Something that always puzzled me...

DisconnectingDrone

Assume that the first 11 chapters of the Bible (i.e. Gen 1-11) are correct.
If the understanding is correct that Satan raised issues in the Garden of Eden, and one of these issues was that man can rule on his own without Jehovah interfering.
OK, so things went a bit freaky with angels having hybrid offspring, but the flood dealt with that-this was not the end of the issue.
Chapter 11, Nimrod organizes the building of a tower. Verses 5-9 are very condeming:

5 And Jehovah proceeded to go down to see the city and the tower that the sons of men had built. 6 After that Jehovah said: “Look! They are one people and there is one language for them all, and this is what they start to do. Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind to do that will be unattainable for them. 7 Come now! Let us go down and there confuse their language that they may not listen to one another’s language.” 8 Accordingly Jehovah scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth, and they gradually left off building the city. 9 That is why its name was called Ba'bel, because there Jehovah had confused the language of all the earth, and Jehovah had scattered them from there over all the surface of the earth.

So is this saying, that Jehovah knew he had lost the issue of if man could rule on their own and hence threw a spanner in the works?
The other question is, JW's and their literature often say that Satan has used nationalism as a tool to divide the world-it doesn't look that way to me. It seems that Satan was happy for everyone to speak the same language and this enabled big projects to be underway. Forcing people to speak new languages and nt understand one another seems to show that Jehovah created nationalism, not Satan.

of course, it could all be a fairy tale...

Junction-Guy

I don't think the question of man being able to rule himself was the issue in the garden of Eden, like the watchtower teaches.

If this were so, then Satan would do everything in his power to prevent wars, crime, disease and everything else, simply just to prove God wrong, it wouldn't make sense.

OnTheWayOut

...and hence threw a spanner in the works.

That's about right. Jehovah said "Why, now there is nothing that they may have in mind
to do that will be unattainable for them." So he threw that spanner in. Actually, it is
much worse.

Jehovah lied to them. He said they would die in the day they eat the fruit. They lived for years.
You can argue that, but Satan did not lie. Read the account and see that what he said was
all true. WTS says that when Jehovah didn't kill them that day, He was exercising his perfect
justice by allowing the settling of the issue of whether man can rule on his own without Jehovah
interfering. But Jehovah kept interfering. Man was created to live a certain way in the garden.
Jehovah kicked Man out. Woman was given childbirth pains and a change that caused her to
be dominated by the man. Jehovah wanted to set the rules on how he would win his bet with
Satan (which is not verified by the scriptures).

When angels came and messed up things on earth, Jehovah did not stop them. Instead of just
removing them, allowing humans to try to recover on their own, Jehovah destroyed everyone
except 8 people. I guess it's good to place bets if you control all the elements and cannot lose.

Jehovah confused the languages as you point out, so that Man could not realize the things that
their combined efforts would bring. He caused men to hate each other because of their barriers
to communication. He further interfered with the governments of men in many instances, the
bigger interferences in Egypt and Babylon, but many others.

One strange thing He did- if Jehovah wanted to prove that many people would serve Him despite
the bet he had with Satan, He could have done a better job of informing His representatives on
Earth about His will, making them more accurate and less strange than the JW's.

OnTheWayOut

First I could not post, then it duplicates.

Edited out. ;-)

StAnn

DD, here is an excellent book about how to read the Bible:

http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Bible-Timothy-R-Carmody/dp/0809141892/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216859466&sr=1-1

The first eleven chapters of Genesis aren't to be taken literally. Most people who take them literally are fundamentalists.

HTH,

StAnn

JCanon

Interesting comments. But actually to shed a little more light on this.

To Jesus God said: "I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed." Satan was called the "woman" because she was considered to be married to Christ. The two angels on the Ark of the Covenant represent a "couple", a husband and wife, Michael and Lucifer(a).

So for 6000 years it would be Jesus vs Satan in many contests, great and small. Satan would basically claim that mankind would all rebel against God if given the chance and God claims some will remain faithful to him, to the death, no matter what, freely giving up their life for him. Satan's aim is to destroy these or influence them to rebel against God.

The climax of this occurred in 1992 when Satan and his seed, his angels, were kicked out of heaven by Christ and his angels. Satan would be let loose in the earth a short while before he is abyssed and a 1000 years without Satanic influence would then ensue. We're on the very threshold of that event now, where the millennium begins and Satan is abyssed.

So God does sort of allow Satan a chance to make his philosophical, moral or legal point, as it were; while God firmly wagers in favor of the righteous. The anointed Bride Class of Christ, thus replace Satan on Mount Zion as Christ's wife. So there is, in particular a great competition in that regard with a focus on the elect. But at this point, Jehovah has hidden them so that there is even less direct interference by Satan, though Satan disgorges a river of propaganda to try and drown the woman. We see that in all this atheistic, pseudo-scientific BS out there. But it does not affect the woman, partly because she sees the direct results, the coming of the messiah in the world as proof God exists and is fulfilling his word.

Further, God did not lie. If Adam lived beyond a 24-hour day then the "day" God had in mind must have been one of the other "days", such as the 1000-year day. Adam did not live past 1000.

JC

james_woods

Just as clear as mud, JCannon. As usual.

God did not lie - it must have been one of those "other days".

Right - and 1914 was the coming of Christ, except that it was invisible and nothing happened.

Right.

DisconnectingDrone

Thinking about this today, there is something else strange. Why did Jehovah feel the need to stop the building project?
I think it stinks, firstly an all powerful God would know that they would not be able to build a tower upto heaven. In all likelyhood, if the building was allowed to continue, it would probably have been a city for a while, then people would have dispersed.
Reading between the lines it seems the people were saying "we will build a tower that reaches into the heavens" and Jehovah was not concerned with this, but more irritated that they were working and living and getting along with each other.
Also why has Jehovah tolerated the building of skyscrapers in this age and not created more languages?
So on the flip side, say if the new paradise world comes and we are all speaking Hebrew as JW are taught, then isn't this self condemning? By reverting everyone back to one language it will be like saying yes multiple languages causes problems-but Jehovah created the multiple languages to begin with.
Am I on my own here, or has anyone else thought this account is contradictory?

Steve_C

So on the flip side, say if the new paradise world comes and we are all speaking Hebrew as JW are taught, then isn't this self condemning? By reverting everyone back to one language it will be like saying yes multiple languages causes problems-but Jehovah created the multiple languages to begin with.
Am I on my own here, or has anyone else thought this account is contradictory?

Interesting.

StAnn

I'd forgotten the "we'll all be speaking Hebrew" line.

If that's the case, why aren't they teaching Hebrew now at the KH in the school?

StAnn

Something that always puzzled me...

Share this