Posts by Doug Mason

4

A Miracle in Stone, Seiss ?

by Doug Mason in

is it possible to download the book, "a miracle in stone, or the great pyramid of egypt" by joseph e. seiss (1877)?.

i have the .ipa version, but i need to see the original diagrams and pagination.. doug.

What was Luke's cosmology of the ascension?

by Doug Mason in

what cosmological model was luke using when he wrote the following at acts 1:9-11:.

[jesus] was taken up before [the disciples] very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.

Doug Mason

What cosmological model was Luke using when he wrote the following at Acts 1:9-11:

“[Jesus] was taken up before [the disciples’] very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.’ ”

Was Luke conscious of the contemporary Greek (Ptolemaic) cosmological model or of the Hebrew cosmological model when he wrote this? [Dictionary: “cosmology: science or theory of the universe”.]

Using today’s cosmology, if I viewed this ascension event from the Interplanetary Space Station (ISS), would I be looking at a normal human floating past me away from Earth with neither an oxygen supply nor a pressurised space suit? Would I be watching a human body travel on into the depths of outer space, wearing just the clothes of a first century Jew? Where was he going? How long would this take? Could he keep in touch with the people he had left behind on Earth?

When Luke says that Jesus was taken up and was then hidden behind a cloud, was this a first century description of Jesus dissolving into another dimension (as per “String Theory” or such)?

Or was this a purely theological description based on – as they so often did with the stories about Jesus – from stories of Elijah? (2 Kings 2:9-12). Was Luke using the story of Elijah’s departure and the outpouring of Elijah’s spirit as a vehicle that provided meaning to Paul’s missionary journeys?

Or was Luke using a parable to say that Jesus was now in heaven with God, and in control?

What are the implications for the WTS's "parousia" and their subsequent "epiphanea" (aka "armagedon")?

Doug

4

A Miracle in Stone, Seiss ?

by Doug Mason in

is it possible to download the book, "a miracle in stone, or the great pyramid of egypt" by joseph e. seiss (1877)?.

i have the .ipa version, but i need to see the original diagrams and pagination.. doug.

Doug Mason

Is it possible to download the book, "A Miracle in Stone, or the Great Pyramid of Egypt" by Joseph E. Seiss (1877)?

I have the .IPA version, but I need to see the original diagrams and pagination.

Doug

37

What did Jesus mean by "this generation"?

by Doug Mason in

by looking at every occasion that jesus used the expression "this generation", it is possible to work out what he meant.. i have listed these occasions, along with some questions, at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/this_generation.pdf.

i am interested to know what you think.. doug.

Doug Mason

Thank you all for your kind comments.

TD, if you have suggestions how I may improve the wording of the questions, I would appreciate your thoughts. To help prevent any misapplication of the word genea, I deliberately provided the context in which it was used.

Chalam, you say you are sitting on the "trib" fence. Maybe you need to add a further dimension to your fence and ask whether there is to be a future "trib". Perhaps you could research the origins of that idea in recent centuries. Maybe also research Historicism and its alternatives. Another aspect you could research is how the primitive Christians viewed the term "last days". (Sounds like the subject for a future thread). Do you think people are attracted to applying end-time eschatology to their own day because they fear their own death? Did you see my previous post "Christ is Coming Soon", where I show that people in the 19th century did exactly the same thing as people are doing today, such as setting dates for Christ's return? http://www.jwstudies.com/Christ_is_Coming_Very_Soon.pdf

AuntBee, that book "Last day Madness" sounds interesting. I will have to investigate. How many people's lives are hampered this?

Once more to everyone, I appreciate your comments.

Doug

37

What did Jesus mean by "this generation"?

by Doug Mason in

by looking at every occasion that jesus used the expression "this generation", it is possible to work out what he meant.. i have listed these occasions, along with some questions, at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/this_generation.pdf.

i am interested to know what you think.. doug.

Doug Mason

By looking at every occasion that Jesus used the expression "this generation", it is possible to work out what he meant.

I have listed these occasions, along with some questions, at:

http://www.jwstudies.com/This_Generation.pdf

I am interested to know what you think.

Doug

14

Watchtower 2080 "New thought on the Generation"

by dozy in

watchtower study article jun 15th 2080 (direct retina scanned edition).

14...the watchtower of nov 15th 2037 brought out the increased light that the 144,000 of revelation should not be understood as a figurative number , but that the heavenly hope is open to all who wish to partake.

we rejoice that the number who profess such a hope has risen to over one million now , together with the over 35 million of the great crowd class.

Doug Mason

When you go to:

http://www.archive.org/details/JehovahsWitnessGenerationOf1914Changes

you will find a chart showing the WTS's changes over time including the one of 15 April 2010.

It is also available at Freeminds:

http://freeminds.org/images/articles/generationjw.jpg

Doug

6

They said, "Christ is Coming Soon"

by Doug Mason in

i composed the file at.

http://www.jwstudies.com/christ_is_coming_very_soon.pdf.

in response to a jehovahs witnesss comment that people had looked forward to 1914.. .

Doug Mason

I composed the file at

http://www.jwstudies.com/Christ_is_Coming_Very_Soon.pdf

in response to a Jehovah’s Witness’s comment that people had “looked forward to 1914”.

It was my intention to use original material to show:

• Russell taught that Christ’s parousia (presence) had taken place in 1874.

• He taught there would be a 40-year harvest ending in 1914. During that harvest period, there would be unbelievable trouble in the world and that the church would be glorified.

• He taught that Gentile domination of Jerusalem would cease in 1914, and that God’s kingdom would be ushered in at that time under the auspices of the Jews, and it would bring peace to the world.

I wanted to use original material to show that such ideas had previously been promoted by many others, with vigour. Russell was just one of a horde of prophetic interpreters, with each giving their own definite date for Christ’s coming and for the return of the Jews to God’s favour.

I hoped this might help them gain a better perspective on their own actions, in that what they were doing was nothing new and would form just another part of the long history of failed expectations.

I wanted to demonstrate that others after Russell continued to promote the same messages, including Rutherford throughout the 1920s.

The material is indicative only, as so much more could have been presented, such as the views of the innumerable splinter groups that formed following Russell’s death in 1916. However, I constrained myself to material relevant to my Witness friend’s initiating comment.

The material is referenced chronologically, according to the date of the person’s views.

Doug

140

The Probabilty of there being an Intelligent Designer

by cantleave in

i have been thinking a great deal about where i stand at this moment in time in terms of a belief in a creator verses a belief in an evolutionary process.

i think the best way to describe it is an exploratory path.

i look at what is around me and i acknowledge it is remarkable.

Doug Mason

1. Is this issue primarily driven by people in USA?

2. Why did the creationist religion find its feet in a supposedly developed country of USA?

3. Is Creationism self-perpetuated in USA by politicians because see a ready pool of votes in it?

4. Using the well-known picture of the Solar System, would someone please describe for me how it would have looked and operated on each day were the account at Genesis 1 literally correct (including the source of light before the Sun made its appearance and how the waters sat above the firmament).

Doug

140

The Probabilty of there being an Intelligent Designer

by cantleave in

i have been thinking a great deal about where i stand at this moment in time in terms of a belief in a creator verses a belief in an evolutionary process.

i think the best way to describe it is an exploratory path.

i look at what is around me and i acknowledge it is remarkable.

Doug Mason

Some Sabbath-keeping Elohist priests wanted to prove the universality of the Sabbath. So they created a story with that intent. We now know that their story is scientifically inept, but that was not their concern. Where did they get the information? Who told them what happened? Were there some Stone Age people who passed this on? How do we know that no mistakes were made when the information was passed on orally down the generations? Especially as there were no people around during those first five "days".

Another group of priests, this time they were Yahwists, wanted to show the divine origin of marriage and that women were subsequent to man and came from him. I cannot understand why any woman or man would accept that position today. So these priests wrote a story - just as Jesus used parables - to get their point across. The people who gathered these two accounts did not worry that the stories contained inconsistencies, as that was not the objective. Just see the differences in the two accounts of Man and Woman.

Is it likely that this all-knowing God did not know where Man and Woman were? Is it possible that God did not know what Adam, Eve and Snake had been up to? And a snake that talks? And a fruit that provides knowledge?

When did death first exist? Were the ocean depths filled with vegetarian beasts? Who told them they were now allowed to start eating one another? How long does the light take to travel from the stars? How come there was light before the sun existed? How could there have been day and night of 24 hours when there was no sun? The stories are theological exercises, not a scientific treatises.

The "Intelligent Designer" is so ineffective that most animals are now extinct.

At least Evolution is a Theory, which means it has evidence in support. Creationists do not even have a Theory, just a hypothesis. Discover the meaning of the term scientific "theory".

Give me a break. Does God expect us to leave our brains behind when we pick up the writings of these ancient people?

Doug

33

"the Bible contains no scientific inaccuracies"

by nicolaou in

that's the incredible statement made by the watchtower in 2007.

(*** g 11/07 p. 8 4. scientific accuracy ***) it's nothing new though, they've been churning out variations on this theme for decades .

1951 *** w51 6/1 p. 325 par.

Doug Mason

Who do you think these guys are writing to? Are they addressing the scientific intelligentsia of this world or the religiously superstitious?

When a supposedly educated literate country like the USA has people who think the world was created in six days just a few thousand years ago, what difficulty will the WTS have convincing those of less advanced countries? Or does the WTS want its US citizens to have the same level of education as those of a Third World country?

Doug