Narkissos

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Posts by Narkissos

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  32

  Did the sun stand still and go backwards up the steps?

  by TJ - iAmCleared2Land in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  been a while since i posted here, but driving into work the other day i recalled how "excited" we all were when it was announced that scientists had discovered "proof" that there is a full "day" missing astronomically, for the exact period of time covered by joshua's having the sun stand still, and isaiah having the sun move backwards, sending the shadow back up the steps for hezekiah.. that got me searching jwd for a thread about this topic, and i didn't find one, but i did find this snopes article.. http://www.snopes.com/religion/lostday.asp.

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  Narkissos

  Good find. :)

  There was a thread recently on the Joshua story (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/180476/1/Joshua-asked-God-to-let-the-Sun-stand-still-and-he-did-it-How-Why) but I don't think this famous hoax was mentioned.
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  22

  How would you respond (RESPECTFULLY)?

  by AwSnap in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  if a witness brought up the example of lazarus, how jesus said he was "asleep" (which really meant dead)....and then he resurrected him and more people than ever had faith in jesus.. as part of the argument that most don't go to heaven when they die, suppose a jw said "most people believe we go live it up in heaven when we die.

  but wouldn't that be cruel on god's part to let lazarus' soul come to heaven and then have jesus bring him back to the crummy earth?

  how would you respond to that?.

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  Narkissos

  Taking the story at face value, at least that was kind to Martha and Mary...

  Now maybe there is a measure of cruelty in bringing anybody to existence... even from non-existence ("And I thought the dead, who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive; but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun." -- Ecclesiastes 4:2f). That would apply to JW's "re-creation" just as well. Not to mention creation itself.
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  46

  If Adam hadn't sinned, where would he be right now?

  by paul from cleveland in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  if it wasn't god's purpose for us to live forever on the earth, where would adam be right now?.

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  Narkissos

  LouBelle

  Actually the "Adam and Eve" story (Genesis 2:4b--3) is quite independent from the "7 days" story (1--2:4a) since the whole "creation" is told again, in a very different way (and incompatible at "literal" level). The first Genesis story ends up with mankind as it is (gender difference, sex and procreation included) without any hint of "fall" or "sin".

  In the second story, mankind as it is (including sex and procreation) only appears as a result of the curse and eviction from Eden (which is not exactly a "fall" either).

  I for one do not believe that Adam was a literal person - I rather believe that he signifies "the fallen flesh", on the opposite you have Christ "the spiritual man" - therefore Adam is right here - walking around today in each and every single one of us.

  Aside from the word "fallen," I couldn't agree more: this is what the Hebrew-speaking reader immediately understands with the word 'adam -- which is the most common noun for "man," "human" and "mankind".

  In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul qualifies the "first man" as psukhikos, from psukhè (what Adam became when he was created, not by disobedience; most translations render it as "natural"), and opposes that to the Second Adam who is pneumatikos, "spiritual". This is an access to a new stage of humanity -- not restoration of a lost one.
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  20

  Where does evolution leave God?

  by behemot in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the wall street journal recently commissioned karen armstrong and richard dawkins to independently respond to the question "where does evolution leave god?".

  their thoughts are here:.

  http://online.wsj.com/article/sb10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html.

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  Narkissos

  Good points Borgia.

  Maybe it could be expressed this way: there is more than "facts" to "truth". Or, if there is not (because after all you can define a word like "truth" in more than one way), that will reduce "truth" to a pretty miserable, petty and uninteresting thing. Guernica (by Picasso, not Dalí ;)) paints something which I would choose to call a "truth" about the Civil war which no objective description can reach. And it is -- very graphically -- a fragmented, dislocated, blown-out "truth".

  The problem with modern cosmologies is that they lack the "mythical" dimension which allows individuals and communities to relate to them -- connecting a self-understanding with a world-understanding, through a number of both literary and ritual mediations. Psychology, medicine, philosophy, politics, history, science, art, all prototypes of which used to be united in traditional cultures, have become strictly separated fields which hardly communicate anymore. Whether the gains were worth the loss can be debated to no end, but the fact is there is no way back. Any attempt at making sense will have to poetise or mythologise the difference rather than the unity.
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  59

  Is it disrespectful to call GOD by his name JEHOVAH?

  by foolsparadise in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have been thinking about this alot recently.

  calling our god the creator by his first name jehovah takes alot of nerve.

  my 10 year oll son doesnt walk around calling me by my first name.

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  Narkissos

  wobble,

  The only sure thing is that Judaism, in Palestine and in the diaspora, was incredibly diverse down to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It could be, precisely because as long as the Jerusalem temple was there the Jewish identity did not rest exclusively on a particular collection of books in a particular language, let alone a particular interpretation. Literary creation (not just of the exegetic kind), alternative beliefs and practices could thrive within the broad scope of Judaism. Philo of Alexandria was no less a Jew than the writers of Qumran or Hillel or James the Just or Judas the Galilean or the high priest, or even Paul -- although they would have disagreed on practically everything, or more likely not understood each other at all.

  To your question, it is almost certain that the "divine name" was used in some circles and avoided by many others. There is evidence both ways. Even in the Greek-speaking sphere it is both (as evidenced by the various recensions of the LXX). So it depends where you locate your "historical Jesus"... this is a matter for guesswork.

  The NT texts, otoh, are facts inasmuch as they are established by a number of direct and indirect witnesses (manuscripts, translations, quotations). Facts of different times, places and communities. The only thing that might suggest that they once included some form of the divine name (in spite of 100 % material evidence to the contrary so far) would be compelling conclusions from literary (rhetorical, narrative) analysis of specific passages.

  P.S.: this is where we have left the discussion last time: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/174104/1/Nehemia-Gordon-and-the-pronunciation-of-the-tetragrammaton
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  59

  Is it disrespectful to call GOD by his name JEHOVAH?

  by foolsparadise in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have been thinking about this alot recently.

  calling our god the creator by his first name jehovah takes alot of nerve.

  my 10 year oll son doesnt walk around calling me by my first name.

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  Narkissos

  designs,

  Imo the author of the Greek text (of Matthew 4, or "Q" for some) made the story just as likely as he saw fit to his audience -- LXX quotations included. The text doesn't smack of translation or adaptation... Now what you would change to the story to make it look more 'Palestine-Jewish' is up to your imagination of what 'Palestine-Jewish' should look like... If you perceive the divine name "missing" and nothing else, maybe it's just your JW background speaking...

  As a side note, the mouth of God, stoma theou -- Dt 8:3 LXX = Matthew 4:4 is much less reminiscent of the Tetragrammaton to a Jewish Greek-speaking reader than the usual substitution (anarthrous kurios, like in the two other Deuteronomy quotes: to the average Greek reader, kurios ho theos sou sounds quite Jewish already!) -- but in the NWT it's "Jehovah" just the same...
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  20

  Where does evolution leave God?

  by behemot in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the wall street journal recently commissioned karen armstrong and richard dawkins to independently respond to the question "where does evolution leave god?".

  their thoughts are here:.

  http://online.wsj.com/article/sb10001424052970203440104574405030643556324.html.

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  Narkissos

  Very interesting :)
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  36

  Who Really IS the Faithful and Discreet Slave?

  by AGuest in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  to the household of god, isarel... and those who go with... may you have peace!.

  when among those loyal to the wtbts, i recall having conversations with those of "the great crowd," who believed that, while perhaps christ led "the anointed," it was the ""faithful and discreet slave" who led them.

  certainly, the wtbts teaches this lie.

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  Narkissos

  I think AGuest illustrates and, to an extent, analyses pretty well what I would term a mystical approach to the Bible.

  When you're "there," you are not looking to the Bible or any outward authority, written or "live," as the source of "revelation". What you do find in Scripture (and actually anywhere, books, movies, songs, or just casual talk between people) are unexpected echoes of your intimate faith experience; which in a sense confirm it as "witnesses" (you are not alone, you are not "just dreaming") but also flesh it out with words, ideas, arguments. A pure "mystical" experience would leave anyone with nothing to say. But there is no pure "mystical" experience as any experience happens only to people who have a linguistical, cultural, social and religious background and (if they do not become hermits) will keep on interacting with culture and society by reading, watching, listening further.

  This is much the way early Christians used their scriptures (Jewish writings mostly, not limited to the current OT canon[s]). They did not learn or deduce their belief from them. But they recognised it in the most unexpected places, and it turn scriptures gave it words and shape. This a purely exterior, objective approach to religion (whether by "believers" or "unbelievers") will always miss. Otoh if the "mystics" don't add a measure of (self-)criticism to their experience and become unable to distinguish it, at least in principle, from the cultural elements they have used (at least unconsciously) to flesh it out, they put themselves in a dangerous situation, especially in a modern world which has no regard for either the "prophets" or the "insane" (who are sometimes the same people, depending on the audience they find).
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  46

  If Adam hadn't sinned, where would he be right now?

  by paul from cleveland in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  if it wasn't god's purpose for us to live forever on the earth, where would adam be right now?.

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  Narkissos

  When you think you are collecting "stupid and immature" (sic) replies, question your question.

  By definition, a narrative of origins has to end up in the "reality" it was designed to explain in the first place. From this angle, "Adam" had to die because we do -- not the other way around. He had to get knowledge because we know. And so on. Any "if"-bifurcation artificially plugged into the story course ends in nonsense because the story has only one possible ending: reality as the author, storyteller, readers, hearers know it.

  Even the later Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Eden tale as "temptation," "sin," "fall" etc. were generally not as shallow as to construe it as an "accident". For instance, to Paul the first, earthly, fleshly, dustly, "sinful" Man (Adam), was a necessary "first step" to the Second, heavenly, spiritual Adam (Christ: compare 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5). This is closer to an evolutionary pattern (in the metaphysical, not biological field) than to a restoration after an unfortunate loss (as per the WT interpretation).
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  44

  The WTS's endpoint of the "70 Years"?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  1. does the wts date the end the 70 years as soon as the babylonian exiles returned to the land, or when they started the building of the altar?.

  (ezra 2:68 makes it clear that the returnees arrived early enough for the exiles to be settled in their own towns (verse 70) well before they started to build the altar in the seventh month of an unidentified year (3:1)).. .

  2. why were the returnees frightened of the people around them when they started to build the altar (ezra 3:3)?

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  Narkissos

  Haven't got a CD-ROM, Doug?

  W 2/1, 1964:

  By the calculation above, Cyrus’ first regnal year would end on March 5 of 537 B.C., or toward the end of the rainy season. Doubtless he considerately issued his decree near the end of the rainy season, shortly before March 5 of 537 B.C., and in that way the exiled Israelites could make arrangements to travel in the convenient dry season from April through September. They evidently made the four-month-long journey from Babylon during the dry months, for by October they were back and settled in their beloved homeland, before the first day of their seventh lunar month.—Ezra 3:1.

  W. 8/15, 1968:

  Two centuries earlier Jehovah by the mouth of his prophet Isaiah had declared: "[I am] the One saying of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and all that I delight in he will completely carry out’; even in my saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’ and of the temple, ‘You will have your foundation laid.’" (Isa. 44:28) Without further delay this two-hundred-year-old prophecy was about to be fulfilled. Cyrus acceded to the throne and "in the first year" of his reign, at least before the spring of 537, "Jehovah roused the spirit of Cyrus." He issued the famous edict permitting the Jews to return and rebuild Jehovah’s temple, copies of which were written and circulated throughout the realm. This allowed sufficient time for the Jews to resettle in their homeland, ‘establish the altar firmly upon its own site,’ and "from the first day of the seventh month" start offering up burnt sacrifices to Jehovah. This date, the "first day of the seventh month," according to the best astronomical tables available, is calculated to be October 5 (Julian) or September 29 (Gregorian) 537 B.C.E.—Ezra 1:1-4; 3:1-6.
  Here, then, very definitely established, is another milestone—the time when the seventy years of desolation of the land of Judah came to an end—about October 1, 537. (Jer. 25:11, 12; 29:10) It is now a simple formula to determine when the seventy years began. One has only to add 70 to 537 to get 607. So about October 1, 607 B.C.E., the desolating of the land of Judah and the complete emptying out of its inhabitants was fully accomplished.

  Insight, "Chronology":

  Jerusalem came under final siege in Zedekiah’s 9th year (609 B.C.E.), and the city fell in his 11th year (607 B.C.E.), corresponding to Nebuchadnezzar’s 19th year of actual rule (counting from his accession year in 625 B.C.E.). (2Ki 25:1-8) In the fifth month of that year (the month of Ab, corresponding to parts of July and August) the city was set afire, the walls were pulled down, and the majority of the people were led off into exile. However, "some of the lowly people of the land" were allowed to remain, and these did so until the assassination of Gedaliah, Nebuchadnezzar’s appointee, whereupon they fled into Egypt, finally leaving Judah completely desolate. (2Ki 25:9-12, 22-26) This was in the seventh month, Ethanim (or Tishri, corresponding to parts of September and October). Hence the count of the 70 years of desolation must have begun about October 1, 607 B.C.E., ending in 537 B.C.E. It was in the seventh month of this latter year that the first repatriated Jews arrived back in Judah, exactly 70 years from the start of the full desolation of the land.—2Ch 36:21-23; Ezr 3:1.