Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar

here are some links that might support the opposite of the scholar's premise:

Crucifixion in Antiquity

ORIGINS
This form of state terror, widespread across the Roman Empire which included Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, originated several centuries before the Common Era continuing into the fourth century CE when the practice was discontinued by Constantine, the emperor of Rome. Hengel, in his monumental work on the subject entitled Crucifixion (1989:22-23) writes that while authors generally regard it’s origin as in Persia due to the writings of Herodotus it’s practice was found among the Indians, Assyrians, Scythians, Taurians, Celts, Greeks, Seleucids, Romans, Britanni, Numidians, Carthagians the latter who may have transferred it’s knowledge to the Romans. While its origins are obscured in antiquity it’s clear that the form of capital punishment lasted for nearly 900 years beginning with Darius’s (550-485 BCE) crucifixion of 3,000 Babylonian captives in 519 BCE (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1993, Vol.3, p.762) and ending with the Roman emperor Constantine in 337 CE, thus tens if not hundreds of thousands of individual victims were subject to this cruel and humiliating form of punishment. Mass executions in which hundreds and thousands died, such as the well known crucifixion of 6,000 followers of Spartacus as part of a victory celebration in 71 BCE appear in the literature (Bella Civilia I.120). While many people believe that crucifixion was reserved for criminals only, as a result of Plutarch’s (46-120 CE) passage that “each criminal condemned to death bears his cross on his back” (Mor.554A/B) the literature clearly shows that this class of individuals were not the only ones subjected to this ultimate fate. Alexander the Great had 2,000 survivors from the siege of Tyre crucified on the shores of the Mediterranean (Curtius Rufus, Hist. Alex. 4.4.17) while in the times of Caligula (37-41 CE) Jews were tortured and crucified in the amphitheater to entertain the inhabitants of Alexandria. Women are seldom if ever mentioned specifically in the ancient Jewish sources aside from two passages in the Mishna, one in Tractate Mourning 2.11 which suggests that women may have been sacrificed as well. The second reference is found in Sanhedrin 6.5 in which Simeon b. Shetah had 70 or 80 sorceresses hung in the city of Ashkelon. However, as crucifixion was widely employed with slaves one can assume that in the ancient world, its use was thus not limited by gender, but mainly by class.

two excerpts from Josephus' "Wars of the Jews"

9. Florus was more provoked at this, and called out aloud to the soldiers to plunder that which was called the Upper Market-place, and to slay such as they met with. So the soldiers, taking this exhortation of their commander in a sense agreeable to their desire of gain, did not only plunder the place they were sent to, but forcing themselves into every house, they slew its inhabitants; so the citizens fled along the narrow lanes, and the soldiers slew those that they caught, and no method of plunder was omitted; they also caught many of the quiet people, and brought them before Florus, whom he first chastised with stripes, and then crucified. Accordingly, the whole number of those that were destroyed that day, with their wives and children, (for they did not spare even the infants themselves,) was about three thousand and six hundred. And what made this calamity the heavier was this new method of Roman barbarity; for Florus ventured then to do what no one had done before, that is, to have men of the equestrian order whipped (21) and nailed to the cross before his tribunal; who, although they were by birth Jews, yet were they of Roman dignity notwithstanding.

(book 2, chapter 14)

Now it happened that, on a certain time, when the fight was over, and both sides were parted, and retired home, he, in way of contempt of the enemy, and thinking that none of them would begin the fight again at that time, staid without the gates, and talked with those that were upon the wall, and his mind was wholly intent upon what they said. Now a certain person belonging to the Roman camp, whose lame was Rufus, by birth an Egyptian, ran upon him suddenly, when nobody expected such a thing, and carried him off, with his armor itself; while, in the mean time, those that saw it from the wall were under such an amazement, that Rufus prevented their assistance, and carried Eleazar to the Roman camp. So the general of the Romans ordered that he should be taken up naked, set before the city to be seen, and sorely whipped before their eyes. Upon this sad accident that befell the young man, the Jews were terribly confounded, and the city, with one voice, sorely lamented him, and the mourning proved greater than could well be supposed upon the calamity of a single person. When Bassus perceived that, he began to think of using a stratagem against the enemy, and was desirous to aggravate their grief, in order to prevail with them to surrender the city for the preservation of that man. Nor did he fail of his hope; for he commanded them to set up a cross, as if he were just going to hang Eleazar upon it immediately; the sight of this occasioned a sore grief among those that were in the citadel, and they groaned vehemently, and cried out that they could not bear to see him thus destroyed. Whereupon Eleazar besought them not to disregard him, now he was going to suffer a most miserable death, and exhorted them to save themselves, by yielding to the Roman power and good fortune, since all other people were now conquered by them. These men were greatly moved with what he said, there being also many within the city that interceded for him, because he was of an eminent and very numerous family; so they now yielded to their passion of commiseration, contrary to their usual custom. Accordingly, they sent out immediately certain messengers, and treated with the Romans, in order to a surrender of the citadel to them, and desired that they might be permitted to go away, and take Eleazar along with them. Then did the Romans and their general accept of these terms; while the multitude of strangers that were in the lower part of the city, hearing of the agreement that was made by the Jews for themselves alone, were resolved to fly away privately in the night time; but as soon as they had opened their gates, those that had come to terms with Bassus told him of it; whether it were that they envied the others' deliverance, or whether it were done out of fear, lest an occasion should be taken against them upon their escape, is uncertain.

(book 7, chapter 6, section 4)


Alexander the Great, while not Roman, is said to have crucified many after taking Tyre:

The extent of the bloodshed can be judged from the fact that 6,000 fighting-men were slaughtered within the city's fortifications. It was a sad spectacle that the furious king then provided for the victors: 2,000 Tyrians, who had survived the rage of the tiring Macedonians, now hung nailed to crosses all along the huge expanse of the beach.

source

i have no doubt that crucifixions took place, in great numbers, not only in Roman but in other places and in other times. it is said that it originated in the Akkadian kingdoms, which would be a few millenia before Palestine's executions under Roman Rule.

and i mean, REALLY, who would dream up something like that if it hadn't actually taken place? by that, i mean crucifixion in general.

i tried to keep my references away from the whole christian idea because it isn't just about Jesus. to me, it is more about man's inhumanity to man.

it's probably the worst form of capital punishment ever devised - or maybe second - only to being drawn and quartered. i can't say which i think is more horrible and i have no way of knowing which hurt more. however, crucifixion likely took longer to bring death that drawing-and-quartering. that might be the only determinant between the two forms of execution.

regardless, it is nothing but HORRIFIC!

Thank you for your contribiution.

Personally... I agree with you. Why should they make up a perfectly way to torture and execute one at the same time ?

I had to laugh after I read this :

i tried to keep my references away from the whole christian idea because it isn't just about Jesus. to me, it is more about man's inhumanity to man.

Cause I'm convinced that humanity is the problem. People just tend to forget about the dark side of being human...

Our place on top of the food chain is not a prize from a cereal box, is it ? Only the most cunning and best adapted killers get a chance to conquer the highest place on the list. Let alone keeping it...

Being that we were not there to witness and that the words regarding Jesus were written by men then we can never be sure, can we?

I like how the term scholar is not pluralized.

Originally posted by Sinter Klaas

Cause I'm convinced that humanity is the problem. People just tend to forget about the dark side of being human...

oh, without a doubt!!!!

mainly it's due to the reluctance of the soul to live through the dark night between it and realization.

you can't ever have truth if you don't have both sides.
same goes for the elemental pair that underlies our entire universe:
dark and light
without both, there is no balance.
and it is this imbalance that brings us to do such atrocious things to each other, for ultimately issues that really don't mean anything at all.
especially after you're dead.

Our place on top of the food chain is not a prize from a cereal box, is it ? Only the most cunning and best adapted killers get a chance to conquer the highest place on the list. Let alone keeping it...

EXACTLY.
very nicely expressed!

Originally posted by crazydaisy
Being that we were not there to witness and that the words regarding Jesus were written by men then we can never be sure, can we?

no, you're right.
there is no way to know, at least as of yet.
i don't mean that i foresee a new way to determine such a thing but rather that we just have no idea what kinds of technologies will be invented and developed in the future - i applies to everything.

everything we don't know, we cannot know because there is no way of knowing.
but many things we didn't have the capability to positively determine, in the past, are now easily determined - DNA is a good example.

having said that, in regard to the article, though, and what it's saying is, imo, something we CAN know - whether or not crucifixion was not maybe a common practice but a well-known one that wasn't infrequent or if it was a very rare event.

from the article:

Mr Samuelsson said: "If you are looking for texts that depict the act of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the Gospels."

that simply isn't true - there are a few other sources, some of which i posted earlier.
and the nail in the heel-bone is empirical physical evidence that leans toward crucifixion being very prominent in those days.

which, imo, also means that likely and unlikely are equally the truth when it comes to any certain person being executed in Palestine, by crucifixion, 2000 or so years ago. even if we say that person is named Jesus, it is still just as likely as it is unlikely, at this point.

Mr Samuelsson is immediately suspect when he asserts something that is easily verified as not true, even within his own field of study.

Did I completely misread the argument in the article? From what I gleaned he made a linguistic argument... At least that is my perception... Usually, in NT scholarship " reading the original texts" (as mentioned in the article) means reading the 5000+ patches and versions in the original languages that we have.

So, correct me but my impression was that his point was that the original source word for "crucifiction" is not clearly denoted and could mean many different things than what we associate with "crucifiction" today. If this proves true than this would mean that every ancient source that talks about "crucification"do not necessarily mean the process we have in mind - hence finding mentionings of ancient crucifictions doesn't refute his argument. The article is a bit shoddy and a bit unclear though, granted.

Interesting idea. Did the ancient texts speak of something else altogether? Is a central tenet of the christian religion simply a mistranslation or misinterpretation of something else all together?

[edit on 27-7-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


Hey you said "Muslims believe Jesus to be the Messiah"

Yeah no they don't
They don't think he was the Messiah ONLY Christians do.

Im a Christian my wife is Muslim so trust me on this.

Originally posted by NichirasuKenshin

Did I completely misread the argument in the article? (...)
So, correct me but my impression was that his point was that the original source word for "crucifiction" is not clearly denoted and could mean many different things than what we associate with "crucifiction" today. If this proves true than this would mean that every ancient source that talks about "crucification"do not necessarily mean the process we have in mind - hence finding mentionings of ancient crucifictions doesn't refute his argument. The article is a bit shoddy and a bit unclear though, granted.
(...)
Interesting idea. Did the ancient texts speak of something else altogether? Is a central tenet of the christian religion simply a mistranslation or misinterpretation of something else all together?

no, you didn't misread, i don't think.
that is what he's saying but the support that he's giving for saying it isn't sound.

and where do our ideas of crucifixion come from?
antiquity.

it's not a modern practice, for the most part, THANK GOD.
but we all know that once mankind gets proficient at one kind of killing device, he pretty much leaves well enough alone.

he's right, that crucifixion is not mentioned, verbatim, in the bible.
his argument about the word "cross," however, doesn't seem quite "on" and since he doesn't elaborate, it is hard to know what extended meanings "crux" had, in antiquity.
as a noun, i know of only one and that is a means to execute.
it didn't originate in Rome, and so that means, too, that the idea of "cross" isn't dependent upon linguistics. before the word "crux", the idea was conveyed more akin to "hanging" on a tree. not FROM a tree but ON a tree - fastened to it, somehow.

but i'd have to do further looking-into to know what i am possibly unaware of.

reply to post by GunzCoty


No, he is both a prophet and a messiah. She must not been a Muslim for very long then. en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


no, look at the source link in the wikipedia article:

Qur'an 4:171:"Christ Jesus the son of Mary was an apostle of God, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in God and His apostles."

this in no way means that Jesus was seen as a Messiah to the Muslims.
and he was not.
a prophet, yes.
a messiah, maybe - but if so, definitely not THEIRS.
being an apostle means simply sent by GOD.
many have been sent by GOD to many peoples in various places.
to say we must believe in GOD and his apostles doesn't imply messiah-ship, either. it just says that GOD sends people and we must know they are authentic.

the idea that the verse means that Jesus was seen as a messiah in Islam is incorrect and i'm surprised someone hasn't changed it, yet.

more from that same link:

004.157
YUSUFALI: That they said (in boast), "We killed Christ Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of Allah";- but they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are full of doubts, with no (certain) knowledge, but only conjecture to follow, for of a surety they killed him not:-
PICKTHAL: And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah's messenger - they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain.
SHAKIR: And their saying: Surely we have killed the Messiah, Isa son of Marium, the messenger of Allah; and they did not kill him nor did they crucify him, but it appeared to them so (like Isa) and most surely those who differ therein are only in a doubt about it; they have no knowledge respecting it, but only follow a conjecture, and they killed him not for sure.

004.171
YUSUFALI: O People of the Book! Commit no excesses in your religion: Nor say of Allah aught but the truth. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him: so believe in Allah and His messengers. Say not "Trinity" : desist: it will be better for you: for Allah is one Allah: Glory be to Him: (far exalted is He) above having a son. To Him belong all things in the heavens and on earth. And enough is Allah as a Disposer of affairs.
PICKTHAL: O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning Allah save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not "Three" - Cease! (it is) better for you! - Allah is only One Allah. Far is it removed from His Transcendent Majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.
SHAKIR: O followers of the Book! do not exceed the limits in your religion, and do not speak (lies) against Allah, but (speak) the truth; the Messiah, Isa son of Marium is only a messenger of Allah and His Word which He communicated to Marium and a spirit from Him; believe therefore in Allah and His messengers, and say not, Three. Desist, it is better for you; Allah is only one Allah; far be It from His glory that He should have a son, whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth is His, and Allah is sufficient for a Protector.

004.172
YUSUFALI: Christ disdaineth nor to serve and worship Allah, nor do the angels, those nearest (to Allah): those who disdain His worship and are arrogant,-He will gather them all together unto Himself to (answer).
PICKTHAL: The Messiah will never scorn to be a slave unto Allah, nor will the favoured angels. Whoso scorneth His service and is proud, all such will He assemble unto Him;
SHAKIR: The Messiah does by no means disdain that he should be a servant of Allah, nor do the angels who are near to Him, and whoever disdains His service and is proud, He will gather them all together to Himself.

source

read the links, people.
they are there for a reason.



[edit on 7/27/2010 by queenannie38]

reply to post by queenannie38


Did you miss that part where it says CHRIST Jesus?

Oh wait, you thought Jesus Christ is his first and last name, like John Smith?

Messiah or the greek based version Christ means ANNOINTED.

Interesting but the event was so isolated and the only report we have on it is the Bible. If he lived or died anyone can bet on and if anyone turns to Islam I hope they know what else it is about.

Originally posted by skajkingdom
Did you miss that part where it says CHRIST Jesus?

Oh wait, you thought Jesus Christ is his first and last name, like John Smith?

Messiah or the greek based version Christ means ANNOINTED.

i know that

but what does it have to do with what i pointed out?

again:

Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) a messenger of Allah, and His Word

NO MORE THAN means just a messenger.
not a messenger AND a messiah.

if Islam considered Jesus the messiah, then why do they still wait for one?

reply to post by queenannie38


They are not waiting for a Messiah. en.wikipedia.org...

According to Islamic view, Isa (Jesus) son of Mary, was a prophet and messenger of God. It is believed that Jesus was not crucified; instead he was raised bodily. According to many hadith and believed by most Muslims, He will return to Earth. At the time appointed by Allah, Jesus will physically return to this world and aid the Mehdi. According to some sects of Shia Islam, the Mehdi also descends. He will break the cross, kill the swine, slaughter the Dajjal and end all wars, ushering in an era of peace. The messianic era comes after Jesus kills ad-Dajjal, the false mesiah antichrist figure in Islam, and defeats his followers.

This is all confusing to me anyway. Seems when he returns he's the Messiah figure.

[edit on 28-7-2010 by Romantic_Rebel]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


well, i don't want to argue about messiahs and religions on this thread - i shouldn't have said anything about it in the first place, and i'm sorry.
those things you've said in your last reply, i do know.
but that isn't the same thing as Jesus being their messiah. i might have misunderstood - it might simply be semantics, too...as usual!


but we shouldn't derail Sinter Klaas' thread - it isn't about these things at all.



[edit on 7/28/2010 by queenannie38]

reply to post by Romantic_Rebel


They are so sure of this anti-christ prophecy, it hurts me how humans can be brainwashed with such ease, without the endevour for reason or rationale.

This is true, However not all human's are brainwashed ^^

Granted I used to be but...Yea the government is a buncha bser's but that's off the topic ^^ Christianity is aswell though ^^

reply to post by TheConspiracy


agreed, Islam more importantly, trying to take over my country and the world. Thats their core believe, fight those who oppose Islam.

Its quite ironic really, they come from the east to the west, is it for freedom because our country offers rights? salvation? benefits?

Yet they stand in our streets preach and insult our society and try to change our laws in order to respect their religion, try to infringe their beliefs onto us, its sickening, after what we've done for them.

one Muslim was protesting with "Free speech go to hell" poster - It makes me sick.

For all the doubters in this thread:

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

That is fact.




Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com