here's an interesting excerpt from forged by bart ehrman (pay particular attention to the last sentence):.
"a number of the books of the new testament were disputed already in early christianity, among the christian scholars of the second to the fourth centuries, who were arguing over which books should be included in scripture.. the most famous instance is the book of revelation.
a third-century christian scholar of alexandria, egypt, named dionysius, argued that the book was not actually written by jesuss disciple john, the son of zebedee.
Interestingly, the Muratorian Canon of the second century omitted the book of Revelation. On the other hand we have this verse:
The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction. (Rev 17:8)
If the above is a reference of the legend of Nero redivivus it would mean that this book is not inspired.
most xjws likely have matthew 28:19,20 burned into their brains, if indeed they ahve brains left after years of boring meetings.. but, in case you have forgotten the text, it says:.
go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you: and, lo, i am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
happiness, according to the wts would be yours if you loving prreached the message to endless shuit doors and minds.. but, according to the pope:.
The Watchtower says that those who reject the Society's proclamation will be destroyed if they don't repent before Armaggedon.
"Until the great tribulation begins, people still have time to change their thinking"
a man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death.
you are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.
(leviticus 20:27).
About the story of 1 Samuel 28, a member of this forum noticed the following:
The WT makes much of the fact that Saul and his sons weren't killed the next day as stated by Samuel through the witch.
So Leloaia gave the following comment:
....It is ironic how the Society denies that there are contradictions in the Bible, and yet is eager to make this into a contradiction in order to deny the basic sense of the story. Yet it is clear that we do not have a strict chronological progression but a redaction of narrative units that are not linearly sequential. The story in ch. 28 belongs with the story in ch. 31 (both taking Saul's point of view), whereas the Ziklag story in ch. 29-30 (which takes David's point of view) is not directly related to the Saul story in terms of narrative order. So in 28:4, the Philistines are encamped at Shunem and Saul is encamped at Gilboa with the two armies in close proximity (28:5), and Saul's forces are still at Gilboa in 31:1. But in the David-centered story in ch. 29, we learn that the Philistine army is not at Shunem but at Aphek and thus starts at a time prior to the story in ch. 28, at the time when the Philistines were still on the coast at Aphek gathering forces for the battle of Gilboa. This is prior to the encamping of the Philistines at Shunem. Some Philistines questioned David's allegience to their mission and so David and his men were not mustered to the battle at Gilboa but were sent to Philistine land far away in Ziklag, and it took several days for David to reach Ziklag and the David-centered story tells what happened there (ch. 30). It took three days for David to journey from Aphek to Ziklag, but it is not stated how long it took for the Philistine army to move from Aphek to Shunem near Jezreel. All we know is that David left for Ziklag on the same day that the Philistines left Aphek for the valley of Jezreel (29:11). And then sometime later, when the Philistines were already encamped at Shunem, Saul went to En-Dor and was told that he would die the next day. So what is related in ch. 29-30 overlaps with that of ch. 28, 31, with one story telling what happens from Saul's point of view and the other relating what happens from David's point of view. There is no indication that Saul was not killed the next day as prophesied by Samuel, and the story emphasizes that Saul and his sons and his men died together on "that same day" (31:6), which reflects what is predicted in 28:19.
Indeed, the OT is a mess.
a man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death.
you are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.
(leviticus 20:27).
“ ‘A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.’ ” (Leviticus 20:27)
The Old Testament does not give a reason on why israelites had to stone these people. Of course, Witnesses would say :" they were in contact with demons who were appearing as they were spirits of dead men". But, as far as I know, the Law does not explain it. Furthermore, if you read the story in 1 Samuel 28, you will note that the writer indeed believed that the spirit of Samuel, came from Sheol to talk to Saul (as Josephus admitted).
May be this law was given during the reign of Josiah,..... at the end of the seventh century?
likely everyone here is familar with the novel "1984" - "he who controls the past, controls the future.
he who controls the present, controls the past".. take a look at wol.jw.org, insight book, topic "faithful and discreet slave".. current online wording: http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200001485.
jesus trained the apostles for the role they would have after pentecost 33 c.e.
This is why we shouldn't throw off the old literature. Just in case, we can show the original words.
new article on ajwrb:.
http://ajwrb.org/medicine/questions-for-those-who-believe-in-the-watcthower-blood-policy.
lee.
Why can Jehovah’s Witnesses accept 100% of blood fractions and benefit from the blood that others donate, but are not donating blood themselves? Would not giving blood to help save others’ lives, including the lives of your spiritual brothers and sisters, be the loving and Christian thing to do?
Some weeks ago my sister asked this question, and the elders answered it based on an Old Testament principle. So, according to them, Jehovah let israelites to sell carcasses of unbled animals to foreign gentiles. So, the same principle applies for the current people of God. Witnesses can take the permitted blood fractions from wordly people, but they (the witnesses) can't break God's law on blood by donating it.
Of course, my sister disagreed, because she said "we are not under the Law of Moses". But they answered: "some principles remain".
i phoned my sister and she told me that the elders called her to visit her again the next saturday morning.
you can read the issues discussed in the past two visits:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/281372/1/elders-answer-questions-about-the-changes-of-the-blood-ban#.u9e2dnlyops.
Just in case, I told her that she should quote the following excerpt from the book Preservation (1932):
“After the holy spirit as an advocate or paraclete ceased to function in behalf of the consecrated, then the angels are employed in behalf of those who are being made ready for the kingdom. ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all they ways’ -Ps. 91:11″ (Preservation, 1932 p. 51-52)
“By his spirit, the holy spirit, Jehovah God guides or leads his people up to a certain point of time, and thus he did until the time when ‘the comforter’ was taken away, which would necessarily occur when Jesus, the Head of his organization, came to the temple and gathered unto himself those whom he found faithful when he, as the great Judge, began his judgment, in 1918.” (Preservation, 1932, p. 193-194)
This shows that since 1918 there was no Holy Spirit helping Rutherford's friends, but angels liars.
i phoned my sister and she told me that the elders called her to visit her again the next saturday morning.
you can read the issues discussed in the past two visits:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/281372/1/elders-answer-questions-about-the-changes-of-the-blood-ban#.u9e2dnlyops.
Whatever, she will say that she doesn't want to attend the meetings anymore, because she can't preach the doctrines of the governing body in good conscience. However, she will not write any resignation letter.
Surely, I will post the outcome of that meeting.
i phoned my sister and she told me that the elders called her to visit her again the next saturday morning.
you can read the issues discussed in the past two visits:.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/281372/1/elders-answer-questions-about-the-changes-of-the-blood-ban#.u9e2dnlyops.
I phoned my sister and she told me that the elders called her to visit her again the next saturday morning. You can read the issues discussed in the past two visits:
But now, I wonder why the elders want to visit her again. May be they want to refute the past Society's quotes she read to them. Perhaps, they want to told her that all her quotes are false. The quotes she read to them were extracted from this website:
http://ia600304.us.archive.org/27/items/WatchtowerLibrary/
The quotes from the Finished Mystery were taken from this webpage:
http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/documents/1917_The_Finished_Mystery_1918_edition.pdf
The elders do not know English, so may be they can tell to my sister that those websites contain falsifications and were not published by the Society.
Well, I have to wait after the visit, but I don't understand why they are insisting. In the last two conversations my sister has shown her disgust against the blood ban and the flip flops of the Watchtower. So, what else?, do they want to know more of these falsehoods?.....or may be they want to disfellowship her this saturday?. ....My sister does not want to attend the meetings anymore.
what do you think of this story?
all i can do is quote from someone much smarter than me.
"men offten mistake strength of their feelings with strength of their argument" venting..
OneEyedJoe : ".....I finally got baptized. Why? I'd just gone through a break-up with my first love, and my father used some pretty well placed words of emotional manipulation to get me to take the plunge."
The Watchtower uses all the time emotional manipulation. This is a very dangerous weapon. The Watchtower uses it to shun, to baptize children, to get more money from their followers, to create fear of higher education, etc. This is why I think that we have to expose the dirty tactics of this cult in order to counteract the Watchtower propaganda.
As an ex-witness told me before, it is difficult to rescue the witnesses inside the cult, but you can decrease the number of outsiders interested in this cult by exposing its false teachings with books and in internet sites (this forum, and books as Crisis of Conscience, The Gentile Times Reconsidered and Apocalipse Delayed are good examples.)
