mentioned, and which have been pointed out by scholars for more than a hundred years. But I also see some amazing parallels to the type of thinking that was popularized by Seiss, Russell and Rutherford, most of which later had to be discarded since their time. Most of the letter, as I read it, is tainted, but you can still see what Christianity must have meant to a large segment of Christian-associated society in the second century, who valued this letter. I think the second century was a critical one to understand, especially in light of how Jesus' prophecy about the visitation of judgment on Jerusalem (their synteleia/parousia) was seen in the context of the universal synteleia/parousia to follow. I don't find "Barnabas" to be inspired at all in his take on Jesus' prophecy, and I do find First and Second Peter to be inspired. Yet it's quite possible that Barnabas was written well before these two letters of Peter were completed, and they include a similar topic: a commentary on statements we can find in Matthew 24.

Treating it generally as a "rotting carcass" might make a certain amount of sense, but not so much sense when we compare it with the striking parallels in say Volume 3 or even Volume 7 of Studies in the Scriptures, or later comments of Rutherford. I think the latter were comparatively worse, when it comes to the amount of truth, or "signal to noise" ratio, one could glean from these later publications. And yet I would never think of those WTS volumes as a "rotting carcass," but rather a product of the thinking of a segment of Christian-associated society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[Evacuated]

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Mark 9:38-40

Misapplication alert!. Post-Pentecost!!! No one was gathering for Jesus Post-Pentecost apart from anointed Christians. Even  Apollos needed sorting! Acts 18:24.

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Not really knowing anything about their (sons of Sceva) motives,

As for the motives of the (scurrilous) sons of Sceva, they are pretty obvious in respect of their experience at the hands of their demon collaborators. They had ample opportunity to go to the true source of spiritual power in having become acquainted with the miraculous works carried out through the apostle Paul. They played with fire, with proverbial results (compare Numbers 16:35).

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

even the word "Christian" itself has become a brand mark of "Christian" apostasy.

Sadly true. Hence the name "Jehovah's Witnesses".

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Would it be right to assume that your primary reason for favoring a one-beamed cross is not so much about the variety of uses of the term STAUROS, but because the two-beamed cross has long been associated with apostate Chrsitianity?

Not the primary reason. I learned about the crux simplex possibility long before I had even decided to become one of Jehovah's Witnesses, though admittedly from the picture provided by Justus Lipsius (who, despite describing the crux simplex, favoured a two-beam cross for Jesus execution I believe.). Just the existence of a possible alternative to the traditional view was mind-boggling to me at the time, and caused me to revaluate many other "taken-for-granted" notions in connection with religious belief. 

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

we still haven't reached a point where the have the scholarship to back up our reasons to dismiss the possible "fact" of the stauros.

This is the fact of the matter, and I feel  that the scholarly attempts of those who seek to establish the "fact" of a two-beamed cross are actually, so far, similarly impotent (IMV). That is why our website states (for those inclined to research the matter): 

• "However, the Bible does not describe the instrument of Jesus’ death, so no one can know its shape with absolute certainty."

So at the end of the day, it is a matter of preference. I prefer the unpopular view.

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I think it might be useful at some point to discuss the "Letter of Barnabas" ("Pseudo-Barnabas") in more detail.

Agreed, particularly on the terms you outline.

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Yet it's quite possible that Barnabas was written well before these two letters of Peter were completed,

Says who?

6 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Volume 3 or even Volume 7 of Studies in the Scriptures, or later comments of Rutherford

I see these not so much as a "rotting carcass", more as left over "manna" (Ex16:20). And I think this could be extended past Rutherford's day.

[Evacuated]

9 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

just bend the nails over

They say in this case the nail hit a knot in the wood which caused the bend.

[Equivocation]

@James Thomas Rook Jr. You can always try to out run the guards, but you'll have to run as fast as Usain Bolt to escape and end up hiding somewhere that  civilians will not call the guards on you. If you're a runner, chances are when or if they catch you, they'll break your legs. Reminds me of show I watch, a slave run from guards, when they catch him Roman priest had guy's leg broken - yikes.

 

YOU WILL BE CRUCIFIED TODAY!

Me: Nope.

(Runs; throws rocks at guards)

 

Good thing none of us were born back in those days.

[Equivocation]

@JW Insider This is kinda out of the blue but one thing I had noticed is those who use the cross in worship for wrong reasons, people putting more importance on what some say murder device. I know some people wouldn't dare use the cross at all also. Now when the cross is up side down then you are in mumbo jumbo town and it is ridiculously dark in what that signifies.

[Anna]

2 hours ago, Outta Here said:

That is why our website states (for those inclined to research the matter): 

• "However, the Bible does not describe the instrument of Jesus’ death, so no one can know its shape with absolute certainty."

Thanks, I needed to see that, because both the Bible teach book and its simplified replacement; The teach us book unequivocally state that Jesus did not die on a cross.

We still don't have electricity, so I am still not able to get to my stuff on the computer. The jaws theme is still rolling!!

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

Sometimes ... the only way to stay sane, is to quit caring so much.