Toto

This is a misleading headline:
Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar

Samuelsson, a committed Christian, gives a fuller discussion here. Does this tend to support Acharya S's identification of the "crucifixion" with other mythic examples of gods with outstretched arms?

Huon

Spartacus was a man who lived between ca. 120 BCE to ca. 70 BCE. His life was described by Plutarch (ca. 46 CE –127), Florus (ca. 70 CE – ca. 140) and Appian (ca. 90 – ca. 160), that is more than 150 years after the death of Spartacus. Spartacus was initially the leader of a group of 70 gladiators. This group growed to 6,000 partisans, and was defeated in 71 BCE by Crassus, who is also well known by the description of other events of his military career. The 6,000 followers of Spartacus were crucified along the Via Appia, which is still well known, between Rome and Naples. Spartacus disappeared. His body was never found.

What happened to Spartacus is not necessarily what happened to Jesus, especially MJ...

stephan huller

His position is a little more complex then is portrayed here. Here is an audio interview I picked up at evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com (german and english)

http://wissen.dradio.de/index.38.de....&random=ba8e7e

His point is not to deny that Jesus died but that the term stauros is not as clearly connected with a cross as we think it is.

It is worth a listen. As an aside I noticed the same thing in Aramaic. There really is no word which means 'to be crucified' only 'to hang' or 'to suspend.'

Anyway I thought I should pass this on. His point is that his death was only 'some kind of suspension.'

show_no_mercy

Which makes sense of Paul's argument in Galatians 3:13

stephan huller

And the real question that even Samuelsson can't answer is what did σταυρός mean to Mark the original evangelist. To demonstrate that the parties which Irenaeus opposed had a very different understanding of σταυρός just read this:

They show, further, that that Horos of theirs, whom they call by a variety of names, has two faculties,--the one of supporting, and the other of separating; and in so far as he supports and sustains, he is σταυρός, while in so far as he divides and separates, he is Horos. They then represent the Saviour as having indicated this twofold faculty: first, the sustaining power, when He said, "Whosoever doth not bear his σταυρός, and follow after me, cannot be my disciple;" and again, "Taking up the σταυρός follow me;" but the separating power when He said, "I came not to send peace, but a word." They also maintain that John indicated the same thing when he said, "The fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge the floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with fire unquenchable." By this declaration He set forth the faculty of Horos. For that fan they explain to be the σταυρός, which consumes, no doubt, all material objects, as fire does chaff, but it purifies all them that are saved, as a fan does wheat. Moreover, they affirm that the Apostle Paul himself made mention of this σταυρός in the following words: "The doctrine of the σταυρός is to them that perish foolishness, but to us who are saved it is the power of God." And again: "God forbid that I should glory in anything save in the σταυρός of Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I unto the world." [AH i.3.5]

They clearly have something in mind. My guess is that it goes back to the Aramaic or Syriac. Some other shade of meaning (which I have never been able to figure out).

It is worth noting that the first hymn of Marqe among the Samaritans which is said at ANY gathering of Samaritans is about 'crucifixion' (same ambiguity Samuelsson points to in Aramaic. Here is a translation that my friend Professor Ruairidh Boid did for me from the original Aramaic:

Punishments don’t disconcert the sinner, nor do wounds frighten him. He doesn’t take any notice. The rebel sees himself delivered up to punishments, and finds himself crucified. He turns to his possessions (?), and knows that there is no enjoyment from it.

Death can be compared to a Priest making someone drink the Bitter Water of Testing.

[Boid's note - I have translated according to the traditional Samaritan etymology and understanding, which is not far from the traditional Jewish understanding. Disregard the mangling by most modern translations. This is water that is drunk to establish innocence. It has a tiny little bit of the dirt of the ground round the Sanctuary in it, as well as something to make it bitter, from memory I think wormwood. A guilty person is afflicted by it. (It was a wonderful device for clearing people of slander). The innocent person unjustly accused is given better bodily and mental and spiritual health by it. (This is one of the hints of resurrection in the Torah, and Marqe seems to have it in mind along with the other meanings). The false accuser who has sworn a false oath or committed perjury or conspiracy is struck by afflictions or even in some cases death. The passage in the Torah is in Numbers. I will look up the reference later. There is a lot of traditional theory not stated in the words of the Torah but agreed on by Samaritans and Jews]

The innocent person unjustly accused is given better bodily and mental and spiritual health by it. The false accuser who has sworn a false oath or committed perjury or conspiracy is struck by afflictions or even in some cases death. Woe on whoever is found to have committed sin. Woe on all sinners, since they will be in great distress. The punishments they suffer are the result of all their offences.

The soul (or individual) stands dumbfounded. Those living are in great affliction, because the Good has turned his face away from them. If the Merciful does not save, and remember those that love him, all the sinners will bewail themselves, because they are in great distress.

The signs tell us that in this generation of ours there is not a single person not in partnership with sinners. The mothers and children, all of whom took part and rebelled (maradu), they too are punished with (or suffer) suffocation (tashnîqayya).

The fact is that by our sins we are the ones that are the murderers, murderers of the silent and those that can speak Innocent animals or children that have never sinned, or young adults of good descent, suffer for sins they never committed.

It is the Fanuta (era of disfavor) that has brought all this suffering about. The fruit of the womb is stopped, and the fruit of the earth destroyed. Every place is becoming accursed for us. The mouth of punishment is open before, ready to swallow up the baby with the old man.

Merciful and Good, treat us justly and well as is your nature. We can’t withstand this judgment. A leaf on a tree startles a sinner, so how can we withstand judgment that startles the world? Treat us justly and well, so that we aren’t …… [verb is shin-nun-qof] by punishments

And some more notes from Boid that I managed to preserve about the hymn:

(a) The only hymn of Marqe’s I could find that fits what you said is no. I. This is recited in part on every Sabbath and every Festival. Notice this. At some time it must have been laid down that it had to be recited constantly. It will take me some time to translate. It has 22 verses, each with seven lines. 22 x 7 = 154.

This hymn speaks of death and destruction in the present, wrought by estrangement from the will of God, and urges a reversal of behaviour. One verse could be taken as referring to executions, depending on how you understand one word. This is the fifth verse. Other verses might refer to this, but not directly.

“As a consequence of the sins we have committed, we are afflicted (or punished) with the T Sh N Y Q Y H. [Look up the root Sh N Q in Jastrow]. We can’t blame your goodness. All the blame is on us, since we ourselves have made ourselves perish. If someone goes and hits himself, who can rescue him?”.

Tashnîqayyå is the definite plural of T Sh N Y Q tashneq from the root Sh N Q. Ben-Hayyim is not at all convinced that it always means strangulation.

(b) The hymns translated by Kippenberg are from the collection called the Durran. They are very old. These are the hymns that talk about a very recent rejection of wrong religious practice or perhaps wrong doctrine.

(c) There is a lot of work to be done on the Samaritan liturgy. Life is too short.

Hymn I verse lamed. “Punishments don’t disconcert the sinner, nor do assaults [or blows, or wounds] frighten him. He doesn’t take any notice. The rebel (marod) sees himself delivered up to punishments, and finds himself crucified. [This is the traditional Samaritan understanding here, but Ben-Hayyim argues for the meaning “burnt up”. The Aramaic verb is apparently from the root tsade-lamed-bet, and this is how the Samaritans understand it. Ben-Hayyim thinks this to be a phonetic variant of tsade-lamed-he-bet in this place, but it seems to me that he is scratching round for alternatives to the traditional understanding because he can’t see the relevance of it]. He turns to his ……. [meaning uncertain, perhaps property], and knows that there is no enjoyment from it”.

Verse Mem. “Death can be compared to a Priest making someone drink the Bitter Water of Testing. [I have translated according to the traditional Samaritan etymology and understanding, which is not far from the traditional Jewish understanding. Disregard the mangling by most modern translations. This is water that is drunk to establish innocence. It has a tiny little bit of the dirt of the ground round the Sanctuary in it, as well as something to make it bitter, from memory I think wormwood. A guilty person is afflicted by it. (It was a wonderful device for clearing people of slander). The innocent person unjustly accused is given better bodily and mental and spiritual health by it. (This is one of the hints of resurrection in the Torah, and Marqe seems to have it in mind along with the other meanings). The false accuser who has sworn a false oath or committed perjury or conspiracy is struck by afflictions or even in some cases death. The passage in the Torah is in Numbers. I will look up the reference later. There is a lot of traditional theory not stated in the words of the Torah but agreed on by Samaritans and Jews]. Woe on whoever is found to have committed sin. Woe on all sinners, since they will be in great distress. The punishments they suffer are the result of all their offences”.

Verse Nun. “The soul (or individual) stands dumbfounded. Those living are in great affliction, because the Good has turned his face away from them. If the Merciful does not save, and remember those that love him, all the sinners will bewail themselves, because they are in great distress”.

Verse Samech. “The signs tell us that in this generation of ours there is not a single person not in partnership with sinners. The mothers and children, all of whom took part and rebelled (maradu), they too are punished with (or suffer) tashnîqayya”.

Verse ‘Ayin. “The fact is that by our sins we are the ones that are the murderers, murderers of the silent and those that can speak Innocent animals or children that have never sinned, or young adults of good descent, suffer for sins they never committed”.

Verse Pe. “It is the Fanuta that has brought all this suffering about. The fruit of the womb is stopped, and the fruit of the earth destroyed. Every place is becoming accursed for us. The mouth of punishment is open before, ready to swallow up the baby with the old man”.

The word from the root tsade-lamed-bet in Verse Lamed is מצטלבה miṣṭållēbå. It is a perfectly normal ethpa’al participle (to use Syriac terminology) equivalent to the Hebrew hitpa’el. The t.et is an infix. It is the tav of the hitpa’el or ethpa’al which moves to AFTER a sibilant and changes its form to match the sibilant. Here it changes from tav to tsade. Next to zayin it will change to dalet. The only difficulty is the suffix, which in form is either feminine indefinite or masculine definite. The second grammatical interpretation of the suffix gives “The rebel sees himself vulnerable to punishments, and knows that he himself is the one crucified”. The first interpretation gives the meaning, “and knows that his identity is crucified”. The word translated “he himself” or “his identity” can only be interpreted from the context and a grammatical analysis of the components of the word, since the usage here is not attested elsewhere.

Something different. The old Samaritan Hebrew to Aramaic dictionary of the Torah glosses Shilo as “the unsheather of the cross”. Any suggestions? Ben-Hayyim, followed as usual by Tal (who should have copied Ben-Hayyim’s thoroughness and rigour but didn’t) translates “the uprooter of the cross” saying (as a mere guess) that it refers to Muhammad. This makes no sense. How could the rise of Islam have been what took the sceptre away from Judah? The verb shin-lamed-pe usually means to unsheathe a sword, but can mean to take a shoe off or to pull something out of the ground. I think the plain meaning is that the reference is to whoever unsheathed the cross and used it like a sword to take power away from Judah or the Jews, but I can’t work out what exactly is meant.

Verse Resh. “Merciful and Good, treat us justly and well as is your nature. We can’t withstand this judgment. A leaf on a tree startles a sinner, so how can we withstand judgment that startles the world? Treat us justly and well, so that we aren’t …… [verb is shin-nun-qof] by punishments”.

Notice the phrase in bold type. I have read right through this hymn. There are some more lines on the same theme in Verse Kaf and Verse Tsade, but they don’t add anything new.

ADDITION: The verb shin-vav-bet is Hebrew. The Aramaic equivalent is tav-vav-bet. The participle of the Aramaic verb is Ta’eb. I think your question is whether the Aramaic tav-vav-bet occurs. No. In Verse Yod the verb h.et-zayin-resh is used to mean returning to God or repenting. This is the usual Samaritan theological equivalent of the Hebrew shin-vav-bet when writing in Aramaic. The word Ta’eb does not mean someone that repents. It means someone that comes back again. It is used in the the extant texts in the sense of someone that makes something come back again, the Tabernacle or the Ruuta. That is grammatically impossible. In that meaning the af‘al participle would be needed (=Hebrew hif‘il), i.e. metib. This means the original meaning of the return of Moses has been deliberately obscured.

mountainman

But what did the Lord God Caesar Constantine's Holy Mother find while on a holiday in the "Holy Land" soon after it was opened officially for pilgrims three centuries after the event? Ma found the "One True Cross" and "The Holy Six Inchers" and then --- and only then in the later fourth century according to our archaeolgists --- crosses begin to be associated with the "Plain and Simple Religion of the Galilaeans". Was Jesus actually crucified or did he carry a May Pole is moot after the real traditional archaeological evidence had been located by the Boss's own mother in downtown Jerusalem.

stephan huller

Mountainman,

I think there are more possibilities here than what you lay out in your post. It's not just Constantine vs. the historical Jesus. Besides the finding of the Cross story goes to time before Helena. It is originally associated with 'Protonike' and I think in its earliest form it likely goes back to St. Berenice/Veronica whose shrine just happens to be located in front of Queen Julia Berenice's fortress in what was ancient Paneas modern Banias (I have actually been to Banias it's quite a remarkable site).

Here is a link to Drijvers's article http://www.jstor.org/pss/1584217 on the subject (Jan Willem Drijvers, "The Protonike Legend, the Doctrina Addai and Bishop Rabbula of Edessa," Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997), 298-315). Please read it and learn something.

There really is a native Palestinian martyr from the first century. That doesn't mean that Protonike or Berenice REALLY WERE Christians but once again it demonstrates blind spots in your over simplistic theory.

spamandham

It's an interesting idea. When the vagueness of 'stauros' (per those who understand the word) is combined with another idea floating about here lately - that of the orant being associated with the soul, do we start seeing a melding of ancient religious ideas transforming into Paul's cross with salvic power?

Toto

For those of us without access to JSTOR, Drijvers has a book that is excerpted on google books, Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross (or via: amazon.co.uk). In that book, Drijvers calls the Protonike story and the associated foundational legends of King Agbar "obviously historical fiction." The Protonike legend seems to be based on the Helena story of the discovery of the True Cross, or both stories have some common source - but how does this indicate a first century Palestian martyr?

Petergdi

I don't think so. Modern English readers tend to think of a "cross" as a particular shape, but the reason it means that shape is the result of Christian art depicting the cross as "cross shaped." I'm no expert, but I don't think that "Crux" in pre-christian Latin signified a particular shape.

It seems to me that a tradition of a T shaped cross was strong as early at the time of Tertullian and might possibly go back much further. But it doesn't seem that the shape of the cross is of any real importance to Christian theology.

The Alexamenos graffito appears to show the traditional type of cross, it isn't clear if the artist was aware of Christian depictions of the crucifixion or if he simly drew the type of cross most familiar to him.

Peter.