Posts by Narkissos

38

Do the celestial positions on BM 33478 help to prove Artaxerxes I's 20th year was 455 BCE? (For 'scholar')

by AnnOMaly in

this is a spin off from this thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/182714/4/hubby-is-researching-607.

background.

for the past three years, carl jonsson has been critiquing rolf furuli's 'oslo' chronology in an interdisciplinary journal called chronology and catastrophism review.

Narkissos

I confess that I never succeeded in gathering any measure of interest for chronological debates, especially when the whole discussion starts from what I believe to be an exegetical mistake (in this case, connecting the start of the 70 weeks in Daniel 9 with the reconstruction of Jerusalem's walls under Artaxerxes' rule). But (to wobble's question) I found looking at Furuli's personal chronology (he's got a Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Furuli) quite instructive. For some reason (maybe because of his position as "lecturer" and the fact he apparently hadn't got a PhD until recently; I still don't know if he has) I pictured him as a relatively young scholar and I really wondered how he could corner himself at an early stage of his career with often desperate WT apologetics within (e.g. Hebrew verbal syntax) or outside (e.g. Persian chronology) of his own academic field. The dates in his bio- and bibliography, if correct, suggest that he is first of all a JW, whose "career" was mainly within the WT organization (travelling overseer in the 70s) before he engaged in scholarship (first publication in 1995 is his MA dissertation, at 53; he's 67 now); also that the defense of WT chronology was actually his first interest (1984, after Jonsson I suppose), prior to his academic training in a different field (Semitic languages).

Disclaimer: this is admittedly off the main topic of this thread, hence not an (ad hominem) argument at all. As a complete outsider to the field of Persian chronology I would rather watch the reception (or lack thereof) of Furuli's thesis by specialists of that field (I vaguely remember one such review has been posted before, and it was mostly negative). This is not a personal attack either. I don't know Furuli, and from what I read he comes across as a bright, sincere and comparatively reasonable JW. But still a (nearly) 100 % committed JW.

1

Kings of Genesis chpt 36

by ssn587 in

in richard friedman's book who wrote the bible, it mention in one area that issac ibn yashush pointed out that a list of edomite kings at genesis chpt 36 named kings who lived long after moses was dead.

does anyone know specifically just which of those kings he was talking about?

if so who were they..

Narkissos

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=205&letter=I

31

Rev. 14.4

by is there help out there in

jw
friends

i was cleaning out my wallet and i came across this that i showed to a young jw at work and she freeked out.. rev.

14.4 states, however states that the 144000 are not the total number of believers in jesus who will enter heaven.

the first of a much larger number to follow..

Narkissos

JD:

That's a very poor argument.

1. Figurative (e.g. moral) uses of "standing before God" or similar expressions should not be equated with their use in an apocalyptic "vision" where they have a literal, spatial meaning within the frame of the vision (as "stage" actions or descriptions), even though the vision may be entirely symbolic of something else. Within the vision (or, on the stage), they are literal. AnnOMaly's dream illustration points this out nicely.

2. There is a considerable semantic difference between the expression (actually a hebraism) used in 6:16, to hide from the face of somebody (apo [tou] prosôpou + genitive; cf. 12:14, the woman flies to the desert from the face of the serpent, 20:11, heaven and earth flee from the face of the one sitting on the throne), which implies (literally, "on the stage") increasing distance, movement away from somebody, and the static expression used in 7:9,11,15, where someone or something is or stands (or worships, bows down, etc.) before (enôpion) somebody (e.g. 1:4; 3:9; 4:5f,10; 5:8; 8:2ff; 9:13; 11:4,16; 12:4,10; 14:3; 15:4; 20:12). One means absence from while the other means presence.

16

Generation Change

by garlic81 in

jw
friends

i know there was an article on john barr's comments at the annual meeting this year.

i've posted the reference below.

i'm wondering if they are thinking of changing the belief back to that some annointed alive in 1914 will be alive when the tribulation starts?

Narkissos

TOH: never heard of that one. Reminds of the 1260 -> 1290 -> 1335 extensions at the end of Daniel... quite pathetic if you look at it that way.

I remember a fellow pioneer used to (half-)joke about his personal deadline being 1984 (1914 + 70 I suppose); he's still in afaik.

5

JW's Views on Salvation

by KiddTruSS in

i am interested in the jw's views on salvation and have some questions i would like to ask, and if you could copy and paste my questions into your reply with your responses under each question, it would be much appreciated.

what is salvation?.

why is salvation divided between the elect and the sheep?.

Narkissos

Hello there,

If you are another Evangelical-Christian-with-a-mission-to-JWs please know this is (mainly, mostly, overwhelmingly) an ex-JW forum. Other than that, you can learn a lot by reading the "belief" and "best-of" sections.

44

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

by Doug Mason in

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)?

Narkissos

The Bible, science and history was not designed to meet the demands of the 21st century human whereby we are used to daily newspapers dated accordingly for the scribes in the ancient world wrote for their day and times and not for us today.

scholar JW

You are so very right scholar.

16

Generation Change

by garlic81 in

jw
friends

i know there was an article on john barr's comments at the annual meeting this year.

i've posted the reference below.

i'm wondering if they are thinking of changing the belief back to that some annointed alive in 1914 will be alive when the tribulation starts?

Narkissos

If that's true it will feed the 2034 club. Like 1975 the date would be "confirmed" by two independent (though equally goofy) calculations: 120 years from Noah and (80 - 20) x 2 of "overlapping generations". I very much doubt that the WT would want to get officially involved again in such a mess but you never know. In any case there are probably JWs thinking along those lines at some level.

Or maybe mid 2030's is actually the internal deadline to the endtime faction within the WT (GB included) before this direction is abandoned altogether. This means wasting another generation (by the usual sense of the word), of kids who will grow up thinking they won't have to live and die in "this system of things".

Can it actually be stopped? That was tried, and failed, in the late 70s.

In the early 70s my father used to upset the 75 Witnesses by telling them: "the end cannot come in 1975 because it is supposed to come 'at the time you do not think'" (Matthew 24:44 //). By this standard end-time believers will never allow God to bring it on.

52

Another Trinity Thread

by AwSnap in

can you clarify something for me please?

the jw's teach that most (to them, that means all) religions teach the trinity as being that god almighty, jesus, and the holy spirit are literally one, meaning the exact same 'person', none higher than the other, inseparable, the exact same thing.

they mainly use catholics and baptists, in my experience.

Narkissos

Just dropping by, I notice there is a certain "modalist" ring to the Southern Baptist statement

There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections. God is all powerful and all knowing; and His perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures. To Him we owe the highest love, reverence, and obedience. The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.

Personality is attached to the One rather than to the Three; distinct personal attributes are attached to the way ("as") God reveals himself to us (although he is also called "the eternal triune God"). If this presentation reflects a common American view (which I suppose is due to the tension between the popular affirmation that "God is a person" and the theological formulation that "God is three persons," which calls for questioning the meaning of "person") this may explain, in part, the confusion in WT argumentation.

24

What is the scriptural basis for the claim that we pay for our own sins with our death?

by isaacaustin in

jw
friends

the wt makes the claim that jesus died for adam's sin, and thus covered adamic sin.

we carry our sins with us, and they are held in abeyance so to speak, until.

a) we die.

Narkissos

The WT application of this passage is certainly out of context, but the notion that Jesus' death pays for anybody's sins is equally irrelevant. Here Jesus' death is neither described as a sacrifice (whether of propitiation or expiation or atonement) nor as a ransom; it is not substitutive of any crime or punishment. It is described as the way out of the rule of sin. Inasmuch as Christians identify to Jesus' death through baptism (they make his death theirs)they escape the rule of sin and share in his new life -- that of resurrection. The argument in v. 7 "for whoever has died is freed (= "justified") from sin" has nothing to do with final divine judgement. It is a most general legal rule: the action against any offence is extinct when the guilty party dies. So inasmuch as baptism means the believer's death along with Christ's, s/he is legally over with the whole rule and logic of sin (and law).

17

Fact vs Faith vs Delusion

by jwfacts in

religious groups regularly refer to their belief system as truth.

religious truth is generally a mix of fact and faith.

for some groups, truth extends beyond faith and into the realm of delusion.

Narkissos

Facts and faith (or, more exactly perhaps: facts-based and faith-based types of "knowledge") are "safe" as long as they don't encroach on, or overlap each other. As long as (1) science doesn't try to provide moral or metaphysical meaning and (2) religious doctrine strictly limits itself to the "unfalsifiable" (gods, afterlife, and so on). But this safety border is also terribly frustrating. Each "side" dreams of playing on the other side: science desires meaning and faith desires truth, actually they live by this desire of transgression no matter how hard they may repress it. Science and religion would become dull and uninteresting if they finally gave up the ambition of a "worldview" (which is necessarily a mix of both sides). Nobody would commit to either without actually aiming at both and taking risks. Some know how far is too far. Others don't and end up in the swamps of pseudoscience and pseudoreligion.