Jehovah or Jesus: Who Is To Come?

by Cold Steel 13 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  EndofMysteries

  When I originally pondered OP's scriptures in my own studies, I thought perhaps Jesus is God in the scriptures but with an alternative understanding than what is generally taught.

  Duet 32:8,9 when Most High separated sons of man, and Israel was Jehovah/Yahweh's inheritance. Seems to show a seperation. How does the almighty 'inherit'??

  Ps 82:1 Jehovah/Yahweh (perhaps judging how the others were handling their inheritance since he got Israel?)

  Ex 32:30 God or Jehovah (or maybe the 'real' one) saying he will send his angel before them, who has HIS NAME, and they better obey him because he is a strict bad @## (would explain differences between dealings and appearingly super strict and unforgiving nature if it was this other entity he warned them about)

  But then when they were wandering for 40 years, compare Ex 32:30 with what is said in Isaiah and Stephen before he was martyred at Act 17:42 and 43. - were those commands Stephen is referencing from this angel that was sent before them, or were the sacrifices and commands man made? Stephen is quoting Isaiah 1:11-13 which makes Yahweh/Jehovah seem to say he never commanded sacrifices. Is 1:11-13 sounds like something Jesus would say and sounds different from the cold orders in previous scriptures.

  Jeremiah claims all their sacrifices were ordered or for the queen of the heavens....Jer 44:19.

  So, if almighty is Yahweh/Jehovah, Jesus or his son or a son could have his name/authority and have been the one dealing with Israel. Or a strict angel after they rebelled, maybe the angel who killed the firstborns was used to lead them then.

  Another interesting scripture. Have you ever heard of Satan or a supposed bad guy having been given people to lead? Is 14:10-20, there was somebody in those scriptures who was conquering the world, disabling nations, and killed his own people. Who was doing that?
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  Cold Steel

  Mephis» ...even within Christianity, certainly within the Anglican communion, there's a lot of questions over some of the assumptions present in just that short sentence. I doubt it would even occur to you to question them. That's fundamentally going to be the gulf between your interpretation of scripture and JWs' too. It would be the same sort of response as if you tried to explain Yahweh being Jesus to a Gnostic. They'd think you were slightly dotty and terribly deluded.

  I'm not sure I'm reading you. There are numerous interpretations to many scriptures. Gnostics were considered some of the worst heretics of their time and one of the things that give away Islam is Islam's borrowing of Gnostic claims, such as Jesus not being crucified or resurrected. It got to the point that anything later Christian scholars didn't like were considered Gnostic. That said, there were numerous forces in and out of the church that were robbing the early church of true doctrine and replacing it with the "doctrines of devils."

  Jesus' comments and declarations associating himself with YHWH are seen by the JWs as being simply divine investiture of authority. IOWs, it doesn't matter who says it, both are ONE, either a trinitarian ONE or a corporate ONE. But John states, "For the Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgement to the Son." (John 5:22)

  Here seems to be a clear distinction between the Father and the Son that would not occur if John believed in the Trinity. Some might also wonder who was acting as God while Jesus was undergoing mortality? If MAN needs a mediator between him and God, who was that mediator during those 33 years? Does God delegate work to those who have lived on the earth? Who knows? I just can't buy into the Trinitarian notion that one being can manifest itself as multiple beings.
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  Mephis

  Elaine Pagels' work on gnosticism (and indeed Revelation) is excellent if you're interested in the history and beliefs of the various gnostic groups.

  Don't wish to divert your thread futher. But I'll flag up the point again that if you're looking for a logical way to deconstruct JW beliefs then you may need to do that from within the beliefs themselves on something like this. Because they are so idiosyncratic and logically inconsistent. And basic assumptions of any particular church as to meaning frequently don't hold true when passed through the WBTS filter. Makes chopping theology which requires that outside perspective (and equally subjective too it has to be said) difficult I'd imagine.

  All the best!
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  Tenacious

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