by truthseeker 10 Replies latest jw friends
I'm interested to know if anyone has read anything similar to the account of Ananias and Saphira in extra-Biblical texts?
It would seem that God's punishment for these two was a once off affair, as there were Christians who were involved in much worse (consider man lying with his father's wife, apostates - yet none of these received the same fate)
True -
I had thought perhpas it was because they sinned directly against the holy spirit whereas other sinners sinned againt people.
they sinned directly against the holy spirit whereas other sinners sinned againt people.
The Watchtower says that God's Holy Spirit is a force like electricity.
How can one "sin" against electricity?
I sinned against electricity one time pretty bad on a Gibson SuperBass vacuum tube amplifier. It had a B+ voltage of around 360v.
I learned my lesson well, though.
Why would you want to take the J.W. slant on the scripture? They just used the scripture and perverted it's meaning to control their people. What they have to say about the Holy Ghost or anything else should be questioned. The scripture is not of any private interpretation.
HELL -
If lying to the elduhs were punished the same way today
WE WOULD SEE WITLESSES DROPPING DEAD EVERYWHERE. How many falsify and lie about their field circus, or the young baptoids who claim they never play with themselves!!
There are enough accounts on this board to show that the experiences at the A$$emblies, hours reported and lies about private rectitude are fiction, BEST SELLERS in fact.
HB
The only real parallel that comes to mind (other than the OT parallel in Joshua 7) is provided by Paul. In Acts 5:9, Ananias and Sapphira "agreed to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test" and they then receive death as their reward. Compare with what Paul says here:
"We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did [in the wilderness], and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did, and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel... You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord's table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord's jealousy?... A person who eats and drinks without recognizing the Body is eating and drinking to his own condemnation. In fact, that is why many of you are weak and ill and some of you have died. If only we recollected ourselves, we should not be punished like that. But when the Lord does punish us like that, it is to correct us and stop us from being condemned with the world" (1 Corinthians 10:8-10, 21-22, 11:28-32).
"That is why many of you are weak and ill and some of you have died." Paul interprets the recent deaths of certain people in the church as divine punishment for testing the Lord, just as the Israelites did in the wilderness (e.g. Numbers 21:5-6, Deuteronomy 6:16). In the Lukan narrative, Ananias and Sapphira were construed as putting the Lord to the test in a manner similar to Achan and they were punished like those in the OT.
I still think that this is a very Paulian hard-core fable, and probably a little sample of other such apocrypha that made it's way into the AD 300 canon. Obvious attempt of a scare tactic, with which Paul seemed much more comfortable than say "James" or "Mark".
Paul had to be the most witness-like and self-centered of the so-called Bible writers. He seemed to be obsessed with proving that he was an Apostle long past the normal reason of practically anybody else.
Now, whoever wrote The Revelation of St. John (and it is far from clear who wrote any of the NT books, or if any one person really wrote all of any one of them) - that was the prototype/antetype of Freddy Franz himself.
Who thinks that the Ananias and Saphira story was just made up? I think most of the bible was made up to keep the people, citizens, consumers, taxpayers, subjects, in a dazed zombie like trance and blind to the manipulations of the rich and rulling class.
It's interesting to see how some bible characters name changed after certain events in their lives to indicate something about their lifes choices in regard to god eg Abram....Abraham I looked up the meaning of their names Ananias...one source said "the cloud of the Lord" WT Insight book .."Jehovah has shown Favor" (could be alluding to the cloud over the lost Ark of the temple with it's cloud cover . Then Saphira...."a sparkling gem" as in Sapphire ,and WT Insight book "from Aramaic,and meaning beautiful. So how come they had such beautiful names yet are remembered in such a bad way?
