Posts by Cold Steel

8

Witnessing to a Theologian

by exWTslave in

when i found my fellow traveler reading theology today magazine, my pioneer spirit acted.

i started witnessing to him without knowing he was a professor of theology.

he patiently listened to me.

Cold Steel

1) God rated Mary as “highly favored” or trustworthy (Luke 1:28), yet she did not bother to ensure that child Jesus was with her when she left the temple.

Actually, tradition has it that Jesus was thought to be in the company of other relatives. Mary’s concern came when she discovered he wasn’t with them. The theologian was correct in his assessment that the Bible isn’t complete and that there are holes in it. It was never meant to be a handbook. No instructions for baptism, no description of church officers' duties, no instructions on how to ordain, who can do what ordinances and many other things.

2) God’s Spirit led Jesus “into the wilderness” to be “tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:1, 2) This is not “in order” because God will not lead anyone into temptation. (James 1:14)

The Father did not lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. He went into the wilderness to fast and perhaps to gain knowledge in the way the ancient prophets did. It was only after his 40-day fast that Satan came to tempt him. Although Jesus was divine in nature, he had to learn in mortality the same way everyone else does, line upon line, precept upon precept. What he experienced during the 40 days is not recorded, but it was important for Jesus to fully understand the power and determination of the Adversary.

3) When criticized by the Pharisees on petty matter (picking grain on Sabbath), Jesus tried to offer the counter, citing example of David whom God Himself rated as not being ideal (2 Sam 7:12, 13) Jesus’ logic was: If David can violate a law, we can also! (Luke 6:1-5) Who is unreasonable here—Pharisees or Jesus?

This is ridiculous, and the theologian has completely missed the point. Luke states: “And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first, that he went through the corn fields; and his disciples plucked the ears of corn, and did eat, rubbing them in their hands. And certain of the Pharisees said unto them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?” The theologian should not assume that what Jesus and his disciples did was in violation of the law. It was a violation of the law as interpreted by the Pharisees, and the fact that there had been no prophets in Israel for more than 400 years. Jesus and his disciples were hungry, and of course “corn” in this sense was wheat. Under the law, farmers had to leave a portion of their crops open to the hungry. The point wasn’t that since David did it, it was okay for Jesus to do it. It was that the sabbath was made for man, and not vice versa. And, as Jesus was Yahweh before his birth in mortality, he was the one who gave the law and it was he who was the Lord of the Sabbath. How could a trained theologian miss such an obvious point?

5) “One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” (Luke 8:22-24) That Jesus could not discern, in advance, a storm is not in order. (Storm can be discerned in advance and precisely be calculated when it will hit.)

When the apostles asked the Lord, “Master, who did sin, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” — Jesus replied: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” One might reasonably expect this was also true of the storm. Jesus also is the Lord of Creation and has power over the elements. No one was killed or injured, and the works of the Father were made manifest in the storm. That a learned theologian could miss this point raises grave doubts about his education.

And we can go on....

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58

Bible Atrocities

by Trapped in JW land in

i really can't wrap my head around how people can still consider god loving with such atrocious biblical accounts such as, 1 samuel 15, (god ordering the slaughter of amelikite baby's and children) 2nd kings 2, forgot the verses (god sending bears to maul 42 children) and many others.have you ever asked a witness or anyone elsewhat they think about these accounts?

what was their response?

i'd love to ask one, but unfortunately i'm still physically in the cult and i wouldn't want to raise any suspicions.

Cold Steel

What to you may be atrocities, but to God, the command makes perfect sense.

First, I've already covered elsewhere the incident with Elisha and the she-bear. The scripture is mistranslated and it was not little children who mocked Elisha, but mature teenagers. They knew of Elijah and they had heard that Elijah's mantle had fallen on Elisha. As one scholar put it:

As Elisha left Jericho he undoubtedly enjoyed the accolades of a local hero, but as he proceeded up into the mountains of Ephraim he found no such tribute awaiting him at Bethel. In fact, he was set upon by a mob of mature youths (erroneously called "little children" in our version 5 ) who seem to have heard of Elijah's translation and therefore taunted Elisha saying, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head." 6 Dr. Adam Clarke says the significance of this cry might be caught in the words, "Ascend, thou empty skull, to heaven, as it is pretended thy master did."7

Elisha at this time was still a rather young man. 8 He had been living with his parents just seven or eight years before when Elijah first called him and from all appearances was still unmarried. He also had nearly 65 years of active service ahead of him so at the time of this incident he was probably in his prime. The words, "bald head" were often used in the old Hebrew vocabulary to imply leprosy since the disease often caused baldness. It was a term of hatred or derision. 9

5. The word "naar" does not necessarily mean a child but is used to describe Solomon at his accession, when he was at least twenty years old. (Geikie, Hours With the Bible, 4:127, note) Dr. Clarke says the word includes "a young man, a servant, or even a soldier, or one fit to go out to battle: and is so translated in a multitude of places in our common English version." He mentions many examples. See Clarke, Bible Commentary, 2:486.

6. 2 Kings 2:23.

7. Clarke, Bible Commentary, 2:186.

8. Geikie, Hours With the Bible, 4:127.

9. Ibid.

As for the Midianites that Moses ordered slain, by the Lord's command, note that he spared only virgins and that he killed the boys. Why would God do this? Because the Midianites were a horribly wicked culture with sexual depravity intertwined with their religious worship. Boys were drawn into it at an early age and were devoted to it for a number of reasons. They certainly would not constrain themselves, but introduce these pagan rites to the Israelites. The same for the women who had engaged in these ritualistic orgies. Only virgins were safe to bring into the Israelite society. The others would have surely polluted it. Check out verses 8-13:

They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. 9 The Israelites captured the Midianite women and children and took all the Midianite herds, flocks and goods as plunder. 10 They burned all the towns where the Midianites had settled, as well as all their camps. 11 They took all the plunder and spoils, including the people and animals, 12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.

15 “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 16 “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord ’s people.

Balaam, if you'll recall, was a fallen prophet who, when he was forbidden to curse Israel by the Lord, concocted a plan to seduce the men to the Midianite's vulgar worship. And it worked.

So before bashing the Lord, it's best to check out one's facts.

15

"Who else is preaching in twos? Who else is putting kingdom interests first? Who else rejects the trinity?"

by Island Man in

the next time a jw asks you the questions in the title, just tell them about the "two by twos" and the "cooneyites".. they have some similar beliefs as jws but are even more zealous in putting kingdom interests first, living far simpler and less materialistic lives than even zealous jws.

they reject the triniy as unscriptural.

they preach in twos.

Cold Steel

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also sends missionaries out by twos, also rejects conventional trinity.

The fact that any church does this doesn't mean they're the only true and living church on the earth. Just setting up an imitation of the early church means nothing. You can get an FBI seal, stick it up on the wall, make your people wear suits, give them guns and badges, and that still won't mean they're the FBI. They may be more competent, but they won't be the FBI!

16

What Do I Do With This RED Book?

by Cold Steel in

some guys visited me a couple of times, and i asked them about the book of revelation.

one of them brought me a red book with a lot of illustrations and at the end of every page or so the guy had dated the day he had read it.

he also marked certain passages.

Cold Steel

I got rid of my old Mormon cult books a long time ago. I still have one called KINGDOM OF THE CULTS by a "Dr." Walter Martin. He also had a segment on some other cults he didn't particularly like, including JWs.

The idea of starting a new religion with it is interesting. Maybe if I told him I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a voice, and I followed it, and it was coming from the red book. "It really creeped me out, so if you want it, come get it!" It's got pretty cool art in it. I reckon they don't put any value on books like that.

I'm putting most of my books on my new Kindle HDX. Nice devices, but a bit of a rip-off.

16

What Do I Do With This RED Book?

by Cold Steel in

some guys visited me a couple of times, and i asked them about the book of revelation.

one of them brought me a red book with a lot of illustrations and at the end of every page or so the guy had dated the day he had read it.

he also marked certain passages.

Cold Steel

Some guys visited me a couple of times, and I asked them about the book of Revelation. One of them brought me a red book with a lot of illustrations and at the end of every page or so the guy had dated the day he had read it. He also marked certain passages. They never came back and I left the guy a message telling the guy to come back and pick it up. They never called me back and I have this book I'm afraid to throw away because the guy might want it back some day.

Now, based on what some of you have told me about how JWs don't buy things from yard sales because they think they might have attracted evil spirits, I'm starting to wonder if this might be the reason the guy won't come and get it back. What should I do, draw pentagrams on the covers?

33

Evolution is just a theory

by donny in

for those who have heard this comment, check out aron ra's great site.. http://www.aronra.com/.

Cold Steel

But there is a great many things that we know for a certainty. The earth isn't flat. All living things descended from a common ancestor by evolution.

I seriously doubt that many people believe that last statement. As for the earth not being flat, have you ever been through Kansas?

45

Why did Jesus tell the convict on the cross next to his, that he would be joining him in Heaven TODAY??

by Faithful Witness in

maybe a silly question, but i'm curious about this part of the story of christ's crucifixion, when the 1 thief challenges jesus to save himself and "us too" from their deaths, but the 2nd thief rebukes him and pleads with jesus... .

luke 23:42-43: and he said unto jesus, lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

and jesus said unto him, verily i say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.. .

Cold Steel

Okay, Emeth, you're up!

33

Evolution is just a theory

by donny in

for those who have heard this comment, check out aron ra's great site.. http://www.aronra.com/.

Cold Steel

Very well said, LR.

On the other hand, if I had a dime (it used to be a nickel) for every news article or account that read, "Thus and so completely changes everything we thought we knew...," I'd be a very wealthy guy.

At BYU, the only textbook I saved was the one on astronomy. It was a topic I enjoyed reading and studying about. Several years ago, my wife and I were cleaning out things and I saw my old textbook. I took a break and pulled it out to read it. After about ten minutes of flipping through it and reading it, I held it over the big trash bin we were using and I dropped the book in it.

"Why are you doing that," my wife asked. "That's a nice book...don't you want to keep it?"

I explained that in the years since that book was written, just about everything had changed! That's not a condemnation of science. Just about any book along those lines change. That's how science works. My wife wanted to give the book to the Salvation Army, but I told her no. It was so much out of date, why take the chance that someone else will read it and believe it? So now I buy DVDs on astronomy that probably also will be out of date in fifteen years.

What we know about science is always changing. It wasn't too long ago that we didn't know about galaxies. We just looked up and saw stars. In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble used the 100-inch Mount Wilson telescope to definitively prove that the patchy blurs first thought to be distant stars were, in fact, galaxies that lay outside of the Milky Way. Now, many people believe that there are mutiple universes outside of our own, perhaps millions or billions of them. Perhaps this process of creation has been going on for far longer than previously thought. There may also be variant universes paralleling our own, and that also is a mind bender.

My point is that it's fine to believe scientific marvels, but always be willing to accept new ideas.

Oh, one more thing I just thought of. Years ago at BYU, a professor of ancient scripture, a highly intelligent individual, made a statement regarding geology to a newspaper reporter. Our geology department went nuts and one of our professors spoke out and essentially said, professors of ancient scriptures should not be speaking on geological findings, especially when they are in error. The first professor stuck to his comments and the geology department challenged the professor to a debate with the head of the department. This was well before the Internet, of course, and the debate started right on schedule. In about ten minutes, though, the ancient scripture professor had won the debate. He had read a Dutch article in a scientific journal that had uncovered something new and that was the source. The geology professor, embarrassed at being showed up, acknowledged the finding over the following week, but had added that all the textbooks had taught this subject the way he believed it to be. The first professor, when asked about this by the same reporter, stated that textbooks contain only the established part of science and are the last places one should check out when doing research. The sources one should turn to, he said, are scientific and trade journals in the areas being investigated, because that's where the new things will be found. In fact, it was this professor who told us that any textbook over ten years old should probably be trashed.

I think he was probably right.

45

Why did Jesus tell the convict on the cross next to his, that he would be joining him in Heaven TODAY??

by Faithful Witness in

maybe a silly question, but i'm curious about this part of the story of christ's crucifixion, when the 1 thief challenges jesus to save himself and "us too" from their deaths, but the 2nd thief rebukes him and pleads with jesus... .

luke 23:42-43: and he said unto jesus, lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

and jesus said unto him, verily i say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.. .

Cold Steel

Young's Literal Translation

Geneva Bible (1599)

One has to look at the various translations and see how seasoned scholars and theologians translate the text. Literally, the text doesn't seem to make sense by removing the comma. How do we know, for example, that Jesus didn't say: "Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou be with me in Paradise?"

Or perhaps he said, "Verily I say to thee today, with me thou shalt be in the paradise." The word "paradise" is a Persian word meaning, "the king's park," which was a royal place of rest. It doesn't mean "heaven."

Given the fact that the scriptures clearly state that while Jesus' body was in the tomb, his spirit was in Paradise, or Hades (which includes Paradise, a place of rest, and Hell, a place of torment). Thus the "Apostles' Creed" states, "He descended into Hell." I concede that this creed is a work of men and not inspired by God; however, it reflects traditions and doctrines long in existence when it was penned. I refer, again, to the words of Origen, who was about as close to a first century Christian as one could hope for.

Given, too, that Jesus' phrase would have been completely redundant, even in Greek. For example, VERILY, or TRULY, both terms of affirmation, when added to, "I say unto you TODAY" (another term of affirmation), would be excessively repetitive! Thus, "Truly, I'm telling you today, shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Also, why didn't Jesus ever use that type of affirmation elsewhere? Many times he said, "Verily (or Truly) I say unto you..." but he never added the word "today" with the other term of affirmation. It also makes the end of the sentence lacking in meaning. Consider this. If it is affirmatory, let's remove "today" and render it thus:

Without punctuation, except the period, and without the affirmatory "Today," the sentence becomes a jumble. If we remove the "Truly I say unto you," the other statement of affirmation, and if we get rid of the period, another punctuation, we get this:

Given the complete lack of punctuation, we could very well reason that this is a question. If Jesus said to the malefactor, "Shalt thou be with me in Paradise," what would be the meaning? However, if we go back to the correct translation, with but one affirmation, we get:

Do you now see why virtually all translations of the Bible pretty much render it as the above? To do it any other way simply would not make sense. The Watchtowers I've read all say, essentially, "Let the Bible interpret itself," or, more recently, follow the guidance of the slave. But even the slave can't change things so fundamentally obvious.

20

Trinitiarian "proof-text" John 20:28 has some problems for "Trinitarians"

by booker-t in

all through my years as a jws and after i have always wondered about john 20:28 where thomas says "my lord and my god" to jesus.

i just could not find a suitable answer for this text to disprove the trinity doctrine.

i really never swallowed the jws intrepretation of "shock" by thomas something like "oh my god" but at the same time i had a gut feeling trinitarians were hiding something about this verse.

Cold Steel

Right on, Abe!