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The Messiah’s Crucifixion Tree 85

southeast side of him). So, proceeding from the northeast side of the tree of crucifixion, the
soldiers killed the first robber, went to the southeast side and killed the second robber, but
they then came to the Messiah who was facing (let us say) westward towards his Father’s
Temple. When they reached Yeshua they found him dead already. (Secrets of Golgotha, pp.
176-177).

All of this is perfectly logical and is actually what happened. There is no need to resort to the
outlandish theories of Bullinger, or anyone else for that matter!

O.T. References

The apostle Paul makes the following statement when referring to the Messiah’s crucifix-
ion: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a TREE” (Galatians 3:13). This is a direct reference to
Deuteronomy 21:22-23, which says –

And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him
on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the TREE, but you shall surely bury him on
the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land
which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.

A controversy raged among the Pharisees as to whether this passage from the Old Testa-
ment refers to a man being hanged on a TREE before or after death. Based on humane consider-
ations, the Pharisees interpreted this passage to mean that the criminal should be put to a quick death
by strangulation -- followed by hanging. There is, however, evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls
(Temple Scroll and Nahum Commentary) that this same passage was originally interpreted to
mean that a criminal was hanged on a TREE as the method of execution.

According to the Temple Scroll (Column 64), those found guilty of certain capital offenses
were killed by hanging on a tree:

If a man informs against his people, and delivers up his people to a foreign nation, and does
harm to his people, you shall hang him on a TREE and he shall die....And if a man has com-
mitted a crime punishable by death, and has defected into the midst of the nations, and has
cursed his people and the children of Israel, you shall hang him also on the TREE, and he
shall die (Yadin, The Temple Scroll, p. 206).

According to the Sages, only blasphemers and idolaters were to be hanged on a tree --
though they abided by the more humane act of hanging after death. However, the Temple Scroll
clearly shows that hanging on a tree could be used as a legitimate method of execution. Notice what
Yigael Yadin says –

It is possible...that hanging alive goes back to the Second Temple period as the legitimate
interpretation of the Bible’s command to execute by “hanging,” and that it was only the later
Pharisaic halachah which gave a different interpretation, and condemned the practice of
stringing up a condemned man while still alive. There is in fact proof of this in the Aramaic
Targum (of a sentence in Ruth) which dwells on the four methods of carrying out judicial

The Berean Voice March-April 2003