by tan 41 Replies latest watchtower bible
I always found some of the stuff in Genesis the most difficult part of the bible to accept, and the account of the angels mating with humans took some swallowing. I just couldn't see why these perfect beings would want to put their eternal life on the line for a bit of nooky. It made me wonder if heaven is all it's cracked up to be, as so many were leaving.
A bit reminiscent of the wts nowadays.
It always make me wonder if the angels are watching me having sex. Do you think they are up there rating us?
I always wondered why a spiritual being would experience sexual desires which are a product of biology. Sexual cravings are nothing but neuro-chemical interactions in the brain and body. Why would that which is spirit experience this pehonomenon?
And furtermore, why would spirits completely devoid of gender (another biological aspect) only crave females? If they were spirits and devoid of gender; why not experience cravings for both male and females?
What is the meaning behind these accounts in Genesis? Some Biblical scholars speculate that these accounts are not describing angels of heaven, but that the "Sons of God" were young men from the godly line of Seth, while the daughters of men were women of the polluted line of Cain.
Notice what scholar Gleason Archer writes:
"In other words, the "sons of God" in this passage were descendnts of the godly line of Seth. Instead of remaining true to their spiritual heritage, they allowed themselves to be enticed by the beauty of ungodly women who were the "daughters of men" - that is, of the tradition and example of Cain."
I also find it hard to believe that angels would have sexual urges, but perhaps after they saw humans deriving keen pleasure from sex got jealous and decided to try it out to see what it felt like.
Mark 12:25 states: "For when they rise from the dead, neither do men marry nor are women given in marriage, but are as angels in the heavens."
O.K., so angels don't marry, and yet engaged in illicit sex.! Does that mean that those raised from the dead will be naughty too?
Apparently they will not have the hormones that elicit sexual desire, but they may seek them out in order to have the desire. For angels that was way out of line for their level.
The desires those angels developed were likened to homosexual desires in humans. Acting upon them as they did is still more meaningful.
Were we not to believe that angels were perfect spirit creatures, with satisfying roles in the presence of Jehovah himself? Were we not to believe that they forsook their glorious, happy services to God to pursue the equivalent of a homosexual tryst?
I am at a loss to understand how any human, perfect or not, could be expected to maintain faithfulness of the kind demanded when perfect angels in heaven (in the presence and service of the most high) were prone to such egregious bouts of wrongdoing.
Are we to believe that perfect humans in paradise earth would be superior to those angels? I think not...faithful JW's looking forward to paradise should start toning up their rock-throwing arm, one and all.
Looking back to my early days as a "believer" in JW nonsense I am amused at my sophistry and naive acceptance of the non-explanations used to describe how angels "materialized" bodies.
MATERIALISED? What the hell is "materialised" other than an act of creation??
In human beings our physical bodies don't become physically aroused until after puberty produces glands and hormones which stimulate our brains and bodies into awareness. Without physical equipment to produce the chemical and physiological reactions of sexual longing we are as children.
Angels are immaterial (by scriptural description) as spirits. And yet we are to believe they have physical appetites which always seem to center on females as prey.
What gives?
This is nothing short of fantasy projection and overactive imagination!
I'd like the Watchtower society to EXPLAIN where they came up with the "explanation" of MATERIALIZATION. I'd like a definition of the process by which it is achieved. Further, the doctrinal insistance that angels were forbidden after the flood from taking human form (Tartarus) needs polishing and refurbishing too.
It is all Ad Hoc and does not come close to authoritative dissemination of fact.
(In other words: they pulled this out of their collective asses).
T.
They didn't do anything less than ol "Zuse" himself, running around having relations with women. Comely those daughters of men were. Poor things got provoked into wrong doing. That's why women should be covered from head to foot, that way no one gets tempted, men or angles. Now scuse me while I go clean my binocs...
Actually, when you look at texts representative of early Jewish and Christian thought, there is not the slightest indication that angels "materialized" bodies. Rather, such texts assume that angels intrinsically have bodies of their own ... their bodies rather have a wholly different nature than physical bodies (i.e. they shine, they exude glory and power, etc.); it is for this reason that resurrected people (who by definition have restored bodies) are compared to angels in the literature. The best example of this is Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 who claims that the resurrected dead will receive a soma pneumatikos "spiritual body" which characterizes all bodies in heaven in terms of being glorious, incorruptible, and immortal. In Hellenistic literature, being bodiless is regarded as being "naked" (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:4), and various pseudepigrapha describe people who enter heaven as shedding their earthly "clothes" and receiving a white robe to wear in heaven (i.e. adopting an angelic body, 2 Enoch 22:8; cf. Revelation 6:22, 7:9-15). In similar terms, with respect to Jesus' own resurrection, various Christian writers took pains to defend the belief in actual resurrection (as opposed to a docetic survival of Jesus' pneuma) by describing Jesus as explicitly embodied though in a different transfigured form (cf. Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 3 who denied that Jesus was asomatos "bodiless" in the resurrection).
One thing the Society seriously misunderstands about early Christian thought is their explanation that the demons (who are bodiless and seek bodies to inhabit) are the fallen angels of Genesis 6 who lost their "materialized" bodies during the Flood (cf. 1 November 1962 Watchtower, p. 648). This is not what early Jews and Christians believed. The actual belief was that the fallen angels were seized by the archangels and detained in an underground prison to await their execution on Judgment Day (cf. Jude 6, which paraphrases 1 Enoch). The demons instead were thought to be their offspring, the Nephilim, who had fleshly bodies thanks to their human parentage but immortal nature thanks to their angelic parentage. When they drowned during the Flood, they became disembodied and thus roamed the earth ever since seeking worship and new bodies to inhabit (cf. Mark 5, where the demons beg to be sent into the bodies of pigs, and yet the pigs drown themselves -- just the same fate the Nephilim had during the Flood). Greek mythology was replete with bodiless gods and demons and the Enochic legend was one means through which the Jews accommodated these Hellenistic traditions (which focused on magic and healing spells) with their native ones.
