by Touchofgrey 189 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
To destroy or not to destroy? No Jeffro, your clarification does not work for me.
You’ve demonstrated yourself to be irrational and just ignore obvious problems pointed out to you. You don’t even care what the Bible actually says. So why would I care whether you agree? Luke isn’t Daniel. They are different books describing different events.
Jeffro, it's a case of the pot is calling the kettle black. I have clearly demonstrated your irrationality by you insinuating "destroy" means "corrupt," in order for you to fit it into your brand of theology. By the way, none of the Bible translators agree with you in this instance.
On the contrary, the same Hebrew term is translated ‘corrupted’ in various verses. It’s unremarkable that Christian translators render that particular verse in a way that favours a Christian interpretation though.
By the way, none of the Bible translators agree with you in this instance.
Wrong as usual. Young’s Literal Translation does not say the city would be destroyed at Daniel 9:26.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%209&version=YLT
Lots of this stuff has been dealt with in great detail here before. As has been said, there is NO contemporary evidence of Jesus as a man walking around Palestine. The Josephus references often suggested are not what they have been made to appear to be. The Testimonium Flavianum (book 18) is a counterfeit addition. It interrupts the narrative, it uses non-Flalvian language, it uses wording only a Christain would, and did not exist prior to Eusebius. He likely inserted it. The second reference cited (book 20) the 'brother of Jesus' line, is lifted from context. Reading the context, we find a rivalry for the High Priesthood (anointed). Jesus was a high priest whose brother James, also high priest, was killed.
It became popular a few decades ago in the spirit of the original Jesus Seminar to take the Gospel versions and winnow out elements that are obvious embellishments to arrive at what they imagined was a historical core. That project ultimately failed for a basic reason, the nature of the literature itself. Literature generally falls into a category that represents its agenda and purpose. Despite the later interpretation of the Marcan story (and dozens of variations) as basically 'biographical', the work itself is more of an 'epic' prose story. As such there need not have been any actual historical biographical core. The author's use of character, place and time are part of the creativity of the story.
It would be similar to the collection of Daniel court tales in what are now chapts 1-6 in the Bible.
(The stories were part of an ancient Daniel cycle of legends in circulation perhaps as long ago as Ugaritic legend of Aqhat, if the two can be connected. What is certain is that the Daniel/Danel character inspired a body of literature prior to the apocalyptic chapters written under/during the Maccabees. The Qumran community had a special fondness for the character and preserved some of these stories. Further it is often missed that the David legends include a Daniel, (the second son of David, I Chron 3:1) who Rabbinic legend describe as extremely wise and among the 4 most righteous men of history, consumed with study of the Torah. (TB Bava Batra 17, TB Brachot 4). IMO, this character may represent the Danel of Ezekiel. Bible literalists might do well to accept this, as Ezekiel was said to have been written prior to the story depicted in the book of Daniel.)
Back on topic; it would be an error to attempt to take 'epics' and attempt to winnow out the magical parts and assume the rest to be historical. Hopefully that makes sense.
Unfortunately, that 'historist' approach is still popular. Even in regard the Testimonium Flavianum there are many hypotheticals of how to remove the most overtly Christian words so as to make a plausible genuine Flavian comment. This still ignores the absence of mention of it for hundreds of years, the interruptive nature and the abundant motive for its insertion. It also forgets the parallel Christain interpolations found in other places in Josephus that demonstrate the practice.
Members of the Jesus Seminar in time came to recognize that removing the magical and then removing the OT pesher exegesis material, left nothing. The story was 'epic' not 'biography'. Thomas Thompson famously took up that argument and published it.
Jeffro... The last section of book of Daniel was reinterpreted as referring to Rome prior to Christian usage. The surprising turns of history that saw the resolution of the Antiochene crisis but not the hoped for end of troubles, kept the work alive and open to reinterpretation. It may be the explanation for the insertion of an additional 70 years into 9:26,27 in the Old Greek translation. Even as that passed, fans of the work took the Antiochus IV figure to be typological, prefiguring yet future enemies of the Jews. It was of course taken that way by Christian writers in the figure of the 'Antichrist'.
4 Ezra for example shows the interpretation was at odds with the one offered in Daniel itself:
"The eagle [i.e. Rome] which you saw coming up from the sea is the fourth kingdom which appeared in a vision to your brother Daniel. But it was not explained to him as I now explain it to you" (12:11-12).
"Here the Pharisees and Sadducees approached him, and to test him, they asked him to display to them a sign from heaven."
"In reply he said to them: “When evening falls, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is fire-red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be wintry, rainy weather today, for the sky is fire-red but gloomy.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but the signs of the times you cannot interpret."
"A wicked and adulterous generation keeps seeking a sign, but no sign will be given it except the sign of Joʹnah.” With that he went away, leaving them behind."
What "evidence" is there that the weather is changing?
If you've been alive long enough, you recognize certain patterns. The wind picks up. The humidity changes. The clouds are moving. The sky darkens or changes color. You can smell the rain on the gusts.
God's Word has always provided direction prior to a storm. There have been many "days of Jehovah" where He made an accounting or a reckoning with a person or a nation or a group. His Word has always come true.
Jesus is illustratively called "The Word" because he has always been part of relaying Jehovah's messages to humankind. The fact that Jehovah's Word has always come true is evidence that the Jesus of the Bible not only exists but has existed since the beginning of creation.
For someone to doubt his existence is madness.
The four gospels accounts were written by unknown authors many decades after the so called events, so there's no way to claim that your jesus even uttered those words.
The evidence has been clearly shown and explained that a miracle worker called jesus never existed.
It madness to refuse to acknowledge the clear evidence .
It madness to refuse to acknowledge the clear evidence .
The reason Jesus said "a wicked generation keeps seeking a sign but no sign will be given them but the sign of Jonah" isn't because of a lack of evidence. There was plenty of evidence in that day that Jehovah's Word had come true and was coming true and would come true again in the future.
Jesus' point was that those wicked ones were not really seeking a sign. They didn't want God's words to come true. They were so corrupted in their thinking ability that no matter what evidence was in their face, they still refused to believe.
Fire came out of heaven in Elijah's day, and yet some people still clung to Baal. The waters of the Red Sea washed away Pharaoh, the ten plagues shamed the idols of Egypt, but later some ones still worshipped the Queen of the Heavens, the stars, and practiced the mystery cults of Egypt. Jerusalem was destroyed twice because of the wickedness of the religious hypocrites there who falsely claimed to represent the Most High God, and yet religious hypocrites today still refuse to believe Jehovah is yet again going to make an accounting.
The storm is here, and it is sweeping away the false refuge of lies that have been built by both religious hypocritical institutions and non-religious haters and abusers of humankind.
For those who refused to believe that Jesus was God's son back in first century Jerusalem, they got a figurative smack in the face when Jesus was resurrected a few days after they put him to death. They were brought face-to-face with "the sign of Jonah."
Those who wickedly test Jesus today, attempting to stumble people away from faith in God's anointed king, will likewise find themselves face-to-face with "the sign of Jonah" not very long from now.
The storm is here. You would be wise to repent.
Matt 16: "In reply he said to them: “When evening falls, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is fire-red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be wintry, rainy weather today, for the sky is fire-red but gloomy.’
Here this author has taken his source "Mark' and followed the immediate setting closely, the response is to a test from Pharisees.
Luke 12: 54 And he said also to the people, When ye see a cloud rise out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and so it is.
55 And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat; and it cometh to pass.
56 Ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this time?
57 Yea, and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?
Here this author has removed the setting and relocated the conversation as one of a series. Specifically, he is said to be addressing the 'crowd'. Interestingly the author also offers a different weather pattern. It has been suggested this might be because that red/morning meaning rain does not apply to all regions and the author made his own weather prediction. Also interesting is that the manuscripts of Matt are split on this. Many translations reflect this with brackets. The variant form follows Mark in having no weather commentary at all.
he answered by saying to them, '•An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign"
The point of the above, is the "words of Jesus" were not fixed. They were freely adapted and expanded.
