Posts by Narkissos

31

Bible reading = Balaam has an intelligent conversation with his Donkey? Is this wierd?

by Witness 007 in

this weeks bible reading in numbers has balaam talking to his donkey like in the movie "shrek.

" what would a donkey say if it had human vocal cords?

probably: "carrots......moooore carrots.

Narkissos

Other donkeys might not be that lucky...

55

Love, Justice, Wisdom, Power - the Resurrection

by xelder in

i have always been taught and believed that, at the end of the day, god is a perfect balance of love, justice, wisdom, and power.

when the ransom provision and christ's kingdom correct man's fall into sin, we will see this as true, no matter what trials we and all of mankind have had to face until then.

honestly, it has never mattered which of the two groups i was in.

I didn't mean to "duck the question" at all. From the embracing, absolute perspective of final judgement (that's what we're talking about, not the Nurenberg trials!), no, I wouldn't want anybody condemned in the sense of ultimately rejected, cast out, lost, let alone subject to "eternal torment". Definitely not. Because that would be the very negation of redemption and reconciliation, which exceed politics and ethics.

I can better relate to Barth's reinterpretation of Calvin: everyone is elect and saved in Christ, just as s/he is reproved and lost in Adam. The "demarcation line" isn't drawn between but within people. More generally, a judgement which would assess what everything is worth, rather than everyone, would be most interesting.

Now you did duck my questions... ;)

55

Love, Justice, Wisdom, Power - the Resurrection

by xelder in

i have always been taught and believed that, at the end of the day, god is a perfect balance of love, justice, wisdom, and power.

when the ransom provision and christ's kingdom correct man's fall into sin, we will see this as true, no matter what trials we and all of mankind have had to face until then.

honestly, it has never mattered which of the two groups i was in.

Narkissos

DD:

What makes you think Christians "enjoy" it?

I said some (seem to) do. I'm not speaking of the many Christians who suscribe more or less shamefully, 'against their own heart' as it were, to some sort of dualistic soteriology because it has been forced upon their mind with tons of "prooftexts" and (ab?)use of binary logic. I'm speaking of those who steadily champion it with an odd (to me) zeal against more merciful perspectives, who even glorify it as a motive of gratitude, appreciation and praise. The Aucilino talk about Armageddon and his "after that we'll love Jehovah even more" comes to mind as a caricatural JW version, but there are "orthodox" versions which I find equally disturbing, especially Calvin's. When I read Calvin I sense a delight in God's absolute freedom which somehow has to show in arbitrariness. (The relationship of necessity and freedom in that case being paradoxical in itself.) Enjoyment of freedom by proxy as it were, close to the kind of "perversions" psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan used to link with jouissance de l'Autre (I'm not sure how to translate: "pleasure of the Other?"). In less "totalitarian" (e.g. Arminian) versions the motive of resentment (which Nietzsche construed as the essential trait of Christianity) comes to the fore.

Isn't there someone (like Hitler) you think should be condemned?

That's a strange question (and an even stranger example) coming from a Calvinist. Wouldn't God's freedom to save whomever he chooses, Calvin style, be even better illustrated if Hitler (or, say, some devout Protestant Nazi official, there have been so many) was saved, and the people he contributed to kill reproved? What has final condemnation to do with relative ethics (aka "works") in the Calvinist system? Everyone should be condemned, Hitler no more than Gandhi or Anne Frank, right?

That reminded me of a reply from Karl Barth I heard somewhere. Approximately: the problem with people like Hitler is not whether they will be saved, it is that they have to be stopped. Yes some people have to be stopped, fought, killed sometimes. But that's politics, not theology. Nobody escapes the solidarity of (relative) good and evil in history. The villains are part of the play just like the heroes and victims. And if anything is to be "redeemed" (I don't say it has to) everything has to.

(To JosephMalik, if I chose to approach the issue by explaining how I felt about it, it doesn't follow that I don't care about what the texts say. Only I choose to approach them differently. I for one am not interested in making up a theological synthesis from a patchwork of Luke and John and Paul and James. I prefer to consider each text and author or school separately, and then step back to consider how each of them thought. With Paul in particular, I can't help noticing that his treatment of "judgement" is subordinated to a broader perspective of universal reconciliation, which ultimately accepts no exception. E.g. the conclusion of chapters 9--11 of Romans: "Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience, so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy. For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all. O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" "Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?" For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen." That's an example of what I called the "universalistic horizon".)

3

parable of Jesus what mean ?

by marcopolo in

how can a parable become a prophecy ?

(a faithful slave ) if they can ...where are jesus's other parables turned into prophecy ?.

samebody haved write this last time ago about that.

Narkissos

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/180266/3/The-Faithful-Steward-and-its-Governing-Body

51

The Faithful Steward and it's Governing Body

by Mickey mouse in

this will be studied in two weeks time but it's such a special .

.

Narkissos

marcopolo,

I'm not sure I understand your question correctly but I'll give it a try:

The point of the text, as a parable, is to warn Christian leaders/teachers that they can either behave like the "faithful and discreet slave/steward" (who is nobody in particular, not even a "class of good leaders/teachers", but the type or model of what a good leader/teacher is), or like the "evil slave" (who is the symmetrical type of the bad leader/teacher), and be judged accordingly (reward or punishment).

The opposition is basically between attitudes and actions: being busy in "feeding" others vs. feeding oneself, self-indulgence along with "beating" others.

The moral lesson to the target audience (Christian leaders/teachers) is, beware what you do with the responsibility you have been entrusted.

The text only functions this way only if it is understood that the master/Lord has not yet returned: judgement is yet to come, so be careful how you behave.

With their assumption that the master/Lord has already returned and pronounced judgement, the WT doesn't allow the parable to function as it was meant to. What was initially an effective warning to all becomes unconditional validation of a particular "class". What was meant to question the way any authority is exercised becomes a "blank check" to the authority structure of a special group.

Now, to the question (again, if I understood it correctly), 'do they similarly transform other parables into self-validating fulfilled prophecies,' I'm not really sure but I think they do (the parables of talents/mines or virgins come to mind, but I don't remember how they have been treated in WT literature; maybe others will help you with that).

5

Women Apostles in New Testament Times

by Athanasius in

[if !supportemptyparas] [endif].

Narkissos

I consider the whole interpretation uncertain, but Athanasius made a good case for Iounia, and I would take issue with the translation "well-known to the apostles" which suppresses the ambiguity of episèmoi en tois apostolois (more neutral translation, "among the apostles") in favour of what is imo the less likely interpretation (although not impossible, whence the ambiguity!). Iow, the Greek expression definitely doesn't exclude A & J from "the apostles" and quite probably includes them. Keep in mind that the qualification of "apostles" is not limited to a particular group in Pauline writings (1 Corinthians 4:9 etc.; 2 Corinthians 8:23; Philippians 2:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:7), explicitly distinct from the Twelve in 1 Corinthians 15:5,7 (cf. alo 9:5 and Galatians 1:19). Besides Paul's own "network," the qualification of "apostles" is given several times explicitly to people who were (supposedly) Christians before him, just as is the case here (Galatians 1:17; compare 1 Corinthians 15:8f).

28

Request for prayers, good vibes,for one of ours.

by mouthy in

jw
friends

mary is going through a very difficult time.

i am asking you all to "do your thing" for her.

her brother is suffering greatly in hospital..so please do as i am begging you to do.

Narkissos

55

Love, Justice, Wisdom, Power - the Resurrection

by xelder in

i have always been taught and believed that, at the end of the day, god is a perfect balance of love, justice, wisdom, and power.

when the ransom provision and christ's kingdom correct man's fall into sin, we will see this as true, no matter what trials we and all of mankind have had to face until then.

honestly, it has never mattered which of the two groups i was in.

Narkissos

It may seem (and be) pointless to reply to a doctrinal question with personal experience or feelings, but that's just what I will be doing anyway, at least for a start. :)

I can still remember one particular moment in my exit from the JWs long ago (I was still in France Bethel) when, suddenly, while talking rather freely with a couple of close friends, the whole idea of God making creatures to judge them struck me as utterly ludicrous and unbelievable. Oh yes it was "scriptural" all right, there were dozens of prooftexts to back it up, but I still found it laughable as an incredibly poor joke. I still believed in God -- just not that kind of God. And at the same time I was overwhelmed by much of what I was reading in the NT, the Gospel pictures of Jesus and christology presenting him as God's image or revelation in particular. To me there was definitely much more to the Christian God than this bogeyman picture, and they just couldn't stand together -- at least on the same plane.

Later on I came in contact with all kinds of Evangelical Christians and theologians, Calvinists, Arminians, who all shared some belief in divine judgement and final reprobation (whether eternal punishment or annihilation) of at least some. But I was an instinctive universalist. I could no longer buy into a version of Christianity ending in a final dualism of "good" and "bad," "righteous" and "unrighteous," "elect" and "reprobate". To me the Pauline-Lutheran notion of salvation by faith not works destroyed the basis for a moral judgement -- a logical conclusion that Paul actually cringed at and tried to avoid, unfortunately he seemed to lose his rhetorical power at that point. And the Evangelical alternative -- condemning people formally "for their sins" but actually because of their non-belief made even poorer sense than strictly moral judgement to me: in effect it was making the criterion for judgement a shibboleth -- you can say the password correctly, you're saved, you don't, you're toast. Making it all a matter of election and predestination in the Augustinian-Calvinist way only added consistency to the absurdity. And btw there was a lot of NT stuff (Matthew, James) against this idea of judgement on belief.

What I chose to read and love in the NT (I put it deliberately in subjective terms, thus admitting that my reading was certainly "biased") was quite different. I did find a "universalistic horizon" in many texts (Pauline, post-Pauline and Johannine in particular) to which "judgement" was second (or, more exactly perhaps, penultimate: God's "next-to-last word" so to say). And I also found that universalism, although repressed in official dogma, had been continually resurging in the history of Christian theology -- from the ancient apokatastasis doctrine of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, to the modern "dialectical universalism" of Karl Barth or the Catholic version of Karl Rahner ("anonymous Christians," "hope for all"). Iow I don't think Christianity as a whole can really settle in a final dualism which is definitely too small for its ambition. It can't be ultimately satisfied until God is "all in all" as Paul put it. How some Christians can really accept and enjoy this idea, that they will be saved whereas others won't, even if they have many prooftexts to back it up, is beyond me. Sincerely.

118

Really, There Is A Lot To Learn About Your Faith

by AllTimeJeff in

in ak - jeffs thread "did jesus ever claim to be the messiah", narkissos said the following that i think, and have learned, is rather profound:.

a better approach to this discussion might start with questioning the presupposition that there was one concept of "messiahship" common to all or even most 1st-century ad jews.. the idea is, we assume that the faith and religion we have now, is as it was way back then... clearly, it isn't.. i haven't devoted a great deal of my time to this subject, but i have read enough to realize that there is a lot more to the history of our churches and religions then we think.

jw history is pretty easy, as they started in the late 19th century.

Narkissos

Too bad for Heraclitus. Apparently I am the only one to see a connection between his aphorism, "we step and do not step into the same river," and the initial statement of this thread, "we assume that the faith and religion we have now, is as it was way back then... Clearly, it isn't."

Keywords: identity and difference, being and becoming.

Thesis (A): a collective identity like "Christianity" can only exist inasmuch as it includes both synchronical and diachronical difference, i.e. conflict and coexistence at any time of its history, AND changes as time goes on. This being true from its very "beginning," as the diversity and tensions within the NT texts suggest.

The only alternative option (B) I can think of is just too well known: my understanding of Christianity is, has always been and will ever be the only valid one, and all other interpretations of it are to be discarded as fake or false Christianities.

N.B.: alternative option (B) is actually included, not excluded, by thesis (A), although sophistically thesis (A) will certainly be dismissed as a form of option (B).

118

Really, There Is A Lot To Learn About Your Faith

by AllTimeJeff in

in ak - jeffs thread "did jesus ever claim to be the messiah", narkissos said the following that i think, and have learned, is rather profound:.

a better approach to this discussion might start with questioning the presupposition that there was one concept of "messiahship" common to all or even most 1st-century ad jews.. the idea is, we assume that the faith and religion we have now, is as it was way back then... clearly, it isn't.. i haven't devoted a great deal of my time to this subject, but i have read enough to realize that there is a lot more to the history of our churches and religions then we think.

jw history is pretty easy, as they started in the late 19th century.

Narkissos

"We step and do not step into the same river." (Heraclitus)