THAT'S IT, we've got a holy trinity. We can set up a hut here on our meditative mountain. A Post-modernist Christian Gnostic (Narkissos), a Vanilla (me) and a modified Calvinist (Little Toe). The little church of GnoVaCal.
Why do the JW's demonize the Wise Men?
by jgnat 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Oroborus21
Greetings!
In all of my experience as a JW, I never heard or saw the wisemen (magi) "demonized" or made out to be particularly evil. I believe that what the Society and JWs have done is to counter the traditional homely portrait of "three-wise men" as depicted in traditional nativity scenes and point out some questions from the text of the Bible that relates more than that.
There is no number of the actual magi given in the bible and it is only because three gifts are specifically mentioned that the idea that there were only 3 arose. JWs in their depictions often depict 4 magi to make that point. There was more than one since plural was used so there could have been as little as 2 Magi and as many as ? (probably not a larger number than 5 or that fact would probably had been mentioned in the biblical account). So for this reason JWs are not against the magi as any kind of "trinity" since they don't believe there are only 3 that is definitely proven. That assertion and comment is bogus.
Getting back to the point, as practicers of various forms of eastern or near easter religion, cultic, or occultic practices, the point that they should not be saluted as a harmonious portrait of the birth of Christianity is a valid one. That JWs point out that these men were not made of the same stuff as the humble Jewish shepherds who were told directly by an angelic messenger of the birth of Jesus is again a valid observation.
I think what JWs object to is that the wise men are so frequently highlighted in Nativity Scenes and homaged in this way, when as Christians perhaps it is fitting to temper their role in the story and understand that as the Society suggests in its interpretation, the "sign from heaven" led them first not to Jesus but first to Herod. Because of them, Herod was able to learn of the birth of Jesus and the consequence of that was the (supposed) infanticide of a number of babes in the region. Thus in pattern with their consistent view that all of the Bible is significant and is meant to tell us something, JWs see the wise men as pawns that were used or at best as indirectly causing a terrible mass slaughter of innocents.
It thus seems reasonable that no one would want to glorify the Wise Men, even if they themselves had good intentions towards Jesus.
-Eduardo
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RodentBoy
gumby wrote:
If you would have done the same throughout the whole bible ( NT ) your study would have been closer to arriving at christendoms MAIN MESSAGE than the message the dubs deliver to people. People who read the bible with no pre-concieved notions doctrinally will NOT arrive at a dubs main message. Doctrinally in some areas the dubs may win, but 'doctrine' wasn't the message of Jesus.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that, left to themselves, most people would come to many different conclusions if they read the Bible without any "aid" from any Christian group. What happens with most religious groups is that individuals don't read the Bible for themselves, rather, they are first given a good many filters to assure appropriate "interpretation". These filters are usually essays and sound bites, that quote a few scriptures. Once the filter is in place, an individual is usually has compartmentalized everything, so that unorthodox readings are rejected out of hand.
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Narkissos
tetra,
We were three special pioneers in my last congregation. One of them was df'd for "apostasy" together with me, and the third one (the girl who was with me at the Bible study), after much painful hesitation, remained a JW...
jgnat aka Vanillagal,
So you finally got me a label to deny?
Eduardo,
I think you missed the point of the Gospel of Matthew and its rare form of "Jewish anti-Judaism".
A recurrent motif in Matthew is "what the Jews missed the Gentiles found" (cf. 21:43; 28:18ff). The four women highlighted in the genealogy (chapter 1) are all non-Jews and enter the holy lineage in a pretty unorthodox way (Tamar was a Gentile according to contemporary stories, e.g. Testament of Levi 10:1 which makes her a Mesopotamian). Galilee is celebrated as a "Gentile land" in 4:15 (cf. 12:18,21). Gentiles have "more faith" than anyone in Israel (8:10; cf. the "Canaanite woman" in chapter 15). Etc.
From this perspective the pagan Magi, who find through astrology what the Jerusalem scribes miss through the Scriptures, make perfect sense.
A biting irony which the WT... misses.
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A Paduan
Is it because God used "outsiders," strangers? JW's demonize outsiders. How in the heck could Jehovah have used them? In the JW worldview, Jehovah's spirit works only within the organization. JW's conveniently forget the long line of "strangers" in the lineage of Christ.
Nothing's changed
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.