.
many skeptics assert that the bible must be wrong, because they claim that the ark could not possibly have carried all the different types of animals.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/docs/cen_v19n2_animals_ark.asp
This may be off topic, but the last posts on this thread (I confess I have not read it entirely) remind me of one thing:
In the old Mesopotamian stories as reflected in Genesis 2--3, science (or knowledge) has to be stolen from the gods. Science is a revolt (against the sacral, ritual, or traditional order) from the very beginning. Even "scientific believers" or "believing scientists" cannot escape this.
I love Kierkegaard's word defining apologetics as "the Judas' kiss of stupidity".
hi there fellow students .... a quick question for you all.
do you know whether in the temple arrangement, the anointing oil used contained flower heads from the cannabis plant?
there appears to be evidence that suggests that the word kineboisin refers to the plant.
In Hebrew the word is qené-bosem, whence the transcription. The English words "cane" and "balsam" (or "balm") seem to be etymologically related (through Greek and Latin), and the literal meaning is "fragrant reed", which makes a lot of identifications possible. The Greek Septuagint uses kalamos (not kanna) euôdous which has the same meaning. Apparently it is the same as haqqane hattov ("good reed") in Jr 6:20. It's usually identified with an Indian and Arabic reed from the root of which an aromatic substance is extracted (different from Greek kannabis then). However botanic identifications are always very dubious.
Let's smoke on it.
there is a rather obscure statement in acts 2:34 that specifies that "david himself never ascended to heaven".
the obvious question that arises from this remark is -- who ever believed that david ascended to heaven?
to answer this, we need to look where else but to the pseudepigrapha.
Sorry I have been out one day.
About the relationship of GJohn with Gnosticism, the main flaw of Koester's analysis IMO is actually taking later clear-cut Gnostic Christian works as the Gnostic paradigm for reconstructing the content of GJohn's source and then evaluating how GJohn supposedly departs from such a source. The later Gnostic works such as the Nag Hammadi Apocalypses of James obviously react to the previous impact of some form of "Great Church" soteriology, which is hardly the case of any supposed source for GJohn. This (Koester?s) model, in turn, tends (still IMO) to obscure the very movement of GJohn?s logic, or initiatic pedagogy, which doesn?t bring in proto-orthodox Christian thinking (involving futuristic eschatology, for example) as the ultimate word to ?correct? any protognostic thought, but to the contrary uses it as a penultimate word, i.e. as the very starting point (common, popular or outward understanding) from which GJohn leads the reader into a ?higher? understanding.
Examples:
Common understanding, John 11:23f: Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
Specifically johannine understanding, John 11:25f: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.
Common understanding, John 14:3: In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
Specifically Johannine understanding, John 14:23: Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.?
This pattern doesn?t exclude even later additions meant as ?ultimate words? to give the whole Johannine system an ?orthodox? ring, such as John 5:28f (unnecessary to expose the Johannine understanding which was already given in v. 21-25), or the recurring phrase ?I will raise X up in the last day? in chapter 6. The characteristic of those is that they appear as unneeded additions, as the specific Johannine logic stands perfectly (and even better) without them. In my view, one has to distinguish between the two kinds of apparently ?orthodox? references.
On the Petrine issue, I tend to see it as a very late fabrication, building on ?Cephas? tradition and many others. The articles by Ernst Barnikol and Frank McGuire on http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/ are interesting on this subject. But we may come back to this in the next thread.
accurately reconstructing christian origins is a complicated if not impossible undertaking.
aside from the loss of documentation simply due to time, we have the deliberate revision of history by religiously motivated ancient church historians.
i am no conspiracy theorist, and so am not suggesting that the entire history as we know it is fiction.
PP: Thanks for the article.
"History is a nightmare I am trying to wake of" (James Joyce)
the new danish and swedish revisions of the nwt have "lifted up" the nwt-with references footnote alternative rendering of jeremiah 29:10 into being the preferred one, so that it no longer says "in babylon" but "for babylon".
has there been any change or revision in the english issue?
IMO the meaning CANNOT be "at" or "in" Babylon (the 1995 French NWT, however, has "à Babylone" = "in Babylon"). "For", "as regards", "in relation to" are possible.
Cf. RSV: For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.
This is, of course, to be compared to 25:11f: This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.
there is a rather obscure statement in acts 2:34 that specifies that "david himself never ascended to heaven".
the obvious question that arises from this remark is -- who ever believed that david ascended to heaven?
to answer this, we need to look where else but to the pseudepigrapha.
Thanks again Leolaia.
One related issue may be the differences between Lukan and Johannine christologies.
Lukan christology, although not quite consistent, seems to be mostly adoptianist, in line with mainstream early 2nd century Catholic Church. It implies no preexistence (even the virgin conception in Lk 1--2, although rather loosely connected to the rest of the work, appears as the very beginning of the "Son of God"'s existence). The concept of adoption at baptism, as suggested by all Synoptics, is even more evident with the Western variant quoting Psalm 2:7 in Luke 3:22. The discourses in Acts regularly associate the titles of Son, Christ and Lord to the resurrection (e.g. 2:36; 13:33). This goes hand in hand with a very "realistic" (i.e., antidocetic) concept of resurrection, and the subsequent ascension (which, again, is only Lukan). Whence, IMO, the insistance on bodily resurrection as contrasted with "corruption" of the corpse (with the help of the LXX).
GJohn, on the other hand, always implies preexistence, as the logos in the Prologue, or elsewhere as the Son of Man (1:51; 3:13ff etc.). But preexistence may not be the exact word, because the whole vision of time is different. You seem to retain the lectio difficilior "the Son of Man who is in heaven" in 3:13, in fact I find it very compatible with texts such as 8:56ff or 12:41 (implying Abraham and Isaiah, in their own time, had seen the true timeless Johannine "Jesus" -- "I to I" if I dare write). So in fact Jesus acts the eternal Revealer, and the sentence "no one has ascended into heaven" serves a function very similar to "no one has ever seen God" in 1:18 (cf. 5:37; 6:46; 14:8f). (Implied, I still see GJohn as protognostic, not antignostic, and its Jesus as the occasion, not cause, for salvation of those who already and always were "from God". But we've already discussed that earlier... )
being that we know the societys was wrong in many predictions and probably destroyed many lifes along the way do you think that th
Hi Moses,
Yes there was a god (lower case) amongst many (polytheistic context) named Yhwh. This still appears in a number of Bible texts, e.g. Jdg 11:24:
Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones to possess everything that Yhwh our god has conquered for our benefit?
Unexpectedly, Yhwh's followers eventually became monotheists (the turning point is Isaiah 40--55: the other gods are nothing). So Yhwh became God (with capital G) and his personal name became useless. So it was (1) explained theologically (Exodus 3:14ff, I am who I am), (2) considered too sacred to be pronounced (intertestamental period), (3) reserved to heterodox or magical use (as appears in many ancient documents) and finally (4) available for a cult label...
i read the french version of this watchtower edition and it was clearly suggested that the end might be in 2034... do you have any comment about it?
as i was trying to settle into my new life i constantly plagued myself with questions about where i had been and a bigger question, where i was going.
in the mid eighties there wasn't easy access to any exjw's to ask questions and help me through a very difficult transition in my life.
today the internet offers a lot of support through a large collection of exjw's from all over the world who offer many various options based on their own personal experience on where to go once you are out of the cult.
Dave,
Thank you for the whole story. I just can (or can't) imagine what it cost you. Incidentally, the first part of it was my first contact with JWD, since the link was given on a French board and I checked it. Stuck in here ever since.
Take care,
Narkissos
i spoke with another member of jane's judicial committee late this evening.
he has recently disassociated himself and i thought he might like to see the thread.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/64881/1001480/post.ashx#1001480
(((((Steve)))))
There's a French song by Jacques Brel, entitled "If you were God"; tells all the nice things you would do if you were, and ends this way:
"But you are not God,
You are much more than that:
You're a man."
Take care,
Narkissos
