Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar

[CENTRO ANTI-BLASFEMIA]

Jesus did not die on cross, says scholar
Jesus may not have died nailed to the cross because there is no
evidence that the Romans crucified prisoners two thousand years ago, a
scholar has claimed.
Published: 11:47AM BST 23 Jun 2010
The legend of his execution is based on the traditions of the
Christian church and artistic illustrations rather than antique texts,
according to theologian Gunnar Samuelsson.

He claims the Bible has been misinterpreted as there are no explicit
references the use of nails or to crucifixion - only that Jesus bore a
"staurus" towards Calvary which is not necessarily a cross but can
also mean a "pole".



Mr Samuelsson, who has written a 400-page thesis after studying the
original texts, said: "The problem is descriptions of crucifixions are
remarkably absent in the antique literature.

"The sources where you would expect to find support for the
established understanding of the event really don't say anything."

The ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature from Homer to the first
century AD describe an arsenal of suspension punishments but none
mention "crosses" or "crucifixion."

Mr Samuelsson, of Gothenburg University, said: "Consequently, the
contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a punishment is severely
challenged.

"And what's even more challenging is the same can be concluded about
the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus. The New Testament doesn't
say as much as we'd like to believe."

Any evidence that Jesus was left to die after being nailed to a cross
is strikingly sparse - both in the ancient pre-Christian and extra-
Biblical literature as well as The Bible.

Mr Samuelsson, a committed Christian himself, admitted his claims are
so close to the heart of his faith that it is easy to react
emotionally instead of logically.

Mr Samuelsson said the actual execution texts do not describe how
Christ was attached to the execution device.

He said: "This is the heart of the problem. The text of the passion
narratives is not that exact and information loaded, as we Christians
sometimes want it to be."

Mr Samuelsson said: "If you are looking for texts that depict the act
of nailing persons to a cross you will not find any beside the
Gospels."

A lot of contemporary literature all use the same vague terminology -
including the Latin accounts.

Nor does the Latin word crux automatically refer to a cross while
patibulum refer to the cross-beam. Both words are used in a wider
sense that that.

Mr Samuelsson said: "That a man named Jesus existed in that part of
the world and in that time is well-documented. He left a rather good
foot-print in the literature of the time.

"I do believe that the mentioned man is the son of God. My suggestion
is not that Christians should reject or doubt the biblical text.

"My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we
think it is. We should read on the lines, not between the lines. The
text of the Bible is sufficient. We do not need to add anything."





http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7849852/Jesus-did-not-die-on-cross-says-scholar.html
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Another Question about Christ from a Scholar
28 June 2010

Christ may not have been crucified, says Swedish researcher
June 24, 2010 17:11 IST
Tags: Gunnar Samuelsson, Jesus Christ, Gothenburg University,
Telegraph

Theologian Gunnar Samuelsson of Gothenburg University has claimed that
Jesus Christ may not have died nailed to a cross, as he found no
evidence of this form of punishment in ancient texts, The Telegraph
newspaper said in a report.

In his 400-page thesis, Samuelsson wrote that the the descriptions of
crucifixion were absent in ancient literature. The theologian claims
that there are no 'explicit references' in the Bible itself to
Christ's crucifixion, insisting that the legend of the execution is
based on traditions in the church and illustrations.

Samuelsson , who is a commited Christian himself, said the actual
texts of the execution do not describe how Christ was 'attached to the
execution device.' He said that the contemporary text used to describe
the incident, especially the Latin passages, used very vague words.
Any evidence of Christ being nailed to a cross is very sparse in
ancient pre-Christain literature and such text was found only in the
Gospels, Samuelsson said.

'The sources that one would expect to find support for the established
understanding of the event really don't say anything,' he said.
'Consequently, the contemporary understanding of crucifixion as a
punishment is severely challenged.'

Samuelsson, a devout Christian, said the text of the passion
narratives is not that exact and information-loaded as we Christians
sometimes want it to be.'

Samuelsson urged his fellow Christians not to doubt the existence of
Christ and not reject or doubt the Bible.

What is undeniable is that 'a man named Jesus existed in that part of
the world and in that time who left a good footprint on the literature
of the time.'

'I do believe that he is the son of god.'

'My suggestion is that we should read the text as it is, not as we
think it is. We should read on the line, not between them,' he added.


Fr's Commentary:

Well, here we go again. Another conclusion drawn from the
"intelligence" of man - even one who claims to be a committed
Christian who has written 400 pages as an expert from human
understanding. Pastor Gunnar Samuelsson (yes, he's a Protestant
minister in Sweden) believes that there is no evidence (other than -
God forbid, the Gospels) that he was hung from the Cross. The "legend
of execution is based on traditions in the church" reveal a bias
against and ignorance of Holy Tradition from which the written
Tradition, NT Scripture, was derived. The "illustrations" to which
Samuelsson refers are icons. The Hymnology of the Church is ignored.
And his exhaustive research failed to turn up writings from any of the
Church Fathers. He claims that most criminals were impaled on vertical
poles and that actual crosses were seldom used by Rome for execution.
He adds that it was usually left up to the depravity of the Roman
soldiers to decide how to execute the condemned.

Yet, if this Samuelsson wants us to "read the text as it is, and not
what we think it is" and that "we should read on the line and not
between them" then what has happened to his ability to read crystal
clear accounts from the Gospels - especially since soldiers were sent
to break the legs of all three for the Jews to celebrate the feast. If
the three executed were impaled, they would have bled out rather
quickly and there would have not been the agonizing hours of their
trying to prevent their suffocation that crucifixion produces. All
four Evangelists describe him as crucified. I guess that the
Evangelsits omitted the gory details must somehow negate crucifixion
and leave room for impalement per our esteemed professor. Similarly,
the accounts in the Gospels of the Resurrected Christ with the
Apostles, especially Thomas, reveal imprints of nails in his hands and
feet which would not have been necessity per Professor Samuelsson's
theory.

Looking beyond the Gospels and the Fathers, Eusebius and Tertullian
1st Century Church Historians both describe Christ as having been
crucified on the cross.

The epistles make countless references to the "crucified Christ" and
how they were emulating his crucifixion by their "crucifixion of
suffering". On Great and Holy Friday, we read from Galatians at the
1st Royal Hour, "But God forbid that I should glory, except in the
Cross of Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, by whom the world is
crucified unto me and I unto it." (6:14-18). At Vespers, we hear from
1 Corinthians 1:18-2:2, "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a
stumbling block and the Greeks foolishness...I determined not to know
anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified".

Last but not least, in his 400 page effort to "discover the truth" as
so many others looking for the historical Jesus, he failed to uncover
that the Romans always crucified slaves and criminals, since there
exist many accounts from secular historians and there exist today
skeletal remains of crucifixion victims which show clearly that huge
spikes were pounded through their wrist and heel bones. So much for
empirical evidence for Samuelsson.

So, Professor Samuelsson, we, the Church, do read what God has given
us. We read the lines and don't have to read in between the lines,
since He gave us the interpretation of the Word by His Church Fathers
to remove the confusion that the enemy has always tried to put into
our heads about Christ and His Church. Satan convinced Arius of heresy
and it cost him his soul. So, dear professor, who describes Christ as
"a man named Jesus [Who]existed in that part of the world and in that
time who left a good footprint on the literature of that time", I pray
that you open the "eyes of your heart" to God's understanding before
your end, lest your "thinking" causes others to be confused or
discouraged and your "committed Christianity" become your "stumbling
block" and your "foolishness". And, please, if you do believe that
Christ is the Son of God, please show proper respect for His Holiness
by using capitalization when referring to Him. I seriously doubt that
you - or any of us - will exhibit a casual or cavalier attitude when
we stand before Him to be judged. So, spend a little less time in
clever thinking and a lot more time in prayer and repentance - which
is commanded of us all.

Finally, parents, please give some serious thought to what your
children will be taught when they go to college. It amazes me that
well-intentioned parents shell out huge sums of money to send their
students to institutions that try and shape their children into
"products" of that school's thinking, rather than letting truth be
truth and allowing for open discussion as that truth is learned. Some
of the least-free thinking exists on most college campuses unless your
student agrees with the mantra being pushed at that school. Whatever
happened to learning skills to prepare us for the World of Work
instead of the World of Good Intentions?

NOTE: Please pray for Jim Clance as he begins his return trip today
from Oregon. Pray that the return trip is everything that the trek
West wasn't - great weather, no mechanical issues, but, as always,
safely in the arms of God as he travels. Jim will offer a lecture on
his experiences with all the Orthodox Churches he visited during his
40-day adventure.
posted by Father Jim Wright at 12:20 AM



http://stteoc.blogspot.com/2010/06/another-question-about-christ-from.html

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If Samuelsson Is Right about Crucifixion All Lexica Need Revision
Last Friday Gunnar Samuelsson successfylly defended his thesis
"Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background of the New
Testament Terminology of Crucifixion" at Gothenburg University
(supervisor Samuel Byrskog).

The external examiner Erkki Koskenniemi Professor of Åbo University,
Finland, was drastic in his opening when he said that "if Gunnar
Samuelsson is right, then all lexica will need revision on this
point." "Koskenniemi also pointed out that "if Gunnar Samuelsson is
wrong, he will from this moment be known as the Gunnar Samuelsson who
wrote about the cross."


Abstract

This study investigates the philological aspects of how ancient Greek,
Latin and Hebrew/Aramaic texts, including the New Testament, depict
the practice of punishment by crucifixion. A survey of the ancient
text material shows that there has been a too narrow view of the
“crucifixion” terminology. The various terms are not simply used in
the sense of “crucify” and “cross,” if by “crucifixion” one means the
punishment that Jesus was subjected to according to the main Christian
traditions. The terminology is used much more diversely. Almost none
of it can be elucidated beyond verbs referring vaguely to some form(s)
of suspension, and nouns referring to tools used in such suspension.
As a result, most of the crucifixion accounts that scholars cite in
the ancient literature have to be rejected, leaving only a few. The
New Testament is not spared from this terminological ambiguity. The
accounts of the death of Jesus are strikingly sparse. Their chief
contribution is usage of the unclear terminology in question. Over-
interpretation, and probably even pure imagination, have afflicted
nearly every wordbook and dictionary that deals with the terms related
to crucifixion as well as scholarly depictions of what happened on
Calvary. The immense knowledge of the punishment of crucifixion in
general, and the execution of Jesus in particular, cannot be supported
by the studied texts.


Order the monograph from the department by sending an e-mail to:
gunnar[dot]samuelsson[at]telia[dot]com

"Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background of the New
Testament Terminology of Crucifixion"
ISSN: 1102-9773
ISBN: 978-91-88348-35-7

Update: Below I will cite the concluding chapter seven, "Answers to
the basic questions of the investigation." I will cite the six
questions and some significant parts of the answers (but not all - buy
the book!):

1) "First, what is the ancient - pre-Christian - terminology of
crucifixion? The answer is that there was no such terminology. There
was only a terminology of suspension - a group of words and idioms
that were used more or less interchangeably when referring to various
forms of suspension ... The problem is that no specific terminology is
linked to this particular form of execution - before the execution of
Jesus.

When it comes to the individual terms, some conclusions can be drawn.
A 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."

...

And so it goes on with (ἀνα)σταυροῦν and ἀνασκολοπίζειν, crux and
patibulum. For example, Samuelsson says "crux is more firmly connected
with the suspension of humans than σταυρός." "The ecclesiastically
pregnant term crucifigiere 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."

Then comes Hebrew/Aramaic terminology.

...

2) "Second, what can be said about the punishment that the term
describes? The punishment consists in fact of punishments. There is a
large group of terms and idioms which refer to varous acts of
suspension, and this is almost all that can be said about 'the
punishment' - it comprises various acts of suspension. ... What
happened to Jesus on Calvary might then be only a momentary expression
of local caprice. Previous and subsequent executions might have been
completely different. What has become the solid image in the centre of
the Christian faith might be just a freak of fate, not an expression
of a well-defined and long-used execution form."

3) "Third, how do the New Testament authors depict the death of Jesus
on the philological level? The New Testament authors are strikingly
silent about the punishment Jesus had to suffer on Calvary ..."

4) "Fourth, how is the punishment of crucifixion defined by previous
scholars?"

5) "Fifth, how do the insights from the present stud of the ancient
texts cohere with the contributions of the major lexica and
dictionaries? The outcome of the comparative study is that they are
incoherent. At the heart of the discrepancy is the usage of the labels
'cross' and 'crucifixion' in the lexica and dictionaries. 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
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 occurence of, e.g., (ἀνα)σταυροῦν and ἀνασκολοπίζειν.
In short, a lot of texts are identified as references to 'crucifixion'
on the basis of a simple conjecture."

6) "Sixth, how has the punishment of crucifixion been depicted, and
how should it be depicted in the light of the present investigation?"
Posted by Tommy Wasserman at 8:42 AM

Tags: cross, crucifixion, Gunnar Samuelsson

http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2010/05/if-samuelsson-is-right-about.html