here is something i found interesting:.
biblical scholar claims the story of jesus christ was a hoax designed to control the people.
http://simplecapacity.com/2016/10/biblical-scholar-claims-story-jesus-christ-hoax-designed-control-people/.
Atwill said that Jesus is, “the only fictional character in literature whose entire life story can be traced to other sources”. I agree with him and probably so would Robert M Price.
The purpose of citing Price was because of his mythicist beliefs. Carrier's also debunked Atwill. Neither are in the scholarly consensus on mythicism. But it's irrelevant to Atwill's ideas. There are easier routes to a mythicist position than to fantasise Josephus writing the gospels for the Flavians.
here is something i found interesting:.
biblical scholar claims the story of jesus christ was a hoax designed to control the people.
http://simplecapacity.com/2016/10/biblical-scholar-claims-story-jesus-christ-hoax-designed-control-people/.
Atwill's been peddling this for a long time. Has he qualified in anything since first publishing? I'm behind on my pseudo-history stuff. But, anyway, this 'theory' has been debunked pretty thoroughly. It's a fun idea to turn the gospels into a first century Da Vinci Code, but it's not something which stands up to serious scrutiny.
Robert Price's debunking is fairly thorough: http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_atwill.htm
"raised in the truth" during the 50s, 60s,and 70s i repeatedly read and heard from the platform how reading the magazines weekly "was the equivalent of a college education" and how many had turned their family economic situation around by being "trustworthy" and giving up expensive bad habits most "worldly people" had.
sounded good.. what is the reality?
how does avoiding higher education, and then spending up to 20 hours a week getting ready for, commuting, and then participating in meetings and field service affect family finances?.
With the smaller percentages sample size becomes a big problem with JWs. Wouldn't take too much note of increase in college degrees, and the question which indicates some JWs are 'living in sin' would suggest a very broad sample base to say the least.
The broader trends are interesting. It's a religion which actively sets out to guilt trip people over having a well paid job and for being financially secure - while offering televised productions of the perfect family, in the perfect home, living on whatever income a couple of pioneers can scrape together.
hazel grove congregation in stockport, cheshire, u.k.. not only is the congregation saturated with elders, it is/was pretty well saturated with cash - according to its 2014 financial statement to the charities commission.
http://apps.charitycommission.gov.uk/accounts/ends82/0001066282_ac_20140331_e_c.pdf.
its elders are listed as frank broadhurst, nick ashton, nigel bailey, noel crossley, peter davies.
They definitely all elders? Wasn't uncommon for Ministerial Servants to be listed as trustees too, but that may have changed over the years.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3823706/european-human-rights-chiefs-orders-british-press-not-reveal-terrorists-muslims.html.
"european human rights chiefs have told the british press it must not report when terrorists are muslim.
thank goodness they are getting out of the eu, before like sweden even people in uk can get arrested for posting on social media posting any facts and problems the immigrants/muslims/or refugees are causing.
It's the Daily Mail. Even their own quotes don't support the headline they use. It's the Daily Mail. Hurrah for fascism Daily Mail. Here's a song about it.
the web address on the above sketch is misleading as the sketch (it seems) was included originally, in a article in a peer reviewed archaeological journal by a stephen rosenberg.. there is little doubt that the temple was genuine and it demonstrates that the ot stories about the role of egypt in the formation of judaism do not tell the truth about the complete relationship between israel and the egyptian empire.. we know that this temple on elephantine island was genuine.
some papyrus correspondence has survived .
there is also another (claimed) jewish temple that an archaelogical team explored last century, but the precise location has been lost.. more on the above temple tomorrow..
I'm referring to this temple in Egypt. It was destroyed in 410 BC and the Jewish community there requested it be rebuilt. In that letter they state that the temple pre-dates the Persian takeover of Egypt as it was spared by Cambyses even though he destroyed Egyptian temples. This is supported by a 2nd century BC document which claims that there were multiple waves of Jewish emigres into Egypt, beginning in 650 BC in support of the Egyptians campaign against Nubia (Elephantine Island is a fort on that border) but also those which are mentioned in the OT such as after the Babylonian invasions of Palestine. Hence the dating of the site is pre-Persian at the moment and requires evidence of it not being so to date it solely to the Persian period.
(the essay linked as a reference earlier in the thread covers most of this).
an analysis of watch tower of britain’s last (january 2013) child safeguarding policy by barbara anderson.
last year, i was asked to review watch tower of britain’s child safeguarding policy and its implementation.
what i discovered was depressing and disappointing especially because the policy contained just a single statement (#18) directing elder/trustees on how to protect children in their congregations from avoidable harm - they were to restrict a repentant abuser “…from being alone in the company of children.” the policy did not explain what procedures to follow to assure that abusers would obey that rule.
Spot on with identifying how it's anything but child-centric in what it says and implies.
One aspect which makes me wonder is just what training is provided to these trustees of charities by London Bethel. They have an elders' school. What practical and best practice advice is provided on things like child protection? We all will know the answer, but it's curious and fits in with the pattern of the WBTS wanting to push all this onto the 'family' rather than address things in the way even other religions have done here in Britain.
the web address on the above sketch is misleading as the sketch (it seems) was included originally, in a article in a peer reviewed archaeological journal by a stephen rosenberg.. there is little doubt that the temple was genuine and it demonstrates that the ot stories about the role of egypt in the formation of judaism do not tell the truth about the complete relationship between israel and the egyptian empire.. we know that this temple on elephantine island was genuine.
some papyrus correspondence has survived .
there is also another (claimed) jewish temple that an archaelogical team explored last century, but the precise location has been lost.. more on the above temple tomorrow..
Since the Persian garrison did not show up until after 500 BC, what Jewish community preceded them is a matter of conjecture..
Only if you're sure that the request to rebuild the temple (dated to 407 BC) was telling lies about the temple existing prior to Cambyses arriving in Egypt in 525 BC. The burden of proof rests on someone wishing to prove the temple did not exist at the time. The archaeology is silent on it, but the (admittedly limited) documentary evidence pushes this prior to the Persians being in Egypt.
the web address on the above sketch is misleading as the sketch (it seems) was included originally, in a article in a peer reviewed archaeological journal by a stephen rosenberg.. there is little doubt that the temple was genuine and it demonstrates that the ot stories about the role of egypt in the formation of judaism do not tell the truth about the complete relationship between israel and the egyptian empire.. we know that this temple on elephantine island was genuine.
some papyrus correspondence has survived .
there is also another (claimed) jewish temple that an archaelogical team explored last century, but the precise location has been lost.. more on the above temple tomorrow..
One of the interesting suggestions Rosenberg has made is that this Jewish community may have come from Israel rather than Judah, although that would depend on date of the Jewish mercenaries heading into Egypt if one accepts Josiah 'reformed' the religious practices around 522 BC.
The idea that this could be aping the shape of a tabernacle rather than the temple at Jerusalem (which, from its written description, itself seems to copy even earlier Caananite temple forms) is also a fascinating one. Much of the Old Testament's 'history' has to be analysed through the filter of not only the postexilic community but also by the attempts to hammer the various stories/histories into a narrative which fitted a 'reformed' Judaism.
according to christianity, the death of jesus was a miscarriage of justice.
so then, what if there was no so-called miscarriage of justice so that jesus was not put to death by the romans but he instead died a natural death?
would christians still receive the forgiveness of their sins and their hoped for salvation?.
If he was a perfect man, he wouldn't die a natural death...
