Bible Question: Where is scripture to back up the belief that Jesus was not crusifed on a cross, like some demonations teach. And proof that he was. |
Bible Answer: Greetings Ddrundle! There isn't any Scripture which denies that Jesus was crucified. Here is part of an article from the New Bible Dictionary. *************************** CROSS, CRUCIFIXION. The Gk. word for ‘cross (stauros; verb staurooµ; Lat. crux, crucifigo, ‘I fasten to a cross’) means primarily an upright stake or beam, and secondarily a stake used as an instrument for punishment and execution. It is used in this latter sense in the NT. The noun occurs 28 times and the verb 46. The crucifixion of live criminals did not occur in the OT (staurooµ in the lxx of Est. 7:10 is the Heb. taµlaÆ, meaning ‘to hang’). Execution was by stoning. However, dead bodies were occasionally hung on a tree as a warning (Dt. 21:22-23; Jos. 10:26). Such a body was regarded as accursed (hence Gal. 3:13) and had to be removed and buried before night came (cf. Jn. 19:31). This practice accounts for the NT reference to Christ’s cross as a ‘tree’ (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; 1 Pet. 2:24), a symbol of humiliation. Crucifixion was practised by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians and later used extensively by the Romans. Only slaves, provincials and the lowest types of criminals were crucified, but rarely Roman citizens. Thus tradition, which says that Peter, like Jesus, was crucified, but Paul beheaded, is in line with ancient practice. Apart from the single upright post (crux simplex) on which the victim was tied or impaled, there were three types of cross. The crux commissa (St Anthony’s cross) was shaped like a capital T, thought by some to be derived from the symbol of the god Tammuz, the letter tau; the crux decussata (St Andrew’s cross) was shaped like the letter X; the crux immissa was the familiar two beams, held by tradition to be the shape of the cross on which our Lord died (Irenaeus, Haer. 2. 24. 4). This is strengthened by the references in the four Gospels (Mt. 27:37; Mk. 15:26; Lk. 23:38; Jn. 19:19-22) to the title nailed to the cross of Christ over his head. After a criminal’s condemnation, it was the custom for a victim to be scourged with the flagellum, a whip with leather thongs, which in our Lord’s case doubtless greatly weakened him and hastened eventual death. He was then made to carry the cross-beam (patibulum) like a slave to the scene of his torture and death, always outside the city, while a herald carried in front of him the ‘title’, the written accusation. It was this patibulum, not the whole cross, which Jesus was too weak to carry, and which was borne by Simon the Cyrenian. The condemned man was stripped naked, laid on the ground with the cross-beam under his shoulders, and his arms or his hands tied or nailed (Jn. 20:25) to it. This cross-bar was then lifted and secured to the upright post, so that the victim’s feet, which were then tied or nailed, were just clear of the ground, not high up as so often depicted. The main weight of the body was usually borne by a projecting peg (sedile), astride which the victim sat. There the condemned man was left to die of hunger and exhaustion. Death was sometimes hastened by the crurifragium, breaking of the legs, as in the case of the two thieves, but not done in our Lord’s case, because he was already dead. However, a spear was thrust into his side to make sure of death, so that the body could be removed, as the Jews demanded, before the sabbath (Jn. 19:31ff.). The method of crucifixion seems to have varied in different parts of the Roman empire. Secular writers of the time shrink from giving detailed accounts of this most cruel and degrading of all forms of punishment. But new light has been thrown on the subject by archaeological work in Judaea. In the summer of 1968 a team of archaeologists under V. Tzaferis discovered four Jewish tombs at GivÔat ha-Mivtar (Ras el-Masaref), Ammunition Hill, near Jerusalem, where there was an ossuary containing the only extant bones of a (young) crucified man, dating from probably between ad 7 and ad 66, judging from Herodian pottery found there. The name Jehohanan is incised. Thorough research has been made into the causes and nature of his death and may throw considerable light on our Lord’s form of death. The young man’s arms (not his hands) were nailed to the patibulum, the cross-beam, which might indicate that Lk. 24:39; Jn. 20:20, 25, 27 should be translated ‘arms’. The weight of the body was probably borne by a plank (sedecula) nailed to the simplex, the upright beam, as a support for the buttocks. The legs had been bent at the knees and twisted back so that the calves were parallel to the patibulum or cross-bar, with the ankles under the buttocks. One iron nail (still in situ) had been driven through both his heels together, with his right foot above the left. A fragment shows that the cross was of olive wood. His legs had both been broken, presumably by a forcible blow, like those of Jesus’ two companions in Jn. 19:32. ************************************ Your Brother in Christ, Tim Moran |
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