The Resurrection Hope - what a crock!

by PopeOfEruke 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • a Christian
    a Christian

    XQs,

    You cited the Contemporary English Version as using the words "supernatural beings" and "angels" in footnotes attached to this passage. Bible Gateway has a dozen other translations, none of which translates this passage in such a way. Checking my Hebrew interlinear and Hebrew lexicons I find no basis for such a translation, other than the translator's own preconceived understanding of this passage, which I and many others believe is in fact a misunderstanding.

    The Origins Solution by Dick Fischer discusses this passage in some depth. You may find it interesting.

    Mike

  • Ranch
    Ranch

    I was raised as a Witness from the time I was 2 years old. The "Resurection Hope" was never a hope or comforting.It always bothered me and every time I brought up my troubles with it to mom she would sayb that I just needed to have faith in Jehovah. Also I needed to watch my attitude because it could turn into apostacy.I just thought I was spiritually weak.This and so many more subjects and I just submitted thinking I was dumb.

    So Okay let me get this right, I lie rotting in the grave and maybe just maybe Jehovah will remember me( of course, there is no garentee of that) That sure makes me feel comforted,

    So, he may or may not resurrect me to a paradise earth. I then find that my husband has remarried a perfectly built beautiful woman raising MY children in a georgous new home !!

    I have to live in a dormatory/ nunnery with other resurrected women like me. I still look like s#@$ because I have to grow to perfection I couldn't compete with that and of course I wouldn't dare try to userp God's arrangement besides I can't mate anyway! I just have to realize that Jehovah doesn't let us resurrected folk marry. This is Jehovah's will.

    We sit in our dorm doing cross stitch, knitting or crossword puzzles.

    Yippi!!

    That is not a hope it is Sadistic torture!

    It made no sense to me when I was a child nor will it ever. No Loving God would set this kind of arrangement up and call it a hope!!

    As you can see this is just one of my hot spots.

  • PopeOfEruke
    PopeOfEruke

    Ranch

    you hit the nail right on the head! The way JW's teach the resurrection hope is pure horror! You could imagine a Stephen King novel not being even so horrific.....

    And the stupid JW's just lap it up. Thick as bricks they are!

    Pope

  • avishai
    avishai
    At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

    O' course not. Angels, and perfect folks have no need of Jealousy. So they just boff who they want, when they want.Think about it, marriage has been changed more than once in the bible. I think it's all hooey, any way, but this is what I secretly thought, (and hoped for as a horny JW teen) as a dub.

  • XQsThaiPoes
    XQsThaiPoes

    Achristian

    It has nothing to do with the words it is the phrase. I am not that dense. With would you even need a lexicon?

    Job 1Job's First Test
    6 One day the angels [1] came to present themselves before the LORD , and Satan [2] also came with them. (NIV)

    Footnotes

    1. 1:6 Hebrew the sons of God
    2. 1:6 Satan means accuser .

    Job 1The First Test: Family and Fortune
    6 One day when the angels came to report to GOD, Satan, who was the Designated Accuser, came along with them. (MSG)

    Job 1 6 Now there was a day when the sons (the angels) of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and accuser) also came among them. (1) (AMP)

    *** ip-1 chap. 26 p. 355 "No Resident Will Say: ?I Am Sick?" ***
    23 Later, when the resurrection begins, those coming back to life will no doubt be raised with good health. But as the value of the ransom sacrifice is applied to an increasing extent, more physical benefits will ensue, until mankind is lifted to perfection. Then, righteous ones will "come to life" in the fullest sense. (Revelation 20:5, 6) At that time, in both a spiritual and a physical way, "No resident will say: ?I am sick.?" What an exciting promise! May all true worshipers today resolve to be among those who will experience its fulfillment!

    In short this is nonsense. If you are already raised in good health and live 1000 years there are not other benefits. Unless we all get magic powers. The new order is just purgatory with palm trees for non-christians. I mean I will have to share a planet with hitler and nixon for 1000 years until Jesus fugures out their "heart conditions".

  • garybuss
    garybuss

    XQ, you wrote:

    The new order is just purgatory with palm trees for non-christians.

    Laughing my ass off again. Right on the money XQ! Hahahaha Keep em comin.

  • a Christian
    a Christian

    XQs,

    The fact that Job clearly refers to angels when using the phrase "sons of God" does not prove that when the author of Genesis used that same pharse he was also referrring to angels when he did so. For other Bible writers refer to human beings as "sons of God". That being the case, it is entirely possible that the author of Genesis chapter 6 was doing the same.

    Mike

  • XQsThaiPoes
    XQsThaiPoes
    The fact that Job clearly refers to angels when using the phrase "sons of God" does not prove that when the author of Genesis used that same pharse he was also referrring to angels when he did so. For other Bible writers refer to human beings as "sons of God". That being the case, it is entirely possible that the author of Genesis chapter 6 was doing the same.

    So basically you are saying I am right you came off strong, and lets forget this mess. Fine.

    BTW I was not trying to "prove" anything. You are declaring a specific way to interpret a non-specific phrase just because. I would prefer to discuss the reasoning that the "sons of God" were mortal men in genesis 6. It would be more interesting.

  • PopeOfEruke
    PopeOfEruke

    A Christian,

    the alternate view of "sons of God" is certainly an interesting one.

    However the JW's certainly apply it to "angels". Therefore its no defense against their ludicrous resurrection policy.

    But why would the fact that normal men started noticing pretty women be recorded? Why should that be noteworthy enough to get mentioned at all? I thought by that time in the Bible, normal human males bonking pretty women was quite established, or?? Therefore interpreting it as "angels" would explain WHY the scripture got written in the first place.

    Pope

  • a Christian
    a Christian
    I would prefer to discuss the reasoning that the "sons of God" were mortal men in genesis 6. It would be more interesting.

    The Hebrew phrase "sons of God" in this passage, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, can refer to angels (Job 1:6; 2:1; Psa. 29:1; 89:6). But the same phrase elsewhere in the Old Testament describes humans who lived their lives in service to God (Deut. 14:1; 32:5; Psa 73:15; Hosea 1:10). In the New Testament the term "sons of God" is applied exclusively to humans (Matt. 5:9; Rom. 8:14, 19; Rom. 9:26; II Cor. 6:18; Gal. 3:26).

    Fallen angels or demons are not called "sons of God" anywhere in the Bible.

    Speculation that what is being spoken of in Genesis 6:2 is fallen angels ("supernatural beings," i.e. "gods") fathering children with women amounts to nothing less than a blatant intrusion of pagan superstition into the Bible, a superstition that finds absolutely no support, real or imagined, in the rest of Scripture.

    The Bible calls angels "ministering spirits" (Heb. 1:14), and it tells us that "a spirit does not have flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39). That being the case, angels who do not possess human flesh could never have fathered human children. A simple biological reality which I tend to believe even the ancient writer of Genesis understood.

    Jesus told us that angels do not marry. (Mark 12:25) Yet that is just what the "sons of God" in Gen. 6:2 are said to have done. So, unless Jesus had never read Genesis, it seems unlikely the "sons of God" there referred to were angels. If they were, how would the writer of Genesis conclude that Noah's flood would have stopped them from continuing their "skirt chasing" after the flood? Maybe he thought that spirits/angels/demons can be drowned. Besides, why would fallen angels have been interested in a monogamous "marriage" relationship? If these are fallen angels being spoken of in Gen. 6, wouldn't we expect the writer to tell us of their seducing or raping women rather than "marrying" women?

    This "sons of God" = "fallen angels" understanding of Genesis 6:2 makes no sense for several reasons.

    What Gen. 6:1,2,4 records is the first occurrence of mixed marriage between believers and unbelievers, with the all too common result of such unions. Children raised with lower moral standards. In other words, the "sons of God" in this passage were descendants of the godly line of Seth. Instead of remaining true to God and loyal to their spiritual heritage, these "sons of God" allowed themselves to be enticed by the beauty of ungodly women who were mere "daughters of men."

    But why would the fact that normal men started noticing pretty women be recorded? Why should that be noteworthy enough to get mentioned at all?

    It was the lowering of moral standards in the land of Noah, which was largely the result of worshippers of the true God marrying worshippers of false gods, which caused God to bring judgment upon the people of that land by means of a great flood.

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