Assuming Jesus existed at all, the ‘nativity’ stories in Matthew and Luke are later inventions, so the claims about shepherds being outdoors at the time would have no bearing on the actual time of his birth.
Posts by Jeffro
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34Was Jesus Born on December 25th?
by Sea Breeze inwe were told by watchtower that no way jesus was born on dec. 25th.
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what do you think now?.
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34
Was Jesus Born on December 25th?
by Sea Breeze inwe were told by watchtower that no way jesus was born on dec. 25th.
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what do you think now?.
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Jeffro
No. Jesus as portrayed in the Bible is literary fiction. In Paul's letters, written before the 'gospels', the author knows essentially nothing of Jesus' life. Some details are invented by the author of Mark around the time Jerusalem was destroyed and then a few more details (including his genealogy and nativity stories) are invented about a decade after that by the authors of Matthew and Luke (likely based on a common source written after the destruction of Jerusalem).
Though it is possible that the stories about Jesus were loosely based on one or more itinerant preachers, with a core based on a disciple of John the Baptist who was later executed (pretty much the only things scholars generally agree about Jesus' life), there is no reliable information about any other events in his life. Because there happened to be an eclipse in 30CE around the time Jesus was probably killed, that might have contributed to the belief that Jesus was significant. (Jehovah's Witnesses' selection of 33CE is based on their superstitious numerological interpretations of Daniel and can be ignored.)
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62
-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year
by Fadeaway1962 inphttps://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=e&pub=syr20&srcid=share .
plus another increase in memorial partakes number etc .
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Jeffro
It seems fairly likely that the pandemic is largely responsible for the reported declines in average publishers and Memorial attendance.
However, with the provision to write letters and to report as little as 15 minutes preaching per month, the significant reduction in preaching hours does not seem to be entirely limited to the pandemic. The 2020 report starts from September 2019 before the pandemic, and yet the peak publishers for the year is only 12,691 higher than the peak for the previous year. For comparison, the peak difference between the 2018 and 2019 reports was 103,208.
If the pandemic is largely responsible for problems with reporting, then it would be expected to see an artificially inflated increase after the pandemic is over, accounting for any actual increase in addition to numbers recovering from potentially unreported details from 2020. This could be as much as 3% if the actual increase independent of the 'recovery' is around the 1.5% mark of recent years, which the Watch Tower Society may dishonestly hail as 'remarkable' growth.
It should also be borne in mind that the pandemic is ongoing and that the 2021 report will include data starting from September 2020. So statistics (possibly with a 'phantom' increase as described above) may not recover fully until the 2022 report.
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26
Being Reinstated
by azl0058 inso my brother recently became df.
he has full intentions of being reinstated, but it is going to take at least a year.
if the end times occurs while he is df, will he still be allowed in the kingdom of god?.
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Jeffro
BluesBrother:
All that we were doing was denying congregation fellowship with the person.
So, just the part that actually does real harm. -
26
Being Reinstated
by azl0058 inso my brother recently became df.
he has full intentions of being reinstated, but it is going to take at least a year.
if the end times occurs while he is df, will he still be allowed in the kingdom of god?.
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Jeffro
azl0058:
So my brother recently became df. He has full intentions of being reinstated, but it is going to take at least a year. If the end times occurs while he is df, will he still be allowed in the Kingdom of God?
He would be best off working out that it’s not actually true so that he doesn’t waste time trying to ‘go back’ (jumping through hoops for the ‘elders’ while being shunned) or carry unnecessary feelings of guilt over made up beliefs. Of course, if he were ‘disfellowshipped’ for an actual crime (rather than nonsense like ‘apostasy’ or for consensual sexual activity) that’s a separate matter. Either way, he’s not going to miss out on any ‘kingdom of God’. -
62
-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year
by Fadeaway1962 inphttps://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=e&pub=syr20&srcid=share .
plus another increase in memorial partakes number etc .
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Jeffro
Several months of the ‘service year’ (started September 2019) were unaffected by COVID, so ‘peak publishers’ can be used as a relative comparison to the previous year. (However, ‘peak publishers’ is not a reliable indicator for absolute numbers as their method allows for people who submit late reports to be counted twice in a given month.)
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62
-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year
by Fadeaway1962 inphttps://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=e&pub=syr20&srcid=share .
plus another increase in memorial partakes number etc .
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Jeffro
Drearyweather (quoting The Watchtower):
During the last days, Jehovah has continued to select those who will make up the 144,000. If he chooses to wait until late into that period to select some for that privilege, who are we to question his wisdom?
😂🤣😂😆It does indeed attempt to justify the continued increase (which resulted in a subsequent 18.7% increase in partakers in that year). However, I do not believe it was their intent to suggest that the number should be increasing beyond trying to justify the increase observed. For example, the same article does once again suggest that the increase in partakers could be because "Others may have mental or emotional problems that lead them to believe that they will rule with Christ in heaven".
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Jeffro
Correct.
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62
-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year
by Fadeaway1962 inphttps://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=e&pub=syr20&srcid=share .
plus another increase in memorial partakes number etc .
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Jeffro
Drearyweather:
The number of partakers won't get impacted by COVID.
True, but that's not really the point. The number or 'partakers' is 'meant' to be decreasing irrespective of COVID.
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62
-0:6 negative growth 2020 service year
by Fadeaway1962 inphttps://www.jw.org/finder?wtlocale=e&pub=syr20&srcid=share .
plus another increase in memorial partakes number etc .
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Jeffro
21,182.
It is on their 'Grand Totals' page, which is separate to the countries list on the website. It is on page 2 of the PDF version of the 2020 Service Report.