If you can't see the cover pic (I can't) click here:
http://www.faveromane.org/disco_mix.html
Scroll down and click on the 11th thumbnail ("Born to be Abramo") to view it bigger.
Behemot
behemot
JoinedPosts by behemot
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2
Parody of "Awake" cover
by behemot indon't know if it's been covered before, anyway, this is the story:.
in 1990 a cult band in the italian underground music scene, named "elio e le storie tese" issued a record called "born to be abramo" whose cover was a parody of the awake cover (italian edition).. .
the record was withdrawn from the market just after a few days, due to the official protests of the jw italian branch, irritated by the misuse of their magazine's logo and layout (although the logo had been slightly modified in the cover, from svegliatevi!
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Parody of "Awake" cover
by behemot indon't know if it's been covered before, anyway, this is the story:.
in 1990 a cult band in the italian underground music scene, named "elio e le storie tese" issued a record called "born to be abramo" whose cover was a parody of the awake cover (italian edition).. .
the record was withdrawn from the market just after a few days, due to the official protests of the jw italian branch, irritated by the misuse of their magazine's logo and layout (although the logo had been slightly modified in the cover, from svegliatevi!
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behemot
Don't know if it's been covered before, anyway, this is the story:
In 1990 a cult band in the Italian underground music scene, named "Elio e le Storie Tese" issued a record called "Born to be Abramo" whose cover was a parody of the Awake cover (Italian edition).
The record was withdrawn from the market just after a few days, due to the official protests of the JW Italian branch, irritated by the misuse of their magazine's logo and layout (although the logo had been slightly modified in the cover, from Svegliatevi! to Sveliatevi!), plus due to a problem with the Dutch editors of the Patrick Hernandez's song Born to Be Alive, which was parroted in the record.
The fake magazine on the cover features the topic: What Perspectives Are There to Live Longer?
Due to its almost immediate withdrawal from the market, the record has become a rarity.
Behemot
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16
Tobit, Testament of Dan and Apocalypse's "New Jerusalem"
by behemot in"for jerusalem will be built with sapphires and emeralds, her walls with precious stones, and her towers and battlements with pure gold.
the streets of jerusalem will be paved with beryl and ruby and stones of ophir, and her lanes will cry 'hallelujah!
' and will give praise, saying, 'blessed is god, who has exalted you for ever.
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behemot
"For Jerusalem will be built with sapphires and emeralds, her walls with precious stones, and her towers and battlements with pure gold. The streets of Jerusalem will be paved with beryl and ruby and stones of Ophir, and her lanes will cry 'Hallelujah!' and will give praise, saying, 'Blessed is God, who has exalted you for ever.'" (Tobit 13,16-18, written 2nd century B.C.)
"... and the saints shall rest in Eden, and the righteous shall rejoice in the new Jerusalem, which shall be unto the glory of God for ever and ever." (The Testament of Dan 5,12, written 106 B.C. ca.)
I wonder whether the author of biblical Revelation (21:2,10-21) got his ideas of a "New Jerusalem" from here. That would be yet another example of the use of "apocryphal" books by Bible authors.
Behemot
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The rich man and Lazarus parable: ancient literature parallels?
by behemot inin their book heaven: a history, colleen mcdannell and bernhard lang mention that some scholars doubt the authenticity of the parable of the rich man and lazarus (luke 16), given its strict parallels in ancient literature.. to support this they make reference to the following essays (which i don't have access to):.
isidore levy, la legende de pythagore: de grece en palestine, campion, paris 1927, pp.
310-12; ronald f. hock, lazarus and mycillus: graeco-roman backgrounds to luke 16:19-31, in journal of biblical literature, 196 (1987), pp.
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behemot
In their book Heaven: A History, Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang mention that some scholars doubt the authenticity of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), given its strict parallels in ancient literature.
To support this they make reference to the following essays (which I don't have access to):
Isidore Levy, La legende de Pythagore: de Grece en Palestine, Campion, Paris 1927, pp. 310-12; Ronald F. Hock, Lazarus and Mycillus: Graeco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16:19-31 , in «Journal of Biblical Literature», 196 (1987), pp. 447-63; «Setne and Si-Osire», in Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, University of California Press, Berkeley 1980, vol. III, pp. 138-42.
Does anyone have access to these sources or knows details about the parallels discussed thereby?
Behemot
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As a "thank you all" note
by behemot inalthough i have been a member (not very active though) of this board for four years (ever since i faded from the jws, after some 35 years of association, that is) i never disclosed personal info about myself but, now that jws is in its "last days", i though i'd like to offer, as a "thank you all" note, a few thoughts that i wrote back in january 2005, a year and a half after my fade.
i wrote these notes mainly for myself, and the only one who read them so far is my wife.
english is not my mother tongue, so i apologize for the mistakes.
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behemot
Although I have been a member (not very active though) of this board for four years (ever since I faded from the JWs, after some 35 years of association, that is) I never disclosed personal info about myself but, now that JWS is in its "last days", I though I'd like to offer, as a "thank you all" note, a few thoughts that I wrote back in January 2005, a year and a half after my fade. I wrote these notes mainly for myself, and the only one who read them so far is my wife. English is not my mother tongue, so I apologize for the mistakes. Here it is, for what it's worth:
"Where I am and what am I at this stage of my life? My feelings swing from exaltation to uneasiness to fear, going through all the in-between stages.
I feel exaltation for having eventually broken free from what I now understand as being futile superstitions that so heavily affected my existence. But did I really break free? You can't erase in few months the stance through which you've looked at and interpreted the world for your entire life. I still feel this burden on my shoulders, like a heavy and uncomfortable inheritance. I sense it in certain reactions that present themselves to my mind according to old patterns and automatisms, and that I have to consciously point in new directions and guide off the beaten tracks.
But I feel uneasiness too, because that structure gave meaning to the world and answered all my questions, generating confidence, assigning me a place, outlining a future that today I know being an utopia, but that gave me direction and was real as long as I considered it such. And now that that structure has collapsed like a house of cards against the hard reality of facts that I had long suspected but tried to ignore, putting them aside, I live the discomfort of no longer knowing what's my place and the struggle of having to re-invent my identity and to give a new meaning to myself, to life, to the world surrounding me.
What is today my vision of life? My thoughts? My projects?
I think that life on this earth is a wonderful and mysterious coincidence, and that consciousness, which separates human existence from that of other living beings, is at the same time a burden and a delight: the element that allows us to enjoy but also to suffer to an extent that must be unknown to beasts.
The element that has given birth to art, philosophy, abstract thought, faculty to love. But also the element that brings with it the weight of questions, the consuming desire to give things a meaning, which man confronts himself with ever since the surfacing of the first glimmers of his consciousness of existing and of the fearful and unexplainable vastness of the world inside him and around him. The element that, as a reaction to this need, created gods, holy books, religions.
I think the only purpose of life is to live it, trying to be good to ourselves and to those who happen to be around us. I subscribe what Fernando Pessoa wrote: "In this world we all live as if on board of a ship sailed from an unknown harbour to an unknown harbour; we need to act towards the others with the amiability of fellow travellers". And, since it is apparent that the earth and nature don't care about the billions of living beings that populate it, the only solidarity that we can give and receive in order to soothe the travel's discomforts is from our fellow humans and to our fellow humans.
Thus I watch the people around me and I try to feel sympathy, even affection, for these unknown fellow travellers, and I find out it's not easy at all. I scan their faces and I wonder what they think, how they live, and whether I should care, whether I could do for them something more than just passing by them trying not to be a nuisance.
I think death is part of life and should be accepted as such, I think we are the biological vessels of our genes, the only ones to survive and to really be immortal.
I'm spelling out these thoughts but I'm aware they are not so easy to come to terms with. No doubt they are much less reassuring than those that used to reside in my mind. They aren't thoughts in which one can wrap himself as if in a comfortable blanket and fall peacefully asleep. Or maybe one can, but it takes time to get used to them.
They are thoughts that make up a structure that is fragile, but real (to the extent we can call "real" what is developed by our mind, that always interprets) on which one can try buinding an identity and a future. A structure with no reassuring and at the same time fearsome heavenly Father, with no pre-packed anwsers to questions about right and wrong, a structure that puts back on my shoulders the burden of life and of choices.
When I started tearing down my old convictions, with trepidation at first, then ever more courageously, at times even with fury, there were moments when I was afraid a superhuman wrath would come over me as a punishment for daring to challenge my fathers (my fleshly father and the Father). It wasn't easy to do and to this very day I'm surprised how I managed to somehow survive through all this.
Every single day I can't help being pleasantly amazed by the fact - obvious in itself - that life goes on, the sun rises and falls, everything flows as always, the blood in my veins and the planets in their orbits, and everything is reasonably fine.
But I can't help also - less pleasantly - to keep on feeling somewhere the wafting of an obscure threat, as if some great adversity were lying in wait around the corner, ready to come and grab whatever fragment of peace and harmony that little by little I manage to achieve.
It's an almost constant thought, that makes it difficult for me to completely relax. Everyday I wonder when it will come, and what shape it will take, and whether I'll be ready and strong enough to accept it and face it. I know that, if anything happens, it'll be for the will of that one god, blind and imperturbable who, just as the old Greek Moirae, runs the threads of our life and our death: Chance. But what really annoys me is that somebody will think I would have deserved it, inescapably connecting it with my dissidence.
Another unpleasant thing is not having anybody to discuss these things with. The old "brothers" whom I walked and worked with side by side for a lifetime have dissolved them like snow under the sun, simply disappearing. Apparently we didn't really know each other and didn't really feel much for each other, kept together by the only link of a common ideology. And even if a relationship would have survived this storm, for all of them an inexplicable insanity, I don't know whether I would be inclined to face the risk of opening my heart, and I doubt that I would be understood anyway.
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I know not who put me into the world, nor what the world is, nor what I myself am. I am in terrible ignorance of everything. I know not what my body is, nor my senses, not even that part of me which thinks what I way, which reflects on all and on itself, and knows itself no more than the rest. I see those frightful spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am put in this place rather than in another, nor why the short time which is given me to live is assigned to me at this point rather than at another of the whole eternity which was before me or which shall come after me. I see nothing but infinites on all sides, which surround me as an atom and as a shadow which endures only for an instant and returns no more. All I know is that I must soon die, but what I know leasts is this very death which I cannot escape. - Blaise Pascal, Pensées, III, 194"
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Note: Things have improved for me ever since I wrote this, and if I have been able to regain balance and mental peace, this is partly due to my (often silent) participation to this board. So thank you to all of you. I know that at least you can understand me.
Behemot
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Life everlasting?
by behemot intwo of my favourite quotes about everlasting life:.
the average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever.
- anatole france.
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behemot
Two of my favourite quotes about everlasting life:
The average man, who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. - Anatole France
Is there life after death? I distrust everything that must be obtained through death (...) What I care for is not whether there's life after death, but that there's life before. And that this life be good, not mere survival or ongoing fear of death. - Fernando Savater, Ethics for Amador.
Behemot
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Daily quote
by behemot inwhen people talk about god and creation, they always think of beautiful things, like roses and hummingbirds.
but i also think of a little african boy sitting on a river bank in west africa with a worm eating its way through his eyeball, which will make him blind in the next few years.
now if you are telling me that god created the rose and the hummingbird, presumably he also created this thing in his eye.
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behemot
When people talk about God and creation, they always think of beautiful things, like roses and hummingbirds. But I also think of a little African boy sitting on a river bank in West Africa with a worm eating its way through his eyeball, which will make him blind in the next few years. Now if you are telling me that God created the rose and the hummingbird, presumably he also created this thing in his eye. And it didn't evolve the way that I believe that it did, but it was created by God. Some way or another, God said, "I will make a worm that can only live by boring through peoples' eyes." Now I don't find that compatible with the Christian idea of a God who cares for the well being of each of us. - Sir David Attenborough
Feel free to comment.
Behemot
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Who Are Some Posters That You Really Would Like To Know Personally?
by minimus ini have a number.
blondie is one of my favs.
dave (seven) is another.
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behemot
Leolaia is my hero too ...
Behemot
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1 Thessalonians 2:15: prejudice against the Jews?
by behemot in1 thessalonians 2:15 tells about the jews that they "killed the lord jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not god, and are contrary to all men" (kjv; other versions translate "oppose everyone", "are hostile to all men", "oppose all mankind" etc.)..
doesn't this statement reflect an anti-semitic attitude on the part of the writer?
we shouldn't forget that such a view about the jews was commonplace among the pagans.
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behemot
Leo, thanx ... brilliantly put, as always.
Behemot
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1 Thessalonians 2:15: prejudice against the Jews?
by behemot in1 thessalonians 2:15 tells about the jews that they "killed the lord jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not god, and are contrary to all men" (kjv; other versions translate "oppose everyone", "are hostile to all men", "oppose all mankind" etc.)..
doesn't this statement reflect an anti-semitic attitude on the part of the writer?
we shouldn't forget that such a view about the jews was commonplace among the pagans.
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behemot
I'm not sure why you thought the book had only five chapters; it actually has 19. Perhaps you tried looking it up in an edition of the original Aramaic version of the Testament of Levi ?
Leolaia ... I loked it up here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/fbe/fbe272.htm
Anyway, thank you for your summary. Comprehensive as always.
XJW4EWR:
This does not follow logically. If a white person reports on some dastardly deed commited by another white person does that mean the reporter is anti-white?
We're not talking here of someone reporting on some bad deed committed by another single person, but of someone making broad statements slandering a whole group of people and labelling them as haters of mankind. I see a difference here.
Behemot