You are kidding, right?
Not even close. And there is VERY VERY early evidence that the traditional Cross (2 pieces) is what was used both by the Persians and the Romans. UGH!
Russell new NOTHING about Greek and the JW twisting of scripture is rivaled only by the Mormons.
Another face palm moment..
When my Mormon friends insist that they are Christians because they follow Christ, I ask them if that makes JWs Christians as well. That's company that the Mormons don't want and it is interesting how they try to justify their own inclusion in Christianity while trying to exclude the JWs. I love to point out to the Mormons that foundationally they are a lot closer to fellow Arian JWs than they are to Trinitarian Christians.
Where is your documentation? Here is mine. There is nothing in the Greek of the New Testament even to imply two pieces of timber. These (+) crosses were used as symbols of the Babylonian sun-god, and are first seen on a coin of Julius Caesar, 100-44 B.C., and then on a coin struck by Caesar’s heir (August), 20 B.C. On the coins of Constantine the most frequent symbol is (xp)(this will have to do-I don’t know how to use a Greek font, sorry), but the same symbol is used without the surrounding circle, and with the four equal arms vertical and horizontal. and this was the symbol specially venerated as the “Solar Wheel”. It should be stated that Constantine was a “sun-god worshipper, and would not enter the “Church” till some quarter of century after the legend of his having seen such a cross in the heavens(Eusebius, Vit. Const. I.37).
The evidence is the same as to the pre-Christian (phallic) symbol in Asia, Africa, and Egypt,, whether we consult Nineveh by Sir A.H. Layard (ii 2123), or Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, iii pp. 24,26,43,44,46,52,82,136.
Dr. Schliemann gives the same evidence in his Ilios (1880), recording his discoveries on the site of prehistoric Troy. See pp. 337,350,353,521,523.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter gives the same evidence from Cyprus; and these are “the oldest extant Phoenician inscriptions” ;see his Kypros, the Bible, and Homer: Oriental Civilization, Art, and Religion in the Ancient Times, Plates XlX, XXV, XXVl, XXX, XXXl, XXXll, XL, LVlll, LXlX. &c.
The Catacombs in Rome bear the same testimony: “Christ” is never represented there “hanging on a cross”, and the cross itself is only portrayed in a veiled and hesitating manner. In the Egyptian Churches the cross was a pagan symbol of life borrowed by the Christians, and interpreted in pagan manner. See Encyclopedia Brit., 11th (Camb.) ed. vol. 14, p273.
In his ‘Letters From Rome’ Dean Burgon says: I question whether a cross occurs on any Christian monumentof the first four centuries.”
In Mrs. Jameson’s famous ‘History of our Lord as Exemplified in Works of Art’ she says (vol.ii p.315): “It must be owned that ancient objects of art, as far as hitherto known afford no corroboration of the use of the cross in the simple transverse form familiar to us, at any period preceding, or even closely succeeding, the time of Chrysostom”, and Chrysostom wrote half a century after Constatine.
“The invention of the Cross” by Helena the mother of Constatine (326) , though it means her finding of the cross, may or may not be true: but the “invention” of its use in later time, are truths of which we need to be reminded in the present day. The evidence is thus complete, that the Lord was put to death upon an upright stake, and not two pieces of timber placed at any angle.
P.S. There were four others crucified with Jesus not two!