Very nice. Thanks!
Narkissos
JoinedPosts by Narkissos
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Quote of the Day
by codeblue in.
here is a positive quote that i enjoyed:.
to be happy, drop the words if only and substitute instead with next time.. codeblue
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Building on WT sand?
by Narkissos ina number of posts by recent and old members of jwd (i won't mention names) struck me as being only variants of the typical wt-stuff involving prophecies or chronology, based on mystical revelation and/or intensive personal study of the bible.
generally those posters did not adhere to any other church, nor went through the academic cursus of theological and biblical studies.
they seem to be quite lonely with their "truth", still persevere in it with remarkable consistency.
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Narkissos
A number of posts by recent and old members of JWD (I won't mention names) struck me as being only variants of the typical WT-stuff involving prophecies or chronology, based on mystical revelation and/or intensive personal study of the Bible. Generally those posters did not adhere to any other church, nor went through the academic cursus of theological and biblical studies. They seem to be quite lonely with their "truth", still persevere in it with remarkable consistency. They also seem to be mostly nice and intelligent people.
As much as I usually avoid such discussions, they do make me think: why do some people quickly build a personal doctrine in the vicinity of the WT, at times elaborating and defending it for years under the scorn of nearly everybody else, instead of taking the time to question those shaky foundations until they find some solid, or at least common ground? Psychological factors are certainly involved.
Why didn't I follow the same course when leaving the WT? Looking back, I am most grateful for the periods of my life when I had to stop talking (or writing) and instead listen (or read). When I went from pioneering to Bethel, for example, or from a church context to a theological faculty, then to a very technical Bible edition work. Those changes in my life, which were never what I dreamt of, refrained my personal propension to build syntheses on shaky foundations. Of course the amount of silly things I have said since my JW period is enormous, and I'm probably still saying many silly things (but of course I can't know which now). Still I think, being obliged to shut up and listen, especially when you don't feel like it, is a great blessing in the long run.
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The Trinity in the Old Testament
by hooberus in"and god said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
" genesis 1:26 .
note the plural "our image", "our likeness" yet from other verses it is clear that man was created in gods image and likeness (singular).. "so god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them.
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Narkissos
As the contest is going on, I check this thread from time to time, and tonight I smiled at the idea that within a few years both Hooberus and Herk might be sitting at the place where I'm sitting now, quietly agreeing on the evidence of polytheistic background for the Bible texts, from a liberal or even atheistic viewpoint. Cheers!
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GREATEST music put to a movie (in one particular scene)
by Frantic inwell........nothing comes close to sigur ros "untitled 4" "track 4" of the untitled album.
the movie is vanilla sky and its the final scene where tom cruise is on the rooftop with penelope, lee, russell and that other guy.
for those who havent watched the movie, it is highly recommened along with the album "(( ))" by "sigur ros".
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Narkissos
A lot of movie music is just great. As a European I immediately think of the wonderful co-operation of Federico Fellini with Nino Rota, or Marcel Carné with Joseph Kosma. But as for the use of music in a particular scene, my vote would perhaps go to the use of a very unoriginal music in Bergman's Viskningar och Rop (unfortunately I don't know the English title, something like "Screams and Whispers"). When the two sisters who are unable to communicate with each other start talking, and touching each other, the scene is silent and a Bach cello solo suite begins. I can't watch this scene without crying.
I know, my references are pretty old...
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Greatest tribulation upon Judaism?
by peacefulpete infor jws and other fundementalists the destruction of jerusalem in 70ce is a unquestionably the fullfillment of the words in mark 13.19. however to see the city's leveling as the " tribulation such as has not occurred since the world's beginning until now" as referring to death numbers we must surmise the death toll to have been horrific indeed!
josephus is of course oft quoted for the numbers.
according to him 97,000 were taken prisoner while 1,100,000 were killed.
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Narkissos
There is always a point in eschatological apocalypticism where the author slips from a coded description of past events (although described as future from a fictional, antidated perspective) into a prophetic scenario of the absolute end. At this point (which corresponds to his historical situation) he gets fantastic, cosmic and so on (and of course we lose the track in history). In Daniel 11 it occurs in v. 40. I think this is exactly the logic Leolaia applies to Mk 13//, and to me it is quite plausible, notwithstanding the possibility of later additions historical references to the second revolt. But the really eschatological part of the apocalypse is just unrelated with history.
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John and Revelation
by Valis inhmmm...this has been covered before i'm sure, but since we have our own prophets of the apocalypse, i thought we might have a rehash....when john wrote revelation was he hallucinating?
had he gotten into the stash of mountain laurel leaves or what?
it seems to me such a radical departure from the loving kindness espoused by the teachings of jesus, one wonders what he was thinking.
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Who determined which Bible books are inspired?
by VM44 in"the bible is the inspired word of god.
"holy spirit came upon men who then wrote the various books that make up the bible.
what was the criteria for determining if a given piece of writing, such as the books matthew, mark, luke, john and acts, or letters, such as the ones written by paul, were inspired?
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Narkissos
Momofmany: the "extra" Catholic books (or additions in Daniel and Esther) in the OT all come from the Jewish Septuagint (LXX) Greek tradition, although some of them (such as Ecclesiasticus = Siracides or Tobit) were actually translated from Hebrew. Following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the clear separation between "Christianity" and "Judaism" they were excluded by the Pharisaic/Rabbinical redefinition of Judaism. Those texts, as well as many others (such as 1 Enoch which is quoted in the epistle of Jude), were part of the very broad corpus of "Scripture" used by early Greek-speaking Christians. At the 16th century Reformation, for dogmatic reasons, the Protestants decided to align with the current Jewish Canon, while the Catholic council of Trent declared a limited number of those texts (those you find in your Catholic Bible) to be "canonical" (the exact term was "deuterocanonical", but this doesn't mean lesser authority as far as the Catholic interpretation is concerned). The Protestants called this books "Apocrypha" but still maintained them in their Bibles for centuries. In French Bibles they were usually printed in smaller type, with an "avertissement" following Luther's teaching (approximately) that those books were "not inspired yet useful to read". Only in view of the pressure of fundamentalism in the English and American Bible Societies in the 19th century did they disappear totally from the French Protestant Bibles.
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Who determined which Bible books are inspired?
by VM44 in"the bible is the inspired word of god.
"holy spirit came upon men who then wrote the various books that make up the bible.
what was the criteria for determining if a given piece of writing, such as the books matthew, mark, luke, john and acts, or letters, such as the ones written by paul, were inspired?
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Narkissos
It was a gradual process both sides of the new border between Judaism and Christianity, which eventually led to authoritative Church decisions. This process was just an aspect of the relative unification of each religion, resulting from the historical or ecclesiastical elimination of many diverging schools (e.g. the Essenes and Sadducees on the Jewish side; the Gnostic on the Christian side; Judeo-Christians rejected by the Great Church and Nazarenes rejected by Pharisaic Judaism may in fact be the same group, shunned by both camps). On the Jewish side this process is exemplified in the so-called Jamnia "coucil" after the fall of Jerusalem which corresponds to the transition between pharisaic and rabbinical Judaism. On the Christian side a similar process developed unto the fourth and fifth century, as a part of the emergence of the Catholic church.
The following link may be of interest:
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Interrelationships in versions of a Jesuine saying
by Leolaia inthe sayings of jesus, as oral formulations that eventually take written form, can differ widely among each other in the gospels.
i decided to take one example to study in detail the interrelationships between the recorded forms of the saying so i chose the "true family" saying that occurs in a wide variety of sayings, and which did not originate in q. i present the sayings below in their narrative settings and highlighted the different distinctive features of the forms.
1st jesuine sentence is a question: mk, mt, eb .
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Narkissos
Still thinking of Fleddermann and others who hold that actually Mark knew Q, I wonder if the gnomic form of the saying in Luke (// GTh 2Cl) might not be derived from its Q-form. What do you think of this hypothesis generally, and the large expansion of Q it implies?
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Resurrection Appearance to James the Just
by Leolaia inapostle paul provides an early list of jesus' resurrection appearances in 1 corinthians 15. it is important because this list was written before our canonical gospels were written and thus serves as an independent source of information.
paul writes:"christ died for our since, in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared first to cephas and secondly to the twelve.
next he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died; then he appeared to james, and then to all the apostles; and last of all he appeared to me too; it was as though i was born when no one expected it.
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Narkissos
Leolaia: Thanks for posting this long excerpt of Dungan. I did find the book in my library, but unfortunately had not the time to use it much (I gave the reference to his more recent work because it might be of interest to some). My question about the ICC commentary on Mark, btw, was related to another subject (the Beelzebul pericope).
As you can imagine, I'm not convinced however. Dungan's argument rests on his presupposition that Paul is coming up somewhere in the transmission of authentic sayings of Jesus which are basically those of the Gospels, which I doubt. In fact the Gospels' sayings may come from a number of different sources, including Paul: this would reverse the comparison and lead to different conclusions.
It's amusing how similar my relation to the Aid book was to yours when I was young. It was not yet translated into French, so I had to read it with the constant help of a dictionary at the beginning ... still it was my favorite reference work (also enjoyed James and 1 Peter commentaries later). When I gave my first "public talks" they were always based on this book instead of the Society's outlines (it was allowed then). Later in Bethel I had the opportunity to translate an important part of it (in a "censored" edition, since Ray had been disfellowshipped in the meantime). This gave me the incentive to start learning Hebrew and Greek, and that was the beginning of another story...