Cesc

Does anyone know references of any kind from around the centuries around Christianity's beginnings to the execution method of crucifixion as having a religious significance? Either Jewish or otherwise?
Surely, the Romans didn't see any religious connotation whatsoever in the act of a crucifixion?

I know of one example, apart from NT: From the DSS, where in the commentary scroll on Nahum, the writer connects the deuteronomic "curse of God" in "hanging on a tree" (Deut 21:22-23) with Alex Jannaeus' crucifixion of the 800 rebels in Jerusalem, who were "hung alive upon a tree". Doesn't this show an awareness on the part of the commentator of a religious meaning in the act of crucifixion?

Are there any other examples?

Thanks

Dave31

I just posted this quote in another thread not long ago. You may find it interesting...

Acharya's work gives several examples of gods, divine beings etc in cruciform long before Christianity was ever invented.

ph2ter

I think that the execution of Haman would be close enough:

The New Living Translation published by Tyndale in 2004,renders verses 9 and 10 of Chapter 7 in Esther as follows:
9 Then Harbona, one of the king's eunuchs, said, "Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination." "Then impale Haman on it!" the king ordered. 10 So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king's anger subsided. [4]""


The Jewish historian Josephus (c. AD 37-100), refers to the same incident where Haman "a tree [xulon] sixty cubits high to be cut down, and in the morning ask the king for leave to crucify [anastaurosai] Mordecai" on "gallows [xulon]" or "cross [stauron]" made from it, but Haman himself is "hanged [ekeinou] on that very same cross [stauron] till he was dead" (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 11.246ff).

"[Haman] also said that he was not pleased at seeing the Jew Mordecai in the court. Then Zarasa, his wife, told him to order a tree [xulon] sixty cubits high to be cut down, and in the morning ask the king for leave to crucify [anastaurosai] Mordecai; and he praised her plan and ordered his servants to make the gallows [xulon] ready and set it up in the court for the punishment of Mordecai. And so it was prepared. ... But Sabuchadas, one of the eunuchs, seeing the cross [stauron] that had been set up at Haman's house and prepared for Mordecai, inquired of one of the servants for whom they had made this ready, and, learning that it was for the queen's uncle, for the time being held his peace. ... At this Haman was overcome and unable to utter any further sound, and then came the eunuch Sabuchadas and accused Haman, saying that he had found a cross [stauron] at his house prepared for Mordecai. For this was what the servant had told him in answer to his inquiry, when he had come to Haman to summon him to the banquet. And the cross [stauron], he said, was sixty cubits in height. When the king heard this, he decided to inflict on Haman no other punishment than that which had been devised against Mordecai, and ordered him at once to be hanged [ekeinou] on that very same cross [stauron] till he was dead." (Josephus, "Jewish Antiquities," 11.246, 261, 266-268, in "Works," Marcus, R., transl., Heinemann: London, Vol VI, 1937, Reprinted, 1958, p. 443).

Aquila Pacis

I think that a tree is not a cross, therefore the hanging on a tree cannot be taken for a crucifixion.

In Dionysian rituals the god was i.a. affixed to a tropaion. But that's not a crucifixion either. That's just the effigy of a god on a cruciform prop.

Roger Pearse

The two were considered synonymous in various Christian texts in late antiquity, e.g. De ligno vitae.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Aquila Pacis

True, but late antiquity is after the fact. (Of course it's still valuable because it tells us a lot about later interpretations.)

spin

A tree might not literally be a cross, but that is irrelevant. The Greek word, ξυλον (= Heb עץ), found in LXX Deut 21:22, literally means "wood" with wide implications including a "post" and σταυροω, translated as "cross", is an "upright stake". The terms overlap without any difficulty.


spin

Aquila Pacis

I know that there is no "cross" or "crucifixion" in the gospel. It's all later interpretation, new added meaning to the words. (See also e.g. κρεμάω.) That's why I found Cesc's original question so important.