Posts by Earnest

38

New Approach to Discussing Deity of Christ with JW's

by Sea Breeze in

5:27; 9:59; 18:22; jn.

9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; jn.

21:12, 17;] jn.

Earnest

Sea Breeze, you continually refer to two prominent congregation leaders but do not seem to be able to show where Polycarp refers to "the blood of God". You also ignore everything I have written here about Acts 20:28.

Whether or not Ignatius read the book of Acts is an interesting question. I don't know whether it was in circulation in Antioch in his time. I am just saying that unless you can show he alludes to it in any of his letters there is no reason to suppose he alludes to it here. It's unlikely he even alludes to John unless you can show otherwise.

38

New Approach to Discussing Deity of Christ with JW's

by Sea Breeze in

5:27; 9:59; 18:22; jn.

9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; jn.

21:12, 17;] jn.

Earnest

Sea Breeze : Acts 20: 28 speaks of the "blood of God" and two prominent congregations leaders who were personally discipled by the apostle John use this exact same expression.

The expression used in Acts 20:28 is tou haimatos tou idiou literally meaning "the blood of the own". The expression used in Ignatius' Letter to the Ephesians 1:1 is en haemati theou literally meaning "in blood of god".

The fact is these are not the same expressions. Furthermore, while neither you nor I can crawl into Ignatius' head it remains true that he makes no allusion to the book of Acts in any of his letters so there is no basis for suggesting he alludes to it here.

38

New Approach to Discussing Deity of Christ with JW's

by Sea Breeze in

5:27; 9:59; 18:22; jn.

9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; jn.

21:12, 17;] jn.

Earnest

Sea Breeze, it should first be said that neither of the exerpts that you quote are referring to Acts 20:28. While Ignatius was familiar with some of the Pauline epistles and probably Matthew, he makes no reference to the book of Acts, so there is no basis to suppose Ignatius supports a particular reading simply because he uses the phrase "the blood of God".

Secondly, I cannot find your quotation of Polycarp in any of his writings and think you have simply confused this with a different translation of Ignatius. If you could indicate where your quotation of Polycarp comes from then we could take it more seriously.

Finally, the authenticity of Ignatius' letters has been in doubt since the sixteenth century. There are three recensions of his letters and while most scholars accept the middle recension as authentic, others argue that these are forgeries written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The only surviving copy of the middle recension is from a codex of the eleventh century and the post-Nicene language in the Letter to the Ephesians, supposedly written ten years after the death of the apostles, makes me very doubtful that what we have from the eleventh century has not undergone considerable recension since it was written.

I should also note that you do not address my point that the understanding that Acts 20:28 (and Ignatius' Letter to the Ephesians 1:1) refers to "the blood of God" is the heresy of patripassianism. Patripassianism teaches that God the Father had become directly incarnate in Christ and so the blood of Christ can be referred to as the blood of God. Is this your understanding?

38

New Approach to Discussing Deity of Christ with JW's

by Sea Breeze in

5:27; 9:59; 18:22; jn.

9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; jn.

21:12, 17;] jn.

Earnest

There is an interesting discussion of Acts 20:28 in Bruce Metzger's "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament". In the first place, there is some question whether Luke wrote "to shepherd the Church of God" or "to shepherd the Church of the Lord". The reading "the church of God" is contained in codex Sinaiticus and codex Vaticanus while the reading "the church of the Lord" is contained in p74, codex Alexandrinus, codex Bezae and codex Laudianus. The difference between the two readings (in the original language) only concerns a single letter, whether it was a theta or a kappa. So the New English Bible, for example, reads "the church of the Lord" with a footnote that some witnesses read "of God". If it was "the church of the Lord" there is not the theological issue of asserting that it is God's blood which was poured out, which is the heresy of patripassianism. But Metzger reports that the Committee considered "the church of God" to be the more difficult reading and so more likely to be original.

They then went on to consider the last clause which could be translated as "with his own blood" or as "with the blood of his Own". He says that this absolute use of "own" as a noun is found in Greek papyri as a term of endearment referring to near relatives, and so it is possible it is a title early Christians gave to Jesus, comparable to "the Beloved".

J.H. Moulton confirms this in his "Grammar of New Testament Greek", pp.90-91, where he states:

Before leaving [the discussion of the word "own"], something should be said about its use without a noun expressed. This occurs in John 1:11 ["He came to his own [home], but his own [people] did not take him in."]; 13:1 ["... Jesus having loved his own that were in the world ..."]; Acts 4:23 ["After being released they went to their own [people] ..."]; 24:23 ["... forbid no one of his own [people] to wait upon him"]. In the papyri we find the singular used thus as a term of endearment to near relations. In [The Expositor VI. iii, 277] I ventured to cite this as a possible encouragement to those (including B. Weiss) who would translate Acts 20:28 "the blood of one who was his own." Matthew 27:24, according to the text of codex Sinaiticus and the later authorities, will supply a parallel for the grammatical ambiguity: there as here we have to decide whether the second genitive is an adjective qualifying the first ["I am innocent of this blood ..."] or a noun dependent on it ["I am innocent of the blood of this [man] ..."].

24

From Paradise Lost To Paradise Regained: Is the WTS the sole promoter of this doctrine?

by Pallbearer in

howdy folks,.

i am interested in learning whether or not the watchtower society is the only religious entity that teaches the "from paradise lost to paradise regained" idea.. the "idea" is that god's original purpose for man and the earth has not changed.

god purposed for adam and eve and their offspring to reproduce and fill the earth and live forever upon it; but the problem of sin entered into the picture and temporarily interrupted that purpose from being completed.

Earnest

There are a couple of other churches that have common roots with the Christadelphians such as the Church of God General Conference and the Church of the Blessed Hope (also known as the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith, which was founded by Benjamin Wilson). There are also some offshoots from the Watchtower Society such as the Chicago Bible Students.

38

New Approach to Discussing Deity of Christ with JW's

by Sea Breeze in

5:27; 9:59; 18:22; jn.

9:48; [21:8]; 24:47; jn.

21:12, 17;] jn.

Earnest

That's an interesting application of Isaiah 26:19, but the speaker who refers to "my dead body" is not God which is obvious from the context, but the choir which verse 1 refers to.

In Barnes Notes he says "it is not the language of the prophet Isaiah, as if he referred to his own body when it should be dead, but it is the language of the choir that sings and speaks in the name of the Jewish people. 'That people' is thus introduced as saying 'my' dead, that is, 'our' dead, shall rise", i.e. they will be restored to their privileges and land.

How could "my dead body" (nblthi) refer to a collective dead? Well, it does as can be seen in Leviticus 11:11 ("...you are to loathe their dead body [nblthm]"), Psalms 79:2 ("They have given the dead body [nblth] of your servants..."), Isaiah 5:25 ("... and their dead bodies [literally "their dead body", nblthm] will become like the offal..."), Jeremiah 7:33 ("And the dead bodies [literally "dead body", nblth] of this people must become food...").

Likewise, Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament says of this expression, "my corpses will rise again" (יקמוּן נבלתי, nebēlah: a word without a plural, but frequently used in a plural sense).

This understanding is clear in both the LXX ("those in the memorial tombs") and Vulgate ("my killed ones") translations of this verse. Barnes suggests that this is a parallelism (common in the Hebrew Bible) with "my dead" [nblthi] in parallel with "your dead ones" [mthik] and refers to the remnant who were civilly dead but will be restored to their homeland, in contrast with the tyrants of Babylon in verse 14 who will not rise up again.

48

JWs are bigger and more successful than the Mormon church

by joe134cd in

just saw the following you tube video.

it’s 3 hours long, but thoroughly interesting.

if you want to save yourself 3 hours, basically the active mormon church is about 3 million.

Earnest

joe134cd : [LDS] has annual income of $US400 billion that it generates off its assets.

Just a small point, joe, but I believe the claim is that the LDS have $400 billion worth of assets like stocks, land, buildings, real estate which could generate income. If we assume an interest rate of 7% that would be an annual income of $28 billion. Then, of course, you add to that the tithing, bequests etc.

Another interesting remark by Simon Southerton when discussing the Ensign Peak/Huntsman case was

What's moral and what's legal ain't the same thing and if you start following lawyers, and the church does it, you are going to do things that stink.

I couldn't help thinking that is true of Jehovah's Witnesses as well.

4

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago

by mickbobcat in

that rutherford or russell were into phrenology.

anyone have any info on this and is there anything in the tower or other publications going back about it?

thanks.

Earnest

Anony Mous : The first two articles seem to suggest that phrenology is true ...

The second article is talking about the shape of the brain, not the shape of the skull which is what phrenology measures. The pertinent section in the article is discussing that those who possess particular qualities of mind are naturally drawn to God. It is not talking about measuring the skull or the brain in any way. It (Watchtower Reprints, 03/15/1913, p.5201) goes on to say :

Man was created in the image of God. The fall has greatly marred that image, but no one is totally depraved. All have unbalanced brains, some in one direction, others in another. When the truth comes in contact with those whose organs of veneration or conscientiousness are less impaired, they are drawn to investigate it, with the hope of being drawn close to God. Those whose organs of veneration and conscientiousness are more impaired, do not have this experience, and are not drawn unto God, if haply they may find him.

I really don't think there is any endorsement of phrenology here. In fact, in the first article, which does talk about phrenology, it specifically says "without claiming that any has learned to read accurately from the shape of the human skull the various traits of character therein represented", which settles any doubt a reader might have that such a claim is being made.

6

Greetings and Request for Help

by AGuest-Again in

jw
friends

it's been awhile since i've been on this board and i am not here to stay (so stay calm, please, simon).

a good, dear friend of mine... and possible yours... outlaw needs some help and i've come back solely for the purpose of asking for that.

a couple of days ago, outlaw lost everything... and i do mean everything... to one of the wildfires burning in british columbia:.

Earnest

Give Shelby a break. Outlaw described her here as "one of the dearest people I know here on JWN". Besides which the gofundme page is organised by Jacob Colt for his father. If you don't like her posts just ignore them. Why such vitriol.

As with all pleas for money, caveat emptor.

4

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago

by mickbobcat in

that rutherford or russell were into phrenology.

anyone have any info on this and is there anything in the tower or other publications going back about it?

thanks.

Earnest

The Watchtower of July 15, 1907 says in an article on the Tabernacle (p.4028) :

Without claiming that phrenology has reached a perfection of development - without claiming that any has learned to read accurately from the shape of the human skull the various traits of character therein represented, even while admitting that such a reading of character might be defective, and particularly so with those whose characters have been transformed by the renewing of their mind through the begettal of the holy Spirit - nevertheless we may admit that phrenology so far as understood fully corroborates the picture given us in the arrangement of the Tabernacle of Israel surrounded by the camp.

It then goes on to say that if we imagine the human skull spread out flat that the central part of it would correspond to the Tabernacle and its court. It's very strange but it is hardly an endorsement of phrenology.

There is also a reference to the shape of the brain in the March 15, 1913 Watchtower (p.5201) but that is not talking about phrenology.

The drawing power which the Almighty exercises over humanity is in different degrees. Some have a strong desire to worship God, others have a weak desire, and others have no desire at all. This difference is due to the shape of the brain. Mankind are born with differences in this respect.--Psa. 51:5

In the Watchtower of July 15, 1978 in an article on the Human Brain (pp.14-18) it says :

By the use of electrodes, areas of the cerebral cortex have been mapped out, showing what functions are performed and where. Some false beliefs have been removed, such as phrenology—the study of “character traits” by feeling bumps on the head. The shape of the skull is not determined by the shape of the cerebrum, nor is it possible to assign “character traits” to specific areas of the brain.

So, really not very much at all. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some mention of it in the Golden Age but couldn't find any.