Assuming Jesus was a real person, did he die on a cross? A Christian scholar is arguing that the “Christ on a cross” idea seems to be a complete fabrication, with no reliable ancient texts indicating that crucifixion was an execution method of the era, and the Bible itself saying only that Jesus died on a staurus (pole). Which means that rather being a symbol of ultimate sacrifice, the Christian cross is a branding/graphic design choice. From the Atlantic:
The crucifixion is apparently under review. In his doctoral thesis, newly graduated Swedish theologian Gunnar Samuelsson argues that the cross Jesus supposedly died on may not actually have been a cross. He explains in an interview with DRadio Wissen, a German station: “the New Testament said that Jesus died some way on something called a staurus … that’s a Greek name for a cross or a pole or something … I call it an execution device only to be [distinguished] from the common notion that it must be a cross, because it mustn’t be a cross–it could be a pole, for instance, or a tree trunk, or something else.”
Samuelsson did some serious research before advancing this provocative argument: “I spent almost three years,” he says, “reading all the ancient texts I could find … from about Homer until the first century of the Common Era.” He says “some kind of suspension of a living or a dead person or a part of a person” was indeed common at the time, but crucifixion is not mentioned. In the Bible itself, all it says is that Jesus carried and then was executed on a staurus–”there is no other description beyond that.”
