From: dan-ake mattsson (dan-am@online.no)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 12:06:02 EST
<x-charset ISO-8859-1>Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 11:43 PM -0600 12/22/99, Grant wrote:
>>B-Greek:
>>
>>Very interesting indeed! As a matter of fact, I went to the
>>Liddell-Scott-Jones on-line lexicon (if there's a better one, then please
>>let me know!!) at the address of
>><http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/lexica.html>http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/lex
ica.ht
>>ml I find this extremely interesting about the word "stauros." Look at
>>what I found:
>>
>>stauros, ho, upright pale or stake
>>staur-oô, (stauros) fence with pales
>>staur-ikos, ê, on, of or by a cross,
>>
>>So I see two possible meanings here.
>>Did it mean two different things or did one meaning possibly "evolve"
>>after another?
>>
>>Do translators translate it "cross" every time or is there a case where
>>it is rendered "stake?"
>
>For our purposes the important point is that it is the Greek word used for
>a post with a crossbar at the top used for executions, particularly by the
>Romans, and equivalent in meaning to the Latin word CRUX, whence comes our
>English word "cross."
>
Carl,
I have been working with the words STAUROW and STAUROS for some time. Your
comment above is correct, but because of its brevity it can be
misunderstood. My study has convinced me that there is no real evidence
that Jesus was nailed to a "post with a crossbar".
Please consider Matthew 20:19, the first occurrence of STAUROW. If we
accept that Matthew renders a real utterance of Jesus, the words must have
been uttered either in Hebrew or Aramaic. Neither of the languages had a
word for "cross" or "crucify", so Jesus could simply not have used such a
word! But if speking Hebrew, he must have used the verb TALA (to hang) or
the noun ETS (tree). Matthew used the verb STAUROW, and while this verb can
refer to a stake with a crossbar, it can also refer to all other kinds of
stakes. So without further specification there is no reason to render
STAUROW in the specific sense "cross". Even more important is the fact that
Jesus uttered the words long before anybody had seen the the STAUROS to
which he was nailed and its shape. Even though Jesus' STAUROS would turn
out to be a cross, it would be an anacronism to translate STAUROW in this
verse and other verses referring to a time before the death of Jesus.
To the best of my knowledge there are only two pieces of archaeological
evidence from the first century CE that can suggest something about the
shape of the STAUROI on which people were hanged, and both are interpreted
in different ways. The first data published about the "crucified" man from
Giv'at ha-Mivtar was not quite correct, and the shape of his STAUROS cannot
be known. (See J.A. Fitzmyer, "Crucifixion in Ancient Palestine, Qumran
Literature, and the New Testament", The Catholic Biblical Quarterly,
1978:493-513) The Synagogue "The House of St. Peter" in Capernaum was built
in the first century CE, but the grafitti-crosses on the walls evidently
are younger (the wall has been plastered several times)
(See G.F Snyder, "Ante Pacem Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before
Constantine")
A discussion of this occurred in November on the ANE list.
In the Talmud and in the Rabbinic literature we find the verb tsalab (or
the corresponding noun) which refers to the instrument on which people were
hanged It is interesting to note that the rabbis did not use tsalab with
the modern meaning "crucify". According to Marcus Jastrow (1989, "A
Dictionary of the Targumim, The Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi", and the
Midrashic Literature, p 1282) the verb both in Hebrew and Aramaic means «to
hang, impale». Some of the examples he gives and his translation is as
follows: Tosefta Gittin 4:11: "nailed to the stake"; Midrash Rabba to
Esther where Deuteronomy 28:66 is refered to: "who is taken out to be
impaled"; Midrash Rabba to Leviticus "is going to be hanged". Thus the
Jewish literature after the time of Jesus continued to use terms for
hanging (on a stake) which did not point to a particular shape of the
instrument on which one was hanged. As late as the 14th century the Hebrew
noun TSALAB did not signify a stake with a particular shape. In 1380 Shem
Tob ben Shaprut copied the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew. In Matthew 27:32 he
used the noun TSELIBA where the Greek text has STAUROS. Shem Tob realized
that this word would not be understood as "cross", and therefore he added
SHETI WA' EREB which means "cross". Howard's translation (George Howard,
1987, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text) is as
follows: "They compelled him to carry the gallows (TSELIBA), that is, "The
Cross"."
A similar ambiguity as is found in TSELAB/TSELIBA, seems to have existed
regarding the latin word "crux" whose basic meaning also was "pole" or
"stake".
Seneca (c.4 BC-65 CE) wrote: "I see crosses (plural of crux) there, not
just of one kind, but made in many different ways; some have their victims
with head down to the ground; some impale their private parts; others
stretch out their arms on the gibbet." As late as the 16th century the word
"crux" could signify different shapes. In my copy of "De Cruce Liber
Primus" by Justus Lipsius who wrote in the 16th century there are many
illustrations of different "crosses", including three illustrations of
"crux simplex" which is an upright pole to which the victims could be
nailed or bound in different ways. As to STAUROS, its original and generic
meaning has even reached Norwegian. The first meaning assigned to STAUROS
in "Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Greque, 1980, by P Chantraine,
is pole (pieu). It also says: "The word corresponds exactly to the Norse
"staurr" (pole)." In modern Norwegian "staur" means "pole" or "stake". We
also find the word in Sanskrit as "sthavara", and in Gothic as "stiurjan"
with the meaning "something standing upright". So the original meaning of
STAUROS evidently was strong and continued for a long time, even spreading
to other languages
I therefore conclude that in some places, such as Matthew 20:19, the
evidence suggests that "cross" or "crucify" would be a wrong rendering, and
in the other occurrences in the NT there is absolutely no evidence that can
substantiate the rendering "cross".
Greetings,
Dan Mattsson
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