Posts by truthwillsetyoufree

8

The book of Jeremiah

by truthwillsetyoufree in

it occurred to me the other day that i don't actually know all that much about the bible.

dont get me wrong, i was a very dedicated and studious jehovah's witness and i studied the bible every day - or so i thought.

i have now realised that during the time i spent in that religion i didn't study the bible - i studied jehovah's witness theology.

truthwillsetyoufree

That's great Cobweb, I will be sure to check it out.

8

The book of Jeremiah

by truthwillsetyoufree in

it occurred to me the other day that i don't actually know all that much about the bible.

dont get me wrong, i was a very dedicated and studious jehovah's witness and i studied the bible every day - or so i thought.

i have now realised that during the time i spent in that religion i didn't study the bible - i studied jehovah's witness theology.

truthwillsetyoufree

It occurred to me the other day that I don't actually know all that much about the bible.

Dont get me wrong, I was a very dedicated and studious Jehovah's Witness and I studied the bible every day - or so I thought. I have now realised that during the time I spent in that religion I didn't study the bible - I studied Jehovah's Witness theology. I saw the bible and religious history through the preconceived ideas of this organisation. If someone was to ask me to explain one by one the teachings of Jehovahs witnesses with biblical support I could easily do it, quoting multitudes of verses. But if someone was to ask me about what a certain book of the bible teaches, the time period it was written in, the people who it was given to, the themes contained within, etc I wouldn't stand a chance.

This brings me to my subject title - the book of Jeremiah. I have no idea about what this book is about. I never used it on the platform or in my preaching, can hardly ever remembering it being used at the meetings, and so decided last night, that now I am free of watchtower clutches, to read it and see what it says fro myself.

So how would I summarise the book of Jeremiah?

It is a long, long, long, boring book, filled with nothing but Gods judgement and denunciations against Israel and Judah, and all the nations from Babylon to Egypt. That is all there is in Jeremiah. Gods anger against the people of the land.

Now I used to believe that the bible essentially came from God. When I went on field service I used to say to people that if you believe it's the word of God why would you not want to read it? This has come from the God who made the whole universe, you should be enthralled by it. Not only that by if God gave me a book he had wrote I would expect to read some amazing things.

What a disappointment the book of Jeremiah proved to be in that regard. 52 chapters of God saying he wants to destroy everyone. I had to pinch myself so many times to keep myself awake. Has this really come from God? Is this really what he wanted to include in the bible for my instruction? Did this fill me with awe and wonderment about my great God?

I'm getting off the point. I wanted to share with you guys the highlights of Jeremiah that I found of interest to me. There is not many. As I said, the whole book is God telling Jeremiah to tell all Israel, Judah and surrounding nations they will be destroyed. That really is it. No joke. But here are my highlights.

Jeremiah 8:8. "How can you say we have the law of Jehovah? For in fact the lying stylus of the scribes have been used only for falsehoods." How interesting to note here that in Jeremiah's day the law of Jehovah had been falsified so much. How long had this been going on for? Can we really trust the law of Jehovah that we have received today as recorded I'm the bible when the falsifying of the law of Jehovah seemed common place?

Jeremiah 10:12. This verse describes God creating the earth and heavens. Of course no mention of Jesus being used to create it. This is a thought becoming more apparent to me. Jesus was there fit at the beginning. According to JW belief God created Jesus first and spent years together before creating anything else. Then God uses Jesus to create everything in the heavens and in the earth. we were always given the impression of just how important Jesus was, before his death and after it. Yet the Old Testament and the Israelite religion is completely silent on the matter of Jesus. Even the Angel Gabriel is more well known than gods first creation, his son, Jesus.

Jeremiah 10:23-25 Jeremiah here pleads with God not to destroy his people. It reminded me of Abraham pleading with God not to destroy sodom and Gomorrah I find it amazing how imperfect humans have to plead with God for him to to show love and mercy. An imperfect man like Jeremiah showed more compassion and love than did God despite his very being being love as taught in the gospel of John - God is love. Would you not expect a God of love who is perfect to plead the case for love and compassion to an imperfect human who wants people destroyed instead of the other way around? In fact, God actually tells Jeremiah in chapter 7:16 to not "pray for them, do not offer s prayer or plead with me in their behalf." What a far cry this is from turn the othe cheek and to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you. What a difference we have here. In fact, later on in chapter 11 verse 20, after Jeremiah received some persecution he know agrees with jeovah to destroy the lot of them! Is this really the message God wants me to adopt? Is this really what he want to teach me?

Jeremiah 13:14 - "I will smash them against each other, fathers and sons alike." By this point after reading 13 chapters of how God is going to kil everyone you become numb to it. God is vengeful, I get it. He wants to Destroy everyone, I get it. But it's the language that God uses. In this case he says he will smash family members against each other. Is it not enough to say I will destroy you all if you don't repent? But describing exactly how you will do it to fine detail, doesn't this show someone who loves violence? Who seems to take delight in thinking and devising ways to punish his people? A God of love?

Jeremiah 26:20-23. poor Urijah. He, like Jeremiah was a prophet from God preaching gods judgment. This message of judgment and destruction was not easy. But God assured Jeremiah that he would come to no harm. But what about Urijah? Because of his judgment message the people had him killed. Where was God? That man never expected to be a prophet. But God chose him like he chose Jeremiah. But God promised Jeremiah he would be kept safe. Why didn't God keep Urijah safe? Can he only keep one person safe at any one time? Maybe Jeremiah was to busy getting into trouble that Urijah went ignored? You would expect at the very least if God chose you to prophecy a judgment message that you would be kept safe, especially when he keeps other people safe. What did Jeremiah have that Urijah didn't have? Why the inequality? The message I got from this was don't accept an assignment from God unless he promises you assurance that he will keep you safe.

Jeremiah 14:13-16. Prophets. There were two types. The ones sent from God, like Jeremiah, true prophets, and the false prophets. The one is preaching judgment and destruction. The other is teaching peace and security. Both claim to be from the true God. Now, imagine for the moment you are an Israelite. A prophet comes up to you. He says he is from the true God and that you have sinned and need to repent or you will be destroyed. Another prophet come to you and says he is also from the true God. He has seen your deeds and ha sort.aimed good things for you. Now, who do you believe? They can't both me true as their messages conflict. Only one is true and one is false. How could you tell the difference? First off, God has never spoken to you personally. So maybe you are sceptical to begin with in the belief of a God. But two people come to you saying that God gave them a message which is meant for you. Wouldn't you question why God gave them this message instead of giving it directly to you? God is all powerful and could easily give the message to the person it is intended to. But also you would find it made that people were hearing from God. Joseph smith, the founder of the ,after day saints, the Mormons, proclaimed that God sent to him an angel and gave him golden tablets. God apparently used him as a prophet. Yet how many of you reading this believes that this actually happened? How many of you have said instead that he was nuts. Would you, as the imaginary Israelite not think similarly at the time of Jeremiah?

But there is a way, biblically, to distinguish between a true and false prophet. Deuteronomy 18:20-22 gives us the answer. It says that if the word the prophet says doesn't come true then it hasn't come from God. So the way to tell if a prophet is true is to wait for the outcome. Think about how stupid that it is. There is no way of telling who the true and false prophet is until you wait for their message to come true or not. In the meantime there is no way of telling. If you had to make a choice before the outcome happened the there is a 50% chance of believing in the wrong prophet and thus receives gods judgement. Imagine again being an Israelite in jeremiahs time. The Babylonians have just chained you up to take you into exile. Oh yeah! Turns out Jeremiah was the true prophet after all. So I do need to repent and change my ways - oops to late now! If you have to wait for the outcome to know for certain who is a true prophet and who is a false prophet it could cost you your life. Does this not seem unfair? Could not God make it more obvious which prophet is true or not? Especially if time is needed for repentance to be made in order to avoid destruction? If you decided to chose between the two prophets what would God think to your listening to the wrong one? Is it really your Fault? Jeremiah 25:3 mentions that Jeremiah had been prophesying destruction for 23 years. 23 years! And during that time his message hadn't materialised. Imagine if you were 20 years old and you heard this message of destruction. You the have a child. During those next 23 years the child grows up and has a child of its own whilst Jeremiah continues to proclaim his message. Would you not think he was a false prophet as he has been prophecying for so long with no fulfilment?

Clearly, the biblical identification of a false and true p roper leaves a lot to be desired. And this way of identification apparently comes from our great and wonderful God can create the intricacies of atoms to galaxies yet cannot give mankind a better way of identifying false prophets?

Jeremiah 31:15. "Rachel is weeping for her sons". Yes we know this well. We read in Matthew of the slaughter of all young boys under the age of two. The writer of Matthew in chapter two, goes on to say that the scripture of Jeremiah of Rachel weeping for her children is fulfilled in that day. Really? Really?! This has to be one of the biggest misuse of scripture which has been used in order to provide Old Testament support to Jesus being the messiah. Read the context of Jeremiah 31. The whole nation of Israel and Judah have been destroyed and taken captive. They are now in Babylon. The symbolic Rachel is indeed at that time weeping for her children for they are captives. But then! In the very next verse God says "stop weeping! They will return!" God then promises they will return to their homeland and enjoy blessings. Did this happen - yes! They were set free after Babylon was destroyed and returned to their homeland. Rachel wept no more. Why on earth did the writer of Matthew believe this is a prophecy for the first century in regard to the death of children under the age of two? Even if this scripture was meant to be fulfilled in Jesus day, what about the part which says that Rachel needs to stop crying for they will return to their homeland? How was this part fulfilled in Jesus day? We're these children returned by the soldiers somehow? Were they resurrected by God or Jesus? No. They did not return. Why take one part of this prophecy and apply in hundreds of years later and not take the other part? This is a first century example of Old Testament scripture being taken out of context to try and support a different theology. I could do that. I could claim to be the messiah and pick random verses all over the Old Testament that I could fulfill. Here's one for you, in the same chapter of this Rachel prophecy, 31:30 - any man eating sour grapes will have his teeth set on edge. I will now go out and find some sour grapes and set my teeth on edge and then claim to have fulfilled scripture and so I must be a prophet or if not the messiah himself! Can you see how ridiculous this concept is?

This concludes my highlights of Jeremiah. This post was way longer than I ever intended. This has also given me an opportunity to reflect on what I have read to make sure I remember these points for future reference. If you have stuck with this post and read it in its entirety then I applaud you! Don't think I could have done the same. 😀

13

“The Jesus-followers’ first 200 years”

by Doug Mason in

the archaeologist digs and then sifts through remnants from the past, assembling the discoveries into patterns so that stories of the past may be brought back to life.. with almost 850 direct quotations from 50 books, my study sifts remnants from the first 200 years of christianity and sorts them into patterns that may help others to assemble a vessel that can hold ideas, or to form a skeleton where muscle and flesh, heart and mind, may be applied.

a comprehensive contents listing is provided at the rear of this study.. my study, “the jesus-followers’ first 200 years” is available at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/the_jesus-followers__first_200_years.pdf .

truthwillsetyoufree

I have already messaged here to thank Doug mason for his latest work but I will do so again due to how much I appreciated and greatly admire his latest work. I have now, after three days, finished reading it. The period between 33 C.E. And 325 C.E. is a period of religious history which I am more interested in than any other. Doug's work was a real eye opener, and I have read a lot on the matter. This is a must read for anyone who has even the slightest interest in the formation of early Christianity.

We were brought up with a romanticised version of early Christianity from the Jehovahs Witnesses. Everyone in the first century lived in harmony and unity and they kept growing in number and all the New Testament books were written etc. And then after the last apostle died did the apostates begin to take over and led to apostate Christianity.

That really was not the case. At all!

Doug's work will help anyone to see just how diverse Christians were back then and the lack of unity which existed.

Doug is to be commended for this work as he has clearly put in so much time and effort into this work. It is not written in continues prose. Everything in the work is a quote from other sources which speaks about early Christianity and all sources are referenced. In this way what we have is not the thoughts and opinions of Doug himself but what scholars, theologists and others have discovered about this time period.

It is a brilliant piece of work and Doug, you are to be commended for all your hard work.

I'm looking forward to whatever you bring out next.

13

“The Jesus-followers’ first 200 years”

by Doug Mason in

the archaeologist digs and then sifts through remnants from the past, assembling the discoveries into patterns so that stories of the past may be brought back to life.. with almost 850 direct quotations from 50 books, my study sifts remnants from the first 200 years of christianity and sorts them into patterns that may help others to assemble a vessel that can hold ideas, or to form a skeleton where muscle and flesh, heart and mind, may be applied.

a comprehensive contents listing is provided at the rear of this study.. my study, “the jesus-followers’ first 200 years” is available at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/the_jesus-followers__first_200_years.pdf .

truthwillsetyoufree

Thank you Doug. I really enjoy and appreciate your essays.

10

Hello

by TheAceInhibitor in

jw
friends

i've been lurking here for a while, but i figured i should say hello and introduce myself.

i haven't been attending the meetings for a couple months now and i'm a graduate pharmacist.

i look forward to getting to know people.

truthwillsetyoufree

Hello and welcome!

I hope this site proves to be immensely helpful to you as it has to all of us. Sounds like you have done well in taking control of your own life and making something of yourself. Well done 😀.

16

The glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the Great Crowd

by deegee in

there is a glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the great crowd (gc):.

the gc will experience:.

1. the great tribulation - a gruelling/horrifying time which has never occurred before.. 2. armageddon.. 3. a thousand years of “loving” molding and refinement.. 4. a second armageddon at the end of the thousand years.. the 144,000 will experience none of these things.. isn't it strange that the gc has to prove themself so much but the 144,000 don't???!!!

truthwillsetyoufree

Deegee,

you are amazing! I had never thought about that before and it's shocked me. How did I not see that?! You would expect the 144000 to go through all that to make sure they are fit to serve as 'kings ands priests '. I'm making a note of this and will be using it from now on.

Good work, Deegee

4

Jehovah in New Testament

by truthwillsetyoufree in

hi guys.

conscienceguy started a topic regarding what to say to the elders about the name jehovah being in the new testament.

i wrote him a private message with my comments on the matter.

truthwillsetyoufree

Hi guys. Conscienceguy started a topic regarding what to say to the elders about the name Jehovah being in the New Testament. I wrote him a private message with my comments on the matter. It was a very long message and even though I wrote it hurriedly I thought I would share it with you guys in case you find it helpful. 😌

Hi Conscious guy.

I read your post about what to say to the elders and this is what I say to those who listen -

If we don't have the originals then how we do know the Greek manuscripts we have today have been altered, removing the name Jehovah? If we had an original manuscript and compared it to later manuscripts we could see where words such as Jehovah have been removed from later manuscripts. But we don't have an original manuscript. We cannot compare our Greek manuscripts to the originals. So how can we figure out what was in the original manuscripts? WE CANT! All we can do is rely on the manuscripts we have. There is no indication in any of our manuscripts that the name jehovah was used. Was it removed from the originals? Without having an original manuscript we can never know! A reason that the organisation gives is that Jehovah is gods name. It was used 6000 times in the Old Testament. Jesus said that he made gods name known. So Jesus would have used gods name and so too the disciples and any followers. It would be very odd to use gods name Jehovah so many times in the Old Testament and for it not to appear in the Old Testament.

These are valid reasons, but this does not mean that Gods name Jehovah appeared in the original New Testament manuscripts! Gods name Jehovah does not appear in two Old Testament books -Ester and the Song of Solomon. Isn't strange how the two books that have been inspired and are so important that they have been included in the bible do not contain gods holy name? Isnt it strange? Shouldn't gods name be there? Are we to assume then that the Hebrew manuscripts we have today have in some way been altered and they have removed gods name from these two books? Should we add jehovahs name in these two books because of how important gods name is? The answer is NO! If God didn't want his name in these books then that is how God wanted it. No effort has been made by the society to include gods name into these two books and it's not even questioned. So why add it into the New Testament if all available manuscripts we have today use God or Lord instead? If you add it into the New Testament then surely you would do the same to ester and Song of Solomon?

Well what about Jesus? He must have used gods name. Well maybe he did. Maybe he didn't, Jesus lived in a time where the Jews had stopped using gods name. The average Jew would even know what it was and even the high priest, if he had known it would only have said it once a year during a festival. So if Jesus came down and stated using it there would be some passage recorded in the gospels of people's reactions of him using gods holy name. No one was allowed to say it! He would have likely been stoned for saying it for reasons of blasphemy. But his using gods name was never mentioned, no reaction from the Pharisees about it or the general public. It would have been a big deal to the Jews back then someone going round saying gods holy name but apparently everyone was fine with it if we believe that Jesus used it. yes he said he made gods name known. But compare it with Genesis. Jehovah told Moses that "as regards to Abraham I did not make my name known". Did Abraham know gods name? Yes he did! Abraham used and knew gods name. So what did gods mean? He meant that Abraham didn't know the meaning behind the name. He didn't reveal himself fully to Abraham like he did with Moses. after saying this to Moses he then used him to desolate Egypt with ten powerful plagues and set Israel free. That was the meaning of his name, Jehovah was talking about who he actually is and then power that he has and how he can do anything. He showed us the person behind the name fully through Moses. This Abraham didn't know. And this is what Is meant when Jesus said I have made your name known. Jehovah's Witnesses are so obsessed with an actual literal name. But names mean nothing. Jesus made known who God actually was, just like God revealed his name through Moses.

Ah! Say the elders - but gods name is Jehovah and he would still have had Jesus use it. But would he? Where does it say in the bible that gods name is so important that Jesus used it and the disciples used it? All the New Testament manuscripts show that it wasn't used. Why would Jehovah not have his name used by Jesus and the disciples? Who knows! Who are we to question that. If God didn't want his name used as that time who are we to say otherwise?! It his name, his choice. Yes it is weird that the name isn't mentioned in the New Testament manuscripts but are you telling me that there was a big worldwide conspiracy to remove the name Jehovah out of all New Testament Greek manuscripts but then to NOT remove it from any Old Testament manuscripts? We have loads of Old Testament manuscripts which used gods name Jehovah. If there was a big conspiracy over the name Jehovah do you not think that all of our existing Old Testament manuscripts would have been altered just like the New Testament ones? Why only remove it from the New Testament? We have sources from the so called church fathers where Christians reading from the Hebrew Old Testament scriptures would actually read gods name, the Tetragrammaton, and pronounce it as Pipi, because the Hebrew letters for YHWH look like Greek letters that read PIPI. So Christians were using scriptures with gods name the Tetragrammaton in it but had no idea how to pronounce gods name, incorrectly calling him pipi. So they had no problem with gods name. So if they were trying to say gods name when reading the Old Testament why would they try to remove it and not use in the New Testament?

Jesus came down and taught us many important spiritual truths which are vital for salvation. Christianity has largely continued to teach these things such as baptism, the Passover, Jesus death, the kingdom of heaven, etc. If the use of gods name was so important Jesus would have explicitly mentioned the importanc of gods name like he did with the kingdom of heaven or baptism or preaching etc. But he doesn't. And why would the Christian church want to remove gods name? There is no reason at all. It wasnt offensive to Christians. One of the first things we teach to new bible studies is gods name Jehovah and for them to use it. If we teach that then surely Jesus and his disciples would have taught it too and all the Christians. The Christians accepted everything else Jesus said even if it was hard to do like being killed for their faith. So why would the name become so offensive to them so quickly when everything else they were OK with? It makes no sense. Especially as they we're trying no to use gods name and instead saying Pipi. But what does make sense is if they didn't know gods name Jehovah. If Jesus didn't use the name Jehovah then he couldn't have told it to the apostles and they wouldn't have told it to the newly converted Christians and they wouldn't have used it in speech and in their Christians writings or copies of their scriptures and when those that tried to use the name would have mispronounced it big time as Pipi and all manuscripts we find today would not contain the Tetragrammaton and we still wouldn't know for sure today how to actually pronounce gods name. And that is the case today! It all makes sense like that. But if you insist that Jesus did use gods name at a time when Jews didn't use it to the point they had forgotten how to pronounce it and was a stoning offence and the grounds of blasphemy then first of all Jesus would have reprimanded us through scripture for not using gods name and restoring it to us. The Jews and Pharisees would have been in an uproar of the use of gods name and would have tried to stone him - but the bible is silent about that. Christians everywhere would have used gods name and would have none how to pronounce it and wrote it in their copies of scriptures. But if that was the case why don't we have copies of New Testament with gods name? Why would Christians pis pronounce gods name as Pipi if they knew it and were taught to use it? Why would that one teaching only become offensive to the Christians for no reasons? Most Christian converts were Greek and pagans. They weren't Jews who lived under the superstition of not using gods name. There was no reason for the Greeks Christians to not use gods name fully. At one point has any person to whom you have taught about gods name Jehovah has begun using it and then turned round and said oh no I shouldn't use it in case of Jewish superstition? No one. A new back then perhaps. But certainly not a Greek pagan convert. Also, Christians were everywhere by the end of the first century, for the Christian church at the time deciding to eradicate the use of gods name, the pronounction of gods name and the writing of gods name in scripture would have been impossible. There wasn't exactly social media telling them not to use it anymore, nor a postal system. Nor email. Or telephones. And for Christians worldwide to be organised to eradicate gods name in only the New Testament would have led to a massive paper trail. All conspiracies and teachings and heresies and actions of the Christian church is all recorded by the early church fathers. Yet there is not one single quote or letter which gives any indication of any worldwide removal of the Jehovah from the New Testament. That would have been a huge undertaking and people would have objected to it all over the place but every document we have is silent on the matter. Again, things don't add up. The only thing that makes sense is that gods name jehovah was not used by Jesus and so could never have even potentially been written in any manuscripts. Like I said before, they were using manuscripts quite happily with the Old Testament that had gods name in it and not effort was made to remove gods name from these manuscripts at this time. Again it doesn't add up.

Eventually the use of gods name Jehovah was removed. Gods name does and should be in the Old Testament. It should exist there in. Every bible and every manuscript. Over the centuries it has been replaced with God and Lord. But why? Is it satan? No. People didn't know how to pronounce it. Simple. If you are reading on the platform a portion of scripture amd you came across YHWH with no vowels and you didn't know how to pronounce it then what are you going to do? Doesn't make for fluent reading does it? We know it is a name for God. Christians have always known that through the centuries. So instead the said God or Lord. Whilst not entirely accurate they do know at least it is a name for God so by saying God instead we at least know who we are talking about and the reading flows more smoothly, in the twelfth century a catholic monk finally rendered YHWH as Jehovah and gave us a usable name. This is brilliant as we finally have a name we can at least use which gives for a more accurate reading. So every time the manuscripts have YHWH we can now say more accurately the name of God instead of God or Lord but we still don't know how to pronounce YHWH. The monk made a guess at what it could be in transliterated as for use in the English language. But the from we use today is only a guess of how it is pronounced. But it's the best we got. So we can use. But only in the Old Testament, this still isn't any evidence that it should be used in the New Testament. We have to refer to the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, none of them use the Tetragrammaton. When you translate something you assign every Greek word its English equivalent, and you translate what is there written down in the manuscript word for word. You can not translate what isn't there. The Greek word kyrios is there so we translate it as Lord. The Greek word Theos is there so we translate it as God. But the Tetragrammaton is not there so we cannot translate a word for Jehovah.

Ah! Says the elders - but the New Testament writers quoted scriptures from the Old Testament which used gods name Jehovah. So when quoting these passages they would have written gods name into the original New Testament manuscripts.

Ok. Where is the evidence for this?

Where is the manuscripts that supports this theory?

It's one thing to say this, it's another thing for this to be true. The fact is there is no proof for it. All evidence we have points to the fact that when they quoted it from the Old Testament they DIDNT write out Jehovah and instead used God or Lord. if they had done otherwise the. We would have documented proof! The name Jehovah would been in at least some of the New Testament manuscripts but it isn't there.

Another way to look at it is this. If God has taken such great care to create the bible, to inspire the writers, to make sure it was destroyed when Jerusalem was destroyed in 607bce and has taken a lot of trouble to see to it that we have the bible today in so many languages then why did he not prevent his name from being removed out of the bible manuscripts? Why did he allow his name to be removed from only the New Testament Greek manuscripts? Why did he have the ability to preserve the bible but not have the ability to preserve his name? Doesn't add up.

If he failed to preserve his name, what else didn't he preserve in the bible? How can we trust that we have the 100% accurate word of God when we know that the most fundamental teaching, the use of gods name, was removed? What else was removed? What could have been added in? Can we really trust what we have in front of us? Recently the grey bible has removed certain passages in John and mark. Why? Because they do not appear in our earliest Greek manuscripts. These passages of been removed because the earliest manuscripts we have do not contain them so the originals could not have contained them. How to true then could it be said for the name jehovah! Our earliest manuscripts do not contain jehovah and so therefore the originals can not have contained the name jehovah! This is at least consistent. Only by checking the earliest manuscripts can we figure out what the originals said or didn't say. And so if they dont contain the name Jehovah the it would be hypocritical to back track on that point and say well actually that rule doesn't apply with regard to the name of God. And what that comes down to is the witness deciding what they want to see in their bible. They have created their own bible. They have decided that gods name Jehovah should be in the New Testament despite all evidence to the contrary and they have hypocritically gone against their own rules as shown in how they have removed the other passages based on their absence in the early manuscripts.

A further point about their use of gods name in the New Testament is that they say they have used gods name in the scriptures which quotes Old Testament passages which contain the name Jehovah. But this is only 80 times. Gods name appears 235 times in the NWT. So clearly they have decided themselves where to stick jehovahs name into scripture. How can they add the name Jehovah randomly into the bible when they have no manuscripts to show where gods name could have been? The Old Testament quotations I can understand. But to add it randomly in to texts when they have no idea where it could have been is reprehensible. They are adding something into the text when they have no basis for it. They have altered Gods word. The book of revelation makes it clear that you are cursed if you add or take away anything in the scriptures. Adding gods name where it doesn't belong is wrong.

Bottom line.

Every New Testament. Manuscript does not contain gods name. Therefor when translating from Greek into English you can not add in words which do not appear in the Greek. Gods name does not appear in the Greek so this it should not appear in English. We don't have the originals manuscripts. We can not say that the original manuscripts contained the name Jehovah. That's like me saying that original manuscripts contain the name Peter Pan but it was removed from all later copies. You cannot say that the originals contained something when we don't have them to see what they contained. All we have are the copies. If the copies are so badly tainted and removals and additions have been made then we cannot trust the manuscripts and thus we cannot trust what we read in the New Testament to be true. You cannot have it both ways. Are the manuscripts corrupted or not. If they are corrupted, such as by removing the name jehovah, the. We can't trust them to teach us the truth so the New Testament as we know it is useless to us and is therefore no the word of God. If the manuscripts have not been corrupted then we can trust them as portraying what the originals said and thus it is the accurate word of God that we can trust. This means accepting that the name Jehovah does not appear in the New Testament.

11

Karaoke Night with Kingdom Melodies

by RubaDub in

for those of us still in the borg, i thought this might be a good way of enjoying a get-together and enjoy the fellowship.. i don't know if this had been tried by anyone here.. rub a dub.

truthwillsetyoufree

My eccentric grandmother used to do a song night when the new song book came out. Every Friday evening anyone would be welcomed over and she would put on different tracks and we all had a good sing song. She even cooked curry followed by a home-made fruit crumble. When I was in and oh so spiritual I used to thoroughly enjoy it as I do love the songs -even now. It was never well supported though. Average of 5/6 each time and usually by the same ones lol.

But doing it karaoke style? Could be considered as blasphemy by the elders so tread carefully! I had to jump through hoops to do a murder mystery evening once - in helped my cause by inviting an elder to it who loved them and was able to smooth it over for me ;)

27

"Confidentiality" of Elders!

by stuckinarut2 in

something struck me the other day.. elders are told to maintain confidentiality with regard to the details of judicial cases or congregation "discipline" in an attempt to dignify individuals etc.. this is even the case for known child abusers!.

yet, if they suspect someone of being an "apostate", for instance being a member on this forum, they will spread such information far and wide, through the witness "grape vine" to congregations miles away (or even in other countries).

so, does that mean they place more importance on "apostasy" rather than child abuse?.

truthwillsetyoufree

Confidentiality does not exist if you are gay or suspected to be so.

I was 17 and struck up a friendship with a guy who had recently been disfellowshipped and then reinstated because of being gay. soon after an elder approached me to warn me of the dangers of this guy and to be careful because he had recently been disfellowshiped for being gay. it didnt bother me - and noone knew i was gay back then, not even myself. two weeks later a different elder approached me saying the same thing! I told him I already had an elder tell me about this guy. The elder seemed shocked that i had already been told. I didnt think much of it back then but i was told details of why someone was disfellowshipped by elders on 2 seperate occasions about judicial information that i shouldnt have been told.

Anyway, i probably should have listened as there was a bit of scandal between me and this guy.

forward a couple of years and im 21. I have now been privately reproved twice for being gay. But at least noone jnew about it. I was then told by a publisher in confidence that elders had informed most of the young single brothers, especially those in their teens and early twenties, to limit their association with me, not to find themselves alone with me in a car or at home etc etc - this is despite my exemplary service of serving my english congregation and suporting 3 polish groups at the time. I didnt want to belive it. The elders surely wouldnt have indulged my information about my being gay to other youngsters like they has done to me about that guy a few years back? but then i overheard someone talking about how he had been warned away from another young brother who was SUSPECTED of being gay.this poor brother was in his late teens and very camp, but had never done anything wrong and in fact fought tooth and nail to get baptised despite his opposed dad. Yet young guys were being warned away from by the elders just in case. So It was true! The confidentiality in my case had be broken, just like the guy before me.

As a side note i became inactive shortly afterwards. i had an elder visit me every so often, an elderly chap who only ever popped by for an informal how are you doing chat which was nice. but he used to fill me in on all the sandals going on and who had been doing what!

From my own experience in my congregation when it comes to gay men confidentiality goes out of the window.

21

Question about baptism around 1973- can anyone answer for me?

by Virgochik in

i am hoping someone will take a look at this and be able to help me with my question.. i was baptized in 1973, you know, because i was a teenager and old enough to stand on my own when armageddon descended in 1975. .

perhaps elders, or any former elders especially, but anyone who was around then could help me with this question, because i honestly don't recall, and really need to know.. what were the baptismal questions the candidates responded to back then?

were we still asked if we repented of our sins, turned around, and were being baptized in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit?.

truthwillsetyoufree

I discussed this with two anglican priests some time back. Two things they said stood out regarding baptism - when you were baptised, did you knowingly and sincerely dedicate your life to god? Also, in keeping with scripture, were you baptised in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit. (Note that being baptised in a spirit directed organization is different than being baptised in the holy spirit itself.) One of the priests had concerns because there are fundamental differences between anglican and jw teachings such as the trinity. But as you are attending a non-denominational church that won't be a problem for you. But if you are in any doubt about it then get baptised again! Many were batised already before studying with the witnesses and had to be baptised again to become one. It also might help you to completely break free from the witnesses as you could use a new baptism to draw a line under your experience with the jws and start a fresh your christian experience whilst not having any remnants of the sect remaining on you. Just a thought. And good luck :)