I think it has been proven long ago that those words were inserted into Josephus by christians later. There was a thread on this not long ago, and PeacefulPete had some good info on this. But: I believe that Josephus did write something about Jesus (in the place where Gumby found those positive words), but he, as a faithful jew at a time in which there was growing hostility between jews and christians, probably wrote something very negative about Jesus. Then, 3 or 4 centuries later, christians, who were now in power, as the state religion of the Roman empire, probably changed it into something positive. There is no way to prove this, but this is the argument I have for it: The whole "did Jesus even exist"-question is a very modern issue. In the 3rd or 4th century, this was not even a question to be raised. In the minds of these people, of course he existed, and he died on the cross and was raised from the dead etc. So they would have no reason to falsify history by putting in quotes into books by historians at all. The reason why these positive words (...) about Jesus is present in Josephus, is probably because the christians in the 3rd or 4th century changed what Josephus originally wrote (probably something mean...)
Hellrider
JoinedPosts by Hellrider
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42
Church Fathers Purposely Lied about Jesus
by gumby injosephus as most know, was a jewish/roman 1st century historian.
he was well respected by the roman community and christians were zealous readers of his works.. he is one person christians use as a solid basis for proof of jesus earthly existence.
here is a quote that is used by some christians who strongly believe these words came from the hand of josephus himself,"now, there was about this time, jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.
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slip of the tongue of elder
by DannyBloem in.
this morning the speaker was late and they had to change the wachtower study with the public talk.. the young elder introducing this, was maybe a bit nervous of this happening (although it is certainly not the first time this year), and told that the public intercourse of the wachttower study would be held first, instead of the public discourse.
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68
Sorry, another 607 question? I'm confused.
by lost_light06 inim trying to figure something out concerning the wts 607-1914 chronology that has me confused.
i thought they based the chronology on when jerusalem was destroyed.
however, the following is taken from the daniel book and it seems to base it on something else.
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Hellrider
Alan F:
Thanks, and thanks for clearing up a couple of things. I thought it was the capture of Jerusalem in 597 that was astronomically fixed, but now I realise that it was 568/67. I knew that it wasn`t 539 or 537, because I have found very little about these later dates in what I`ve read (I haven`t bothered buying any books on this, but I read all the articles I find on the internet about it). But I have understood that this whole issue can be easily solved by pure math and logic, and this part of it (the logic and math) isn`t easy to find/understand in what has been written about it so far (in what I have found, at least). It`s so easy to not see the forrest for the trees on this subject, and I can understand why celebrated scholar jw is so confused on this. Unlike many others here, I don`t think he is a troll, I think he actually believes in this (in other words, he is this dumb...). This is because he set his mind on something years ago, and all the informatuion he has since then gathered on it, he "molds" so that it fits into his allready preconceived Watchtower-induced theory. He`s not the first to do this, not long ago I met a woman that believed fully that the DaVinci-code was true. And so she had become interested in early christianity, and although she now has a lot of info on the subject, she makes all of it "fit" into her allready established theory. The same thing goes for a lot of other conspiracy-theories, such as the socalled "revisionists" (mostly neo-nazis) on the Holocaus-subject. They will have read tons of articles, books, looked at the primary sources/evidence, and still hold onto their wacky ideas, because they once made up their mind, and then "molds" all the info so that it fits with their established idea. Celebrated scholar jw is the same kind of guy. And to hide the weaknesses of his "argument", he tries to hide them, and confuse the opponent by bringing up a lot of irrelevant details. Next he`ll probably bring up the colour of Nebuchadnezzars socks on the day of the assault on Jerusalem, or how many cows his army ate in a week during the siege. This is all a smoke-and-mirror-tactics. The truth here is in the math, and you`re right, I don`t expect scholar will deal with them directly. I don`t think he`ll ever wake up from his Watctower-induced coma either, as he is unable to see the simplest points.
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68
Sorry, another 607 question? I'm confused.
by lost_light06 inim trying to figure something out concerning the wts 607-1914 chronology that has me confused.
i thought they based the chronology on when jerusalem was destroyed.
however, the following is taken from the daniel book and it seems to base it on something else.
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Hellrider
Celebrated scholar jw:
Certainly 539 and 537 uses secular evidence that is also used for the construction of Neo-Babylonian chronology but the methodologies used for biblical and secular chronology differ. Celebrated WT scholars use a 'event-based approach' whereas secular scholars use 'regnal-based approach' both produce different outcomes such as 586/587 for the Fall of Jerusalem or 607 BCE.
Aha. And exactly what is meant by an "event-based approach"? Am I wrong to assume the "methodology" of the "event-based approach" goes something like this:
Use 539 and 537 as "pivotal dates", and never mind where those dates came from in the first place, never even dare ask the question... Then count back 70 years, because the term "70 years" is mentioned in the Bible. This gets us to 607 bc, which fits nicely in with our 1914-doctrine ( and never mind the fact that our years 365 days long while back then it was 360, and never mind that neither Daniel nor Jeremiah mentions the "day for a year"-rule, and that we ripped this day-for-a-year-thing completely out of context from Ezekiel and Numbers ).
It goes something like that, am I right? But you`re forgetting one thing: Within you "event-based approach", exactly how do you get to the years 539 and 537? Could you please elaborate on this point? Do you have a copy of an astronomical tablet on these critical years? Because, I am no expert on this, and know much less about this than Alan F, Jeffro, Narkissos, Leolaia, Auldsoul etc, but I do understand this: The years 537 and 539 (or possibly 538) are arrived at via the secular chronology that you so easily dismiss when it doesn`t suit you anymore, and this chronology is partly "regnal-based", yes, but also "event-based", in the sense that certain astronomical tablets fix some of the years exact. But as far as I know, the years 539 and 537 are not fixed exactly by astronomical tablets. So, could you please explain how you arrive at these critical years within your "event-based approach"? And if you can`t do that, and if you can`t come up with some other miracolous thing, then my point still stands, and I will have logically disproven your theories once and for all, and everyone with a minimum of mathematical skills will understand that.
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68
Sorry, another 607 question? I'm confused.
by lost_light06 inim trying to figure something out concerning the wts 607-1914 chronology that has me confused.
i thought they based the chronology on when jerusalem was destroyed.
however, the following is taken from the daniel book and it seems to base it on something else.
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Hellrider
It is you that doesn't get it! It is not your business to decide what methodology the celebrated WT scholars should employ. It is their business and they have decided that 539 BCE is a adequate pivotal date for the reconstruction of OT chronology
LoL. I don`t know whether to laugh or cry...
Certainly, 539 is a derived date but so are all dates derived from established data so you are merely stating the obvious.
Sure thing, buddy, but that doesn`t change the fact that 539 and 537 are derived from the chronology that you dismiss. These dates were arrived at from the historical dates such as 597 and the lengths of reigns listed by the real scholars (not the "celebrated watchtower scholars"), dates and lengths of reigns that you (in turn) will have to dismiss to place the destruction of Jerusalem in 607. So this means that you will have to dismiss every argument that got you to 539 and 537 in the first place. And that means that yours (and the Societys) belief in 537 and 539 are just that, beliefs, and there is nothing "scholarly" about these dates (within your JW-context) at all.
You simply don`t understand this, and you never will.
There is no evidence that Freedman was misquoted by the writers of the Appendix as this was a claim made by the apostate Jonsson which in fact was quite mistaken and erroneous.
Aha, so it`s a lie because it was in one of Jonssons texts/books. And I assume it doesn`t matter that Freedman actually said this.
The very fact that Freedman admitted that there was some controversy about 586 or 587 proves that such methodology is faulty and is unreliable
Oh here we go again...
I hope you get well soon, Scholar jw.
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Switzerland: The Jw against a TV show denouncing them
by chasson infrom http://www.news-service.admin.ch/nsbsubscriber/message/fr/5765 (automatic translation) .
time present on the witnesses of jehovah .
the plaintiffs estimated in particular that the presentation of the sexual abuse in the report violated the faithful principle of presentation of the events.
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Hellrider
I saw that swedish program. It was great! The investigative journalist was superagressive, he sure didn`t let them talk their way out of anything. Yes, the JWs tried to get out of it after the program was aired, by having their lawyers dig up some insignificant technicality (typically jw), but the impression left in the viewers was pretty clear. In the program, we even got to see classic power-abuse by the elders, when confronted with things like these: The young man in the documentary, that had been molested by an older jw (ms or elder, I don`t remember), who spoke out on all of this, and was part of the program/worked along with the journalists, was of course not looked kindly upon by the elders, who would much rather have just swept it under the rug (the pedophile was still a member of the congregation, and in good standing). So they called him in and had a jc over a cigarette that he had been caught smoking one weekend at a restaurant. To get rid of him, of course. It was a great documentary.
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Smoking 101
by freedomlover inokay - just to show how naive i am as to "wordly" things like smoking - i have a question.
why do people bang their cigarette pack against their hand before opening a new pack???????
moving the tabacco or something????
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Hellrider
Hi.It`s to "tighten" the tobacco, as it sometimes can be lose enough for some of it to fall out the front of the cig. But don`t smoke. I`ve been a smoker for 12-13 years, and I know I need to quit, but it`s so damn hard, and I`m afraid that if I quit, I will constantly be depressed and miss it, even for years ahead. I wish I had never started.
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Finally out of Hiding
by Shador inwell i finally came out and told my parents i did not believe in the wts doctrines.. for me the last straw was seeing honesty's simple clear proof of the wrongness of 607.
'course i couldn't remember all the refs last night but now i've printed them out.. told them about the ngo thing.
of course they said the "ebul 'postates" were twisting the whole thing.. my dad tried to "reason with me" thusly:.
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Hellrider
Hi. Just give up on the "love-thing". "Love" is relative, you could stand there all day with you shouting "there is no love in the jw-religion" and they would shout "yes there is", and it would get you no further. Stay on the board, collect information, it`s all here, thruout the threads, in a couple of months, you will have learned enough about the Bible and WTS history to argue them to pieces. Focus on learning about 607, 1914, all the failed prophecies, what the Bible says about false prophets (deuteronomy 18:20), about their wrong interpretations of Revelation, with that horrible, unbiblical dividing of the christians into two separate classes (their whole "annointed"-thing is just crap). Just stick around and learn.
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How many times does "Jehovah" spuriously appear in the NT?
by AuldSoul inwe've all heard it, i'm sure.
"well, the nwt has restored the name jehovah where it should have been to start with.
" ever wanted to slap that smugness with an unarguable fact?
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68
Sorry, another 607 question? I'm confused.
by lost_light06 inim trying to figure something out concerning the wts 607-1914 chronology that has me confused.
i thought they based the chronology on when jerusalem was destroyed.
however, the following is taken from the daniel book and it seems to base it on something else.
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Hellrider
You just don`t get it, do you! You say:
The date 539 is considered by the celebrated WT scholars to be a pivotal date for the purposes of constructing a chronology for the biblical period
Yes, and that is where they went wrong! They (the "celebrated WT scholars", lol) do consider 539 to be a "pivotal date", but they never should have done that! Do you have to be spoonfed? The date 539 is also a derived date, derived from a chronology in which the "pivotal dates" are from the years around 600, especially the date for the capture of Jerusalem in 597 (10 years after it, according to the "celebrated WT scholars" say that it was destroyed). Such as dr.Freedmans reply to the WTS after they again misquoted him:
This is one of the best-known periods of the ancient world, and we can be very sure that the dates are correct to within a year or so, and many of the dates are accurate to the day and month. There is therefore absolutely no warrant for the comments or judgments made by the Watch Tower Society based on a statement about our uncertainty. What I had specifically in mind was the disagreement among scholars as to whether the fall of Jerusalem should be dated in 587 or 586. Eminent scholars disagree on this point, and unfortunately we do not have the Babylonian chronicle for this episode as we do for the capture of Jerusalem in 597 (that date is now fixed exactly). But it is only a debate about one year at most (587 or 586), so it would have no bearing upon the views of the Jehovah's Witnesses who apparently want to rewrite the whole history of the time and change the dates rather dramatically. There is no warrant whatever for that.
And so, the dates of 539 and 537 (or maybe...538 ) are both derived dates, derived from other (earlier) events in Babylonian history. But still, you insist on using the derived date to go back and change the "pivotal date" that you used to arrive at the derived date! And while doing it, you simply don`t understand that this also destroys the derived date...
This is not so much about history anymore, Scholar, no matter how much you try to hide the forrest behind the trees. This is about pure, mathematical logic. Not even Yahweh could make 2 pluss 2 = 5.
Of course, you can try to prove me wrong. Provide us all with an astronomical tablet that (by itself) sets the date for the release/return of the captives to 539/537. That would make the date pivotal.