The Cross

Many Christians like to wear the cross as a show of faith. Have they considered that if Jesus were to come back, in all probability, the last thing he would want to see is another cross! (Perhaps that's why Jesus so far has not returned!)

Originally posted by 667joe
Many Christians like to wear the cross as a show of faith. Have they considered that if Jesus were to come back, in all probability, the last thing he would want to see is another cross! (Perhaps that's why Jesus so far has not returned!)

Wow.

You are so unclear on the concept, it's not even funny.

Originally posted by 667joe
Many Christians like to wear the cross as a show of faith. Have they considered that if Jesus were to come back, in all probability, the last thing he would want to see is another cross! (Perhaps that's why Jesus so far has not returned!)

This is an insult to Christ and the meaning of the cross to all true Christians.

The Jehovah's Witnesses make an interesting historical case that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a simple vertical pole and not a cross and that the adoption of the cross imagery was deliberately intended to push buttons related to religions that predated Christianity.

Originally posted by FMF
The Jehovah's Witnesses make an interesting historical case that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a simple vertical pole and not a cross and that the adoption of the cross imagery was deliberately intended to push buttons related to religions that predated Christianity.

This is part and parcel of their internalized dogma which they created out of whole cloth, despite what the Bible says. The Bible didn't support this invented dogma and so they hired questionable "experts" to create their own "translation" which miraculously enough supported their invented dogma. The concept of a "torture-stake" instead of a cross is a centerpiece of their invented dogma. Other Christians give it no credence whatsoever.

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is part and parcel of their internalized dogma which they created out of whole cloth, despite what the Bible says. The Bible didn't support this invented dogma and so they hired questionable "experts" to create their own "translation" which miraculously enough supported their invented dogma. The concept of a "torture-stake" instead of a cross is a centerpiece of their invented dogma. Other Christians give it no credence whatsoever.

They also replaced "cross" with 'torture stake" in their New World Translation.

Originally posted by 667joe
Many Christians like to wear the cross as a show of faith. Have they considered that if Jesus were to come back, in all probability, the last thing he would want to see is another cross! (Perhaps that's why Jesus so far has not returned!)

I thought "Trendies" had gone back to using the fish?

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is part and parcel of their internalized dogma which they created out of whole cloth, despite what the Bible says. The Bible didn't support this invented dogma and so they hired questionable "experts" to create their own "translation" which miraculously enough supported their invented dogma. The concept of a "torture-stake" instead of a cross is a centerpiece of their invented dogma. Other Christians give it no credence whatsoever.

Yes I alluded to the adoption of the cross imagery in the Bible in my post. I am aware of it. But from the historical point of view ~ rather than your faith-in-what-the-authors-of-the-Bible-wrote point of view ~ the case they made that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a vertical pole and not a cross is interesting and sounds entirely plausible.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
I thought "Trendies" had gone back to using the fish?

The fish is a symbol of Christian baptism because of its association with water as well as its association with the fishermen that Jesus promised to make fishers of men.

Matthew 4:19
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

But we Christians do not worship the fish or the cross. These symbols are simply representive of our Christian faith.

Originally posted by Suzianne
The concept of a "torture-stake" instead of a cross is a centerpiece of their invented dogma. Other Christians give it no credence whatsoever.

Why do you give it no credence given that the Bible does not actually say which was used?

Originally posted by RJHinds
The fish is a symbol of Christian baptism because of its association with water as well as its association with the fishermen that Jesus promised to make fishers of men.

That is not the origin of the symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys

Originally posted by 667joe
Have they considered that if Jesus were to come back, in all probability, the last thing he would want to see is another cross!

It vampires not zombies that are afraid of crosses. You have your mythologies mixed up.

Originally posted by twhitehead
That is not the origin of the symbol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys

You really think someone else knows more agout it than RJHinds?
The Near Genius ?

Be serious now.

Originally posted by Suzianne
This is part and parcel of their internalized dogma which they created out of whole cloth, despite what the Bible says. The Bible didn't support this invented dogma and so they hired questionable "experts" to create their own "translation" which miraculously enough supported their invented dogma. The concept of a "torture-stake" instead of a cross is a centerpiece of their invented dogma. Other Christians give it no credence whatsoever.

How are you going to explain this

The book The Non-Christian Cross, by John Denham Parsons, states: “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.”—London, 1896, pp. 23, 24.

can you tell us

1. who these questionable experts are that we allegedly hired?
2. where the Bible provides any information that the implement of impalement was anything other than a crux simplex

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux_simplex

You are going to be held accountable for your assertions, so either pony up the reasons or we shall be forced to conclude that your assertions are unsubstantiated and you are nothing but a windbag.

Originally posted by FMF
Yes I alluded to the adoption of the cross imagery in the Bible in my post. I am aware of it. But from the historical point of view ~ rather than your faith-in-what-the-authors-of-the-Bible-wrote point of view ~ the case they made that Jesus was executed by being nailed to a vertical pole and not a cross is interesting and sounds entirely plausible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crux_simplex