Why does the Charles T Russell bunch or JW's believe Christ was hung from a tree?

Question

Why does the Charles T Russell bunch or JW's believe Christ was hung from a tree?

Answer 1

The tree, pole, cross used for the crucifixion is not specified. The "type" of the sacrifice to come by Moses indicates it was a pole. Since crucifixions were common and Christ was required to take his to the place where the crucifixions take place, it is unlikely that such a device was an actual living tree.



The translation methods used in producing the NWT are largely mechanical, word-for-word, so one has to do some additional interpreting to see what was being said.

Answer 2

As Partymar.. has quoted the exact reason of the wording, I will comment on the phrase and circumstances.



"Hung from a tree" does not mean with a rope from a tree branch. The Bible tells us Jesus was nailed by feet and hands to the wood. At dispute is whether it was a single piece of wood or two.



Consider what the Romans were trying to accomplish in this manner of death. Whatever would produce the most pain and torture. No one can dispute nailing feet & hands is not pleasant. Spreading the arms out though, would allow them to live for some time, days in fact. The Romans needed this over that day.



What would provide the most pain and get it over with in one day? That would be nailing the hands straight up over the head while bending the knees while nailing the feet. Stretch your arms out and you can still breathe. Lift them over your head and your lungs are compressed. Relief is only accomplished by lifting the knees to get a breath. That can only last as long as legs can stand the pain. Then the lungs get compressed again so one would choke again. Intense pain, lingering torture but no one could last for more than a day.



This would be the Roman way. Also it is a cheap and easy method. There is no need for joining 2 pieces of wood together.



Additionally, "hung from a tree" shows a lack of knowledge. This is a quote from Galatians 3:13 which itself, is a quote from Deuteronomy 21:23,



"Christ by purchase released us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse instead of us, because it is written: “Accursed is every man hanged upon a stake.” "--Galatians



"“And in case there comes to be in a man a sin deserving the sentence of death, and he has been put to death, and you have hung him upon a stake, 23 his dead body should not stay all night on the stake; but you should by all means bury him on that day, because something accursed of God is the one hung up;" --Deut.



Now the King James uses the term "tree". So are you saying you believe the King James is herecy too or you were wrong in saying "hung from a tree" is only what JWs say and not as it truthfully is, from the Bible?

Answer 3

*** rs p. 89 par. 1 - p. 90 par. 1 Cross ***



The Greek word rendered “cross” in many modern Bible versions (“torture stake” in NW) is stau‧ros′. In classical Greek, this word meant merely an upright stake, or pale. Later it also came to be used for an execution stake having a crosspiece. The Imperial Bible-Dictionary acknowledges this, saying: “The Greek word for cross, [stau‧ros′], properly signified a stake, an upright pole, or piece of paling, on which anything might be hung, or which might be used in impaling [fencing in] a piece of ground. . . . Even amongst the Romans the crux (from which our cross is derived) appears to have been originally an upright pole.”—Edited by P. Fairbairn (London, 1874), Vol. I, p. 376.



Was that the case in connection with the execution of God’s Son? It is noteworthy that the Bible also uses the word xy′lon to identify the device used. A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott, defines this as meaning: “Wood cut and ready for use, firewood, timber, etc. . . . piece of wood, log, beam, post . . . cudgel, club . . . stake on which criminals were impaled . . . of live wood, tree.” It also says “in NT, of the cross,” and cites Acts 5:30 and 10:39 as examples. (Oxford, 1968, pp. 1191, 1192) However, in those verses KJ, RS, JB, and Dy translate xy′lon as “tree.” (Compare this rendering with Galatians 3:13; Deuteronomy 21:22, 23.)



The book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), says: “There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as ‘cross’ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting ‘cross’ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible (London, 1885), Appendix No. 162.



Thus the weight of the evidence indicates that Jesus died on an upright stake and not on the traditional cross.

Answer 4

I'm not sure. But Charles Taze Russell has been criticized for numerous things:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Taze_Russell#Criticisms_and_controversies



Judging from his criticisms, it's apparent that this fellow is quite controversial. And so are his viewpoints. And, controversial viewpoints are usually controversial because they're wrong. Accordingly, Charles T. Russell is probably wrong about Jesus being hung from a tree instead of crucified (there is 100% evidence that Romans used crucifixion as a death penalty during the time of Jesus in all their provinces).

Answer 5

Because that's what the King James Bible, the Catholic Douay Version and the Revised Standard Version Bibles say at Acts 5:30 and Acts 10:39:



"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." Acts 5:30, AV (Authorized Version (King James))



"39And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:" Acts 10:39.

Answer 6

The Catholic Digest magazine, May, 1948, page 108, had the following to say on the subject of the cross: “Long before the birth of Christ the cross was a religious symbol. On the site of ancient Troy discs of baked clay stamped with a cross, were recently discovered. Two similar objects were found at Herculaneum. The Aztecs of ancient Mexico carved the cross on amulets, pottery, and temple walls. Many traces of use of the cross by North American Indians have been discovered. Buddhists of Tibet see in the cross a mark of the footprint of Buddha. The Mongolians draw a cross on paper and place it on the breasts of their dead. Egyptian inscriptions often have the Tau (T) cross. They considered the scarab (beetle) sacred because markings down the back and across the thorax form a T. A cross of this form was used as a support for the arms of Hindu ascetics in India who were wont to sit for days and nights in a Buddhalike attitude. The crux ansata (handled cross) has a loop serving as a handle. For the Egyptians this cross was a symbol of life and in their sign language meant ‘to live.’” See also The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, page 517; the footnote on pages 312, 313, of Gibbon’s History of Christianity, Eckler’s edition, 1891.



But how was the cross a “symbol of life” to the pagans? Well, a father, the male, is life-giver to his children by and through the mother. Hence, those sex-worshiping pagans, under the inspiration of the Devil and his demons, constructed a phallic image of the erected male genitive organ, with a crossbar toward one end to represent the testes. Carrying the symbolism a step further in the crux ansata, the loop on the top, which pious religionists choose to describe as a “handle”, represented the female genitive organ joined to the masculine symbol. That these diabolical facts are true, see the following references: Funeral Tent of an Egyptian Queen, by Villiers Stuart; Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship, by Sha Rocco; Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop; Essays on the Worship of Priapus, by Richard Payne Knight.



Reference to the original languages in which the Bible was written will show beyond a question of doubt that Christ was never hung on any pagan cross. Hence, the use of the word “cross” in the English-language Bibles is a mistranslation. On this, the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, in its appendix, on pages 768-771, in commenting on Matthew 10:38, where the Greek word σταυρός (stau‧ros′) first appears and which is translated “cross” in most Bibles, states:



“This is the expression used in connection with the execution of Jesus at Calvary. There is no evidence that the Greek word stau‧ros′ meant here a ‘cross’ such as the pagans used as a religious symbol for many centuries before Christ to denote the sun-god. On the ancient sculptures of Egypt may be seen representations of their gods bearing the so-called crux an‧sa′ta, a T-cross with a loop at the top, it being a phallic symbol of life. In Babylonian inscriptions Tammuz was signified by a heart from which sprang a single or a double cross.



“India, Syria, Persia, as well as Babylon and ancient Egypt, have all yielded objects marked with crosses of various designs, including the swastika among the early Aryans. This betrays the worshiping of the cross to be pagan.



“In the classical Greek the word stau‧ros′ meant merely an upright stake or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation. The verb stau‧ro′o meant to fence with pales, to form a stockade or palisade, and this is the verb used when the mob called for Jesus to be impaled. To such a stake or pale the person to be punished was fastened, just as when the popular Greek hero Pro‧me′the‧us was represented as tied to a stake or stau‧ros′. The Greek word which the dramatist Aes′chy‧lus used to describe this means to fasten or fix on a pole or stake, to impale, and the Greek author Lucian used a‧na‧stau‧ro′o as a synonym for that word. In the Christian Greek Scriptures a‧na‧stau‧ro′o occurs but once, at Hebrews 6:6. The root verb stau‧ro′o occurs more than 40 times, and we have rendered it ‘impale’, with the footnote: ‘Or, “fasten on a stake or pole.’”



“The inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures wrote in the common (koi‧ne′) Greek and used the word stau‧ros′ to mean the same thing as in the classical Greek, namely, a stake or pale, a simple one without a crossbeam of any kind or at any angle. There is no proof to the contrary. The apostles Peter and Paul also use the word xy′lon to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed, and this argues that is was an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy′lon in this special sense means. (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24) At Ezra 6:11 we find xy′lon in the Greek Septuagint (1 Esdras 6:31), and there it is spoken of as a beam on which the violator of law was to be hanged, the same as at Luke 23:39; Acts 5:30; 10:39.



“The fa

Answer 7

*sigh* fine...if you don't like the NIV, then the King James says the same thing.



=Edited=



Acts 10:39 (King James Version)



"And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree"



Acts 5:30 (King James Version)



"The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree."



Acts 5:30 (New International Version)



"The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree."



Acts 5:30 NIV footnote:

...Like its Hebrew counterpart, the Grek for this word could refer to a tree, a pole, a wooden beam or some similar object.



The Bible alone, with the words it uses to describe Jesus' instrument of execution, cannot be used to determine the shape of that instrument. The Greek word stauros, and its counterpart xylon, commonly refer to nothing but a simple piece of wood or tree. That is why the translators of the KJV and NIV COULD NOT use the word cross in those instances, because the original Greek word does not indicate a "t" shaped cross.



The following websites are the most comprehensive that I have come across to date with regards this controversy. The first addressing nearly all of the points regarding translation and the circumstantial (and often twisted) evidence used to support the "t" shaped stauros.



The second site deals primarily with the pagan origins of the cross in Christianity.



http://web.archive.org/web/20071203205752/mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/newworldtranslation/stauros.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20040205235649/hector3000.future.easyspace.com/cross.htm



Also of interest:

"That Christ did not die on the traditionally shaped cross is also indicated by the testimony of the catacombs. Thus Dean Burgon, in his Letters from Rome, wrote: “I question whether a cross occurs on any Christian monument of the first four centuries.” Mons Perret, who spent fourteen years doing research in the catacombs of Rome, counted in all a total of 11,000 inscriptions among the millions of tombs. According to him, “not until the latter years of the fourth century does the sign of the cross appear.”



Ironically, the "latter years of the forth century" conicide with Constantine's so called "vision" of the cross and his pushing for its acceptance by Christians.



"In the year 312, Constantine, who at the time was emperor of what is now known as France and Britain, set out with his army to war against Maxentius, then emperor of Italy, and who, incidentally, was the brother of Constantine’s wife. Somewhere along the way one day, at about high noon, Constantine was amazed to see in the sky a pillar of light in the form of a cross on which was written Hoc Vince, meaning “By this, Conquer”.



The following night, so the story goes, Jesus Christ himself appeared to Constantine while he was asleep, and told him to make a banner bearing this heavenly cross and to carry it at the head of his army, for it was to be a token or sign of victory. This he did, and, besides, had the monogram cross painted on the shields of his warriors before the final and decisive battle at the Milvian Bridge near Rome where Maxentius was killed...Religiously, Constantine was a worshiper of the sun, like other pagans of his day. Apollo was his “patron saint”. It may be related, for example, that after putting down rebellion among the Franks in the year 308, he went immediately to the temple of Apollo and offered up gifts and prayers of thanksgiving to that pagan god."

Answer 8

Jesus did not die on a crux (cross), but on a stauros (stake).



X was used first as it is the first Greek letter of the word Christ. The custom of kissing the cross by Roman Catholics is where signing your letters with XXX for kisses originated.



X with a P (Chi Rho) superimposed on it, is what Constantine saw in a vision. X with l stake through it was also used as a symbol...plus the one (lung cancer symbol) t with an extra - at top. They are all brands of different pagan gods such as the Egyptian healing god Aesculpius and others. t or tau is for Tammuz.



Christian references commonly state Jesus was killed on a stake or single pale or pole.



There are many Hebrew and Greek references and interlinears available

to preachers and seminary students and often to ordinary lay people as

well....especially on the internet where they can be used free of charge.

Hard copy (books) may cost dozens or hundreds of your dollars.



The origins of cross and trinity are commonly known to preachers. You

can view these materials for yourself. I'll provide links: This may take

2 of these messages as they can only be so long.



Cross References



Strong's Greek Dictionary/Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT words



James Strong did Strongs concordance also.



http://www.apostolic-churches.net/bible/strongs.html Use this to check

any verse in KJV where "cross" occurs. Hit the word link to find what

instrument was actually used to kill Jesus.



http://www.tgm.org/bible.htm This link has both Strong's and Vines'

actual original language word dictionaries. Scroll down to either and

put cross in the English or Stauros in the Greek box. Strong's number

is 4716.



http://cf.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G4716&t=KJV

Thayer's Greek lexicon



http://www.studylight.org/isb/ Interlinear Bibles showing English and

Greek. Click on the word to see what it really means/comes from.

This has the Textus Receptus that KJV used, Byzantine, and Nestle-

Arnand Greek texts and several Hebrew Interlinears also.



http://philologos.org/__eb-ttb/ The Two Babylons book by

Reverend Alexander Hyslop, 1800s....has a cross section.



http://www.nazarene-friends.org/nazcomm/40/010.htm#38

21st Century Bible (Nazarene) has lengthy notes on cross not

being the instrument used each place where cross occurs in Bible

(footnotes..click link)



http://www.wordofyah.org/scriptures/nt/B40C010.htm

Paleo Times Bible (historic and linguistic, uses stake instead

of cross in English Bible text)



Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Cross, Crucify



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Cross-references:



Also found in Nave's Topical Bible

Also found in Easton's Bible Dictionary



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Cross, Crucify

A. Noun

stauros

B. Verbs

stauroo

sustauroo

anastauroo

prospegnumi





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



A1. Cross, Crucify [Noun]



stauros denotes, primarily, "an upright pale or stake." On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo, "to fasten to a stake or pale," are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed "cross." The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) in that country and in adjacent lands, including Egypt. By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith. In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the "cross" of Christ.

Answer 9

I have alot of friends and family that are witnesses.



None of them believe christ was hung from a tree.



there have been splinter groups that broke off from JW's maybe they believe that.



but as far as practicing witnesses i've asked them all and they say thats stupid as well.



the only guy that any of them or myself remember hanging from a tree was judas after he betrayed jesus. he hung himself from a tree and his guts ripped out of his abdomen and hit the ground.

Answer 10

There are several referrences in the X-ian scriptures that indicates such.

Read:

Acts ch.5

" ch.10

" ch.13

1 pet. ch. 2

Gal. ch. 3

Answer 11

cross = wood

wood = tree



yeah.



god is not real

Answer 12

I really don't care!

God Bless