Jonathan drake the bible's information was entrusted into the bible writers. The thing is that God allowed them to misinterpret the bibles message slightly while still keeping the original message that humans need the Lord. The thing that many people just cannot see is the historical references from the bible such as the circle of the earth. if any human we're to change the bible and add the earth was round it had to have happened in the late fifteenth century to the late eighteenth century or even now. that was when mankind learned the earth was round. But here's the thing. those dead sea scrolls, which no one edited or changed was found in the 20th century and contains the same text as the Hebrew bible. So no man could change it because it's sacred text. If the scrolls which were not changed ever and written in b.c. had said the earth was round than the prophets must have gotten the message from God. I hope you understand the true lord. our father god.
The Watchtower are Right About Blood...
by cofty 556 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Jonathan Drake
@ Marvin
to be fair even the Jews much later didn't really stick to just pouring out the blood. Around Jesus time there were people who would collect blood running down the drain from the sacrifices and then sell it as fertilizer, making a profit.
I think I see where you're coming from now maybe, but I think it's a point that you'd really struggle to make with witnesses. As a witness I would have just said the point remains the sacred nature of life, the blood being respected was just a symbol of that sacredness. It really wasn't about the blood, it was about the life. Blood was being used as a symbol of life.
I would also have argued that the expounding on this law later by Moses showed that people weren't respecting life as much as they should have and so more specific restrictions were set. But blood was never the issue, it was only used as a symbol.
That would be my argument. I think coftys OP does a good job of sidestepping all such rebuttals.
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Marvin Shilmer
As a witness I would have just said the point remains the sacred nature of life, the blood being respected was just a symbol of that sacredness. It really wasn't about the blood, it was about the life. Blood was being used as a symbol of life.
Watchtower doctrine treats blood as a sacred substance because of its use in Genesis 9 as equivalent with life. A fatal flaw in that proposition is that the equivalence was said of the blood of living animals killed to eat and not of all blood. Specifically I have in mind the massive amounts of blood that would have been freely available all around Noah and his descendants in the form of animal carcasses dead of natural cause. That food was for the most part as edible as flesh of animals killed as food, and that food was loaded with blood, blood the text of Genesis 9 presented no prohibition against eating. This single piece of information obliterates an notion that the biblical God holds the substance of blood as some sacred stuff. He doesn't.
There's another thing often overlooked in the Genesis text about food where God grants permission to eat blood. It's the text of Genesis 6:21. Take a look at it. Think about all the stuff that is eaten as food by creatures and humans. (See: God gave Noah express permission to eat blood and Blood doctrine – thrown under the bus )
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NewYork44M
Sure they are right - dead right. But being dead and right takes all the fun out of right.
Come 'on; Let's be real - people have died because of their JW beliefs. There is no justification for letting people die. This is not an academic debate - this means life and death for more than a few people.
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Marvin Shilmer
I think coftys OP does a good job of sidestepping all such rebuttals.
Cofty's suggestion of pointing out the unacceptable aspect of sacrificing blood extracted from a living animal without killing that animal should stir some interesting conversation with a JW.
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Marvin Shilmer
Come 'on; Let's be real - people have died because of their JW beliefs. There is no justification for letting people die. This is not an academic debate - this means life and death for more than a few people.
AMEN to THAT!!!
A real frustration is how Watchtower waffles on propositions.
When speaking of baptism as a symbol of dedication Watchtower says, "Being a symbol of something else, it obviously is not as important as what it symbolizes". (See Blood as important as life? )
Yet Watchtower doctrine treats a supposed symbol of life (blood) as an equal to life by insisting JWs should rather die than let this supposed symbol of life be transfused in attempt to prevent their premature death.
Either a symbol of something is as important as what it symbolizes or it is not. It's irrational to assert each.
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Jonathan Drake
The thing is that God allowed them to misinterpret the bibles message slightly while still keeping the original message that humans need the Lord.
What!?... Just... What!? This doesn't throw up huge red flags for you at all?
The thing that many people just cannot see is the historical references from the bible such as the circle of the earth.
the ancient people had two very big and very obvious reasons to assert the earth was a circle, the sun and the moon. It's not a huge leap to imagine they too lived on such a circle.
But here's the thing. those dead sea scrolls, which no one edited or changed was found in the 20th century and contains the same text as the Hebrew bible. So no man could change it because it's sacred text.
This is not something you can accurately assert. The Dead Sea scrolls could be copies of older books made for preservation, and likely were. How can you assert that no changes were made to them? You can't possibly know.
Further, how do you account for the known spurious additions to the bible that were believed as legitimate for thousands of years, even still by many- yet these were additions, changes, to your so called sacred text. Not only this, but the NWT has scriptures which meaning were changed entirely by its translators. You may choose to ignore it, but the evidence is overwhelming that the so called sacred texts were changed significantly.
I could even point to your own post... How can you say in one sentence that God allowed men to misinterpret the bible slightly but then just a few lines down from this claim that the sacred texts were never changed? You just said God let his message be misinterpreted so was it changed or not because it can't be both ways....
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Fisherman
Marvin Shilmer
Thanks for the links. I glanced at them. Looks interesting. I will review when I have time.
In terms of Bible interpretation, JWs trust the Wts.(period) Not interested.
In terms of medical, it is interesting. I posted a link on another thread showing the present risk of getting an HIV infection from a blood transfusion. (Source is not WTS )
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wizzstick
those dead sea scrolls, which no one edited or changed was found in the 20th century and contains the same text as the Hebrew bible. So no man could change it because it's sacred text.
No man could change it? Apart from the person that left out an entire Psalm!
Q: Are there substantial differences between the text of the Hebrew Bible manuscripts found at Qumran and the Masoretic Text?
A: Yes … and no. On the one hand, they show a stability in the text. We see how faithful the Masoretic tradition was, that it could preserve a lengthy ancient text for over a thousand years. On the other hand, there are some key differences. An extra psalm. Slightly different wording. Most important is the occasional variation that clarifies something that was puzzling in the Masoretic Text. A good example is Isaiah 53:11. The translation of the Masoretic Text reads: “Out of the suffering of his soul, he will see and be satisfied.” He will see what? The word “see” has no object. But in the Isaiah scrolls found at Qumran, we find that verse 11 contains the missing object: “Out of the suffering of his soul, he will see light.” And guess what? The Septuagint also has the missing word.Click on:
You need to research more on the Christian Greek Scriptures pressman. Read Professor Bart D. Ehrman's. Scholar's have to guess which translation to use at times. And then there's the internal discrepancies between the Gospel accounts. An example:
Barton and Muddiman cite inconsistencies between the gospel writers about what happened at Christ's tomb. They note that "In Mk 16:1 there are three women at the tomb, in Mt 28:1 two, and in Lk 23:55-24:10 more than three. In Mark and Luke they come with spices to anoint Jesus, but in the Fourth Gospel this has already been done.
Internal Consistency of the Bible: ExamplesYou've got lots of reading to do if you want to learn the truth...
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Finkelstein
the bible was entrusted by the lord and all the stories are genuine.
Such as a world wide flood which there is no evidence of.
Or the Tower of Babel event which supposedly every human spoke the same language before it but
wait, archaeologists have evidence of different languages far before the Tower of Babel event.
The supposed seven days of creation ,yet there is scientific evidence and scientific methodology that says that the earth is millions of years old.
As I said before the ancient Hebrews were compelled to create stories to build a believable powerful presence of their god , so they told great elaborate stories to do just that, just like many of other ancient civilizations of that time of human in history.