Posts by slimboyfat

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

slimboyfat

The subordination of the Son to the Father only became a problem when the initial teaching about Jesus being a mighty spirit creature was abandoned in favour of the new Trinitarian orthodoxy. Martin Werner explain the development.

The Primitive Christian conception of the Messiah as a high angelic being also explains for us the fact, which is of great doctrinal importance, that in the Primitive Christian are there was no sign of any kind of Trinitarian problem or controversy, such as later produced violent conflicts in the Church. The reason for this undoubtedly lay in the fact that, for Primitive Christianity, Christ was, in terms of late-Jewish apocalyptic, a being of the high celestial angel-world, who was created and chosen by God for the task of bringing in, at the end of the ages, against the daimonic-powers of the existing world, the new aeon of the Kingdom of God. Hence there was no ground for any new problem concerning the relationship of Christ to God. On this decisive point, on which everything depends, further clarification is necessary. Because the relationship of Christ to God the Father was conditioned by the direct and essential connection of the concept of the Christ with the doctrine of angels, that relation-ship was understood unequivocally as being one of 'subordination', ie. in the sense of the subordination of Christ to God. Wherever in the New Testament the relationship of Jesus to God, the Father, is brought into consideration, whether with reference to his appearance as a man or to his Messianic status, it is conceived of and represented categorically as subordination. And the most decisive Subordinationist of the New Testament, according to the Synoptic record, was Jesus himself (cf. for example Mk. x, 18; xiii, 32; xiv, 36). This original position, firm and manifest as it was, was able to maintain itself for a long time. 'All the great pre-Nicene theologians repre-sented the subordination of the Logos to God.'' The Trinitarian problem first emerged when the Church in its theology was constrained for certain reasons, which were connected with the process of de-eschatologising, to abandon the concept of subordination for that of coordination. Almost insoluble difficulties then inevitably produced themselves, which in turn necessarily provoked great strife. They concerned, on the one side, the concept of God, and, on the other, the relationship of the new theology to the New Testament as the canon of dogma.
Martin Werner, The Formation of Christian Dogma (1957), pages 124 and 125.

The whole book is well worth reading.

26

What if JWs voted in elections?

by Las Malvinas son Argentinas in

all this political banter is exhausting, so i want to ask a question that has probably been asked before, so here it goes….

let’s try to keep this non-partisan - just give your opinion and why you think that way.. i’ll go first.

i think jws would generally lean to the right, but not by a whole lot.

slimboyfat

Rutherford was a supporter and campaigner for Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, before he became a Bible Student, and in the 1930s he opposed FDR in strong terms in the literature, likening him to European dictators and, I think, describing him as a tool of Satan.

24

The HLC do not pressure JWs

by usualusername1 in

jw
friends

the hospital liaison committee (hlc) for jehovah’s witnesses does not pressure members to refuse blood transfusions.

rather, their role is to support jehovah’s witnesses in adhering to their pre-existing religious beliefs, which include a strict prohibition against accepting blood transfusions based on their interpretation of biblical scriptures.. jehovah’s witnesses are well-informed about their stance on blood from an early age, and refusing blood is a deeply ingrained religious conviction, not something imposed during a medical crisis.

the hlc’s purpose is to provide assistance in accessing bloodless treatment options, facilitating communication with healthcare providers, and helping ensure that the patient’s choices are respected.. while the hlc strongly supports adherence to the beliefs of jehovah’s witnesses, the ultimate decision remains with the individual.

slimboyfat

Practices no doubt vary in different places, but from my own limited experience, over the past 20 years or so, elders seems to be very laid back over blood issue, they tend to respect privacy, and only get involved if invited by the JW patient to do so. This is a far cry from what I read in the old literature about health care workers leaking private medical records of JWs who broke the blood ban and parents kidnapping children from the hospital. I think those days are gone.

26

What if JWs voted in elections?

by Las Malvinas son Argentinas in

all this political banter is exhausting, so i want to ask a question that has probably been asked before, so here it goes….

let’s try to keep this non-partisan - just give your opinion and why you think that way.. i’ll go first.

i think jws would generally lean to the right, but not by a whole lot.

slimboyfat

According to Pew Research in the US in 2014, as you would expect, most JWs refused to answer the question on political affiliation or stated a neutral position. But out of those who answered the question and stated a party political preference, JWs were overwhelmingly Democrat supporters, by more than 2 to 1. JWs are disproportionally female, black, and have lower education/income - all groups which traditionally lean Democrat to varying degrees. Pew also classes their ideology as conservative largely on the basis of answers to questions on abortion and evolution. Have things changed since 2014? Maybe there’ll be a new survey soon.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/04/26/a-closer-look-at-jehovahs-witnesses-living-in-the-u-s/

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

slimboyfat

Finally, you claim that the idea of Jesus being "God" was only elevated in the fourth century.

Not me, I quoted Geza Vermes who said that, and earlier the NT scholar E.P. Sanders who said somethings similar. It’s the mainstream view outside of Trinitarian scholarship.

Ignatius is an interesting case. The Ignatian corpus includes anachronisms that stick out like a sore thumb and have bothered scholars for a long time. A study a few years ago showed that many of the Trinitarian turns of phrase in Ignatius were likely fourth century additions to the text.

Gilliam III, P. (2017). Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian controversy (Vol. 140). Brill.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ignatius-Controversy-Vigiliae-Christianae-Supplements/dp/9004342877

10

Thought For the Day - for PIMI JW's

by BoogerMan in

which name does the evil faithful slave's literature demand that you focus on - jehovah or jesus?.

do jesus & the bible agree with the org's obsession with the name 'jehovah', or was jesus just being presumptuous?

(matthew 10:22) and you will be objects of hatred by all people on account and whoever receives one such young child on the basis of my name receives me.... (matthew 18:20) for where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there i am in their midst.”.

slimboyfat

Jesus’ own name means “Jehovah saves”. This fact might be lost on many today when thinking about the name “Jesus”, but there are good reasons for thinking that Jews of Jesus’ day were very conscious of the close connection to the name Jehovah, and the fact that the name Jesus contains and points toward the divine name. This is because the divine name was pronounced Yaho by first century Jews and the name Jesus was pronounced Yahoshua. So anyone saying the name Yahoshua was easily reminded that it signified Yaho + shua, that is “Jehovah saves”.

We know that the early Christians were aware of the meaning of the name Jesus because they referred to it directly. (Matt 1.26) And we know that they looked to Jesus as the means by whom God saves because they pointed to this as the focus of their preaching. (Acts 4.12) They were clear about Jesus’ position as the faithful and true witness of God (Rev 3.14) and accorded him honour as such. (John 5.23) In all this they gave glory to God even as Jesus himself did. (Mark 10.17 and 18; Phil 2.11)

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

slimboyfat

What slimboy seems resistant to is the idea that the second power theology, to use as a shorthand label, included concepts like "Glory" and "presence/ Shekinah of God. There is no actual second person intended but a word/title served as agency in human and earthly affairs. It/he/she was a stand-in for God.

Some terms were used as a way of speaking of the activity of God himself. This is true of the holy spirit, for example. The point is that when Wisdom, or God’s glory, or the Logos did become a person in the tradition, then in Judaism and in early Christianity that person is consistently distinct and subordinate to God - as God’s first creation, the archangel, the principal angel, Michael, servant, and so on. This is the case in gospel of John where the Logos becomes flesh, (1.14) and that person is the servant of God who does God’s will, not his own, describing his Father as “the only true God”. (John 17.3) Only in the fourth century was the ‘second god’ put on a level with God himself by Christians who moved beyond the early teaching about Jesus, thus overturning the earlier teaching. When Jesus was defending his own divine sonship, in John chapter 10, the justification he pointed to was a text in the Psalms which shows that beings other than God can be described as divine. James McGrath has this to say about the context and implications of the argument in that passage:

Thus far in this book, I have compared the Gospel of John with other non-Christian Jewish texts from around the same time. It would perhaps be instructive to compare that Gospel to later Jewish–Christian texts as well. Many sources bear witness to the continued existence of groups such as the Ebionites, which retained their Jewish identity and were largely regarded as heretical by the now predominantly Gentle church. One reason they were able to retain their identity as Jewish Christians was precisely because their Christology remained subordinationist. How do these later Jewish-Christian texts compare to John's depiction of Jesus? First, under the present heading, we note the explanation that one such source, the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (2:42), gives regarding the wider use of the title "God": "Therefore the name God is applied in three ways: either because he to whom it is given is truly God, or because he is the servant of him who is truly; and for the honor of the sender, that his authority may be full, he that is sent is called by the name of him who sends." In John 10, when Jesus is depicted as defending himself against the accusation of making himself God, it is to the wider use of the designation "gods" that appeal is made. This argument in John must surely be allowed to inform our interpretation of what "God" means in reference to Christ in 20:28. Like later Jewish Christians, the author as the Fourth Gospel can call Jesus “God” and yet still refer to the Father as "the only true God" (17:3). In many respects, the language of these later Jewish-Christian writings resembles that of the Gospel of John more closely than that of any other New Testament writing. To quote Recognitions 2:48, these later Jewish Christians believed that "the Son... has been with the Father from the beginning, through all generations." The group that produced this literature remained alienated from mainstream Judaism because of their belief that Jesus was the Messiah, but their allegiance to only one God was not questioned as far as can be ascertained. They were regarded as heretical by other Christians, however, because of their attempt to preserve their own Jewish identity and because they remained emphatically subordinationist and monotheistic in their Christology rather than assenting to the doctrine of the Trinity as defined by the Council of Nicaea. Within a Jewish-Christian context even in later centuries, then, it was possible to maintain one's allegiance to the one true God and at the same time use language very similar to that found in the Gospel of John. The evidence surveyed in this chapter suggests that this may have been equally true, if not indeed more so, in the time when this Gospel was written.
James McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (2009), pages67 and 68.

15

JWlite can be the purple pill

by Teddnzo in

i really like the red pill analogy in the matrix.

the one guy wishes he didn’t take the red pill and would have preferred to take the blue pill.. many used to be pimi which is the blue pill and then they wake up to the fact that the gb are not who they claim to be which is taking the red pill.. they go through conflict and confusion as to what to believe now?

does god exist?

slimboyfat

Maybe I took this purple pill you speak of. Put it down to my colour blindness 😎

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

slimboyfat

aqwsed12345, you write:

Peter Schäfer's Two Gods in Heaven highlights a distinct idea in some strands of Jewish thought, but this concept cannot be directly applied to early Christian understanding of Jesus.

Yes, Shäfer argues there is a direct link between the subordinate god in Judaism and Jesus in Christianity:

The proximity of binitarian ideas of pre-Christian ancient Judaism to thoughts and images as encountered in the New Testament is obvious. This is not merely a matter of parallels, much less equations, but rather of the fundamental insight that Second Temple Judaism prepared the stock on which the New Testament could draw, The fact that this, apart from many other themes, also applies to the notion of a "second" God next to the "first" God is an insight that is only slowly beginning to gain acceptance.
Peter Schâfer, Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity (2020), page 135 and 136

Later, you write:

the New Testament never presents Jesus as a mere intermediary or lesser god.

Yes, Jesus is always presented as distinct and subordinate to God in the NT.

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

slimboyfat

peacefulpete, I read Richard Carrier’s books when they came out as I was interested in mythicism for a while. (Narkissos on this forum had mythicist leanings and he led me part way down that path.) Carrier’s books are pretty dismal. Have you read them? The one on Bayes theory was convoluted and unconvincing that this is a viable method for doing history. Neverhelss, I got the sequel ‘On the Historicity’ too, when it was published, to much fanfare. On the positive side it covers a lots of material and sources, but it’s hard going and not very rewarding. The best explanation for why Jesus had brothers running around in the first century, for example, is quite simply that Jesus was a real person who had siblings. Carrier works incredibly hard to offer other explanations but they are pretty farfetched. Robert Price and Earl Doherty are better authors on mythicism. Price’s The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man is an entertaining read - he can make any topic entertaining, but he has a fetish for outlandish theories too. I’ve got a book by Dennis R. McDonald and he makes a good case for some of the gospel stories being based on Greek epics, but this doesn’t show there was no Jesus at all. Bill Darlison is a British mythicist who makes some interesting arguments. I know Bill a little through the Unitarians and he certainly has interesting things to say. Ultimately, other scholars I respect, such as Mark Goodacre and James McGrath, have offered effective responses to Carrier that can be found online. Mythicism remains incredibly fringe among scholars and Carrier has not made a dent on that. (It was a liberal British NT scholar who likened it to flat earth to me in conversation.) If anything, Carrier’s turgid prose, vindictive debating style, and putrid personality (reminds me of LE) has set the ‘cause of mythicism’ back, if anything.

The most readable of Carrier’s books is the one with the silly title Jesus from Outer Space. For what it’s worth, in that book Carrier argues for an original Christian Jesus that’s strikingly similar to JW theology, although I wouldn’t quote him on that because scholars don’t take him seriously, and it’s not the result of original research, he is just offering a colourful summary of other scholars on early Christology.

The evidence is amply secure that the original story the Christians taught was that Jesus was God's supreme archangel, eternal high priest of God's celestial temple, his firstborn creation and adopted son, viceroy of the universe, and the original superbeing who carried out all of God's other acts of creation and that he ruled the resulting cosmos on God's behalf. A being whom Philo reveals Jews already believed in.
Richard Carrier, Jesus From Outer Space (2020), page 32.