Christians have used the cross symbol in their worship and even to identify themselves as Christians for hundreds of years. The question is was Jesus crucified on a cross? If not where did this come from and how did it find it's way into the Christian religion? Can we find cross worship in the period before the birth of Jesus and how was they used? Did you know that symbols in religions all over the world denote who a person worships? The main important question is who do you want to follow? The first crucifixion scenes didn't appear in Christian art until the 7th century by the Catholic Church. The so called body of Jesus was not shown at that time like the one seen in the row of pictures above. The original cross symbol was in the form of a Tau Cross as shown and it was so named because it looked like the letter tau or our letter " T ". One author states that the Cathloic Church copied the symbol from the Pagan Druids who made crosses in this form to represent the Thau (god). This was done so those that worshipped this pagan god Tau would come into the Catholic Church. The Tau cross later became associated with St. Philip who was allegedly crucified on such a cross in Phrygia. Later in Catholic church history, the Tau Cross became the "Roman Cross" that we are familiar with today. Also notice a very important fact about the last picture of a cross above; It has the sun rays behind it.

The Pre-Christian History of the Cross:

The first and second pictures in the top row above also has an X at the top depicting the cross of Constantine the Great who stated that he saw a sign from the Christian, (Catholic) god showing that he would win the battle he was about to engage in. The sign Constantine saw was an X in the Sun and that is why he commanded it put with the Catholic cross as shown above. This cross is called a Chi Rho Cross and you can see it also as the sixth cross above. It should be noted that Constantine was a Sun worshipper and that is why he looked into the Sun for a sign. We have found in our research that many monuments in ancient Babylon depict the mother goddess Semiramis, and the child in her arms which is the old pagan god Tammuz and is where the worship of the Catholic and Protestant cross came from. It has been proven that the cross represents the first letter of the name Tammuz with the top moved down. The 3rd and 4th pictures of a cross above is called an ankh cross and is from Egypt (A Tau cross topped by an inverted tear shape.) and is associated with Maat, their Goddess of Truth. It also represents the sexual union of Isis and Osiris. The use of a human effigy on a cross in the form of a scarecrow has been used from ancient times also. In historic times a human would be sacrificed and hung on a cross just the way the many Churches of the Christian religion depicts the person hanging on the cross today. The sacrifice would later be chopped to pieces; his blood and pieces of flesh were widely distributed and buried to encourage crop fertility.

The truth is that the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament from the dawn of man's civilization. Various objects dating from periods long before the Christian era, have been found through archaeological discoveries, marked with crosses of different designs in almost every part of the old world. The cross symbol was found in Scandanavia: The Tau cross symbolized the hammer of the God Thor. In Hinduism, the vertical shaft represents the higher, celestial states of being; the horizontal bar represents the lower, earthly states. The honest bible researcher will acknowledge that the New Testament scripture that refers to the cross is a mistranslation. I looked up the word "cross" in William Tyndale's original writings and he spells it "Crosse" but still we know that the Greek word he should have translated from is "Stauros" and should be translated as "Stake". Our research has revealed that the true Greek word for cross is "Crux". It is interesting to note that this Greek word "Crux" cannot be found in the New Testament at all, but the word "Stauros" which translates as "Stake" is found in every place where Tyndale used the word Cross. The reason Tyndale used the word "Cross is because he was a product of his Catholic teaching. We found that there are four basic types of representations of the cross: The crux quadrata, or Greek cross, with four equal arms; The crux immissa, or Latin cross, whose base stem is longer than the other three arms; The crux commissa, in the form of the Greek letter tau, sometimes called St. Anthony's cross; and crux decussata, named from the Roman decussis, or symbol of the numeral ten. (This Information is from the Encyclopedia Britannica.)

Sometimes, the Romans executed people on a Tau cross, sometimes on a Roman cross and sometimes on a simple stake, but we know Jesus was crucified on a stake because as stated above the Greek word stauros (stow-ros'); which means a stake or post (as set upright), specifically a pole without a cross piece was used. Hermann Fulda, author of The Cross and Crucifixion has commented that: "the description of Jesus' suffering during the last hours of life also indicates that he was crucified on a stake rather than a cross and that some of the writings of the early church fathers confirms the use of a pole, and that the very earliest depictions of Jesus' crucifixion in Christian art show him on a stake." I would also like to refer you to some scriptures that accurately reflect this. Acts 5:30 refers to hanging Jesus on a tree and 1 Peter 2:24 states that He bore our sins in his body on the tree. These two Greek words for "Tree" is xulon (xoo'-lon); and means a timber, stick or staff. But what about the scripture where Jesus stated "Take up your cross and Follow Me in Mark 10:21? "Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, follow Me." These words underlined in bold were not in the original text! The original reads.. "you will have treasure in heaven; and come follow Me." Look it up for yourselves so you can be sure when you state this to others. The best book to look is in what is called the "Interlinear" which is a great tool for researching the subtle nuances and layers of meaning within the original biblical languages. This book called the "Interlinear" has the complete Hebrew and Greek texts with a direct English rendering below each word, if you use a good one it also includes the Literal Translation of the Bible in the outside column.

I would like to make a very important point here:
The bible teaches that Jesus had to carry the stake or as some believe cross, outside of the city. A very important point is that we can go back in history and find that there was a wall around the city, and many gates on each wall to exit the city. These gates were designed to prevent a man on horse back or camel from entering while riding. The design only allowed a man to enter by walking, and his mount had to squat. The reason for this was to not allow their enemies to ride into the city with the advantage of being on a mount while attacking. Giving this understanding I would like to present a point which shows why Jesus could not have carried a Cross outside the city. As you will see by the minimum dimensions necessary to place the cross at least four feet into the ground so it would not topple over, and still having adequate room to stretch a man at least six foot tall on the cross with at least two feet left from the ground, and adequate room for the sign that was hung above Jesus' head would make it at least thirteen feet tall. A man's arms stretched out is as long as the man is tall, so the side arms had to be at least five foot 10 inches in order to stretch his arms out the way they had to be stretched. I would like to ask how Jesus, or anyone could have gotten this thing through the small gates of the city that a horse had to squat in order to enter? Plus, the cross would have to be at least eight inches square, so if you think about the weight of this cross you will see it would take two men to carry it. I submit that a man that had been beaten all night long would not be able to pick it up. Some may argue that Jesus carried only one piece and the main stake was at the site of crucifixion. I submit that Jesus did in fact carry only one piece because of the word stauros, which means steak, also there is not one scripture that states there were another piece at the site of crucifixion.