slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  171

  Alteration of Revelation 3:14 in the 4th century to support the emerging Trinity doctrine

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in an earlier thread another poster asserted that there is no evidence that revelation 3:14 played a part in the 4th controversy that led to the trinity doctrine.

  this was claimed as evidence that the description of jesus as “the beginning of the creation of god” in the verse was not understood to mean that jesus was god’s first creation.

  the scholarly greek–english lexicon of the new testament & other early christian literature 3e (2001) by bauer, arndt, gingrich, and danker, in its latest edition states that “first creation” is indeed the probable meaning of the greek phrase.

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  slimboyfat

  aqwsed I know that you don’t think Jesus is God’s first creation. My question was whether anyone knows which ancient or modern scholars have taken “beginning” as a description of the origin of the Word in John 1.1 in a way that indicates Jesus is God’s first creation. I am sure I read it somewhere but I can’t remember where.

  On the point that “heaven and earth” is a miasm indicating totality, indeed, and that totality, in context is the whole of physical creation. Genesis 1 is an account of the physical creation, it doesn’t discuss or deal with the creation of the heavenly realm, angels, cherubs, seraphs, and the firstborn of all creation.
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  2910

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  slimboyfat

  What are the questionable Grauniad articles? Have you got a link?
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  171

  Alteration of Revelation 3:14 in the 4th century to support the emerging Trinity doctrine

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  in an earlier thread another poster asserted that there is no evidence that revelation 3:14 played a part in the 4th controversy that led to the trinity doctrine.

  this was claimed as evidence that the description of jesus as “the beginning of the creation of god” in the verse was not understood to mean that jesus was god’s first creation.

  the scholarly greek–english lexicon of the new testament & other early christian literature 3e (2001) by bauer, arndt, gingrich, and danker, in its latest edition states that “first creation” is indeed the probable meaning of the greek phrase.

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  slimboyfat

  The regular interpretation of John 1.1 is where it takes “In the beginning was the Word”, along the lines: “the Word already existed at the time of the creation of the heavens and the earth”, and this is how JWs currently read the verse.
  
  But I have read there is an alternative way of understanding the phrase so that it is identifying the Word as the beginning. A bit like saying “in the beginning there was light”, or “in the beginning light appeared”, to indicate that the Word emerged at the beginning. If I recall correctly, this is how some ancient interpreters read the verse, and JWs have at times in the past read it that way too, in which case John 1.1 would be further testimony to Jesus as God’s first creation.
  
  But I can’t remember where I read it. Has anyone else come across this argument?
  
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  51

  2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

  average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

  baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

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  slimboyfat

  In what sense is it a 1/4? Because when asked in censuses around twice as many people claim to be JWs than in the publisher count. Are you saying you know better than people themselves whether they are JWs when asked? JWs have one of the strictest methods of counting members of any religious group so even if they “overcount” by their own definition it is still a significant undercount by any comparison with the membership of other groups. And the difference is dramatic.

  For example in 2010 JWs claimed 706,699 publishers in Brazil but in the census 1,393,208 identified themselves as JWs. That’s 1.97 times as many describes themselves as JWs than are counted as publishers.

  By contrast in that same year Mormons claimed 1,138,740 members in Brazil but in the census only 226,509 described themselves as Mormons. That’s only 0.20 times the number of official Mormon members actually identified in the census.

  These results are replicated over lots of countries over many years.

  See more details in the article here:

  https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/106999903/s13644-020-00408-z20231028-1-har52b-libre.pdf?1698538028=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DReassessing_the_Size_of_Mormons_Adventis.pdf&Expires=1731628257&Signature=F8Bi6t5QGvSiCCcvYTHRlo~Ce~ASEfKpA8TyNwnqbSXWu2P1MlkNP7XJUmkfmIGoE0IGOtLXt08~wt-7pl8gvTH0a-SLCnEAfN9-TCSfxCdUAmpMNDafZFwkjUaIRJB7HaZqBhKVrnvlDLGZvRlOqq0Z7FnLyN3cGjBQa5SgjWLB~KpnLJZkHgsWxKCBHto5ado5ZU6c7WfRpTcnlPlXOMbJKcZNkhVM7WeX6CbNTj5HOdTCPwFRwEWOUuuzPsL9ffCOTKowaMB79heHvhLTry9Kj9EnhWddM3d4xEx2j72haq8ZZ1ixVZ3Ssi17UX4h7lvGAWVS90nVd8pxNgkY~g__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
  
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  51

  2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

  average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

  baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

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  slimboyfat

  IDK if I believe that number of congregations is that indicative of anything.

  In my experience, all churches in decline, sooner or later, start closing down congregations. I’ve seen it with the Mormons, Church of Scotland, Unitarians, Swedenborgians, Christadelphains, Methodists, Episcopalians, Christian Scientists, Brethren, Baptists, and others. If JWs do experience decline then it will show up in the number of congregations over the medium to long term. In the past few years the number of congregations have declined in line with a stated policy of consolidating resources. If the number of congregations continues to decline then I would say it indicates real decline regardless of what the others figures such as publishers or baptisms are doing. On the other hand, if the number of congregations goes up then it probably confirms growth in general.
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  51

  2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

  average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

  baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

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  slimboyfat

  As Joe points out, if JWs measured their membership as Mormons do then they have far more than 9 million members, probably nearer 20 million.

  They are doing better than practically all other Christian groups in western countries because most churches are in steep decline. In Scotland hundreds of churches are closing every year, numbers are dwindling, and the average age of attenders is now over 60.
  

  The congregation number has flatlined for about a decade and is down from its all time peak. I wonder if it will start increasing slowly again.
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  51

  2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

  average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

  baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

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  slimboyfat

  I’ve said it before: my opinion is that the number of congregations is the most significant indicator of growth or decline for a number of reasons, including the fact that it’s a publicly verifiable figure and it’s less amenable to short term redefinition to boost the figures. But it’s one figure they don’t give in the highlights. If the number of congregations has decreased despite all the other numbers going up then I think it raises legitimate questions about whether the growth is real.
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  51

  2024 year Highlights: JWs hit 9 million Publishers

  by Sanchy in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower put out some highlights for the 2024 service year:.

  average publishers: 8,828,124. peak publishers: 9,043,460. a 43.2 percent increase in "those who returned to jehovah", meaning 65,816 were reinstated.

  baptized: 296,267. memorial attendance: 21,119,442. missing stat: number of partakers .. womp womp.

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  slimboyfat

  Those are pretty good numbers.

  I make that to be a 2.4% increase in average publishers;

  A 2.6% increase in peak publishers;

  A 9.9% increase in baptisms;

  And a 3.2% increase in memorial attendance.

  The publisher increases may be affected both by dropping reporting hours for ordinary publishers and the extra people reinstated this year. So we’ll need to look at growth over the next few years to see how that change beds in over the longer term. But the increase in baptisms and memorial attendance would seem to be positive indicators of growth independent of those particlar changes.
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  14

  Do you see it?

  by MeanMrMustard in

  1. social
  2. humour

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  slimboyfat

  If I squint I can see the face of an overweight man possibly with oriental features and clothing. I guess it’s either stereotypically meant to be a Jew or an Arab. Is it meant to say something subliminally against either Jews or Arabs? In fact, forget that, what it looks like is that character Shrek from the children’s cartoon.

  On a not altogether unrelated topic, has anyone else been following what happened in Amsterdam and the blanket misinformation about it in the media? What’s going on?
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  33

  Historian and former JW Jim Penton dies

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  i don’t know a lot about james penton but i think he deserves a better thread than the one currently on offer.

  james penton, who died recently, grew up in a jw family in canada and served as an elder.

  unusually for a jw, he studied liberal arts at university and became a history professor.

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  slimboyfat

  What makes you say he was an angry man? He had a good conceit of himself, for sure. (Is that a Scottish phrase only, or does it translate across the Atlantic?) I think his books can be criticised for being biased in tone against JWs to an extent that is a bit outside academic norms. However, especially “Apocalypse Delayed” really is essential reading for anyone interested in Watchtower history.