by ILoveTTATT 56 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
I'm with Phizzy. JW influence aside, I find it rather disturbing that a Christian would wear a symbol that represents a device used to execute their leader._____ADCMS
Hello there ADCMS
Don't take this as a sermon, it's jus an explaination
It can become a disturbance if not understood what it the cross mean to others
The cross to many symbolizes God's power in the resurrection
It has become for ever connected as the means to salvation by way of Jesus Christ
This is very interesting and important info for both Witnesses and and ex Witnesses but the fact is that the Romans crucified people, that is what they did. History confirms that is what they did. Why on earth the Watchtower insists on being contrary is beyond me. We do an injustice to ourselves and others by even considering their petty argument which has no historical backing whatsoever.
Just like Judaism has it's cultural markers to ID fellow Jews (eg circumcisions, Kosher, etc), JWs have a few unique traits that make them stand out from the crowd, eg not saluting the flag, not placing hand over heart during National Anthem, no blood, no cross. Freud talked about how groups inevitably engage in the narcissism of small differences, where one group makes a mountain out of a molehill to feel better than the others and to discriminate against other groups ("we do this, but THEY do that!"). Many houseolders simply slam their doors on JWs, and get back to whatever they were doing before they were intruded upon, and the JWs walk off saying how the Worldly people will get what's coming to them in Amageddon.
Adam
Adamah you have a PM.
wasblind:
Don't take this as a sermon, it's jus an explaination
I'm speaking from my own perspective. My comments are not a judgment of anyone else's beliefs.
Bart never discusses or attempts to demonstrate N existed. if it existed then it should be easy to prove beoynd doubt in a simple manner.
Yes he does, on pages 191 to 197, and the idea that Nazareth did not exist in Jesus' time looks weak indeed.
Hurtado says regarding the staurogram :
As I’ve repeatedly noted, the device itself is pre-Christian, used for more mundane purposes, e.g., as an abbreviation for “three/thirty”. Early on (likely sometime in the second century), Christians appropriated the device and invested it with a new function and meaning all their own. The earliest Christian uses extant are in NT manuscripts: P75, P66 and P45, which are typically dated to the early 3rd century CE. As Robin Jensen has observed, in these cases the staurogram likely served as a pictographic reference to the crucified Jesus.
So these pictograms seem to be the earliest representations of the crucified Jesus. From mss dated to the early 3rd century CE. Which allows us to assume that the pictograms gained popularity in the latter second century. More than a hundred years after the death of Christ. When there was no longer anyone alive who could bear witness to the physical details of the crucifixion and scant description in the gospels. Although Hurtado argues against it, how easy to co-opt the universal Ank symbol representing eternal life to represent the crucifixion regardless of its accuracy. It is clearly inaccurate anyway as the gospels describe the notice 'King of the Jews' as being placed above his head (Mat. 27:37).
So whilie this is interesting, and Hurtado is without doubt an outstanding NT scholar, it is not evidence that Jesus died on a cross. It is evidence of what people understood some two hundred years later.
Apologies. Duplicate post.
Apologies again. Triplicate post.
Good point Earnest. But your viewpoint may be extended to anything in the NT... From a very dispassionate viewpoint,
P45, P66, P75 are some of the oldest copies of the NT. Even older copies do not contain the word Stauros, so we cannot know if these pictograms appeared in those copies.
The copyists were clearly Christian, since the use of Nomina Sacra seems to be an exclusively Christian tradition.
The original NT could have been a totally made up story, could have been an account by eyewitnesses. Either way, we do not have the originals. We only have the copies. The entire NT is, in your words, " evidence of what people understood some (thirty to fifty) years later."
The Staurogram appearing in the manuscripts themselves is significant because, even if it was the Ankh, even if was adopted by Christians by the year 200, it at the very least proves that the copyists of the manuscripts thought that Jesus died on a cross. If the copyists were "apostate" as the WTS calls anything and anyone it doesn't agree with, then when we are reading the NT we are, according to them, effectively reading "apostate literature"... and God allowed apostates to copy the NT for us... apostates who removed the name "Jehovah" from the NT and inserted pagan symbols into the very Scriptures!
The WTS theories are so laughable....
ILTTATT
Earnest
Christians appropriated the device and invested it with a new function and meaning all their own.
mP:
They also borrowed and repurposed pagan holidays and architecture and customs. All the temple rituals and architecutre of the temple in judaism is pagan. Take a look at the internal decoration of thet emple and it is a precise copy of babylonian man creature beasts. Then we move to the idea of sacrifices and so on. The simple answer for adopting xmas on 25 dec is because everybody knew it was the same thing in the end. if it was really so different or offensive the holiday and possibly religion would have died. However they were so similar that the two continued together.
