A new commandment

by IwateBuddy 5 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  IwateBuddy

  The JW I am studying with has selected John 13:35 and John 15:12-13 for the study topic next week. For some reason he did not include John 13:34 which is what I want to ask him about.It says;

  "And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

  It seems to me that if this is a new commandment there must be an old commandment somewhere that this one supercedes. I think most people would agree that this statement was made in contrast to the original ten commandments found in in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Do JW's agree with this? God gave the ten commandments to Moses personally who passed them on to the people. JW's will surely agree that this God is the one they call Jehovah. How can an angel or a human being give a new commandment, using himself as the only authority and example, that replaces the old commandment given by God? Isn't this just another proof that Jesus is God? Is my logic faulty? Am I missing something? What do JW's say about this? I haven't been able to find out anything about this on the internet.
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  WTWizard

  Regardless of what is supposed to replace, the witlesses continually violate it.
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  designs

  Buddy, something that will help you understand statements made by Jesus (if they haven't been tampered with overtly) is to study Judaism. Some of your comments suggest a Protestant background or influence.

  Think Of Jesus as an Observant Jew and his sayings take on a different hue.
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  yknot

  Designs.......could you please expand/develop this a bit for those of us not able time-wise to study Judaism?
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  IwateBuddy

  Please, designs, do expand. I think you are on to something there. Please add something about how JW's do or don't think like Jews too. The Jewish people I have known probably couldn't be bothered to give the time of day to a JW!
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  designs

  Trying to decipher the historical Jesus of Nazareth from the mythology that has developed around him over the past 2000 years is a challenge. If you take the 4 Gospels as relatively reliable there is a narrative of an Observant Jew that emerges, one who was knowledgeable of the Torah and the Jewish Sages, and the Talmud. A person, whether for historical understanding or claiming to be a Christian, should have a working knowledge of these works. Studying the Dead Sea Scrolls is a good source for understanding Jewish ideas, politics, theology, and expectations contemporary to Jesus. As a Jew what would Jesus have believed. Certainly not much of the populist Catholic/Protestant revisionistic dogmas.

  Witnesses and Bible Students tried to develop a quasi Jewish unipersonal/being theology about God. There were and are differences and variations similar to a broad spectrum of Jewish thought on the Supreme Being. Bible Students originally saw God as locative and Witnesses still view God as self limiting. Witness theology is rarely metaphysical whereas Jewish theology took a very strong metaphysical leap in the post Babylonian repatriation era.

  How a person reacts or interacts with a Witness is based on multiple factors. In the years I was active as a Witness I had people treat me kindly and with generosity and sometimes with rudeness and they came from all types of religious and social backgrounds. You could never judge a book by its cover.