by Doug Mason 25 Replies latest watchtower bible
Hi,
My material on the history of Judaeo-Christian salvations became unwieldy, so I divided it into 3 parts.
I have completely rewritten Part 1, dealing with the Israelites and Judahites. It is available at:
http://www.jwstudies.com/Revolutions_Part_1__Israelite_Judahite_Salvations.pdf
The URL links to Parts 2 and 3 are provided on its page 3.
I provide the complete Bibliography at the end of Part 3.
Doug
Why would anyone create a Creator-God whom humbled himself, washed people’s feet, rode a donkey, allowed himself to be spit on, stripped naked, beat beyond recognition, & nailed to a tree until dead... for the express purpose of being displayed in utter humiliation? Why would anyone worship a God like that in the midst of all the powerful, strike-you-down-with-lightening-bolts gods like Zeus to choose from?
Why would his disciples gladly choose death rather than simply stop talking about him so much? Hmmm, Unless they were eye-witnesses to his miracles and resurrection. 
Time to get real Doug.
Perry one argument suggests that pain in itself is action. There is an enormous body of philosophical thought that tries to make sense of pain not because it is good to inflict pain or to recommend pain but because there is and always has been so much pain the world, amongst humans at any rate.
Hey there Doug....
Do you ever rest ?,
you know , take a break and relax ?
You are such a busy guy....you put me to shame my friend.....
Ruby,
Normal humans move away from pain and discomfort. They also move toward something perceived as beneficial. This is called motivation direction. One repels, one pulls.
Imagining some sort of mass instantaneous masochist indulgence on the part of diverse, previously unconnected people is far more far-fetched than believing they were telling the truth about being eyewitnesses to the miracles and resurrection. Even his enemies conceded that his miracles were real. (hostile witnesses)
Convinced that they had found the solution for death, having witnessed the death and resurrection... they simply saw no downside in telling others about it, since death had no hold on them.
Perry.....death had no hold on heaven's gate members either....they were involved in an instantaneous masochist indulgence....and all with a smile on their face.
Perry,
I do not cover the death of Jesus (Yeshua/Joshua) in Part 1 as it covers the Israelites and Judahites, However, I do consider the views of the Jews, namely the writings of the first 150 years of the Christian calendar in my Part 2.
I see the questions you raise quite differently: Where did Paul get his ideas? As a member of the Diaspora, what gentile influences caused him to manufacture his models? (Paul is the earliest NT writer we have, apart from maybe Thomas.)
Why should anyone accept Paul's creative imaginings? (Ignoring, of course those writings that have incorrectly been attributed to him.)
No NT writer either saw or heard Jesus. We do not know who wrote the Gospels, so what were their motives?
The Johannine community, for example, wrote some 60 years later. They had been ostracised because of their High Christology.
I suggest that these are the areas of interest -- the creative imaginings.
They were not writing theology. They were writing religious stories. They were not writing literal histories. So ask why they thought like this. Remembering that they were fully convinced that it was all about to end soon with the direct divine intervention of God and the Coming of Jesus in glory. They were writing for their own times.
On top of all that, we need to understand and empathise with the culture of the times, particularly the times they were writing -- apart from Paul, that would be from 70 CE (Mark) to 150 CE (2 Peter).
Doug
Thank you Jaydee,
I have no distractions and at the age of 77 I need to keep my mind active and be able to use it for as long as possible. So in that, I am purely selfish.
I enjoy and thrill at the discovery of new ideas. Every page contains information I had not known and my mind is refreshed. Selfishness again.
I appreciate the discipline that writing imposes, forcing ideas to forge strong links and to expose loose thinking that should be discarded. And I think that the subject of Salvation is of universal interest.
Having drafted this material, my mind is now turning to a chapter (probably only one chapter?) on the evolution of Satan. I have other chapters sitting on the back burners of my mind, such as on Judaism (they became Jews after returning from the Babylonian captivity) and other chapters on the Rennaisance, the Enlightenment, and on soteriologies in these modern times. I want to write about these because I want to know.
Do I have enough days left?
Doug
Doug writes:
No NT writer either saw or heard Jesus. We do not know who wrote the Gospels, so what were their motives?
Of course they did Doug, and so will you. We all will.
For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 5And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: 6After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.7After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. 8And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. - 1 Cor. 15:3
Perry,
The person who that wrote 1 Corinthians - Paul - had never seen or heard Jesus. Likewise, the later people responsible for the rest of the NT never saw or heard Jesus. They worked from their imagination. They were not recording literal history as we would know it. They were writing religious tales for a religious purpose.
If I could help that gentleman in that picture, it is this -- in October 2016 I too had a pot belly, weighing in at 110.5 kilos. Within 6 months I had dropped 33 kilos and I have kept it off ever since. If he wants to know the secret, tell him to contact me and I will tell him what worked for me.
If he wants to believe in resurrection, I do not deny him that hope. If that's what works for him, he must keep it. Hope precedes belief, precedes doctrine.
Paul heard voices in his head, saw flashes of light that no one else could, received all of his Gospel from internal voices, claiming that he had communicated with a dead man. Paul's vivid imagination created new meaning for baptism, created the eucharist, discovered the words spoken at the "Last Supper" without receiving it from any human. Later writers followed Paul.
Christianity comes from Paul. Jesus did not write anything.
Doug
