Posts by Doug Mason

13

Did you understand the individual books of the bible ?

by Steel in

the last couple years i have been really getting into watching these videos called the bible protect.

there is no real dogmatic axe to grind.

just simple 10 -15 min videos on the individual books of the bible and kind of how it’s all connected together.

Doug Mason

Many key NT concepts were created during the latter part of the Second Temple period, namely the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE. This includes the creation of a spirit world, the invention of evil spirit beings, a war in heaven, invention of demons, and such. So read books such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees at the very least. Remember that the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century in the wake of this eschatological phenomenon.

Do not try to blur the Bible books into a homogeneous entity, Each writing was created within its own cultural context for its own immediate community's needs. For example, the Book of Job was written to explain why God's chosen nation was always being punished. In other words, climb into the Jewish mind of each period. Judaism experienced several metamorphoses.

Doug

51

Help please

by jhine in

hi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .

during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .

both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .

Doug Mason

The people who wrote Colossians were using words and expressions in terms of their idioms in use at their time. We must not interpret their ideas through definitions written in our day in terms of our idioms.

The vast majority at that time were illiterate and they received the messages orally through a literate person, at times the person who travelled with the written scroll. It was meant to be heard, not read. Theirs was not a time of books in common use as exists today. The printing press changed communication even more than has the www.

It is unwise to hang onto the meaning of a single word, or to think that what we have is precisely what was initially written. The initial went through several drafts, just as happens today, each scroll was individually hand written and was subjected to deliberate and accidental changes.

The NWT makes changes to suit its preferred outcome. In doing so, it sits comfortable with history, starting at least 2600 years ago with the Hebrew text. When the Pentateuch was compiled in the 4th century BCE it was an amalgum of several different sources.

All of the texts were fluid and in a constant state of flux. Even 2 Corinthians is a compilation of at least two letters.

When the material was defined in the 4th century CE as sacred text, there was no universal agreement on which writings to accept or reject -- and that lack of agreement persists today.

The words were not written in stone, like archaeological tablets or carvings. Even the text of the Ten Commandments, supposedly written on stone tablets, comes to us in at least three different versions.

Doug

51

Help please

by jhine in

hi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .

during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .

both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .

Doug Mason

jhine,

What makes you think that the writers of Colossians were correct or that they knew what they were talking about?

Nobody knows what was originally written in any Biblical document. No one. And it is possible there was no single original. given their procedures.

Doug

51

Help please

by jhine in

hi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .

during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .

both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .

Doug Mason

Was Jesus a human?

Did a spirit being enter Mary's egg and take over?

Does the Watchtower have its own "Trinity" of Spirit Being => Human => Spirit Being, with continuity but no continuity?

What was resurrected?

51

Help please

by jhine in

hi , would someone help me please with some info about the nwt .

during my study time l have been reading john 1:1-14 and colossians 1:15-17 .

both these passages indicate that jesus was not created as the wt asserts .

Doug Mason

Absolutely, the context is paramount.

You need to identify the groups that wrote each of these passages. In the case of John's Gospel, the anonymous writers were from a community of Jews who had a high Christology; hence they were ostracised from the conservative group.

In the case of Colossians, they were a very spiritualising community, with strong ideas about a spirit world. BTW Ephesians is an expansion of Colossians. (Paul did not write either Colossians or the subsequent Ephesians.)

Thirdly, I recommend that you identify the chiasms of each passage. These will reveal the key message.

Finally, Michael was an invention of the latter Second Temple period, when they created a spirit world and gave names to these beings (Mastema, Michael, Gabriel, Azazel, Satan, etc.). Diabolos (Devil) was introduced from the Greek when they translated the LXX.

The Book of Daniel was composed during that latter Second Temple period. In common with other writings of the 3rd and 2nd century BCE, they assigned the writings to past heroes (Enoch, Daniel, etc.)

Yes, context, both in terms of grammatical structure (chiasms, particularly), the creating community's is vital -- not hanging onto a single word in isolation and ignoring their idiomatic meaning that they gave to concepts at their time (not in ours).

Doug

2

Do you like pictures with quotes?

by Doug Mason in

if you like pictures with quotes, then search with this at google images:.

cure-for-christianity knockout quote.

doug.

Doug Mason

If you like pictures with quotes, then search with this at Google Images:

cure-for-christianity knockout quote

Doug

4

Watchtower's 144,000 logic Questioned

by Vanderhoven7 in

the watchtower september 1, 1951, in a wonderful article entitled “hated for his name”(pp518,519) describes the persecution and martyrdom of steadfast christians in the first 3 centuries ad.. “by the year (a.d.) 64 christianity was prominent throughout much of the roman empire, including the capital city rome itself.

their individual characteristics, form of worship and steadfast refusal to compromise thereon had madethe christians sure targets of hostility and ridicule.

that year, the tenth in the reign of emperor nero, rome was swept by a conflagration so great it is yet the object of poetry and legend....diocletian assumed the crown a.d. 284.. at first he seemed friendly to the christians, but in the year 303 he gave in to persuasion and opened the tenth persecution, probably the most ferocious of all.

Doug Mason

The WTS is able to make such bald assertions because people in general remain ignorant of the reality of the complex situation during the Church's early centuries. I do not know where they got those figures but their simplistic description belies the realities. As an example, during that period professed Christians were killed by other Christians, including beheadings, because of their doctrinal differences. Not unlike the current internal ructions within the Islamic sects.

In some instances, Christians begged the courts to sentence them to death, as they wished to share in Jesus' death.

Good books on the complex politics at play include: "Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years", by Philip Jenkins, and

"A New History of Early Christianity" by Charles Freeman (see Chapter 20: "Victims or volunteers: Christian Martyrs").

Doug.

26

I can just imagine the hype that is going on in Australia about how close armageddon is now with all of these bushfires occurring.

by smiddy3 in

it brings to mind my niece when she see`s how dry the countryside is ,how armageddon must be so close..

Doug Mason

I live to the east of Melbourne, close to the Dandenong Ranges. At times an idiot firebug decides to set it alight, but fortunately not so far.

We have smoke from either NSW or Gippsland, which I am wary of, given my chronic bronchitis (picked up during the chemo). So I do not take my daily walk when the air is smoky.

Doug

15

Why is he spiritual Israel not innumerable?

by Salomo in

please share this question.

why is he spiritual israel not innumerable?.

the literal seed of abraham was innumerable (heb 11:12; gen 22:17; 1ki 4:20).

Doug Mason

The WTS separated the 144,000 from the Great Crowd since at least as early as 1931, when Rutherford introduced the term "Jehovah's witnesses" (lower case "w"), he applied the term solely to the 144,000. The "other sheep" went by different names, such as "Jonadabs".

So he would have made a clear differentiation.

It was not until after his death in 1942, that the WTS extended the term "Jehovah's Witnesses" to the remainder.

Of course, if the number 144,00 is to be taken literally, then the number 12,000 from each of the named 12 Jewish clans must likewise be taken as literal. Not that the tribes' names is literal.

My reading of Revelation 7:1 and 7:4 says the 144,000 are on earth while Rev 7:9 says the Multitude are standing before the throne in heaven.

Doug

4

1st Cent.Crucifixions to Order and for Sport

by BluesBrother in

i found this video interesting, from the smithsonian channel.

it explains how commonplace crucifixions were with specific mention of the patebelum crosspiece.

https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/videos/crucifixion-became-a-very-popular-roman-spectator-sport/69754?an=history.

Doug Mason

In Appendices of its translations of the Greek Scriptures (“New Testament”) the WTS provides a picture of a man attached to a single pole. This, they claim, is the manner of Christ’s execution. This picture, they explain, comes from the book De Cruce Liber Primus: “This is the manner in which Jesus was impaled” (Kingdom Interlinear, page 1155).

This is not impalement, in which the instrument of death is forced up through the victim’s body.

Most important is the fact that the WTS totally misrepresents what Justus Lipsius wrote.

He actually provided a number of illustrations, showing several such methods of execution. Lipsius concluded his research by saying that the conventional cross, in which a crosspiece is attached to a pole, was the implement used in Christ’s death.

It does not matter if Lipsius was right or wrong. What matters is that the WTS deliberately misreported Lipsius and that it hides factual evidence from its followers. Why should a stake be worshipped?

If it does this with an non-essential matter, how does it behave with critically important matters?

I obtained the pictures in the following PDF from an original book by Justus Lipsius, held in the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

https://jwstudies.com/Pictures_from_Lipsius_de_Cruce_Liber_Primus.pdf

Doug