by moomanchu 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Gen. 9:3
"every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.
If this is part of an everlasting covenant as JW's contend why didn't the Israelites remind God of it when he instituted the food requirements of the law covenant?
What is the JW explanation?
Yeah, not to mention marijuana, or Poppies, or Cocoa trees.
I think that their explanation would go something like this: JHoover esq. did not change the rules with the Law Covenant, he merely ''modified'' them, particularly for health reasons. [I mean eating pork back then evidently caused all sorts of horribles]
Or something like that. The WTS rule is: Anything can be explained away as long as you have a captive audience conditioned to accept any explanation.
Cheers
What was I thinking the answer is so simple; the law covenant was new light. Then when christ came along , there was a readjustment of thinking God just went back to allowing all foods, Henceforth the WBTS is just imitating Gods arrangement, this is balanced and reasonable for christian unity in Jehovah's organisation.
What may be important to remember is that the author of Gen.9 (P) had previously described in 8:20 a distinction between "clean" and "unclean" animals. Generally speaking for P what was clean for Jew to eat was clean for YHWH to "eat" via sacrifice. Therefore Gen 9 must be read in context. The story is an etiological legend about the prohibition of blood. There is no reason to assume that the author here was suggesting that literally every animal was clean for food but rather that animals of many varieties would now serve as food as various kinds of plant matter had previously. The same author/s that wrote this section wrote Leviticus. The author when writing this story had in the background the then existing code in Leviticus and did not feel the need to describe it again at length in this short story.
Ultimately the Bible has a number of differing opinions about food prohibitions reflecting differing views of propriety and holiness. So yes the WT does imitate the Bible in this regard, it changes with the times and tides of opinion.
The WT view will always require 'new light' and other adjustment as it is a literal explanation of that which is not literal - eg. eating hawks and kites is about being like those who prey - jwism will remain confused for all time while trying to explain away literal 'changes' - eventually when embarrasement kicks in they do attempt to use a different kind of light, as with "generation", but it doesn't do any good, only prolongs the inevitable.
