Posts by a Christian

42

The appeal process is a joke!!!

by jakesnake82 in

it was pretty messed up.

i appealed and two of the three elders on my appeal commity were from our sister congregation.

when i turned in my appeal letter, the elder i turned it in to tried to talk me out of appealing.

a Christian

Jake, You asked: Is it possible that the organization could become so corupt that they would lose his favor also? This may be hard for you to believe now. But the organization never had God's favor. You asked: Or does he need them no matter what to fulfill prophecy about the good news being preached over the whole inhabited earth? Jehovah's Witnesses have never preached the Bible's good news. That good news, as preached by the apostles, was all about Jesus Christ. Read the book of Acts, and the rest of the New Testament. What was the good news that the apostles preached? Jesus died for us to buy all who put their faith in him God's forgiveness of all of our sins and eternal life. The apostles taught that for Christians there is only "one faith, one hope, and one baptism." (Eph. 4:4-6)Is this the good news preached by Jehovah's Witnesses? Do they preach a good news which is all about Jesus Christ? No, they do not. They preach a good news that is all about the Watchtower Society, presumptuously claiming to have been appointed by Christ over all his belongings shortly after he supposedly invisibly returned in 1914. Then creating, contrary to the teachings of the apostles, two hopes for Christians, one heavenly and one earthly, and two kinds of baptisms Christians, one which they say only a very few can receive, a baptism by the Holy Spirit, and one "in association with God's spirit-directed organization." Jehovah's Witnesses preach a "different good news" than the apostles preached. Because they do they cannot possibly be "fulfilling that prophecy" or any prophecy other than those where the Bible warned that false prophets and false teachers would arise mislead many. In Gal. 1:8,9 Paul said, "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a 'Good News' different than what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a 'Good News' different than what you received from us, he is to be accursed!"

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

HS, You wrote: I have just listed a few above, but if you wish me to continue I am certainly willing and able. ;) Your wink tells me that you feel that such a marathon discussion would be about as useful as I do. Several books have been written answering questions about "Bible Difficulties." I have a couple of them. Much is also published on the Web answering such questions. You can probably find answers from Bible believers to all the questions you just asked as well as most others commonly asked by Bible critics by doing a Google search. You told me earlier that you have some interest in the subject of Bible chronology and even own some books on the subject matter. I believe properly understanding the "390" and "40" year periods of time referenced in Ezekiel chapter 4 is essential if we are to properly understand the Bible's chronological record of the Hebrew monarchs. My understanding of Ezekiel 4 is a very important part of my study. As of yet I have not discussed it in detail with anyone. If you would be willing to read it, a couple of pages, and offer me your feedback I would appreciate it. It may be less time consuming for us to have such a discussion by private E-mail. But however you would prefer to do so would be fine with me. Thanks. Mike

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

Nark, You asked: If the Bible writer was using two different systems of reckoning in the same chapter in reference to Asa's reign then he either wanted to lose his readers or he had an awfully short memory. For he just got done telling us about a war which he said took place in Asa's "15th year." Why would he then only a few verses later say that "there was no war until Asa's 35th year"? You know, that's a good question. The best answer I can give you is that those comments employing a second system of reckoning, in close proximity to the one that was first used in the text, may have been added much later by the book's final author, who was actually more of an editor than an author. This writer may not have been aware of what system of reckoning the original historian, whose work he was incorporating into his own, had previously employed. Obviously the books of Kings and Chronicles are a compilation of historical records, most of which were much older than their final author. For the Jewish monarchy, from Saul to Zedekiah, existed for some 500 years. You wrote: the only "inerrancy" you can possibly establish will never be that of the text as it is, but that of a "paratext" (made up of the text plus your explanation). However you choose to look at it. But the fact remains that if it can be shown that the Bible's chronological history of the Jewish monarchs contains absolutely no inaccurate information, and that even the vast majority of apparently conflicting data found in "variant" sacred texts is actually complementary to the data contained in the Masoretic Text, many will gain a greater respect for the Bible.

47

THE INCREDIBLE HUCK !

by a Christian in

jw
friends

mike huckabee now leads his closest rival (mitt romney) in the newest iowa poll 39% to 17%.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/74215and in the latest national poll mike leads his closest rival (rudy giuliani) 22% to 18%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_polland among the people who know mike huckabee and hillary clinton both very well, the people of arkansas, huckabee now leads clinton 48% to 42%.

a Christian

exjdub,

You asked: What has Ron Paul said in any way, form, or fashion that "sounds like a grouchy old man"?

Everything he says sounds that way. I'm not talking about the content of what he says. For the most part I like the content. Unfortunately his presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

You wrote: the Rasmusson poll was discredited and shown to be a biased and unreliable

It was? According to who? Ron Paul fans? Rasmussen has Ron Paul at 6% nationwide. I know of no poll that puts him substantially higher.

You wrote: You are like most of the Fundamental Christians (not the reasonable Christians that I know) that will sell our country down the river to achieve your "moral values"

I'm hardly a Fundamentalist. I have argued on this board against a global flood and for the idea that God used evolution as his means of creation. And how is believing that the government should pass laws that instill in people a respect for human life "selling my country down the river"?

Concerning Huckabee you say: the guy is a Christian

You are right about that.

You say: who hates homesexuals

I'm not sure what a "homesexual" is. But if you mean to say that Huckabee hates homosexuals, that's a lie.

You say: and would quarantine people with AIDS

That also is a lie. And I think you know it is a lie. I think you know as well as I do that Huckabee said in 1992 that the government should consider such a thing, after he just saw a woman testify before congress that she had contracted aids from her dentist. Huckabee has said that since we now know much more about how the disease is transmitted that such action is not called for. I'm not sure I agree with him. There have been many cases reported where people actually knew they had the disease but continued to act in such a way that put others at great risk of contracting it.

You wrote: Sheesh, the guy is a moron!!

And you are a fool - for believing and regurgitating all the lies and other crap that the left has been throwing at a good and honest man.

You wrote: Huckabee would be a disaster for this country.

You would I suppose rather have Hillary? Or maybe Romney? Or McCain (my second choice who has any kind of shot)? Or Guiliani? Choose someone. Because, unfortunately, it sure is not going to be Ron Paul. If he was going to catch on with Republican voters he would have done so by now. A large part of his relatively small group of supporters are Democrats, independents, and Libertarians - who are not going to help him much in Republican primaries.

Mike Huckabee impresses me as anhonest man who as President will not be in the pocket of anyone, right-wing corporate/Wall Street Republicans or left-wing- big government/high taxing Democrats. That's why he is hated by the Republican establishment as much as he is by the Democrats. The truth is he offers both of them enough to like to gain enough votes from both sides to easily win the Presidency.

Like Ron Paul, who I might support if I thought he had any chance to win, Huckabee is for instituting the Fair Tax to replace the income tax. This one position of his is enough to get me excited about his candidacy. For one thing, I hate having to tell the government all of my personal business every year.

You wrote: All of the friends that I have that are Republicans are sick and tired of the manipulation by the Fundy Christians and say that they will not vote for a candidate who uses religious manipulation as a presidential platform.

Huckabee does no such thing. The only time he even mentions religion is when the press asks him a religious question. He gets a lot more of them than other candidates because he was a pastor many years ago. It is Romney's religion which has caused most of this ruckus. Everyone keeps asking Huckabee what he thinks about Mormonism. He has tried his best to say nothing. I know I couldn't. Mormonism like JWs is a mind control cult.

Oh, by the way, wishing people a "Merry Christmas" is not religious manipulation.

Merry Christmas

47

THE INCREDIBLE HUCK !

by a Christian in

jw
friends

mike huckabee now leads his closest rival (mitt romney) in the newest iowa poll 39% to 17%.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/74215and in the latest national poll mike leads his closest rival (rudy giuliani) 22% to 18%.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_polland among the people who know mike huckabee and hillary clinton both very well, the people of arkansas, huckabee now leads clinton 48% to 42%.

a Christian

New Poll Just Out Today Puts Mike First, Romney Third In Iowa!

http://americanresearchgroup.com/

Giuliani 13%
Huckabee 28%
Hunter - 1%
Keyes 1%
McCain 20%
Paul 4%
Romney 17%
Tancredo 1%
Thompson 5%
Undecided 11%

And Pat Buchanan says it is now a Mitt vs. Mike race for the Republican nomination.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/staticarticles/article59313.html

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

Nark,

I wrote: Another way was to count them from the time the kingdom itself was founded. I can cite other instances where this form of reckoning was clearly employed if you like. You responded: Please do. But keep in mind that inasmuch as they are clear (in the text, that is) they will actually disprove your point, Well I guess I will not disprove my point then. Because such references are not clear in the text alone but only clear to one who studies their entire chronological context. But with that in mind, let's again look at Asa's reign. 2 Chron. 14:8-15 tells us of a war between Asa and "Zerah the Cushite." Then 15:10,11 describes for us the victory celebration which took place immediately thereafter, in Asa's "15th year." But just a few verses later in verse 19 we are told that "there was no war in Asa'a reign until his 35th year." (Many translations try to eliminate this apparent contradiction by inserting the word "more" into the verse, making it read "no more war." But check a literal translation such as Young's or Darby's, or check the Hebrew, or even our old beloved NWT, and you will find that the verse actually tells us that "there was no war in Asa's reign until his 35th year.") Do you think it is simply a coincidence that the "15th" year of Asa's reign, in which we are told that a war first took place, is also the "35th" year since the division of the kingdom ? Rehoboam reigned 17 years. Then Abijah reigned 3 years. Then Asa became king. His 15th year was the 35th year since the division of the kingdom. If the Bible writer was not using two different systems of reckoning in the same chapter in reference to Asa's reign then he had an awfully short memory. For he just got done telling us about a war which he said took place in Asa's "15th year." Why would he then only a few verses later say that "there was no war until Asa's 35th year"? You wrote: don't forget that the chronological reference is to Asa's reign, i.e. to the Judean kingdom which claims to be David's dynasty and would never consider the so-called "schism" as its starting point ... So you say. But the Bible writer was not some politically correct royal court reporter. Bible writers considered the schism to be of monumental importance. That's the date when ten of the twelve tribes of Israel began refusing to honor God's law to worship him at Jerusalem's Temple. Besides, this way of understanding the scriptures is not something I just dreamed up. This is the way nearly all Bible scholars who have written on the subject of Bible chronology have long understood these passages of scripture. (See for instance Edwin R. Thiele's "The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, 1983, pg 84) The only alternative is to believe that the books of Kings and Chronicles are filled with scores of senseless contradictions. Of course, it often seems that's what many people prefer to believe.

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

And, I will add, that the most difficult part of all of this for those who have tried to make sense of the Bible's chronological record of the reigns of the Jewish monarchs is that the Bible never tells us what system or systems of reckoning its writers were employing or even what calendar they were using. We have been left to figure it all out. The ancients used several different systems of reckoning. The Egyptians used one system. The Babylonians another. The Romans still another. And while the kings in the northern kingdom of Israel were using one system for counting their kings' years of reign, the kings in the southern kingdom of Judah were almost certainly using another system.

You can criticize the Bible for containing such a hard to understand record if you wish. But I don't believe doing so would be fair. It was not the purpose of the writers of kings and Chronicles to provide us with a complete historical record of the Jewish monarchy. That job belonged to the writers of "the book of the annals of the kings of Israel" and the writers of "the book of the annals of the kings of Judah." (1 Kings 14:19,29) Two books which were most likely destroyed when the Jewish Temple and its library were burned to the ground in AD 70.

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

Nark,

No brackets are necessary if we simply understand that in the early years of the kingdom of Judah a kings reign was reckoned in more than one way.

One of the ways, of course, was to count the years of his reign from the time he actually became king. But another way was to count them from the time the kingdom itself was founded. I can cite other instances where this form of reckoning was clearly employed if you like.

And as any student of Bible chronology knows, one more way of reckoning was also often employed, where the years of a king's reign were counted from the time he became his father's co-regent, which was usually a position of very limited authority - a crown prince or "king in waiting" so to speak. None the less the Bible often clearly counts the years of a kings reign from the time he was actually only the official heir to the throne.

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

Belbab,

You wrote: The subject matter of one of the longest threads on this board was about the “ pivotal date ” of 607 BCE as the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.

The subject of when exactly Jerusalem was destroyed is one of great interest to JWs and ex-JWs. For if it was not in 607 BC as the Watchtower Society says then all of the Society's claims for itself fall apart. If Jerusalem was not destroyed in 607 then, according to the Society's Daniel chapter 4 "Seven Times" interpretation, Christ did not return in 1914. And if he did not then he could not have very shortly thereafter appointed the Society as his "Faithful Slave" - as they claim he did. But other than discussing the timing of this one event in Bible history JWs and ex-JWs have very little interest in the subject of Bible chronology.

However, my chronological reconstruction as a whole certainly does add some weight in proving that JWs are wrong about their 607 BC date. Because the only way all of the divided kingdom's chronological puzzle pieces fit together is when 587 BC is recognized as the date of Jerusalem's destruction. The Watchtower Society's chronological reconstruction of the divided kingdom is a joke. Its creators make absolutely no attempt to synchronize it with any of several well established dates when the historical records of Israel's and Judah's neighboring nations tell us that their kings came into contact with the kings of Israel and Judah.

You wrote: Carl Olaf Jonson, wrote the book Gentile Times Reconsidered . It started off as small research project and the information he found changed the lives of thousands as well as his own. I do not think of him as a crackpot.

Carl's work simply establishes the date of one historical event, Babylon's destruction of Jerusalem. I claimed to have fully harmonized all apparently conflicting biblical and extra-biblical chronological information (including nearly all of that which is found in many "variant" Bible manuscripts) pertaining to the reigns of the Hebrew kings. A very big claim that will sound unbelievable to some. That being the case, I won't make my claim again until I am ready to fully present my case.

86

Pre-Flood ages based upon different calendar?

by Inquisitor in

there is almost a whisper somewhere on the net that the reason ancient patriach's like noah, enoch, methuselah lived so long is because of a gross miscalculation.

their ages were based upon a calendar that was a lot shorter than ours, hence their years could be twice as long.

i've been looking up for reading material but could only come up with flared-nostril apologetics; fundies insisting on the literalism of the scriptures.. this reasoning about an alternate calendar is conceivably the work of christians who read the bible metaphorically/symbolically, not goat-sacrificing atheists.

a Christian

HS,

You wrote: I could ask many questions: When did Baasha die? ...

Coincidentally much of the answer to this question is actually contained in my last post. I indirectly discussed this concern in explaining how I date the division of the kingdom five years earlier than does Thiele. But since it was an indirect discussion of your concern I'll now try to answer your question more directly.

The Bible tells us that Baasha died in the 26th year of king Asa of Judah (1 Kings 16:6-8). But it seems to also say that Baasha was still alive in Asa's 36th year (2 Chronicles 16:1). So, when did he die? Baasha died in the 26th year of king Asa's reign (890 BC, according to my calculations), just as the writer of 1 Kings tells us he did.

Why then does the Bible tell us that Baasha fought against Judah in the 36th year of Asa? I don't believe it does.

As I wrote earlier, when 2 Chron. 16:1 appears to say that Baasha fought against Judah in Asa's "36th year" I do not believe it is referring to "The 36th year OF Asa's reign." I believe, as did Thiele (check page 84 in TMNOTHK if you have the 1983 edition), that it is referring to "The 36th year [since the division of the kingdom] IN Asa's reign."

Solomon died. The kingdom was divided. Then Rehoboam reigned 17 years. Then Abijah reigned 3 years. Then Asa became king. Then, after Asa reigned 16 years, in what would have been "the 36th year [since the division of the kingdom] IN Asa's reign" Baasha fought against Judah. Then, 10 years later, "in the 26th year OF king Asa's reign" Baasha died, just as the Bible tells us he did.

So far as the rest of your list of questions, I noticed you added "etc. etc." at the end of them, implying your list of such questions is nearly endless. Since my time is not, I'll simply say that I have never run across such a question that I have not been able to find a reasonable answer to, such as the one I just provided to your "Baasha" question.

Thanks for your interest in my writing project. I'll let you know when it is ready for publication.