Godless Wonder

I recently got a couple of books, "Losing Faith in Faith" by Dan Barker, and "The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read", edited by Tim C. Leedon. The Dan Barker book was better than I was expecting, although it is really almost a collections of essays, most of it is written fairly well, though there are some minor quibbles I might have here and there, overall, better than I was expecting. The other one is a kind of mish-mash of different things combined into a book, some of the things are quite good, while a few are just silly, and the "bookmanship" or "production values", are quite poor, I'm sorry to say, with some very low-res graphics (reminds me of 1980's dot matrix printers in spots), a paucity of references, no bibliography, and a general slapdashedness feeling being the main quibbles. Anyway, on to the main topic. Both of these books talk about the mistranslation of what ends up in the bible as "cross". and "crucifixion"

Am I to find out there was no cross? After having argued on this forum that "the cross" did not seem to be so very lethal a thing to endure for a few hours, and my brother (a medical doctor) informing me that "it's surprising how much physical trauma the human body can withstand and not die", for example losing limbs, etc. Rwanda being known as a land of people with no hands, etc. (leading me to think that perhaps some punctures to the extremities to be insufficient to cause death within a few hours) and having Christians argue against me, and (as I recall, though now I even doubt my recollection) reading about how crucifixion was a common method of execution in Roman times. Am I to find out now that there was no "crucifixion", at least not on a cross, but that instead, the "cross" was in fact a stake, a "stave", a "stavros" or piling, upon which the "crucified" were nailed, or impaled?

I haven't seen this discussed here before, which surprises me a little. Is this just such an old topic nobody is interested?

Was crucifixion ever a popular execution method? If so did it come from the Bible? Or was the Bible modified to incorporate this execution method? Or is this one of those things which nobody knows? Or is the "there was no cross" thing a fabrication?

(If this is better off in another forum feel free to move it.)

lpetrich

Crucifixion had been a common method of execution in the Roman Republic and Empire. Victims often took several hours or even days to die if their arms were stretched out horizontally; their agony could be extended by placing a small seat on the cross, which made it easier for them to breathe.

Here's a nice article on that subject.

judge

Interestingly in the Aramaic NT (the peshitta) we have two different words for cross which were both translated into the same greek word

Celsus

I suspect your author is thinking of a somewhat dated dispute about what it means to "hang" someone: Joe Zias and James Charlesworth have argued that crucifixion does fit as a category of "hanging," based on their reconstruction of the Jehohanan corpse that was found with nails stuck in his foot. One problem is that preserved crucifixion victims are incredibly rare (owing to the way they were left to rot), and crosses rarer (because crosses were probably reused in Palestine, and good timber was rare to begin with). The lack of evidence for the two (corpses and crosses) should not count as a strike against the frequency of crucifixion. One need only go to Josephus to know that this was a common method of punishment by the Romans, throughout their empire.

Joel

Amos

Well yes there was a cross but it was not a real one that you can drive nails into. The cross is as a metaphor for the accumilation of sins that we have been shown to be justified (Gal.2:17). This cross emerges not out of our obedience to the law but from the conviction by the law (the inference here is that sin is good which is "unthinkable" only because the concept sin is inspired).

From this follows that only believers who have been justified carry a cross and this cross is the "sinner" part of the "saved sinner" paradox.

Dean Anderson

I remember reading somewhere that crosses didn't appear in Christian iconography until about the 5th century. Until then, according to what I read (It's so frustrating not being able to remember what this source was!) depictions of Christ normally had him nailed to or hanging from a tree.

Can anyone confirm (or correct) this for me?

Anyway - on a slightly off-topic note - the thing I have never understood is why Christians are so obsessed with displaying crosses everywhere... surely it goes against the commandment about worshipping graven images?

Javaman

I recall a discussion about this subject in relation to:

Acts 5:30
and the God of our fathers did raise up Jesus, whom ye slew, having hanged upon a tree

Which does seem an odd statement to make.

Edited to add:
Remember, Christians aren't bount by OT laws as Jesus 'fulfilled' them... this includes the 10C. There are hardly any requirements for salvation.

mark9950

I do not think jesus fulfilled any of the laws he broke them including the laws written in the talmud according to the hasidic jews.

spin

Crucifixion goes back well before the Romans. Alexander Jannaeus the Judean king ca 90 BCE crucified many Pharisees. Antiochus IV crucified Jewish people during his persecution ca 167 BCE. Crucifixion is also mentioned in Herodotus, eg Cyrus crucified 3000 leading citizens of Babylon.

Obviously, "crucifixion" comes from Latin and "crucifigatur" is what the Vulgate used where the Greek has "staurwQhnai".

I'm led to believe that the notion of the cross comes from Constantine's dream, while he still believed in Sol Invictus, of the rays of the sun, which formed a cross and which he had painted on shields.

--

The catholic Christ on cross effigy is about sacrifice, while the protestant empty cross was about salvation, ie christ resurrected.


spin

Amos

The Rocky Mountain Indians of the Canadian Northwest also used a tree. In "Tay John" by Howard O'Hagan a couple of side branches were prefered and such a tree would remind them of their mortality.

Graven images are ideals we cherisn an hold. They are graven into our soul and that is why we will worship them until we die nonetheless.