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Doctrine changes · Claim record

The teaching that Jesus was executed on an upright stake rather than a cross was published in The Golden Age of 4 November 1936 and in the book Riches the same year; the organisation’s index records it under the year 1936.

Claim ID claim-doctrine-cross-1936-stakeConcerns 4 November 1936Explicit statement
Explicit statement · 4 November 1936 Verified

The teaching that Jesus was executed on an upright stake rather than a cross was published in The Golden Age of 4 November 1936 and in the book Riches the same year; the organisation’s index records it under the year 1936. The Golden Age, 4 November 1936Watch Tower Publications Index 1930-1985, 1986God’s Kingdom Rules!, 2014

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The 2014 history lists the steps by which the cross was set aside and quotes two long-standing members who said they gave the emblem up readily once they understood what it represented.

Show the evidence (3 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

The Golden Age, “How the Cross Superstition Originated”

4 November 1936 · p.72 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“The Scriptures state that Jesus was nailed to a [x]ylon (tree) or sta[u]ros (mistranslated “cross”), not to a T-shaped cross.”

A short item in the magazine’s pages of news and comment, arguing from Homer’s use of the Greek word and from the reign of Constantine that the cross is a pagan symbol and that Jesus died on an upright stake.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. The issue’s scan text was downloaded and read on 19 September 2026 and re-read for audit the same day. The page is confirmed twice: the issue’s own contents page lists ‘How Cross Superstition Originated 72’, and the organisation’s index gives the same citation (‘g36 11/4 72’) under the 1936 entry ‘Jesus did not die on cross’. Only the machine-read text layer was read; the page images were not inspected.

Scan provenance. Scan of the issue hosted on the Internet Archive as a reader-uploaded item; the words were read from the item’s optical-character-recognition text layer, not from a publisher’s file. The scan renders the two Greek words as ‘aylon’ and ‘stawros’; the square brackets in the quotation mark the letters restored to the standard transliterations xylon and stauros. Copyright in the original text is held by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.

Corroborated by. src-chg-p-kr-2014-ch10-refining, src-chg-p-idx-beliefs-clarified-1930-1985

Notes. The organisation’s own index cites this page as the place where the teaching that Jesus did not die on a cross was published.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chg-p-ga-1936-1104-cross

Primary JW publication Verified

Watch Tower Publications Index 1930-1985, “Beliefs Clarified (List by Year)”

1986 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“1935, flag salute: yb75 168-169 … 1936, Jesus did not die on cross: yb75 148-149; ch 27; g36 11/4 72 … 1973, tobacco and other harmful addictives: w73 338-343 … 1978, fornication (porneia) as grounds for divorce: w78 2/15 31-32”

The organisation’s own index lists, year by year, the beliefs it regards as having been clarified, with references to the publications that announced each one. The list is printed as year headings with subject entries beneath them, so an entry may appear either on the same line as its year or on a line of its own: ‘pagan origin of Christmas’ sits under the 1928 heading and ‘unnatural sex within marriage’ under the 1978 heading, each on its own line. The entries quoted here are whole lines, in the order in which they appear.

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Index entry opened on the Watchtower Online Library and re-opened for audit on 19 September 2026, and the whole list read. The quotation is a selection of complete printed lines from a longer list, marked by ellipses; no wording within a line has been altered and no year heading has been joined to an entry printed on a different line.

Notes. The companion list for 1986 onwards is already in the ledger as src-idx-beliefs-clarified. The 1930-1985 list carries four separate entries on ‘fornication (porneia) as grounds for divorce’, under the years 1972, 1974, 1978 and 1983.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chg-p-idx-beliefs-clarified-1930-1985

Primary JW publication Verified

God’s Kingdom Rules!, “Chapter 10: The King Refines His People Spiritually”

2014 · pp.102-105 · pars. 8-9, 12-13; boxes on pp. 102 and 105 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“Yet, the Bible Students did not at the time clearly see the need to stop celebrating Christmas. It continued to be celebrated even by members of the Brooklyn Bethel family. … For many years, the Bible Students viewed the cross as an acceptable symbol of Christianity. … they proudly wore a cross-and-crown pin as an identifying badge. … Beginning in 1891, a cross-and-crown symbol appeared on the cover of the Watch Tower.”

The chapter dates the Christmas change to the years after 1926, quotes a letter of 14 November 1927 from Frederick W. Franz saying ‘The Bethel family has voted not to have Christmas anymore’, and lists the steps by which the cross was dropped: the 1928 Detroit assembly (‘not only unnecessary but also objectionable’), Preparation (1933) p. 239, The Golden Age of 28 February 1934 p. 336, and The Golden Age of 4 November 1936 p. 72 together with Riches (1936) p. 27 for the teaching that Jesus died on a stake. A separate box gives the earliest references against Easter (1928), Valentine’s Day (1929), birthdays (1936) and New Year’s Day (1946).

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Chapter opened on the Watchtower Online Library and re-opened for audit on 19 September 2026 and read in full. The Christmas sentences follow the page 102 marker; the cross sentences are in paragraph 12, which straddles the page 104 marker, so the first of them is on page 103 and the rest on page 104. The box on other holidays is headed ‘Exposing Other Holidays and Celebrations’ and follows the page 105 marker. Of the publications the chapter cites, only The Golden Age of 4 November 1936 was separately opened.

Corroborated by. src-chg-p-jv-1993-ch14-abandoned, src-chg-p-ga-1936-1104-cross

Notes. The box on other holidays gives the earliest published objection, not the date on which Bible Students stopped observing each one.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chg-p-kr-2014-ch10-refining

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-doctrine-cross-1936-stake/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.