"

 Vague gratuitous assertions 

1. ""This thesis is based in part on an improved understanding of the ancient languages.""  What ancient languages?  The earliest accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus are only in just one language, Greek.  What new discovery has appeared (perhaps in 1930?) about the meaning of ?

2. Anonymous editor 216.79.140.195 says that three books, published respectively in 1629, 1878 and 1904, ""provide support"" (weasel words!) for the idea that Jesus was crucified on a stake.  The form of the alleged support in not indicated.  Is that because they really only state that  and crux can, but do not have to, mean a simple stake.  That was known long before 1629, and also before 1930, when somebody claimed to have discovered it.  Even if the writers of the 1629, 1878 and 1904 books had stated that Jesus was crucified on a stake - which seems extremely unlikely - it is hard to imagine how they could possibly know better than the writer of the probably first-century Epistle of Barnabas, who described it as shaped like the letter T, and second-century Irenaeus, who described it as having ""five extremities, two in length, two in breadth, and one in the middle, on which [last] the person rests who is fixed by the nails""?

3. I could comment also on the gratuitous assertions in the paragraph, under the heading ""Pre-Christian use of the cross symbol"", that the same editor added, starting with the authoritative-sounding ""It must be remembered that ...""  But what I have already said is enough for now.   "