Belief in the Torture Stake and Noah's Ark - My Issues

by MrFreeze 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  MrFreeze

  We all have JW beliefs that we take issue with. It's why we are all here right now. What are some of the beliefs you think about that really bug you, that not too many people talk about?

  For me there are two specific teachings. One is Noah's Ark. One thing that always bugged me about the story of Noah's Ark was how did the animals get spread around the Earth after Noah released them all? How did black bears get to North America? How did monkeys end up in South America? How did penguins get to Antarctica? How did lemurs get to Madagascar? They sure didn't fly there. Everybody talks about "How did they fit all the animals on the ark?" but they never talk about how the animals ended up where the did.

  Another issue is with the cross. John 20:25 says: "Consequently the other disciples would say to him: 'We have seen the Lord!' But he said to them: 'Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe.'"

  Here's what the WTS has to say about that: " In Luke 24:39 the resurrected Jesus said: “See my hands andmyfeet, that it is I myself.” This suggests that Christ’s feet also were nailed. Since Thomas made no mention of nailprints in Jesus’ feet, his use of the plural “nails” could have been a general reference to multiple nails used in impaling Jesus.

  Thus, it just is not possible at this point to state with certainty how many nails were used. Any drawings of Jesus on the stake should be understood as artists’ productions that offer merely a representation based on the limited facts that we have. Debate over such an insignificant detail should not be permitted to becloud the all-important truth that “we became reconciled to God through the death of his Son.”"

  In the scripture they don't mention hands and feet. He was only referring to the hands. Then the WTS has the nerve to say that debating over such an insignifigant detail should not be done. Wait, aren't they the ones who make a big deal about what it was Jesus died on?
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  Black Sheep

  What caught my attention very quickly wasn't so much that they were wrong, but that the literature was dishonest. Over and over and over again.

  Every controversial subject I looked at was the same. Check the references, find some kind of dishonesty. Mind boggling.

  Cheers

  Chris
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  Bluegill

  MrFreeze...I found this to be real interesting. Have a look.

  http://www.skepdic.com/noahsark.html
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  St George of England

  Why do we only get kangeroos in Australia? If they had come out of the ark and made their way there by the 'land bridges' the society suggest, surely some would have died on the way and there would be evidence of their remains.

  Similarly, there must have been kangeroos around Mesopotamia in order for Noah to take the into the ark before the flood. There would be evidence of kanga's in that area also. But there isn't!

  There may have been a significant LOCAL flood, but as sure as 'eggs is eggs' as we say here, it was not world wide.

  If you fancy a bit of mathematical fun, work out how much rain has to fall each day for a year in order to cover all the mountains, even if you take Ararat as the highest mountain at say 13,000 ft.

  George
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  PSacramento

  IF one takes the bible as literal then one must some how explain the isue of Noah and the global flood.

  If one takes it as a story, not so much a fictional one but a story of a great Flood ( that probably happened) that covered "ALL" the land in the sense that for the writers of the ancient world, all the land the knew of was covered, and that a group of people saved as many animals as they could, then perhaps it did happen.

  If not HOW the bibles says it literaly happened but that it DID happen as the bible says that IT happened:

  There was a vast flood that covered "the whole world" of ancient man and that animals were saved.

  Of course this takes some effort to reconciel and for m any it is much easier and simpler to write off the whole thing.

  As for the Cross, Jesus was crucified and not impaled, there are greek words for BOTH and they are not the same word, if the writers wanted to say impaled they would have used the word.
• 

  Leolaia

  For me there are two specific teachings. One is Noah's Ark. One thing that always bugged me about the story of Noah's Ark was how did the animals get spread around the Earth after Noah released them all? How did black bears get to North America? How did monkeys end up in South America? How did penguins get to Antarctica? How did lemurs get to Madagascar? They sure didn't fly there. Everybody talks about "How did they fit all the animals on the ark?" but they never talk about how the animals ended up where the did.

  They did address it in an article in the 1960s that, if I recall correctly, suggested that continental drift was responsible. Yep, you read that correctly.

  With respect to the cross, I agree that the Society makes a mountain of a molehill, and their explanation of the plural "nails" in John 20:25 with reference to the nailing of Jesus' feet is a rather poor one (as the reference is certainly to the nails used to pierce the hands, leaving a mark in each hand). However, having said that, this verse is not conclusive evidence of the form of the stauros presumed by the author, on account of the unfixed variety in crucifixion styles from the day; we just don't know how the Romans tended to nail the limbs of victims. It is still conceivable that a victim's hands could have been nailed separately on a simple stake, rather than the style shown uniformly in Watchtower literature. Other verses in John, such as 19:17 and 21:18-19 (cf. 12:32-33), better suggest the image of a two-beamed stauros.

  As for the Cross, Jesus was crucified and not impaled, there are greek words for BOTH and they are not the same word, if the writers wanted to say impaled they would have used the word.

  This isn't quite true. There was a separate word for the pointed stake used in impaling (skolops), but this is not the sense of "impale" that the Society has in mind (they use the word in a rather odd sense to mean "execute by nailing and suspending a victim on a single beam of wood", which essentially is what crucify means because the Greek and Latin words for crucifixion did not distinguish the form of the instruments used). The verbal form of skolops does not mean "impale" but was used much as an interchangeable synonym with the verbal form of stauros (e.g. Lucian used anaskolopizein in a text that explicitly concerns a T-shaped stauros, Lis Consonantium, 12).
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  PSacramento

  This isn't quite true. There was a separate word for the pointed stake used in impaling (skolops), but this is not the sense of "impale" that the Society has in mind (they use the word in a rather odd sense to mean "execute by nailing and suspending a victim on a single beam of wood", which essentially is what crucify means because the Greek and Latin words for crucifixion did not distinguish the form of the instruments used).

  Well, that's just it, HOW the society uses the word impale is not correct, it is odd at best.

  In our modern language one does not equate impalement on a stake with being nailed and, to be honest, in the historical context, that holds true too, if one was to search for impalments through out history, the vast majority would be the typical ones we picture.

  Lets be honest here, one does NOT equate impalment with being nailed to anything.
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  wobble

  Another consideration is the medical one. if one is suspended for a lengh of time with the arms baring the weight of the body from above, death can be relatively quick, as strain on the heart , and lungs filling with fluid does not take many hours.

  And yet the Romans, the gospels tell us, were concerned to make sure that the criminals were dead, a procedure that probably would not have been necessary for any of the three if they had been nailed to a stake as the WT depicts.
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  frigginconfused

  Ark was about 600 years after Adam and Eve, We werent spread through the earth yet. The whole earth being flooded probably refers to an area large enough to kill every thing around. So the story is plausable for me. He could have got 2 of every local animal. But to get a polar bear he would have to treak across the globe to bring it back.

  So either he opnly had 2 of everything local and th earth was locally flooded or this all happened so long ago that animals had time to evolve through natural selection and re-fill the earth.

  The JW's base this on the translations of stake. And I agree. But what they leave out is that stake was just a mounting platform. multiple Nails in and out of it would destroy it. Plus you have to take into account a kicking screaming prisoner fighting for life. Would be much easier to use that stake as a mount fixture and nail the guy to a flat board on the ground to immobilize him. Then hoist him up onto the stake and affix him to some sort of mount point. This way the bible is not lying about the cross, But neither is christendom. Being different to prove youi have the truth is going to backfire.
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  MrFreeze

  That's just the point frigginconfused. That's not what the WT says. It says the WHOLE earth was flooded. There are stories of a great flood in that area and that there was a certain person in the area who had a large boat and used it to avoid dieing. However, I highly doubt it was 3 football fields long.