by pixel 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
From the GB's new book: God's Kingdom Rules, chapter 4:
"Faithful early Bible Students viewed the ransom arrangement as the Bible's main teaching" Paragraph 9.
"The Bible Students understood that the primary issue was, not personal salvation, but the sanctifying of God's name." Paragraph 14.
There you have it!
Total BS without any scriptural support but the cult is still able to retain over 30% who grew up believing that trash.
In JW Land the priorities are set by the Lord's Prayer.
I am not fully across the "Ransom" issues that plagued the early Bible Students, but I believe that Henninges defected over this issue, and I think that the Ransom might have been one issue that caused people to defect from Rutherford. He did make many fundamental changes from CTR's teachings that caused most to leave the WTS during the 1920s.
Did Franz revert to Rusell's teachings? Is the WTS shifting its position again?
Apart from these generalisations and unanswered question, I am unable to comment.
Doug
1) faithful EARLY Bible Students: salvation
2) Bible Students: the Name, the Sovereinty
3) today's freed Bible Students: it's fiction
edited to add:
Doug, do you think the talking snake was real? the fall? inherited sin?
The WT GB is selling a fictiious benefit of the ransom that is not needed. we are naturally well made, very good.
the fictiious sanctifying of the name, the vindication of the rule, that the creator never asked for & does not need.
prologos,
In answer to your questions: no, the story is neither literal and was never intended to be. Inherited sin is more of an Augustine precept. I usually use the expression: "supernatural superstition". These writers were, after all, Late Iron Age Canaanite hill-dwellers. They were not present at the time of the stories you are referring to.
Now, two for you:
(1) List for me where in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke) Jesus explicitly states the precepts of ransom, fall and inherited sin.
(2) List for me where in the Synoptic Gosples Jesus explicitly states that salvation is based on faith in his death and resurrection.
Doug
The Bible has no teachings; Christ has teachings.
Why is the Bible being ascribed to as being all the things the Son of God is?
For example, people say and believe:
"The Bible" has teachings.
"The Bible" teaches ...
"The Bible" says ...
According to "The Bible" ...
"Bible Students"
"The Bible is the Word of God."
Wait a minute !!!!
If discipleship is to be to Christ then ...
One's mindset should be:
"According to Christ ..."
"Jesus [the] Christ says ..."
"Jesus [the] Christ teaches ..."
"Students of Christ (Disciples of Christ)"
"Jesus Christ is The Word of God" (The ONLY Word of God, not a book called the Bible)
I had a conversation with an individual a few months back and he said to me with reference to John 14:6:
"The Bible says at John 14:6 that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life ..."
I then said to him that the Bible does not say that. He became very upset at me and had me read the Scripture word for word. So I read it:
"Jesus said to him: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
"You see," he said, "The Bible does say that so you are wrong (ha! ha!)
I reiterated to him that the Bible does not say that. He became extremely hot at this point and asked, "What is wrong with you, are you blind or something?"
Then I went on to explain to him that "The Bible" does not say that, Jesus says it.
I wanted him to learn what he and so many others do: They ascribe the things God and Christ says as "The Bible" saying it. Thus, giving a book that men themselves named, authorized, made holy, and call the Word of God above God and Christ themselves.
Religious organization is especially guilty of subtly and cleverly placing a book as a teacher or reference in front of persons rather than the one who is our only Teacher, Christ Jesus. The WTBTS official website shouts loudly that it is not Christ - who is The Word of God - that has prominence. It is the Bible, the organization, and the name Jehovah's Witnesses.
Yet, The Most High God as commanded us to listen to the one he sent and authorized. (Luke 9:35)
Now take a look at the home page of the Jehovah's Witnesses official website and count the number of times the expression "Bible" is used compared to the number of times "Christ" or "Jesus" is used.
If Christ said and taught it, then say Christ said and taught it. Don't ascribe those things to a book saying it.
R. Jerome Harris
e-Prophetic.com
rj- You nor anyone else has any idea what "Jesus says", you just have to deal with what is written in the NT aka The Bible.
Doug Mason, once the fact is establish that the story, that has as one one of it's intriguing sub-plots the RANSOM -- is fiction, not even 'pure' fiction,--
what is gained by even thinking about --how, by whom and when all this unreal, tenous yearn was spun together?
may be someone can get his 'Piled High & Deep' dissertation from it, at best.
Well, I think what Doug Mason is saying is that the story of A&E does not contain any hint of a ransom concept. That was read into the account thousands of years after it was written down. Witnesses believe that the statement about the woman's seed and the snake is a reference to Jesus and Satan, but if the snake was just a snake (a talking trickster god), then Eve's seed is simply all of mankind, "because she had to become the mother of everyone living". This leaves us to conclude that the enmity between the snake and men was literally just referring to snakes and men not getting along. The newly-legless snakes would bite men in the ankles and men would step on snake's heads to kill them. This was a reminder of the enmity that started between them in the Garden of Eden and the curse placed on the snake.
