This case was previously discussed here two months ago.
Earnest
JoinedPosts by Earnest
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Hines v. Watchtower
by DNCall inthis could be a big one.
sexual abuse case naming the gb as co-defendants.
watchtower's response is due on january 21, 2022. here is the docket: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/documentlist?docketid=t1yahx0ao9yz84iphf0ypa==&display=all.
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Earnest
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Help with 1975 please
by jhine ini answered a question on quora about jw flip flops .
i mentioned, amongst other things , the 1975 debacle.
how witnesses were told that armageddon was coming in the fall of that year.
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Earnest
waton : Newton would have it in 3060 btw.
Newton did mention 2060 but note the context (Yahuda MS 7.3g folio 13 verso) :
So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half; recconing twelve months to a year & 30 days to a month as was done in the Calendar of the primitive year. And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived kingdoms, the period of 1260 days, if dated from the complete conquest of the three kings A.C. 800, will end A.C. 2060. It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner. And This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fansifull men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, & by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail. Christ comes as a thief in the night, & it is not for us to know the times & seasons which God hath put into his own breast.
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Evolution News: Humanlike Footprints in Crete Dated to 6 Million Years Ago!
by Disillusioned JW ini find it astonishing that humanlike feet could have existed that long ago.
i wonder if some non-human upright ape might have had that kind of feet that long ago.
see https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/humanlike-footprints-in-crete-dated-to-6-million-years-muddle-archaeologists-1.10301706 and https://scitechdaily.com/oldest-footprints-of-pre-humans-identified-in-crete-six-million-years-old/ .
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Earnest
DATA-DOG : How do Scientists know what “Ape-Men” looked like?
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Science News article: ‘Case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans
by Disillusioned JW ina news article has the headline of " ‘case closed’: 99.9% of scientists agree climate emergency caused by humans"; see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/19/case-closed-999-of-scientists-agree-climate-emergency-caused-by-humans .
the article says in part the following.. 'the scientific consensus that humans are altering the climate has passed 99.9%, according to research that strengthens the case for global action at the cop26 summit in glasgow.. the degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies.
this means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather.. a previous survey in 2013 showed 97% of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea that human activities are altering earth’s climate.. this has been updated and expanded by the study by cornell university that shows the tiny minority of sceptical voices has diminished to almost nothing as evidence mounts of the link between fossil-fuel burning and climate disruption.. the latest survey of peer-reviewed literature published from 2012 to november 2020 was conducted in two stages.
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Earnest
Rivergang : While The Truth that leads to Eternal Life does quote Acheson as predicting a world "too dangerous to live in" by the mid-1970s, did he in fact really say that?
The US News & World Report of June 13, 1960, reports on a speech that Dean Acheson delivered at Goucher College, Baltimore, on May 17, 1960 and which was broadcast over WBAL-FM, Baltimore.
Acheson is talking about having parity in the arms race with Russia. He says, on p.119
It means also that an inherent part of American policy and an inherent part of American arms policy is the control and limitation of armaments. I assure you that I know nothing which is classified, but I know enough of what is going on to assure you that in 15 years from today, this world is going to be too dangerous to live in. We really will begin to get destructive capacity which can make Nevil Shute look silly. [Shute was the author of "On the Beach," a novel depicting the end of the world through nuclear war.]
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Help with 1975 please
by jhine ini answered a question on quora about jw flip flops .
i mentioned, amongst other things , the 1975 debacle.
how witnesses were told that armageddon was coming in the fall of that year.
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Earnest
jhine : ... the 1975 debacle. How Witnesses were told that Armageddon was coming in the fall of that year.
It would be more correct to say that they were told 6,000 years from man's creation would end in 1975, with the assumption that the millenium would start the following year. So, the various prophecies regarding the attack of Gog, the great tribulation and Armageddon would all have to happen before then. As the Bible does not specify how long these events would take they could occur at any time leading up to October 1975.
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Jesus is a horse?
by Diogenesister injgnat posted this in one of punky's posts.
third century.
why is jesus portrayed as a horse, does anyone know please?.
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Earnest
It is natural to assume that the Alexamenos graffito is depicting the crucifixion of Christ because we are so accustomed to seeing depictions of the crucifixion of Christ. But in the second and third century that was not the case. For example, in Polybius' Histories, Book 8, chapter 23 it recounts what happened to Achaeus after he was captured by Antiochus :
However the council met, and a long debate ensued as to what punishment they were to inflict upon Achaeus. Finally, it was resolved that his extremities should be cut off, his head severed from his body and sewn up in the skin of an ass, and his body impaled.
So, who might have been depicted in the Alexamenos graffito? John Henry Middleton wrote in Remains of Ancient Rome, Vol.1, 1892, pp.208, 209 :
One of the most interesting things about this building is the large number of graffiti, or incised inscriptions, which are deeply cut into the plaster. One of these is the rude drawing of a crucified man with the head of an ass or jackal, and a standing figure, apparently in act of adoration, with the rudely scratched inscription, "Alexamenos worships God." This is usually taken to be a caricature of the crucified Christ, but is more probably a scene of Gnostic worship, representing the Egyptian god Anubis. A similar device occurs on certain late Gnostic gems of Egyptian origin.
A German philologist, Richard Wünsch, focused on the Y traced on the right of the crucifix and which has been found on some of the tablets dedicated to the god Set. He concluded that Alexamenos belonged to the sect of the Sethiani. He writes in his book Sethian Curse from Rome, 1898, p.112
[That this is] a symbol from the thought circles of the Sethian Gnosis, is proven by this: to the right of the donkey's head of the Crucified One there is a Y that has not yet been interpreted; it is the same Y that is found on our tablets to the right of the donkey's head of Typhon-Seth and, as stated above, indicates his power over the ways of the underworld.
So, in 2nd/3rd century Rome there were many sects and this crucifixion could have related to several of them. But could it have related to Christianity, as many believe? Perhaps, but there are some problems. There are no depictions of the cross which are clearly Christian elsewhere at this time, and the adulation of the cross only came centuries later. Minucius Felix, who wrote in the latter part of the second century, wrote in the dialogue of Octavius "Crosses, moreover, we [christians] neither worship nor wish for. You [pagans], indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods." That seems the more likely truth of the inscription.
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Pilot program for in-person meetings for the vaccinated
by Vidqun inpilot program for in-person meetings to resume, to be launched in hong kong in nov. 2021. only fully vaccinated publishers are to be invited.
it's going to be a fader's paradise.. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/q9e9pg/and_so_it_begins/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=fb861c4a-8c7e-4bad-b1e3-4c86b3254daf&post_fullname=t3_q9e9pg&post_index=1&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&utm_content=post_title&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=936859150293933406&utm_medium=email%20amazon%20ses.
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Earnest
"The results of this pilot program will determine if additional congregations can be approved to resume in-person meetings. The announcement also stated that, in general, in-person organizational activities will remain suspended until at least January 1, 2022."
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The Cross in Pompeii & Herculaneum in 79 AD
by Sea Breeze incan someone please tell the wt janitor to turn the lights off when the last jw leaves the watchtower after learning that early christians used the cross as a christian logo of sorts?
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Earnest
cyberjesus, the importance of the position of Jesus' death cannot be established archaeologically. This thread is about the earliest use of the cross as a Christian symbol, and there is simply no compelling archaeological evidence that it was used by Christians in Pompeii & Herculaneum at the time Vesuvius erupted.
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The Cross in Pompeii & Herculaneum in 79 AD
by Sea Breeze incan someone please tell the wt janitor to turn the lights off when the last jw leaves the watchtower after learning that early christians used the cross as a christian logo of sorts?
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Earnest
In Acts 28:13, 14 it says regarding Paul’s journey to Rome “from [Syracuse] we went along and arrived at Rhegium. A day later a south wind sprang up and we made it into Puteoli on the second day. Here we found brothers and were urged to remain with them for seven days, and so we went toward Rome.”
So, we know that there were “brothers” at Puteoli in these early days and it is legitimate to speculate whether they were also in Pompeii and Herculaneum. But at the same time we should not allow wishful thinking to cause us to read more into the evidence than is actually there. And as we have already seen in the previous post that pagans used crosses in their worship, the existence of a cross in itself without a Christian context is not evidence of anything at all.
One reason Christianity may have taken a hold in Puteoli in particular is that there was a Jewish community there as early as 4 B.C.E. Both Philo and Josephus attest to a Jewish presence during the first century. The same cannot be said for Pompeii and Herculaneum.
What about evidence of crosses in Pompeii, referred to in the book “The Crosses of Pompeii” by Bruce W. Longenecker. The item with which Longenecker begins is a cross-shaped imprint on a ground floor wall in a bakery on the western side of Pompeii. Three other objects serve as primary pieces of evidence. These include a graffito of the Latin verb vivit (he lives) in which the final –it are combined into a cross-shaped ligature, another graffito in which Christians are discussed, and a cross found on a stamp ring that appears to have belonged to a certain Meges. He also refers to nineteen crosses faintly inscribed in paving stones around the city, and proposes that the crosses served a good-luck function to protect them from evil where they resided and worked.
Other scholars examined his “evidence” and came to different conclusions. For example, in Vigiliae Christianae (2018), John Cook, who is Professor of Religion and Philosophy at LaGrange College, Georgia, wrote an article “Alleged Christian Crosses in Herculaneum and Pompeii” about this.
Cook gives some further details about the bakery in which the cross-shaped imprint was found. He says on the west wall was a household shrine which consisted of a painting of a snake. Next to it was a brick fixed in the wall, which supported a lamp that “burned in honor of the custodial divinities [Janus, Ferculus, Limentius, and Cardea]. On the east wall was the cross-shaped imprint. Mounted above the oven was a plaque that depicts a large red phallus with an inscription “here lives good luck”. Francois Mazois, who included the cross-shaped imprint in his volume on the ruins of Pompeii in 1824, didn’t think it was a Christian cross and wrote “It is difficult to imagine that the same person could at the same time revere the cross of Christ and worship Janus, Ferculus, Limentius, and Cardea, divinities who guarded the doors. Especially if one considers an obscene image, from an incomprehensible cult, that is found near the same place.” If it was not a cross what could it have been? Lampe (“Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries”) thought it could be a support for a shelf, like the one in Herculaneum. Cook (and Moormann in Pompeii’s Ashes) suggests it depicts a tool used in the bakery, maybe a large pestle. Whatever it depicts, Cook says, “there is no archaeological context for the belief that a Christian lived in the villa or bakery. None of the graffiti are ostensibly Christian. The household shrine and phallus of the bakery fit well into the context of Roman religion … The affirmation that [it] should be identified with the cross of Christ is groundless.”
What about the graffito of the Latin verb vivit (“he lives”)? Cook again shows this is simply unfounded speculation on the part of Longenecker. First, the scrawl on the wall was (perhaps) VIV, or it could have been VN, or possibly VRI, and the intention is vague. It could just be a scrawl. And there is no decisive reason to interpret intersecting lines as the cross of Christ. That is looking at it from a post-Constantinian viewpoint. Martin Langner, who writes about ancient graffiti (“Antike Graffitizeichnungen”, Wiesbaden, 2001), says regarding the intersecting lines “there are many scratchings on Pompeian walls. I do not think they mean anything or at least anything we can recognise today”.
The same goes for the nineteen “crosses” faintly inscribed on paving stones around the city. Longenecker proposes these were to ward off evil. There are many phalluses inscribed on the paving stones too. What was their purpose? The fact is that we simply don’t know in either case, and there is nothing to link these crosses with Christians. They may simply have been markers on the pavement indicating a route (like a cairn does) or some other helpful use.
Essentially, Longenecker’s argument is this :
- objects resembling a cross have been found in Pompeii/Herculaneum
- Evidence from a later period of early Christianity indicates that Christians adopted these symbols to identify themselves
- Therefore the objects found in Pompeii/Herculaneum must be Christian
Unless there is archaeological evidence that these “crosses” were found in a Christian context, it is simply wishful thinking. There is no evidence crosses were used as a Christian symbol before the second century.
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The Cross in Pompeii & Herculaneum in 79 AD
by Sea Breeze incan someone please tell the wt janitor to turn the lights off when the last jw leaves the watchtower after learning that early christians used the cross as a christian logo of sorts?
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Earnest
joe134cd : [The assertion that the cross was not the device used to kill Jesus] is rubbish.
“History is right, perhaps, but let us not forget, it was written by the victors”. That also goes for the shape of the stauros that Christ died on. If any of those who witnessed his death left a description of the stauros we have no record of it. There is evidence that some Christians in the second century believed that Jesus died on a T-shaped cross (crux commissa), however in the dialogue of Octavius (probably written in the mid-second century), Minucius Felix writes (in chapter 29) of both an upright pole (crux simplex) and a latin cross (crux immissa) :
Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses gilded and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross [simplicis crucis], but also that of a man affixed to it…Thus the sign of the cross either is sustained by a natural reason [a ship with swelling sails; a military yoke; a man adoring God with hands outstretched], or your religion is formed with respect to it.
But what do we actually know about the shape of the stauros at the time of Christ. Very little, as it turns out. In 2010 Gunnar Samuelsson published a thesis (and in 2011 wrote a book) “Crucifixion in Antiquity” which was discussed here at the time. The fact is that there was no terminology of crucifixion at the time of Jesus, only of suspension. In some cases, stauros is a kind of suspension device, used for the suspension of corpses, torture, or in a few cases executionary suspensions. Very little or nothing is said about what it was made of or how it looked. The fact that xulon is also used (Acts 5:30;10:39;13:29) indicates it was made of wood. The punishment of executionary suspension could be carried out in a way that was simply fitting for the moment. The manner in which Jesus was suspended at Calvary might then have been only a momentary expression of local caprice. Previous and subsequent executions might have been completely different.
He could have died on a latin cross (crux immissa), a T-shaped cross (crux commissa), an upright pole (crux simplex) or any form of suspension using wood. We simply don’t know. Any display of certainty about this is just a display of ignorance.