[quote]Vonamberg wrote:
Speaking of the cross…
The book The Non-Christian Cross, by John Denham Parsons, states: â??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 â??crossâ?? when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting â??crossâ?? 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.â??â??London, 1896, pp. 23, 24.
The Cross
A tradition of the Church which our fathers have inherited, was the adoption of the words “cross” and “crucify”.
These words are nowhere to be found in the Greek of the New Testament. These words are mistranslations, a “later rendering”, of the Greek words stauros and stauroo. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "STAUROS denotes, primarily, an upright pole or stake … Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pole, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two-beamed cross.
The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) … By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith.
In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross piece lowered, was adopted .
Dr. Bullinger, in the Companion Bible, appx. 162, states, “crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian Sun-god … It should be stated that Constantine was a Sun-god worshipper … The evidence is thus complete, that the Lord was put to death upon an upright stake, and not on two pieces of timber placed at any angle.”
Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, pp. 197-205, frankly calls the cross “this Pagan symbol … the Tau, the sign of the cross, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the false Messiah … the mystic Tau of the Cladeans (Babylonians) and Egyptians - the true original form of the letter T the initial of the name of Tammuz … the Babylonian cross was the recognised emblem of Tammuz.”
In the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. 14, p. 273, we read, “In the Egyption churches the cross was a pagan symbol of life borrowed by the Christians and interpreted in the pagan manner.” Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, says that the Teutonic (Germanic) tribes had their idol Thor, symbolised by a hammer, while the Roman Christians had their crux (cross). It was thus somewhat easier for the Teutons to accept the Roman Cross.
Greek dictionaries, lexicons and other study books also declare the primary meaning of stauros to be an upright pale, pole or stake. The secondary meaning of “cross” is admitted by them to be a “later” rendering. At least two of them do not even mention “cross”, and only render the meaning as “pole or stake”.
In spite of this strong evidence and proof that the word stauros should have been translated “stake”, and the verb stauroo to have been translated “impale”, almost all the common versions of the Scriptures persist with the Latin Vulgate’s crux (cross), a fallacious “later” rendering of the Greek stauros. Why then was the “cross” (crux) brought into the Faith?
Again, historical evidence points to Constantine as the one who had the major share in uniting Sun-worship and the Messianic Faith. Constantine’s famous vision of “the cross superimposed on the sun”, in the year 312, is usually cited. Writers, ignorant of the fact that the cross was not to be found in the New Testament Scriptures, put much emphasis on this vision as the onset of the so-called “conversion” of Constantine. But, unless Constantine had been misguided by the Gnostic Manichean half-Christians, who indeed used the cross in their hybrid religion, this vision of the cross superimposed on the sun could only be the same old cosmic religion, the astrological religion of Babylon. The fact remains: that which Constantine saw, is nowhere to be found in Scripture.
We read in the book of Johannes Geffcken, The Last Days of Greco-Roman Paganism, p.319, “that even after 314 A.D. the coins of Constantine show an even-armed cross as a symbol for the Sun-god.” Many scholars have doubted the “conversion” of Constantine because of the wicked deeds that he did afterwards, and because of the fact that he only requested to be baptized on his death-bed many years later, in the year 337. So, if the vision of the cross impressed him, and was used as a rallying symbol, it could not have been in honour of YahushÃ?ºa, because Constantine continued paying homage to the Sun-deity and to one of the Sun-deity’s symbols, the cross.
This continuation of Sun-worship by Constantine is of by his persistent use of images of the Sun-deity on his coins that were issued by him up to the year 323. Secondly, the fact of his motivation to issue his Sunday-keeping edict in the year 321, which was not done in honour of YahushÃ?ºa, but was done because of the “venerable day of the Sun”, as the edict read, is proof of this continued allegiance to Sol Invictus. We shall expand on this later.
Where did the cross come from, then? J.C. Cooper, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, p. 45, aptly summarises it, “Cross - A universal symbol from the most remote times; it is the cosmic symbol par excellence.” Other authorities also call it a sun-symbol, a Babylonian sun-symbol, an astrological Babylonian-Assyrian and heathen run-symbol, also in the form of an encircled cross referred to as a “solar wheel”, and many other varieties of crosses. Also, “the cross represents the Tree of Life”, the age-old fertility symbol, combining the vertical male and horizontal female principles, especially in Egypt, either as an ordinary cross, or better known in the form of the crux ansata, the Egyptian ankh (sometimes called the Tau cross), which had been carried over into our modern-day symbol of the female, well known in biology.
As stated above, the indisputable sign of Tammuz, the mystic Tau of the Babylonians and Egyptians, was brought into the Church chiefly because of Constantine, and has since been adored with all the homage due only to the Most High.
The Protestants have for many years refrained from undue adoration of, or homage to the cross, especially in England at the time of the Puritans in the 16th - 17th centuries. But lately this un-Scriptural symbol has been increasingly accepted in Protestantism.
We have previously discussed “the weeping for Tammuz”, and the similarity between the Easter resurrection and the return or rising of Tammuz. Tammuz was the young incarnate Sun, the Sun-divinity incarnate. This same Sun-deity, known amongst the Babylonians as Tammuz, was identified with the Greek Adonis and with the Phoenician Adoni,96 all of them Sun-deities, being slain in winter, then being “wept for”, and their return being celebrated by a festivity in spring, while some had it in summer - according to the myths of pagan idolatry.
The evidence for its pagan origin is so convincing that The Catholic Encyclopedia admits that “the sign of the cross, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly antedates, in both East and the West, the introduction of Christianity. It goes back to a very remote period of human civilization.” It then continues and revers to the Tau cross of the pagan Egyptians, "In later times the Egyptian Christians (Copts), attracted by its form, and perhaps by its symbolism, adopted it as the emblem of the cross."98 Further proof of its pagan origin is the recorded evidence of the Vestal Virgins of pagan Rome having the cross hanging on a necklace,99 and the Egyptians doing it too, as early as the 15th century B.C.E.100 The Buddhists, and
Ancient Egyptian Rot-n-no priests. Note the crosses on the robe, and hanging from their necks.
Numerous other sects of India, also used the sign of the cross as a mark on their followers’ heads. "The cross thus widely worshipped, or regarded as a ‘sacred emblem’, was the unequivocal symbol of Bacchus, the Babylonian Messiah, for he was represented with a head-band covered with crosses. "It was also the symbol of Jupiter Foederis in Rome.103 Furthermore, we read of the cross on top of the temple of Serapis,104 the Sun-deity of Alexandria.
This is Tammuz, whom the Greeks called Bacchus, with the crosses on his head-band.
After Constantine had the “vision of the cross”, he and his army promoted another variety of the cross, the Chi-Rho or Labarum or sometimes . This has subsequently been explained as representing the first letters of the name Christos, the being the Greek for “Ch” and the being the Greek for “r”. but again, this emblem had a pagan origin. The identical symbols were found as inscriptions on a rock, dating from the year ca. 2 500 B.C., being interpreted as “a combination of two Sun-symbols”, as the Ax or Hammer-symbol of the Sun- or Sky-deity, and the or as the ancient symbol of the Sun, both of these signs having a sensual or fertility meaning as well.
Another proof of its pagan origin is the identical found on a coin of Ptolemeus III from the year 247 - 222 B.C. A well-known encyclopaedia describes the Labarum (Chi-Rho) as, "The labarum was also an emblem of the Chaldean (Babylonian) sky-god and in Christianity it was adopted…"Emperor Constantine adopted this Labarum as the imperial ensign and thereby succeeded in "uniting both divisions of his troops, pagans and Christians, in a common worship … according to Suicer the word (labarum) came into use in the reign of Hadrian, and was probably adopted from one of the nations conquered by the Romans. "It must be remembered that Hadrian reigned in the years 76 - 138, that he was a pagan emperor, worshipped the Sun-deity Serapis when he visited Alexandria, and was vehemently anti-Judaistic, being responsible for the final near-destruction of Jerusalem in the year 130.
Another dictionary relates the following about the Chi-Rho, “However, the symbol was in use long before Christianity, and X (Chi) probably stood for Great Fire or Sun,and P (Rho) probably stood for Pater or Patah (Father). The word labarum (labarum) yields everlasting Father Sun.”
What is the “mark of the beast” of which we read in Rev 13:16-17, Rev 14:9-11, Rev 15:2, Rev 16:2, Rev 19:20 and Rev 20:4 - a mark on people’s foreheads and on their right hands? Rev 14:11 reveals the mark to be “the mark of his (the beast’s) name.” Have we not read about the mystic Tau, the T, the initial of Tammuz’s name, his mark? This same letter T (Tau) was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in the old Wemitic languages as, representing the CROSS. Different interpretations have been given to the “mark of the beast”, and also the cross has been suggested. There has been some research done on the strange crosses found on quite a few statues of pagan priests, on their foreheads. However, these scholars have been unable to come to an agreement. Conclusive evidence may still come (see among others: Dr. F.J. Dolger, Antike und Christentum, vol. 2, pp. 281-293).
Let us rather use the true rendering of the Scriptural words stauros and stauro, namely “stake” and “impale” and eliminate the un-Scriptural “cross” and “crucify”.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/218795/the_origin_of_the_cross_symbol_used.html?cat=34
The cross is used within the Christian faith and among the Christian sects. It is the most common symbol seen in, on, and around Christian churches all over the world. Since it pre-dates Christianity and has pagan
beginnings, at least one church father of the 3rd century CE condemned its use.
The first appearance of a cross in Christian artwork was on a Vatican sarcophagus from the mid-5th century. It was a Greek cross with arms of equal length and Jesus’ body had no place on it. The first portrayals of crucifixion on a cross did not appear until the 7th century CE. This particular cross took the shape of a letter “T”. “T”, the initial of the name Tammuz. This shape is from the form of the Tau Cross. The church may have copied this symbol from the Pagan Druids who made crosses like this to represent the Thau, or god. St. Philip was allegedly crucified on a cross like this.
Later on in Christian history, the Tau Cross became the Roman Cross that most everyone is familiar with today. The Romans sometimes executed people on a Tau Cross and sometimes a Roman cross. There were times they used a simple stake and would forego the cross all together.
It is not likely that Jesus actually hung on a cross at all but instead hung on a tree, stake, or pole. The original gospels written in Greek used the word “stauros” to refer to the structure used for execution. This word means a vertical pole with no crossbar. Jesus may have been hung on a tree (Acts 5:30) (1 Peter 2:24)
What has caused some conflict is Deuteronomy 21:23 which states that a person hung on a tree was cursed by God. This verse here prevented many of the Jewish faith from accepting Jesus as Messiah. Until Constantine made his entrance, the cross as an artistic reference to Jesus’ crucifixion cannot even be found. Since crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian Sun-god, it could be said that Constantine was a Sun-god worshiper!
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Um…conclusions…all of them are false. And, am I supposed to really believe such biased, unhistorical, and fallacious Jehovah’s Witnesses? Pick up a history book and learn rhetoric and philosophy.
