If you are a son of God, come down off the TORTURE STAKE

[tonychanyt]

New World Translation, Matthew 27:

40 and saying: “You who would throw down the temple and build it in three days,+ save yourself! If you are a son of God, come down off the torture stake [G4716 σταυρός]!”

Thayer's Greek Lexicon:

1. an upright stake, especially a pointed one (Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon).
2. a cross.

The Greek is ambiguous, New International Version:

and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

Was Jesus nailed on an I-shaped stake or a T-shaped cross?

There are clues that point to the latter. Thomas was skeptical in John 20:

25 Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”

The T-shape cross required more than one nail.

A chapter later, Jesus prophesied the manner of Peter's death in John 21:

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands,

on the horizontal beam of the cross

and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, “Follow me.”

This is the staurogram:


It is a ligature composed of a superposition of the Greek letters tau (Τ) and rho (Ρ). Some 2nd-century manuscripts used the staurogram to spell G4716.

There are also artifacts from the Shroud of Turin:

There is evidence that the body once folded in the Shroud was the victim of a Roman crucifixion. Though used as a method of execution by the Persians, the Phoenicians, the Greeks, and other societies of antiquity, crucifixion in the Roman world was distinctive in a number of ways. Flogging invariably preceded execution and was usually carried out as the condemned proceeded to the crucifixion site; the victim was made to carry his own crossbar and was tied or nailed thereto and then hoisted onto a cross; or a T-shaped frame. Evidence in the Shroud image attests to each of these traits

Was Jesus nailed on an I-shaped stake or a T-shaped cross?

Lexically, σταυρός is ambiguous. However, some strong textual and physical evidence points to the T-shaped cross.

 

[HTacianas]

New World Translation, Matthew 27:


Thayer's Greek Lexicon:

1. an upright stake, especially a pointed one (Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon).
2. a cross.

The Greek is ambiguous, New International Version:


Was Jesus nailed on an I-shaped stake or a T-shaped cross?

There are clues that point to the latter. Thomas was skeptical in John 20:


The T-shape cross required more than one nail.

A chapter later, Jesus prophesied the manner of Peter's death in John 21:


on the horizontal beam of the cross


This is the staurogram:


It is a ligature composed of a superposition of the Greek letters tau (Τ) and rho (Ρ). Some 2nd-century manuscripts used the staurogram to spell G4716.

There are also artifacts from the Shroud of Turin:


Was Jesus nailed on an I-shaped stake or a T-shaped cross?

Lexically, σταυρός is ambiguous. However, some strong textual and physical evidence points to the T-shaped cross.

Jesus was crucified on a t-shaped cross. That is the reason for the very early adoption of the cross as a symbol of Christianity. One of the problems you're running into is the use of the New World Translation of the Watchtower organization, commonly called the Jehovah's Witnesses. Charles Taze Russel followed in the footsteps of Alexander Hislop and others in their notion that all of the symbols of the Roman Church were pagan in origin, including the cross. According to them the cross was an adoption of the Egyptian Ankh. As you pointed out above, the cross in Matthew is an upright stake, but oftentimes the Romans would nail or tie the victim's arms to a cross member then hoist it onto the stake forming a cross.

But, it makes you wonder why no one ever translated it as "tree", because the crucifixion is also described as him being "hanged on a tree", see Acts 5:30. In the old testament when a person was stoned to death their body was hoisted into a tree and left in public sight as a deterrent for others. So, it was either a simple stake, or a tree, or a cross. Given that Christianity chose the cross as its symbol, and the countless available descriptions of Roman crucifixion carried out using a cross, it was likely a cross.