Posts by CalebInFloroda

62

Basic Bible and Religious Vocabulary the Watchtower Never Teaches

by CalebInFloroda in

when i began formal study of religion and biblical analysis it was like peeling off layer after layer of dark matter, sticky and putrid that had stuck over my eyes and ears and mouth.

i learned that under the watchtower one only builds a widening gap between yourself and the world of biblical academia and scholars.

i used to think i knew a lot because i learned to quote a few scholars or lexicons as a witness.

CalebInFloroda

And the list continues...

6. Hasmonean

I never understood how the Watchtower would admit that Jesus celebrated the Festival of Lights (Chanukkah) but still teach that it was wrong to observe holidays. Chanukkah is not a holy day from the Mosaic Law but came from later history, observing the rededication of the Temple after Hellenists attempted to turn it into a heathen place of worship.

It was the Maccabees or the "Hasmonean" dynasty that rose to power due to this family being central to these liberating events. The descendants of the ruling House of David are said to have partially returned to Jerusalem by this time with some refusing to return from their settled placed of Seferad (Spain) once the Hasmoneans became the ruling class.

The events of the Maccabean period are preserved in 1 Maccabees with general religious interpretations and teaching that stem from this era found in the other books of Maccabees. The Hasmonean dynasty ruled amid Seleucid intrigue between circa 140 through 116 B.C.E.

7. Proto-Masoretic

Hebrew Bible texts produced by copyists before the Masoretes of the Common Era are called "proto-Masoretic." The Dead Sea Scrolls are proto-Masoretic.

8. Divine Office

The official daily prayers of the Catholic Church, divided into five to seven times to pray marking the hours of the day such as sunrise, noon, sunset, etc., is known as the Divine Office. It consists of praying the Psalms over a period of four weeks until each of the Psalms has been prayed at least once. Selected readings from the Old and New Testsment as well as from the Church Fathers, Saints, and doctors of the Church are included.

Known today as "The Liturgy of the Hours," it is based on the ancient Jewish practice of praying at select times sanctifying the day. Psalters were created as the basis for both liturgical practices and is generally viewed as the prayer of the people, clergy and lay persons, rabbis and people.

Canonization of Scripture was intended mainly for liturgical purposes, and most people through the centuries have had their only exposure to the Scriptural tradition through such liturgy.

Catholics who pray the Divine Office will read more Scripture in a day than Witnesses read in a week, maybe a month.

9. Lectionary

The readings used for Christian worship such as in a Mass are divided into readings prepared according to days on the Litrugical Calendar. This collection of readings is known as a "Lectionary." More people in history have been exposed to Scripture from Lectionary readings than from reading directly from a Bible.

Personal Bible ownership was not a common phenomenon until the 19th century.

10. Nova Vulgata

The Nova Vulgata (a.k.a. Neo-Vulgate) is the current critically developed Latin translation of the Scriptures employed by the Roman Catholic Church. Published in 1979 it replaced the Vulgate as the official Latin text.

The Watchtower often makes mistakes in discussing the Latin text, confusing quotes and stats between the Vulgate and the Neo-Vulgate.

62

Basic Bible and Religious Vocabulary the Watchtower Never Teaches

by CalebInFloroda in

when i began formal study of religion and biblical analysis it was like peeling off layer after layer of dark matter, sticky and putrid that had stuck over my eyes and ears and mouth.

i learned that under the watchtower one only builds a widening gap between yourself and the world of biblical academia and scholars.

i used to think i knew a lot because i learned to quote a few scholars or lexicons as a witness.

CalebInFloroda

@John Aquila

Regarding your question about Ecclesiasticus, since I am going down the list right now, but pausing after each five to all people to digest it all, I can only quote the Wicked Witch of the West:

"All in good time, my pretty. All in good time."

62

Basic Bible and Religious Vocabulary the Watchtower Never Teaches

by CalebInFloroda in

when i began formal study of religion and biblical analysis it was like peeling off layer after layer of dark matter, sticky and putrid that had stuck over my eyes and ears and mouth.

i learned that under the watchtower one only builds a widening gap between yourself and the world of biblical academia and scholars.

i used to think i knew a lot because i learned to quote a few scholars or lexicons as a witness.

CalebInFloroda

Pretty interesting that most of us who know at least some of these words also admit we didn't learn them at all when under the dark shadows of the Watchtower. I know that I was truly ignorant.

Here are the first five words and their definitions. The first is probably the most important of all the words on the list.

1. Liturgy

If it were not for Jewish and Catholic/Orthodox liturgy, there would be no Bible--that is how important this word is.

The "liturgy" consists of the formal acts of worship of these religions, including their ritual and (most important of all) the materials they read and sang from. In Temple and later synagogue liturgy the worship sessions were based on a yearly calendar marking out the historical experiences of Israel, reading from ancient texts that described the events from what is now known as Torah and the other writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. Their official book of hymns and prayers were collected as the Psalms.

When Christians began their worship services, these were based on the only ones they knew, namely the Jewish synagogue service. Along with readings from the Hebrew Scriptures the Christians added readings from the apostles. Christians adopted the Jewish collection of Psalms as their official hymnal and prayer book.

When the question of settling the New Testament canon arose, Church authorities made their final call based on what the majority of churches read in liturgy. Judaism's Hebrew Bible is also developed from this model based on liturgy. If you ever wondered why the Bible doesn't have a detailed explanation of how to hold a worship service, it is because the canons grew out of the worship services themselves: liturgy.

To this day you can tell which religions are historically and legitimately connected to the past because they are "liturgical"--following a yearly or three year cycle in which to read the canon of texts in formal proclamation which acts as the theme for the service of the day. By the late 20th century this fact became so profoundly understood that most Protestant churches adapted the Roman Catholic liturgical reading cycle and calendar for holy days. To this day the official prayer book of Catholics is the Psalms, which are prayed daily on a rotating cycle of weeks by clergy and layperson alike.

Litrugy is responsible for the canon that the JWs cherish.

2. Exegesis

Everyone's got their interpretation of Scripture, right? But not everyone can supply "exegesis." That's because exegesis is a critical interpretation of Scripture, based on critical methods of analysis and examination. An exegesis of Scripture works much like a scientific theory. You can examine exegesis, test it, and see if it produces the same results to verify it. Like science theory exegesis is generally accepted critical Bible theory, validated and tested. The word seems to be getting around however and people on the Internet are beginning to apply it to all types of Bible and personal interpretation, but that isn't what true exegesis is.

The Watchtower doesn't employ critical methods or approves of their being subjected to them since it requires the step of independent validation. As such no exegesis comes from the religion of the JWs.

3. Psalter

As mentioned above, the official hymns and prayers of both Judaism and liturgical Christianity are the Psalms. As such they often get printed alone in a collection designed for prayer and chanting use, known as "Psalters." They generally contain a liturgical calendar (what day to pray, sing or chant a particular psalm), as well as contain material such as lists and stories of saints. Psalters ancient and modern confirm the canonization of the psalms and help in assuring accuracy in translation.

Of course the religion of the JWs does not employ a Psalter. They read the Psalms as if they are dry texts meant to be examined and use a "song book" of non-inspired songs. It is also against Watchtower rules to use and repeat written prayers in JW worship even though this is how the Psalms have been employed for centuries.

4. Doublet

The Watchtower often states that it is an ancient Hebrew technique to write a story and then repeat it again. This is, like so much they teach, very wrong.

Ever wonder why there are two creation stories or why one story of Noah has him bring pairs of animals into the ark and another has him bringing seven pairs each of every species? What you are reading is called a "doublet."

Doublets are signs that the Bible books were composed of various traditions, sometimes conflicting ones, and that redactors of the text could not decide which was the true one. So both were placed side-by-side in the narrative flow. There are even "triplets" and "quadruplets" in some texts. Scholars see in these the editorial process that shaped the Bible.

Unlike the JWs who claim this is "just the way the ancient Hebrew wrote," it is actually more telling that the ancients wrote in a linear and logical fashion and were so respectful of their traditional heritage that they dare not exclude stories on the basis of contradictory details. So eventually all stories found their way beside other traditions. This even shows that it is very likely that the authors and editors didn't see the material as a literal narrative, otherwise they would never have allowed doublets.

5. Shem Ha-M'forash

Also known as the Shem Ha-Meyuhad, the Shem Ha-M'forash is the Jewish expression for what you proabably know as...the Tetragrammaton.

62

Basic Bible and Religious Vocabulary the Watchtower Never Teaches

by CalebInFloroda in

when i began formal study of religion and biblical analysis it was like peeling off layer after layer of dark matter, sticky and putrid that had stuck over my eyes and ears and mouth.

i learned that under the watchtower one only builds a widening gap between yourself and the world of biblical academia and scholars.

i used to think i knew a lot because i learned to quote a few scholars or lexicons as a witness.

CalebInFloroda

When I began formal study of religion and Biblical analysis it was like peeling off layer after layer of dark matter, sticky and putrid that had stuck over my eyes and ears and mouth. I learned that under the Watchtower one only builds a widening gap between yourself and the world of Biblical academia and scholars.

I used to think I knew a lot because I learned to quote a few scholars or lexicons as a Witness. Boy, was I wrong!

Here are a list of basic words that college and even some high school level students of Scripture and religion already know well. Without them you can't really understand what you read from some of the blurbs the Watchtower quotes.

Match your knowledge after leaving the JWs with this vocabulary list (plus a few extras) and see if you can define them without looking them up. They are placed in general level of importance (based on lesson plans I gathered over the years from various classes). Don't look them up, just use your memory or best guess. I will return with their definitions, why they are important, and we can compare this to what type of "education" in the Bible the Watchtower claims to offer.

1. Liturgy

2. Exegesis

3. Psalter

4. Doublet

5. Shem Ha-M'forash

6. Hasmonean

7. Proto-Masoretic

8. Divine Office

9. Lectionary

10. Nova Vulgata

11. Sacramentality

12. Relic

13. Sola Scriptura

13. The difference between "everlasting life" and "eternal life"

14. Temporal

15. The Divine Comedy

16. Illumination

17. Explain the difference between "uncial" and "cursive"

18. Terse

19. Explain the importance the book of Ecclesiasticus played in Christian history

20. Explain difference between a Bible "translation" vs. "version"

No fair looking them up. Use your Watchtower training (if you know these definitions because you got smart and educated yourself, try sharing how you felt when you discovered how little you had really been taught as a JW while giving others a chance to give answers).

This is an experiment designed to demonstrate how lacking the "worldwide Bible education work" really is, so cheating will be counter-productive.

29

JW's are semi-trinitarians and do not understand the Sacret Secret

by paradisebeauty in

i have been searching pro and anti arguments for trinity, and found out there are anti-trinitarians who believe jesus did not preexist before his human life.

and i am thinking, it kind of makes sense.

what if yahweh created a second adam.

CalebInFloroda

There are too many conditions in these theories which are based solely on Watchtower theology to be acceptable to Christianity.

The original meaning of "only begotten Son" in Christianity is based on both the Semitic idiom of "son" and that used by ancient Hellenistic Roman society. Remember the "sons of thunder" of Mark 3.17? They weren't the literal male offspring of thunder. Luke 10.16's "son of peace" is not the male offspring of the absence of war. And Judas Iscariot was not the male offspring of perdition merely because Jesus called him "the son of destruction" at John 17.12.

No, a "son of thunder" is a thunderous or boisterous person, a "son of peace" is a peaceful soul and Judas met his own destruction or was destroyed. This term "son," except when used in genealogies and the like, means to be "one and the same with," or the personification of the subject.

Jesus being the "Son of God" as written in the Gospels meant in the eyes of early Christians that he was an incarnation of YHWH (though the Trinitatrian formula was still absent until at least a century later). It doesn't mean that he was literally begotten anymore than kings in David's line were literally begotten by God even though they are said to be such as at Psalm 2. The term "only begotten Son" meant that Jesus was viewed as the incarnation of YHWH, the "only" one anointed or selected to act as such a physical representation.

The JW description is primitive and has no connection to the etymology of the past. It reads the texts as if the English meaning behind words is the primary reading.

The "Son of God" cannot be a created being by definition, which is why the Nicene Creed states that Jesus is "begotten not made." (Again compare how God begets a king in David's line on the day of that king's anointing, not the day of his birth at Psalm 2.) To "beget" a king meant the day God set him on his throne or even the day he was anointed or appointed to be such a king representative of God. It never meant God directly created the ruling king.

As a Jew I don't believe in the whole Jesus or Trinity thing, but I do know the doctrine that I reject very well. I also know that the early Christians never meant to go against the principles of Shema in their theology of Jesus as "Son of God." Instead they intended that this contact with Jesus was a manifestation that required an epiphany on behalf of the believer, an epiphany like Doubting Thomas had that the one Christians were identifying as Messiah was also the God of the Shema.

As such there was no creation of a literal offspring of God to be born as a human to be Messiah. On the contrary, the Trinity doctrine was developed to explain how a God that transcends time and space could enter history while at the same time transcending it, die while at the same time remain undying, be seen while at the same time not being able to be seen.

To introduce a literal second individual who is not this same God as do the JWs would make producing the Trintiy doctrine unnecessary. But the fact that there is such a doctrine demonstrates the problems that arose when the acts attributed to Jesus of Nazareth could in no way be attributed to a mere mortal without defying Shema, something that Christians knew could never be done. The Trintiy was their solution.

11

Bible and Mentally Challenged, what does it say.

by James Mixon in

special olympics today here in los angeles, the smiles on those kids faces.. i wonder how were they viewed in jesus day, demon possessed.. it's strange how the bible omit some issues, like slavery and mentally challenged.

folks.

thank god for humanitarian..

CalebInFloroda

Actually the Hebrew Scriptures do not attribute disabilities to sin as Jews never had a concept of original sin. It is first in the New Testament that you read of a connection between illness and sin and sometimes described as demon possession. This Christian connection remains alive today, but it is not part of Judaism.

In the Tanakh physical imperfections were seen as being far from the ideal reflection of G-d, and this at first caused a lot of injustice for those who were challenged in ancient times. Only perfect male specimens could act as priests, and certain types of challenges were once barriers to disabled foreigners who wished to become a part of Israel.

But by the time of the Second Temple era this began to change. The Judaic ideal transformed from bodily integrity to one of intellectual capacity, and with this change came the reasoning that physical and mental disabilities were not obstacles in measuring one's relation to the perfection reflected from G-d as previously believed.

The Temple cult with its demands on perfect animal sacrifices however only held back progress in this area, so it was not until the Second Temple fell that these changes began progressive moves toward just treatment of the challenged and became permanent features of Tikkun Olam.

35

DOES BELIEF IN THE BIBLE DESTROY ONE'S INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY?

by TerryWalstrom in

based on information to be found at: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_dont_the_highly_educated_believe_in_evolution_the_bible_believers_effe/.

the bible-believers effect.

those who believe the bible is the word of god (bible believers) and those who dont believe the bible is the word of god (bible nonbelievers) differ in their beliefs that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.

CalebInFloroda

Postscript: Of course you could just be pointing out something that you missed from my previous comments or misread, so that could be the reason you raised it.

35

DOES BELIEF IN THE BIBLE DESTROY ONE'S INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY?

by TerryWalstrom in

based on information to be found at: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_dont_the_highly_educated_believe_in_evolution_the_bible_believers_effe/.

the bible-believers effect.

those who believe the bible is the word of god (bible believers) and those who dont believe the bible is the word of god (bible nonbelievers) differ in their beliefs that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.

CalebInFloroda

@jhine

I don't believe I ever stated that Christians or atheists don't work toward making the world a better place. In fact I know that atheists do because a lot of Jews are atheists and a lot of the humanitarian efforts I support have many non-affiliated atheists involved or even at the helm.

I can also list Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others who are likewise involved in very important relief and support efforts as well or that I have had the pleasure of working with. I've worked closely with Catholic Charities USA for years for example.

My question to you is why would you raise this issue? I don't think I've ever inferred that others don't work toward the betterment of society. In fact, Jews know we can't do it alone as we make up only 0.2% of the population. The "you're-not-the-only-ones-who- do-it-you-know" comment puzzles me.

35

DOES BELIEF IN THE BIBLE DESTROY ONE'S INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY?

by TerryWalstrom in

based on information to be found at: http://www.csicop.org/si/show/when_dont_the_highly_educated_believe_in_evolution_the_bible_believers_effe/.

the bible-believers effect.

those who believe the bible is the word of god (bible believers) and those who dont believe the bible is the word of god (bible nonbelievers) differ in their beliefs that humans evolved from earlier species of animals.

CalebInFloroda

I like the way you put that, Terry. "Blind spots" is a perfect description.

45

People should learn more about the Bible flaws

by opusdei1972 in

i have noted that the main problem for those who are seduced by the watchtower society is their ignorance about the bible itself.

people who believe that the bible is the word of god usually ignore the studies on textual criticism and how scientific criteria forbid absurd stories like that of the global flood.

so, i strongly believe that students in schools need at least an obligatory course on "the bible" through the point of view of science and the textual criticism.

CalebInFloroda

Megaboy does have academia behind him and his comments on the flood.

The best philology on the Noah narrative goes like this: a real man known as Noah, did save himself and his household and animals from a tragic but localized flood in the Mesopatamian basin, one that may have been extremely tragic to the surrounding communities. His survival therefore was likely attributed to divine providence as most cultures of the time would have done. End of original story.

Jump into the future at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Among other things Jews are appalled to discover from witnessing heathen worship is their own story of Noah turned into a horrendous tale explaining the superiority and non mercy of Babylonian gods. When Babylon falls, the Jews incorporate these details into the Noah narrative to tease the Babylonians because their gods proved failures. The heathen version is altered into a lesson that the G-d of Abraham and Sarah is not one that wants to flood the world with water like the heathen gods. The G-d of the Jews is one that redeems humankind and creation from tragedy, even promises not to allow such tragedy to repeat in the future.

The above is very simplified, you understand, but the theory does match what records this Mesopatamian flood infultrated and how critical analysis sees a pattern that allowed it to grow into legendary status among many cultures.