He was saying that he was Yah, which was not the same person as YHWH. Yah translates to 'I AM', that's why they were going to stone him. Many hebrews thought Yah and YHWH were the same person only thinking the former was a shortening of the name. Obviously things were not kept in perfect condition through all of those captivities. This is also why there are many "gods", god is not a word which designates the rank, but more of the description of an influence (which is why demons were considered gods). If you read through the OT carefully, it is impossible for the trinity to exist without major contradictions. There was a God Moses was able to actually see (the Son) and a God that he could only see the backside of (which was the Father).
megaboy
JoinedPosts by megaboy
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26
The mistranslation of John 8.58
by Wonderment injohn 8.58 is one of those scriptures which translators often mis-translate.. i am aware this text is defended with passion either way by its advocates.
many insist the "i am" rendering found in many versions is correct.
others defend the "i have been" or "i was" readings of other versions.
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megaboy
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The mistranslation of John 14.10
by Wonderment indarby bible translation says the following at john 14.10 (brackets his): .
"believest thou not that i [am] in the father, and that the father is in me?
the words which i speak to you i do not speak from myself; but the father who abides in me, he does the works.".
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megaboy
The real Church or gathering (the heart of it) was given authority to the Hebrews, and the close relatives of the Messiah after James. There was no real organization other than that. It was focused in Jerusalem where even most of the Gentiles came. In about 66 AD, tons of "Christian" Hebrews left in a stampede and had been prepared for the Roman invasion. I believe they went in to the eastern region and set up a gathering in Petra, Pella close to 100 years of Hebrew leaders.
I'm sure there were some make shift churches made by gentiles, but I very much doubt they had enough meat to keep anything tight, which is probably where a lot of pagan practices started seeping in. Especially once Jersualem was rebuilt and given a gentile bishop at the church built there. I know of at least 3 or four 1st to 2nd century documentation of this and its also in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I think they come sort of saying that all gentile versions are inaccurate knock offs. But I guess to them it doesn't matter because they are in authority now.
A lot of people love Paul's writings but he really didn't cover a lot of things concerning the periods outside of his age, and their is documentation in 1st century letters showing that they left secret things out of the gospel if it doesn't benefit the growth. The disciples were mainly tasked with increasing the fold, which is where people are getting confused in the OT, thinking most of the prophesy have been fulfilled already. But it wouldn't have really benefited the apostles (or encouraged new recruits) to go around teaching the gentiles in their time that their descendants would be getting blown up in multi-national war for occupying stolen land. We are well over 200,000 civilian deaths in Syria ever since the invasion. That's not normal.
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Governing body deceiving members on purpose?
by wwjdnwt ini was born into this religion.
i was a jw for well over 30 years.
i did much research before i had internet, i compared bibles and prayed deeply to help me to know if this was the truth.
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megaboy
I wonder how many people were going through the motions and really believing it? Can people really not think for themselves to a responsible or adult like extent to make decent judgements of situations?
I think they have this idea that they are the chosen mouth peice. That concept is held above absolutely everything. Even the scriptures. So only scriptures that can be somewhat morphed into that view will be highlighted and focused on. Major contradictions do not matter, they are ignored and if presented in their path, explained away with some ambiguous rhetoric, which is what makes up the entirety of WT writing.
Now, I get being trapped, but I don't know if I can excuse this cowardice, if I had family inside I would just gather the facts, tell them the org is wrong, if they want to keep up the games or stay in the org I can't stop them, but personally, I'm out. It's that simple.
The internet has really become a goldmine though. I think back a few years ago, you couldn't easily trash an org like this. "Where would one go?" Is surely what people would ask. You simply go where the research leads you. With all the endless rabbit holes of doctrines and scholarship (which can also be viewed as a religion to some extent) it would discgourage the weak willed to actually look for answers themselves.
Now with the internet in full force, you can find out who created what doctrines, when they were created, how and what purposes. You can look up the name of someone who taught a "science" if they are worthy of regarding as factual etc.
Really, I see no need to stumble around in a frying pan on the stove. Get out and pace around and figure things out from a better position.
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Bible and Mentally Challenged, what does it say.
by James Mixon inspecial olympics today here in los angeles, the smiles on those kids faces.. i wonder how were they viewed in jesus day, demon possessed.. it's strange how the bible omit some issues, like slavery and mentally challenged.
folks.
thank god for humanitarian..
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megaboy
Wanted to chime in on the last post, I have to say this isn't accurate. Judaism today or the media promoted one isn't accurate to the true one, you have deffinitely confirmed this in your comment, this seems also add evidence to the modern day jewish people not being actual decendants, a hot topic of today.
I know the book of Sirach which was also found in the dead sea scrolls speaks of incest and the revelation of the sin being revealed in defected children.
Had to look it up but Sirach 23: 16 and 24-26.
There is a lie also that the Torah and Tanak are the only scriptures the hebrews accepted, along with another lie that Josephus did not consider any of the other books. Reading from his texts he does not give his opinion but merely says that the Torah and Tanak were held as the authority and that the other books had various opinions to who actually wrote them.
Demon posession was still part of Judean spiritual concepts. This continues even up into the mid-late 1800s as recorded in a dairy by a man known as Borrows in his journal The Bible in Spain. He met a leftover hebrew there who hid in Spain after the deport by pretending he was poor and stayed in the villages and country side. He spoke to him about a ruah (spirit) possession that tormented a certain catholic priest and would visit to get help.
To be honest its sounds like a lot of the protestant reformers had demons in them. I recall reading something regarding Martin Luther claiming to have had a battle yelling at demons, throwing fecal matter at demons. That's... not normal.
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Bible and Mentally Challenged, what does it say.
by James Mixon inspecial olympics today here in los angeles, the smiles on those kids faces.. i wonder how were they viewed in jesus day, demon possessed.. it's strange how the bible omit some issues, like slavery and mentally challenged.
folks.
thank god for humanitarian..
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megaboy
Mentally challenged wasn't demon possessed, from what I've read of hebrew texts, there was enough knowledge to know it most likely occurred from a sin of the parents or incest. -
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Is it Wrong to Doubt or Even Disagree With the GB? The Watchtower Reasoning....
by freemindfade inthis would be a good one for jw apologist who scream and panic with anyone who feels the moral direction of the wt publishing company has gone astray.
a comment at the bible highlights last night blew my mind, here is the article that was referenced.
btw this account always bothered me, remember when it was in a drama?
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megaboy
I have to admit that the heads of this religion are very clever, but it seems clever and intelligence do not completely go hand in hand. From samples of literature the writing style is formed to convince you of stupid claims.
Like for example - "One would see that animals such as birds have the naturally ability of flight. As we are man and have been given given authority over the beasts of the feild, we should naturally have the ability of flight as well. It is only logical to conclude that you can run straight for the cliff and front of you, jump off and take flight."
This is the kind of laughable writing and convincing they put in their scripts!
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Whatever Happened to the Remnant?
by snugglebunny inback in the 50's, when i was just a skinny kid, my father became po of a new congregation.
he'd only been baptised for around 4 years, so his rise was quite remarkable.just one of his flock in the new cachement area was of the "remnant".
this lady was well into her 60's, childless but married.
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megaboy
Hm, how did this get doctrinally explained out of importance? Typically if something like this just drops or swings to a different view out of nowhere thats a sign of the whole opperation being rotten. You would think people would high tail it out there regardless of family members being in. -
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People should learn more about the Bible flaws
by opusdei1972 ini have noted that the main problem for those who are seduced by the watchtower society is their ignorance about the bible itself.
people who believe that the bible is the word of god usually ignore the studies on textual criticism and how scientific criteria forbid absurd stories like that of the global flood.
so, i strongly believe that students in schools need at least an obligatory course on "the bible" through the point of view of science and the textual criticism.
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megaboy
The flood was not global, it was local. No one prior to the last 2000 years would have believed that it was global, in fact, some of the wicked any giants made it to the other side by climbing to higher mountains. It was a translation issue.
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How dishonest was the Apostle Paul?
by opusdei1972 inmay be some of you will be shocked by this question.
however, when i was studying the bible with critical eyes i detected that paul ( or saul of tarsus) misquoted the hebrew bible in order to get false support for his arguments.
of course, this tricky kind of use of the "scriptures" was not only used by him, but others, like the author of the gospel of matthew got unsupported doctrines misquoting verses.
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megaboy
He wasn't dishonest at all really, the issue is that he was teaching at a time where people and at the very least the hebrews were WAY more intelligent.
Many ancient hebrew writings, most of the ones I recall that are not added to the scriptures, that were considered apocalyptic in naritive amusingly highlighted that the end days would also include a stage where people on a mass level if I were to put it frankly were lacking in intelligence and uncarring of the fact that they are.
People now are following Torah, are misunderstanding why it was given and misunderstanding what it means. Christains misunderstand as well, because in actuality following the laws of Moses is neither good nor evil in the grand scheme of things.
Many hyms in the 1st Century body actually give the insight that the gathering had more information than was highlighted in what was compiled in the new testament.
Though it seems, Sha'ul spoke on a general sense which is why people get confused from his writings.
As an example, when he speaks of nature, people think he means that if we can look at nature we can assume there is a creator. But what he is saying is deeper than that if you read many of the texts and understand the hebrew culture.
When we look at the visible we can understand the invisible. Take for the example the trinity doctrine, people can go back and forth and debate, but really if you look at nature: The family model was created male and female, which brings forth life. The Father, the Mother or Ruah (distributer of wisdom, given a feminine description in hebrew text) used to create the Son who brought the will of the Father to creation.
Hebrew uses a lot of play on words, so the people confuse when the Son seemed to have claimed he was the father. But he never said that, he said that he was Yah, which if you read carefully in the OT was not the same person as Yahuwah (YHWH or IAUA).
Paul understood this and he proved it by linking to a psalm referencing Yah and revealing Yah as the Son. Can't remember the verse on the spot unfortunately.
Another example is the woman's authority in relation to the man. When you look at the sun and the moon, the sun is the dominant luminary and even at night the moon is actually reflecting the light or the glory of the sun. The wife reflects or directs the will of the husband glorifying herself and the the husband in the same action, at least that's how a hebrews would understand it.
As far as the written torah, that was put in place because Israel had some serious mental problems after coming out of Egypt (obviously). The rituals were a reflection of things and a foreshadow, that physical representation of them being set apart and bound to the creator. They were set apart by the creator whether they followed the laws or not. The prophecies would consume them whether they followed the law or not. A person willing themselves into following the law or part of the prophecies and are not the blood line descendants are just not going to match up, like trying to fit a square block into at circular hole. The witnesses (as a collective org) are completely guilty of this.
The physical ritualistic things were put in front of them because it forced them to keep the creator on their minds and use their brains. The day of rest was a time for them to reflect and maybe get something out of it, because if you work everyday you don't have time to apply any knowledge or wisdom or meditate, thats why it was - created for man. The whole thing was a cleansing process so that they could actually get their true rest.
Another example is the dietary law, you now have these cartoon characters who promoted it as some sort of health manual and people fell for it. Its foolishness, the point was to look at the nature of the animal and determine how to make righteous judgements and actions. The manner in us is is to ultimately do good or evil, but there are "grey" areas that still eventually lead to one or the other, the animal separations were to drive this point home.
An example, there is a wife and a husband that work at the same facility. The husband is in charge of the cameras, the wife steals items while on the job, the husband edits video footage to prevent the wife from being caught. You could say that the husband is working to help his wife out of love, but the whole operation is evil, he is using his love for evil by providing its shade. He has the appearance of cleanliness but is fully unclean, like some animals seem to have clean characteristics but are categorized as unclean. So no, Robin Hood should not be praised as some kind of hero.
On the other end you have a person who calls out evil and exposes wickedness and in some cases causes a commotion, or a boy that turns down an invite to a planned robbery with his friends and reports them, severing their friendship. There are things that have evil elements but are ultimately good as there are some animals that may seem unclean, but are on the whole clean.
Thats what nature was supposed to be a testament to.
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Who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?? Are there similarities between them and JW's??
by confuzzlediam inlast month, i had the privilege of traveling to jamaica with a study abroad group from my community college.
while there, we went to a place called my father's house in which severely disabled children lived when they had no one else to take care of them.
as part of their day, they hold worship in a small, outdoor meeting place.
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megaboy
Although this is getting a bit off the rails and I'd rather keep it on JWs I will respond to the post concerning my comments out of courtesy as I was addressed of it.
The interesting thing is that although it's really improbable to be able to trace to a specific lineage of one man who's DNA is not available, I never said the people would not register as a Semitic people. I said that they were Edomites which would still "appear" to be Jews based on their similarities in family lineage, my claim was that they are not from Jacob. Though they were enslaved a lot too due to not having any real organizational kingdom, being nomads, they would typically chameleon into established nations and in some cases overthrow them which is how some of them got into the governmental authority at the time according to Josephus.
As far as how Herod took over -
"But there was a certain friend of Hyrcanus, an Idumean, called Antipater, who was very rich, and in
his nature an active and a seditious man; who was at enmity with Aristobulus, and had differences with
him on account of his good-will to Hyrcanus. It is true that Nicolatls of Damascus says, that Antipater
was of the stock of the principal Jews who came out of Babylon into Judea; but that assertion of his was
to gratify Herod, who was his son, and who, by certain revolutions of fortune, came afterward to be king
of the Jews, whose history we shall give you in its proper place hereafter."Basically Josephus is saying here that Nicholas of Damascus the "historian" of that time were basically just lying to benefit the Herodian dynasty plan, but since he was an "authoritative" figure of the time, people just took his word for it. Similar to today with some of these cartoon show historians. Things never really change. As the seasons cycle so do the courses of the history of man.
This is also probably why the more recent leaders chose the word "anti-Semitic" even though it makes no sense to use it and covers too many national families, many Arabs for example would be considered "anti-Semetic, but they come from Shem, as well as East Indian families. "Anti-Jacob" would be a more accurate term, but I'm assuming whomever constructed the idea of that term probably knew they didn't come from Jacob, but using Esau or Edom would immediately discredit them, though I think there was an announcement made by a Jewish man saying that they are Edomites, but because there was no internet when he said that and churches even today never really deal with Edom in any great detail, that comment probably didn't register at all with the masses.
Ah I have the quote -
“No one can deny that the Jews are a most unique and unusual people. That uniqueness exists because of their Edomite heritage. You cannot be English Jews. We are a race, and only as a race can we perpetuate. Our mentality is of Edomitish character, and differs from that of an Englishman. Enough subterfuges! Let us assert openly that we are International Jews.”—Manifesto of the “World Jewish Federation,” January 1, 1935, through its spokesperson, Gerald Soman.
Of course for anyone with common sense, to claim Edomitish heritage means that you denounce any lineage to the 12 tribes of Israel.
I also find it interesting that one of the latest DNA researchers they are trying to take down, Dr. Eran Elhaik, did genetic research on the Isreali Jew DNA and bones of Jerusalem ancient burials, the bones were not a perfect match in terms of DNA but they (the Iseali Jews) did match with Roman bones. I don't believe he will ever publicly publish this information though, he'd be good as dead I'm sure.
(Oh wow, as I was going back to check references and I found something new. In that in some of the Arab Islamic religious and historical texts they even blatantly state that the Romans came from Edom, it actually seems impossible for them to separate the description red and Romans).
Romans also seem to have been identified as descendants of Edom during the Roman empire by some of the Israelites. Today many Isreali Jews attempt to explain away the connection by stating it was a "code-name" but this makes no sense because according to Josephus there was a country of Idumea filled with the poorer class of Edomites. Using it as a code name would not make sense if there was an existing country of them and they were most likely referring to the ruling class of the Roman empire, as Rome was a "borg" term much like American is. I have a book on this were it mentions it not being an actual code-name, but I never just have these things right in front of me and it usually takes me hours to type messages if I grab all my materials.
The online jewish-encyclopedia also does not handle the description of Edom very honestly, actually blatantly lying towards the end of the excerpt. If you look it up online, within a Josephus reference of 20,000 soldiers helping Judah in the Roman war (not accurate in this context), they slip a false statement about Edom merging with Judah and dissolving and being unidentifiable today, but if you read the chapters of Josephus that the encyclopedia references there is not even one mention of this statement or any support of it at all, as mentioned before the events mentioned are also taken out of context in the encyclopedia. The average person will probably not have a Josephus on them, or actually spend the time reading the whole thing like I have, which makes me feel a bit pathetic actually haha. I can only theorize that they are banking on people taking their word for it like many other things I've found out by going back into history of what has been said. I think there are about two or three "official" claims to Edom just vanishing, none of them even being minimal satisfactory explanations.
I think we're going to be seeing this Edom thing pop up more and more as time goes on and things get even more crazy in the current world situation.
This part of my post did not seem to get placed in the original message I posted so I'll add this in the end here -As for the Witnesses, I wouldn't particularly say they are exactly the same as Pharisees, many of the so-called "Christians" were also accused of being "better than everyone else" from the sources I read of Israelites that only believed the Torah and they were also bashed in 1st century Gentile critique writings for not following any of the state holidays. So the authentic followers were definitely hated on both sides.