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Bullinger is in two vols. The (Polish) google link is fine for vol. 1 (A-M) referring to the entry from "Cross". However the entry for "Tree" is in vol. 2. A link would be good if anyone can find one.
Rich
Farmbrough,
02:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC).
as in impale — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.93.150 ( talk) 11:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
This article should certainly mention the Jehovah's Witnesses, who seem to be the main group insisting that this word should be understood to mean that Jesus was crucified on a single upright post. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the theological and linguistic controversy to add this myself, but the article appears incomplete without it. Credulity ( talk) 16:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
In Wiktionary the word 'Stauros' and 'Stauron' are not recorded. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to enter them in Wiktionary. RCNesland ( talk) 05:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
and later
The first passage says that the cross-piece was included in this term before Christianity appeared. The second says that it was included in Koine Greek from 300BCE to 300CE. However, I do not believe there is any evidence before the Christian writers (i.e., some time after CE 100) that there was a cross-piece, certainly not in 300 BC. It's a little like saying that "In Modern English (1550-present), a 'bit' denotes a unit of information." The word 'bit' certainly existed in 1550, but it certainly didn't denote a unit of information until 1947.
I am not sure why translations of D.Siculus and Plutarch use the word 'cross' -- perhaps there is good reason to believe that that's what σταυρός meant in their time. (But at least one authority states that D.S. was referring to a stake.) If so, we should include that evidence. If not, we should be more precise in our language, something like:
and later
Who knows? Perhaps it commonly meant a cross by 200 BCE, but I don't believe there is any surviving evidence of that. The article should stick to what is known, and not use the overly-broad term "Koine Greek" in this context. -- Macrakis ( talk) 14:25, 23 September 2014 (UTC
I have removed the statement, "The word σταυρός is not mentioned", [1] [2]
a statement not found in the first of the cited sources and contradicted in the second, which states: "Σταυρός the vile engine is called." Bealtainemí ( talk) 13:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Bealtainemí: The word stauros does not appear in the Greek text. It is supplied by the translator; Lucian did not use it there, though it is implied. Please, check yourself. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC) @ Bealtainemí: here is the Greek text of Lucian. Please, point out stauros if you can. I'll wait. κλάουσιν ἄνθρωποι καὶ τὴν αὑτῶν τύχην ὀδύρονται καὶ Κάδμῳ καταρῶνται πολλάκις, ὅτι τὸ Ταῦ ἐς τὸ τῶν στοιχείων γένος παρήγαγε· τῷ γὰρ τούτου σώματί φασι τοὺς τυράννους ἀκολουθήσαντας καὶ μιμησαμένους αὐτοῦ τὸ πλάσμα ἔπειτα σχήματι τοιούτῳ ξύλα τεκτήναντας ἀνθρώπους ἀνασκολοπίζειν ἐπ᾿ αὐτά· ἀπὸ δὲ1 τούτου καὶ τῷ τεχνήματι τῷ πονηρῷ τὴν πονηρὰν ἐπωνυμίαν συνελθεῖν GPinkerton ( talk) 21:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
"The texts from Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch and Lucian do not specify the σταυρός beyond that it is some kind of pole. The last clause of the paragraph,[the LSJ's "pale for impaling a corpse, Plut. Art. 17"]
however, comes close to a proper rendering of the usage of σταυρός. An elaborate form could be: σταυρός is a pole for suspending a corpse or for executing a person."There is only one ignoramus I can see here, and its the one unable to back their position with anything but opinion while I and mainstream scholars can furnish citation after citation that refute your baseless and unsourced claims. The Encylopaedia Britannica article you have added says nothing about your fringe and unsourced claims about a difference in the meaning of σταυρός between Koine and classical Greek. If your opinions were based on anything at all, you would be able to quote from reliable sources to support them. As it is, you have singularly failed to do so. As Samuelsson and the New Pauly point out, there is no difference in the meaning of σταυρός as used by Herodotus and Thucydides, and as used by Plutarch and Xenophon of Ephesus or by Artemiodorus and Lucian. Please desist from your claims to the contrary. GPinkerton ( talk) 15:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I see that an attempt was made not only to confuse earlier Greek with Koine Greek (while still keeping the present-day form separate, Byzantine Greek was added to the mix. The word σταυρός had quite different meanings in those periods. As English meanings have changed over the much shorter period in which English has been written. Bealtainemí ( talk) 20:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Edits reverted
@ Bealtainemí: I have undone your reversion of my edits, since no such distinction between usage is noted in any of the sources cited and is moreover demonstrably false. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Never before the advent of the Koine form of Greek is there any trace of use of σταυρός to mean an instrument of execution or torture.This claim, which you are making, is not supported by the New Pauly, by the LSJ, or by Samulsson. The New Pauly specifically cites Herodotus III.125 as describing impalement as ἀνασταύρωσις, and also cites Xenophon of Ephesus's use of the term in the 2nd c. AD. It says of ἀνασταύρωσις:
... in Hdt. 3,125 and probably also in Xenophon of Ephesos 4,2 means ‘impaling’. In the LSJ's entry on ἀνασταυρίζω you can plainly see that it cites Ctesias of Cnidus, a 5th century source, as an instance of the verb as meaning impalement, (the impalement of Inaros on three stakes) as the Wikipedia article now correctly states, and as Samulsson also argues on pages 61-63 of Crucifixion in Antiquity, 2011. As for Polybius, on pages 77-8 ibid., Samulsson says:
Polybius does not explicitly show what kind of suspension he refers to - or what the σταυρός actually was, beyond being some kind of suspension tool. However, the suspension appears to be an execution. Polybius stresses twice that Hannibal was still living while suspended. This feature, the emphasized fact that he was alive, could in addition be interpreted as an indication that the usual suspension objects were corpses. This text may thus reflect a deviation from a prevailing rule. It is noticeable that Polybius here drops the prefix of the verb. This is the only time Polybius uses the plain verb σταυροΰν, as well as the noun σταυρός. It is possible to trace two vague indications that, at least, make it as plausible to identify the suspensions as impalings as it is to identify them as crucifixions. First, Polybius uses a related verb, άποσταυροϋν, when he refers to palisades, i.e., fortifications made of standing and probably pointed poles. Is this an indication that Polybius had pointed poles in mind when he referred to σταυρός? Second, Polybius uses the verb άνατιθέναι, "to lay upon," unusual in connection with crucifixion. Once again, these indications do not prove that the described suspensions actually are examples of impaling. They show that it is just as plausible to interpret these texts as references to impaling. ¶ The result of the study of crucifixion in Polybius is in the end meager. Not one single text could with a sufficient degree of certainty be judged to contain a reference to crucifixion. All texts refer to unspecified suspensions. Two texts refer to post-mortem suspensions (5.54.6-7; 8.21.2-3); one appears to refer to an ante-mortem suspension (1.86.4-7). It is, as noted earlier, impossible to draw the conclusion that the texts containing άνασταυροϋν and άνασκολοπίζειν do not refer to crucifixions at all. The rejected texts may refer to crucifixions, but it cannot be determined to what extent they actually are relevant references, due to their lack of additional contextual evidence. Thus, it is unknown to what kind of suspension these texts refer, i.e., impaling, crucifixion or something similar.
Ίνάρως δέ ό Λιβύων βασιλεύς, ος τα πάντα έπραξε περί της Αιγύπτου, προδοσία ληφθείς άνεσταυρώθη.This is the same story told by Ctesias: FGrH 3c, 688 F 14.39
και άνεσταύρισεν μέν έπι τρισι σταυροΐς, which Samulson also directly compares with Plutarch's treatment of impalement, which is itself cited by the LSJ. As I say, I have no objection to saying, with Samulsson, that stauros does not appear in singular number in the "oldest texts" [i.e. the two texts of Homer], but this has not significance either for the use of the word in Archaic Greek as a spoken language and certainly has no bearing on whether the fifth century Greeks used it this way. The claring omission in this article is of course the mention here that after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, stauros acquired the special semantic significance of the classic "cross-shaped" Christian cross, the staurogram, and so on. It also presently lacks discussion of the Biblical Geek texts that use stauros and its derivatives. GPinkerton ( talk) 16:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
When it comes to the individual terms, some conclusions can be drawn. Α σταυρός is a pole in the broadest sense. It is not the equivalent of a "cross" (†). In some cases, it is a kind of suspension device, used for the suspension of corpses, torture or in a few cases executionary suspensions. Very little or nothing is said about what it was made of or how it looked. ¶ (άνα)σταυροΰν and άνασκολοπίζειν are used more or less interchangeably. There might have been a distinction between them occasionally- as Herodotus' usage shows - but that distinction is now in essence lost. The only clear difference is that the verbs are used in a way which contradicts their etymology, (άνα)σταυροΰν has a clearer tendency to be connected with pointed poles than άνασκολοπίζειν, which is peculiar in the light of the usage of σκόλοψ. ¶ crux and patibulum are not used in the sense "cross or standing bare pole" and "crossbeam." A crux is some kind of torture or execution device, and so is patibulum. The difference is that crux to a higher degree than patibulum refers to a standing pole, crux is more firmly connected with the suspension of humans than σταυρός. The ecclesiastically pregnant term crucifigere did not evolve until the final years before the Common Era, and its usage is hard to define beyond denoting "to attach in some way to a crux"
The label "cross" is commonly applied to many more texts which contain σταυρός than those which - with at least a decent amount of certainty - can be determined to contain a reference to the punishment tool used in a crucifixion in a traditional sense. In the same way, the label "crucifixion" is applied to a large number of texts where the only qualifier is the occurrence of, e.g., (άνα)σταυροΰν or άνασκολοπίζειν. In short, a lot of texts are identified as references to "crucifixion" on the basis of a simple conjecture.
how do the New Testament authors describe the death of Jesus on the philological level? The New Testament authors are strikingly silent about the punishment Jesus had to suffer on Calvary. The vivid pictures of the death of Jesus in the theology and art of the church - and among scholars - do not have their main source here. Perhaps crucifixion as it is known today did not even come into being on Calvary, but in the Christian interpretation of the event. Before the death of Jesus, it appears that there was no crucifixion proper. There was a whole spectrum of suspension punishments, which all shared terminology.
It is correct that the noun denotes "a pole to be placed in the ground and used for capital punishment," but that does not make it a "cross" (†). In Diodorus Siculus' text (2.18.1) the σταυρός is an object onto which Semiramis is threatened to be attached or nailed (προσηλοϋν). No further description is given there. Diodorus Siculus uses the noun also when he refers to things that can barely be labeled as "cross," e.g., a standing bare bronze pole (17.71.6). As has been seen in Chapter 2, Plutarch appears to use σταυρός mainly when referring to standing pointed poles. Epictetus also uses the noun in the same philosophical discussion that was mentioned in the previous section. Diogenes Laertius only mentions a young man who is throwing stones on a σταυρός, without further comments. The apocryphal texts, Apocalypse of Esdras and Ascension of Isaiah, appear to be Christian interpolations. They seem to refer simply to the σταυρός of Jesus, without adding further information. The text by Philo contains, among other cruel acts, an ante-mortem suspension of some kind. The reference to the shape of the σταυρός is unsupported in the same sense. The text which should support the image of a T-shaped cross or a regular cross (†) only says that a σταυρός resembles the mast of a ship, without further description. It is a good assumption that the mast of an ancient ship had some kind of yard to hold up and spread the sail. With the yard suspended without sail, the mast would have been fairly "crossshaped." But there is a significant leap from that assumption to stating that this was the universal form of mast, the one Artemidorus and his readers automatically envisioned when they said/heard κατάρτιος (mast). If there were an obvious similarity between a κατάρτιος and a σταυρός in the sense "cross" (†), why did other ancient authors not pay attention to that?
I hope Macrakis will permit to begin here a new section, reducing all of his ":::::::::::"s. Bealtainemí ( talk) 09:35, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
@ GPinkerton: thanks for asking me to (re)join the discussion. @ Bealtainemí:, I really don't have the patience to dissect these overly long discussions, let alone to look at the large edit diffs nor to check the cited sources to see what they're actually saying. And your edits are clearly not converging.
The biggest problem with this article is that it isn't clear why it exists. Most of the content (in either version) overlaps heavily with the content in instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and the crux (as it were) of both articles is "what was the shape of the cross on which Jesus was killed". Why do we need two articles? I suppose that in principle, this article could be the "main" article for the section instrument of Jesus' crucifixion#Presence or absence of crossbar; but it is in fact shorter than that section. So what is the rationale for this article?
There are other problematic things about this article. Why on earth does it bother with the Indo-European root and the Modern Greek meaning? This is not a dictionary article. Unless those things give us some insight on the 1st century CE meaning (and they don't), they are irrelevant.
Why does it mention the fact that the word only appears in the plural in Homer in the lead?
The first sentence in both versions is terrible:
A more informative and more honest first sentence would be something like:
Can we agree that that is the central topic of this article? If it isn't, what is? Is it Roman torture/execution practice, for which the word is a side issue?
Again, we really need to figure out why this article exists. -- Macrakis ( talk) 03:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Latin crux or damnatio in crucem (‘sentencing to crucifixion’), Greek during the Hellenistic period ἀνασταύρωσις/anastaúrōsis (which, however, in Hdt. 3,125 and probably also in Xenophon of Ephesos 4,2 means ‘impaling’) was only one of several ways of exacting the death penalty (II) in the Roman empire.You claimed stauros was not used in the singular in classical Greek, and you were wrong. You claimed there was no instance of a stauros as a torture or execution device before the advent of Koine, and you were wrong. Your bizarre statements about crypto-Christaians and religious organizations are very strange, and your weird attempts to misquote the various authors cited in the article as though they fitted your POV is not helping your actions appear rational. Again, if you would simply read the references cited instead of arbitrarily deleting them, you would be able to see that nothing I have added is original research, a fact that would be obvious to your if you had read Samuelsson or Cook or the other works cited! GPinkerton ( talk) 00:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
ἀνασταυρ-ίζω , impale, Ctes.Fr.29.59 (Pass.).
II. in Rom. times, affix to a cross, crucify, Plb. 1.11.5, alibi, Plu.Fab.6, albi
2. crucify afresh, Ep.Hebr.6.6.
-ωσις, εως, ή, crucifixion, X.Eph.4.2
The statement that άνασταυροον is basically used in the the sense "impale" is basically correct, but it would be too categorical to say that it was always used in this sense in pre-Roman times. In several texts it is not possible to infer anything about the suspension form.The suggestion about Ctesias' usage of the rare άνασταυρίζειν is correct. Ctesias appears to refer to impaling exclusively.
σταυρός - "a pole or wooden frame on which corpses were suspended or victims exposed to die."
άνασταυροϋν - "to suspend someone (dead or alive) or something on a pole (or similar structure)," in the older Greek literature often on a pointed pole - "to impale."
σταυροΰν - "to erect a pole (or similar structure)," in the older Greek literature often a pointed pole; to suspend someone (dead or alive) or something on a pole (or the like)," in the older Greek literature often on a pointed pole - "to impale."
I propose we start with small steps. I'll be interested to see which of these things we agree on and which we need to explore further. -- Macrakis ( talk) 21:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC).
Do we agree that the central topic of this article is the meaning of stauros in the New Testament? If so, do we agree that something like this is a better lead paragraph:
Next, do we agree that the Indo-European cognates and the modern meaning are irrelevant?
In the older Greek literature, σταυρός refers to "pole" in general and occurs only in the plural.to which a footnote adds
Zealously and apparently correctly stressed by Jehovah's Witnesses. See Samuelsson, p. 241 and p. 38 where it is explicit:
Homer uses only σταυρός, always in the plural, in the sense "poles" in a wide senseYou appear to be misapplying "the JW argument" yourself! GPinkerton ( talk) 20:23, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The people, or at least a part of them, together with the high priest and some officers, shout σταυρού σταυρού αυτόν and add nothing to that. Second, the result of the cry according to the gospels. Jesus is handed over ϊνα σταυρωθη and nothing is added to that. Third, the description of the carrying of the execution tool. Jesus is aided (the synoptics) or himself carries (John) his σταυρός, without any further explanation of what he actually is carrying (e.g., whether it was a part of the tool or the whole tool), or for what purpose it was done. Fourth, the all too brief descriptions of the execution itself. Nothing is added beyond the use of σταυροϋν. Fifth, the descriptions of Jesus suspended on the σταυρός. Jesus is alive and talking while suspended. This indicates that the suspension method is described as endurable, at least for a while. This makes impaling less probable and hanging impossible as the suspension of the texts. Beyond that, Jesus is derided on the σταυρός. He is challenged to come down from the σταυρός, which suggests both that he is attached in such a way that he could not release himself and that the σταυρός is high to some extent. Sixth, the description of the events surrounding the resurrection, which to some extent refer back to the execution. But these texts do not add anything but the notion that Jesus is τόν έσταυρωμένον. It is in the events after the resurrection that John, and perhaps Luke, mention the nails indirectly
However, when the Gospels were written, that process was already a reality. There is a good possibility that σταυρός, when used by the evangelists, already had been charged with a distinct denotation - from Calvary. When, e.g., Mark used the noun it could have meant "cross" in the sense in which the Church later perceived it. That could be seen as an explanation for the scarcity of additional information about the nature of the punishment. In the period about 40 years after the death of Jesus, a contemporary reader/hearer of the Gospels probably knew what was going on when a σταυρός was mentioned, since people might have seen one or heard stories about it. ... Hence, the Gospel accounts probably show that σταυρός could signify "cross" in the mentioned sense, but they do not show that it always did so.
Do we agree that classifying meanings by period is not precise enough? "Classical Greek" is a pretty broad descriptor, and word meanings evolve within that period.
Do we agree that the singular/plural business is irrelevant to this article (no matter how interesting it may be in itself)?
Do we agree that no one asserts that Jesus was impaled?
Do we agree that 19th century sources, though an interesting piece of historiography, don't necessarily reflect current scholarly consensus?
GPinkerton ( talk) 17:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC)The instrument of torture and execution used by the Romans, and previously by the Persians, was an upright stake to which the condemned man's body was tied or nailed. The Romans usually left the stakes in place for repeated executions, and the convict carried a crossbar which was added to the top of the stake and on which the offence incurring the penalty might be inscribed, or a notice proclaiming it might be hung round his neck. Crucifixions have been reported in modern tribal conflicts.
Do we agree that long quotations of sources are unnecessary?
Might it be useful to separate the historiography from the substantive arguments? See, for example, Historicity of King Arthur.
GPinkerton, I am disappointed that you now seem to reject what Macrakis gave as the basic supposition behind the concrete questions that he then put to us: "Do we agree that the central topic of this article is the meaning of stauros in the New Testament? Bealtainemí ( talk) 15:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
From your answers to my question, I see that you have some basic disagreements. I have started by making a few small edits on the few things you agree on.
Until we resolve the central question of the main topic of the article, all the rest seems irrelevant. If the article is about various things which over time have been called stauros in Greek, then it is about a word, not a concept, and doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but rather on Wiktionary (cf. WP:NOTDICT). If it is about a concept, which concept? is it about the device used to execute Jesus? GPinkerton says no ("I disagree wholly that the meaning of stauros in the NT specifically has much, if any, bearing on the topic at hand."), so what is it? If it is about the specific concept of the Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, the obvious question is what its relation is to that article.
At this point, it seems to me that you two have reached an impasse, and that we need to involve the editors working on Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and probably the larger community, in an RFC on the question, "Is it useful to have a separate article on stauros, or should its content be included in Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion?". -- Macrakis ( talk) 21:08, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
GPinkerton, I will try to respond in one place to what you seem to have repeated several times, at least as I understand you to say it. Correct me if I am wrong. You say, I don't know why, that references to σταυροί with crossbars, before I'm unsure what date, are as unbelievable as to flying saucers; and you say that, for instance, Samuelsson declares there were no σταυροί with crossbars. Where does he say that? As far as I can see, he says in his book that there is no proof that there were any σταυροί with crossbars. He does not say there is proof that there were no σταυροί with crossbars. Not the same thing. His study, he says, is of the philology of words such as σταυρός, not about a historical event. The non-detailed accounts of the Gospels, he says, do not contradict the traditional understanding, which he believes is correct. You know what he wrote on the topic: [1]. I presume that you really mean that, before the actual explicit descriptions of the execution σταυροί as with crossbars, there is no evidence of such σταυροί, not that there is evidence that there were none. Bealtainemí ( talk) 19:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
references to σταυροί with crossbars, before I'm unsure what date, are as unbelievable as to flying saucers. I said there is no evidence of σταυροί with crossbars before the first century AD, just as there is no evidence of flying saucers before the first century AD (or at all). I have not said
Samuelsson declares there were no σταυροί with crossbars.Where have I said that? Samuelsson says there is no evidence of σταυροί with crossbars before the first century AD. (Rather as I have said there is no evidence of flying saucers.) This article, as you will agree, is about the philology of words such as σταυρός and the historical objects to which they referred. I have not said
there is evidence that there were none, as you claim, not least because that would be trying to prove a negative. Rather like proving there were no flying saucers before the first century AD ...
that whatever you choose to insert in the article (removing what was there before) can be reverted by nobody else. You are the one that hopes to remove the quotations from the lexica that have been part of this article for many years because they disagree with your fringe POV, which flies in the face of the established consensus, which you call "publicized by the JWs". This is merely your opinion, and it is not supported by reliable sources. Neither Artemidorus nor Lucian's references to Prometheus "incontrovertibly" refer to any but a vertical element, as my quotations from Samuelsson and elsewhere prove, and neither lends any certainty that if there was another element that element was †-shaped and not some other shape. Again, your baseless speculation that stauroi could have unattested meanings and semantic usage (like "flooring"!) outside what is established by scholarship does not belong in Wikipedia. Your claims furthermore that the impalement on three stakes somehow allows your imagination to conjure a cross-shaped stauros are utterly refuted and show nothing other than your refusal to comprehend the literature. Samuelsson says unambiguously that neither Ctesias, FGrH 3c, 688 F 14.39, nor Plutarch Artaxerxes 17.5 should be read this way. He says:
a eunuch named Masabates is impaled slantwise on three stakes while the skin was nailed separatelyand
The dead or dying eunuch appears to be described as impaled - or rather pierced - on three stakes. The usage of the verb άναπηγνύναι seems not to cover crucifixionand
This text shows that Ctesias uses the verb άνασταυρίζειν in connection with what appears to be some kind of impaling. It is difficult to see that the text should describe Inarus as crucified on three crucifixion tools simultaneously. There is no room for your unsourced postulate
ἀναστουροῦν ἐπὶ τρισὶ σταυροῖς involved a horizontal aspect much more certainly than a vertical aspectand your unspecified
and so onor any conclusions derived from them. It is special pleading at best, as is your strange desire to tar the entire tradition of scholarship with your wild allegations of collusion with Jehovah's Witnesses simply because you would like to believe there were cross-shaped stauroi long before there is any evidence of them, against all scholarly consensus. There is not one Roman depiction of Prometheus crucified in the cross-shaped sense, still less in a †-shape, and there is nothing in Lucian's description of Prometheus's punishment that implies a †-shape or any kind of horizontal anything. At all. Cook says "the image is cruciform", but this is not in Lucian's text and in the same breath Cook says the image accords with (pseudo-)Lucian's T-shaped (not-cruciform) cross referenced in the (possibly much later than 2nd century) Iudicium Vocalium, which is not universally accepted to have been written by Lucian at all. So a †-shaped stauros cannot be "incontrovertible", if even Cook (a true believer) can deduce two different shapes from the same text. GPinkerton ( talk) 14:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Kunio Saitou: this article is explicitly about "the use of the word for other contexts" than Biblical. In any case, a raw list of the word used to translate stauros in Bible translations is original research based on primary sources. If there is some reliable source about the translations of the word (and I'm sure there is), that might be worth mentioning somewhere in WP, though not here. -- Macrakis ( talk) 20:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
The Greek word Stauros is translated upright stand, not a pole with. Cross beam or cross. Ancient Roman’s hung people on stakes not crosses, which was their custom. So why would they have hung Jesus Christ on a cross. To say Christ died on a cross is a mid translation. 2600:8803:3C07:F00:D93C:E932:F545:DED4 ( talk) 19:43, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
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Bullinger is in two vols. The (Polish) google link is fine for vol. 1 (A-M) referring to the entry from "Cross". However the entry for "Tree" is in vol. 2. A link would be good if anyone can find one.
Rich
Farmbrough,
02:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC).
as in impale — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.218.93.150 ( talk) 11:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
This article should certainly mention the Jehovah's Witnesses, who seem to be the main group insisting that this word should be understood to mean that Jesus was crucified on a single upright post. Unfortunately I don't know enough about the theological and linguistic controversy to add this myself, but the article appears incomplete without it. Credulity ( talk) 16:10, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
In Wiktionary the word 'Stauros' and 'Stauron' are not recorded. Perhaps someone will be kind enough to enter them in Wiktionary. RCNesland ( talk) 05:26, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
and later
The first passage says that the cross-piece was included in this term before Christianity appeared. The second says that it was included in Koine Greek from 300BCE to 300CE. However, I do not believe there is any evidence before the Christian writers (i.e., some time after CE 100) that there was a cross-piece, certainly not in 300 BC. It's a little like saying that "In Modern English (1550-present), a 'bit' denotes a unit of information." The word 'bit' certainly existed in 1550, but it certainly didn't denote a unit of information until 1947.
I am not sure why translations of D.Siculus and Plutarch use the word 'cross' -- perhaps there is good reason to believe that that's what σταυρός meant in their time. (But at least one authority states that D.S. was referring to a stake.) If so, we should include that evidence. If not, we should be more precise in our language, something like:
and later
Who knows? Perhaps it commonly meant a cross by 200 BCE, but I don't believe there is any surviving evidence of that. The article should stick to what is known, and not use the overly-broad term "Koine Greek" in this context. -- Macrakis ( talk) 14:25, 23 September 2014 (UTC
I have removed the statement, "The word σταυρός is not mentioned", [1] [2]
a statement not found in the first of the cited sources and contradicted in the second, which states: "Σταυρός the vile engine is called." Bealtainemí ( talk) 13:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
@ Bealtainemí: The word stauros does not appear in the Greek text. It is supplied by the translator; Lucian did not use it there, though it is implied. Please, check yourself. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC) @ Bealtainemí: here is the Greek text of Lucian. Please, point out stauros if you can. I'll wait. κλάουσιν ἄνθρωποι καὶ τὴν αὑτῶν τύχην ὀδύρονται καὶ Κάδμῳ καταρῶνται πολλάκις, ὅτι τὸ Ταῦ ἐς τὸ τῶν στοιχείων γένος παρήγαγε· τῷ γὰρ τούτου σώματί φασι τοὺς τυράννους ἀκολουθήσαντας καὶ μιμησαμένους αὐτοῦ τὸ πλάσμα ἔπειτα σχήματι τοιούτῳ ξύλα τεκτήναντας ἀνθρώπους ἀνασκολοπίζειν ἐπ᾿ αὐτά· ἀπὸ δὲ1 τούτου καὶ τῷ τεχνήματι τῷ πονηρῷ τὴν πονηρὰν ἐπωνυμίαν συνελθεῖν GPinkerton ( talk) 21:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
"The texts from Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch and Lucian do not specify the σταυρός beyond that it is some kind of pole. The last clause of the paragraph,[the LSJ's "pale for impaling a corpse, Plut. Art. 17"]
however, comes close to a proper rendering of the usage of σταυρός. An elaborate form could be: σταυρός is a pole for suspending a corpse or for executing a person."There is only one ignoramus I can see here, and its the one unable to back their position with anything but opinion while I and mainstream scholars can furnish citation after citation that refute your baseless and unsourced claims. The Encylopaedia Britannica article you have added says nothing about your fringe and unsourced claims about a difference in the meaning of σταυρός between Koine and classical Greek. If your opinions were based on anything at all, you would be able to quote from reliable sources to support them. As it is, you have singularly failed to do so. As Samuelsson and the New Pauly point out, there is no difference in the meaning of σταυρός as used by Herodotus and Thucydides, and as used by Plutarch and Xenophon of Ephesus or by Artemiodorus and Lucian. Please desist from your claims to the contrary. GPinkerton ( talk) 15:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I see that an attempt was made not only to confuse earlier Greek with Koine Greek (while still keeping the present-day form separate, Byzantine Greek was added to the mix. The word σταυρός had quite different meanings in those periods. As English meanings have changed over the much shorter period in which English has been written. Bealtainemí ( talk) 20:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Edits reverted
@ Bealtainemí: I have undone your reversion of my edits, since no such distinction between usage is noted in any of the sources cited and is moreover demonstrably false. GPinkerton ( talk) 20:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Never before the advent of the Koine form of Greek is there any trace of use of σταυρός to mean an instrument of execution or torture.This claim, which you are making, is not supported by the New Pauly, by the LSJ, or by Samulsson. The New Pauly specifically cites Herodotus III.125 as describing impalement as ἀνασταύρωσις, and also cites Xenophon of Ephesus's use of the term in the 2nd c. AD. It says of ἀνασταύρωσις:
... in Hdt. 3,125 and probably also in Xenophon of Ephesos 4,2 means ‘impaling’. In the LSJ's entry on ἀνασταυρίζω you can plainly see that it cites Ctesias of Cnidus, a 5th century source, as an instance of the verb as meaning impalement, (the impalement of Inaros on three stakes) as the Wikipedia article now correctly states, and as Samulsson also argues on pages 61-63 of Crucifixion in Antiquity, 2011. As for Polybius, on pages 77-8 ibid., Samulsson says:
Polybius does not explicitly show what kind of suspension he refers to - or what the σταυρός actually was, beyond being some kind of suspension tool. However, the suspension appears to be an execution. Polybius stresses twice that Hannibal was still living while suspended. This feature, the emphasized fact that he was alive, could in addition be interpreted as an indication that the usual suspension objects were corpses. This text may thus reflect a deviation from a prevailing rule. It is noticeable that Polybius here drops the prefix of the verb. This is the only time Polybius uses the plain verb σταυροΰν, as well as the noun σταυρός. It is possible to trace two vague indications that, at least, make it as plausible to identify the suspensions as impalings as it is to identify them as crucifixions. First, Polybius uses a related verb, άποσταυροϋν, when he refers to palisades, i.e., fortifications made of standing and probably pointed poles. Is this an indication that Polybius had pointed poles in mind when he referred to σταυρός? Second, Polybius uses the verb άνατιθέναι, "to lay upon," unusual in connection with crucifixion. Once again, these indications do not prove that the described suspensions actually are examples of impaling. They show that it is just as plausible to interpret these texts as references to impaling. ¶ The result of the study of crucifixion in Polybius is in the end meager. Not one single text could with a sufficient degree of certainty be judged to contain a reference to crucifixion. All texts refer to unspecified suspensions. Two texts refer to post-mortem suspensions (5.54.6-7; 8.21.2-3); one appears to refer to an ante-mortem suspension (1.86.4-7). It is, as noted earlier, impossible to draw the conclusion that the texts containing άνασταυροϋν and άνασκολοπίζειν do not refer to crucifixions at all. The rejected texts may refer to crucifixions, but it cannot be determined to what extent they actually are relevant references, due to their lack of additional contextual evidence. Thus, it is unknown to what kind of suspension these texts refer, i.e., impaling, crucifixion or something similar.
Ίνάρως δέ ό Λιβύων βασιλεύς, ος τα πάντα έπραξε περί της Αιγύπτου, προδοσία ληφθείς άνεσταυρώθη.This is the same story told by Ctesias: FGrH 3c, 688 F 14.39
και άνεσταύρισεν μέν έπι τρισι σταυροΐς, which Samulson also directly compares with Plutarch's treatment of impalement, which is itself cited by the LSJ. As I say, I have no objection to saying, with Samulsson, that stauros does not appear in singular number in the "oldest texts" [i.e. the two texts of Homer], but this has not significance either for the use of the word in Archaic Greek as a spoken language and certainly has no bearing on whether the fifth century Greeks used it this way. The claring omission in this article is of course the mention here that after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, stauros acquired the special semantic significance of the classic "cross-shaped" Christian cross, the staurogram, and so on. It also presently lacks discussion of the Biblical Geek texts that use stauros and its derivatives. GPinkerton ( talk) 16:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
When it comes to the individual terms, some conclusions can be drawn. Α σταυρός is a pole in the broadest sense. It is not the equivalent of a "cross" (†). In some cases, it is a kind of suspension device, used for the suspension of corpses, torture or in a few cases executionary suspensions. Very little or nothing is said about what it was made of or how it looked. ¶ (άνα)σταυροΰν and άνασκολοπίζειν are used more or less interchangeably. There might have been a distinction between them occasionally- as Herodotus' usage shows - but that distinction is now in essence lost. The only clear difference is that the verbs are used in a way which contradicts their etymology, (άνα)σταυροΰν has a clearer tendency to be connected with pointed poles than άνασκολοπίζειν, which is peculiar in the light of the usage of σκόλοψ. ¶ crux and patibulum are not used in the sense "cross or standing bare pole" and "crossbeam." A crux is some kind of torture or execution device, and so is patibulum. The difference is that crux to a higher degree than patibulum refers to a standing pole, crux is more firmly connected with the suspension of humans than σταυρός. The ecclesiastically pregnant term crucifigere did not evolve until the final years before the Common Era, and its usage is hard to define beyond denoting "to attach in some way to a crux"
The label "cross" is commonly applied to many more texts which contain σταυρός than those which - with at least a decent amount of certainty - can be determined to contain a reference to the punishment tool used in a crucifixion in a traditional sense. In the same way, the label "crucifixion" is applied to a large number of texts where the only qualifier is the occurrence of, e.g., (άνα)σταυροΰν or άνασκολοπίζειν. In short, a lot of texts are identified as references to "crucifixion" on the basis of a simple conjecture.
how do the New Testament authors describe the death of Jesus on the philological level? The New Testament authors are strikingly silent about the punishment Jesus had to suffer on Calvary. The vivid pictures of the death of Jesus in the theology and art of the church - and among scholars - do not have their main source here. Perhaps crucifixion as it is known today did not even come into being on Calvary, but in the Christian interpretation of the event. Before the death of Jesus, it appears that there was no crucifixion proper. There was a whole spectrum of suspension punishments, which all shared terminology.
It is correct that the noun denotes "a pole to be placed in the ground and used for capital punishment," but that does not make it a "cross" (†). In Diodorus Siculus' text (2.18.1) the σταυρός is an object onto which Semiramis is threatened to be attached or nailed (προσηλοϋν). No further description is given there. Diodorus Siculus uses the noun also when he refers to things that can barely be labeled as "cross," e.g., a standing bare bronze pole (17.71.6). As has been seen in Chapter 2, Plutarch appears to use σταυρός mainly when referring to standing pointed poles. Epictetus also uses the noun in the same philosophical discussion that was mentioned in the previous section. Diogenes Laertius only mentions a young man who is throwing stones on a σταυρός, without further comments. The apocryphal texts, Apocalypse of Esdras and Ascension of Isaiah, appear to be Christian interpolations. They seem to refer simply to the σταυρός of Jesus, without adding further information. The text by Philo contains, among other cruel acts, an ante-mortem suspension of some kind. The reference to the shape of the σταυρός is unsupported in the same sense. The text which should support the image of a T-shaped cross or a regular cross (†) only says that a σταυρός resembles the mast of a ship, without further description. It is a good assumption that the mast of an ancient ship had some kind of yard to hold up and spread the sail. With the yard suspended without sail, the mast would have been fairly "crossshaped." But there is a significant leap from that assumption to stating that this was the universal form of mast, the one Artemidorus and his readers automatically envisioned when they said/heard κατάρτιος (mast). If there were an obvious similarity between a κατάρτιος and a σταυρός in the sense "cross" (†), why did other ancient authors not pay attention to that?
I hope Macrakis will permit to begin here a new section, reducing all of his ":::::::::::"s. Bealtainemí ( talk) 09:35, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
@ GPinkerton: thanks for asking me to (re)join the discussion. @ Bealtainemí:, I really don't have the patience to dissect these overly long discussions, let alone to look at the large edit diffs nor to check the cited sources to see what they're actually saying. And your edits are clearly not converging.
The biggest problem with this article is that it isn't clear why it exists. Most of the content (in either version) overlaps heavily with the content in instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and the crux (as it were) of both articles is "what was the shape of the cross on which Jesus was killed". Why do we need two articles? I suppose that in principle, this article could be the "main" article for the section instrument of Jesus' crucifixion#Presence or absence of crossbar; but it is in fact shorter than that section. So what is the rationale for this article?
There are other problematic things about this article. Why on earth does it bother with the Indo-European root and the Modern Greek meaning? This is not a dictionary article. Unless those things give us some insight on the 1st century CE meaning (and they don't), they are irrelevant.
Why does it mention the fact that the word only appears in the plural in Homer in the lead?
The first sentence in both versions is terrible:
A more informative and more honest first sentence would be something like:
Can we agree that that is the central topic of this article? If it isn't, what is? Is it Roman torture/execution practice, for which the word is a side issue?
Again, we really need to figure out why this article exists. -- Macrakis ( talk) 03:43, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Latin crux or damnatio in crucem (‘sentencing to crucifixion’), Greek during the Hellenistic period ἀνασταύρωσις/anastaúrōsis (which, however, in Hdt. 3,125 and probably also in Xenophon of Ephesos 4,2 means ‘impaling’) was only one of several ways of exacting the death penalty (II) in the Roman empire.You claimed stauros was not used in the singular in classical Greek, and you were wrong. You claimed there was no instance of a stauros as a torture or execution device before the advent of Koine, and you were wrong. Your bizarre statements about crypto-Christaians and religious organizations are very strange, and your weird attempts to misquote the various authors cited in the article as though they fitted your POV is not helping your actions appear rational. Again, if you would simply read the references cited instead of arbitrarily deleting them, you would be able to see that nothing I have added is original research, a fact that would be obvious to your if you had read Samuelsson or Cook or the other works cited! GPinkerton ( talk) 00:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
ἀνασταυρ-ίζω , impale, Ctes.Fr.29.59 (Pass.).
II. in Rom. times, affix to a cross, crucify, Plb. 1.11.5, alibi, Plu.Fab.6, albi
2. crucify afresh, Ep.Hebr.6.6.
-ωσις, εως, ή, crucifixion, X.Eph.4.2
The statement that άνασταυροον is basically used in the the sense "impale" is basically correct, but it would be too categorical to say that it was always used in this sense in pre-Roman times. In several texts it is not possible to infer anything about the suspension form.The suggestion about Ctesias' usage of the rare άνασταυρίζειν is correct. Ctesias appears to refer to impaling exclusively.
σταυρός - "a pole or wooden frame on which corpses were suspended or victims exposed to die."
άνασταυροϋν - "to suspend someone (dead or alive) or something on a pole (or similar structure)," in the older Greek literature often on a pointed pole - "to impale."
σταυροΰν - "to erect a pole (or similar structure)," in the older Greek literature often a pointed pole; to suspend someone (dead or alive) or something on a pole (or the like)," in the older Greek literature often on a pointed pole - "to impale."
I propose we start with small steps. I'll be interested to see which of these things we agree on and which we need to explore further. -- Macrakis ( talk) 21:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC).
Do we agree that the central topic of this article is the meaning of stauros in the New Testament? If so, do we agree that something like this is a better lead paragraph:
Next, do we agree that the Indo-European cognates and the modern meaning are irrelevant?
In the older Greek literature, σταυρός refers to "pole" in general and occurs only in the plural.to which a footnote adds
Zealously and apparently correctly stressed by Jehovah's Witnesses. See Samuelsson, p. 241 and p. 38 where it is explicit:
Homer uses only σταυρός, always in the plural, in the sense "poles" in a wide senseYou appear to be misapplying "the JW argument" yourself! GPinkerton ( talk) 20:23, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The people, or at least a part of them, together with the high priest and some officers, shout σταυρού σταυρού αυτόν and add nothing to that. Second, the result of the cry according to the gospels. Jesus is handed over ϊνα σταυρωθη and nothing is added to that. Third, the description of the carrying of the execution tool. Jesus is aided (the synoptics) or himself carries (John) his σταυρός, without any further explanation of what he actually is carrying (e.g., whether it was a part of the tool or the whole tool), or for what purpose it was done. Fourth, the all too brief descriptions of the execution itself. Nothing is added beyond the use of σταυροϋν. Fifth, the descriptions of Jesus suspended on the σταυρός. Jesus is alive and talking while suspended. This indicates that the suspension method is described as endurable, at least for a while. This makes impaling less probable and hanging impossible as the suspension of the texts. Beyond that, Jesus is derided on the σταυρός. He is challenged to come down from the σταυρός, which suggests both that he is attached in such a way that he could not release himself and that the σταυρός is high to some extent. Sixth, the description of the events surrounding the resurrection, which to some extent refer back to the execution. But these texts do not add anything but the notion that Jesus is τόν έσταυρωμένον. It is in the events after the resurrection that John, and perhaps Luke, mention the nails indirectly
However, when the Gospels were written, that process was already a reality. There is a good possibility that σταυρός, when used by the evangelists, already had been charged with a distinct denotation - from Calvary. When, e.g., Mark used the noun it could have meant "cross" in the sense in which the Church later perceived it. That could be seen as an explanation for the scarcity of additional information about the nature of the punishment. In the period about 40 years after the death of Jesus, a contemporary reader/hearer of the Gospels probably knew what was going on when a σταυρός was mentioned, since people might have seen one or heard stories about it. ... Hence, the Gospel accounts probably show that σταυρός could signify "cross" in the mentioned sense, but they do not show that it always did so.
Do we agree that classifying meanings by period is not precise enough? "Classical Greek" is a pretty broad descriptor, and word meanings evolve within that period.
Do we agree that the singular/plural business is irrelevant to this article (no matter how interesting it may be in itself)?
Do we agree that no one asserts that Jesus was impaled?
Do we agree that 19th century sources, though an interesting piece of historiography, don't necessarily reflect current scholarly consensus?
GPinkerton ( talk) 17:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC)The instrument of torture and execution used by the Romans, and previously by the Persians, was an upright stake to which the condemned man's body was tied or nailed. The Romans usually left the stakes in place for repeated executions, and the convict carried a crossbar which was added to the top of the stake and on which the offence incurring the penalty might be inscribed, or a notice proclaiming it might be hung round his neck. Crucifixions have been reported in modern tribal conflicts.
Do we agree that long quotations of sources are unnecessary?
Might it be useful to separate the historiography from the substantive arguments? See, for example, Historicity of King Arthur.
GPinkerton, I am disappointed that you now seem to reject what Macrakis gave as the basic supposition behind the concrete questions that he then put to us: "Do we agree that the central topic of this article is the meaning of stauros in the New Testament? Bealtainemí ( talk) 15:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
From your answers to my question, I see that you have some basic disagreements. I have started by making a few small edits on the few things you agree on.
Until we resolve the central question of the main topic of the article, all the rest seems irrelevant. If the article is about various things which over time have been called stauros in Greek, then it is about a word, not a concept, and doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but rather on Wiktionary (cf. WP:NOTDICT). If it is about a concept, which concept? is it about the device used to execute Jesus? GPinkerton says no ("I disagree wholly that the meaning of stauros in the NT specifically has much, if any, bearing on the topic at hand."), so what is it? If it is about the specific concept of the Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, the obvious question is what its relation is to that article.
At this point, it seems to me that you two have reached an impasse, and that we need to involve the editors working on Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and probably the larger community, in an RFC on the question, "Is it useful to have a separate article on stauros, or should its content be included in Instrument of Jesus' crucifixion?". -- Macrakis ( talk) 21:08, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
GPinkerton, I will try to respond in one place to what you seem to have repeated several times, at least as I understand you to say it. Correct me if I am wrong. You say, I don't know why, that references to σταυροί with crossbars, before I'm unsure what date, are as unbelievable as to flying saucers; and you say that, for instance, Samuelsson declares there were no σταυροί with crossbars. Where does he say that? As far as I can see, he says in his book that there is no proof that there were any σταυροί with crossbars. He does not say there is proof that there were no σταυροί with crossbars. Not the same thing. His study, he says, is of the philology of words such as σταυρός, not about a historical event. The non-detailed accounts of the Gospels, he says, do not contradict the traditional understanding, which he believes is correct. You know what he wrote on the topic: [1]. I presume that you really mean that, before the actual explicit descriptions of the execution σταυροί as with crossbars, there is no evidence of such σταυροί, not that there is evidence that there were none. Bealtainemí ( talk) 19:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
references to σταυροί with crossbars, before I'm unsure what date, are as unbelievable as to flying saucers. I said there is no evidence of σταυροί with crossbars before the first century AD, just as there is no evidence of flying saucers before the first century AD (or at all). I have not said
Samuelsson declares there were no σταυροί with crossbars.Where have I said that? Samuelsson says there is no evidence of σταυροί with crossbars before the first century AD. (Rather as I have said there is no evidence of flying saucers.) This article, as you will agree, is about the philology of words such as σταυρός and the historical objects to which they referred. I have not said
there is evidence that there were none, as you claim, not least because that would be trying to prove a negative. Rather like proving there were no flying saucers before the first century AD ...
that whatever you choose to insert in the article (removing what was there before) can be reverted by nobody else. You are the one that hopes to remove the quotations from the lexica that have been part of this article for many years because they disagree with your fringe POV, which flies in the face of the established consensus, which you call "publicized by the JWs". This is merely your opinion, and it is not supported by reliable sources. Neither Artemidorus nor Lucian's references to Prometheus "incontrovertibly" refer to any but a vertical element, as my quotations from Samuelsson and elsewhere prove, and neither lends any certainty that if there was another element that element was †-shaped and not some other shape. Again, your baseless speculation that stauroi could have unattested meanings and semantic usage (like "flooring"!) outside what is established by scholarship does not belong in Wikipedia. Your claims furthermore that the impalement on three stakes somehow allows your imagination to conjure a cross-shaped stauros are utterly refuted and show nothing other than your refusal to comprehend the literature. Samuelsson says unambiguously that neither Ctesias, FGrH 3c, 688 F 14.39, nor Plutarch Artaxerxes 17.5 should be read this way. He says:
a eunuch named Masabates is impaled slantwise on three stakes while the skin was nailed separatelyand
The dead or dying eunuch appears to be described as impaled - or rather pierced - on three stakes. The usage of the verb άναπηγνύναι seems not to cover crucifixionand
This text shows that Ctesias uses the verb άνασταυρίζειν in connection with what appears to be some kind of impaling. It is difficult to see that the text should describe Inarus as crucified on three crucifixion tools simultaneously. There is no room for your unsourced postulate
ἀναστουροῦν ἐπὶ τρισὶ σταυροῖς involved a horizontal aspect much more certainly than a vertical aspectand your unspecified
and so onor any conclusions derived from them. It is special pleading at best, as is your strange desire to tar the entire tradition of scholarship with your wild allegations of collusion with Jehovah's Witnesses simply because you would like to believe there were cross-shaped stauroi long before there is any evidence of them, against all scholarly consensus. There is not one Roman depiction of Prometheus crucified in the cross-shaped sense, still less in a †-shape, and there is nothing in Lucian's description of Prometheus's punishment that implies a †-shape or any kind of horizontal anything. At all. Cook says "the image is cruciform", but this is not in Lucian's text and in the same breath Cook says the image accords with (pseudo-)Lucian's T-shaped (not-cruciform) cross referenced in the (possibly much later than 2nd century) Iudicium Vocalium, which is not universally accepted to have been written by Lucian at all. So a †-shaped stauros cannot be "incontrovertible", if even Cook (a true believer) can deduce two different shapes from the same text. GPinkerton ( talk) 14:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@ Kunio Saitou: this article is explicitly about "the use of the word for other contexts" than Biblical. In any case, a raw list of the word used to translate stauros in Bible translations is original research based on primary sources. If there is some reliable source about the translations of the word (and I'm sure there is), that might be worth mentioning somewhere in WP, though not here. -- Macrakis ( talk) 20:49, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
The Greek word Stauros is translated upright stand, not a pole with. Cross beam or cross. Ancient Roman’s hung people on stakes not crosses, which was their custom. So why would they have hung Jesus Christ on a cross. To say Christ died on a cross is a mid translation. 2600:8803:3C07:F00:D93C:E932:F545:DED4 ( talk) 19:43, 21 March 2022 (UTC)