Posts by Narkissos

14

How long until religion is no more?

by lifelong humanist in

jw
friends

what do you think - how long before all religion is no more?.

i live in rural scotland, a country that is probably still quite religious on the surface.

yet, i rarely come across anyone that is in the least bit religious.

Narkissos

The (modern Western) definition of "religion" is corollary to the fragmentation of human activity and knowledge into an ever-increasing number of separate fields. Since Antiquity "religion" has defined itself in both an ever more precise and narrow way against politics, war, sports, philosophy, science, arts, technology, medicine, psychology, etc. We can conclude that religion has lost ground, but it has been actually defined as "something else" than more and more "other things". A number of situations that would have drawn people to church/temple/mosque/synagogue now lead them to their doctor, therapist, teacher, library, museum, etc. But "religion" still exists (ek-sists, as distinct from the rest) because the other fields do not (and imo cannot) address or cover all the space of human experience. At some point of its reduction it may prove irreducible.

Now what kind of "religion" will survive or develop, and how extant religious traditions and institutions will fare in the process, is a very different matter.

20

Why Germany lost WWII

by JeffT in

.

Narkissos

LOL (@ caption)

40

"My God and My Lord" Ps. 35:23 - Need OT version

by jonathan dough in

when thomas said "my lord and my god," he used the exact words that david used at psalm 35:23 with reference to god, writing, "awake, be vigilant in my defense, in my cause, my god and my lord," (rsv, nab, kjv and green's literal translation).

"lord" here is translated from the hebrew adonai used exclusively of god.

thomas would never have used these same words when addressing the risen christ if he were just a man.

Narkissos

To me it's a reminiscence rather than a quote. And whatever the case it doesn't affect the meaning of John 20:28 at all. Assuming that it does would boil down to committing the same mistake as the WT does when it inserts Jehovah into a OT quote in the NT because Yhwh was in the original(i.e., the text being quoted, not the text quoting); what matters to the meaning of an OT quotation / allusion in the NT is how the NT writer words and uses the quote, NOT what the quote meant in OT context (which the NT writer very often ignores).

Now in that case it is interesting that the LXX of Psalm 35[34]:23 does have the kind of kurios which usually substitutes the Tetragrammaton, only in the first part of the verse (where no divine name is found in Hebrew and inserting one would break the meter):
exegerthèti kurie kai proskhes tè krisei mou ho theos mou kai ho kurios mou eis tèn dkèn mou.

The latter highlighted expression (correctly understood by the LXX as parallel possessives, not possessive + DN) is indeed almost the same as that which is found in John 20:28 (ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou), only the terms kurios and theos come in reverse order.

The insertion of kurie in the first clause ("Rise up, Lord") which seems to substitute a DN although there was none in the 'original' is actually a pretty frequent case (another famous example is in the quotation of the LXX version of Psalm 102 in Hebrew 1). This is just one case among many showing that textual transmission is fluid and diverse, making it impossible to reach 100 % certainty about where the name was or wasn't in "the original", and turning the very concept of one "original" very questionable, and all the more so when important collections rather than individual short units are concerned. For instance, it has been shown that the composition of the book of Psalms includes a DN revision from Yhwh to 'lhym (God) on one important section (42--89) which is presupposed by doublets in the latter section. So the process of writing and revision actually overlap.

40

"One of" Jehovah's Witnesses

by NeonMadman in

any thoughts on that particular phrasing?

personally, i think the wts uses it as another form of mind control.

by calling the individual "one of jehovah's witnesses," it lends a generic feel to the wording.

Narkissos

English is not my first language, so I didn't find it too odd to find it odd -- especially as the wording cannot be calqued into French; "I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses" translates more simply as je suis Témoin de Jéhovah, which is the equivalent of "I am a Jehovah's Witness" -- except it is correct. :)

I often felt (rightly or wrongly) that it emphasised the collective self-designation (as if only the group could be properly called "Jehovah's Witnesses") over the individual quality (nobody in particular is a "Witness of Jehovah"). Such a nuance couldn't be exactly translated into French (except by an even more painful periphrase, e.g. "I am a member of 'Jehovah's Witnesses,'" and afaik it was never attempted in French WT literature). But if this is the only correct way to apply the collective name "Jehovah's Witnesses" to an individual without breaking it by reversing the terms (I am a Witness of Jehovah), it may well be that no such nuance is implied.

19

Moses was an Israelite Egyptian Military leader who rebeled! Any thoughts or info?

by Witness 007 in

josephus and other non bible sources say moses was an excellent egyptian military commander who defeated the ethiopians.

now while i'm re-reading these bible accounts i get the feeling that moses was a brutal and smart military man.

as the "meekest man" on earth he invaded many nations killing all the inhabitants, taking their land {promised by jehovah} spoils and virgins.

Narkissos

Leolaia,

I remember you did mention (and perhaps develop) this hypothesis before, unfortunately I cannot locate the post now. This is a rather complex issue imo because the Biblical "Levites" are a heterogeneous compound including possible memories of some pre-Israelite Southern tribe associated with Simeon, and maybe a non-ethnical title of religious function implying consecration to a deity and sanctuary -- cf. the lawu-DN theophoric names in Mari, the frequent equation of priests and levites in Deuteronomy (ha-kohanim ha-lewim, 17:9 etc.). Levites in the latter sense were likely "ethnicised" as an artificial tribe in the aftermath of Josiah's centralisation which made all priests of sanctuaries throughout Judah a subordinate class to the Jerusalem priesthood* (levites vs. priests), the hierarchy being translated into genealogy (Levi / Aaron). It seems to me that most exodus stories with Egyptian-sounding names somehow presuppose the latter developments, but I may be wrong. Are Egyptian names for "Levites" found before / outside of the Josiah / exile 'influence cone' so to say? Moreover, I'm also under the impression that most alleged Southern parallels to pre-exilic Israelite religion (especially the DN Yhwh, the ark / tabernacle structure etc.) are found in the Sinaitic or Arabic peninsulae rather than in Egypt proper, even though most of the region was under Egyptian control at some point (e.g. the Midianite Timna), and there are simpler ways to account for them (the Qenites, for instance) than an exodus from Egypt. A contrario, if there were Egyptian (stricto sensu) influences on Israelite religion at an early date (late 2nd millenium or early 1st) through a group of "levites" which became central to it, this raises the question why they have been so limited. Otoh, contacts between Judah and Egypt were important from the 6th centuries onward, when most (if not the earliest) exodus traditions were devised.

* Afterthought: another potentially important element in this discussion is that the Jerusalem priesthood itself was most likely of native origin, as a number of clues indicate (the continuity of çdq names, Melchizedeq, Adonizedeq, Zadoq; the story of David's conquest and his buying the temple site from "Aravna the king," etc.)

14

the big black hole of belief

by highdose in

jw
friends

i no longer belive anything that i was ever taught as a jw.

i therefore find myself without any beliefs at all.

which having talked to all the freinds i've made since seems to not be unusual.

Narkissos

highdose

I can relate: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/134324/1/Nothing

40

"My God and My Lord" Ps. 35:23 - Need OT version

by jonathan dough in

when thomas said "my lord and my god," he used the exact words that david used at psalm 35:23 with reference to god, writing, "awake, be vigilant in my defense, in my cause, my god and my lord," (rsv, nab, kjv and green's literal translation).

"lord" here is translated from the hebrew adonai used exclusively of god.

thomas would never have used these same words when addressing the risen christ if he were just a man.

Narkissos

I don't know if another translation has ever been as stupid as the NWT here. The substitution of Yhwh to 'dny here is based on global, systematic, indiscriminate, uncritical interpretation of the tiqqune sopherim as indicating that the Tetragrammaton was there in the first place. Even if that runs against the context and phrase structure, as is the case here.

The suffix of 'dny is morphologically (has the form of, looks like) a 1st-person singular possessive -- applied to a morphologically plural according to the Masoretic vowel-pointing. I.e., 'dny can be read as 'adôni, "my lord", or 'adonay, "my lords" in the ordinary sense; but both the possessive ("my") and the plural ("lords") meanings are lost in the the quasi-technical use 'adonay as a title-name for Yhwh; this is especially true when 'adonaysubstitutes Yhwh, which as a proper name cannot be used with a possessive in Biblical Hebrew usage (you cannot say "my Yhwh" anymore than "my David"). The construction in Psalm 35:23, 'lhy w'dny, Masoretic vowel-pointing 'elohay wa'dônay, clearly involves parallel expressions both in a (real, not just formal) possessive form: my g/God and my l/Lord, not the odd connection of (noun + possessive) + name (without a real possessive by definition), 'my g/God AND Yhwh", which makes no sense unless you change the usual sense of the conjunction (w, "and") to a way less usual, "epexegetical" one, as the NWT does with its awkward "even".

37

Serving Jehovah Doesn't Take Much Effort

by God_Delusion in

when you where at the demon hall, did you ever get a talk about how easy it was to serve jehovah?.

i was having a conversation with a friend recently about this and i wrote down what is expected of a jehovah's witness;.

go to 4 meeting per week.

Narkissos

The idea that "God" might actually not require anything (or at least anything special) is definitely not an easy one for a religious mind -- although there are many clues pointing to that direction in the Bible itself, from the OT shabbath which was not about doing anything, just the opposite, to Paul's "no-work justification" -- also texts insisting that God doesn't require anything extraordinary or specifically religious like Micah 6:8, Psalm 50, or Ecclesiastes (especially 7:16f).

37

Serving Jehovah Doesn't Take Much Effort

by God_Delusion in

when you where at the demon hall, did you ever get a talk about how easy it was to serve jehovah?.

i was having a conversation with a friend recently about this and i wrote down what is expected of a jehovah's witness;.

go to 4 meeting per week.

Narkissos

But perhaps easier to some than just being themselves and taking the responsibility of their own life. Otherwise it wouldn't work.

32

Evidence Hitler and Mussolini Despised Unions

by bluesapphire in

jw
friends

i've heard it said and i've searched the internet and found comments to this effect.

but i cannot find any quotes from hitler or mussolini themselves.

does anyone have any evidence to this?

Narkissos

National syndicalism is less distinct in Nazi Germany than in Fascist Italy because the Nazi party captured and hijacked the ideals of Unions right from the start; in both DAP and NSDAP the A stands for Arbeiter, Nazism (National-Socialism) defined itself primarily as a workers party; it focused on economics (employment, wages), and resorted to superficial anti-capitalistic revolutionary rhetorics, although reversing the internationalist trend of historical unions by playing nationalism against class struggle. One thing to keep in mind is that labour unions at that point were divided between Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism. Making the state an instrument for the welfare of the working class (if only in propaganda) could appeal to the former who had been ideologically prepared to a statist (although not nationalist) version of socialism. The anarchists were not fooled and were the primary target of repression. (The situation in Italy is more complex since Mussolini had been close to anarcho-syndicalist circles in his early life and 'converted' to state nationalism and militarism later on.)