Discussion with a JW

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ajcstr said:
Why does the evidence have to be in the Bible? The Bible is silent on this, the Greek word could mean a stake or it could mean a cross. So why not read the early Christians to see what they believed? Why is that to be disregarded. You read Pastor Russell’s literature and Judge Rutherford’s literature and the Watchtower’s literature. Why not read Polycarp or Justin Martyr or Clement?
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That’s the difference though… We follow the Bible. Anything else the Bible does not say is going beyond what is written. Then we start follow the traditions of men and that could be dangerous because we don’t know if it’s from God or not.
The early Christians didn’t use a cross in any way any where… When u say early Christians are you talking about first century Christians?
Same like there’s no evidence that they celebrated Jesus birthday every year but that’s another topic.

Russel an Rutherford always tried to base beliefs according to the Bible not according to traditions of men
 
TrueWitness said:
The cross was used to worship a pagan god called Tammuz, if I’m correct. You may not agree but the cross is in and on many church buildings, and since church buildings are regarded as places of worship, would it be appropriate to mix things pertaining to pagan worship into our worship to God which is suppose to be pure… Does the Bible not say stay away from unclean things in our worship to God?
What has the wedding rings been used to worship? What God does it represent? It’s pagan things that has been used in pagan worship that we avoid really
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Well i dont know about you but church is not the only place we worship, you can tell by all the crosses we have in our houese and cars. 😃

Seriously, sense we are to worshi in all we do im sure you worship in other places than the kingdom hall correct? When you do do you clear out all objects?

This is why we are to worship in spirit and truth, worship through objects is now void.👍

Peace!!!
 
TrueWitness said:
The cross was used to worship a pagan god called Tammuz, if I’m correct.
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This is the classic style of argument you use, I need to show everything I say in the Bible, yet you can associate the cross with Tammuz? Where is this association in the Bible?
TrueWitness said:
That’s the difference though… We follow the Bible. Anything else the Bible does not say is going beyond what is written.
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As I say, please show in the Bible where the cross is associated with Tammuz.
 
TrueWitness said:
That’s the difference though… We follow the Bible. Anything else the Bible does not say is going beyond what is written. Then we start follow the traditions of men and that could be dangerous because we don’t know if it’s from God or not.
The early Christians didn’t use a cross in any way any where… When u say early Christians are you talking about first century Christians?
Same like there’s no evidence that they celebrated Jesus birthday every year but that’s another topic.

Russel an Rutherford always tried to base beliefs according to the Bible not according to traditions of men
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May I ask, how do you know your interpretation of the bible is the correct interpretation?🤷

Peace!!!
 
In all fairness to TrueWitness, there is disagreement as to what “Starous” would translate to. So if you use only the Bible you just don’t know. If you don’t trust what anybody said between the apostle John and CT Russell, I guess you go with the interpretation that TrueWitness gave us.

Bottom line is what the cross means to us, not what it meant to pagans or whoever. If I am of the opinion that Jesus died on a cross, then that is what the cross means to ME. I’m sure there were pagans who worshiped trees, so a stake would then be a pagan symbol. There are people that argue much of Genesis was copied from pagan myths.

If you walk into a Christian church and went up to anyone and said, “oh you have a cross, do you worship Tammuz here?” nobody would know what you were talking about. This is just a “red herring” to discredit traditional, historic Christianity.
 
TrueWitness said:
You may not agree but the cross is in and on many church buildings, and since church buildings are regarded as places of worship, would it be appropriate to mix things pertaining to pagan worship into our worship to God which is suppose to be pure… Does the Bible not say stay away from unclean things in our worship to God?
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So since a Greek Orthodox church will have a cross on it, would that logically mean that somewhere in history they forgot what the word meant? Can some of our Orthodox brothers and sisters help us here?

PS - I don’t know Greek at all, you could tell me starous means “motor boat” and I could not argue with you. I have to rely on others for this. Have you studied Greek or are you relying on others also?
 
TrueWitness.

Welcome to CAF.

Are you purposing that in the ancient times, stauros ONLY meant a stake? (I am not denying stauros could be a stake, but I want to know if you think stauros is LIMITED to a stake)

God bless.

Cathoholic

JOHN 21:18-1918 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch OUT your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." 19 (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”

NOT JOHN 21:18-19 (phantom verse) 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch UP your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." 19 (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”

NOT JOHN 21:18-19 (phantom verse) 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." 19 (This he said ONLY to show by how he would be LED AWAY to his death.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”

JOHN 21:18-19 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch OUT your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go." 19 (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”
 
The cross is made for man, not man for the cross. That is why it is shaped like a stick man. Crucify someone on a giant letter F and it becomes a complex problem. Crucify someone on a giant letter H requires a gymnastic contortion. Hence the cross is shaped like a man a giant letter t.

Stick man is a simple way in ancient times of representing man or life.

Does anyone still believe Alexander Hislop?
 
ajcstr said:
This is the classic style of argument you use, I need to show everything I say in the Bible, yet you can associate the cross with Tammuz? Where is this association in the Bible?

As I say, please show in the Bible where the cross is associated with Tammuz.
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Bible and history have to agree… on a matter where the bible does not agree with history we choose to follow the bible or when history does not agree with the bible, i think thats the main reason how our beliefs are based. As we have already seen that the greek word for stauros originally meant an upright pole its modern greek that has added the word cross to the definition. If they had not added that meaning to the original there would be no need for any confusion, that is why you cant fully disagree with the fact that an upright pole was used

The book The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), says: “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.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also The Companion Bible (London, 1885), Appendix No. 162.
 
ajcstr said:
This is the classic style of argument you use, I need to show everything I say in the Bible, yet you can associate the cross with Tammuz? Where is this association in the Bible?

As I say, please show in the Bible where the cross is associated with Tammuz.
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I should of wrote my previous comment on another comment of yours about the Bible and history.

But with regards to this history is not confused as to who Tammuz is and that the T was used to represent him as a cross symbol, on this historians dont argue and are not confused like with the cross and “IF” it was used or not, that historians cant agree on, its still debatable. When all they need to do is to stick to the original meaning of the word stauros, its debatable because they trying to find evidence for a word which was later added to stauros

the cross is a carved image made of any material, wood, copper, iron, steel etc etc. First century Christians were against making carved images for which was related to pagan worship. thats why you wont find any history of first century christians using the cross or any other thing to remember christ or venerate him, there are many scriptures that speaks against doing it. Its centuries later long after Christ death that the symbol came into christianity as to easily make pagans accept
christianty. check the history of when the cross came into existence into christianity and by who, again history is clear on this and is not debatable
 
But hey im not here to debate or anything… Im merely here to learn and discuss bible topics. These topics can go on and on, we all have our own viewpoint which we believe is true… we just need to clear the misconceptions though and understand where each of us come from. We also went way off the original topic here lol
 
TrueWitness said:
The cross is a carved image made of any material, wood, copper, iron, steel etc etc. First century Christians were against making carved images for which was related to pagan worship. thats why you wont find any history of first century christians using the cross or any other thing to remember christ or venerate him, there are many scriptures that speaks against doing it. Its centuries later long after Christ death that the symbol came into christianity as to easily make pagans accept
christianty. check the history of when the cross came into existence into christianity and by who, again history is clear on this and is not debatable
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This is not remotely correct. Where did you get this bad history?
 
TrueWitness said:
What is the history?
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Largely unknown. We know very little of the early Church, it is a very secret part of history thanks to its persecution and being underground. There is the staurogram Greek t and r from texts as early as 150 AD. We have Tertullian making the sign of the cross prior to 240 AD. We have Ezekiel 9:4.Where the word sign is just the character ‘t’. Constantine used the ‘cross’ as his Christian symbol of choice as a good luck charm, which while a wrong thing to do, the fact is he did not just invent it out of thin air. All these predate your “make Christianity more accessible to pagans by making Christianity pagan” very unusual theory. But then JWs did not invent that theory, they just regurgitate it.

The fact is Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross. This is not foolishness.
 
With regard to Tertullian in his Ad Nationes

tertullian.org/articles/howe_adnationes1.htm

In Chapter 11 Christians were accused somehow about the head of a donkey as can also be seen by the Alexamenos graffito. This is a very unusual slander, mock. But you will get an idea of the ridicule towards Christianity which one can be involved in.

In Chapter 12 Tertullian accuses the Pagans of being devotees of the cross unwittingly. A common style of argument in those times. You accuse us of being devotees of the cross but you are unwittingly the same. But he also mentions the structure of the cross including the sedile.

Tertullian died around 240AD. Long before the 4th 5th Century.
 
Darryl_B said:
Largely unknown. We know very little of the early Church, it is a very secret part of history thanks to its persecution and being underground. There is the staurogram Greek t and r from texts as early as 150 AD. We have Tertullian making the sign of the cross prior to 240 AD. We have Ezekiel 9:4.Where the word sign is just the character ‘t’. Constantine used the ‘cross’ as his Christian symbol of choice as a good luck charm, which while a wrong thing to do, the fact is he did not just invent it out of thin air. All these predate your “make Christianity more accessible to pagans by making Christianity pagan” very unusual theory. But then JWs did not invent that theory, they just regurgitate it.

The fact is Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross. This is not foolishness.
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If we follow the original greek then we are correct in believing that Jesus died on upright pole, if you follow the modern greek then you are correct in believing Jesus died on a cross, however cross is not the original meaning of stauros which means that it was an addition somehow added later.

Constantine was the first roman emperor to convert to christianty, he brought along many of his pagan beliefs with him. Constantine sought to unite his kingdom’s pagan and Christian worshipers, in order to promote stability and ensure that his empire lasted. The easiest way to bring harmony would be to blend pagan worship and Christianity. History shows that the Church of Rome did not object, and today many of those beliefs still stands.
 
TrueWitness said:
If we follow the original greek then we are correct in believing that Jesus died on upright pole, if you follow the modern greek then you are correct in believing Jesus died on a cross, however cross is not the original meaning of stauros which means that it was an addition somehow added later.

Constantine was the first roman emperor to convert to christianty, he brought along many of his pagan beliefs with him. Constantine sought to unite his kingdom’s pagan and Christian worshipers, in order to promote stability and ensure that his empire lasted. The easiest way to bring harmony would be to blend pagan worship and Christianity. History shows that the Church of Rome did not object, and today many of those beliefs still stands.
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I think you probably have no knowledge of Greek. Yes? You have chosen to ignore everything I presented as evidence and repeat your same claim without any form of evidence. A second time by a second post I might add. Someone recently said DVD. Maybe they are not far from the truth.
 
TrueWitness said:
That’s why we don’t use any symbols to represent anything pertaining to Jesus or his sacrifice… There’s no biblical or historical evidence that first century Christians used any symbols… Yes definately know how that goes
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I think that if you go through JW history you will find that the cross was used by the JW’s and that they celebrated Christmas also. Different beliefs for different Governing Bodies.
 
TrueWitness said:
Constantine was the first roman emperor to convert to christianty, he brought along many of his pagan beliefs with him. Constantine sought to unite his kingdom’s pagan and Christian worshipers, in order to promote stability and ensure that his empire lasted. The easiest way to bring harmony would be to blend pagan worship and Christianity. History shows that the Church of Rome did not object, and today many of those beliefs still stands.
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You’ve been asked by more than one poster to please document these ‘historical facts’ of yours.
Please do so.
 
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