by BlackSwan of Memphis 12 Replies latest watchtower bible
Hello guys,
I am looking for a resource to a point for point response to the trinity brochure.
Also, I can't believe I'm going to ask this, but how can I get an acutal copy of the thing Without contacting the WTS is some manner?
Thx again for your help
BSoM
I don't know if this is what you are looking for but it shows the WT quoted their so-called experts in the Trinity brochure out of context and gives an overview of the real trinity teaching. Hope it helps,
Thank you, it surely does, very much so at that!!!
BSoM
I picked this gem out of the text of the link. I have also speculated on this very idea...
The Watchtower very astutely points out that there have been numerous religions in antiquity that have worshipped a divine triad or trinity. Sumer, Egypt, India, and others, which can be fairly easily verified. Again, however, the Watchtower attempts to make another indictment that is groundless. They quote historians such as Will Durant and H.G. Wells to try to demonstrate that Trinitarians merely borrowed the theology from such pagan sources. This is a very presumptuous leap. Since I am familiar with the historians and the sources quoted, I must warn that the intent of these worldly historians is to prove that virtually all of Christianity is borrowed from paganism, not the Trinity. They assume that if a pagan religion that predates Christianity has a certain belief or practice in common with Christianity, then Christianity must have borrowed it. If that is true, than we have a huge amount of "house cleaning" to do. We can start by obliterating the first eight chapters of Genesis. Adam and Eve, Noah and the rest. Any good student of mythology can tell you all about the Gilgamesh epic, which contains the Babylonian version of the Creation and the Great Flood. The ten commandments can obviously go, since they were hijacked from Hammurabi. We would have to dispense with the idea of being "washed by the blood" and being forgiven, since, as H.G. Wells claims, that was pulled directly from Mithraism. Forget the virgin birth of the Messiah, since it was also reportedly done with the virgin birth of Buddha, Zarathushtra, and How-tsieh. The crucifixion and resurrection of the savior-god Attis should therefore banish those similar concepts in Christianity. Baptism has been practiced all over the world in the times before Christ. I guess no one ever told Jesus that he was participating in paganism by being baptized in the Jordan.
The point is, we need not be terrified of the fact that there are early pagan religions that had a resemblance of the true gospel. That in itself does not show that Christianity was dependent upon them. As a matter of fact, I have discovered that the existence of such pagan mythos frequently can serve as evidence for the validity of certain doctrine. Taking the Epic of Gilgamesh, as just one example, we have a Babylonian legend which includes a discourse about a universal flood and the sole family that survived it by building a great boat. Wouldn't it make sense that, if there was indeed a world-wide flood, that the event would be repeated in the lore of the survivors and passed on in it's diversified forms? Why of course! Consequently, the existence of such stories only strengthens the validity of the Bible stories. How about the pagan trinities? Could they not also represent a corrupt form of an older spiritual truth? Although it is speculative, it is a possibility that ought to be considered. The fact is that in comparative mythology, as we move back in time past the pantheons of gods in Greece and Rome, the storm gods and fertility goddesses of the middle east, we would come upon a remarkable thing. We would see that in many cultures of the world, the most ancient religion is a monotheistic religion worshipping a single Supreme God. Of the Indo-European nations, and China, wherever we have written records, the first known religion was the worship of the one God. The Chinese called Him "Shang-ti". From Europe to India, He was "Dyaus" (note the similarity to the Greek and Latin words for god, theos and deus).
If we were to seek biblical vindacation on this we could note that the Bible says in Genesis 4:26 that at that time, men began to call on Jehovah ( Heb. YHWH). There was, likewise, one religion based on the worship of Jehovah after the flood. At Babel, however, God confused all of mankind's languages. and the nations went their own way, yet retained a belief of One God, albeit, under a different number of names and titles. The ancient monotheism in these different nations we could then consider just a corrupted version of the once universal worship of Jehovah. What does that have to do with the Trinity? It should fascinate all of us that it is in these same ancient cultures an unexplained mythology of triune Godheads. In Sumer, Akkad, India and other cultures, the idea of a trinity is implanted in the ancient mythology much like the mythology of the single Supreme God. The twomythologies seem to exist without contradiction. Mircea Eliade, who is considered the greatest expert in the world on ancient religion, says the oldest form of Egyptian religion bears "striking resemblance to John's theology of the Logos". (Eliade, History of Religious Belief) The existence of Trinitarian thought in pagan mythos is therefore not a liability to those who profess belief in the Trinity. On the contrary, such mythology may prove to be the vestiges of the ancient worship revealed by God to the antediluvian patriarchs. Such is the argument made by early apologists like Justin Martyr, who contended that many items in philosophy and paganism that resembled the Gospel were "seeds of truth" that God had planted throughout the world.
Rex
I found the following link also of interest.
Dearest Black Swan,
I have a trinity broc..you can borrow as long as you like. I like the trinity brochere...Haven't found any disagreements with it... Love, Oggy
You need "Why should I believe 'Should I believe the Trinity' "
I think you can get it off freeminds.org
This is a great page with scans of the actual books the Society misquotes from:
http://www.macgregorministries.org/jehovahs_witnesses/examtrin/examintrinity.html
You can also order all the scans of the publications listed for $2 or $3 on their website.
Great stuff.
Claude: Thank You for the link!! Just finished printing it out and am going to read it over.
Dearest Star: Hm, thank you for offering. I need one for keeps however. I would like to send it to someone. Hey I still have to get a brochure back to you that one about Keep On The Watch. In fact: before I forget, you found an interesting point in there on page12 regarding the hour of judgment. It said this:
Revelation, the last book of the Bible, alerts us to the fact that an angel flying in midlevel has “everlasting good news to declare as glad tidings.” He says in a loud voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of the judgment by him has arrived.” (Revelation 14: 6,7) That ‘hour of judgment’ includes both the pronouncement and the execution of divine judgment. An “hour” is a relatively short period of time. It comes as the climax of “the last days.” We live in that time now. - 2 Timothy 3:1
What is it that you found interesting? Can you remind please either here or via email? Thx girl.
Pubsinger: (I like that user name J ) Thx for reminding me of that. I had forgotten that freeminds had that.
itis : Thank you for that, since getting an actual copy looks like it might not be so easy, this will be really useful!
BSoM
The entire text of the sham is here: http://www.watchtower.org/library/ti/index.htm
