Doctrines and Bible Interpretations

by IWant2Know 74 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  IWant2Know

  Sea Breeze said:
  

  • So, is this supposed to continue on as long as humans are on this planet?

    • No, just until the Jews decide to accept Jesus as their King.
    • “I will pour out on the house of David and on the people of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace (unmerited favor) and supplication. And they will look at Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him as one who weeps bitterly over a firstborn. 11 In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of [the city of] Hadadrimmon in the Valley of [d]Megiddo [over beloved King [e]Josiah]..... 14 all the families that remain, each by itself, and their wives by themselves [each with an overwhelming individual regret for having blindly rejected their Messiah]. - Zech. 12: 10 AMP
    • For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.- Matt. 23: 39 KJV

    Well, I'm just wondering if that is a valid Hebrew scripture Messianic prophecy, or if it's just Christian midrash. See the second to last post by KalebOutWest on page 4: Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay (page 4) (jehovahs-witness.com)
• 

  Sea Breeze

  @IWant2Know

  Well, I'm just wondering if that is a valid Hebrew scripture Messianic prophecy,

  
  

  The nice thing about freedom is that you get to read the promises of God for yourself and choose whether or not to receive them. You don't need anyone's permission.

  Jesus is quoting Ps. 118: 26. Here it is in context.

  A stone which the builders rejected

  Has become the chief cornerstone.

  This came about from the LORD;

  It is marvelous in our eyes.

  This is the day which the LORD has made;

  Let’s rejoice and be glad in it.

  Please, O LORD, do save us;

  Please, O LORD, do send prosperity!

  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD;

  We have blessed you [Jesus] from the house of the LORD.

  
  

  Jesus knew that his first coming would be a curse for him - "cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree"... (Gal. 3: 13; 2 Cor 5: 21)) Israel pronounced a curse upon their King and in so doing liberated all believing mankind from the authority of Hell. Because that verse also says he became a curse "for us" not just Adam..... thus satisfying the harsh demands of the LAW which is the death penalty for all who receive it.

  When Jesus comes a second time, it will not to be to become a curse - but a blessing as he destroys the Anti-Christ and his human armies and demon hordes that gang up on the nation of Israel and squeeze them until they are literally begging Jesus to show up. As a nation they will have come all the way to their end. This is the time of Jacobs trouble. Not many Jews will be left, perhaps less than a third. But, enough will be left to welcome their Savior.

  Roman 9: 27 - And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,

  Christianity is just a parenthesis in the over-all plan of God. And what a marvellous parentheis it is. But, the main theme of the bible centers around the King of Kings and Lord of Lords as the replacement for King Adam who gave away his kingdom for little more than a whim from his wife.

  Instead of a prison planet, the Milleniuim Reign will be a time of ubelievable freedom and peace as King Jesus shepards the nations with a rod of iron.

  
  

  All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. - Ps. 86: 9
  
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  Vanderhoven7

  And all overcomers will reign with him.

  Revelation 2:26 KJV — And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations:

  They overcome by the blood of the Lamb (gospel of Christ) and the word of their testimony (word of God) Revelation 12:11
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  peacefulpete

  Generally speaking, "interpretations" become necessary only when readers mistakenly believe all passages must be "harmonized" or when the text contains obvious error. Allowing for the originality and uniqueness of each writer as well as allowing for human error, then the only thing needing to be interpreted is deliberately cryptic passages meant for an ancient audience, not people living thousands of years later.
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  NotFormer

  "But JWs aren't the only ones who interpret Michael to be Jesus."

  There's a small amount of truth in that. I believe I heard (this was decades ago, so my memory may be faulty) a Christadelphian say that Jesus was Michael in some prophetic sense. But they wouldn't have had the same belief as JWs, even though Russell probably got his non-Trinitarian views from the Christadelphians. The Christadelphians don't believe in any pre-existance of Jesus before his conception, while Michael was around before that.

  The blood doctrine is totally unique to JWs, probably a hobby horse of Franz. You'll note that it wasn't implemented until after Rutherford's death. He was in ill health; perhaps he needed transfusions.

  144000 Israelite male virgins referring to Christians of both genders and not being necessarily celibate is unique. The nature of those people is apparently "symbolic", but their number (12×12×1000, extremely symbolic biblical numbers) is apparently absolute.
• 

  IWant2Know

  Sea Breeze
  

  The nice thing about freedom is that you get to read the promises of God for yourself and choose whether or not to receive them. You don't need anyone's permission.

  Well, perhaps not permission, but doesn't reading those promises incorrectly result in either everlasting destruction or everlasting pain and torment in an eternal hellfire? Or whatever sort of comeuppance that one believes in.

  Jesus is quoting Ps. 118: 26. Here it is in context.
  A stone which the builders rejected
  Has become the chief cornerstone.
  This came about from the LORD;
  It is marvelous in our eyes.
  This is the day which the LORD has made;
  Let’s rejoice and be glad in it.
  Please, O LORD, do save us;
  Please, O LORD, do send prosperity!
  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD;
  We have blessed you [Jesus] from the house of the LORD.
  Jesus knew that his first coming would be a curse for him - "cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree"... (Gal. 3: 13; 2 Cor 5: 21)) Israel pronounced a curse upon their King and in so doing liberated all believing mankind from the authority of Hell. Because that verse also says he became a curse "for us" not just Adam..... thus satisfying the harsh demands of the LAW which is the death penalty for all who receive it.
  When Jesus comes a second time, it will not to be to become a curse - but a blessing as he destroys the Anti-Christ and his human armies and demon hordes that gang up on the nation of Israel and squeeze them until they are literally begging Jesus to show up. As a nation they will have come all the way to their end. This is the time of Jacobs trouble. Not many Jews will be left, perhaps less than a third. But, enough will be left to welcome their Savior.
  Roman 9: 27 - And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved,
  Christianity is just a parenthesis in the over-all plan of God. And what a marvellous parentheis it is. But, the main theme of the bible centers around the King of Kings and Lord of Lords as the replacement for King Adam who gave away his kingdom for little more than a whim from his wife.
  Instead of a prison planet, the Milleniuim Reign will be a time of ubelievable freedom and peace as King Jesus shepards the nations with a rod of iron.
  All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. - Ps. 86: 9

  Well, I would say that whatever works for you.
• 

  IWant2Know

  NotFormer
  

  "But JWs aren't the only ones who interpret Michael to be Jesus."

  There's a small amount of truth in that. I believe I heard (this was decades ago, so my memory may be faulty) a Christadelphian say that Jesus was Michael in some prophetic sense. But they wouldn't have had the same belief as JWs, even though Russell probably got his non-Trinitarian views from the Christadelphians. The Christadelphians don't believe in any pre-existance of Jesus before his conception, while Michael was around before that.

  Well, actually, if you Google this topic, you will see that the whole Michael/Jesus thing isn't as unique as some people think it is:

  I’ve discussed the fact before that the first Christians believed Jesus was secretly an angel who came down from heaven in the guise of a man (a conclusion with which even Bart Ehrman now concurs). Even if Jesus was a historical person they believed this (a key point in my new book Jesus from Outer Space). And even if semantically you dislike the word “angel” and imagine the first Christians employed some other term for what he was, still they believed he was an eternal being who descended from what they understood to be outer space. And this idea features as well-documented background information in my peer reviewed study On the Historicity of Jesus (index, “angels and angelology,” “Logos,” “Melchizedek,” and of interest to today’s topic, “Michael”). For articles on my blog covering this subject in more focus, see The Original Scriptural Concept of ‘The Lord’ Jesus, Can Paul’s Human Jesus Not Be a Celestial Jesus?, and my two articles on Larry Hurtado’s bizarre attempt to deny this: The Bizarre Fugue of Larry Hurtado and The Difference Between a Historian and an Apologist. Of course the Jehovah’s Witnesses have long claimed to have uncovered the secret truth that, in fact, Jesus was none other than the Archangel Michael, traveling under another name (one that just happens to mean God’s Messianic Savior, suggesting that name, in this case, is fabricated: Christ means Anointed ergo Messiah/Messianic; and Jesus, i.e. Joshua, i.e. Yeshua, means God’s Savior). And there is a good case to be made that they are right. And this case is most expertly laid out in Darrell Hannah’s doctoral dissertation, later revised and published by Moer Siebeck and then Wipf & Stock in 1999: Michael and Christ: Michael Tradition and Angel Christology in Early Christianity.

  Was Jesus-Is-Michael an Early Christian Mystery Teaching? • Richard Carrier Blogs

  The blood doctrine is totally unique to JWs. . .

  Actually, it's not. Many Orthodox Jews have the same doctrine:

  FACTS-REL-Judaism-20191106.pdf (defenseculture.mil)

  144000 Israelite male virgins referring to Christians of both genders and not being necessarily celibate is unique. The nature of those people is apparently "symbolic", but their number (12×12×1000, extremely symbolic biblical numbers) is apparently absolute.

  I haven't looked into this enough to really give an intelligent answer to this subject, however, I would like to ask: Why wouldn't the number 144,000 in Revelation be a symbolic number?

  
  
  
  
  
• 

  IWant2Know

  NotFormer said:
  

  
  

  "But JWs aren't the only ones who interpret Michael to be Jesus."

  There's a small amount of truth in that. I believe I heard (this was decades ago, so my memory may be faulty) a Christadelphian say that Jesus was Michael in some prophetic sense. But they wouldn't have had the same belief as JWs, even though Russell probably got his non-Trinitarian views from the Christadelphians. The Christadelphians don't believe in any pre-existance of Jesus before his conception, while Michael was around before that.

  Because of Michael’s prominent position in the rank of angels, there are some cult and religious groups who teach that the archangel Michael is none other than Jesus Himself. By claiming that Christ is only an angel, Jehovah’s Witnesses seek to portray Jesus as a created being instead of Almighty God. Seventh-day Adventists also claim that Jesus is the archangel, Michael.

  Why Is Jesus Thought to Be the Archangel Michael? (christianity.com)
• 

  IWant2Know

  Here is something clearer than my previous answer about Jews and blood:

  Is Human Blood Kosher?

  By Eliezer Posner

  Question:

  I know that the Torah prohibits the consumption of blood. Does this apply to my own blood as well?

  Answer:

  When the Torah tells us that we are allowed to eat the meat of kosher animals, we are warned that "…you shall not eat the blood…."

  Although human blood is not included in this Biblical prohibition, it is nevertheless forbidden. This is because human blood resembles animal blood; one who observes people eating human blood might believe it is permitted to consume animal blood.

  Is Human Blood Kosher? - Chabad.org
  
• 

  Vanderhoven7

  @Iwant2know

  Eternal life is knowing Father and Son. Jn.17:3

  The word for knowing is ginosko, not knosis. It is not just knowing facts about a person, but actually knowing the person?

  For example, do you know Prince Charles personally? Or do you just know some facts about him?

  Do you know (ginosko) the apostle Paul?

  Do you know the angel Gabriel?

  Do you know Michael the archangel?

  Do you have a personal relationship with Michael?

  What is revealing about Jehovah’s Witnesses is that they have an unrelatable Jesus.

  Let me prove it to you...

  When is the last time you spoke to Jesus?. Can you even say something like, "Thank you Jesus for dying for my sins? I am so glad I can share my burdens with you!"

  If you can't fellowship with your Creator, the truth is, you don't know Jesus and you don’t have eternal life.