Hanging Jesus

Well, I had some notes on the Bible I'm reading, but then … A miracle! The toddler has discovered that when he toddles on the keyboard, things happen. It's magic! Look, things disappear, look ... NO, NO, DON'T PUSH ... too late, Letters Allgone. Wheee!

I'll just start over, at ACTS 5:12. The apostles go around healing everybody in sight, so the high priests arrest them, but an angel busts them out. No, srsly:

5:19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.

This reminds me of the naked man in the garden. I picture a big burly guard, with his glistening pecs, unlocking the cell door with his strong manly forearms, ideal for fisting, and the apostles planting a kiss on his stubbly cheeks as they file out,

“Thanks dearie, you're an angel.”

They get busted again, being as how they're too dumb to keep a low profile, and Peter---holdit, keep in mind how Jesus lectured the judges when he got arrested, and what happened to him---Peter lectures the judges, blames them for killing Jesus. Man, talk about not learning from history! Peter gets off easy, though, they just had him flogged. Along with all his buddies, who didn't appreciate his genius move of insulting the judges and getting them all whipped for it.

5:41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.

Whoa, that's some serious personality disorder there.

Peter says they hung Jesus, instead of a crucifying him, and I was all wtf?

5:30 The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.
10:39 … They killed him by hanging him on a tree,

Can we get rid of all those disgusting bloody crucifixes and replace them with cattle rustler icons? It would scare the children less.

So I looked it up, the KJV says a tree too. My NIV says a tree, but the NEW New Int'l Version © 2001 (the NNIV?) changed it to a cross. Can they do that, playing fast and loose with the immutable Words of Gawd? In the original Greek it was xulon, which means 'pole', not staupos 'cross'. Is this a contradiction in the immutable WOG? Of course not, Christains say, he was killed first and then hung on a tree, like it describes in the Bible no old manuscript ever found on this planet.

Bottom line, the book describes a crucifixion in fascinating gory detail, and the “witnesses” say he was hanged. Case dismissed, for Christ's sake.