Instrument of Jesus' Crucifixion - Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses

Particularly associated today with the idea of a stake are Jehovah's Witnesses, who assert that the device used for Jesus' execution was a simple upright stake, while mainstream Christians picture the device as having a transverse beam in addition to the upright.

In line with their belief about the shape of the device, Jehovah's Witnesses support earlier claims that the cross was adopted as a Christian symbol only under the 4th-century emperor Constantine the Great.

Jehovah's Witnesses publications have argued that the use of the Greek word stau·ros′ in the Gospel accounts when referring to the instrument of execution on which Jesus died refers to an upright pole, stake, or post without a crossbeam. Their New World Translation of the Bible therefore uses the phrase "torture stake" to translate the Greek word σταυρός (stauros) in the three passages cited: Matthew 27:40, Mark 15:30 and Luke 23:26.

As shown above, both those claims are debated by other scholars. The words by which the Gospels referred to the gibbet on which Jesus died did not necessarily mean a stake, and Christian writers long before AD 300 specifically spoke of that gibbet as having a cross-bar, being either cross-shaped or T-shaped.

A study edition of the New World Translation supports the religion's belief by reproducing an illustration from a work by 16th century philologist Justus Lipsius showing a man suspended by the wrists on a crux simplex or upright pole. But author James Penton has claimed the use of the single illustration by the Watch Tower Society "demonstrates so clearly how much their scholarship is affected by dogmatism". "Watch Tower scholars falsely leave the impression that Lipsius thought that Jesus was put to death in that way," he wrote. "In fact, Lipsius gives sixteen illustrations of impalement, thirteen of which show stakes with some sort of cross member." In their book, Reasoning From the Scriptures, Jehovah's Witnesses also reinforce their doctrine with a partial quote from The Imperial Bible-Dictionary (edited by Patrick Fairbairn, 1874) that states the crux "appears to have been originally an upright pole". In the original text, however, the dictionary continued, "... and this always remained the most prominent part. But from the time that it began to be used as an instrument of punishment, a transverse piece of wood was commonly added: not, however, always, even then."