i was at the doctor today for over 6-hours to be tested on the issues resulting from the collision.
it seems that there are some serious effects that have emerged, which is not uncommon to happen within a short time after a serious collision.
i will describe them later on, as i am waiting for more test results to arrive.
Really sorry to hear of your injuries. The clinical way in which you described them masks traumas far more terrible than I am sure any of us can imagine. Glad to hear you are chirpy enough to keep us informed, and remember we're all friends here.
Cheers
a while back i spoke with my ms friend (who by the way thinks i am an apostate) about 2 col 2: 16 -17 and i basically said that i believe paul was telling the christians (gentile) that they could celebrate there holidays as long as they did not violate gods law.
now my ms friend said no, paul was talking to the christian jews and was telling them that it was ok to celebrate gods holidays, eventhough it was not necessary since the law had been disolved.
so he basically said it was not a blanket statement about celebrating anything but rather a christian could or could not celebrate past jewish holidays without any problems.
I feel that there is a sense in which you could be right. The city of Colossae in Asia Minor, some 170 kms from Ephesus was a trading and commercial centre based on the rich mineral deposits in the Lycus Valley, where this city was. There would have been a good mixture of Jews and Gentiles in the local church, to which Paul wrote his letter.
In verse 27 of chapter one of this letter, Paul specifically mentions the "mystery" of the Universal Church which was being revealed at that time among the Gentiles, which "mystery" was that Christ was in "you" - the Gentiles - his readers. So there is no doubt that there were Gentiles in the local community and they woud have read Paul's letter.
Also, in verses 11 and 13 of ch 2 he refers to his readers as having an "uncircumcision" of the flesh, and that their "circumcision" was indeed one "not made with hands'' So it seems quite likely that he was adressing the Gentiles in the church with his letter, but he would have included as well those who were former Jews and who had now come to be "in Christ"
The purpose of this letter was not adressing the distinction between the two groups making up the Church community of Colossae, but was attempting to allay a threat that was trying to outflank the Christians in Colossae. The threat of Gnosticism. This was a seminal belief system of various theosophies which contained several abstractions, including the need to take in an exclusivist form of knowledge [gnosis] from a tightly controlled centre. This germination of a heresy was clearly denying the Deity, hence supremacy, of Christ, thus calling for one of the greatest declarations of the Deity of Christ found in all Bible literature [1:15 - 2:9]
Evidently the Jewish element were counteracting this incremental influence of gnosticism by a reliance on the Mosaic Law, and may have tried to influence the Gentile believers in this way of thinking. Paul showed his readers at Colossae, both Jew and Gentile, that neither the Law, nor Gnosticism was the answer. The Answer was Christ, personally. The injunction of 2:16, 17, may certainly have made reference to the Law, but that was not the only concern of Paul. Remember at verse 18 he mentions the "worship of angels'' and "delighting in self-mortification" - NEB, as elements of this same injunction, which were prominent gnostic dogmas. So yes, both, Jews and Gentiles would have been included in 2:16-17. While the Jewish element was influencing the Gentiles so also the Gnostic element was trying to influence both groups, hence the statement at 2:16,17.
It is pathetic that the WTS and its followers have to resrict the contextual reference of this injunction, not because of its biblical implications, but to support their own untenable position.
Cheers
i found this link to a few good bible jokes.
some are childish but funny nonetheless.
anyone have any good ones?.
Did'ja know that Paul had a horse called Izmee? Yep. Its darn tootin' right thar in yer own Bibles.
Did'nt Paul say "Whoa, Izmee" at 1 Cor 9:16?
It gets worse.
During the reign of J Edgar Hoover at the FBI, the Witnesses were called J Hoovers Witnesses
Hang on I ain't finished yet.
Samson was such a great stand up comic he brought the house down
Nope, you aint gittin away that easy:
Balaam was the tallest man in the Bible. Well, he musta been. He done tied his ass at one tree and hell if'n he did'nt strech hisself out at the other tree.Hot Damn! Now thats reel tall ! !
Cheers
the revelation book adhesive cut and paste instruction kit!
this pdf-"kit" was sent to us from a friend of ours who is an elder in england who is thoroughly disgusted.
the file is being sent throughout many congregations by email to assist the witnesses with "corrections" for their "revelation" book.
Great work as usual, matey
keep up the good work
Cheers
the discussion of this text is taken in reference to a discussion i had with a jw elder i know.
most of the time the discussion focused on things not even worth discussing, two things did come up i thought i would examine with more detail because something seemed wrong.
one of these things i discussed here.
I have been through the WT CD 04 looking up this quote at Eph 4:8 unfortunately none of the citations listed give an explanation for why Franz insisted on "translating" the dative construction with the expression "in" Most of the quotes listed on the CD adress seperate issues like "we need to be submissive to God's organisation because He has given us this marvelous "elder" arrangement".
In all these citations the common theme is that these "gifts [in] men" are the elders assigned to the some 70 000 WT congregations worldwide. the "Holy ones" in this pastich becomes the R&F which is odd since at the very start of this letter, adressed to the 'Holy ones" [1:1], a reminder is given that they have been assigned a position in the "heavenly administration" [ 1:10]
Eph 4:8 is the only place that to the best of my knowledge the expression "holy ones" is made to mean the R&F. The Dec 1st Wt pg 16 specifically states that the "holy ones" = R&F
Why then this "translation" - "Gifts [in] men"? One can only speculate, but my own feeling is that Franz saw an opportunity here to stress the "theocratic" arrangement, and that elders, in effect appointed by the WTS, can by inference be seen to be provided by Christ Himself courtesy of the Holy Spirit. In other words, among all the men in a given congregation, some are set apart as gifts. So the conclusion is that most of the men do NOT, repeat NOT, get any gifts.
Such a churlish idea is alien to the entire Pauline corpus. In fact the dative construction used here at Eph 4:8 reiforces an idea directly at varience with WT theology. The thing that is distributed is not the men, [among the many some are selected] but the gifts, [among all the men various gifts are given] In this respect, the word "Anthropois" used here, generically can refer to "people" So to [all] the people who are in the Christian assembly, gifts have been given. Some the ability to evangelize is given [hence not all evangelize] to some the gift of the pastorate is given, [hence not all are pastors] and to some the gift of teaching is given, [hence not all are teachers]
To the WT way of thinking this would mean that only some would go from door-to-door, pleading the lack of the gift of evangelism. [In fact given any excuse, all will opt out of the "joyful" work of going d-t-d !!] Hence, I believe, the almost sinister alteration. Strangely enough, by stressing the "elder arrangement" here, when the text clearly does not, referring to all believers, the WTS is acknowliging the existence of a clergy-laity division which they claim to have such an antipathy aganst.
Cheers
for informational purposes, there is a searchable database of the writings of charles taze russell at http://www.ctrussell.us/.
this site has a complete copy of studies in the scriptures, his watchtower articles from about 1897 through 1916 and various other of his works.
just thought you might be interested!
Hi, Kirani 007, thanks for the research and finding this Russell site.The most wonderful thing is that it is E-Sword compatible
I was wondering if you, or any one on JWD could find something out for me? Online on the Internet you can get: 1 All the WTs from 1879 right up to 1916, when Russell died 2 Then you can get WTs from 1920 onwards. BUT: What about those three years in between 1917, 1918, 1919 which are so crucial to understanding the Rutherford inspired coup d'etat and his taking over the WTS as a result. Anyone know where they are aviailable?
Cheers
i was reading auld souls post on a different thread and i noticed that in 1st chronicles the nwt has the word (true) inserted in parenthesis in front of the word god.1 chronicles 15:25-16:6. and david and the older men of israel and the chiefs of the thousands came to be the ones walking along to bring up the ark of the covenant of jehovah from the house of obed-edom with rejoicing.
and it came about when the [true] god helped the levites while carrying the ark of the covenant of jehovah that they proceeded to sacrifice seven young bulls and seven rams.
and david was dressed in a sleeveless coat of fine fabric, and also all the levites carrying the ark and the singers and chenaniah the chief of the carrying by the singers; but upon david there was an ephod of linen.
There is a sense in which the NWT has attempted to bring out a subtelty behind the original Hebrew wording of the OT and this could be applauded, if it were recognized as a scholarastic usage.
Evidently there are two ways in which the Heb inscribes the word for "God" You have "Elohim" and you have "Haelohim" The second being the same word but with the word "Ha" meaning "The" added.
There are at least two views regarding this as subscribed to by scholars:
1 That the two terms are interchangeable and essentially have no substancial difference in meaning. In other words, their usage is conventional, rather than doctrinal
2 That the "Ha" added signifies a name, hence :"Elohim" as a name. The Darby translation uses the expression "Elohim God" or even "Jehovah Elohim" [Gen 2:4,5 etc]
The NWT however saw another reason. They quote the Zorrell and Semkowski Heb Lecicon pg 54, which says: "In the Holy Scriptures especially the one true God, Jahve, is designated with this word Ha Elohim" [See the NWT Reference Edition Pub in 1984, pg 1567] Zorrell and Semkowski translate for an example, Dt 4:35 as: "Jahve is the [one true] God" Unfortunately for the WTS this Lexicon was published in 1940 and others published since have not necessarily endorsed it. For instance the "Theological Wordbook" by Harris, Archer, and Waltke pub in 1980 make no such distinction. [Pg 44]
Also, the word is used for UNtrue gods 8 times in the OT. Ex 22:20 for instance and so the NWT should have translated the word as "An [untrue] God", but instead leaves the word simply as a plural "gods" .
Where their attempt can be seen as ennobling the God of the Bible, I rather suspect it is an example of unnecessary pretentiousness on the part of Freddy Franz.
Cheers
i realize that threads like this have been done before, but i don't think that it hurts to do one again.. i personally appreciate this website so much.
it has been an absolute treasure-trove of information, research material, emotional support, and simple enjoyment.
and, it's free of charge!
Thanks Simon. You got a lot o' mates down under. And while we are about it:
THANKS TO ALL THE FORUM ASSISTANTS AS WELL !!!
You keep the lot of us IN line and the humbugs OUT
Cheers
Moggy 'n' Me
in the old books of the watchtower they usually always gave the recent number of printes copies.
the convention releases would normally state something like "6,000,000 copies".
i noticed that in the new release it just states "2006 edition".
Incidently, what about the WTs and Awakes? Do they still print the number of copies? And has anyone noticed whether these have gone up or down?
We will need to remember that the Awake has been cut down to one issue a month so if the printing run is the same, it still means that they have halved the print of that mag.
Cheers
"on the basis of this faith in god and in his provision for.
salvation, have you dedicated yourself unreservedly to do.
gods will henceforth as he reveals to you through.
In his book "In Search of Christian Freedom" [pgs 118-121] Ray Franz explores this very problem. In the April 15 1987 WT pg 12, the rationale for altering the baptismal questions was stated as a need to "simplify" matters with respect to the baptism procedure. "Simplify"? what could be simpler than the questions hitherto in use? How could you simplify a matter that was already simple enough even for a moron like me to understand and I took the plunge in ' 57.
The point was that in that WT article, the writers did not mention who the matter was simplified for, and there, my dear Brutus, is the rub. It was'nt simplified for the likes of me and thee, oh no, the WT had a more sinister agenda in mind.
As has been mentioned above, the WTS faced an increasing number of legal suits brought against them by disgruntled former members. They won some of these cases but lost a lot more. Something had to be done to reverse this adverse trend. Enter the Legal Eagles.
The legal brains behind the WTS, probably paid a lot of dough to come up with a solution, found a loophole they could exploit. The US Supreme Court defined the parameters from which a religion had the right to exercise its authority over its adherents. It said that every religion had the "right to create tribunals for the enacting of decisions concerning controversial questions" and that this religious function acted as an "ecclesiastical government for all individual members within the general association" and their adherence connoted an "implied consent to this government"
If, on entering this association, the convert was forced to acknowledge this "implied consent" then any future act of dissent could be viewed as rebellion against a "government" The religion then had the right to dispose of these ones just as any secular government dealt with traitors who had taken a pledge of alliegance to that government. The baptismal questions, since they did not make any reference to any religious authority left the matter open for a dissenter to voice an opposing opinion.
So, now, like a pledge of allegiance to an authority, that is subscribed to as being binding as an oath, the revised baptismal questions make it clear to the new convert that he vows allegiance, not just incidently to jehover and jezzzuz, but to the ORGANISATION. If he sues, or threatens to, the WTS attorneys mail the malefactor a bulky package in the form of a legal brief wherin they cite the above Supreme Court quote, which permits the WTS to act as a "government" and "ecclesiastical court" They then remind the potential dissenter of his "oath" in baptism. So rather than face a potentially damaging court procedure, they invite the person to formally disassociate themselves.
This has indeed stanched the hemorrhage of legal defeats and certaintly "simplified" matters for the legal dept !!!
Cheers
