More resurrection questions

by sir82 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  sir82

  Most JWs are familiar with the Sadducees attempt at demonstrating the logical absurdities of a resurrection:

  23That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 "Teacher," they said, "Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?"

  29 Jesus replied, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what God said to you, 32 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' [a] ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

  JWs point out that death ends a marriage, so the issue brought up by the Sadducees is moot - upon being resurrected, none of the 7 marriages is still valid.

  But now wait a minute - what about children who die?

  Extend the Sadducees example a bit. Suppose the woman had had one child with each of the 7 brothers, and each of those 7 children died in infancy.

  Now we come to the JW "paradise earth" and the 7 brothers, 7 children, and the 1 woman are resurrected.

  Wouldn't those 7 children deserve to be raised by their biological mother and father? How exactly would that work? If the marriages are all dissolved, how do the mother and each father work together to raise their child?

  It seems the Sadducess just didn't ask the right question.

  Just add one more absurdity to the growing list of such regarding the JW concept of "paradise earth".
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  blondie

  Lazarus was resurrected; if he was single did that mean he did not marry the rest of his life? What about Tabitha (Dorcas) and Eutyches and those Elijah and Elisha resurrected? What about the other people Jesus resurrected? If these people had been married, was their marriage over after being resurrected?
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  LostGeneration

  What really sucks is what if the mother "sinned" as the end of the thousand year reign comes to an end. She gets killed off, and the kids get to live forever without momma! Now thats my idea of paradise!
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  JWoods

  32'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob' [a] ? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

  But the witnesses think that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still dead.
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  blondie

  But at one point Bible Students (under Rutherford) believed that they would come alive on earth and rule from Jerusalem in 1925.

  "The chief thing to be restored is the human race to life; and since other Scriptures definitely fix the fact that there will be a resurrection of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and other faithful ones of old, and that these will have the first favour, we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel from the condition of death, being resurrected and fully restored to perfect humanity and made the visible, legal representatives of the new order of things on earth." Millions Now Living Will Never Die p.88
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  JWoods

  Yep, other scriptures definately fix that fact. Well, until newer light came along.
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  Leolaia

  Hey blondie stole my formatting box.

  sir82....Are you asking about what that text meant in its original setting or what the JWs make of it? (These involve different answers to your question)
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  sir82

  Leolaia,

  Not really commenting on that text per se, I just quoted it as background. My point is that JWs don't consider all the ramifications of their "earthly resurrection" doctrine.

  There have been numerous WT articles dealing with the issue of resurrected spouses (should a widow / er remarry or wait for his spouse to be resurrected?), which the text above addresses, but no one (apparently) has ever thought of the issue of resurrected children belonging to spouses who have since remarried. Or resurrected children in general, if their resurrected parents "will not marry" in the "paradise earth".

  It seems that according to JW doctrine, there will be millions and milllions of resurrected children who will not enjoy a traditional 2-parent upbringing.
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  JWoods

  Not really commenting on that text per se, I just quoted it as background. My point is that JWs don't consider all the ramifications of their "earthly resurrection" doctrine.

  This is a very profound point - and of course the primary guilt of it goes straight to Rutherford and whoever his inner advisors were to think up this idea in the first place.

  Not only was the marriage resolution in earthly resurrection not thought through, but the problem it was supposed to solve (how to explain why there were more than a literal 144,000 Witnesses) is now rearing its ugly head again as the number of partakers has stubbornly refused to go down. Again, only the most pathetic explanations are given on how in 1900 years of Christian history, only a handful of true members of the annointed class were chosen. No explanation either on why the paradise earth resurrection idea had to wait until 1931 - so very late for such a fundamental doctrine, indeed!

  In light of the fact that no other quasi-Christian organization I know of teaches such a thing as JW resurrection, and that their founder himself did not speak of it, I really wonder if it might not have been the wiser course to just make the 144,000 symbolic and move on from there.

  Of course, there was (for Rutherford), the haunting desire to make a super-class of witnesses to rule the rank & file. This, I think, was the true motive for this mess.