We had this book in our congregation....some ppl used to make a ref to this book....any idea wats the connection of this book with the WTS.
Two Babylons...
by on the rocks 19 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
sir82
Is that the one by Alexander Hislop?
It used to be quoted favorably by the Society (due to its vilification of Catholic beliefs & practices), until it became common knowledge that Hislop's scholarship was, er "quite dubious".
My dad had a copy, and probably some old-time Kingdom Halls have a copy in their libraries.
-
Quentin
They used to print the book and one could order it from the wt....I think Fred Franz drew a lot of his thoughts from the book. It's anti-catholic for the most part.
-
TheListener
A good refutation of the book was written by Ralph Woodrow. It's called The Babylon Connection? and its ISBN is: 0916938174
Check it out on Amazon.
-
Terry
Alexander Hislop was rabidly anti-Catholic. He made Martin Luther pale in comparison. Taking his cue from Luther's own references to the Catholic Church as "Babylon the Great", Hislop set about writing a scathing pamphlet comparing ancient Babylon, pagan worship and devilish influences with the practices and core beliefs of the Church.
Hislop used four combined processes to accomplish his screed and make it compelling "proof" which might convince those predisposed toward his theories.
1.Hislop cherry picked minutia. He strained seeming connections where there weren't any and drew conclusions through false analogies. He drew on similarities and ignored differences.
2.Hislop partially quoted historical sources, misquoted and often misrepresented his connections by simply distorting the facts. He drew parallels of practices into a false conclusion of cause and effect influences.
3.Hislop invented out of whole cloth significances which weren't called for and used them to build even greater strained arguments. He used partial information and not entire contexts.
4.Hislop painted with a broad brush while amassing a mountain of irrelevancies. He employed a scholarly tone of academic neutrality while employing ad hominems to poison the reader's conclusions. He failed to emphasize when his speculations were passed off as fact based.
Examples:
While seeking to condemn the paganism of Roman Catholicism, Hislop produced his own myths. By so doing, he theorized that Nimrod, Adonis, Apollo, Attes, Baal-zebub, Bacchus, Cupid, Dagon, Hercules, Januis, Linus, Lucifer, Mars, Merodach, Mithra, Moloch, Narcissus, Oannes, Odin, Orion, Osiris, Pluto, Saturn, Teitan, Typhon, Vulcan, Wodan, and Zoroaster were all one and the same. By mixing myths, Hislop supposed that Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod and was the same as Aphrodite, Artemis, Astarte, Aurora, Bellona, Ceres, Diana, Easter, Irene, Iris, Juno, Mylitta, Proserpine, Rhea, Venus, and Vesta.While seeking to condemn the paganism of Roman Catholicism, Hislop produced his own myths. By so doing, he theorized that Nimrod, Adonis, Apollo, Attes, Baal-zebub, Bacchus, Cupid, Dagon, Hercules, Januis, Linus, Lucifer, Mars, Merodach, Mithra, Moloch, Narcissus, Oannes, Odin, Orion, Osiris, Pluto, Saturn, Teitan, Typhon, Vulcan, Wodan, and Zoroaster were all one and the same. By mixing myths, Hislop supposed that Semiramis was the wife of Nimrod and was the same as Aphrodite, Artemis, Astarte, Aurora, Bellona, Ceres, Diana, Easter, Irene, Iris, Juno, Mylitta, Proserpine, Rhea, Venus, and Vesta.
If finding a pagan parallel provides proof of paganism, the Lord Himself would be pagan. The woman called Mystery Babylon had a cup in her hand; the Lord has a cup in His hand (Ps. 75:8). Pagan kings sat on thrones and wore crowns; the Lord sits on a throne and wears a crown (Rev. 1:4; 14:14). Pagans worshiped the sun; the Lord is the "Sun of righteousness" (Mal. 4:2). Pagan gods were likened to stars; the Lord is called "the bright and Morning star" (Rev. 22:16). Pagan gods had temples dedicated to them; the Lord has a temple (Rev. 7:15). Pagans built a high tower in Babylon; the Lord is a high tower (2 Sam. 22:3). Pagans worshiped idolatrous pillars; the Lord appeared as a pillar of fire (Exod. 13: 2122). Pagan gods were pictured with wings; the Lord is pictured with wings (Ps. 91:4).
Because Hislop wrote in the mid-1800s, the books he refers to or quotes are now quite old...books such as Layards Nineveh and Its Remains, Kittos Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, Wilkinsons Ancient Egyptians, as well as old editions of Pausanias, Pliny, Tacitus, Herodotus, and many more. When I checked his footnote references, in numerous cases I discovered they do not support his claims.
Hislop taught that Tammuz (whom he says was Nimrod) was born on December 25, and this is the origin of the date on which Christmas is observed. Yet his supposed proof for this is taken out of context. Having taught that Isis and her infant son Horus were the Egyptian version of Semiramis and her son Tammuz, he cites a reference that the son of Isis was born about the time of the winter solstice. When we actually look up the reference he gives for this (Wilkinsons Ancient Egyptians, vol. 4, 405), the son of Isis who was born "about the time of the winter solstice" was not Horus, her older son, but Harpocrates. The reference also explains this was a premature birth, causing him to be lame, and that the Egyptians celebrated the feast of his mothers delivery in spring. Taken in context, this has nothing to do with a December celebration or with Christmas as it is known today.
In another appeal to Wilkinson, Hislop says that a Lent of 40 days was observed in Egypt. But when we look up the reference, Wilkinson says Egyptian fasts "lasted from seven to forty-two days, and sometimes even a longer period: during which time they abstained entirely from animal food, from herbs and vegetables, and above all from the indulgence of the passions" (Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. 1, 278). With as much credibility, we could say they fasted 7 days, 10 days, 12 days, or 42 days. Hislops claim appears to have validity only because he used partial information.
Both Pastor Russell and Judge Rutherford employed these self-same methods regularly and without much conscience not only promoting opinion as "god's words, not ours" but blending wild speculations with historical citations to "prove" the unprovable.
Pastor Russell and his wife promoted Pyramidology and a Divine Plan of the Ages chart to weld a theology of End Times "logic" which was nothing more or less than sillyness and flim-flam passed off as Truth.
Rutherford promoted quack beliefs on health with the same disregard for Truth as he shovelled manure into a heap predicting the return of "ancient worthies" while planning a mansion in California for them (i.e. himself) to live in.
Fred Franz regularly employed Hislop's reasoning style in defending against Christendom's views on Romans 13:1 for the purpose of making Jehovah's Witnesses the only true Christians in not obeying Governments as Superior Authorities appointed by God. Later, the Society reversed this "Truth" by aligning themselves with Christendom after all!
Scriptures, historians, experts, authorities and bible scholars could be made to say only what the Watchtower wanted them to say and nothing more!
Defending the New World Translation's idiosyncratic interpretation of the anarthrous Greek in John 1:1, the Society (mis) quoted authorites and scholars as saying the very opposite of these scholar's correct views!
Hislop set the tone and the Watchtower has ever followed as pseudo-historians, chronologists of elastic dates and circular reasoners who can make wrong right and day night to suit their own purposes.
-
Terry
The founder of (what is today called) Jehovah's Witnesses was a self-styled "Pastor" Charles Taze Russell.
His family was Scottish Presbyterian. His mother must have inculcated all the fearsome lore of Hell into her son at a very early age. He often chalked on sidewalks warnings of Hellfire for passers by as a child.
Somewhere along the line he tangled with an atheist in a debate and was left torn to shreds by the beating he took. His beliefs were bested by the logic of his opponent. (A noted orator, Robert Ingersoll, lectured with convincing logic on agnosticism and free thought raising the consciousness of many disillusioned religious people in those days. Many were persuaded.)
Russell suffered from the god-sized hole in his heart and wandered about listening in on any lecture he might find which served to counter-persuade him out of his deep funk and loss of faith.
About this time there was a vast unrest among a new generation of Americans who had lost much in the Civil War. God had been fighting for both sides, it seemed, and the chaos and slaughter did nothing to bolster his reputation among the pious who had most suffered.
One tide swelled against religious thought and brought a crashing wave of disbelief, atheism and cynicism. A countervailing tide of crackpot fundamentalism sought to bring crushing arguments against them with apologetics of every persuasion.
This was a time of considerable flim-flam, quackery and hatreds for one group and another orphaned by war and disconnected from mainstream society by ill-will and outright malevolence.
Sidebar: Puritans had settled America with a core belief they would establish a shining city on a hill of perfect Christians whose
piety and perfectionism would entice all peoples and nations to bring about world conversion. Over the decades this
core produced social programs to lift people up and bring them into the state of grace and ethics which all the world
would have to notice. The Civil War brought severe disillusionment this would ever transpire.
Perfectionists turned into cynics. Mothers who lost sons and husbands on the battlefield were bitter and disillusioned. The fervid religious core of American believers were worn out praying for a future reward. People wanted God to intervene in the here and now. Thus was born a new, hungry FRINGE producing Adventism, cultism and a mass hysteria fueled by deep seated animosity of one group for another.
America had hot-spots of insidious conspiracy theories, anti-Catholicism, racism and imaginative End of the World scenarios. These were promoted for money, of course. Lectures would be held in tents and storefronts and the unheard of sum of $1 could be charged and obtained easily from curious folks aiming to acquire ammunition for their own prejudiced views.
After hearing the son of a Presbyterian minister and current Adventist, Jonas Wendall give a stirring lecture on Bible Chronology and the End of the World, Russell felt a renewed enthusiasm.
Russell joined the throng. It was a popular pursuit in post Civil War society to chase after wild and unusual ideas that contained contrived theories and abstract doctrines pertaining to End Times. Eagerness and longing pushed good sense and rational skepticism aside.
Russell joined forces with other former Millerites to publish the most exciting ideas pertaining to the coming advent of Jesus Christ.
(William Miller was a baptist farmer who had predicted Jesus coming and was proved wrong again and again. Miller's followers could not admit to being wrong and searched out many explanations for why they were really right.)
Russell was a dedicated reader of fringe ideas, a purveyor of charts, dispensation theories. Charles Russell had been privately tutored as a boy developing an articulate skill in writing and speaking. He found himself attracted to lunatic fringe people and zealous self-promoters. The self-styled "Pastor" met a radical feminist with fervent ideas whom he married and began a work of publishing various viewpoints which might promote Adventist ideas. They shared extremist views and a vivid writing style in pushing these beliefs forward.
At this time, (post Civil War) a pseudo-historian with extreme hatred for Catholicism named Alexander Hislop published a pamphlet (later enlarged into a book THE TWO BABYLONS) and promoted it by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society .
This book would play a large and influential role in establishing a methodology for Jehovah's Witnesses in doing their own crackpot pseudo-historical analyses.
Russell's own writing took on a tone of scholarship, reasoning and extrapolation of history, scripture and conclusion so similar to Hislop's that it borders on compulsive.
Russell's successor, J.F.Rutherford, carried on using this methodology by relating scripture, phoney history and imagination as a new Theology.
-
on the rocks
Terry, thanks for your xplanation...appreciate it very much.
-
sir82
Hislop used four combined processes to accomplish his screed and make it compelling "proof" which might convince those predisposed toward his theories.
1.Hislop cherry picked minutia. He strained seeming connections where there weren't any and drew conclusions through false analogies. He drew on similarities and ignored differences.
2.Hislop partially quoted historical sources, misquoted and often misrepresented his connections by simply distorting the facts. He drew parallels of practices into a false conclusion of cause and effect influences.
3.Hislop invented out of whole cloth significances which weren't called for and used them to build even greater strained arguments. He used partial information and not entire contexts.
4.Hislop painted with a broad brush while amassing a mountain of irrelevancies. He employed a scholarly tone of academic neutrality while employing ad hominems to poison the reader's conclusions. He failed to emphasize when his speculations were passed off as fact based.
So he was also a member of the WT writing committee, then?
-
AnnOMaly
This is a review of Two Babylons when the 2nd edition came out. It's from an old British journal, The Saturday Review, Sept. 17, 1859 (I wish somebody had a scanned copy somewhere. Quote below is reproduced from Woodrow's book):
"In the first place, his whole superstructure is raised upon nothing. Our earliest authority for the history of Semiramis wrote about the commencement of the Christian era, and the historian from whom he drew his information lived from fifteen hundred to two thousand years after the date which Mr. Hislop assigns to the great Assyrian Queen. The most lying legend which the Vatican has ever endorsed stands on better authority than the history which is now made the ground of a charge against it.
"Secondly, the whole argument proceeds upon the assumption that all heathenism has a common origin. Accidental resemblances in mythological details are taken as evidence of this, and nothing is allowed for the natural working of the human mind.
"Thirdly, Mr. Hislop's reasoning would make anything of anything. By the aid of obscure passages in third-rate historians, groundless assumptions of identity, and etymological torturing of roots, all that we know, and all that we believe, may be converted...into something totally different.
"Fourthly, Mr. Hislop's argument proves too much. He finds not only the corruptions of Popery, but the fundamental articles of the Christian Faith, in his hypothetical Babylonian system...
"We take leave of Mr. Hislop and his work with the remark that we never before quite knew the folly of which ignorant or half-learned bigotry is capable."
-
Leolaia
Hislop was also fond of the most specious etymologies of names belonging to the main characters of his book (Nimrod, Semiramis, Tammuz, etc. etc.), which he used to buttress his specious theories. He was also ignorant of actual Babylonian and Assyrian history, partly because he wrote at a time prior to the discovery and publication of cuneiform texts. He was dependent on very late classical sources (and secondary and tertiary sources utilizing them) that conflated historical personages together into legendary characters (kind of like how Nimrod in the OT is a conflation of personages, or the legendary "Sesostris" was a conflation of several historical Egyptian pharaohs), and which very poorly represented the mythologies of ancient Babylon and Assyria. Semiramis is kind of a case in point. This was based on an actual queen of Assyria named Shammuramat, a real historical figure but who was remembered many centuries later with an expanded mythology that attributed to her acts that later Babylonian kings (such as Nebuchadnezzar II) had done. Hislop somehow makes her the consort of Nimrod, the founder of Babylon, although when the real Shammuramat lived, Babylon had been in existence for over a thousand years. And Hislop makes Tammuz the child of Nimrod and Semiramis. But in reality, Dumuzi (the original Sumerian god that Tammuz was based on) was a deity worshipped in Sumer long before Babylon was even founded, and who was probably based on the mythological king of Badtibira who reigned "before the Flood". Hislop essentially created his own pseudo-history of Babylon that he then posited as the (euhemeristic) source of Babylonian mythology and Catholic ritual.