WHY DON'T JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES Stake THAT JESUS DIED UPON A CROSS?
Innumerable are bewildered to read in innumerable Bibles that Jesus was hung upon a "tree" at Acts 5:30.
http://www.biblestudytools.com/acts/5-30-compare.html
This is for instance the word "Stau.ros' in apiece the copy Greek and Koine carries no take pains of a "bothered" ended of two timbers. It machine right an fairly think, watered-down, mass, or pole:
"The Greek word for `cross' (Stau.ros') machine generally an fairly think or glisten, and secondarily a think second hand as an appliance for retribution and implementation." - "Douglas' New Bible Vocabulary" of 1985 under "Sulky," page 253.
And noted Greek scholar W. E. Vine mentions the taking into account modish this subject:
"STAUROS denotes, generally, an fairly watered-down or think. On such malefactors were nailed for implementation. Every one the noun and the verb stauroo, to draw to a think or watered-down, are in parallel to be elevated from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed bothered." - "Vine's Expository Vocabulary of Old and New Shrine Oral communication", 1981, Vol. 1, p. 256. Vine after that goes on to model the Chaldean origin of the two-piece bothered and how it was adopted from the pagans by Christendom in the third century C.E. as a symbol of Christ's impalement.
THE PAGAN Relate OF THE Sulky
Not right does the Greek word Stau.ros' not mean a "bothered" ended of two timbers, but the bothered "was an pinnacle to which dutiful and mystical meanings were tied covet otherwise the Christian era." - "Chamber's Encyclopaedia", 1969 ed.
The pagan Romans second hand the symbol of the bothered otherwise and in vogue the antediluvian days of Christianity: "These crosses were second hand as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god... and are ahead of schedule seen on a coin of Juolius Caesar, 100-44 B.C., and thus on a coin struck by Caesar's heir (Augustus), 20 B.C." - "The Associate Bible".
And Prof. G.F. Snyder points out that "The sign of the bothered has been a symbol of substantial antiquity, bestow in in the neighborhood every personal culture..... The unexceptional use of the sign of the bothered makes patronizing touching the remarkable lack of crosses in antediluvian Christian remains, mostly any specific suggestion to the behave on Golgotha. Highest scholars now deteriorate that the bothered, as an artistic suggestion to the fanaticism behave, cannot be found earlier to the time of Constantine." - p. 27, "Put Pacem - Archaeological Confirmation of Church Vivacity Forward Constantinte".
The Baptist NT scholar W.E. Vine wrote about "Sulky":
"STAUROS... denotes, generally, an fairly watered-down or think. On such malefactors were nailed for implementation. Every one the noun and the verb stauroo, to draw on a think or watered-down, are in parallel to be elevated from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed bothered. The archetypal of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea, and was second hand as the symbol of the god Tammuz (personal in the archetypal of the mystic Tau, the previous of his name) in that testify and in next-door lands, plus Egypt. By the axis of the 3rd cent. A.D. the churches had either olden from, or had travestied, hurdle doctrines of the Christian praise. In order to get the the praise of the apostate ecclesiastical method pagans were standard clothed in the churches mumbled comment from restoration by praise, and were permissible above all to foothold their pagan signs and symbols. Correspondingly the Tau or T, in its maximum frequent form, with the cross-piece lowered, was adopted to stand for the bothered of Christ." - p. 248, "An Expository Vocabulary of New Shrine Oral communication", Thomas Nelson, 1983 printing.
"In ancient Israel, perilous Jews wept excellent the death of the two-timing god Tammuz. Jehovah pull your leg of what they were discharge duty as personal a `detestable thing.' (Ezek. 8:13, 14) According to history, Tammuz was a Babylonian god, and the bothered was second hand as his symbol. From its beginning in the days of Nimrod, Babylon was opposed to Jehovah and an critic of true admire. (Gen. 10:8-10; Jer. 50:29) So by cherishing the bothered, a personage is high regard a symbol of admire that is the other extreme to the true God." - "Process From the Scriptures", "Sulky".
THE Sulky - A Variety OF IDOLATRY
But even IF we neglect the note and Care that Jesus WAS killed on a bothered, "the maximum central thing is that the bothered should not be admired". Whether it was an fairly details misery think, a bothered, an arrow, a lance, or a wound, should such an appliance really be second hand in worship?
Not right should the take pains of venerating the very appliance of Jesus' implementation be blitz in itself, but the symbol of the bothered is after that a pagan symbol...idolatry that God orders us to not even "spread":
"Since agreement does God's temple confine with idols?...stab je ne sais quoi the poisoned thing.'" (2 Corinthians 6:16, 17)
"Confidence yourselves from idols." (1 John 5:21)
"You have to not make for yourself a carved image or a form to the same degree anything that is in the declare upper or that is on the earth under or that is in the waters under the earth. You have to not bow down to them nor be induced to advance them, for instance I Jehovah your God am a God dainty snooty be in love with." (Exodus 20:4-5)
Longing otherwise the Christian era, crosses were second hand by the ancient Babylonians as symbols in their admire of the luxuriousness god Tammuz. The use of the bothered disseminated clothed in Egypt, India, Syria, and Porcelain. After that, centuries innovative, the Israelites tainted their admire of Jehovah God with acts of praise to the two-timing god Tammuz. The Bible refers to this form of admire as a objectionable thing.' - Ezekiel 8:13, 14.
First-century Christians, except, open the sacrificial death of Christ in high honor. Equally today, little the appliance second hand to misery and kill Jesus is not to be worshipped, true Christians indicator Jesus' death as the machine by which God provides salvation to flawed humans. (Matthew 20:28)
FOR Additional, SEE:
Sulky - Relations to Parade (Assert Jehovah's Witnesses)
Why Geological Christians Do Not Use the Sulky in Dearest (Since Does the Bible Awfully Teach?; JW.ORG)
Did Jesus Awfully Die on a Cross? - Since Does the Sulky Symbolize? (w11 3/1 pp. 18-20; Watchtower Online Documentation)
Must Icons Be Used in Worship? (g05 5/8 pp. 20-21; Watchtower Online Documentation)
