Did Jesus Really Die on a Cross?

Look up at most  Christian church windows or somewhere on the building and you will usually see a cross. This is a reminder of how Jesus supposedly died on behalf of mankind, but is this idea accurate? Did he really die on a cross?


Some Bible translations convey the idea that  yes he did. Take Today's English Version for instance, say that the soldiers forced Simon from Cyrene, "...to carry the cross of Jesus.  The word cross
however is translated from stauros.  And that is a problem.


Greek scholar W. E. Vine tells us why.  He says  stauros "denotes primarily an upright pale or stake. One such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb stauroo,  which means  tofasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross."


So what is it that Jesus was impaled on really an upright pole or a two-beamed cross? Another word Bible writers used when describing  what Jesus was impaled on. They said it was a xylon which it t urns out meant  a piece of timber or wooden stake that the Romans used to crucify criminals and those found guilty of sedition.


Although this picture of Jesus on a cross has been burned into our minds over the years it is wrong. This the conclusion of the editors of the  Critical Lexicon and Concordance.  Even  The Catholic Encyclopedia  admits: "Certain it is at any rate, that the cross originally consisted of a simple vertical pole, sharpened at its upper end."


Following the death of the last of the apostles apostates succeeded in getting church leaders to accept ideas adopted from Asian religions such as the Hindus and the Buddhists. According to Vine's  Expository Dictionary of New  Testament Words by the middle of the 3rd Century A.D. many such things had crept into the Christian church. Constantine, for example  was one who encourage his subjects and followers to accept such symbols in their worship.


Historians, however, have found no evidence  of the use of the  use of  a stake or a cross in the worship of early Christians. They used no idols. As a matter of fact Paul at 2 Cor 6: 14-16 asked: "What agreement does God's temple have with idols?" 


And it does not  make much sense, much sense as one 17th-century writer pointed out for Jesus followers to be worshiping the object on which  such an agonizing death does it?


So those who promote cross worship have it wrong on two counts: First of all   facts show that Jesus was impaled  on a stauros (xylon)  or stake not a two-beamed cross. Secondly the early Christians never  used any such thing to commemorate Jesus' execution.