Jehovah's Witnesses view of Jesus' death

The Jehovah's Witnesses view of Jesus' death is that Jesus was crucified on an upright stake or pole, and not, as has been traditionally believed at least since the early second century on a cross. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that:
*the Greek word "stauros" does not refer to a cross.The Cross—Symbol of Christianity?, "The Watchtower", November 15, 1992, p.7.] The Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott, the major reference work on the Greek language from Homeric to early Christian times, reports that the meaning of the word "σταυρός" in the early Homeric form of Greek, possibly of the 8th to 6th century B.C., and also in the writings of the 5th-century B.C. writers Herodotus and Thucydides and the early-4th century B.C. Xenophon, is that of a stake; but that in the writings of the first-century B.C. Diodorus Siculus and in later writers, such as Plutarch and Lucian, it refers to a cross. [ [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2396298 Liddell and Scott: σταυρός] ]
*the cross was a pagan symbol later adopted by the churches.
*archaeology shows that Jesus died on a stake, not a cross. The "only archaeological case of crucifixion yet found (from Giv'at ha-Mivtar)" [ [http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/full/99/4/185 Matthew W Maslen and Piers D Mitchell: "Medical theories on the cause of death in crucifixion", in "Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine", Volume 99, Number 4 (2006)] ] [ [http://www.allbusiness.com/middle-east/israel/771089-1.html Ancient Jewish Man's Remains Give Clues on Crucifixion] ] [ [http://www.archaeology.org/0609/reviews/judaism.html Timothy K. Beal. "Jesus & Judaism" in "Archaeology", Volume 59 Number 5, September/October 2006] ] is of a man crucified in first-century Palestine; this one example has been interpreted as that of a man whose arms were attached in some manner to a crossbeam, however no conclusive evidence of arm position is provided by the evidence in that case. [See drawings in the three studies [http://www.centuryone.org/crucifixion2.html Crucifixion in Antiquity - The Evidence] , [http://www.restorationfoundation.org/volume_2/2139.htm Physical Evidence Unearthed for First Century Crucifixion] , and [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/jesus/crucifixion.html Jesus and Jehonan: An Archaeological Note on Crucifixion] .]
*the Bible does not say that Jesus died on a cross. It speakw of Jesus' death on a "stauros", a word whose meaning changed over time, as mentioned above.
*Jehovah's Witnesses claim that the torture stake (or cross) was insignificant and should not be used in worship.

Arguments

The New Testament was written in Koine Greek (Polytonic|Κοινή), the common language of commerce during the first century. The Greek word "stauros" (the original Greek underlying the rendering as "cross") can, at least in pre-Koine Greek, be translated as "stake". However, in Koine Greek, the form of Greek spoken at the time of Christ, the word was used for a "cross", according to writers quoted in Liddell and Scott, a standard lexicographical work of the ancient Greek language. [ [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%2396298 stauros] ]

Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers, and some writers indicate that the use of a "patibulum" (crossbeam) was normal in Roman crucifixion . [ [http://deathofjesus.netfirms.com/ Mayo Clinic Report] ] [http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=905&letter=C Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. "Crucifixion"] ]

The earliest writings that speak specifically of the shape of the cross on which Jesus died describe it like the letter T (the Greek letter tau). [Epistle of Barnabas [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Epistle_of_Barnabas#Chapter_9 Chapter 9] . Historians have collectively dated the document to around the end of the first century. [http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/barnabas-intro.html] ] Second-century writers report the shape of the cross as consisting of an upright and a transverse beam, together with a small ledge in the upright. ["The very form of the cross, too, has five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails" (Irenaeus (c. 130–202), "Adversus Haereses" II, xxiv, 4 [http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103224.htm] .]

References