Posts by Disillusioned JW

2

Did Babylon Destroy the Temple?

by peacefulpete in

did the babylonians destroy the jerusalem temple?

personally, i never questioned this, of course they did, doesn't 2 kings 25 say:.

9 and he burned the house of the lord, the king’s house, and all the houses of jerusalem; even every great house he burned with fire.

Disillusioned JW

peacefulpete, in regards to 1 Esdras 4:45 an Oxford Study Bible edition of the NRSV refers to 1 Esdras 1:55 which is part of the passage about the Chaldeans (Babylonians) burning down the house of the Lord, with no mention in that verse of the Edomites being involved. However the note also refers to Psalms 137:7 which you quoted.and it refers to Obadiah 1:11-14.

Regarding Jeremiah 41:4 could that be referring to the burned down temple of YHWH (to its remains)? Note that Ezra (not Esdras) 2:68 - 3:6 (NRSV) mentions (in 2:68) those "who came to the house of the LORD" and note it uses that terminology, even though the temple was burned down and not yet rebuilt. 3:3 (NRSV) mentions some people set up an altar on the foundation (NSRV says "its foundation" but 1984 NWT says "its own site") in order to make burnt offerings on it, even though 3:6 (NRSV) says "But the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid." {184 NWThass similar wording.] I think the foundation mentioned in verse 3 is of the remains the burnt down altar site of the burnt down temple. I think that verse 6's mention of the not laid foundation is of the foundatio that would be laid in the rebuilding of the temple. This shows that according to the Bible even the ruins of the burnt down temple of YHWH was still called the house of YHWH and that some made burnt offerings there before the temple was rebuilt. What do you think about that?

As to who burned down the temple perhaps the Edomites did not themselves burn it down (despite what 1 Esdras says), but rather that the Edomites' demands caused the Babylonians to burn (and/or tear) it down. Thus, maybe the Edomites could be said of burning it down in the sense that was because of their urging that it be burnt down that the Babylonians decided to burn it down, but with the Babylonians being the ones who did the actual burning.

Similarly, according to the gospels the Jewish people and Jewish religious leaders urged the Romans to execute Jesus on a state/cross (and as a result many people throughout nearly 2000 years have said say the Jews killed Jesus), but those same accounts says the Romans did the actual execution of Jesus on the stake/cross. But the accounts also say the Pilate only gave the execution order because of the urging of the Jewish crowds.

13

Shunning Jesus

by AEnEm in

my first post will be hidden in the far more important news about am3.

incredible!

who knows what the ramifications will be.. as a pimo who still believes in the bible and christ, i wanted to share the following fun fact about the latest study publications.

Disillusioned JW

Well about 78% of the pages of the protestant Holy Bible is the OT and thus it isn't until after the first three quarters of that Bible that Jesus Christ is mentioned by name. [Prior to the NT (from a believing Christian perspective, not a non-Christian Jewish perspective) he is only referred to by prophecies of the Messiah.] Catholic Bibles and Orthodox Bibles have even more books in the OT thus making the NT an even smaller percentage of their Holy Bible.

If a person were to start reading the entire Bible (especially one which includes the books considered Apocrypha by Protestants) from the very beginning of the Bible, it would be a very long time before the person reads about Jesus Christ in the Bible. It would be a long time before the person reads accounts of a human Jesus on Earth and a long time before one reads theological doctrines about a crucified (or nailed to the stake) Jesus Christ who died as a sacrifice and for the forgiveness of sins, and who became resurrected and went into heaven and of who will later come in judgement.

It is true that in the JW religion it is primarily about Jehovah (though also largely about the WT and the governing body). The religion even says that Jesus Christ is one of the witnesses of Jehovah and thus one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and thus in that way the WT's JW religion subordinates Jesus to Jehovah.

98

Better off PIMA than POMA or POMO.

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

the situation is many of us are pima and all putting on a front, sometimes saying something we don’t fully believe.

or at least are actually agnostic about but a hope that it’s true.. but it can be useful if someone is really going through a hard time or has something they are very worried about, to say things like well let’s hope there is not much longer of this old system.. this can be useful in an awkward situation where you just don’t know what to do or say.

it’s a little bit of hope that can help when there is nothing else.. my agnosticism just means i won’t look back over decades thinking i wasted my life.

Disillusioned JW

ExBethelitenowPIMA I don't recall you ever mentioning on this site if you have JW (such as PIMI) relatives. Would you mind telling us if you do?

34

Betty Georges - The Female Helper to the Governing Body

by MillennialDawn in

jw
friends

betty georges is listed as a helper to the governing body service committee, according to this page on the website: https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/governing-body-jw-helpers/.

anybody know anything about her?.

Disillusioned JW

That is a good point about the scrotum.

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

Disillusioned JW

James Tabor (at the web page I mentioned in my prior post) says the following regarding his reconstruction and the Revelation's use of the name John. "Some scholars have associated such a version of this text with a figure like John the Baptizer (Yochanan haMatvil). Accordingly, the name of the Seer as John/Yochanan has been left intact."

I probably should stop trying to make sense of the book of Revelation and to completely stop reading it, but it is very hard for me to do such. Except when composing atheistic criticisms of the rest of the Bible I probably should also stop reading the rest of the Bible, but that is also very hard for me to do. I wish that my upbringing hadn't instilled such a degree of interest in the Bible. If I wasn't so desirous in discovering problems with the Bible (in order to write criticisms of the Bible and to promote atheism) I might would have stopped reading the Bible years ago. But maybe even then I would still be reading the Bible, since parts of it are an interesting puzzle to attempt to solve and since parts of the Bible have accurate historical content, and even some interesting stories.

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

Disillusioned JW

It 'sounds' like you are saying that the writer(s) did not intend for collection of scenes to be entirely compatible with each other, and thus there was no attempt to predict any specific outcome (other vindication and vengeance). But I wonder if the writer(s) were presenting what they thought were a collection of possible futures, thinking that one of them might be the actual future. But perhaps they were merely trying to convey that no matter what evils the government(s) will do to Christians and no matter what badness is done by individual people, in the end God will vindicate faithful Christians and carry out vengeance those those deemed bad.

Some scholars (at least James Taylor) say the vast majority of the content of Revelation was written by a non-Christian Jew, but that a Christian later added content containing Christian ideas. Tabor at https://jamestabor.com/here-it-is-at-last-a-pre-christian-version-of-the-book-of-revelation/ mentions what he considers the non-Christian Jewish version of the text. That web page has a link to a PDF file of his text. At https://jamestabor.com/here-it-is-at-last-a-pre-christian-version-of-the-book-of-revelation/ Tabor says the following.

"The thesis of the post is a simple one. Behind the New Testament book of Revelation, formally called “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” (Rev 1:1), is an older Jewish apocalyptic document that had nothing to do with Jesus or the early Christian movement. The additions, or interpolations, made by a later Christian writer, are potentially identifiable, as is quite often the case in such Jewish texts that have a Christian overlay.

...The name YHVH/Jehovah has been inserted in places where the use of the Greek word “Lord” (kurios) is clearly the Divine Name. Otherwise “Lord” in this text is taken as the Hebrew word ‘Adon (see Zechariah 4:14)."

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

Disillusioned JW

Some other things perplexing about the book of Revelation are the following. After chapter 20 mentions the Devil being "hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur" and of death and Hades being "hurled into the lake of fire" and after chapter 21 mentions "the holy New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven" and of that the "tent of God is with mankind", Revelation 21:8 mentions that murderers, fornicators, and others will be in "the lake that burns with fire and sulphur ... the second death.". Still later chapter 22 after mentioning those who will have access to eating from trees of life and also have entrance into the city, verse 15 says "Outside are the dogs and those who practice spiritism and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone liking and carrying on a lie." Chapter 22 verse 19 mentions that "God will take" the portion of some people "away from the trees of life". Those verses make it seem like the book is saying that even after the 1000 years have ended and even after death has ended and after all unrighteousness has ended, there still be those doing unrighteousness (outside the holy city) and that there will still be those who will go into the lake of fire. Such appears to be a huge contradiction, one which is extremely hard (at least for me) to reconcile. Perhaps some of these passages have meanings (and time sequences) which overlap each other, rather than they all being in one temporal sequential order.

Regarding the dogs mentioned in chapter 22:15 page 675 of the Babylon the Great book says the following. "... the people who are like scavenger dogs of the streets, who practice homosexuality, sodomy, Lesbianism, viciousness, cruelty (Deuteronomy 23:18; Psalm 22:16, 20; Matthew 7:6; Philippians 3:2) ...".

Page 656 of the Babylon the Great book offers what might be a correct explanation of the biblical meaning of some of the above, for it says the following. 'Even the Adamic death itself and Hades or Sheol are hurled into the "second death." ... It is Adamic death that will be no more, but not the "second death". '

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

Disillusioned JW

Correction: After I revised my prior post I should have deleted the words "I think the WT says (incorrectly) that the courtyard thus extends to Earth."

41

Why are JW's THIS blind?

by BoogerMan in

i had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.

an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.

the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.

Disillusioned JW

By the way, JWs, Revelation 7:15 (1984 NWT) says the great crowd "... are before the throne of God; and they are rendering him sacred service day and night in his temple ....". The WT's Kingdom Interlinear reveals regarding the location of the great crowd that the Greek word (naos) translated "temple" in that verse means the temple sanctuary (in the former earthly temples in Jerusalem only priests were allowed to enter the temple sanctuary), not the temple courtyard. [See also https://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/great-crowd-other-sheep.php .] That insight thus refutes the WT's explanation of Revelation 7:9-10 in which the WT says verse 8 indicates the great crowd are on Earth (and thus the WT incorrectly says the great crowd "serve in the earthly courtyard of Jehovah's great spiritual temple") and not the sanctuary. [Maybe that is part of the reason the number of partakers of the JW's Memorial emblems in recent years has been increasing instead of decreasing.] I think the WT says (incorrectly) that the courtyard thus extends to Earth. Also the description of a great crowd wearing white robes fits the idea of the great crowd being priests serving in the temple and with the great crowd being shown (by scripture) as being the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation, and that thus the number 144,000 (as used in Revelation) is a symbolic number rather than a literal number.

34

Betty Georges - The Female Helper to the Governing Body

by MillennialDawn in

jw
friends

betty georges is listed as a helper to the governing body service committee, according to this page on the website: https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/governing-body-jw-helpers/.

anybody know anything about her?.

Disillusioned JW

The JW web page says says the following. "Service Committee: Oversees our work of preaching the “good news of the Kingdom.” I reject the idea expressed in the remark of "they are two women who service GB members." I totally reject the claim that Jody and Betty 'service' the governing body members in the modern slang sexually derogatory sense of 'service a man' and of 'servicing men'.