Doug Mason

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Posts by Doug Mason

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  37

  What did Jesus mean by "this generation"?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Doug Mason

  Wannabee,

  If I am able to correctly untangle what you are trying to say, I believe I can see the words and sentiments of CTR as he argued that Christ's parousia had taken place in 1874, that they were living in the Last Harvest Period of 40 years, during which there would be an unprecedented Time of Trouble, and which would usher in an unprecedented time of peace in 1914 under the auspices of the Zionists, with the church having been glorified some years earlier.

  Go back to your basic fundamentals and reason whether they are soundly based. Prove that Revelation had a fulfillment beyond the seven churches that the epistle was written to. Each group who wrote their Scriptures was writing to their own people in their own time, using their own methods of communication. The writers of Revelation had to use symbolism that hid messages from their Roman overlords. Prove that Daniel was not written 400 years after the Babylonian Exile, to explain their own Jewish oppression (200 years before the Christian Era).

  The writers of the "New Testament" tried to make sense of the person they had encountered, whom they had expected was going to free them from the tyranny of Roman oppression. When he was killed by the Romans, they combed desparately through their Hebrew Scriptures seeking an explanation and over time they used their Jewish writings to rationalise their Great Disappointment. These writers were therefore steeped in the Jewish tradition, using Jewish midrashic thinking, and they produced a Jewish document, the Christian Greek Scriptures. So read it all through Jewish eyes. Then you might have a different view of the expression "Last Days".

  As they worked through their position, they realised that God is God not only of the Jews, but that in his sight there is no such thing as a Jew or a Greek, a Hebrew or a Gentile, a male or a female. They realised that God forgives anyone on the basis that they have faith in him, and since this is a gift, it is available to any person of any faith. If I may extrapolate, this means the Hindu, Muslim and Aborigine. To think otherwise is to have a small and petulant god.

  These are my basic fundamentals. Salvation is not earned through correct eschatology, chronology, dating systems, doctrinal precision, nor apocalyptic reasoning. These things are used by people to lord it over others and to control them. Jesus is said to have come to make us free.

  Doug
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  4

  A Miracle in Stone, Seiss ?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Doug Mason

  frankiespeakin,

  Thank you,

  Doug
• 
  1

  What was Luke's cosmology of the ascension?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  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
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  4

  A Miracle in Stone, Seiss ?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  2. 
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• 

  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

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  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

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

  1. 
  2. 
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• 

  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

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  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

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.. .

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  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

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  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.

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  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