by berrygerry 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Seeing a trinity thread.
Can a JW apologist explain WHAT (not who) is Jesus?
Prior to the creation of everything 13.7 billion years ago (Draw Close book), Jehovah created Jesus as his firstborn, his only-begotten.
There was nothing else - no stars, no dust, no matter - just Jehovah - and then, just Jehovah and Jesus.
So, WHAT was Jesus?
Also, WHAT was Jehovah?
When somebody starts writing of scriptures, he has to start with something which cannot be taken literally, and looking into past infinite is only a guess. We need to go beyond the details and see the essence. Taking things literally often makes no sense. For example, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot" is a law of retaliation if taken literally.
But if taken by its essence, it is so beautiful and meaningful because it forms the essence of a perfect judicial system. Here Bible is not talking about literal eye, tooth etc. It's all about any loss caused to you by someone else should perfectly be compensated.
If Jesus was the first born of creation and then everything else came about through him and by him then isn`t Jesus the Creator of the heavens and Earth and everything on it ?
And not Jehovah ?
Do we have two creators ? Jehovah who created Jesus or the Logos as he was known then ,
And then the logos /Jesus who created everything else?
The material Universe ,earth and everything on it.?
Sorry Bg but I am not a JW apologist but would like one to answer as well!
The Bible is not a factual treatise on how things came about, it is instead an innocent story for illiterate people. It was based on universal assumptions that were culturally shared such as the idea that gods existed in the heavens; a superior place but similar to the 'mundane' realm of Earth and responsible for all events and tragedies down here. Genesis (which was borrowed from Egyptian sources) was written from ignorance of realities but a fair and believable guess for its time.
However to believe it now would be stupid and that includes thinking there is a spirit creator who created an invisible son.
Get with it people we are dealing with myths, it was only the Roman Catholic church which selected the texts and demanded that people should regard them as sacred.
Why bother to understand? Our reality, what we can observe, seems to be just 6%, the rest is likely to be dark matter and dark energy.
Why bother to understand?
Not trying to understand. Trying to debate.
Effectively, WT teaches that Jehovah is pure energy, and for literally endless eons of time, Jehovah existed all alone, and that with absolutely no creation existing. Jehovah and Jesus used Jehovah's energy to create all matter.
So what was Jesus created from? Would it not have been from Jehovah's energy?
Essentially, Jehovah took some of the energy from his own spirit body to create the spirit body of Jesus.
The difference between WT's teaching of Jesus' origin and that of Trinitarians is really just a matter of wording.
Forget about the trinity debate, the witnesses have a bigger problem trying to prove Jesus was created in the first place. They readily acknowledge that Jesus in his per-human existence was called the Logos or Word, but they fail to understand what even a first year Greek student understands, namely: En archē ēn ho Lógos (the first part of John1:1) means that the word existed before all time.
In other words, in JW lingo the little god Jesus or the Word is just as old as their big god Jehovah. The Word has no beginning! And that's not just me saying that, or even my professor's opinion which carries considerable weight. The Greek language is very precise, no ambiguity, no interpretation. It literately says the Word was already existing (Past tense ) before all time, no creation of the word or Jesus is even remotely possible, he always existed.
The second half of John 1:1 goes on to show the relationship and how close it is, it literally says they exist together face-to-face and that not only did he always exist but that the Word is made out of the very same stuff as Jehovah. I goes on and talks about the quality or substance of the Word, not the pecking order or who is greater as the JW's would have you believe. Of course I'm now diving into the weeds, but back to my main point: It doesn't matter what your belief system is, if your an Atheist, Agnostic a Baptist or Buddhist. They believe John 1:1 and the Greek is the Greek, En archē ēn ho Lógos means that the word always existed, period.
Freeman
Freeman, are you are the fish who took the angler's bait, or are you just explaining what the Greek text literally means without believing it?
A little background so you know where I'm coming from, Half Banana. I'm an ex-NASA engineer and was involved with the Hubble Space Telescope. I was also involved with COBE the Cosmic Background Explorer. Looking for and precisely measuring and mapping the electromagnet echo of the big bang event. Both the Hubble and COBE present us with a vast avalanche of evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory. Many f undies and ignoramuses of various strips do not like Big Bang precisely because they don't have a clue of what it really means. It goes a long way supporting a creation event, but they just don't get that.
To me science is my religion. I believe in the big bang, because the science compels me and further I believe in evolution, again the science compels me to believe. I do have problems will aspects of Darwinism, but that's a separate issue that is often conflated with evolution itself.
That said, I am willing to change my views if the science so leads me there, but only if the science leads me. And when I say science, I mean evidence. In my world I do have room for God because the science allows for him, in fact much of physics especially at the quantum level hints of him quite compellingly.
Unfortunately I can't entertain the premise of the JW God in my life. This god of theirs is in contradiction to known science, and now that I can read much of the bible in it's original languages, I also find the JW concept of God is vastly different then what an informed reading of these ancient texts presents him to be.
I'm presently 62 having retired at 55. In those seven years since retirement I have mostly fulfilled one of my key bucket list items. I wanted to have enough understanding to actually read and comprehend key parts of the bible, not relying on others for their interpretations of it. I wanted to to be able to read the texts with complete exegesis and not any eisegesis.
I can do that now!
So now that you know a bit more about me and that I reject the idea of allowing sectarianism in any form coloring what is true by preponderance of the evidence at hand I repeat this salient fact:
It doesn't matter what your belief system is or lack of one, including my own. If you are an Atheist, Agnostic (as I was) a Baptist or Buddhist. They, (the JW's) confess to believing fully in John 1:1 and the Greek is the Greek. En archē ēn ho Lógos means that the word always existed, period.
To be fair, technically I guess the JW's could correctly say there was indeed a time when their was no 'Son of God'. However, the Word as an entity predates the Son. The Son originated by the Word lowering himself.
And just to directly answer your specific question, I was in fact just explaining what the Greek text literally says. I was not offering my own beliefs.
That said, I will confess to you that I am also one of the the fish who took anglers bait. But in my defense I did in fact take the bait kicking and screaming along the way under much protest never wanting to believe.
Now I'm stuck and there is no going
back for me. And you know what, it's not so bad, not burdensome at
all. I don't mind being stuck at all. In fact I feel at peace with who I
am now, just wish I had been less of an asshole, less cocky and done
a little bit more for people along the way. Not to say that I didn't have some success, I did get a few thing done with my life:
re-Designer of the Hubble Space Telescope System Access Security Program and Procedures
Designated Subject Matter Expert regarding remote-controllable spacecraft for the Inspectors General Office, and my finding read into the official congressional record
Designer of the worlds first A/I
based network security system
Contributor to NASA's Software Design Life-cycle Management Course
Recipient of NASA's Outstanding Contractor of the Year Award
Invited Guest Speaker of the National Security Agency
Designer of the FAA's secure file transfer system now installed at all FAA en-route centers nationwide, saving taxpayers approximately $10,000,000 in the process.
Technical Consultant to numerous 3 letter intelligence agencies, also the DOJ, the FBI, DEA, US Marshall's Service, US Secret Service, the Jet Propulsion Lab.
Worked to stop KGB spies, counterfeiters, and bank thieves
I already know, none of that counts now, you don't have to say it Half Banana, I know that my belief makes me moronic, I get that but like I said, I can't go back now, I believe.
Freeman
(He accomplished a lot then blew it all towards the end of his life. How very sad.)
You just have to watch enough science fiction to figure it out.
Jehovah was pure energy and Jesus was a portion of that pure energy. Jehovah was lonely after spending eternity alone so he took a part of himself and made it independent.
Jesus saw that Jehovah was kind of a dick and created more stuff so he wasn't stuck alone with such a dick.
