Posts by Cold Steel

24

Views on women priests.

by quellycatface in

having an interesting time at the moment with my faith journey.

my hubs was confirmed a catholic and his views are no women priests because there weren't any in the bible.

hence, the absence in rc churches.. my mother is a jw.

Women are just as capable of receiving inspiration and guidance as men; the Lord is no respector of persons. But in relation to the priesthood, the Lord has withheld this from women. The Levites were all men. John the Baptist, who received the priesthood from his father, was a man; and the apostles were all men and all were ordained by Jesus. The two endtime prophets who will minister to the Jews during the battle of Armageddon aren't identified as men, and some women on the Internet have thrown their bonnets into the ring, claiming to be one of the prophets. (See Rev. 11)

In many of the early Christian apocraphal books discovered circa 1947 (and since), the scene is painted of the apostles being absolutely livid over the information Jesus shared with Mary. Indeed, in at least one of these works, Mary is identified as his "spouse." The point, though, is that there are things Jesus taught to the apostles, and apparently Mary as well, that pertained to the "mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven." Just what these teachings are is moot, but what is not is that Jesus consistently kept Mary in his inner circle, often sharing things with her that he didn't tell the apostles. On occasion, the apostles went so far as to either try to get certain information from the Lord or tell them what the Lord had revealed to her. They apparently felt that because they were ordained, that they had an entitlement.

Women were never empowered to offer sacrifices, baptize, ordain, heal the sick or particiapate in the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Spirit. But at various times they were called to be prophetesses. But there's never been a documented case of a woman engaging in the ordinances listed above. But as far as being able to prophesy, receive revelation and so forth, there doesn't seem to be any limitations. Priesthood carries with it not only the power to preside, but the power to conduct ordinance work. And women are shown as having equal rights to salvation in the Kingdom of God, but not in priesthood authority.

My only beef is since everyone in the New Covenant is part of the priesthood of believers, why should there be a separate priestly class to begin with?

We have to look at the New Testament and not the teachings of the WBTS. There's actually no such thing as a "priesthood of believers." That's a complete misconception of scripture. The Jehovah's Witnesses teach that each baptized member is an ordained ministerial servant is a FALSE DOCTRINE and has no foundation in either scripture or tradition. The only priestly classes we see in the scriptures are the Levitical, or Aaronic, Priesthood and the Melchizedek, or Holy Priesthood, which many believe to be held only by Jesus and Melchizedek. The only office associated with this priesthood is that of High Priest; however, the Bible lacks a lot of information. Do elders have priesthood? If so, what kind? How about bishops, seventy, and priests? In fact, doesn't the term "priest" imply priesthood? As far as I know, the WTBTS does not claim to be a church. And there are no ordinations. As far as I'm concerned, that's a tacit admission of illegitimacy.

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13

I am not going for JC!

by exWTslave in

this morning two elders visited me and said this years memorial day is on april 14, and we are informing you well in advance so that you can arrange your affairs and attend.

[i had given them the impression that i am very busy due to my secular assignments, hence most of the time out of station.].

then i thought two elders visiting me cannot have an ordinary purpose, and i should give them a piece of my mind.

Cold Steel

There are too many religions that teach if you're not with us, you're against us.

If Jesus died for the sins of the world, and I believe he did (Isa. 53), he would not just let a handful of people to benefit from it. Animal sacrifice pointed to the Messiah, the killing of the sacral ram pointed the way to the Messiah and the great premortal council pointed to the Messiah. One scholar writes:

His destiny to become mankind's Savior is reflected in an early Christian document, the Discourse on Abbaton, folios 11b-12a, which has the resurrected Christ describing the creation of Adam to his disciples:

And He (the Father) heaved sighs over him, saying,“If I put breath into this [man], he must suffer many pains.” And I said unto My Father, ‘Put breath into him; I will be an advocate for him.” And My Father said unto Me, “If I put breath into him, My beloved Son, Thou wilt be obliged to go down into the world, and to suffer many pains for him before Thou shalt have redeemed him, and made him to come back to his primal state.” And I said unto My Father, “Put breath into him; I will be his advocate, and I will go down into the world, and will fulfil Thy command.”

The account may be quite old, for it is also known from a Jewish text, Pesikta Rabbati 36:1, where we read that God “under his throne of glory put away His Messiah until the time of the generation in which he will appear.” The devil asked about the light beneath the God’s throne and “God replied: Come and see him. And when he saw him, Satan was shaken, and he fell upon his face and said: Surely, this is the Messiah who will cause me and all the counterparts in heaven of the princes of the earth’s nations to be swallowed up in Gehenna.” God spoke further of “My true Messiah, who will pull himself up straight and will pull up straight his generation, and who will give light to the eyes of Israel and deliver his people.” The text then says that God will speak to the Messiah about his mission:

There are souls that have been put away with thee under My throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering, and will choke thy spirit as with a yoke; because of the sins of these souls thy tongue will cleave to the roof of my mouth. Art thou willing to endure such things?

The Messiah will ask the Holy One, blessed be He: Will my suffering last many years?

The Holy One, blessed be He, will reply: Upon thy life and the life of My head, it is a period of seven years which I have decreed for thee. But if thy soul is sad at the prospect of thy suffering, I shall at this moment banish these sinful souls.

The Messiah will say: Master of the Universe, with joy in my soul and gladness in my heart I take this suffering upon myself, provided that not one person in Israel perish; that not only those who are alive be saved in my days, but that also those who are dead, who died from the days of Adam up to the time of redemption; and that not only these be saved in my days, but also those who died as abortions; and that not only these be saved in my days, but all those whom Thou thoughtest to create [evidently as mortals] but were not created. Such are the things I desire, and for these I am ready to take upon myself [whatever Thou decreest].

Jehovah's Witnesses believe that all the members of all religions on Earth who pay homage to Christ and who attempt to live his commandments as they understand them are actually worshiping Satan, and will thus be destroyed when it's too late for them to realize they made a mistake. Nice, eh? But oddly, many Christian religions believe they're the one true church and that everyone else is damned to either Hell or destruction.

If Jesus is the Messiah, he's also the Judge of mankind (John 5:22) and our advocate with the Father. After the fall of man, Jesus became the great mediator. The Father withdrew from man, and Jesus, known as Jehovah, operated as man's go between with the Father. The only words the Father has spoken since then are testimonies of the Son. "Behold, my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear ye him." Some sects believe Jehovah is the Father, but if true, then the Father dealt with mankind directly, to the prophets, with no mediator.

The Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah, but they don't believe that he was the Son of God. Nor do they believe he died on the cross or gave himself in any way to atone for mankind's sins. According to their eschatology, Jesus will descend upon a minaret in Damascus in the last days upon the wings of two angels. He will then declare to the Christians that they were wrong and attempt to convert them to Islam. From then on, according to them, Christians will no longer have to pay the jizyna taxk. After that, the choice will be rather easy. Accept the religiion or die.

Now that's a missionary program!

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22

Do JWs use the Baptizmal formula?

by Hortenzie in

do the elders say: "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit" when they are immersing the one being baptized?.

Cold Steel

He didn't answer but asked which congregation I'm associated with.

Probably so they'd know who to contact so you could be dealt with...er...I mean, so they could contact you and help answer your question.

He said I should ask the elders.

Yeah...that would work.

I said I haven't been to the meetings in a while, could he just give me a quick answer. He asked what was the question, I repeated the question, he asked if I have a paper and pen, I asked why, he said he will give me references, I asked what for, he said to do my own research in the online library, I again said that I just needed a simple 'yes' or 'no'.

We actually don't have anything in the Bible that describes how and what words are to be said when baptizing a person. I've oft wondered what the words were that John used when baptizing Jesus. How much did the Jews at that time know regarding the Messiah being the son of God. Looking back, we can see in the Old Testament hints and references to the sonship of Jesus, but John was baptizing people in the wilderness. When Jesus came out of the water, everyone heard the words of the Father relating to Jesus being his "beloved Son" and they saw the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove. When Jesus went into the water, I don't think John would have said, "Jesus of Nazareth, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." I could be wrong, but we don't even know what John was teaching -- only that he had quite a following. Nor do we know how many of John's followers subsequently became Jesus' followers.

Having said that, I don't have any question that a person should be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; then immersed and brought out of the water. It's just that the Bible isn't a handbook. It doesn't talk about how to do baptisms, ordinations, the anointing and healing of the sick, etc.

I really thought he will not give me the answer and then he suddenly said no, we don't use it. I thanked him for his honesty, hang up, and got really mad how sneaky they are. Nostagia's gone and I'm so glad I'm no longer one of them... And I'm so glad their baptizm isn't valid.

Do you still feel the need to be baptized?

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22

Do JWs use the Baptizmal formula?

by Hortenzie in

do the elders say: "in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit" when they are immersing the one being baptized?.

Cold Steel

Are the elders the only ones who can baptize?

If one decides they want to be baptized, how long would they have to wait? And if someone wanted to be baptized, and was baptized by a member of a non-denominational Bible-believing church in a river, and the person was baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, would Jehovah recognize that baptism if the person lived a good, decent, honorable life? Would not being baptized by the Society be enough to have one destroyed at Armageddon?

What I've read about "Christendom" in the Society literature seems to point at money grubbing, primarily Catholic and organized religion that's hypocritical and teach false doctrine. But what if a church has no formal doctrine outside of believing in Jesus and the Bible? Why would the Lord reject the non-denominational baptism when the Society itself denies it's a church?

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7

TRUE PROPHETS IDENTIFIED!!!

by DATA-DOG in

the prophets of science fiction.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/prophets_of_science_fiction .

i just discovered this series on netflix.

it's pretty cool, fyi.. .

Cold Steel

I always thought Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis were written by very talented writers. So what if English was the standard language used throughout the Universe? (That Rosetta Stone software really gets around.)

One of my favorite episodes of the former had them stargating to what appeared an engineering center. They set something off and when they recover they're wearing strange uniforms and are confronted by a very affable character who tells them he has made them "better." They manage to escape, but back on Earth they discover why they're stronger, faster and can make lightning calculations in their minds. It's that they've been turned into androids. They return to the planet, find their host and demand that he restore their weapons and their bodies. Alas, he tells them, that he cannot do. But finally they force him to where their bodies lie in stasis, only to make a more horrible discovery -- their bodies are already inhabited...by them!

In other words, their consciousness weren't just transferred to the android bodies, their entire minds had been xeroxed and placed in the new bodies. Ouch! So both sets of SG-1 members had identical memories and both thought of themselves as the originals. Oh, what to do? The androids wanted nothing more than to return to Earth and take up their regular lives, visit with their families and so forth. It raised some very interesting ethical issues, and also got me thinking that if Jehovah's Witnesses were destined to die, cease to exist, then be recreated in the resurrection, would they be the same people, or would they be merely xerox copies of the people they were, with the same thoughts and memories as the originals?

So science fiction has always raised some troublesome issues along with some hopeful ones. I personally believe we all have eternal spirits that transcend this life, before and after. But my grandmother, raised a Methodist, had a JW daughter who sent her JW articles on how when you die, you die, and it absolutely terrified her. Do we think of ourselves as having "off" and "on" switches, where the same circuit boards and memory modules exist, but can be powered off and on at will? Or are we created at birth, uncreated at death, then recreated at some future time? I've met many Jewish people who believe we're created at birth, then shut off at death and never have another conscious thought, and some of these have been rabbis. One said he "hoped" he would have some future life, but added that he wasn't counting on it.

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29

What If the Soul Sleeping Doctrine is False?

by Cold Steel in

when god breathed life into adam, adam became a living soul.

moments before he had been only a concept...an idea; a lump of clay if youre a literalist.

now he was a complex living and breathing being.

Cold Steel

...the scientifically cherished Siberian Land Bridge theory....

Nevertheless...it's been completely and unequivocally discredited. But before it was discredited, every piece of evidence that ran counter to the Siberian Land Bridge Theory was automatically thrown out. And that included any and all evidence that supported the Book of Mormon. Thus, anyone (LDS or not) who criticized the theory was automatically ostracized.

Yeah, you know who ELSE poo-poohed the value of washing hands (as well as standard sanitary practices like washing dishes/pots/pans, utensils)? Jesus. You know who else didn't believe in germs, either? Jesus thought he was curing via forgiveness of sins, since Jesus lived in the age LONG before Pasteur's 'germ theory of disease', and that's what all humans believed.

How do you know he didn’t believe in germs or that he “poo-poohed” the value of washing hands? And what difference would it make whether he believed in them or not? Jesus wasn’t omniscient at the time he lived on Earth as a man. Remember when he spit into some dirt and put it on a blind man’s eyes? The man had been born blind, yet instead of giving him an eye infection, it restored his sight. The concept of germs came well before microscopes. The Greeks knew through experimentation that something was causing the breakdown of both fruit and flesh. But they could see nothing, so they theorized that the breakdown was being caused by something so small that they couldn’t see it.

And you’re correct about the correlation between healing and the forgiveness of sins. It’s not based on science but theology. As the Son of God, he had every right and power to forgive sins.

YOU claim God exists, so YOU have to present existence of God to convince skeptics. It's called "burden of proof," and believers bear it if they claim God exists.

Look, it’s not us who needs to prove it. I never said that I or anyone else had proof that God exists, but there is evidence. The scriptures are consistent, prophecy is spot on, and the Hebrew God unchanging and wise. The prophets give consistent testimonies and there are hundreds of near death experiences. When one considers the distance from the sun to the earth, the distance, mass and orbit of the moon (which many astronomers believe is foreign to both the earth and the solar system) and the complexities of life, you’re damn right it’s an “appeal to personal incredulity.” Like the Greeks who couldn’t see the germs, but who surmised they were there, I see God throughout the universe. Intelligence and order are invariably connected, and one cannot, in my view, exist without the other. Even given everything else in the solar system, if we didn’t have a stabilizing moon the precise distance and mass from the earth, intelligent life could not exist. Our tides would be erratic, our equator would change so often crops would not grow and our climate also would be erratic. And to think it all happened with a roll of the dice.

Regarding near death experiences, I have found no inconsistencies of experiences based on peoples’ belief systems. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Of course I don’t believe every account I read. Some are silly and entirely inconsistent with scripture. Like religion, people can just make things up, which is why there is the law of witnesses. But also like religion, the truth can be ferreted out.

Atheists can believe whatever they like. But they hijack every discussion of scripture and religion and turn it into an attack on religion.

This thread was about how Jehovah’s Witnesses and other soul sleepers would react to finding out that their consciousness continued after death. Suddenly we’re treated with their opinions about religion in general, the Book of Mormon, how ridiculous and unbelievable, and unconvincing all spiritual belief systems (except their own, naturally) were and how noble and honest science has been through the ages in searching out the truth while they have been persecuted by exposing the fables of religion. The truth is, science has about two whores less than Babylon had in its heyday. Just look at how many threads the atheists have derailed here. Some hurl just one or two lines of insult (hi, Cofty!) while others insult in greater detail. Then there are those who see Mormonism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses as being equally as bizarre and ridiculous, so differences in doctrine are merely the topics of fools and the gullible. And what bothers them the most, I think, are former Jehovah’s Witnesses who remain Christians and who find more productive spiritual pursuits than the bitter path they themselves tread.

(And BTW, I don’t have anything against atheists believing as they do; I am just stunned at times about the surety of their convictions, which is very similar to the surety that exists among the religiously-minded.)

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5

Why do we age and die?

by yalbmert99 in

why do we age and die?.

not because of original sin in the garden of eden, because adam and eve and the forbidden fruit never existed.

it's rather because of entropy.. see this video here that explains it simply :.

Cold Steel

Yes, it's all explained here in this brilliant piece called:

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The Last Question..by Isaac Asimov

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29

What If the Soul Sleeping Doctrine is False?

by Cold Steel in

when god breathed life into adam, adam became a living soul.

moments before he had been only a concept...an idea; a lump of clay if youre a literalist.

now he was a complex living and breathing being.

Cold Steel

Qcmbr: How do you react...when we show you Mormon lies, logic errors, immorality and proof of the fraudulent nature of the Book of Mormon?

Cofty: He sticks his fingers in his ears, sings lalalalala, and types lots of text that includes the oxymoron "mormon scholars..."

That’s about it, only I sing “Wake Up, Little Suzie” really loud.

AndDon’tCallMeShirley: ....you criticize Jehovah's Witnesses for their beliefs...you are a Mormon. You seem to not realize you believe in fictions just as absurd and unprovable as the Jehovah’s Witnesses—yet you stand here in judgment of them. On what basis?

So...am I the only critic here? Actually, it seems most of the threads on this board criticize the Jehovah’s Witnesses. And the atheists here are the most critical of everyone.

But though my beliefs differ from the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, my primary criticisms deal with their policies. But many of my threads are on scriptural topics, like the state of the dead, prophecy, the fall of man, the atonement, the Second Coming and everyone’s favorite, the battle of Armageddon. So it gets down to the “Two Es” — exegeses and eschatology. To the atheists, this is all nitpicking since, to them, one religious doctrine is as ridiculous as another.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, as I understand it, that when one dies, he or she ceases to exist, as if they never existed. They also teach that the wicked will be resurrected, judged, then obliterated, whilst the righteous are resurrected as either spirits or as immortal humans, like Adam and Eve.

At least atheists and others freely admit that certain matters do not have an answer, but rather than believe in fairy tales, they rely on evidence to formulate opinions, and reserve themselves until evidence proves their position wrong. The gullibly religious seem to latch onto any nonsense that makes them feel good—no evidence required—while condemning other gullibly religious people who believe in a different color of unprovable, but equally laughable, set of absurdities.

Your self-assured arrogance is astounding.

My greatest problem with atheists is their stunning hypocrisy and unyielding inability to see what they accuse others of in themselves. My God, you should see yourself from my side of the computer screen! Talk about arrogance! You speak as though science has settled every problem and has slammed the door shut once and for all without question on every religion and religious experience in the history of mankind—all the while conveniently overlooking its own flawed, narrow and sordid past with an astonishing presumptuousness that has existed on the parts of pseudo-intellectuals going all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers and before. And you have the audacity to call me arrogant?

I’ve never claimed that religion has all the answers, but it’s a belief system in many ways just as science is. For generations scientists and humanists of all stripes have had their own little cliques in which those outside of their belief systems were ridiculed and, if possible, excluded from their ranks. Look at those who were derided for their belief in continental drift (which anyone with a global map could figure out) and their questioning of the scientifically cherished Siberian Land Bridge theory, which excluded every piece of evidence that backed up the claims of the Book of Mormon in Mesoamerica. So please don’t tell me how impartial, dispassionate and fair science is and how narrow minded and bigoted religion is. You may say you don’t believe in God nor revealed religion, but to say you know there’s no validity to it is, itself, the basest of belief systems.

RottenRiley: Jehovah's Witnesses don't know the Christ of the Bibles are do they believe in the Jesus Christ and Good News taught by the Apostles. Their claim is "If I die, I am a Christian because I believed in Jesus Christ" but they don't believe in Jesus Christ do they?

They say they do, but I don’t believe people are saved or damned on just what they believe. John writes:

We see here not just an emphasis on believing in Christ, but in living his commandments. The one aspect of religion that bothers me the most is the exclusivity of sects and religions that damn, or condemn, everyone but themselves. If Christianity is to reflect the love of God and the brotherhood of men, then all the condemnation to hell or destruction has to give way to acknowledging God as loving, just and merciful. Jehovah will destroy everyone but his witnesses, we’re told, or, if we believe the Seventh Day Adventists, anyone who does not embrace seventh-day worship. In my view, if religions would try to be more inclusive, not of the wicked, but of those who truly love and revere both the Father and the Son, they would be on the right track.

Based on my reading of near death experiences, and the writings of the New Testament and other writings of its time, I couldn’t help but wonder what the reaction of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists (or atheists) would be to be cut off in this life, only to find themselves continuing in existence in real time?

When you were an active JW, or if you’re presently a believing JW, what would be your reaction to discovering, suddenly, that the spirit lives on? And what would happen if a Jehovah’s Witness were to have a near death experience, recover and tell it to friends or the elders in their congregations? Have such experiences ever been written about in WTBTS publications?

My dad told us before he died that he had seen and spoken to his mother (and he wasn’t an overly religious type, playing his religion very close to the vest). And my maternal grandfather also said, prior to his death, that he had seen and spoken to friends and family, including his mother and father). I don’t know just what his religious views were exactly when he passed, but he had been attending a Kingdom Hall every Wednesday evening, dressing up for it and taking his Bible. Just moments before he died, he raised up on his left elbow and pointed with his right finger towards the edge of his bed, as if whoever he was looking at was/were standing above the floor. He was very emphatic, but wasn’t able to say anything. But I take such things seriously.

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29

What If the Soul Sleeping Doctrine is False?

by Cold Steel in

when god breathed life into adam, adam became a living soul.

moments before he had been only a concept...an idea; a lump of clay if youre a literalist.

now he was a complex living and breathing being.

Cold Steel

Christopher Hitchens said: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

At one time, no one believed in germs; and when they couldn't deny it, they argued they were far too small to harm the human body. People were booted out of the medical profession for requiring their hospital staff to wash their hands! Much of astrophysics today is founded on a belief in dark matter, though evidence that it exists is sadly lacking. The same thing used to be true of black holes. Even though they were theoretically possible, Stephen Hawking said years ago, he doubted whether any would be found. Before the ink was dry, however, astronomers had begun to find them; not that they actually saw them, but they were able to prove they existed and determine where they were. Now we know they're all over the place.

To say there is no evidence of God, or a Creator, is a pretty huge leap. And the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. The complexity of genetic codes, order and beauty of the universe, the witnesses throughout time, many of the prophets have stated that all things denote there is a God. I've found that many of the near death experiences I've read to be very compelling, regardless of their religious and cultural backgrounds. But as many have pointed out, if atheists are correct, we'll never know it; however, if religionists are right, we all know there's a God after about two minutes.

Jehovah's Witnesses are sure that when they die, they will find themselves coming to in the future. They're not exactly sure what they'll see or experience, but I suspect most will believe it will be right at the onset of the battle of Armageddon. But they'll be conscious and aware of their own existence and, good or evil, will have a full recollection of their memories. The scriptures say that all men will be resurrected, male and female. The JWs add to that doctrine that the evil ones will be resurrected, judged and destroyed, all *POOF*.

29

What If the Soul Sleeping Doctrine is False?

by Cold Steel in

when god breathed life into adam, adam became a living soul.

moments before he had been only a concept...an idea; a lump of clay if youre a literalist.

now he was a complex living and breathing being.

Cold Steel

When God breathed life into Adam, Adam became a living soul. Moments before he had been only a concept...an idea; a lump of clay if you’re a literalist. Now he was a complex living and breathing being. A son of God. At least that’s how the Jehovah’s Witnesses see it.

In school, one of my courses was Christian eschatology in light of newly discovered papyri. We covered the whole soul sleeping doctrine as taught by William Miller, Ellen G. White and Charles T. Russell. Far from being an ancient Greek heresy, as the Adventists claim, there was a solid belief amongst ancient Hebrew and Christian leaders that man not only had an immortal soul, but many early Jewish and Christian writers believed that man’s immortality goes in both directions, into the present and future, but also into the past. One scholar writes:

Christ's premortal existence, however different Christians interpret this concept, is well attested in the New Testament.8 The concept of individual premortal existence of humans is not clearly attested in texts in the biblical tradition until the last few centuries BC on into the early Christian centuries. Examples found in some early Jewish and Christian documents include:

As a child I was naturally gifted, and a good soul fell to my lot; or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body. (Wisdom of Solomon 8:19–20)9

But he [God] did design and devise me [Moses], who (was) prepared from the beginning of the world, to be the mediator of his covenant. (Testament of Moses 1:14)10

Enoch was instructed that "all the souls are prepared for eternity, before the composition of the earth." (2 Enoch 23:5; see further 1 Enoch 48:2–3)11

Such attestations of this concept in early Jewish and Christian texts are regularly cited as dependent on Greek influence, especially Platonic thought. For example, "the Platonic view of the soul as pre-existent seems to be reflected here [in Wisdom of Solomon 8:19–20], but unlike Plato's view, there is union with an undefiled body."12

8. See ... Douglas McCready, He Came Down from Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ and the Christian Faith (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005).

9. NRSV Apocrypha, as found in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, ed. Bruce M. Metzger and Roland E. Murphy (New York: Oxford, 1994), AP 68.

10. As found in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York: Doubleday, 1983, 1985), 1:927; hereafter abbreviated OTP.

11. As found in OTP, 1:140.

12. Note on Wisdom of Solomon 8:19–20, in New Annotated Oxford Bible, AP 68, emphasis in the original.

If other Christians are correct in their scriptural exegeses, and if you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, what would your reaction be to die and suddenly find that you were still alive and conscious? What do you think most Jehovah’s Witnesses would do? In the stories I’ve read, a person dies, then finds themselves in Paradise (if righteous), feeling intense peace and well being. They also frequently see their own bodies, either on the floor or in a bed or stretcher.

So if this happened, how do you think most Jehovah’s Witnesses would react, seeing that this, one of their premier doctrines, was false? How would you react? Would most Jehovah’s Witnesses despair or would they continue to maintain their beliefs in the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society?

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