by opusdei1972 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
This is what JW.org says :
"The earth is suspended in empty space. (Job 26:7) Many ancient peoples believed that the world was a flat disk supported by a giant or an animal, such as a buffalo or a turtle."
http://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/science-and-the-bible/
I think JW.org is missing something. I don't think that Jews believed that the earth was an sphere suspended in empty space.
with all the writings in this script collection, there are bound to be some lucky shots. balanced with the many references to the FOUNDATIONS, the four corners of the earth.
the earth HANGING could be equated to the centrifugal forces, energy of movement working against gravity that humans were aware of a long while back, that allowed water to remain inside a twirling, upside-down bucket. a far fetched connection equal to Newton's apocryphal apple.
It would have been a great insight, had it been the CONSISTENT fact expressed in the scriptures.
Certain verses can be cherry-picked and translated to say whatever.
For me, one complete deal-breaker is that Genesis says that two (or seven) of all "kinds" of animals were put in a wooden box the size of a large parking garage, and then there was a global flood. Taking that Noachian flood story literally is completely illogical, unscientific, and absurd. Just thinking about Watchtower's defense of the flood legend still makes me ill to think that I ever believed that nonsense. I look at that JW.org content and am ashamed that I was involved with such deception.
Anyway, I don't think I've welcomed you to the forum yet, opusdei. So, WELCOME!
Here's an old thread I started about kangaroos and the flood.
And here's another about population issues between the flood and the tower.
I was hearing this same stuff back in the 1980s. Yawn!!! They really need to get some new material. They just keep repeating the same nonsense decade after decade. No wonder half the Witnesses are on Prozac.
Job is thought by Biblical scholars to have been wriitten
before Genesis.
Job 26:7 New English Translation (NET Bible)
He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth on nothing.
Job 26:7 The Voice (VOICE)
He stretches out the northern sky
over vast reaches of emptiness;
He hangs the earth itself on nothing.
Isaiah 40:22Lexham English Bible (LEB)
He is the one who sits above the circle of the earth,
yeah, science sure backs that up ........
certaintly the Flood's account is based on a babilonian myth, which could also be a copy of that of the Hindu mythology (in case of the Hindu civilization be the oldest one).
I have a book in Spanish of an ex-catholic priest who compares the Jewish version of the Flood (in Genesis) with that of the Hindu Mythology and I was impressed by the similarities. So I believe that there was actually a local flood in ancient times, then it inspired the legend, which was theologicaly reconfigured by Jewish scribes, as Witnesses in the writing department do with their stories.
I will read your old threads, thank you.
Yes, that is the actual picture which depicts how ancient Jews understood the universe. However, the Watchtower does not admit it.
billytheEB, agreed, if you picked the few cherries, texts that agree with present knowledge, and
there are no more than a handfull that I can think of,
one is left with a tree having a bumper crop ,
of,--well, I hate to say it,-- crap.
crap apples,
nice ornamental flowers in the spring,
short lived and no more.
Villagegirl, your Isaiah quote would have "The One" sit above the [nearly] circular ORBIT of the earth? or the circular horizon?and
I can not help but thinking of the kind of 'sitting' there--
When it says in the bible 'circle of the earth' it is a reference to a flat disc that we seemed to walk on.
HUNG on nothing is a reference to the belief that it was indeed hung on nothing but supported by pillars.
Watchtower is simply being dishonest or are ignorant about the context and ancient Jewish beliefs.
On the other hand, a thousand years plus before the Jewish people even existed, Egyptians had worked out the circumferance of the SPHERICAL earth to three decimal places, using trigonometry.
