• slightperil@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    That’s definitely the intended meaning of wearing a cross, and a really powerful and important scripture.

    It’s worth remembering though that ‘cross’ isn’t the word that Jesus said here but the Greek word recorded is stau·rosʹ which means execution or torture stake and the cross wasn’t a contemporary use for impailment by the Romans, primarily because a stake was a much more painful death than a cross.

    The cross was a pagan idol for many centuries before Jesus death and was later rolled into the account of Jesus’ death by the later Christian Church to help with the conversion of those pagans.

    • otterpop@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans? The scripture references “coming down” from the cross which to me would imply the one we typically think of.

      Also from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impalement,

      "I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made differently by different [fabricators]; some individuals suspended their victims with heads inverted toward the ground; some drove a stake (stipes) through their excretory organs/genitals; others stretched out their [victims’] arms on a patibulum [cross bar]; I see racks, I see lashes … "

      Sounds like Seneca, a figure from exactly this time period confirms the type of cross we think of.

      • Raltoid@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans?

        No they do not, because the early symbol was already T.

        There are writings from around ~200 talking about how the letter T and Tau look like the execution cross. And it changed to the modern version over time. Around the same time where the word “σταυρός”(cross) apperas in the New Testament.