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The so-called historical books of the New Testament, the Four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, declare that Christ was crucified. Do the remaining books of the New Testament confirm it?
In the first four Pauline Epistles, known as the genuine Epistles of Paul, the verb crucify—crucified appears in ten different texts, as follows:
“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed” ([Romans vi, 6]).
“Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you?” ([1 Corinthians, i, 13].)
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness” ([23]).
“For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” ([ii, 2]).
“For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” ([8]).
“For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God” ([2 Corinthians xiii, 4]).
“I am crucified with Christ” ([Galatians ii, 20]).
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?” ([iii, 1].)
“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” ([v, 24]).
“But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” ([vi, 14]).
Webster defines this word as follows: “1. To nail to a cross; to put to death by nailing the hands and feet to a cross or gibbet, sometimes, anciently, by fastening a criminal to a tree with cords. 2. In scriptural language, to subdue; to mortify; to destroy the power or ruling influence of. 3. To reject and despise. 4. To vex or torment.”
The first, only, denotes a physical crucifixion, which, it is claimed, Christ suffered. The word, as used by Paul, in most instances, clearly denotes a crucifying of the passions and carnal pleasures, and the exceptions, when taken in connection with Paul’s well known teachings, and allowing for the probable corruption of the original text, do not confirm the Evangelistic accounts of the crucifixion. Besides this it is admitted that Paul did not witness the crucifixion, and that these Epistles, even if authentic, were not written until nearly thirty years after it is said to have occurred.
In the eighteen books which follow, the word crucify appears but twice—in Hebrews ([vi, 6]) and in Revelation ([xi, 8]). The word crucifixion does not appear once in the Bible.
Concerning the books we have been considering in this criticism, Paine writes as follows: “Whether the fourteen epistles ascribed to Paul were written by him or not, is a matter of indifference; they are either argumentative or dogmatical; and as the argument is defective and the dogmatical part is merely presumptive, it signifies not who wrote them. And the same may be said for the remaining parts of the Testament. It is not upon the Epistles, but upon what is called the Gospel, contained in the four books ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and upon the pretended prophecies, that the theory of the church calling itself the Christian Church is founded. The Epistles are dependent upon those, and must follow their fate; for if the story of Jesus Christ be fabulous, all reasoning founded upon it as a supposed truth must fall with it” (Age of Reason).