A tradition of the Church which our fathers have inherited, was the adoption of the words "cross" and "crucify".
These words are nowhere to be found in the Greek of the New Testament. These words are mistranslations, a "later rendering", of the Greek words stauros and stauroo. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says, "STAUROS denotes, primarily, an upright pole or stake ... Both the noun and the verb stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pole, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two-beamed cross.
The shape of the latter had its origin in ancient Chaldea (Babylon), and was used as the symbol of the god Tammuz (being in the shape of the mystic Tau, the initial of his name) ... By the middle of the 3rd century A.D. the churches had either departed from, or had travestied, certain doctrines of the Christian faith.
In order to increase the prestige of the apostate ecclesiastical system pagans were received into the churches apart from regeneration by faith, and were permitted largely to retain their pagan signs and symbols. Hence the Tau or T, in its most frequent form, with the cross piece lowered, was adopted .
Dr. Bullinger, in the Companion Bible, appx. 162, states, "crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian Sun-god ... It should be stated that Constantine was a Sun-god worshipper ... The evidence is thus complete, that the Lord was put to death upon an upright stake, and not on two pieces of timber placed at any angle."
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What is the "mark of the beast" of which we read in Rev 13:16-17, Rev 14:9-11, Rev 15:2, Rev 16:2, Rev 19:20 and Rev 20:4 - a mark on people's foreheads and on their right hands? Rev 14:11 reveals the mark to be "
the mark of his (the beast's) name." Have we not read about the mystic Tau, the T, the initial of Tammuz's name, his mark? This same letter T (Tau) was written in Egyptian hieroglyphics and in the old Wemitic languages as, representing the CROSS. Different interpretations have been given to the "mark of the beast", and also the cross has been suggested. There has been some research done on the strange crosses found on quite a few statues of pagan priests, on their foreheads. However, these scholars have been unable to come to an agreement. Conclusive evidence may still come (see among others: Dr. F.J. Dolger, Antike und Christentum, vol. 2, pp. 281-293).
Let us rather use the true rendering of the Scriptural words stauros and stauro, namely "stake" and "impale" and eliminate the un-Scriptural "cross" and "crucify".
read the full history at:
http://www.albatrus.org/english/religio ... _cross.htm