Rejection of the cross as a symbol of Christianity Dr Didron comments: "The cross has been the object of a worship and adoration, resembling if not equal to, that offered to Christ. That sacred tree is adored almost as if it were equal with God himself".[10] Jehovah's Witnesses, noting the pre-Christian use of the cross symbol and lack of its early use by Christians until after the deaths of the apostles, reject it as essentially pagan in origin. They hold that the instrument on which Jesus died was really a single-beamed "torture stake". See Cross or stake as gibbet on which Jesus died. The Greek word "��α����" (stauros) is rendered "cross" in nearly all English translations of the Bible. In classical Greek - the Greek that was used in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ - this word meant merely an upright stake, or pale.[11] In the Koine Greek of the New Testament, the Greek used by some of those who witnessed Jesus' death, the word was used to refer to a cross, as in the writings of the first-century B.C. Diodorus Siculus and in later writers, such as Plutarch and Lucian.[12] Jehovah's Witnesses also hold that the use in, for instance, Acts 5:30 of the Greek word "ξ�λον" (xylon), meaning "wood", "timber", for the instrument of Christ's death indicates that the original writers had in mind an upright piece of timber, not a wooden cross. In fact, the word "ξ�λον" was used of wooden objects as varied as firewood, a cudgel, a wooden collar or stocks for a prisoner, a gallows, a stake, a table, a wooden spoon, and a live tree.[13] Jehovah's Witnesses' main reason for rejecting the cross is because they see it as an idol, the use of which in worship is condemned in the Bible (Ex 20:4,5; Ex 32:3-10; Ps 115:4-8; 1Co 10:14; Re 21:8). And, for them, it is unthinkable that the instrument of Christ's brutal murder should be seen as holy or worthy of veneration. [14] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) also rejects the cross as a symbol, seeing it as a sign of Christ's death and therefore inappropriate as a symbol of the living Christ or his church...