Posts by Doug Mason

11

Why we cannot know who wrote the articles in WT & AW?

by asilentone in

.

Doug Mason

Is it because they need to hide the fact that most are written by "other sheep members" and not by those of the "anointed (FDS) class"?

Doug

37

How do you explain...

by AwSnap in

1 samuel 19:9?

i thought god didn't commit evil...and this also appears to be predestination, no?

that was the new world translation.. the new international bible says:.

Doug Mason

Some thoughts related to "Historiography"

"It must be acknowledged that Biblical narrators were more than historians. They interpretively recounted the past with the unswerving purpose of bringing it to bear on the present and the future. In the portrayal of past events, they used their materials to achieve this purpose effectively." (NIV Study Bible, book of Jonah, “Introduction: Interpretation”)

The following is from DOTHB, pages 418-421:

Modern readers often approach the Bible with an incorrect set of assumptions and expectations. Thus the problem lies not with the Bible, but with the way in which it has been read. ...

The biblical writers may not have understood their task simply as relating what happened in the past. ... Ancient history writing was not journalism; it was closer to storytelling than to the objective reporting of past events. ... The primary objective of ancient history writing was to “render an account” of the past that explained the present.

Ancient historians had axes to grind—theological or political points to make. Second, a civilization rendering an account of its past also entailed an expression of the corporate identity of the nation—what it was and what principles it stood for. Hence, the historian’s primary concern was not detailing exactly what happened in the past as much as it was interpreting the meaning of the past for the present, showing how the “causes” of the past brought about the “effects” of the present. ...

An aetiology is a story that explains the cause or origin of a given phenomenon—a cultural practice or social custom, a biological circumstance, even a geological formation. It is not a scientific explanation, not historical in the modern sense of an event that actually took place in the past exactly as described; aetiologies can be quite imaginative, even if not always constituted of fiction. An aetiology is, rather, a story that “renders an account”—that is, offers some explanation—of present conditions and circumstances based on past causes.

The Bible’s historical literature is aetiological in the sense that it seeks to “render an account” of the past—to provide an explanation (aitia) for circumstances or conditions in the historian’s day. Whether the events that the Bible relates as past causes or explanations actually took place as described was not the ancient historian’s primary concern. ...

To attempt to read the account of Israel’s history in the Bible from a modern perspective as strictly a record of actual events is to misconstrue its genre and force it to do something that it was not intended to do. ...

In the Bible, history was written for an ideological purpose. History writing was theology. ...

Biblical historiographers used the same techniques that ancient Greek historians used to render an account of their national past, including paratactic organization, the use of genealogies to frame narratives, the composition of speeches, and the invention of stories and sources to fill gaps in the narrative. ...

The differences between Chronicles and Samuel-Kings show that the recounting of exactly what happened in the past was not the chief objective of biblical historiographers. Rather, history served ideological purposes. It was the forum for the presentation of theology. Biblical historians used history to draw and illustrate theological lessons. The composition of speeches was a principal tool for the Chronicler and other biblical historians to draw out the lessons that they found in history. Chronicles exemplifies the inventiveness of biblical historians and the freedom they exercised in shaping sources and filling in gaps left by them.

37

How do you explain...

by AwSnap in

1 samuel 19:9?

i thought god didn't commit evil...and this also appears to be predestination, no?

that was the new world translation.. the new international bible says:.

Doug Mason

It is important to ensure you are not looking at details that the writers/editors never intended. These details might simply be ornaments on the wall and were not intended to be taken down.

Firstly, you need to determine when the words were spoken/written/edited. Since this is 1 Samuel, the material was written/edited during or shortly after the Babylonian Exile.

Secondly, the view that the Ancients took of "history" is quite different from ours. They wrote/edited history for the purpose of addressing an issue they were currently encountering. They had an axe to grind, with details included only to carry a story along. (To reduce confusion, I will leave it to my following post in this thread to provide information on "historiography".)

Thirdly, a depiction of "God" is really a reflection of that community's moral, ethical and religious beliefs. Hence the variance between a "God" of an OT tribe to a "God" of an urban community of Roman times. Their views of God do not necessarily agree with the Reality.

Fourthly, not everything in the Bible is correct. Writers/editors made mistakes; editors amended words and introduced their own comments and included clarifications.

So do not look for details that a writer only used to be able to make a story. Don't make everything walk on all four legs. Look for the overall total storyline and the intended message for the time it was written.

As I said, in the next post I will provide some words on historiography.

Doug

3

Maybe this is the reason I have not heard

by Doug Mason in

a short while ago, i asked for comments and criticisms of my understanding of the wts's "bible chronology".. i just realised that possibly i did not get any responses because i had provided the two-page file in .docx format.

so i have resaved the file in .doc format at:.

http://www.jwstudies.com/wts_bible_chronology.doc.

Doug Mason

A short while ago, I asked for comments and criticisms of my understanding of the WTS's "Bible Chronology".

I just realised that possibly I did not get any responses because I had provided the two-page file in .DOCX format. So I have resaved the file in .DOC format at:

http://www.jwstudies.com/WTS_Bible_Chronology.doc

Comments, please.

Doug

60

2 Questions For AGuest : )))

by snowbird in

a definition of god that works for me: the supernatural being(s) conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator(s) and ruler(s) of the universe; the object(s) of worship by those who believe thusly.. *i added the parentheticals because i believe there are two beings that make up the one god.*.

1. do you agree with that definition?.

2. what do you believe was the role of the son before his incarnation, and do you believe he is a creature?.

Doug Mason

Each nature (divine, angelic, human, or animal) is defined as the possession of certain essential attributes. "Power" and "position" are not attributes, for although a human (for example) might have more power or a higher position, yet all are humans, in possession of the identical attributes of humanity.

Brash-Bonsall lists these as the minimum essential self attributes of the divine nature, that "make God to be god". In reading this list, recognise that while each may be individually identified, they also exist in any combination (such as, for example: "eternal-infinite-love").

1. Omniscience (knowing everything)

2. Omnipresence (being everywhere)

3. Omnipotence (being all powerful)

4. Transcendence (being apart from the universe, i.e., everything else that exists, and infinitely superior to it).

5. Unchangeability (or Immutability)

6. Self-existence (or Immortality)

7. Infinity

8. Infinite and absolute Holiness

9. Wisdom, and

10. Love.

These make God to be God.

11

Jehovah and Satan and universal sovereignity - so what?

by DrJohnStMark in

what really is the biblical support for this major doctrine of the wt society?

when i was still a pioneer, we met a young lady at her door, crying and holding a small disabled baby, asking for an explanation.

my friend, it was his turn at the door, started to mumble something about universal sovereignity.

Doug Mason

Another question is: was Satan male or female?

If Satan was female, what was the relationship between YHWH and Satan?

Does Satan trick through feminine allure?

Doug

43

What do you think will happen to cause an exodus or at least push JWs into further obscurity?

by the_dude_abides in

i believe someday it will be as obscure and strange as say the russelites.

the meetings will only be attended by ppl over sixty or so and it will hardly be considered anywhere near as significant a religion as it is today.

i wonder what will begin this process.

Doug Mason

I think that "time" and the impact of the Internet will prove to be key factors.

The internet enables JWs to search and to communicate anonymously. The current limit is the fear of being exposed by a close confidant, such as a family member.

The SDA Church (I'm a former member, so I did what I am asking JWs to do) went through a trauma with Des Ford at the very same time the WTS went through its trauma with Franz. The SDA's never fully recovered from that event. It is interesting to compare the way that the WTS was able to better manage the situation (apparently so, anyway - although the events did manage to generate a breed of very good critics).

The SDAs now reputedly (and I have not checked official figures) lost 300,000 each year from 2000 to 2005. That's 1.5 million during that period. Few of these go on to membership of another Church.

It is possible that the problem for many ex-SDA members is that 1844 is a long time ago. The story could be wearing thin. Date-setting cults create their own use-by date, and it is possible that the SDA experience will be seen with the WTS. They are bed-fellows in many respects. I won't be around then, but my guess is that the furthest time that the WTS might be able to stretch to is 1934, being 120 years after "that" date.

It is of course possible that the inroads of the Internet could hasten the decline. How will people manage at that time?

Doug

15

Astronomers spot 'most distant object in the universe'

by Doug Mason in

from the online news at yahoo for 29 october 2009:.

scientists have observed the most distant object in the universe, thought to come from a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago.

the research team, published their findings in the journal "nature".

Doug Mason

You could also Google for "Nial Tanvir".

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/29/2728032.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/29/2727417.htm

http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/flashfromearlyuniverse/

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7268/full/nature08459.html (article in "Nature" at a cost)

15

Astronomers spot 'most distant object in the universe'

by Doug Mason in

from the online news at yahoo for 29 october 2009:.

scientists have observed the most distant object in the universe, thought to come from a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago.

the research team, published their findings in the journal "nature".

Doug Mason

By the time I went back to Yahoo, it had gone. But you can find the story at our public broadcaster:

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/twt/200910/20091029-twt-10-dark-stars.mp3

Here is the transcript of that broadcast:

ELEANOR HALL: Astronomers are calling it their best glimpse yet of the cosmic dark ages. They've confirmed that a blast of gamma radiation spotted earlier this year was the death throes of a star more than 13 billion light years away from the Earth.

It's the most distant object in space ever to be detected and the research has just been published in the journal Nature.

Barbara Miller spoke to professor Nial Tanvir who led the international team that studied the ancient explosion's fallout.

NIAL TANVIR: The thing that we detected is something called a gamma ray burst. It's a kind of exploding star and these explosions are so bright, so incredibly bright, they're brighter than anything else we know of in the universe and you can see them very far away.

And in this particular case this one has sort of broken a record for the most distant object that anyone has ever seen.

It's actually a complicated procedure to see the thing where you detect them initially with a satellite which picks up the gamma ray radiation from this explosion which is happening far across the universe. And then we have to use telescopes on the earth which are the sort of state of the art, the biggest, most powerful telescopes that we have on the earth to make observations of the burst as it sort of fades away.

BARBARA MILLER: When did it happen, this explosion?

NIAL TANVIR: The interesting thing in cosmology is that when we look out across the universe at great distances, the light that we're seeing has taken in some cases billions of years to reach us travelling across the universe.

So we're actually looking backwards in time. And what in this particular case the era that we're reaching to is about 600 million years after the start of the universe itself and the big bang. It's about 13.1 billion years.

BARBARA MILLER: How can you be sure that you're seeing what you think you're seeing?

NIAL TANVIR: Really the measurement that we use to tell us the distance is something called the red shift. It's a sort of change in the character of the light as it takes place because the light has come so far across the universe to us.

And by measuring the red shift you can turn that round and you can infer a distance or a time.

BARBARA MILLER: If you're right then you've said that this opens a window into the cosmic dark ages. What's meant by that?

NIAL TANVIR: So you can imagine as we look far away across the universe, we're looking backwards in time and there comes a point where you couldn't see any further. And the reason is not because of the technology just not being up to it but because basically you look all the way back in time to the big bang itself. And so that's an era we can never see.

But the first galaxies which formed after the big bang, the first stars, they formed maybe 100, 200 million years or so after the big bang. And for several hundred million years we think those first galaxies started very slowly, the first stars within the galaxies, to what we call, re-ionise the universe to sort of in fact turn the gas between the galaxies from a cold neutral gas into an ionised plasma.

And so that whole process we refer to the kind of dark era before there really were any stars at all, through to these first stars which changed the state of the gas in the universe; we refer to that as the dark ages of the universe.

And of course what's really interesting is that really this is the last part of the universe that we have yet to observe.

Now because our telescopes are so powerful we've been able to map out the whole reach of the universe up to that point and then the final kind of area in our map of the universe that we have still to fill in is this dark age region when the first stars were turning on.

So I think that's why we're particularly excited about this breakthrough. It's not just a matter of breaking a record but it's pushing us finally into this era when all this early activity was taking place.

ELEANOR HALL: British astronomer Nial Tanvir speaking to Barbara Miller about those cosmic dark ages.

Or go to: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2727508.htm

15

Astronomers spot 'most distant object in the universe'

by Doug Mason in

from the online news at yahoo for 29 october 2009:.

scientists have observed the most distant object in the universe, thought to come from a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago.

the research team, published their findings in the journal "nature".

Doug Mason

From the online news at Yahoo for 29 October 2009:

Scientists have observed the most distant object in the universe, thought to come from a star that exploded more than 13 billion years ago. The research team, published their findings in the journal "Nature". The light from the explosion has been travelling for almost 13 billion years.