shake things up a bit in your friendly local congregation of jehovah's witnesses by partaking of their memorial emblems this april 12!
when drinking the wine (i don't think you'd get to eating the bread if you carry this first part out), make sensual, sinful sounds of ecstasy!
better yet, noisily gulp down the whole glass of wine and top it with a little burp!
Hi, Inq, you're probably quite right [shows you how much I know abiut wines] I have obviously got the name cock-eyed. In mitigation, all I can say is that it was a long while back, and I never tasted it again. But yes, yeast is said to be symbolic of sin, so the WTS allows for no fermentation. However I know there is a naturally fermenting wine which if I am not mistaken, is used in cooking. The name escapes me.
Cheers
ok, i was giving one of those rehearsed skits during the ministry school meeting one time and i got the giggles..........seriously bad situation.
the lady sitting across from me forgot "her line" and it struck me funny.
the more i tried to get past it, the funnier it became.
In the mid 70s when I was an elder in my local cong, I was conducting a seminar sort of discussion on some portion of the Service Meeting, which I no longer remember. Anyway one of the participants was a Polish migrant [damn nice guy actually] to this country, and who spoke English with a naturally hard edge to it, guttural, if you like. Which was'nt so bad except for one word, a name. The name was "Titus" Unfortunately, the way this poor bloke pronounced it was "TIGHT-ARSE" Oh yeah? you ask... whats so funny?
Well here in Oz we tend to pronounce words with a deeper resonance than you Yanks. So "toh-May- To" in Oz becomes "To-Mah-to". and "Pa-yth" becomes "PAHth" [path] "never" is "nev-ah" you get my drift. Now, in the USA if you want to get your hubby to do something you'd say:" Git off yer ass, buster...." But in Oz you would say:"Gerroff your arse, sunshine, ..mate, matey cobber etc"
So now you get it.To you a rear end is an "ass" to us that's a donkey, the rear end is an"aRse". Damned if this guy did'nt have a part to say which included the phrase: "According to Tit-arse....". One of the brothers in the audience had the gall to say: "take two tablets and call me in the morning..."
That was it!! Absolute bloody pandemonium as the roof nearly caved in with gales of laughter it was impossible to continue. The sad part is, that the poor Polish brother never got it!!
Cheers.
shake things up a bit in your friendly local congregation of jehovah's witnesses by partaking of their memorial emblems this april 12!
when drinking the wine (i don't think you'd get to eating the bread if you carry this first part out), make sensual, sinful sounds of ecstasy!
better yet, noisily gulp down the whole glass of wine and top it with a little burp!
Actually I have tasted the wine used at a memorial and to be frank, it's not that crash hot. The WTS specifies that the wine to be used must be a product of natural fermentation, thus not having any catalyst [like sugar] to expedite distillation. I'm not sure about other parts of the world, but here this type of wine is called "Muscat" I remember as an elder in the 70s arranging to get some for the memorial. It has the most gorgeous smell that could fill a cold room with a warm and comfortable glow. It promised so much. After the memorial when the bottle became redundant some of us elders pulled a swig just for a taste. UGH! To me it tasted like a dreadful medicine. Spare a thought for those doddering goons who actually have to drink the damn thing. You don't know how lucky you guys are.
Cheers
maybe this has been discussed here before.
(i'm relatively new and i don't read the site everyday/or week.
) but, if i remember correctly, the wts defined the human soul as being merely one's physical body.
Hi, Peter123,
Oddly enough, I can confirm having heard something along the very same lines you mentioned, in that commrnts were made by a visiting speaker to our cong back in the mid 70s. As far as I can recall, he did say that fetuses had to be "living" souls to qualify for a resurrection, and simply being "alive'' was not enough. I remember his somewhat sepentine logic, as he argued the hair-splitting meaning of "living" and how that something that was "alive" was not necessarily "living"
Whether the WTS still maintains this position I do not know, since their publications make no mention of this. Of all the ethical decisions individuals have to confront in a culture that is growing more and more secular, few are as complex in the application of basic principles than the matter of abortion. Unfortunately, the Bible does not confront this issue per se, except insofar as to condemn murder, which according to various debating principles may or may not apply to fetuses in a womb.
There is one possible mention of an abortion, at Ex 21:22,23, which tells of the consequences of two men fighting near a pregnant woman. The scriptures say that should a fatality occur, the guilty party would need to die. However, the "fatality" mentioned may not be a miscarriage, [hence by implication an abortion] but the death of the woman. Most commentators feel that that seems to be the intent of the biblcal passage. The WTS refuses to recognize the inherent ambiguity of the text and implies that it categorically refers to an abortion. Reasoning pg 25
The WTS takes advantage of the fact that the Heb "Nephesh" has a complex series of meanings and an equally complex series of applications. Indeed, it does appear in some passages to confirm the WTS idea that the "soul" IS the person, but they also either deny, or redifine, those portions of Scripture that clearly show that the "soul" is something cognitive IN a person, which leaves the body at death, [Gen 35:18] and enters on life [1Kin 17:22]
I feel that as men, we have no right to impose our moral judgements on women who have to bear the burden of making decisions that concern the operations within their own bodies. As a commited Christian, a conviction to which I was led after realising the foolhardy theology of the WTS, I am personally against the idea, but I hope that I am mature enough to accept the opinion of women who differ.
Cheers
worldwide faith news (press release), ny - 3 minutes ago .
... 25. jehovah's witnesses, 1,029,902 members, reporting a decrease of 1.07 members.
24. the orthodox church in america, 1,064,000 members, reporting an increase of 6.40 percent.
Actually the door-to-door preaching activity of the JWs is the most inefficient and impractical way to spread the Gospel message today:
In 2001-2002 it took 1.2 BILLION hours to bring in 133,000 into the org. Thats a colossal 9,022 hrs for each one, or 1 year and 11 days. The world has passed the WTS by, what with the electronic media, internet, casual visitation, other churches, like my Baptist church are finding far more efficient ways to do this work.
But then, if it is so impractical, why persist in doing it? Ray Franz points out that the WTS uses it as a "loyalty test" for the R&F. In a religion that is supposedly "spiritual" in concept, they have the most physical of ways to measure ones devotion - foot slogging work. The efficiency or otherwise of the work is unimportant, as long as it involves all the R&F. A cruel irony, Franz points out, is that the "big wigs" in the org, like Jaracz, Barber, et al, have a hateful loathing of the preaching work and themselves never do it. Its a question of "don't do as we do, do as we say"
Rutherford who instituted the door-to-door evangelizing, refused to do it himself. [Probably just as well, since he was rarely sober to do do anything] Knorr, and Fred Franz who came after were the same. Knorr never so much as filled in a report. Franz was far too busy musing about his own mystical relationship with "jehoover" to do any preaching.
Cheers
i am not trying to vent here, however i have somewhat of an internal dilema.
having been a very faithful, committed jw for many years, .
i do not understand how the (current) gb justifies applying the title fds .
Hmmm... This raise a dilemma:
Should one stay awake with the Wise Virgins, or sleep with the Unwise Virgins???
Cheers
now that i've read ray franz's part about how his uncle and others with little actual greek or hebrew training translated the bible into the nwt, i've been interested in finding the best bible out there is correctly translated by people who know what the hell they are talking about.
niv?
i've also been looking at other religions lately, ones that are "somewhat" close to the jw's teachings to an extent, and have been interested in seventh day adventists.
Thr reason why we are unable to give a categorical or outrightly dogmatic answer to the question of Bible translations is because a translation serves at least three different purposes, and the reader will need to assess for himself/herself what he/she is looking for.
Imagine a triangle with the words "readability" "accuracy" and "comprehension" at each of the points. Somewhere in the centre of the triangle is an invisible spot that all translations are trying unsucessfully to reach. If you are reading an "accurate" translation, ie one that is striving to tell you literally what the text is actually saying, you will find that readability, and consequently, comprehension suffer. The same goes for the other points. The more readable a translation is, the less accurate it tends to be.
A good gauge to measure a translation is to read how they have rendered the first seven verses of Rom ch 1. This is one long sentence with eight verbs and the corresponding number of clauses. The more you strive to bring out an "accurate" version, literally, word-for-word, the more readability is going to suffer, and correspondingly, one will have difficulty in understanding what the point is that Paul is trying to make. In order to make it readable, translators break down this one long sentence into smaller sentences, [as do the NIV, CEV, ]. It now becomes readable, but does not convey the complexity of Paul's introduction. To balance this, "comprehension" versions try to paraphrase the words, adding verbs that are not there, and removing some that are. Now not only is it readable, but comprehension, is increased, but then accuracy suffers. If, for instance you are tracing a certain verb, or noun, that Paul is using in his letters, this becomes impossible.
So which version? Depends. Depends on what you are looking for in a translation. Probably, because there is no one Bible that combines all three elements of Bible translation, it would be wisest to invest in several.
For literalness: New American Standard. The WEB translation, this is free internet translation available for download at esword.com it is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901, and which, because it used "Jehovah"in the OT was widely distributed by the WTS. The revision now uses the more accurate "Yahweh" Youngs Literal version, probably the most literal version on the market today [but then almost impossible to read] Concordant Literal version, KJV [in Aust and commonwealth countries called the Authorized Version] NKJV. Any interlinear, either of the OT or the New. Chas. B Williams is a NT translation that tries to bring out a consistency of verb forms. Prof Kenneth Wuerst has a NT version, that tries to do this as well, but extends literalness to all language forms, nouns, adjectives etc. Another literal version also available free on the internet, is the Analylical Lit NT by seminary graduate Gary Zeolla.
For readability: NIV, RSV, NRSV [a revision of the RSV, but not as good as the original, in my opinion] Darby Version. A genuine scholar, Nelson Darby of the Brethren Church, learned 12 seperate languages including three of the Biblcal ones [Greek, Heb, Chaldee] His translation was made by him into English, French, and German.The Jerusalem Bible [an RC version], the revision, the New Jerusalem is now on the market. Byington [this was done by Stephen Byington a maverick from Andover Bible College, noted for its "liberal" scholarsticism. It is published exclusively by the WTS, who I believe, have allowed it to go out of print.] The NET Bible. This is also a free Bible available for download at Bible.org
For paraphrase: The Message, CEV, NLT, Knox [An RC version] 20th Cent version. Weymouth NT. JB Phillips NT. Barclays NT. New American [also an RC version]
The thing to ensure is that the translator[s] is[are] someone who has a deep love and respect for the Bible as the Word of God, as is not attempting to push some private agenda
Cheers.
i thought i would ask this question as i have been reading some fascinating information on some other sites as to the correct pronunciation of gods real name?
also for that matter, i ask what jesus proper pronounced name is?.
if you go to another country and tell people your name and instead of calling you your name as you pronounced it, they automatically transliterate it into their own language and call you by the name thay have transliterated it in to; would that annoy you after awhile?
Our current understanding of the pronunciation of Hebrew names in the OT is almost totally dependant on the exacting and exhaustive work employed by the Masoretes, [Jewish scholars living between 500 - 1000 AD] who went to extraordinary lengths to supply the vowel equivalents required for these names. Rendering these same names into regional and national nominatives has been made possible only insofar as our dependance on the massoretes is accepted.
Hence "Ezekiel" "Jeremiah" etc, thanks to the endeavours of the Massoretes, are not figments or randomized collections of sounds, but represent, in as accurate a form as is possible, the names of the persons involved.
However, one name did elude the Massoretes. The Tetragrammaton, YHVH. In this place the Massoretes utilized the vowels for the Hebrew "Adohnai" the intention being, not to combine the consonants of YHVH with the vowels of "Adohnai" thus creating a hybrid or mongrelized sound meaning neither, but simply to accept that "Adohnai" was what intended to be pronounced. It would be doing an injustice to the Massoretes, and misunderstanding their intentions by pronouncing the Tetragrammaton in ways other than their prescription. We cannot accept their scholarasticism in all the other names in the OT yet deny their authority in this one word, simply because we choose to disagree with them. It was not some sort of "Jewish tradition" that led the Masoretes to do this, but a devout understanding of the sacredness of the Divine Name.
The point is that YHVH is unpronouceable. In our attempts to articulate the unpronounceable we are forced, like the Massoretes, to employ "surrogates" What seems to escape the dogmatism of the WTS, is that "jehovah" is a surrogate, as much a surrogate as "LORD" is, or "Yahweh" and no more represents the "name" of God than these substitutes. If the WTS accepts the integrity of the NT text, as they so deceitfully claim, then they would be forced to admit that The Holy Spirit Himself accepted the use of "Lord" as a perfectly acceptable equivalent for the OT YHVH
Does the WTS seriously believe that using the term "Father" ensures an ignoring of Divine attention, without the repetitive use of "jehovah"?
Leolaia - Would it be possible for you to post the articles you mentioned earlier,[the ones written by Rutherford and Franz] or are they copyrighted or something. They would be most interesting to study
Cheers
some common perceptions of heaven include the following: .
heaven is not a real or literal place.
when a person dies and goes to heaven, he/she becomes an angel with wings.
Hi, Honesty, since you asked for the Bible's perspective on what constitutes heaven well, for better or worse, [I can only provide the Evangelical point of view - there are minor variants of the following] here it is:
1 Heaven is a created reality beyond the matrix of the earth.[Gen 1:1] In the Bible, the expression "Heaven and earth" circumscribes the entire creation, the whole cosmos, what we may term "the Universe"
2 In a way that is not detailed in the Bible, God dwells there, though He does not need heaven as a spatial unit in which to exist. Because God is infinite, and self-existent, He exits continuously in a realm which includes heaven and earth and which is beyond human capacities to comprehend. "Place" is an accommodation of God to His finite creatures.Thus, God Himself transcends both heaven and earth.
3 Whereas we are of the earth, the Bible also reveals that there is within the human species a spiritual potential that yields to a heavenly need. Man was not designed to live on physical realities only, but to respond to a deeper, more potentially glorious destiny that is intuitively beyond the carnal and material.
4 Unlike in Plato, which describes "heaven" as a place in which naked minds will intellectually contemplate the eternal world of unchanging ideas, the Bible reveals that the whole person of the "redeemed" survives. Even the body is raised again, to be transformed to that which Christ now possesses. Evidently not made up of flesh and blood, since this kind of body does not exist in heaven, it is "changed" as Paul describes it, [1Cor 15:50] to conform to heavenly patterns. This resurrection body is composed of flesh and spirit, not flesh and blood. It is this dynamic that gives the resurrection body such power which is beyond physical comprehension.
5 Christ the first to possess such a body, could appear and disappear at will, He did not need to travel, ie "Move" through space He simply WAS. One moment He was on Mt Carmel the next, millions of miles away in heaven. The Bible does not explain how this was done, only that it was.This eventuality is the promise given to believers, those who are "in Christ" [not those who are in the RC church or the Baptist church etc] and is certainly not restricted to simply 144,000.[ 2Cor 5:1] The resurrection body which Paul described as being "glorious" cannot be defined within human limitations.
6 No details are presribed as to heavenly existence, beyond the fact that physical distinctions which make up the pattern of earthly life, will be abolished. There will be neither male nor female [Yup- no sex you carnal heathens], nor black nor white. Evidently in a reality that sees even the suspension of time, there will be no concept of ''Age" or "Aging"
7 There are things that the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, that God has prepared for those who love Him. [1Cor 2:9] The obsenity of the WTS is to restrict those who "love" God to the 144000
Cheers
i'm posting under the influence of distilled spirits and was wondering:.
what's your favorite kind of booze?
i like frou frou mixed drinks like frozen margaritas and pina coladas.
Serendipity, talking of quotes here's one from the archives of my distoted imagination:
A drunk lurches up to the bar and tells one of the "ladies of the night" : "Hey, wanna screw?"
She replies: "Wellll..... you talked me into it you eloquent silver tongued devil you"
Boom Boom
Cheers
