Eugene: An addition of Biblical verses will never amount to a doctrine such as the Trinity. Such a dogmatic synthesis does not just result of a sum of texts, it implies a philosophical outlook such as the neo-platonician which was conscious in Augustine but also implicit in other trinitarian thinkers (btw, have you read my previous post about Philo?).
Narkissos
JoinedPosts by Narkissos
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63
A New View of the Trinity
by Eugene Shubert infor everyone's convenience, i've summarized my synthesis into a short number of postulates.
please tell me which of my propositions are provably false and therefore biblically inadmissible.. the godhead is a heavenly trio of three living persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit (matthew 28:19, 3:13-17, 2 corinthians 13:14, ephesians 4:4-6, 1 peter 1:2 and revelation 1:4,5).the father is all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.the son is all the fullness of the godhead manifested (colossians 2:9 cf.
john 1:1).
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new to the forum
by kgrrl inhello...just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.
my name is kelli.
i was raised as a jehovah witness by my mother.
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Narkissos
Welcome Kelli and thanks for sharing.
Take care,
Narkissos
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63
A New View of the Trinity
by Eugene Shubert infor everyone's convenience, i've summarized my synthesis into a short number of postulates.
please tell me which of my propositions are provably false and therefore biblically inadmissible.. the godhead is a heavenly trio of three living persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit (matthew 28:19, 3:13-17, 2 corinthians 13:14, ephesians 4:4-6, 1 peter 1:2 and revelation 1:4,5).the father is all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.the son is all the fullness of the godhead manifested (colossians 2:9 cf.
john 1:1).
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Narkissos
Terri,
I'll try, forgive me if I don't succeed.
Trinity at its best means the following: God is not only "above us" (as the Father), but also among us (as the Son) and within/between us (as the Spirit).
This means distinguishing three everlasting "modes of being" in the One Deity, three "personae" in the latin sense (which can also mean "masks" through which the actor's voice is heard in Roman theater).
As a "synthesis" of the divergent theologies of the N.T., it was indeed a brilliant idea according to the 4th-Century philosophy. Certainly not an eternal truth to me, but that's only my view.
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Should they use the sacred name of God? YHWH
by Sirona innow you may think i'm a little slow to catch on here.
this morning was the first time it occurred to me that the jw's use of the tetragrammaton may actually be a huge insult to other faiths.
admittedly they use a modern day english version of the name of god - jehovah.
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Narkissos
Seedy: thanks for the link; it has already been discussed on the "JEHOVAH" thread, where I pointed that the translation given there for the only "yw" occurrence in Ugarit is altogether impossible. My provisional conclusion is that the Ugaritic "yw" is probably an alternate name or title for Haddu-Baal and certainly not a name for a brother of Baal; maybe Yhwh was seen as a brother of Baal in early Judean polytheistic yahwism, as reflected in Deuteronomy 32:8ff.
Sirona: polytheism is not a digression at all; it is the very original context for the name Yhwh, when he was a god among others and not yet "God". When eventually Yhwh became God, his name was seen as an embarrassing inheritance from polytheism, which had either to be theologized away (such as in Exodus 3 "I am who I am") or held as a sacred taboo. Perhaps a comparison could be attempted with the erotic poem known as the Song of songs. In later judaism and christianity, this very secular text had to be treated as "most sacred" ("defiling the hands" according to the Talmudic expression) and given all kinds of allegorical interpretations.
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So you think I'm a hypocrite?
by dothemath in........reply to joker 10.
.......i just noticed your post........can't say i blame you for thinking that.
i mentioned i'm currently an elder and don't plan on leaving the organization...........but i probably won't be an elder much longer......as i'm not exactly the "ball of fire" they want.
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Narkissos
To Dothemath: "Leave or stay? If you can stay, stay; leave if you have to." (Baudelaire -- my translation.)
And to others: Why not leave disfellowshipment to the WT?
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Some Of Us Missing Out On Something?
by Englishman inreading through everyone's posts over the last few years.
broadly speaking, it seems that most of us left the jw's for 1 of 4 main reasons:.
1. anger.. 2. disappointment.
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Narkissos
Well I must say that my way out of JWs was much a "mystic" one like you described, though it was not overnight and it did combine pretty quickly with # 3 "realisation that it was not true". Looking back, I feel it probably implied some tiredness and boredom at the JWs' teaching and routine also, but that was not conscious by then (sublimation as the only way to escape?). In fact I often thought of it as a dream such like Peter's in Acts 12: when you wake up you're really out.
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Bethel, slavery, and fishing lures
by seven006 inevery so often i get a phone call from jt and i thoroughly enjoy our conversations.
no only do i learn a little more about the inner workings of bethel, we also end up laughing to the level of blowing snot out of our noses.
one of the topics that we discussed this time was the inability of farmers, short order cooks, and retired janitors disguised as elders that try to use their breakfast cereal box psychology to fix complex marital problems of their flock.
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Narkissos
About France, one is not to expect too much.
Yes, a few years ago a huge tax was charged on the donations received by the national association: following this, a large part of the French Bethel (including the printery) moved to London. But the issue is still in courts, and since the first judgment several local associations have been granted the "cultual" status implying tax exemption, so the WT may get away with this.
As far as I know, there has been little change if any as to the legal status of the Bethel "volunteers". They have declared themselves a "religious order" ("Bethelites") to escape the Work Code. This issue also went into the courts some years ago, after an industrial injury on one of them. But they were released.
The actual policy of the Ministry of the Interior (Home Office) is more to avoid interfering with what here is usually called "sects" or "cults" (such as JWs or Scientology). There has been some US pressures to this end on the grounds of "religious freedom".
Btw, I'm also one of the "no-higher-education / pioneering-and-Bethel / out-with-nothing" class...
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63
A New View of the Trinity
by Eugene Shubert infor everyone's convenience, i've summarized my synthesis into a short number of postulates.
please tell me which of my propositions are provably false and therefore biblically inadmissible.. the godhead is a heavenly trio of three living persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit (matthew 28:19, 3:13-17, 2 corinthians 13:14, ephesians 4:4-6, 1 peter 1:2 and revelation 1:4,5).the father is all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.the son is all the fullness of the godhead manifested (colossians 2:9 cf.
john 1:1).
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Narkissos
The fourth Gospel itself is clearly a product of several redactional layers (see the "conclusions" in chapters 12 and 20, as well as the many doublets) -- and chapter 17 hardly belongs to the oldest strata. Anyway, it's ironic how this work, which was first received and commented by Gnostic circles and not in the main (Pastoral) Church, later became the cornerstone for the "orthodox" Trinitarian construction.
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63
A New View of the Trinity
by Eugene Shubert infor everyone's convenience, i've summarized my synthesis into a short number of postulates.
please tell me which of my propositions are provably false and therefore biblically inadmissible.. the godhead is a heavenly trio of three living persons: the father, the son, and the holy spirit (matthew 28:19, 3:13-17, 2 corinthians 13:14, ephesians 4:4-6, 1 peter 1:2 and revelation 1:4,5).the father is all the fullness of the godhead bodily, and is invisible to mortal sight.the son is all the fullness of the godhead manifested (colossians 2:9 cf.
john 1:1).
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Narkissos
To Eugene Shubert: IMO the OT (even in its Septuagint form) is not a sufficient basis to explain the development of the NT Christologies. At the very least a détour by Hellenistic judaism (especially Philo) is necessary, and the comparison with contemporary Graeco-Roman material (including the title "huios theou", "son of a god", given very often to the Roman emperors in the East of the Empire) would help too.
As an sample, let me just quote Philo in his treaty "On the Confusion of Tongues", 146: "And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to the first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees -- Israel."
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Bethel is Cannanite god
by peacefulpete inthe choice to name the headquarters "bethel" is a reflection of the shallow scholarship that plagues the religion as a whole.
while insisting the name choice is because of the story of jacob resting his head on a sacred stone and having visions of a "ladder" (ziggurat) and thereafter piling stones for el (cannanite chief deity) to reside in, hence the name "bet-el", it seemed they were unaware that the same word "bethel" is the name of a deity possibly equated with chemosh.
of all the names to call the wt headquarters they chose a pagan deity's name.
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Narkissos
It's 48:13.