‘Hanging on a Tree’: Deuteronomy 21.22-23 and the Rhetoric of Jesus’ Crucifixion in Acts 5.12-42

Abstract

On three occasions, Acts refers to Jesus’ crucifixion as ‘hanging on a tree’ (5.30; 10.39; 13.29), a phrase alluding to the proscriptions for displaying an Israelite convicted of a capital crime (Deut. 21.22-23). Most scholars attach little significance to this appropriation, assessing it as a dead metaphor. This article focuses primarily on the phrase’s first occurrence in Acts (5.30), arguing that the reference functions within the apostles’ rhetoric to characterize the manner of Jesus’ execution and the opponents’ maladministered judgment. After assessing the interpretive scope and availability of the allusion, the study situates the phrase in the rhetoric of the apostles’ speech, its polarization of the protagonists’ and antagonists’ respective evaluative viewpoints and the narrative development of the elements commensurate with ‘hanging on a tree’. The apostles’ speech polarizes a religio-political conflict and situates the cross as the rhetorical crux between two contradictory assessments of Jesus’ role for the people, contributing to the stark disjuncture between God’s elevation of Jesus as ruler and savior and the Jerusalem leadership’s ‘hanging’ of Jesus ‘on a tree’, a phrase that conveys more than simply the objective act of execution.