Bible joke in the 7/15/11 WT (for nonChristians)

by SweetBabyCheezits 31 Replies latest jw friends

  • Morbidzbaby
    Morbidzbaby

    OH don't forget that when Samson ripped the lion in half, he came back and the carcass was filled with honey! And he somehow managed to grab 300 foxes, tie their tails together, and fasten a lit torch to every pair of tails, and send them into the Philistines vineyards, etc. And don't forget pulling up the city gates and running them to the top of Hebron .

    Tales of magic and sorcery, indeed... even tales that DON'T contain magic or sorcery are just plain ridiculous...

    Though the thought of 300 foxes tied together running through the fields torching stuff is kind of ridiculously comical...

  • Nickolas
    Nickolas

    Great post, SBC. The purely fantastical aspect of the stuff Witnesses are told they must believe without even a hint of doubt is part of the magic formula that holds them captive. It is magic, indeed, and the magicians are the Watchtower hierarchy.

  • SweetBabyCheezits
    SweetBabyCheezits

    All great points! I'd forgotten about the foxes lighting the fields on fire. Sounds like a task to complete in an RPG video game.

    Also, that's an excellent catch, Serenity, about the original Greek word being withheld. I can hear it now:

    "No, no, no... There's no need to even mention the actual word. That would be giving them more information than they need. We can just tell them about it in vague terms and they'll accept whatever we say. We don't want to raise any curiousity. Just like when we write 'one scholar says' or 'one expert testifies'... they don't always need names or original Greek words. They're sheeples. We're the authority."

    Did it ever bother anyone else that the WT would quote reference works like The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia as though it were an authority on some subject but then, oh, it couldn't be trusted for any topics in which there was a conflict with JW doctrine.

    This is something I brought up when I first started doubting, after I discovered the 607 issue. I was trying to do all my research in reference works that had been quoted by the WT since I figured, hey, if it's good enough for the GB to use, it's good enough for me. But I was told that not all of the info in those books was trustworthy. So I asked why the Society was quoting from reference works that were filled with questionable or inaccurate information. No answer. That said A LOT to me.

  • poopsiecakes
    poopsiecakes

    You mean like quoting from Strongs Concordance when it suits them so that it seems like a credible reference that nobody will question then purposely inverting the meaning of a word knowing that nobody will check it out?

    From jwfacts.com - and yes, when I checked the reference myself I just about fell off my couch...

    Likewise the term to never ?say a greeting? to him needs to be understood in light of first century practice. It is wrong for the Watchtower to claims that John used the term ?a greeting? to indicate a simple hello.

      ?John here used khai´ro, which was a greeting like ?good day? or ?hello.? (Acts 15:23; Matthew 28:9) He did not use a·spa´zo·mai (as in verse 13), which means ?to enfold in the arms, thus to greet, to welcome? and may have implied a very warm greeting, even with an embrace. (Luke 10:4; 11:43; Acts 20:1, 37; 1 Thessalonians 5:26) So the direction at 2 John 11 could well mean not to say even ?hello? to such ones.? Watchtower 1988 April 15 p.27

    This article claims the word khairo is used to forbid a simple greeting, instead of aspazomai which means a more affectionate embrace, enfolding in the arms, kiss, greeting or welcome. The writer seems to be confused as the very opposite is true. Strong?s states;

    • 5463 chairo {khah'-ee-ro} 1) to rejoice, be glad 2) to rejoice exceedingly 3) to be well, thrive 4) in salutations, hail! 5) at the beginning of letters: to give one greeting, salute
    • 783 aspasmos {as-pas-mos?} 1) a salutation, either oral or written

  • cantleave
    cantleave

    SBC - you have excelled yourself. A+ Top of the class!

  • PublishingCult
    PublishingCult

    The Greek interlinear revealed no such word, or even close to it for 1 Timothy 1:18, 19. There is no way in hell a JW could go and verify the WTBTS is being truthful.

    But I did go to the source sited, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, and this is what it had to say in whole:

    fa'-b'-l (muthos):

    (1) Primitive man conceives of the objects around him as possessing his own characteristics. Consequently in his stories, beasts, trees, rocks, etc., think, talk and act exactly as if they were human beings. Of course, but little advance in knowledge was needed to put an end to this mode of thought, but the form of story-telling developed by it persisted and is found in the folk-tales of all nations. More particularly, the archaic form of story was used for the purpose of moral instruction, and when so used is termed the fable. Modern definitions distinguish it from the parable (a) by its use of characters of lower intelligence than man (although reasoning and speaking like men), and (b) by its lesson for this life only. But, while these distinctions serve some practical purpose in distinguishing (say) the fables of Aesop from the parables of Christ, they are of little value to the student of folk-lore. For fable, parable, allegory, etc., are all evolutions from a common stock, and they tend to blend with each other.

    See ALLEGORY ; PARABLE .

    (2) The Semitic mind is peculiarly prone to allegorical expression, and a modern Arabian storyteller will invent a fable or a parable as readily as he will talk. And we may be entirely certain that the very scanty appearance of fables in the Old Testament is due only to the character of its material and not at all to an absence of fables from the mouths of the Jews of old. Only two examples have reached us. In Judges 9:7 through Judges 15 Jotham mocks the choice of AbimeItch as king with the fable of the trees that could find no tree that would accept the trouble of the kingship except the worthless bramble. And in 2 Kings 14:9 Jehoash ridicules the pretensions of Amaziah with the story of the thistle that wished to make a royal alliance with the cedar. Yet that the distinction between fable and allegory, etc., is artificial is seen in Isaiah 5:1-2, where the vineyard is assumed to possess a deliberate will to be perverse.

    (3) In the New Testament, "fable" is found in 1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Peter 1:16, as the translation of muthos ("myth"). The sense here differs entirely from that discussed above, and "fable" meansa (religious) story that has no connection with reality--contrasted with the knowledge of an eyewitness in 2 Peter 1:16. The exact nature of these "fables" is of course something out of our knowledge, but the mention in connection with them of "endless genealogies" in 1 Timothy 1:4 points with high probability to some form of Gnostic speculation that interposed a chain of eons between God and the world. In some of the Gnostic systems that we know, these chains are described with a prolixity so interminable (the Pistis Sophia is the best example) as to justify well the phrase "old wives' fables" in 1 Timothy 4:7. But that these passages have Gnostic reference need not tell against the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, as a fairly well developed "Gnosticism" is recognizable in a passage as early as Colossians 2, and as the description of the fables as Jewish in Titus 1:14 (compare Titus 3:9) is against 2nd-century references. But for details the commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles must be consulted. It is worth noting that in 2 Timothy 4:4 the adoption of these fables is said to be the result of dabbling in the dubious. This manner of losing one's hold on reality is, unfortunately, something not confined to the apostolic age.

    Burton Scott Easton

    So, the WTBTS completely got the reference wrong for the scripture cited, and is deliberately misleading the reader to the wrong conclusion about the cited bible passage.

    THEN it merely offers "a (religious) story that has no connection with reality"without offering the complete idea which is "--contrasted with the knowledge of an eyewitness".

  • sizemik
    sizemik

    Great post PC . . .

    This manner of losing one's hold on reality is, unfortunately, something not confined to the apostolic age.

    Aint that the truth!

  • Morbidzbaby
    Morbidzbaby

    PC: Thanks for showing that the powers-that-be in Crooklyn are still at it, "twisting the scriptures", cherry-picking, and misquoting!

    Oh, and the foxes thing...yeah, that's exactly what I thought, too! What an interesting level in a video game that would make! lol

  • serenitynow!
    serenitynow!
    I was trying to do all my research in reference works that had been quoted by the WT since I figured, hey, if it's good enough for the GB to use, it's good enough for me. But I was told that not all of the info in those books was trustworthy. So I asked why the Society was quoting from reference works that were filled with questionable or inaccurate information. No answer. That said A LOT to me.

    Oh yeah, they are very inconsistent. I think that they figure people won't notice. It's just like when I was talking to my mom recently and was listing some of the shortcomings of the org, she tried to interject, "but the Catholic church does the same thing!" And I was like, when you claim to be the "only true religion" the only ones who have figured things out, you can't then say- "oh this church does the same!" because since JWs are supposedly the only true religion, they should be held to higher standards.

  • sizemik
    sizemik

    How often I've heard that . . . we're no part of the world . . . but no worse than it!

    That sort of duplicity is so hard to counter because they JUST DON"T SEE IT!

    As someone once said . . . It's like fishing for nickels in a pot of treacle with a stick of rhubarb! . . . you can never win!

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