Question about today's first reading

[Holly3278]

Hi everyone. I have a question about today’s first reading. Here it is:

Acts 5:27-33
When the court officers had brought the Apostles in
and made them stand before the Sanhedrin,
the high priest questioned them,
“We gave you strict orders did we not,
to stop teaching in that name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
and want to bring this man’s blood upon us.”
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
“We must obey God rather than men.
The God of our ancestors raised Jesus,
though you had him killed by hanging him on a tree.
God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior
to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.
We are witnesses of these things,
as is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.”

When they heard this,
they became infuriated and wanted to put them to death.

I have put the relevant part in bold. My question is this: Why did the apostles say that they killed Jesus by hanging him on a tree when in fact Jesus was hung on a cross?

 

[Mattjolley]

I’m guessing since it ties in with the quotation from Deuteronomy 21:22? Something the Jewish authorities would be very familiar with:

"And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree…

-RSV CE

Also, where does a cross come from - wood from trees! So essentially, hanging on a cross is indeed hanging on a tree.

Tertullian even mentions in the Apologia the use of trees in Crucifixion.

In fact, in many cases of crucifixion, its believed that the stipes, or vertical beam, was often a permanent fixture in the ground like a stake, and was most likely the vertical body of a tree. it is said that the victim only carried the shoulder-beam which would have most likely been a long thick tree branch, we may even imagine it was a branch from the same tree?

It should be noted that popular depictions such as The Passion of the Christ, where Our Lord carries the whole cross, are just one intepretation of the Gospels merged with other contemporary sources, as are the depictions of Him carrying just one part of the Cross.

What I’m getting at is, who knows what sort of Cross they used for Our Lord, it may have been a complete one like we see in some movies, or part of one like we see elsewhere. Maybe I’m just trying to accommodate for the use of the word ‘tree’, although whatever method was used, it was essentially a tree either way - wood!

Just my two cents!

Hope it helps. Matt.

 

[WillyMcCabe]

To use the phrase “hanging Him on a tree” is simply a Semetic way of saying that they crucified Him. Jesus also referred to crucifixion as being “lifted up” That was another way of alluding to crucifixion. In our modern mode of expression, it would kind of be like saying someone who was going to die in the electric chair would be “riding the lightning” or something to that effect. The Gospels are full of very colorful Semetic jargon that can sometimes be hard for us to understand in our western culture 2000 plus years later.