Jehovah's Witnesses: How long was Jesus impaled on the stake?

Question

Witnesses are very adamant about Jesus being put to death on a stake rather than a cross.

Numerous studies have been performed about this style of execution (including barbaric experiments by Nazi "scientists") who have proven that the maximum a normal healthy human can live in this condition is 15 minutes. If the legs are broken, or otherwise unable to be used for support, it drops to 3-5 mins.

I am curious, does the Watchtower feel that the gospel account occurred within the timeframe of 15 mins?

Or do they feel that Jesus as well as the two criminals were given divine protection to allow them to endure for hours what would normally kill them quite quickly?

Answer 1

The History Channel had interesting show about this. They found that those hung with their hands directly above their head died within hours. They also stated that those in this position died in minutes IF their legs were broken.



They found those who were in the Cross position died in days and the breaking of there legs only increased the pain they suffered. This why the Romans preferred the cross.



According to this source the eye witnesses of Christ's death are correct. Stake and not a cross.



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Answer 2

I saw a picture of the crucifixion JW style and he was not impaled on the stake, His arms were over his head and his hands were then nailed through with one spike into the "stake" (which looked to be about the size of a railroad tie). His feet were also nailed together into the stake with one nail. This was a common execution method by the Romans. They used both stakes and crosses. At no time was the condemned impaled upon the stake or cross. They died of suffocation, although many were granted mercy and killed with a spear after many hours or days. A very healthy man could hang there for as long as three or four days before dying.

Auntie Kookoo

Answer 3

No one was there with video cameras or timers. No one knows how long Jesus lived after his crucifixion. No one ever will. That said, if a person is impaled on a stake and no major organs or arteries happen to be involved, a person can live a couple of hours I would guess, depending on the extent of the bleeding, clotting factors, weather, etc.



Also, it may very well have been 15 minutes or less. The Bible tends to exaggerate things for dramatic effect. This would be true in the case of the story of the crucifixion. Would we have a savior if he didn't suffer in death awhile? Probably not. Hours on end makes it sound more important.

Answer 4

You have selectively chosen which interpretation of the secular evidence you wish to use.



Whether the means of hanging is on a cross or a stake, ALL the studies show that the individual can last many hours or days IF he can either sit or stand on a support. The quickness of death is ALWAYS dependant–not on the form of the implement–but on whether their legs, were loose enough so they could raise themselves to breath.



So to demand that Christ had to die in a short time would mean that you must ignore ALL the evidence in the Bible’s account.



First, the account shows that the practice was to break the victims’ legs. This is clear evidence that Christ was hung with a support to prolong his torture.



Second, and most important, is the fact that the Bible explicitly states that the implement was a “stake” or “pole.”



The apostle John and other Bible writers knew whether Jesus died on a cross.



The original Greek words rendered in most Bibles as "cross" are STAUROS and XYLON. They refer to a post or the trunk of a tree respectively. There is really not any debate about their meaning in Bible times. Many Greek lexicons list the primary meaning of stauros as stake, not cross.



John Denham Parsons states:



"There is not a single sentence in the NT, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than one piece of timber. It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as "cross"...honesty demands that we should no longer translate as "cross" a word which at the time our Gospels were written did not necessarily signify something cross-shaped."--The Non-Christian Cross"



So the translation of STAUROS as "cross" is a mistranslation. Therefore, the original words used in the Bible do not excuse the use of the modern cross as the instrument Christ died upon.





How did the cross come to be used by Christendom?



W.E. Vines Expository Dictionary says:



"STAUROS....denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake...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 it's origin in ancient Chaldea, and was used of the symbol of the god Tammaz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau)... By the middle of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either DEPARTED FROM, OR HAD TRAVESTIED, CERTAIN DOCTRINES OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH ...pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration of faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols."



So the use of the cross was a corruption of true Christianity.



Yours,



BAR-ANERGES

Answer 5

Tertullian, whom the Jehovah's Witnesses quote from when his words fit their teachings, mentions the shape of the cross Jesus was nailed to almost two centuries later:



For this same letter Tau of the Greeks, which is our T, has the appearance of the cross, which he foresaw we should have on our foreheads in the true and catholic Jerusalem… (Adversus Marcionem, III, 22)



Jesus would have died within hours of suffocation if he were on a stake. The broken legs are a clear indication that he did not die in such a manner-on a stake. Also one other thing to note is that in Ancient Rome the common style of execution was that of being nailed to a cross.



Here is one account among many ancient writers back then:



Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century B.C.) described this ancient practice:



"A Roman citizen of no obscure station, having ordered one of his slaves to be put to death, delivered him to his fellowslaves to be led away, and in order that his punishment might be witnessed by all, directed them to drag him through the Forum and every other conspicuous part of the city as they whipped him, and that he should go ahead of the procession which the Romans were at the time conducting in honour of the god. The men ordered to lead the slave to his

punishment, having stretched out both hands and fastened them to a piece of wood (tas kheiras apoteinantes amphoteras kai xuló prosdésantes) which extended across his chest and shoulders as far as his wrists, followed him, tearing his naked body with whips" (Roman Antiquities, 7.69.1-2).



Seneca (c. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65)

(6) *** refigere se crucibus conentur, in quas unusquisque vestrum clavos suos ipse adigit, ad supplicium tamen acti stipitibus singulis pendent; hi, qui in se ipsi animum advertunt, quot cupiditatibus tot crucibus distrahuntur.At maledici et in alienam contumeliam venusti sunt. Crederem illis hoc vacare, nisi quidam ex patibulo suo spectatores conspuerent! "Though they strive to release themselves from their crosses---those crosses to which each one of you nails himself with his own hand--yet they, when brought to punishment hang each one on a single stipes; but these others who bring upon themselves their own punishment are stretched upon as many crosses as they had desires. Yet they are slanderous and witty in heaping insult on others. I might believe that they were free to do so, did not some of them spit upon spectators from their own patibulum!" (De Vita Beata,19.3).

(7) ....alium in cruce membra distendere.... "another to have his limbs stretched upon the crux" (De Ira,1.2.2).

(8) Video istic cruces non unius quidem generis sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas: capite quidam conversos in terram suspendere, alii per obscena stipitem egerunt, alii brachia patibulo explicuerunt. "Yonder I see crosses, not indeed of a single kind, but differently contrived by different peoples; some hang their victims with head toward the ground, some impale their private parts, others stretch out their arms on a patibulum" (De Consolatione,20.3).

(9) Contempissimum putarem, si vivere vellet usque ad crucem....Est tanti vulnus suum premere et patibulo pendere districtum.... Invenitur, qui velit adactus ad illud infelix lignum, iam debilis, iam pravus et in foedum scapularum ac pectoris tuber elisus, cui multae moriendi causae etiam citra crucem fuerant, trahere animam tot tormenta tracturam? "I should deem him most despicable had he wished to live up to the very time of crucifixion....Is it worth while to weigh down upon one's own wound, and hang impaled upon a patibulum?....Can any man be found willing to be fastened to the accursed tree, long sickly, already deformed, swelling with ugly tumours on chest and shoulders, and draw the breath of life amid long drawn-out agony? I think he would have many excuses for dying even before mounting the crux!" (Epistle, 101.10-14).

(10) Cogita hoc loco carcerem et cruces et eculeos et uncum et adactum per medium hominem, qui per os emergeret, stipitem. "Picture to yourself under this head the prison, the crux, the rack, the hook, and the stake which they drive straight through a man until it protrudes from his throat" (Epistle, 14.5).

(11) ....sive extendendae per patibulum manus "....or his hands to be extended on a patibulum" (Fragmenta, 124; cf. Lactantius, Divinis Institutionibus, 6.17).



*******This subject is yet another instance of the Society's intellectual dishonesty and failure to represent the sources they quote*******

Answer 6

crucifixion or tying to a post could take days to kill you depending on the additional injuries they inflicted on you to speed it up.



impaling implies you've been run through with a pole/stake and that's going to speed up death, probably 15 minutes is the longest you could go without bleeding out, but minutes or less is more likely.



great impaling scenes in the tv serial movie, Shaka Zulu.

Answer 7

"...And Thor drove his mighty hammer into a stake in the ground, and thrust the Christ upon the pointed end. He declared, 'And this shall be your end, Christ. The almighty is mighty no longer!' But an angel came forth from the Kingdom of Heaven and said, 'Thor, you have disgraced your father Odin. The Christ was to be brought to Valhalla to /eat/ stake, not /be on a/ stake." Thor said, 'Oh...oops.' Christ died thereafter, 3 hours later."

Answer 8

@matthew you Do realise the stake or shall we say phallus ;) was a pagan instrument too.

Albeit kinky but very much pagan.

Answer 9

And here comes "the bible was being figurative, or using a metaphor" answer.

Answer 10

JESUS DIED ON A STAKE NOT A PAGAN CATHOLIC CROSS

Answer 11

all I know is that Thor impaled him