CalebInFloroda

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Posts by CalebInFloroda

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  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  And I did more than see Carrier's video. I am quite familiar with his work as a whole.
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  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  This discussion reminds me of something.

  I remember a discussion with a friend that got into a heated argument until he broke down. He was trying to convince me that Jesus was nothing more than a myth. I told him it was irrelevant to Jews whether Jesus was historically real or not.

  This seemed to his aggravate him. The more he kept saying that "this and that" proved Jesus could be nothing more but a made-up story, the more it seemed that my repeated reply that it didn't matter to Jews made him furious.

  I mean he got red eyes, to-the-point-of-crying furious. I tried to calm him down until he was practically sobbing.

  A moment or two of trying to regain himself and he explained, much more calmly:

  "I can't be like you, Cal. [My friends call me "Cal," not Caleb by the way.] I can't reject a Jesus that exists on any level."

  "I don't understand," I said. "Do you believe that the prophet Muhammad was a real person? What about Siddhārtha Gautama, the person that came to be known as the Buddha?"

  He thought for a moment. "I guess so. It doesn't really matter, I suppose."

  "Why not?" I asked my friend.

  "Well," he began, "I don't believe in Islam or Buddhism. And it stands to reason that someone had to start those religious movements. So they can be as real as necessary."

  "Okay," I said. "Then why all the fuss about Jesus."

  "I don't know. I guess it is because I was raised a Christian. And for me I just can't reject him if even on some level he existed. I can't do it. I don't think I want to. I need him to be a myth."

  I think for some of us who leave the Watchtower, like my friend here, we need Jesus to be completely false. It might be very hard for some people to reject what they once embraced as the Savior of the World. As I've stated before it takes no courage to reject a made-up character.

  This doesn't mean I am saying people who want Jesus to be a myth are lying to themselves or cowards. No. What I am saying is that this might, in some cases, be part of a healing process. It can be difficult to learn to say: "No, I won't accept you or believe what you say" to someone who is real. It can be very, very hard, especially having had it ingrained in us for so many years.

  While not all atheists or non-Christians do this, for some G-d and Jesus have to be myths. I'm not saying that all who come to this conclusion are doing so because they have emotional issues, of course not--no. But some do have emotional issues that must be lived through, that must be healed, that might like my friend need Jesus to be a myth.

  We may not be able to see it in ourselves if that is the case, and it really isn't for others to judge them or call them out on it as if to say: you are weak, you are a failure, etc. Healing often causes us to learn to live with limitations and even fears for a while until we can get over them.

  I once choked so badly on my own vomit that I scared myself out of throwing up for years, even when it was medically necessary. I got over it. If I need to vomit, it's no big deal. But the choking experience from the past made it impossible for me to allow myself to up-chuck for a while. Trauma sometimes gives us little choice.

  Jesus may not have been the actual trauma, but those who taught us about him probably were. The JWs often leave us little recourse to get back at them in our need for justice, so we take it out on Jesus, the Bible, even G-d. We tend to blame what we can get our hands on when the perpetrators of evil are out of reach. Think about it, if G-d and Jesus and the Bible are such myths, why do we spend so much time putting them down? Do we do this with all myths too, spending as much time as debating about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc.?

  In some cases, not all--and I stress NOT ALL--we have little recourse but to take it out on the myths. And we might need them to be myths.

  If they are myths, okay. Cool. Let's move on. Pay no attention to them.

  If they are not myths, it's also okay. You don't have to follow every Tom, Dick, or Harry who can make water stand on end or cause bread to fall from the sky.

  If they are something in between, or real even in a little way, it's still okay. You are not obligated to be a follower of anybody, no matter how real they are. You can say no to your parents, tell off Geoffrey Jackson to his face, and even argue with a real G-d and tell that G-d you don't like the way things are run. You can reject very real things and still be okay.
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  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  I am not arguing that a Jewish response to Jesus is proof that Jesus existed. I am asking how does a mythological, never-existing mythical person cause writings by contemporaries to speak against someone who supposedly was never there in the first place.
  

  Second Temple era Responsa is older than the New Testament. It takes time for myths to be created and accepted. The idea that a mythological, non-entity so quickly governed such a reaction among Jewish society and continued into the Diaspora before even the Gospels were canonized would have to be demonstrated.

  The Responsa alone proves little, but claiming there was no Nazarene by the name of Yeshua who taught people is hard to demonstrate in the face of how quickly this same person became part of the Jewish schema that rejected his claims of being the promised Messiah even before the Second Temple fell in 70 CE.

  Jesus could be a myth. But for that to be so we have to explain a whole lot of something caused by someone who was supposedly never ever there. I'm not saying Jesus is real, but I am saying we have to also supply a verifiable explanation for what seems to be a cause-and-effect paradigm.
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  13

  Does Jehovah control the weather? (Pharaoh's dream - 7 years of famine)

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to the scriptures, jehovah makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous.

  - matthew 5:45. in that case, if we look at the account in genesis, god is shown to give pharaoh a dream that he will cause seven years of famine.. genesis 41: pharaohs dreams.

  25 then joseph said to pharaoh, the dreams of pharaoh are one and the same.

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  CalebInFloroda

  Forgive the misspellings in my previous post. I am fighting the idiotic auto-correct feature.
• 
  13

  Does Jehovah control the weather? (Pharaoh's dream - 7 years of famine)

  by truthseeker in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to the scriptures, jehovah makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous.

  - matthew 5:45. in that case, if we look at the account in genesis, god is shown to give pharaoh a dream that he will cause seven years of famine.. genesis 41: pharaohs dreams.

  25 then joseph said to pharaoh, the dreams of pharaoh are one and the same.

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  CalebInFloroda

  Truth is not the same thing as fact.

  Facts about human history have since antiquity been preserved and transmitted by performance, art, and music. The modern Rice-Lloyd Webber opera, "Evita," is a perfect example. It's not just a powerful and moving production, it is a true story.

  But the details are not always factual. And the narrative device is music. Almost every single word in sung. Does the fact that the story of Evita Peron is performed via the narrative device of opera make it any less true? Of course not. In fact were it not for "Evita" most people would never have learned of her.

  A narrative device is a means to carry a point across. It isn't the same thing as a fabrication. For instance, in Luke 1.46, the Virgin Mary breaks out in song, the canticle known as the Magnificat. Did she literally sing this song in front of her cousin Elizabeth?

  No. It is a narrative device because Luke wrote the first two chapters of his gospel not in Koine Greek, but in Jewish Greek, the type found in the more ancient Septuagint. He wrote his Infancy Narrative as a cantor's liturgical reading that people would hear chanted from the lectern on a Holy Day at the synagogue. Why? Because only the inspire dhistory of the Jews ever got this kind of treatment. Luke did this throughout the first two chapters because he believed the birth of Christ was a continuation of this history.

  It did 't really occur in song or in Septuagint Greek, but like a film maker using black-and-white as means to show that something is historical before switching to color to mean we are in the present, Luke employed a writing technique to teach a point.

  The point of the Genesis story is not that G-d caused a literal famine (G-d might have), but that G-d was saving people from disaster through Joseph. In Hebrew idiom of the time both good and evil were ascribed to G-d, so it is not clear whether the writer was being literal or merely employing idiom about G-d being the true cause of this particular famine.

  In ancient Jewish writing, when an author skipped details or even made the details impossible to reconcile with reality, it was a narrative device that meant: "The details or setting is irrelevant to the story."

  The important details of the story are the facts that Joseph is given the ability to interpret dreams and that this elevates Joseph into a position to save the lives of his family, preserving the seed of Abraham. In the end that is all that is important.

  Was it really a dream about cows and grain? Exactly what are the details of the famine and why was on,y the storing of grain sufficient? We can hypothesize all day if we want, but the Bible writer breezes past these details. That is generally the ancient earmark to move along. It is just a technique of writing. It doesn't mean the device is false or true, it just means it is a device, a manner of telling a story.

  This goes for the words "mythos," "mythology," and "legend." Legends are generally real. American history, for example, is transmitted mostly by legend ( like George Washington chopping down a cherry tree or Paul Revere's midnight ride). Legends aren't the factual story, but they are used to transmit truths.

  Even when details are fictionalized, these fictional devices don't make the story false. Just because Evita Person didn't really sing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" doesn't mean the haitorical person didn't feel such things or proclaim them over her very brief life.

  The Bible is not a collection of news stories. It is a collection of religious explanations. Like he parables of Jesus, the stories themselves are not always factual, but the lessons are intended to transmit truths.
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  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  OntheWayOut,

  Jewish Christians did not abandon keeping kashrut (eating kosher) or avoiding circumcision.

  In fact, Acts 21.17-26 shows that Jewish Christians, including the Apostle Paul, were fully Torah observant. The Pauline epistles have been misunderstood by the ignorant JWs as applying to all Christians, but from the first century onward they were understood as applying only to Gentiles. Jewish Christians were Torah observant.

  Even today, Jewish Christians tend to be Torah observant. For instance, today in the Roman Catholic Church many Christians of Jewish ancestry live as the first-century Jewish Christians of Acts 21. Known as "Hebrew Catholics" many keep kashrut, practice circumcision, observe Jewish holy days, wear kippah, tallit, pray in Hebrew, etc. and these are full members of the Catholic Church, in complete communion with the Holy See and Vicar of Christ, the Pope.

  And this just covers Jewish Catholics. Protestant Jewish Christians, generally referred to as Messianic Jews, are also Torah observant.

  Those among my people who accept Jesus as Messiah generally never assimilate or only do so very little. This is because in Jewish culture the arrival of Messiah is equated with the preservation of Torah and Jewish culture, not its destruction. Jesus or any Messianic figure is not an excuse to abandon Judaism for Jews. On the contrary, the Messiah is the means to spread Jewish values and make them universal.
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  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  My previous comment was cut short by a technique error.

  Mental illness was generally equated with demonic influence in first century society, and people were often abandoned to die by their families.

  Jewish Responsa, as most of you know, is very complex, covering daily life Halacha application, instruction on proper exegetical methods, even propriety regarding rhetoric, governing centuries of learning and covering everything from mishnaic philosophy to the Talmud. Within this great body of work is a body of Responsa itself regarding Jesus.

  While some of it suggests demonic influence, Jesus is pictured as a charlatan at best but not a schizophrenic. While I understand that some find it easier to dismiss a crazy man or a completely fabricated myth, but it is intellectually dishonest to make a historical Jesus of Nazareth impossible. An non-historical figure would not have inspired such complex Jewish rhetoric designed to defend Judaism's stand.

  It takes no courage to dismiss something that is non-existent, nor does it require you to look deeper into a subject that demands we leave our comfort zone. But the truth of matters often demands we leave our happy place, study further than what we want, and even be courageous far beyond what appeals to our liking.

  Reality is disturbing, and we are no longer in Watchtower world where things are merely black or white. This means we might have to accept more about the reality of Jesus than we like or even feel we can. But if we find we cannot reject Jesus unless he be a myth or crazy man, then perhaps we have to ask ourselves why a real Jesus from Nazareth is such a threat to our conclusions. A historical Jesus should never have to make denying him impossible.
• 
  74

  That's it! The Jesus stories are most reasonably explained as myth. History makes this obvious.

  by Island Man in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a careful examination of the historical pagan religious context existing at the time of the genesis of christianity leads any reasonable person to conclude that jesus is just another one of several similar myths.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn7teoa9ark.

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  CalebInFloroda

  I have several friends with family members who suffer from mental illness and one relative of my own who also has their own particular battles.

  Schizophrenia is not about hearing voices as often believed, it's about delusions. There is also significant motor function and an inability to care for one self. While some might think they hear an invisible presence speaking to them, most that I know of and what I've learned do not fit the popular myths about schizophrenia often portrayed in films and television.

  Jesus of Nazareth would have never been able to be considered a rabbi or prophet in Jewish society if he were mentally ill. Jews generally ushered these people away from general society
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  22

  Inspiration, inscripturation

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the apostle paul stated at 2 timothy 3:16: all scripture is inspired of god.

  the phrase inspired of god translates the compound greek word theopneustos, meaning, literally, god-breathed or breathed by god.

  this is the only occurrence of this greek term in the scriptures.

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  CalebInFloroda

  Village Idiot,

  In line with Doug's comments, the idea that redactions "corrupt" the Bible are the late invention of American Fundamentalism from the First and Second Awakenings. This idea is often called "radical Sola Scriptura" as it supplants the Bible as the revelation for Christianity.

  For Christianity, the final revelation from G-d is the Person of Jesus Christ, not Scripture. Referred to as the Incarmate "Word" in John chapter 1, Christianity gave a qualifier to the Scripture canon, naming it the "written" Word of God by contrast.

  Redactions and editorial processes make up the inspiration for traditional Christian denominations. But the radical departure which came from the period which birthed the JWs replaced Jesus with the Bible as the foundation for Christian religion. This required a new theology which states that the written word has to be inerrant and untouched since first inscribed. The reason is that the Book is seen as a direct revelation from G-d, and thus any changes to it would disqualify it as such.

  The idea is very Gnostic, as Doug explains, as they believed holy writ was revelation and salvation possible only by learning the secrets hidden in the texts. Christianity rejected this notion, denying that reading Scrioture was a requisite to salvation.

  If Scripture was a requisite to salvation as the Gnostics and their modern counterparts suggest then, yes, it stands to reason that only the first texts in the purest forms would be acceptable. But since the texts were written to be used as liturgical texts (most of which as sung or chanted to a meter that exists in the original language cadence in some instances), it stands to reason that the texts would be fitted for such cantor use.

  The canonization of both Jewish and Christian Scripture was to authorize works for the Lectionary, not as a compendium of doctrine. It was designed to be read aloud as in synagogue and Eucharistic services, not rummaged through as the Gnostics claimed to search for life-saving codes that only a select could understand.
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  33

  Why isn't demon possession a DF offense?

  by rebel8 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  let's review: it's a cult!.

  allrighty--got thinking about it in this thread.

  isn't it odd that, of all things, that isn't on the list of df offenses?

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  CalebInFloroda

  John,

  My studies did include a brief visit to two separate homes undergoing the research stage for "strange" phenomena, one a family home with a so-called poltergeist and another with a so-called ghost.

  I use the expression "so-called" because most people automatically think of spirits of the dead or a belief in the occult or demons, and I am only speaking of witnessing phenomenon under investigation.

  I can say from experience that whatever such phenomenon consists of, it is unsettling to say the least. The home of the poltergeist involved having heavy billiard balls from a pool table tossed at us, a collection of records from a hall closet tossed out of a,closed closet and smashed against the wall, hanging light fixtures sent in a swinging frenzy, and window blinds slowly open and shut. The events took place over a period of two hours.

  The other home consisted of landline phones being removed from their hook (for those who remember those old phones) and televisions being constantly switched when you left the room to a channel with nothing but static (again before digital TV). That was a four-week visit that also consisted of an apparition sighting that, I swear, looked like a flesh and blood teenage male, around 14, who wore a white button-down shirt, dark slacks, tennis shoes, and walked across a dining room entering from one wall and walking out through another at around 10:15 am one Sunday morning. The sun from the windows even shone on the figure like it did on any other person.

  I don't think I was scared as much as amazed and very curious. I remember doing the oddest thing afterwards, touching the wall he walked out of the room through to just make sure it was solid.

  I was creeped out at the first house but more disturbed by the home owners of the second home who viewed their "ghost" as nothing but mere fun. An exorcism was suggested by myself and a Catholic priest after the investigation, but the family decided it was unnecessary. I am not sure why they reported it to Catholic channels in the first place as that was their attitude.

  But neither experience led to me believing in ghosts or spirits of the dead. So just because you experience "things that go bump in the night" doesn't mean that you have to accept fairy tales. Ghosts have been reported since the dawn of recorded history by all cultures. Just because something startles you or looks amazing doesn't mean that the world will end by being trampled by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

  Some scientists theorize that there are various dimensions to each reality. Maybe they cross. Since we can record audio and video by merely reorganizing iron oxide, perhaps something like this happens in nature that record scenes from the past that just play back as "ghosts."

  But if our convictions are such that they could change like the swinging of a door with every unexpected breeze, then maybe our convictions are not as firm or solid as we believe. Seeing an apparition doesn't mean you've seen the ghost of a dead person or that Catholic exorcism is real. It just means you've seen an apparition.