Anthony.
I'll play. Ask your questions, one at a time, about why JW's beleive the way they do and I will attempt to explain their stand and the reasoning used for it.
-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
I am A christian, what is "JW" all ab...
by Anthony 43 Replies latest jw friends
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Frenchy
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Gozz
Seaken2001,
I have always believed the bible to be God's word. I do not yet have enough reason to believe otherwise. But there are certainly troubling questions that leapt at me as I went through some material from the literature of the WTB&TS about the book of Chronicles. The information I got was that 2nd Chronicles was not originally part of the Canon. The concept of the "Canon" called to question the "how" of how the books of the bible were compilled and by whom. These, I think, are important questions. What criteria were used in determining which books were canonical and which were not?2 Tim 3:16,17 is quite a popular scripture, as it gives a blanket inspiration to all the books of the bible. But how do we ascertain (from the bible itself or elsewhere) how/why the books were compilled? Perhaps there are frieends out there who can help.
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Frenchy
Very interesting and valid questions. I don't know where you got the notion from the Society's publications "that 2nd Chronicles was not originally part of the Canon" unless it's the statement that First and Second Chronicles were originally one book and thus there would have been no ‘Second' Chronicles. Is this perhaps the case?
how do we ascertain (from the bible itself or elsewhere) how/why the books were compilled?
This is my view and is not presented here as irrefutable fact. As a matter of fact I post very few irrefutable facts! My studies have led me to the following conclusion: The short version: Time and the influence of the Holy Spirit.
The longer (but still abbreviated) version: If one is going to accept the Bible as the Word of God then one must recognize that God, by means of his holy spirit, both directed the writings and saw to their preservation. Before and during the history of the Israelites there were many writings by many authors. Some (most) was, as is the case today, trash and soon vanished. As for the serious material, some of that was obviously of contemporary value only and when its function was fulfilled it went out of print, so to speak. What survived (by the direction of the Holy Spirit) came to be viewed as sacred writings. Still not a ‘Bible' so to speak. After the exile from Babylon Ezra undertook a project of assimilating those ‘sacred writings' in an effort to restore the worship of Jehovah among his people. This was the beginning of what we now have as the Bible, a compilation of sacred writings viewed as a body of works representing God's Word to man. Again we must take into consideration that God's holy spirit guided Ezra in his work of putting these writings together. Perhaps it even guided him in doing some editing to these manuscripts as well so that the result was exactly what Jehovah wanted for mankind to have. The result was a work that, with the writings of Nehemiah and Malachi added on later, came to be what we now term the Old Testament or, as some prefer, the Hebrew Scriptures.-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
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Scorpion
Everyone,
I think Anthony is stilll researching his own religion as he said he would, I hope. Maybe it will be an eye opener for him researching his belief, as it was for us to research and examine the WT.
Hopefully Anthony will post again a little more enlightened.