I don't know the books, but I've read several articles by Bart D. Ehrman and they were always interesting.
You can have a foretaste on a recent thread:
most of my "knowledge" of the history and sources of the bible was acquired from watchtower publications.
although i left the jw org.
some twenty years ago, i never felt compelled to consider the subject much further.
I don't know the books, but I've read several articles by Bart D. Ehrman and they were always interesting.
You can have a foretaste on a recent thread:
i typed these myself, so pardon any errors.
many of these have multi level meanings, or were used in different branches of chinese philosophy and culture.. 30. those who assist leaders with the way.
do not coerce the world with weapons,.
Thanks Darkuncle,
Tao te king was one of my happiest findings when I was out of the WT...
who is the faithful and wise servant?
it's a question that the wt has misused to establish its own authority.
as it is, the parable today as a cautionary tale applies to whoever it fits, but it is clear who the original servant was that inspired the parable.. .
An interesting thread as always, and very little (for me) to add!
As to the epi + dative (pasin tois huparkhousin autou, "over all his belongings") structure, it's common to Matthew and Luke but has no parallel in similar expressions of authority bestowal (very indicative of Q). The closest formal parallels I've seen are in Luke 9:1; 10:19 (accusative, didômi... exousian epi panta ta daimonia / pasan tèn dunamin tou ekhthrou) or Acts 8:27 (genitive, hos èn epi pasès tès gazès autès).
The word oikonomos (steward), on the other hand, is definitely Lukan (also 16:1,3,8) and points to the authority system of the Pauline and post-Pauline churches (1 Corinthians 4:1f; Galatians 4:2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 4:10). Maybe here we already have an example of Western use of an Eastern tradition...
Fwiw this also reminded me the contrast between Moses and Jesus in Hebrews 3 commenting Numbers 12:7:
Therefore, brothers and sisters, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful (pistos) to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also "was faithful in all God's house." Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. (For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.) Now Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant (therapôn) to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God's house (epi ton oikon autou) as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the confidence and the pride that belong to hope.
what you were never told by your church and your pastor
pastor craig lyons, m.div.
the readers of this article will be shown comparisons of scriptural passages taken both from the hebrew bible and various christian bible translations.
First, I'd like to say that I don't believe Jesus or Christianity to be the "fulfillment" of any scripture, or a fortiory "prophecy". This is just meaningless to me.
However, I find the excerpt above seriously one-sided (too bad we can't see what follows and have specific examples).
In order to assess the NT use of Jewish texts, a number of elements have to be taken into account.
The "Jewish" Bible and interpretation are the result of post-70 rabbinical standardization, in which the Pharisaic views became the only authorized Jewish views. We know that pre-70 Judaism was quite pluralistic and did comprise a number of very different views of Scripture (including many extra-canonical writings) and interpretation. For instance, Philonian allegory or Qumran typology were originally part of Judaism and later rejected.
The N.T. is mostly based on the Septuagint Greek translation, which began in the 3rd century BC in a Jewish diaspora context. This Greek translation, not the Hebrew texts, became the "Bible" of most early Christians. So Jews, not Christians, were originally responsible for most of the Greek translations of Hebrew texts included in the N.T.
If you read the allegorical interpretations of Philo, the pesharim of Qumran (e.g. the Habakkuk Pesher) or the midrashim of pharisaic tradition which were later included in the Talmud -- all of them being Jewish -- you'll realize that the standards of interpretation in the 1st century are very far from the standards of modern exegesis. What we would readily call wild, biased, or sectarian use of Scripture was just the norm of interpretation. In this perspective the NT use of Scripture does not appear to be different.
some time ago i started a (short) thread entitled ?how important is the devil to god?
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/63454/1.ashx
i?d like to address the same question from a slightly different angle.
Some time ago I started a (short) thread entitled ?How important is the devil to God??
( http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/63454/1.ashx ).
I?d like to address the same question from a slightly different angle.
When Yhwh, the god of ancient Judah, became ?God?, he was first thought (over against dualistic Persian influence) as the Cause of reality in an absolute sense, including ?good? and ?bad? -- even ?evil? in the moral sense. This is reflected in Isaiah 45:7: ?I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I Yhwh do all these things.?
Shortly afterwards, however, a more or less independent character emerged, building on the traditional ?satan? who was playing a role in the divine realm (Job 1:6ff; Zechariah 3:1ff). This character came to be seen (especially in the so-called intertestamental literature) as the absolute enemy of ?God? and the autonomous cause of ?evil?. Nowhere probably the opposition of ?God? and ?the Devil? is described in such radical dualistic terms as in GJohn ? e.g. 8:44: ?He (the Devil) was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is both the liar and his father.?
This development could be described as a divine auto-exorcism: ?God? expelling ?evil? from himself into a distinct character. Consequently ?God? had to be only good. A number of ?devilish? acts earlier ascribed to Yhwh (for instance, mixing up languages in Babel, sending a ?bad spirit? to Saul or a ?lying spirit? to Ahab?s prophets) were not seen as worthy of Him any longer (e.g., God cannot lie anymore). An example of that is possibly found already in 1 Chronicles 21: what was Yhwh?s action in 2 Samuel 24 (enticing David to make the census) becomes Satan?s.
The result of this might appear as ?the only-good God? (and His worship) being increasingly disconnected from reality, and especially appealing to people when they are tempted to escape reality. This, in turn, makes him quite vulnerable too. For instance, can such a ?good God? appear as the cause of the natural life cycle, including predators?
So I wonder: isn?t ?God? missing ?the devil?? Wasn?t it kind of suicidal of him to forsake ?evil? and to cast it out of the realm of divinity?
i hope this hasn't been hashed recently, but i was noticing something about mark 6:45-52. there the story has jesus walking upon the sea and the apostles thinking they are seeing a ghost/spirit.
the sea abates and it concludes by saying that they had not discerned the "meaning of the loaves".
the story about the loaves and feeding 5000 must preceed this story for this latter reference to loaves now.
PP: IMO the resurrection / apparition stories were basically symbolic stories designed to express the divine identity of Jesus, including his mastery over death. In that sense they are no different in intent from other revelatory scenes which just happen to be located before Jesus' death, such as the voice/vision at baptism, the calming of / walking on the sea, or the Transfiguration. Only from the later antidocetic views which made the resurrection a "real event" (tm) did they appear to be different. Then the living Jesus' revelations came to be interpreted as pointing to the resurrection.
IOW: is a pre-Easter miracle such as the walking on water a signifier (signifiant) pointing to the resurrection as signified (signifié), or are they both equivalent and interchangeable signifiers pointing to something else -- namely, "who is this one"?
my heart is palpitating even as i write this.
it was only recently that i was introduced to this site.
i had long had doubts but could never bring myself to peer over the wall built in my head about the evils of apostates.
Welcome Surfacing, and thanks for sharing this.
Emotions come and go, but there is more to you than your emotions. Trust it.
Take care,
Narkissos
i always remember in the bible that god's preferred choice of transportation was a chariot.
why would god have a chariot though, instead of a nice new porsche 911 or a ferarri or something like that?
he'd sure be noticed more =d
Hey folks, never heard he entered Jerusalem in Triumph?
i hope this hasn't been hashed recently, but i was noticing something about mark 6:45-52. there the story has jesus walking upon the sea and the apostles thinking they are seeing a ghost/spirit.
the sea abates and it concludes by saying that they had not discerned the "meaning of the loaves".
the story about the loaves and feeding 5000 must preceed this story for this latter reference to loaves now.
From a Biblical standpoint, the walking on the sea appears as a creation motif echoing the cosmogonical victory of the creator god on the Sea (cf. Marduk / Tiamat, Baal / Yam), which is a prerequisite for life and its food-cycle. This creation motif is reinterpreted in some OT texts as an Exodus motif (the crossing of the Sea or the Jordan); of course the Exodus tradition also implies food (manna or bread from heaven):
Job 9:8ff (Creation): who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the Sea; who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;
who does great things beyond understanding, and marvelous things without number.
Look, he passes by me, and I do not see him; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.
Psalm 77:20 (Exodus): Your way was through the sea, your path, through the mighty waters; yet your footprints were unseen.
Sirach 24:5f (Creation): Alone I (Wisdom) compassed the vault of heaven and traversed the depths of the abyss. Over waves of the sea, over all the earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway.
This is all the more obvious when related to the calming of the storm in Mark 4:35ff, resulting in the question:
Mark 4:41: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?"
Which points to a wider background:
Psalm 65:8ff: You silence the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples. Those who live at earth's farthest bounds are awed by your signs; you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy. You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.
Psalm 89:10f: You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
Or, as creatio continua, from an ex-voto of sailers:
Psalm 107:23 Some went down to the sea in ships, doing business on the mighty waters; they saw the deeds of the LORD, his wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind, which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths; their courage melted away in their calamity; they reeled and staggered like drunkards, and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they had quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven.
The sea/abyss (tehom = Tiamat), uncreated in Genesis 1, is of course connected with death. The Jonah tale is a good example.
Needless to say, this is pure docetism: no walking on the sea in Luke...
Reminds me of Antonio Machado's verse: "I can't nor want to sing / to this Jesus of the cross / but to him who walked on the sea."
ex- jehovahs witnesses often reject christianity based on what they were taught by the wts.
when i left jws it was difficult for me to see what christianity was all about - the non-jw version.
every time i picked up a bible, i could see the watchtower interpretation jumping out at me.
As a sobering thought, the kind of Western "progress" Metatron was writing about (Christianity being just one factor among many, as FirstInLine pointed out) also results in the worst threats ever on mankind and life (especially because of its tendency to globalization). I understand there is no way back, but I do hope we find other ways forward.
JamesThomas: when I read you I always find myself agreeing with you -- apophatically, for I also realize that along this line I have nothing to say. Reminds me of the Buddha's Rose Sermon...