Jesus's death

[UsagiTsukino]

Why do a few christians reject Jesus's death on the cross?

[Ged]

Are you referring to his execution on a pole without its cross member? If so, it would only be J.W's who say that.

[RickD]

Why do a few christians reject Jesus's death on the cross?

If someone rejects Christ's crucifixion, then they're not Christian.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

If you mean by what Ged says, it's bc of translations the Watchtower does, first started by Charles Taze Russel. JWs believe what their translation says and take it as gospel fact.

[UsagiTsukino]

How do I response to Christians who rejected Jesus decades on the cross? Many state who was hange in a tree stake not a cross. According to them it's because of the word stauroo.

[RickD]

Decades on the cross?

[Nessa]

Decades on the cross?

Maybe they meant died?

[thatkidakayoungguy]

Get some old church pictures like from the first several centuries AD. Since virtually all of Christendom accepted the cross as fact it might work. But then again these seem to be JWs you're with, and so I'm not sure how to help, since they're firm in that idea of the "Jesus on stake" thing.

[Stu]

Get some old church pictures like from the first several centuries AD. Since virtually all of Christendom accepted the cross as fact it might work. But then again these seem to be JWs you're with, and so I'm not sure how to help, since they're firm in that idea of the "Jesus on stake" thing.

Why do they say Jesus died on a stake?

[Philip]

Stu: Why do they (JWs) say Jesus died on a stake?

Does that even matter? They don't believe what the Bible clearly and redundantly teaches: That Jesus was, is and has always been God! And JWs deny it. So, if they assert a lie about what is most important about Christ, why care about arguments over the implement of His physical death?

[PaulSacramento]

How do I response to Christians who rejected Jesus decades on the cross? Many state who was hange in a tree stake not a cross. According to them it's because of the word stauroo.

JW's claim this and I have researched over the years and this is what I have found:

Stauroo means "beam" and that can be a stake ( vertical pole) or a "cross beam".

There are TWO maine points you can argue:

The issue is HOW did the Romans crucify?
They used BOTH methods BUT more often than not, they used a "T" shaped cross and since there is no reason to believe they would have deviated from the norm, then Jesus was more likely to have been crucified on a "T" shaped cross.
The epistle of Barnabas, while not canon, was included in the Codex Sinaiticus and it stated that Jesus died on a "TAU" shaped cross ( TAU being the capital letter T).
The earliest images of Jesus's crucifixion ( graffiti from the 2nd century) shows a T shaped cross.

Physics:
For Jesus to have been nailed to a vertical beam that means that He would have had to carry the WHOLE beam ( not just a cross member) on his walk to Golgotha and what does that mean?
Well, if Jesus was of average height for the time (65") then the post would have had to have been long enough to hold his whole body and up-stretched arms AND still be AT LEAST 3 ft into the ground, so a beam AT LEAST 9FT long and AT LEAST 6" square, which would weight AT LEAST 70 lbs.
Now, that may not seem like much but a 9 ft long piece of lumber that weights 70lbs is VERY HEAVY and after the beating he got we would NOT have been able to carry it at all.

Now, none of this PROVES that it was a cross BUT it certainly seem more PROBABLE and POSSIBLE that it was.

[PaulSacramento]

The two threads have been merged by the way.

[thatkidakayoungguy]

It seems JWs make it a big issue if Jesus was on a cross or stake. Am I right? If so why?

[PaulSacramento]

It seems JWs make it a big issue if Jesus was on a cross or stake. Am I right? If so why?

Simple to be different than the rest of Christianity.
It was not always the case, by the way, it started with Rutherford and continues to this day.
The creator of the Bible Students ( Charles Russel) that later became the JW's, had no issues with the cross or even celebrating Christmas BUT after his death and the division that happened ( one group kept the name Bible Students and the other became the JW's), the JW's wanted to show they were "set apart from the world and the apostate Christians denominations" and introduced doctrines ( along with their own translation of the bible) to make themselves different.

[RickD]

pauls wrote:
Simple to be different than the rest of Christianity.

I didn't know JWs were a part of Christianity.

I guess I learned something new today.