Doug Mason

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Posts by Doug Mason

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  7

  What do you think of this email?

  by allyouneedislove in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so, i contacted this place: http://www.sdbiblicalstudies.com/.

  and i got the following email (actually the second email to me):.

  i appreciate you getting back to me.

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  Doug Mason

  Watch out for anyone who wants to massage your mind. Watch out for anyone who wants to tell you how to think and what to think.

  Keep yourself as the focus of your life. Enjoy fresh air, birds, clouds, colours, trees, freedom.

  Doug
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  14

  8/15/12 WT- Article of NONSENSE!

  by stillstuckcruz in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the first article in the study edition is full of lots of little holes and contradictions.. pargraph 4:.

  4 however, in the 1870sabout four decades before the last days begana small group of sincere christians in pennsylvania, u.s.a., met together to study the bible diligently and to search for the true knowledge.

  (2 tim.

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  Doug Mason

  I particularly liked this quote, Stillstuckcruz:

  "They called themselves Bible Students. These were not “the wise and intellectual ones” from whom Jesus said that knowledge was to be hidden. (Matt. 11: 25)"

  If anyone today taught what those people believed, they would be dealt with in no uncertain manner. The same with the teachings that were held by the group in 1919 when they were anointed by the kingdom government.

  Doug
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  14

  8/15/12 WT- Article of NONSENSE!

  by stillstuckcruz in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the first article in the study edition is full of lots of little holes and contradictions.. pargraph 4:.

  4 however, in the 1870sabout four decades before the last days begana small group of sincere christians in pennsylvania, u.s.a., met together to study the bible diligently and to search for the true knowledge.

  (2 tim.

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  Doug Mason

  Every teaching put out by CTR came from someone else: Storrs, Barbour, etc., etc.

  The bulk of the initial money came from the man who was made the first president of the WTS, and it was not CTR.

  In the following study, I use original material to show which people CTR said influenced him:

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

  This is also relevant, since it shows that not only did his expectations - predictions - interpretations fail but when they did the organisation amended the offending words in his books, which they then sold.

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

  The WTS still reinvents its history for propaganda purposes.

  Doug
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  22

  F&DS does not exist?

  by leaving_quietly in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://jwnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/criminal-prosecution-of-the-christian-congregation-of-jehovahs-witnesses/.

  it was mentioned in here that the attorney claimed that the f&ds does not exist and is only a theological arrangement.

  i apologize if this has been thoroughly discussed before, but i couldn't find anything concrete.

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  Doug Mason

  Leaving,

  Did you run a word search for legal in my Study:

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

  Doug
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  22

  F&DS does not exist?

  by leaving_quietly in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://jwnewsnetwork.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/criminal-prosecution-of-the-christian-congregation-of-jehovahs-witnesses/.

  it was mentioned in here that the attorney claimed that the f&ds does not exist and is only a theological arrangement.

  i apologize if this has been thoroughly discussed before, but i couldn't find anything concrete.

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  Doug Mason

  Something I wrote that might help:

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

  which is included in

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

  I have not revisited the subject since then, so further examination could be needed.

  The Governing Body is not the FDS. The GB represents the FDS.

  The entity which has been presented in defence of the WTS is the religious Worldwide Order in which its members agree to a life of obedience and poverty. I read a court transcript in which the WTS defence counsel argued that this Order was the same any other religious order. Maybe a search of the www would help.

  And do not forget the "principle" of Theocratic War Strategy, and that they define "lying" as not telling the truth to someone who deserves to know the truth. In other words, honesty is defined in terms of the worth of the hearer.

  Doug
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  2

  Is July 2012 "Awake!" accurate about Messiah's anointing?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  awake!

  for july 2012 claims that the "seventy weeks" prophecy at daniel 9 predicted the year when jesus would be baptised and anointed by god.. my study of that article and its claim is available at:.

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

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  Doug Mason

  Awake! for July 2012 claims that the "seventy weeks" prophecy at Daniel 9 predicted the year when Jesus would be baptised and anointed by God.

  My Study of that article and its claim is available at:

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

  Criticisms and corrections are greatly appreciated.

  Doug
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  267

  The true, unsung hero of the Bible....

  by Unlearn in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  my undisputed hero of the bible is known by several names, depending on who you talk to...devil, satan, lucifer, etc.. read it, and you'll find that he was the only one who really stood up for you.. he asserted that you could make decisions for yourself...and told you the very real truth that, just because the piece of meat in your chest stops thumping, you positively do not 'die'.. he was your hero.

  he stood up to a daddy-maniac and said, 'just because you made us doesnt mean you have the right to tell us what to do.

  i thought we were free?'.

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  Doug Mason

  Unlearn,

  I urge you to read: "Satan: A Biography", Henry Ansgar Kelly, where you will find support for some of your thoughts, and probably provide you with more.

  Rev 22:16; Rev 2:28 (Lucifer / Venus / Morning Star)

  Doug
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  8

  Jesus' Baptism - 26 or 29 AD?

  by Bobcat in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  in my own research i've found that scholars are divided as to when jesus was baptised.

  26 and 29 ad seem to be the most reccomended dates.

  i was wondering if anyone could offer info on the points of difference between the two or links to further discussion on the reasons for holding to either date.. thanks in advance..

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  Doug Mason

  Bobcat,

  You answered my question when I asked why the date matters. As Leo correctly points out, Jesus' chronology is not related to Daniel 9. Get that firmly fixed in. A piece I wrote on the subject:

  http://www.jwstudies.com/Critique_of_GM_on_Daniel_9.pdf

  The assumed longer period of Jesus' ministry comes from interpretations of John's Gospel. Other Gospels imply a ministry of only a few months. I suggest that the structures of the various Gospels suited the religious liturgy of the community that wrote each account. They are not literal historical records; they are religious accounts. They were written decades after the described events, likely outside Palestine, likely by educated Greek-speakers, not by the lowly illiterate Aramaic-speaking Jews whose names are ascribed to each account.

  Why did Jesus decide to become a follower of his cousin John, being baptised of him?

  Where did John get the idea of baptising? (The location would give a clue, I suppose.)

  Doug
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  7

  Genesis 9:4

  by allyouneedislove in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  what does genesis 9:4 truly mean, in your opinion?.

  some say it means do not eat blood.. .

  some say it means do not eat an animal that is alive.. .

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  Doug Mason

  The fundamental issue is that throughout the Scriptures, the word "blood" always signifies Death. In a medical procedure, the presence of blood (whole blood is not used) does not indicate that the previous owner had died, unlike in other forms of body part transfer.

  It is called "transFUSION" where the digestion process plays no part in the procedure.

  Interestingly, vaccination, which is more akin to transfusion, is permitted by the WTS, even when the product is based on blood.

  For the Scriptural view on blood:

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

  (Include a search for: gn. 4)

  Doug
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  2

  Rainer Albertz on the Return of the Jews

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i will appreciate comments on the following ocr scan.. thanks,.

  doug.

  however, we must ask how a single event, hardly imaginable more than a few years before, could spawn such an extensive tradition of babylon oracles.

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  Doug Mason

  I will appreciate comments on the following OCR scan.

  Thanks,

  Doug

  -------------

  However, we must ask how a single event, hardly imaginable more than a few years before, could spawn such an extensive tradition of Baby­lon oracles. The conclusion is inescapable: probably most of the oracles against Babylon came into being after 539 and were employed for years in secular or sacred convocations. Two considerations make this assump­tion plausible. First, Babylon was most certainly not destroyed in 539; the just vengeance that the Judeans had every right to expect from Yahweh was still to come. Second, the return of the exiles did not take place, as expected, immediately after 539. The first substantial group of returnees probably did not arrive in Jerusalem until 520 BCE . Many members of the Babylonian golah clearly could not recognize the uneventful transfer of power from the Babylonians to the Persians as a sign from God that a new age had dawned. In this situation, the reuse and repeated recitation of oracles against Babylon after 539 were meant to provoke Yahweh's long-awaited retribution on Babylon, which would show to all the world that Yahweh was at work in world history as a just judge. As the many calls to flee from Babylon (Jer 50:8-10; 51:6, 45, 50) show, these oracles were also intended to persuade the Babylonian golah finally to return, since Yahweh's judgment on Babylon was imminent. When 50:33 says that those who had deported the people of Israel and Judah would refuse to let them go, and when 51:33 says that in "just a little while" the time of harvest would come for Babylon, we can hear a direct refer­ence to the problems that arose after 539: the failure of the golah to return and the delay of God's judgment.

  Gosse and Berges propose dating the Babylon oracles in Isa 13-14 and Isa 47 in the years 522-520. Whether this dating is correct for Isa 47 is uncertain. However, substantial evidence supports dating much of the Babylon composite Jer 50-51 in this period. These years are particularly likely because from 522 to 520, after the murder of Gaumata, an epidemic of revolts against Darius convulsed the entire central and eastern region of the Persian Empire.

  (Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century BCE, pages 194-195, Rainer Albertz. Society of Biblical Literature)