Posts by JoshJeffries

23

The New World Translation

by Coded Logic in

one of the jws foundational doctrines is their belief in the inerrancy of the bible.

there are several methods they use to try and support this position including their claim that the bible, as it exists today, is the exact same bible that has been around for thousands of years.

they teach that gods word has been perfectly preserved.

JoshJeffries

One last word: I probably have no real idea what I'm talking about, so take what I've written with a grain of kosher salt.

This has caused me to write far more about religon than I ever wanted to when I signed up. Who knew?
Something has been triggered in me that got me pontificating, and I have a problem with shutting up. See, I just keep going and going...
Jewish answers aren't answers. We just respond to questions with questions, don't you think?
If you need further information on this I have none as my rabbi is recently and currently deceased.
I already need a break from this site because of me. It's just like me to ruin this for me too.
i hope my responses have disturbed no one, but a little part of me does. Is this bad?

23

The New World Translation

by Coded Logic in

one of the jws foundational doctrines is their belief in the inerrancy of the bible.

there are several methods they use to try and support this position including their claim that the bible, as it exists today, is the exact same bible that has been around for thousands of years.

they teach that gods word has been perfectly preserved.

My reference to "removed" had to do with the concept some have about the use of books in various Christian canons. Some believe the book was rejected or removed from a Jewish canon which, as you stated, did not actually exist.

23

The New World Translation

by Coded Logic in

one of the jws foundational doctrines is their belief in the inerrancy of the bible.

there are several methods they use to try and support this position including their claim that the bible, as it exists today, is the exact same bible that has been around for thousands of years.

they teach that gods word has been perfectly preserved.

JoshJeffries

Coded Logic,

I used the world "commentary" as a traslation of the word "midrash." In Judaism the Book of Enoch is a midrash or interpretation/commentary on the brief reference to Enoch in the Torah, as well as on the 33rd chapter of Deuteronomy. It is set in the narrative device of a parable, and like the parables of Jesus the stories therein are discussing cherished religious teachings by way of illustrations.

I recall the ideas the Watchtower had regarding the Bible canon, but I'm Jewish. (I was born into a Sepharic Jewish family, my parents passed, I was left in the hands of an aunt who was a JW who got me into the religion when I showed fear of a possible WWIII as a teenager, but my Jewish culture never washed off entirely.) Our concept of Sacred Scripture isn't really one which involves the idea of a Biblical canon as you are speaking of, as the JWs know it, or even as used by Catholics and Protestants. The idea of canonization is a concept introduced by the Marcion heresy that I mentioned in my first post on this thread (please read that so I don't have to repeat it unnessarily).

While Jews will use the term "canon" in English these days, the books which make up the Tanakh as well as Midrash like Enoch are not included or rejected into "canons" on the basis of such Christian concepts like inspiration as they see it. But it is hard to translate to many Christians what our collections are, how they developed, and why some books are a part of certain collections while others are not. I've read entries on Wikipedia and in Christian academic publications which are totally incorrect on the subject of a Jewish "canon" because many Christians just won't wrap their heads around any other possible concept. If you really want to understand Scripture and the way it is accepted by Jews, you must abandon the concept of Christian canonicity. There was even a time when a hypothetical model of a Jewish canon was taught by Christian scholars, claiming we closed our canon in the first century. Of course this has been rejected by evidence among modern scholarship as it never happened.

A Biblical canon requires Church authority to define it and place it's stamp of approval on it. There is no such thing in Judaism. No one knows how or when the collection of books were fixed. While some Jewish sects used some books as authoritative, none have ever claimed that Judaism is based on any form of writ outside the Ten Commandments. Some sects and/or rabbis did not care much for certain books. But Enoch is neither rejected or accepted in any official form among Jews. Our collections are mostly divided by language and era.

There is even a movement among Jews to reclaim the New Testament as a Jewish work. Despite the polemic which is often found therein, Jewish scholars are re-examining these texts as a product of Christians who were mainly Jews. Currently a version of the NRSV New Testament has been released along these lines known as "The Jewish Anotated New Testament." The reason this is possible is that the concept of "canon" is not one that has a shared understanding between Jews and Christians.

As such the Book of Enoch is not viewed as unreliable the way Christians do if books don't meet their criteria. The Book of Enoch is as useful as you make it, at least as far as Jews are concerned.

To quote Yoda: "You must un-learn!"

23

The New World Translation

by Coded Logic in

one of the jws foundational doctrines is their belief in the inerrancy of the bible.

there are several methods they use to try and support this position including their claim that the bible, as it exists today, is the exact same bible that has been around for thousands of years.

they teach that gods word has been perfectly preserved.

JoshJeffries

Speaking from the viewpoint of a Jew, I can attest to the fact that Watchtower ideas about the Bible canon show intellectual immaturity and limited, two-dimensional reasoning.

The idea of "canonization" is a Christian one, not something that comes from us Jews. The Roman Catholic Church had to develop a "rule" for what books were approved for Christians after a bishop, Marcion of Sinope, claimed that the Gnostics were correct about some of their ideas. Claiming that holy writings held secret knowledge that only a select group could understand, Marcion endorsed the Gnostic technique of creating lists of "proof texts" upon which to support his doctrine.

Rejecting all of the Hebrew texts, Marcion claimed that only an edited version of Luke's gospel and some of Paul's epistles were to be used as the "rule" or "canon" upon which to base all that was "true." The Christian church expelled Marcion as a result, but the genie was out of the bottle. They would spend the next 300 years investigating and answering the challenges raised by Marcion, eventually creating an "authorized canon" by the 4th century which included not just the 27 books of the New Testament but the particular list of books unique to the Alexandrine Septuagint (which is where the "additional" books come from), thus making a list slightly longer than what is found in the Tanakh.

This process never actually occurred in Judaism as the Marcion question was limited to what had become mostly a Gentile religion. By the 2nd century Jews had divided their religious texts by language and era, but this was never canonization in the Christian definition of the word.

Limiting their reasoning to the Christian definitions of "inspiration" and "canon," too many Christians are still making the mistake of claiming that we Jews have somehow rejected such books as Maccabees or the Wisdom of Solomon, etc. as found in some of the Orthodox and Catholic canons. Unlike many Christians who believe that religion is based on Scripture, Judaism is very different. Scripture is a product of Jewish worship, not its basis.

While some so-called "Catholic books" are not included in the Tanakh, Christians keep making the mistake that this means they have been rejected. This is just the result of ignorance. The Tanakh or Old Testament is limited to those books believed to be originally penned in Hebrew and during the era of the First Temple. The Alexandrine books were originally composed in Greek (with a few sections in Aramaic or Hebrew) and are of the era of the Second Temple, thus disqualifying for inclusion in the Tanakh on the basis of language and era of composition.

And Jews do not hold to the idea behind "inspiration" that Christians do regarding the Scriptures. The religion of the Jews itself is inspired, therefore its religious texts being a product of Judaism are sacred. So those books which get divided into categories such as apocrypha or Mishnah or writings which make up the Talmud are not excluded from the Tanakh due to "lack of inspiration." In fact many Jews commonly read the Maccabean texts every year during Chanukkah and have been doing so throughout history, so arguments made by many Christians with claims of trying to "be like the Jews" in accepting or rejecting certain texts are just nonsense.

The book of Enoch is not part of any official library of Jewish books because it is what we call "midrash." It is traditional analysis or commentary on parts of Torah, and since it is a commentary about books in the Tanakh it iwould not itself be part of that which it interprets. It was not "removed" from anything. Christians don't make commentaries part of their canons either.

69

What Happened to the Religion I Left in 1995?

by JoshJeffries in

jw
friends

josh here, new to the board.

glad to know this site is here.. i would not be writing this if it were not 2014. i was a ministerial servant and regular pioneer who left the jehovahs witnesses back in 1995/96, around that time.

i left suddenly, didnt fade away, just left when something clicked one day in my head during the morning shower and made me realize this religion wasnt true.

JoshJeffries

Giordano and keyser soze, great posts and GET OUT OF MY HEAD! ... LOL! These were factors I remembering considering in the end, but had forgotten until now. Freaky to hear what were once my thoughts that I wondered if anyone else considered and now see them here in print from others. Very healing, and I didn't realize there was still stuff to heal! Thanks, guys! And keyser, yep. I practically thought your comments word for word the very day I left: A religion that changes so much, so often has no lasting truths to offer and therefore can't be true--those were my words to myself. Wow, what an illuminating experience and feeling of solidarity this thread and all of your combined comments have given me...and that's NO JOKE!

69

What Happened to the Religion I Left in 1995?

by JoshJeffries in

jw
friends

josh here, new to the board.

glad to know this site is here.. i would not be writing this if it were not 2014. i was a ministerial servant and regular pioneer who left the jehovahs witnesses back in 1995/96, around that time.

i left suddenly, didnt fade away, just left when something clicked one day in my head during the morning shower and made me realize this religion wasnt true.

JoshJeffries

Of course not, Dis-member. It has always been false.

What I am saying is that if someone like an elder came to my door today and asked me if I ever considered coming back I could honestly tell him that I couldn't on the basis that the religion I once belonged to doesn't exist.

I left back then because it was wrong then, but even that which I left is no longer there. If I went back I couldn't be what I once was when I was among the Watchtower ranks. If I did that I would be disfellowshipped for holding apostate ideas. A large number of the teachings we had including claiming we were prophets and that Armageddon HAD to come before those who witnessed WWI passed away and that no one who was baptized after 1935 could truly be of the anointed were once considered PROOFS that we were in the "one true religion" and the last days.

To me, that is what being a Jehovah's Witnesses was. If you didn't believe these things and a quite a few other points that have been discarded, you might as well be a Satanic worshiper, because you were not peddling "the Truth."

I woke up one day to realize it had never been true, but I also woke up just recently realizing that even that false religion with those unique and odd teachings was now gone. If I wanted to go back to it and be what I once was, I would have to start a new religion because this new JW.org business is not the religion that I left. It would never accept me worshipping among them with the old ways. They don't cherish the past. They have to always have some thing new to tickle their ears.

I am also not saying it is in greater error than before. It's still in error, just different errors.

I was born a Jew and went back to being a Jew after the whole Watchtower experience. Nothing had changed in the time I had been gone. Kosher is still kosher and mitzvah is still mitzvah, despite the Internet and today's technology. Catholicism is virtually he same, the Orthodox are still who they've always been, etc.

But the Jehovah's Witness religion that I belonged to in the 1980s and early 1990s is gone. It died off with the 1914 generation, and it is never coming back.

69

What Happened to the Religion I Left in 1995?

by JoshJeffries in

jw
friends

josh here, new to the board.

glad to know this site is here.. i would not be writing this if it were not 2014. i was a ministerial servant and regular pioneer who left the jehovahs witnesses back in 1995/96, around that time.

i left suddenly, didnt fade away, just left when something clicked one day in my head during the morning shower and made me realize this religion wasnt true.

JoshJeffries

Thanks, John_Mann, for that interesting link. I had not realized how that change affected others.

I heard little complaint about it myself as it happened, and after I left I knew nothing about how others were dealing with it. So it was quite interesting to realize how many shared a similar conclusion about it.

I was 17 when I came in. I had actually been frightened by a movie on HBO called "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" about Nostradamus. It foretold silly things that did not come to pass, but as a youth of about 15 and 16, the images stuck with me. I was sure there was going to be a nuclear attack on the US before the year 2000 as the movie predicted. So when I heard about the Witnesses I believed I found the right group to join. Since they were predicting similar things to happen along the same time frame, it was "clear" that they were speaking for God like Nostradamus was--

Dude, was I stupid back then or what?

By 21 I knew I had made a big mistake and that the Nostradamus thing was just a stupid movie. By 24 I saw how cruel the elders were toward so many in their care. By 27 I was out of there.

It was a bit of a reality check, but it wasn't filled with subconscious nudgings for me. I was very alert to what was happening, and I blamed myself for getting involved in such a group. Though I have read reports from others who claim to have been brainwashed, I wasn't. I wanted to believe in the fairy tale. I wanted to believe in a religion that pat me on the back for being clever enough to discover it. I liked the way the Governing Body taught me it was okay to feel superior for knowing "The Truth" and that it was God's will that I be judgmental and compartmentalize the people of the world under one of two sections: God's and Satan's. It felt very good to be in the only "right" religion.

But the religion never lived up to its own hype. And history never unfolded according to the pattern of events they laid out. So when that little phrase about "God's promise" disappeared from the Awake!, I knew there was something afoot.

You claim God was promising one thing one day and then next you stop saying that, well that made you a liar. I couldn't go out with the message anymore because to do so made me a liar.

One Final Thing I've Noticed Since I've Left...

We used to claim that we were God's composite prophet on the earth. The Faithful and Discreet Slave Class was the actual prophet, but by extension the Great Crowd made up this prophet-like voice too. "They will know that a prophet had been among them," from Ezekiel 33:33 was frequently quoted in published materials and heard from the podium. There was even the Ezekiel book that went into detail that God's prophet today was Jehovah's Witnesses since 1919. "We are that prophet" was the official teaching from the Governing Body of my day.

The fact that so many JWs and the Organization/Society (I'm not sure what the call themselves today) are now claiming that they never said they were prophets is a major change and a big, fat lie. (Another lie? Yep, once you start it's hard to stop!)

We always claimed to be prophets. "Then they will know you only are Jehovah," we used to sing in a Kingdom song. It was about when destruction would come upon the world just on time as God declared through us. "Then they will know that we were right and they were wrong," we used to say about our work back then.

But today: "Oh no. We NEVER claimed to be prophets." Yeah right. My poop never claimed to stink, but guess what?

We claimed that we were prophets. We claimed that the dates set by the FDS were God's promise and we were God's composite prophet, and the world would know we were right when God brought Armageddon before the generation of 1914 passes away. Like the Awake! magazine said, it was God's promise that it would happen by then, not ours.

To read and hear so many claims today from current JWs that such never happened is also very funny. It's like a junkie who claims they are not an addict. They really believe what they are saying to you as they shoot up. When did that new light come to pass? When did they disown all those comments? When did they stop reading Ezekiel 33:33?

21

Are Jehovah's Witnesses the only religion to teach a paradise earth?

by rory-ks in

i have tried researching, but this pesky organisation always packs out the list.

you seem to have to drill down several layers before reaching christadelphians.. is it a recognised idea among other peoples/religions?.

JoshJeffries

I was very shocked to learn that the Roman Catholic Church has taught the whole paradise earth concept for 2000 years.

I happen to have the resources at hand because I had always been taught while I was a JW that the paradise teaching is unique to their religion and that it is a sign of the one true faith that only the JWs have.

You Catholic folk will have to excuse me if I get any of the terminology wrong, but here goes...

Under the papacy of John Paul II the Catholic Church released a compendium of its doctrines entitled the Catechism of the Catholic Church. To be used as the basis for more practical catechisms and teaching material, this compendium covers all that religion believes and teaches. Divided in section by number, the CCC (as it is often called) discusses the ushering in of a new earth after the close of our current history in sections 1042 through 1050.

Entitled "The Hope of the New Heaven and the New Earth," the section explains that Heaven to Catholics is less of a last-forever spiritual hangout with God and more of an experience of being with God until history culminates. After something they call "the universal judgment," the righteous will receive new immortal physical bodies and live in this new world to come.

This is not all. The Second Vatican Council released a pastoral study entitled "Gaudium et spes." I don't know what that means because I don't speak Latin. However, an English translation of its contents states in part: "We are assured that God is preparing a new dwelling place and a new earth. In this new earth righteousness is to make it's home, and happiness will satisfy....On that day, when death is conquered, the sons of God will be raised up in Christ...the whole creation, made by God for man, will be set free from the frustration that enslaves it."

Being Jewish I asked a Catholic about this. He stated that they recite a creed every Sunday that states they believe in the resurrection of the physical bodies of the dead and life in a new world to come.

I made sure to keep this information handy because I became a JW via the old Live Forever book, being told that no one but the Jehovah's Witnesses teach or believe or even know about the earthly hope. I was so angered by learning they just stole this from the Catholics that I want to show them all this info the next time one of them dares to come to my door.

Since no JW has come to my door in over almost 20+ years, the above information has just sat here on my shelf until just now. I hope you find it helpful.

I also hope any JW who reads this learns that your archenemy, the Catholic Church, was hip to this "unique" information 2000 years before you started claiming it as your own, so there!

69

What Happened to the Religion I Left in 1995?

by JoshJeffries in

jw
friends

josh here, new to the board.

glad to know this site is here.. i would not be writing this if it were not 2014. i was a ministerial servant and regular pioneer who left the jehovahs witnesses back in 1995/96, around that time.

i left suddenly, didnt fade away, just left when something clicked one day in my head during the morning shower and made me realize this religion wasnt true.

JoshJeffries

John_Mann, I was in for about the same time, but starting from 1985. I would love to hear your story some time.

Ablebodiedman, no offense was meant. I knew you weren't kidding. And I really appreciate the fact that people who have left the JWorgs exercise the freedom to follow their own conscience. But I'm no more interested in listening to a sermon from an exJW who, in all honesty feels motivated to publish their particular convictions, than most Gentile adult males are lining up for me to perform Brit milah upon them with my unsteady hands.

I know people share their newfound views here, and that's healthy. But unless asked for my personal views or unless they come into conversation as they have a little here, I don't think people want to hear me pontificate their way. I may make a little bit of sport, but I do so to remind people that I didn't jump out of the frying pan so I could drop into the fire, so to speak.

I merely returned to my previous way of life after leaving the JWs, so perhaps this slack in revererence on my part is due to not having that novelty of having something "new" to share with others...and I try not to take myself so seriously anymore like I did as a Watchtoweree. Therefore when I speak, all is done tongue-in-cheek.

But I make a lot of fun of myself these days, and the fact that JWorgs are spending the 100th anniversary of not being able to see Jesus return (and a century of perfect failure at setting dates for "The End") by dancing to "worldly" music in Kindom Halls--right now all this is too funny for me to take a lot of things seriously. So again, no offense and thank you.

69

What Happened to the Religion I Left in 1995?

by JoshJeffries in

jw
friends

josh here, new to the board.

glad to know this site is here.. i would not be writing this if it were not 2014. i was a ministerial servant and regular pioneer who left the jehovahs witnesses back in 1995/96, around that time.

i left suddenly, didnt fade away, just left when something clicked one day in my head during the morning shower and made me realize this religion wasnt true.

JoshJeffries

Thanks, Ablebodiedman, but...

I was only joking.
Dude, that video is like an hour long.
While I'm all for believing in Jesus, I'm Hebrew. So as a Jew I think it is rather "awesome" that so many Goys want to obey someone who is technically a blood relative of mine as their king. But if you're gonna get all technical about it and go on for more than seven minutes without either an exciting road chase, a dramatic turn of events starring an Academy Award winner, or a really cool Bollywood musical sequence somewhere in the mix, sorry. I can't guarantee any interest or even feigned attention on my part in such unfavorable circumstances.

Now if there was a buffet included, I could give you an additional 30 minutes, but that Bollywood sequence better have some car explosions somewhere in it, that's all I'm saying.