Ok So at 1 Corinthians. 7:25 Paul says that what he writes about virgins "I have no command from the Lord but I give my opinion" .He goes on to describe what HE thinks Virgins should do. Then in verse 39 he says "marry only in the Lord" but there he's actually talking to WIDOWS after their husbands die!!!!! Also In Numbers chap 12 I remember Moses had married a Cushite women and later when Aaron and Miriam began to speak against Moses about it God got mad at Miriam and struck HER with leprosy! What gives?????
.......about that 1 Corinthians 7:25,39
by why??? 15 Replies latest watchtower bible
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LittleToe
I, for one, don't understand the connection you're attempting to make.
What has Paul's opinion got to do with a more ancient text claiming Moses authority to do what he wanted with no questions asked?
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Leolaia
Congratulations, you've been attempting to read Bible passages in context, rather than only studying cherry-picked proof texts. It is only natural to have such questions raised when one encounters the full connected text. Paul wrote this letter to help out the church at Corinth and in no sense construed himself as writing "holy Scripture". So he was careful to distinguish between his own opinions from the teachings of Jesus that he had received. His advice was based on the assumption that "our time is growing short" and "the world as we know it is passing away" (v. 29, 31), which described Paul's expectations not for our own day but for his day almost two thousand years ago.
LittleToe....I think she was reminded of that text by the admonition to marry only in the Lord in v. 40. Miriam was punished in Numbers 12:10 because she had spoken out against Moses and made the claim that Yahweh spoke to her in the same way that he speaks to Moses (v. 2). Yahweh demurs, saying that he has a special relationship with Moses (v. 6-8), and thus Miriam and Aaron had presumptuously accorded themselves a status they did not really have. That is the reason the text gives for Yahweh's punishment of Miriam. Her complaint about Zipporah was only the occasion for her presumptuous statement.
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greendawn
I still can't see the connection between Miriam's opposition to Moses and the admonitions to the Corinthians about marriage.
I wonder when Paul changed his mind about the end being near since he later writes that the man of lawlessness has to appear before the end of this world arrives. Or did he think he would appear in his (Paul's) lifetime?
I also note how Rutherford used this to deter JWs from getting married or at least from having children because the new system was so near.
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why???
Thanks leolaia you get what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to connect the two examples. I just didnt understand why they use that scripture in 1.Corinthians so much for making everyone marry only in the lord when Paul plainly states its his own opinion about widows not gods!!! Does anyone have any scriptures that actually prove that you have to marry other jw like they want you to believe??????
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Leolaia
Paul probably still expected the parousia as shortly ahead throughout his life. His eschatology does shift between his earliest letters and his later letters, from hoping to personally meet Christ at the parousia to hoping for an immediate fellowship with Christ at death BEFORE the parousia. As far as 2 Thessalonians is concerned, this is widely suspected of being a deutero-Pauline epistle, as it has a very different apocalyptic scenario than in the former epistle, the time of writing between the two epistles would have been very short, the letter almost exactly duplicates the epistolary structure of 1 Thessalonians (more so than genuine Pauline epistles resemble each other), and the letter itself is very self-conscious about being a genuine letter and makes reference to pseudonymous letters then circulating under Paul's name (compare the similar situation in 2 Peter). If this analysis is correct, then the situation after Paul's death was one in which people were claiming that the parousia has already occurred (2:2, cf. 2 Timothy 2:18, via another deutero-Pauline letter, on the similar claim that the resurrection has already occurred), whether as a response to the events of AD 70 or through the realized eschatology of proto-gnosticism (such as found in the gospels of John or Thomas). The scenario described in 2 Thessalonians bears a very striking resemblance to the Nero redivivus expectation in Revelation, the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, and other contemporaneous sources, which can only pertain to the post-Pauline period. If the letter is genuine or a pseudonymous letter written during Paul's lifetime, then the situation may pertain to Caligula's scheme to install a statue of himself in the Temple, tho the "revealing" of the Anomos (if identified with Caligula) makes less sense than the revealing of Nero, who was believed to be hiding in Parthia at present. Both expectations however ultimately descend from the original expectations surrounding Antiochus IV Epiphanes in Daniel, and 2 Thessalonians certainly borrows its eschatological scenario from this book, as does Revelation. The "apostasy" thus reflects the general apostasy of Jews to Hellenism from the time of Antiochus (cf. 1 Maccabees 2:15, Daniel 9:27, 11:32), which became a mainstay in apocalyptic expectation (cf. 1 Enoch 91:7, Jubilees 23:14-15, 4 Ezra 5), tho here the author has in mind a general revolt against God, i.e. not a mere apostasy among Christians. The situation is parallel to that in Revelation (ch. 13) in which EVERYONE other than those put to death by the Beast commits idolatry and worships the Beast instead of God. The Didache (ch. 16) refers to a "world-deceiver" who would perform signs and wonders in advance of the resurrection and parousia and the Ascension of Isaiah (ch. 4) claims that Nero was Belial incarnate ("the angel of lawlessness") who would persecute the Christians and then perform great signs and wonders, claiming himself to be God. Both of these works as well as Revelation (in which the Beast is a king of Rome that would return from its fatal wound to become Rome's final king) are close relatives of the apocalyptic scenario in 2 Thessalonians.
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Leolaia
why???....Bear in mind that they also assume that JWs alone are "in the Lord", and this is certainly not taught in the Bible but is an exclusivist belief that JWs take for granted...a JW marrying a very religious and God-fearing Lutheran would NOT be considered marrying "in the Lord". As for applying this verse to marriages involving virgins when it clearly refers to widow remarriages, this reflects a basic hemeneutic technique the Society uses that was commonly used in interpreting the Mosaic Law. Paul's brief letters cannot possible cover all different kinds of situations that people face, just as the Torah does not cover everything as well. So interpreters generalize comments that refer to only one kind of situation as applying to other situations that are similar in some way. The same thing occurs in the rabbinical interpretation of the Law. As you point out, the original text does not claim to be setting forth church law but only opinions and suggestions, but because this text was retroactively adopted as "holy Scripture", it later assumed an authority as "God's word" that it did not earlier have. The JWs are not alone in this respect, you will find a similar use of Paul's suggestions in other forms of Christianity that regard Paul's statements as fully authoritative.
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Justitia Themis
I am reading an interesting book, "From The Maccabees To The Mishnah," by Shaye J.D. Cohen. It is intersting to discover what a Jewish person feels the Law does or does not say as opposed to what Christian's feel the Law does or does not say. He mentioned that Jehovah did not prohibit the marrying of ALL foreign wives, just those from the seven pagan Cannaanite nations. Bringing this concept down to the 1st Century, of course, a Christian wouldn't want to marry a Pagan. But, JWs say you can't marry just any other Christian, it has to be a JW "Christian."
(Deuteronomy 7:1-4) 7
"When Jehovah your God at last brings you into the land to which you are going so as to take possession of it, he must also clear away populous nations from before you, the Hit´tites and the Gir´ga·shites and the Am´or·ites and the Ca´naan·ites and the Per´iz·zites and the Hi´vites and the Jeb´u·sites, seven nations more populous and mighty than you are. 2 And Jehovah your God will certainly abandon them to you, and you must defeat them. You should without fail devote them to destruction. You must conclude no covenant with them nor show them any favor. 3And you must form no marriage alliance with them. Your daughter you must not give to his son, and his daughter you must not take for your son. 4 For he will turn your son from following me, and they will certainly serve other gods; and Jehovah’s anger will indeed blaze against YOU, and he will certainly annihilate you in a hurry.
Justitia
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why???
wow i never really read the rest of that scripture, it does seem he is speaking of those nations. ANY other scriptures found?
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Shawn10538
How about seeing the bible as the book of mythology that it is and never debating scripture again. Wouldn't that be cool?