Proof: Jehovah's Witness beliefs are based on a FALSE PREMISE

by Terry 31 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  BluesBrother

  Perhaps I am missing the point as well .....If the written language had no symbols for numbers, they seem to have coped perfecly well, in building cities and temples, keeping a calendar and trading.

  Whilst we have no faith in their chronology or prophecy, it does not mean that the scriptures themselves are necessarily invalid .

  Incidentally The Jewish Encyclopedia says

  "The letters of the alphabet were used as numerical symbols as early as the Maccabean period (comp. Numismatics). Whether such a usage was known in earlier times also, whether there existed in Israel, as among kindred nations, special signs for figures, or whether numerical notation was entirely unknown, can not be decided by direct proof. That there were no numerical signs at all is hardly possible. The necessities of daily life require such signs"
  
  Read more: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?letter=N&artid=366#ixzz0jmBrdl1D
• 

  thetrueone

  The obvious false premise is that this religion holds the truth up and above all others.

  A man-made publishing company that put god's seal of approval on their literature for increased circulation purposes.

  Now those are real numbers that some men can appreciate. $$$
• 

  notverylikely

  Now those are real numbers that some men can appreciate

  Quotas are in the bible.
• 

  Terry

  Perhaps I am missing the point as well .....If the written language had no symbols for numbers, they seem to have coped perfecly well, in building cities and temples, keeping a calendar and trading.

  Not so fast!

  Calendars were based on direct observation of physical certainty. How many moons meant how many moonths (months). This period would be practical to a certain extent. How many suns was more difficult inasmuch as the soon does not travel through "phases".

  The number of days in a year was always a problem. The Egyptians tended to use the flooding of the Nile for example.

  The common use of so many "fingers" "palms" "feet" etc. is found among many nations.

  Using a rope to form a circle of a certain size inadvertently led to the discovery of the ratio between the length of that rope and the circumference of the circle. In other words, the practical proportions of things were carried out and the inherent math automatically followed.

  Precision is a fairly modern commodity although precision in ancient times was regarded as a carefully guarded "secret" information to be guarded by priests and master craftsmen guilds.

  I said all the above so that I could say this.

  IF (conditional premise coming up!) Divine Inspiration were at work in writing the Bible this would SUPERCEDE any necessary knowledge for humans merely transcribing God's thoughts. God would merely REVEAL the unknown thing, the divine mystery, the beautiful equation.

  Pi would Pi because God declared it so and not because a human figured it out first.

  The haphazard representations of NUMBERS MEASUREMENTS MATHEMATICAL TRUTHS is the bull's eye in my crosshairs here.

  You cannot have an accurate Bible Chronology for the very reason there is no SINGLE heuristic at work. Each generation of writers used whatever they thought they knew good or bad. The AUTHOR of the bible is a misnomer. There is no Author (singular) it is a vast superimposition of minds and revisionists and redactors at work.

  The icing on that stale cake is the fact they used their alphabet for symbols!

  Imagine being a Spanish speaking person thinking in English. Those two languages are different in construction, grammar and rules. You cannot think in BOTH languages at the same time. You go from one "mindset" to the other.

  Without an understanding of both languages it is the language you know best which clear when you speak. The language you have acquired secondarily will suffer errors and awkward constructions.

  Extrapolate that to using the same set of symbols for language in Hebrew, Greek and Latin and for mathematics (not clearly comprehended.)

  A practical test of this is the use of Jesus' own words about the GENERATION not passing away.

  The Watchtower has made hay in the sunshine again and again and again BECAUSE THERE IS NO MATHEMATICAL CERTAINTY contained in the word at all!

  This is true of all Bible statements and alphmeric-numbers!
• 

  Terry

  "The letters of the alphabet were used as numerical symbols as early as the Maccabean period (comp. Numismatics). Whether such a usage was known in earlier times also, whether there existed in Israel, as among kindred nations, special signs for figures, or whether numerical notation was entirely unknown, can not be decided by direct proof. That there were no numerical signs at all is hardly possible. The necessities of daily life require such signs"

  Remember this: the source of the statement has a vested interest in the interpretation of the facts.

  A Muslim encyclopedia says one thing, a christian encyclopedia says another thing and a Jewish encyclopedia yet another.

  To say that no numerical signs "is hardly possible" is silly in view of the fact Romans used Roman Numerals quite obviously the same way!
• 

  Terry

  Look at the face of a grandfather clock.

  The Roman Numeral for 4 is IV but it doesn't appear on the clockface that way.

  Why?

  IV is also the name of the Roman God JOVE JoVe.

  To be respectful of other gods (who might be jealous) the IV is not placed there...instead four one's IIII are inserted instead.

  Interesting or not it shows how gematria and superstition are ridiculous preoccupations and dull the mind considerably.
• 

  TD

  I'm not sure I've fully grasped the point either

  FFFF = 65535

  DDDD = 56797

  ABCD = 43981

  Every programmer and I.T. professional on the board understands the three examples above perfectly. It's a base-16 numbering system that was adopted in the early days of computing because the conversion from hex to binary was so easy you could do it in your head. It worked so well that it is still used today.

  Is the problem using letters to represent base-10 numbers (e.g. F = 15 in hex) or is the problem that somebody else unfamiliar with this convention might not understand it?
• 

  gubberningbody

  It doesn't really matter that before a certain point it's difficult to pin things down. The question is "Did the people at any point feel they had an accurate chronology", and the answer to that is "Yes".

  What would be more correct to say is that all chronologies are flawed in some manner.
• 

  dgp

  My understanding was that though the concept of number did exist, and so did the words for them, the fact that there were no special signs for numbers may very well have resulted in misreading a word for a number, say, or vice versa. So that mistake might have come into the translations of the Bible, and then to Russell and so many others who have "unveiled" similar chronologies.
• 

  IP_SEC

  TD said: or is the problem that somebody else unfamiliar with this convention might not understand it?

  Exactly most of the problem.

  You and I can convert Hex to bin or b10 in our heads. The LAYperson hasnt even a clue that the letters represent numbers even today.

  In ancient times the literate lay class may have understood this. They may not have. Irrelevant.

  Relevance is in translation.

  Three problems:

  1. Did translators understand it?

  2. Did they understand the nuance?

  3. Even if they did the manipulation of a symbology of a symbology of a symbology is... well, easy.

  F=eff
  F= 6th letter of the english alphabet
  F= 16
  F= all bits on
  F= (to a translator) all "bits" on