This quotation is taken from a Watchtower pamphlet - The Sign of Christ's Presence - published in 1953 and available here.
Earnest
JoinedPosts by Earnest
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Where is it written?
by Ultimate Axiom insome time ago i came across this quote claiming to be from a watchtower publication;.
1953 –“bible chronology also fixes the time for christ's second presence and the assuming of his right to rule as at 1914; this date was published in the watchtower as early as 1879, 35 years before 1914.” (tscp 3).
this is of course misleading, for while the date was indeed published in watchtowers from the very beginning, christ’s second presence and his becoming king were not assigned to that year until many years after (1933 and 1922 respectively, to be precise)..
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Earnest
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Help please
by jhine inhi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .
during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .
both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .
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Earnest
Am I damned with faint praise -
51
Help please
by jhine inhi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .
during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .
both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .
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Earnest
JoenB75 : Were the Jews Arians?
Of course not.. Arius and his followers lived hundreds of years later.
JeenB75 : Did they believe that "one of the chief princes" (Daniel 10:21) had created the world?
Philo, who lived in the first century prior to the writing of the Gospel of John, identified the logos as God's instrument of creation. Psalms 33:6 says "By the word of the Lord [logo tou kuriou, LXX] the heavens themselves were made...".
He also describes this logos as "the archangel".
In On the Confusion of Tongues 146 he refers to "... his first-born word (logos), the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names..."..
See also Who is the Heir of Divine Things 205 where it speaks of "his archangelic and most ancient Word (logos)".
Both "Michael, the prince of you people" (Dan.10:21) and Philo's logos are archangels, both are described as leader of the heavenly host, both perform High Priestly roles, both are identified as the angel of the Name (Ex.23: 20,21). Clearly, some Jews at that time believed that the archangel Michael had been used as God's instrument of creation.
Whether or not that included Jewish Christians is difficult to say, but it is noteworthy that John's use of logos is very similar to that of Philo. It should also be said that we know there were Christians in the second century who thought of Jesus as an archangel, but this wasn't universal.
I should add a disclaimer that I don't consider that Jesus being the archangel Michael is a core doctrine of JWs. Although they both clearly share similar heavenly roles, it is not explicit in scripture.
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Help please
by jhine inhi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .
during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .
both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .
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Earnest
jhine : the Greek word for all that is used in this passage is panta , which is given in Strong's as meaning all , everything , the lot etc . So different to the English word all .
Wonderment started a thread recently on the use of the word "all" [Gk., pánta] which is worth reading in full. In part, he says :
John Parkhurst (Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament) gives one meaning of pas: “All, in a qualified sense, i.e. All, in general, though not each individual, most, a great many:
Matt. 4:24 [... and they brought him all (pantas) those faring badly ...];
Matt. 10:22 [And you will be objects of hatred by all (panton) ...];
Mark 1:37 [...All (pantes) are looking for you.];
Luke 15:1 [Now all (pantes) the tax collectors and the sinners kept drawing near to him ...];
John 12:32 [I...will draw all men (pantas) to me.].
Compare Matt. 23:3 [Therefore all (panta) they tell you, do and observe ...];
Parkhurst also adds (p.653):
1 Cor. 6:18, "Flee from fornication. Every (other) sin that a man does is [external to, Gk. ektos] the body," ...
The word is also obviously often qualified by the circumstances under which it is used. On Mat. 27:45 much has been written, but the prevailing opinion is, that by ["all the earth"] there, the land of Judaea only is meant. Again, in Acts 2:5 ["from every nation of those under heaven"], the expression evidently denotes only very many ... [The footnote reads : "Erasmus asks, whether they who defend the opposite opinion would affirm that there were any English or Scotch present."].
In John 10:8 ["All those that have come before me are thieves and plunderers..."] it is clear that Christ does not mean to reflect on the prophets and teachers really sent by God...Wonderment further wrote :
Robert Young (Young's Analytical Concordance to the Holy Bible) explains under “Illustrations of Bible Idioms” -- “Idiomatic Expressions”: “‘All and Some’ – The meanings of these words are frequently reversed in Scripture. The word all can mean some, and vice versa.”
Robert Young writes (p. viii):
54. Some particles such as ALL, are frequently used for SOME or MOST, e.g. -
Ex. 9: 6 LXX [...and all (panta) the Egyptians' animals died...];
Matt. 3 5 [... all (pasa) Judea and all (pasa) the country around the Jordan made their way out to him.];
Matt. 26:52 [... all (pantes) those who take the sword will perish by the sword.];
John 15:15 [... all (panta) the things I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.].
Quite clearly, then, as John Parkhurst says, the word "all" is obviously often qualified by the circumstances under which it is used.
The facts are that the early Christians, the Bible writers, did not hold a trinitarian belief as it was eventually defined at Nicaea and subsequent councils. They were Jews. When you read John 1 or Colossians 1 you read it with a background of hundreds of years of the trinity doctrine being formulated and refined. Those early Christians who read this had no such prejudice, in fact for the Jews it would have been anathema to them.
Most translations are translated by trinitarians, whether singularly or by committee. They show their bias in their translation. Those translators who believe otherwise also show their bias in translation. In both cases the translators think that is the way the Bible writers intended us to understand it.
The fact that your beliefs are not supported by a translation does not make it wrong. It should make you wonder whether your belief has the foundation you assumed.
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Greta
by road to nowhere inthe daily wire.
facebook glitch reveals father, activist behind greta thunberg's facebook .... i'm not good at getting links right.
but this is interesting in light of greta supposedly doing things on her own according to dear old dad.
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Earnest
JimmyYoung : A graph of population over all of human history, where has it ever went down?
I take your point as far as the twentieth century is concerned, although it's interesting that birth rates have gone down dramatically in first world countries.
But I do wonder how you know there were 4 million in 10,000 BCE.Our World in Data gives its sources here with the following variation:
Renfrew and Bahn (1996) (upper) 20 million
Renfrew and Bahn (1996) (lower) 10 million
Thomlinson (1975) (upper) 10 million
Thomlinson (1975) (lower) 1 million
Livi-Bacci (1997) 6 million
Kremer (1993) 4 million
McEvedy and Jones (1978) 4 million
HYDE 3.1 2.43 million
Our World in Data 2.43 millionAlso, I notice there is no dip reflecting the fall in population after the Flood, approximately 2000 BCE.
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Movie Review 1917
by Terry inmovie review"1917".
i so seldom seek to sit inside an actual movie theater anymore.however ...some films are absolutely tailored for it.life of pigravityavatar3 examples of movies which do not translate to your home viewing...at all.good, bad, or indifferent - some films are visual and immersive.. here is a sacred pronouncement:movies are a visual medium.in the hands of an orson welles (i.e.
citizen kane) they are a radio play+visual storytelling medium._____.
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Earnest
Went to see it this afternoon. Parts were unrealistic to my mind, but it probably gave a good sense of what life must have been like in the trenches. A very human story.
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Greta
by road to nowhere inthe daily wire.
facebook glitch reveals father, activist behind greta thunberg's facebook .... i'm not good at getting links right.
but this is interesting in light of greta supposedly doing things on her own according to dear old dad.
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Earnest
The Daily Wire report is here.
Greta Thunberg says, regarding this :
Since I have chosen not to be on Facebook personally ( I tried early on but decided it wasn’t for me) I use my father Svantes account to repost content [which I write on my Instagram and Twitter accounts], because you need an account to moderate a Facebook page,
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Current JW growth in the United States in historical perspective and in comparison with other groups
by slimboyfat incurrent jw growth is slower than during most of their history.
the only probable exceptions are following 1975 when there was a brief worldwide decrease, the late 1920s when around half of the members left the movement, perhaps around the 1917 schism, and various schisms during russell’s time.
there were also periods of sluggish growth during the 1950/60s and around 2000. .
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Earnest
slimboyfat : Mormons count every baptised person as a member regardless of attendance or tithes.
However, it does matter whether they are alive or dead.
On their website the Mormons specify that when they perform baptisms for the dead, the names of deceased persons are not added to the membership records.
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1st Cent.Crucifixions to Order and for Sport
by BluesBrother ini found this video interesting, from the smithsonian channel.
it explains how commonplace crucifixions were with specific mention of the patebelum crosspiece.
https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/videos/crucifixion-became-a-very-popular-roman-spectator-sport/69754?an=history.
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Earnest
The lex Puteoli concerns a municipality which decided to contract out the services of an undertaker who doubled as executioner. The text directly relevant to crucifixion is as follows:
Whoever will want to exact punishment on a male slave or female slave at private expense, as he [the owner] who wants the [punishment] to be inflicted, he [the contractor] exacts the punishment in this manner: if he wants [him] to bring the patibulum to the cross, the contractor will have to provide wooden posts, chains, and cords for the floggers and the floggers themselves. And anyone who will want to exact punishment will have to give four sesterces for each of the workers who bring the patibulum and for the floggers and also for the executioner.
Whenever a magistrate exacts punishment at public expense, so shall he decree; and whenever it will have been ordered to be ready to carry out the punishment, the contractor will have gratis to set up stakes (cruces), and will have gratis to provide nails, pitch, wax, candles, and those things which are essential for such matters. Also if he will be commanded to drag [the cadaver] out with a hook, he must drag the cadaver itself out, his workers dressed in red, with a bell ringing, to a place where many cadavers will be.
Patibulum can have the general sense of crux.
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2019 service report is out
by slimboyfat inthe 2019 report is out:.
https://download-a.akamaihd.net/files/media_publication/29/syr19_e.pdf.
the “average publisher” figure for individual countries has made a comeback!
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Earnest
I would suggest there are a number of reasons for the progress in Africa.
First of all Watchtower publications have been available in most African countries for many years. In South Africa since 1903, in Malawi since 1910, in Zambia since 1911, in Zimbabwe since 1916, in Namibia since 1928, in the DR Congo since 1930, in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania since 1931, in Ethiopia since 1935 and so on. In many of these countries the Watchtower publications were the first publications written (or translated) in their languages.
Secondly, this translation into African languages is ongoing. In 2019 alone there have been translations of the NWT in ten African languages - Kongo (Angola, DR Congo, Congo), Bassa (Cameroon), Nzema (Ghana, Ivory Coast), Luo (Kenya, Tanzania), Tiv (Nigeria), Shona (Zimbabwe), Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, and Kwanyama (South Africa). Needless to say, the Watchtower and other publications are also available in all these languages.
Try and imagine that very little or nothing is printed in your native tongue. Now there is something. No wonder there is an increase.