A simple factual statement. Part of another thread but I thought I would offer it everyone.
Why the Watchtower is not Christian
by WireRider 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Finkelstein
JWS are trained and indoctrinated to be witnesses (sales representatives) for the Watchtower Publishing house, which has shown to be wrought with many false teachings/doctrines which were devised with the sole intent of enhancing the proliferation of the WTS own publications.
In essence they are controlled and avowed subservient servants to Watchtower Corporation than anything else.
In reality this organization created its own version of the Gospel for commercialization reasons, purpose and intent.
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cofty
The video commits the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
What is crucial to the definition of a christian?
Peter, James and Paul knew nothing about the trinity so how can it be the sine non qua of the faith?
Paul said absolutely nothing about a physical resurrection of Jesus and so on...
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rebel8
No true Scotsman indeed.
The dictionary definition of xian does fit jws.
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WireRider
I think the description was accurate.
What is crucial to the definition of a christian?
He explained it. That was the point of the video clip.
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cofty
I listened. He defined christianity as his preferred set of post-biblical dogmas.
He really should have called his presentation "Why the Jehovah's Witness Religion is Not My Sort of Christianity"
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fulltimestudent
Cofty is quite correct. Matt Slick (the speaker) in that video is no Bible scholar. He assumes that there was one 'truth' and one organisation in the first century that could be called 'Christian.' But it is more accurate to see a diversity of belief in the first century,
Geza Vermes was one of the best modern scholars of early Christianity. Perhaps you would find his book, Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325, helpful.
Vermes closely examines Paul's writings attempting to discern what he thought the Christ was. I wont bother to post all that he says, you can check it out for yourself if you really want to try to understand. But on page 106 (of my 2012) edition he posits that Paul never envisaged Jesus as fully sharing the nature of the deity. And on page 111 lists all the prayer formulas, benedictions and doxologies used by Paul, and demonstrates that it cannot be argued that Paul ever prayed TO Jesus as God.
He further argues that the charismatic-eschatological religious teachings placed in the mouth of Jesus as his religious experience morphed into something a little different in the early Jewish-Christian church under the leadership of James (the brother of Jesus), and that Pauline Christianity appears to be another significant departure from the original teachings of Jesus.
That btw does not prove the witnesses correct either. They posit that Jesus left behind a strong centralised religious organisation with clearly delineated teachings. There is little evidence of that.
Another (Jewish) scholar, Daniel Boyarin, seen by some to be the leading scholar of early Judaism alive today, draws on Daniel 7 to demonstrate that in addition to YHWH the 'senior' divinity, Judaism countenanced a 'junior' divinity in that chapter of Daniel. And from that text, some Jewish converts could see Jesus as a God. Boyarin draws on other Jewish texts (First Enoch and Fourth Ezra) to demonstrate that some Jews did believe in the imminent presence of the Messiah, and his apotheosis (elevation to a divine status). Boyarin argues his position in some papers available in academic journals and in a more readable book, The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ.
Boyarin points out that primitive Hebrew religious texts are not monotheistic, and that's the source of the Daniel 7 concept.
I'm sure that Boyarin is correct in saying that the concepts of monotheism were sourced in Egyptian religious ideas or the Zoroastrian religion that influenced Judaism while captive in Babylon, and possibly even Hellenistic thought which was dominant in all of west Asia by the time of Jesus.
So while Paul may not have seen Jesus as God or even a God, certainly by circa 110 CE, there were Christians seeing Jesus as their God. But it was a slow evolution of a concept.
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cofty
Great post FTS thanks.I will check out Vermes' book -
Laika
To be a Christian means to follow Christ, his teachings and life, in that sense JWs could do with a bit of work on loving their enemies, but they are not alone in this (take note Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr)