I found this video interesting, from the Smithsonian Channel. It explains how commonplace crucifixions were with specific mention of the patebelum crosspiece
1st Cent.Crucifixions to Order and for Sport
by BluesBrother 4 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Phizzy
The J.W argument, in the light of this Vid. looks even more strange, apart from their dodgy use of 1st Century Greek, Stauros, and all that,I heard them say that " Jehovah would not allow his son to be put to death on a Pagan Symbol".
Well, the Cross in various forms was used in much of Pagandom, but this in the case of the Crucifixion, was simply an instrument of torture, and eventual death. It would not have been thought of as a religious symbol by the Romans, or the Jews, of the time.
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carla
I remember a site that showed that if Jesus was hung the way jw's claim He would have died within 10 minutes or so. Showed my jw some of the articles, obviously made no difference.
Here is one article-
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/apr/08/thisweekssciencequestions
"....One of the most severe methods of crucifixion put the arms straight above the victim. "That can [kill in] 10 minutes to half an hour - it's just impossible to breathe under those conditions," Ward says."
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Earnest
The lex Puteoli concerns a municipality which decided to contract out the services of an undertaker who doubled as executioner. The text directly relevant to crucifixion is as follows:
Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he [the owner] who wants the [punishment] to be inflicted, he [the contractor] exacts the punishment in this manner: if he wants [him] to bring the patibulum to the cross, the contractor will have to provide wooden posts, chains, and cords for the floggers and the floggers themselves. And anyone who will want to exact punishment will have to give four sesterces for each of the workers who bring the patibulum and for the floggers and also for the executioner.
Whenever a magistrate exacts punishment at public expense, so shall he decree; and whenever it will have been ordered to be ready to carry out the punishment, the contractor will have gratis to set up stakes (cruces), and will have gratis to provide nails, pitch, wax, candles, and those things which are essential for such matters. Also if he will be commanded to drag [the cadaver] out with a hook, he must drag the cadaver itself out, his workers dressed in red, with a bell ringing, to a place where many cadavers will be.
Patibulum can have the general sense of crux.
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Doug Mason
In Appendices of its translations of the Greek Scriptures (“New Testament”) the WTS provides a picture of a man attached to a single pole. This, they claim, is the manner of Christ’s execution. This picture, they explain, comes from the book De Cruce Liber Primus: “This is the manner in which Jesus was impaled” (Kingdom Interlinear, page 1155).
This is not impalement, in which the instrument of death is forced up through the victim’s body.
Most important is the fact that the WTS totally misrepresents what Justus Lipsius wrote.
He actually provided a number of illustrations, showing several such methods of execution. Lipsius concluded his research by saying that the conventional cross, in which a crosspiece is attached to a pole, was the implement used in Christ’s death.
It does not matter if Lipsius was right or wrong. What matters is that the WTS deliberately misreported Lipsius and that it hides factual evidence from its followers. Why should a stake be worshipped?
If it does this with an non-essential matter, how does it behave with critically important matters?
I obtained the pictures in the following PDF from an original book by Justus Lipsius, held in the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.
https://jwstudies.com/Pictures_from_Lipsius_de_Cruce_Liber_Primus.pdf
Doug