Hades and Tartarus in the NT. Pagan influences?

by Piercingtheveil81 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Piercingtheveil81

  I believe they are a group of writings presenting the beliefs of individuals who essentially started a new religion spearheaded by Paul. However it appears that there were conflicts between early believers regarding Jesus and his role. Especially between Paul and James, hence the reason for division in christian sects today. Christianity as a result does not resemble the simple faith of Abraham (Peace and blessings be upon him).

  Nowadays they are discovering many things that show that first century believers varied in their beliefs; Christianity was not one monolithic faith as many believe. In fact different regions had different writings they considered to be inspired. The NT as it exists today was organized by bishops in the 4th century who had grave errors in their theology and selected the writings that best suited them. As a result many were beaten or killed for possessing any other writing.

  Of that is just a brief statement of how I feel about the NT. All of this cast a great deal of doubt as to the validity of christianity as a belief system.
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  Narkissos

  In fact different regions had different writings they considered to be inspired. The NT as it exists today was organized by bishops in the 4th century who had grave errors in their theology and selected the writings that best suited them.

  If (as I believe) the NT canon was indeed a compromise, resulting from power struggle and negotiation between different trends within the "great Church" over centuries, no particular group of bishops in the 4th century was completely free to 'select the writings that best suited them'. As with any compromise, I doubt any segment of the church was 100 % satisfied with the selection that eventually came out.

  But what really puzzles me in your post is the clause: "who had grave errors in their theology"... errors by which standards?
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  Piercingtheveil81

  They had grave errors in that while they professed belief in the faith of Abraham many doctrines contradict it. Belief in the trinity, that God has a son, that there were was a helper in creation thereby associating partners with God, and Original sin etc.
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  Narkissos

  Thank you for your reply Piercingtheveil.

  If you don't mind my asking, where did you get those ideas about "the faith of Abraham" (which seem to exclude, not only the whole NT but a sizeable part of the OT)? They seem quite close to Islam.
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  Piercingtheveil81

  True. After leaving the WTS I began investigating things a little further and eventually converted to Islam.

  I read a number of books, both christian and islamic, and listened to hours of lectures and debates and that was the conclusion I reached.
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  metatron

  There's other pagan influences in the Bible. There's "Voodoo" in the account about Jacob when he uses Correspondence Magic to get more livestock.

  The Bible is loaded with Divination even though the Law condemns it. Again and again, the divination of dreams is done by Joseph and Daniel. Proverbs sez "into the lap the lot is cast but every decision by it is from Jehovah" ( 16:33). The replacement for Judas was chosen by lot - which is divination, automatically.

  And Paul was influenced by pagan ideas when he kept talking about "sacred secrets" - which imitated the habits of religions in his day that would only reveal their occult ideas to certified members.

  metatron
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  Narkissos

  "Paganism" is a negative concept forged by monotheistic "revelation": its own shadow as it were. Each brand and stage of "revelation" defines negatively and retrospectively what it rejects as "pagan" -- whether it is foreign or native, a potential challenge from the outside or a very actual part of its own (pre-)history.

  The Jewish Torah, from Josiah's reform in the 6th century BC onward, qualified most of the older Israelite religion (divination, necromancy, local sanctuaries = "high places", Asherah worship, temple prostitution, etc., etc.) as "pagan" a posteriori. To differ radically from the other cultures it was confronted to through the Exile and ongoing diaspora it also had to differ radically from its own historical inheritance. And was inevitably affected by other influences (e.g. Persian dualism, or Greek anthropology) in this very process.

  This being said, on the general topic of "hell" Islam doesn't sound very different from either late Second-temple Judaism or mainstream Christianity.