by peacefulpete 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
https://www.bartehrman.com/when-were-the-gospels-written/
Some due diligence from biblical scholars, not just a matter of faith but on the evidence of their decades of independent research, some if not most were evangelical Christian at one time.
The life expectancy at that time was around 40-45 years.
The apostle were described as unlettered and ordinary men, which most likely meant they didn't have access to schooling.
All of these things were denied by "experts" at one ime or another.
Roundness of the earth
The earth floating in space
conservation of energy - Eccl, 3: 14
"Cords" of Pleiades and Orion (gravitationally bound star groups) Eccl 1: 9
Uncountable number of stars
You can count the visible stars, around 10,000. But you don't live long enough to count the trillions of stars that we now know are there.
Expansion of the universe
God stretches out the heavens - (present tense)
Sooner or later, everyone will have a biblical view because its author is the author of truth.
No, I was not actually suggesting Jesus is Satan the devil.
It is only an ironic, unintended byproduct of those textual alterations, through centuries of interpretation and separate exegetical elaborations of the Devil character as the Destroyer/Apollyon and the 'second power' concept eventuating in a Christ figure, that a literary link between the Destroyer and the Christian Christ appears. Again, the OP was highlighting the adjustments made to these two stories to better conform with the theological sensitives of the author/redactors.
However, both eventual figures (Satan the Devil and Jesus Christ) represent fully developed theological solutions to the same theological problem. The means of a transcendent God to interact with the material word. Either for help or harm.
An even more ironic twist is how the later WT theologians, as a result of denying the notion of the Devil ruling Hell, identify the Destroyer/Abadon/Apollyon of Revelation as Jesus. lol.
To spring off Jeffro's comment, the word 'satan' has shades of meaning ranging from 'opposer' to 'accuser' and is used in reference to humans as well as spirits. Likely through 5th century extended contact with Zoroastrianism's Ahriman (the hypostasis of destruction) the idea of a 'satan/accuser/executioner' in God's heavenly court arose. It seems in the first few centuries of use, that 'satan' was an agent of God for the purpose of testing and prosecuting evil. Just as happens in human courts that prosecutor at times charges innocents, requiring a testing of the accused. That is the role seen in Zechariah and the prose story in the opening of Job. In Job it is explicit that the 'the satan' character throughout is acting under the authority of God, even the devastation of Job is attributed to forces of God. In light of this, it is not surprising the Chronicler introduced 'satan', an agent of God (the accuser/opposer in God's court) when he saw God himself inciting David in his source.
As we know the 'satan' character was later understood in only negative context, as one who brings grief to the god-fearing, and one who abused his position, and the generic word became a proper noun.
All of these things were denied by "experts" at one ime or another.
Roundness of the earth
The earth floating in space
conservation of energy - Eccl, 3: 14
"Cords" of Pleiades and Orion (gravitationally bound star groups) Eccl 1: 9
Uncountable number of stars
You can count the visible stars, around 10,000. But you don't live long enough to count the trillions of stars that we now know are there.
Expansion of the universe
God stretches out the heavens - (present tense)
Those are tedious cherry picked ad hoc reinterpretations rather than any kind of demonstration of knowledge at the time of writing.
If John was not the author of his book, where is the testimony of the early church pastors claiming fraud? In fact, , they claimed John was the author:
š¤¦āāļø For much the same reason that the authenticity of Hebrews was in question for many years before being complicity accepted as a āgenuineā work of Paul. They teach ātraditions of menā as ādoctrineā.
I'm very familiar with the Wisdom of Solomon and Koine Greek. It is one of my favorite books. It is, after, all a Jewish work.
In Hebrew, when we read "the angel of the Lord" in the text, such as at Exodus 3 where Moses encounters the Burning Bush, a Jew who knows Hebrew does not read or imagines a Christian or Western personage with wings. They both read and think: "God" or "HaShem."
HaShem is simply what Jews use in their everyday speech to refer to "God," as we neither say "God" or "Lord" or "Adonai" or "Jehovah" or anything like that. We say "HaShem" which means "The Name" as the Hebrew term is actually MALAKH YHWH or REPRESENTATIVE YHWH. There are no "angels" in Jewish theology or in the Hebrew Bible, not like in Christian thought anyway.
In Koine Greek a representative or representation of something is what we call a LOGOS or "word" or "name." Sometimes you can translate the term MALAKH as LOGOS. This means that a MALAKH YHWH is not necessarily a traditional "angel" that you think of in common literature or art. It merely means that God is coming forth in a different representation or form to send a message or word.
Therefore the Burning Bush could be both an angel (or messanger) and God at the same time. It's just another way of saying God or HaShem.
At Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with a man all night long, some mysterious person who he doesn't see. If you are like me and spent some considerable time with the Jehovah's Witnesses, you remember that they taught that this was a literal angel from heaven. But the Biblical account and Jews do not teach this (especially since we Jews are named after this event: "Israel"). The account is merely stating that Jacob is coming to learn something about himself and changing in his old age (he comes out of it "limping" and sees God's face in Esau's forgiveness as part of this revelation--Ge 32:30; 33:10). When Hosea 12:3-4 explains that Jacob's revelation is via an "angel," some Christians take the expression "literally," but it simply means a "word" or "LOGOS" from God--Jacob having some type of experience in which he sees "HaShem" and realizes he must change, wrestling with this revelation, and coming out of it as a "new person."
The "Destroyer" and "LOGOS" are one-in-the-same, according to Jewish theology. Good and evil come from God, at least at this point in Jewish history. God brings death and life, reward and punishment. There is no devil, there is no Satan.
However, this is indeed how it was possible much later for Christians to develop the basis for the Trinitarian theology built around Jesus of Nazareth.
Lots of good stuff in that comment again.
especially this:
This means that a MALAKH YHWH is not necessarily a traditional "angel" that you think of in common literature or art. It merely means that God is coming forth in a different representation or form to send a message or word.
The "Destroyer" and "LOGOS" are one-in-the-same, according to Jewish theology.
The thing is, though, that this view of the ālogosā is necessarily and inexorably through the lens of Greek influence.
