About the Cross

It is interesting to note that the image of Jesus on the cross that we've seen since the sixth century or so may be wrong.

This means there is legitimate dispute as to the accuracy of Jesus' crucifixion on a small-case "t" type cross. There is no dispute that he was crucified.

The Romans had several cruel methods of crucifying people. According to popular church legend, Peter (Kefa) was crucified upside down, at his request, because he wasn't worthy of suffering the same kind of death as the Messiah. Whether or not this is true, upside down crucifixion was indeed one of the cruel Roman inventions.

There were other types of crucifixion as well, including an x-shaped cross, a cross resembling a capital "T", and a stake that someone would be crucified to, either with hands up above the head, or with hands at the sides.

The Romans would vary their nailing also. Sometimes they'd tie arms to a cross, sometimes they'd make a person stand a little platform while nailing their wrists to a cross... and several other nasty items we won't go into.

The Gospels never tell us exactly how Messiah was crucified (t-shaped cross, etc.), but they make it clear that He was indeed crucified, that He physically died, and that He physically came back to life. There are other possible hints from other scriptures, though, that would indicate the traditional image may not be accurate.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
- Acts 5:30 NIV

"We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree."
- Acts 10:39 NIV

When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
- Acts 13:29 NIV

Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse.
- Deuteronomy 21:13 NIV

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
- Galatians 3:13 (quoting Deuteronomy 21:23)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.
- I Peter 2:24

Update: 10 April
Tom from MuD & PHuD asked what the wording was in the Greek. Thanks to Elijah Z. for pointing me in the right direction:

According to Strong's, the word for "tree" in the New Testament passages is:
G3586
ξύλον
xulon
xoo'-lon
From another form of the base of G3582; timber (as fuel or material); by implication a stick, club or tree or other wooden article or substance: - staff, stocks, tree, wood.

The Strong's reference in Hebrew from the Deuteronomy passage is:
H6086
עץ
‛êts
ates
From H6095; a tree (from its firmness); hence wood (plural sticks): - + carpenter, gallows, helve, + pine, plank, staff, stalk, stick, stock, timber, tree, wood.

Yeshua , Jesus Christ , cross