Posts by JosephMalik

37

Gods and the Trinity

by the_classicist in

one of the claims against the trinity that the wtbts makes is that "[s]ince the bible calls humans, angels, even satan, "gods," or powerful ones, the superior jesus in heaven can properly be called "a god.

in the old testament, the hebrew employs elohim to signify what the wt says above.

but it is interesting to note that psalm 82 (81 in the septuagint, and i will be using septuagint numbering from now on), in which the judges of israel are called "gods," is a satire.

JosephMalik

Far too much is being made out of the word God by many. Grammar is often used as an argument to explain how it should be rendered but more often than not context is the real issue. In scripture the word God identifies no one in and of itself and is properly used of others be they human or no-human. Does this mean that the scriptures recognize more that one God in such cases? Yes, but not more than one Supreme Being. You see the term God is not always used in a way that means supreme being so calling such human or non-humans Gods does not conflict with the truth that there is but one God [supreme being] that we worship as such.

Jesus is our God be virtue of the fact that He actually created us and the world of mankind to which He came but Jesus is not our Supreme Being or our YHWH. Thus Jesus is not God alongside the God that Jesus was with as the Word or Logos. John was not teaching equality but showing presence, access and a commission from such a God at this beginning of the human race. The Logos is only God to the humanity He produced. God when so used simply designates a higher power or heaven over man. It is a stretch of the imagination to say we are actually discussing two Gods in the same context as the Supreme Being. Words have multiple meanings and picking the wrong one is what confuses most.

Joseph

45

At what hour was Jesus Crucified?

by gumby in

mark 15:25 ......and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

john 19:13-14 when pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the hebrew, gabbatha.

and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the jews, behold your king!

JosephMalik

Narkissos,

I have two versions of this work on my web page. One is the earlier research in plain text linked on the main page composed during earlier study, and the later version that I included in Beyond Watchtower Doctrine. Both should show how the Gospel accounts were merged and the older text version may even cover more of this harmony than the later work. Once understood it could all be simplified.
Joseph

45

At what hour was Jesus Crucified?

by gumby in

mark 15:25 ......and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

john 19:13-14 when pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the hebrew, gabbatha.

and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the jews, behold your king!

JosephMalik

Do you have any secular supporters for this theory? I've never heard this one before, and I'm sure SOMEONE must have thought of it in the last 2000 years.

Little Toe,

I would think so as well. The best that I can come up with is that I read it while scanning a book at a Christian book store and thought the guy was nuts. I do not remember the title but it was a small book about the size of the WT?s truth book. This was some years before I studied the matter myself. But the book was about the week of Passover and may not have covered the Crucifixion in this detail.

When I wrote my letters to the Watchtower about the Kingdom here on earth I thought that I was alone as well and out on a limb. But later I learned that many were doing the same thing, some several years before I did. And there were religions out there teaching this but the WT made sure you never heard of them. So many have committed themselves on this subject and have made so many errors and excuses concerning it that it is too embarrassing for them to correct it now.

On the Last Passover if you put the Gospel accounts side by side and do not tamper with the order of the texts you will also see that this is the case. This is an area where five Gospel Parallels or Harmonies will all disagree. Why? Because the authors really do not understand Passover and are trying to fit the texts to prevailing doctrine. This is also true of arguments about Roman time and Jewish time. There is nothing wrong with the hours given in the texts. It is the prevailing doctrines and interpretations that are wrong. To help with this I broke the week down and included it in Beyond Watchtower Doctrine which downloads with my book. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I do not think that many here realize how faulty most Christian doctrine is and how much real truth is yet to be gleaned from the texts.

Joseph
http://home.earthlink.net/~jmalik/

45

At what hour was Jesus Crucified?

by gumby in

mark 15:25 ......and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

john 19:13-14 when pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the hebrew, gabbatha.

and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the jews, behold your king!

JosephMalik

Little Toe,

6PM plus the third hour = 9PM. This was covered but you must have missed it. Also the guards gambled over His clothes. Not likely to have taken place at 9 or 10AM is it? So our Lord lived through the night on this day of preparation until the next day when He died around 3PM. The two Sabbath days that followed should have alerted everyone to when this happened. This is all very simple and uncomplicated. Why so many have failed to understand it is the real mystery.

Joseph

45

At what hour was Jesus Crucified?

by gumby in

mark 15:25 ......and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

john 19:13-14 when pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the hebrew, gabbatha.

and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the jews, behold your king!

JosephMalik

At appproximately 9PM on Nisan 20 which was a day of preparation for the final Sabbath of Passover.

Passover began on Nisan 15 and ended on Nisan 21.

Month of the Last Passover NISAN of the year our Lord died.

SUN MON TUE WED THURS FRI SAT
1*
2 3 4 5 6 7 8*
9 10 11 12 13 14 15*
16 17 18 19 20 21* 22*
23 24 25 26 27 28 29*
30

Sabbath days during this special month are marked with a *. Notice that Nisan 21 and 22 are both Sabbath days as the festival and Exodus chapter 12 (the LAW) forced this situation. A day of preparation preceded each Sabbath day. Hope the formatting holds in this illustration.

Joseph

45

At what hour was Jesus Crucified?

by gumby in

mark 15:25 ......and it was the third hour, and they crucified him.

john 19:13-14 when pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the pavement, but in the hebrew, gabbatha.

and it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the jews, behold your king!

JosephMalik

The correct answer is 9PM or the 3rd hour (of the night). One of the posters on this thread got this right, congratulations. There is another scripture that demonstrates such timekeeping notice: Ac 23:23 And he called unto him two centurions, saying, Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and horsemen threescore and ten, and spearmen two hundred, at the third hour of the night;

Anyone keeping track of time should have noticed this right away even if the words of the night are omitted but hardly anyone does it seems. Another fact that eludes nearly everyone is that it is scripturally impossible for our Lord to have been executed the next afternoon after eating the Passover with His disciples. This is because this Passover meal began Sabbath and the next afternoon was still Sabbath as this meal ended the day of preparation. The next day of preparation would be some 6 days later and yet because Passover is 7 days long not 24 hours it would still be during Passover that our Lord died.

The Bible has always been correct on this matter while nearly everyone else has interpreted it incorrectly. Go figure?

Joseph

8

Not Given in Marriage... like Angels.

by XBEHERE in

i was just curious if anyone had any thoughts on this or perhaps a link to a previous thread.

jesus said the following according to the bible:.

mark 12:18-25 (nwt).

JosephMalik

24 Jesus said to them: "Is not this why YOU are mistaken, YOUR not knowing either the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 For when they rise from the dead, neither do men marry nor are women given in marriage, but are as angels in the heavens.

XBEHERE,

First you must understand what the scriptures teach regarding this future world in which such resurrection takes place. The God given command to mankind was this:

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." [NIV]

At the time of the resurrection this will be accomplished by God in that a sufficient number of qualified humans had existed that will be resurrected to accomplish this purpose. Man will no longer be required to fulfill this commandment as it will be done entirely by this process of resurrection.

Such resurrected humans will be like the angels (undying or immortal) so that the further propagation of their species is not necessary.

That such men or angels are capable of reproduction is not the point here. Faithful angels did not sin and continue to exist without condemnation as such. They do not attempt to propagate their species. So mankind would have ceased reproduction as commanded at the proper time even if sin did not enter into the world.

Joseph

20

great tribulation or no great tribulation that is my question

by BlackSwan of Memphis in

so, what's the deal?

are witnesses now expecting a tribulation to precede armageddon or are they expecting armageddon without a tribulation?.

because in the last couple of years some of the things i am hearing and reading, lead me to believe they are phasing out the concept of a tribulation.

JosephMalik

The tribulation great or not is used in scripture as another way to describe the Gentile Times. Matt and Mark actually call it great tribulation and tribulation where Luke calls it Gentile Times and they put its start at the beginning of creation. Portions like the end of it can be considered as in Luke or all of it can be involved as in the Revelation regarding the great crowd. This tribulation began with sin where we can see its effects when Cain killed Abel and will continue until our Lord returns in the flesh.

Joseph

19

What are your thoughts on the composite sign?

by Leander in

jw
friends

lately i've been giving a lot of thought on my decision to leave the wts behind and during the course of my musing i contemplated the meaning of the composite sign.

and then it kind of struck me that perhaps this composite sign was really just a declaration of the obvious.

for example some of the elements of the composite sign are: famine, pestilence, reports of natural disasters (earthquakes, etc..).

JosephMalik

Joseph, that's sure gonna be a lot of people on this planet, no? What about the myriad of other "worlds" in the universe? Why couldn't some of the changed and resurrected exist on some of those worlds? Jesus said in my fathers house there are many mansions.

Chappy,

Yes there will and this is the very point of it all. The idea always was that after all the smoke clears and the final test is completed the end result will be a fulfillment of the original command given to Adam and Eve. This will complete the seventh day which will end successfully.

If you pay attention to our Lords words as recorded in Matt. 25 you will see that not everyone will be restored to life in this Kingdom. Goats will not be a part of it so the population will not be outrageous. And some of the sheep will not make it past the final test either. So the end result will be as intended from the beginning.

As to your interpretation of Joh 14:2 In my Father?s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Why are you applying it to other planets? This statement made right after and on the night of the last Passover came after the apostles argued ad nauseam as to which one of them would be the greatest. It is about position and authority in this Kingdom not about a literal place to live. In other words it is about what was later to be called the 144,000 and their place in this future government over this earth. Somehow we forget that after all this the apostles still said just before our Lord left this earth: Acts 1:6 . . . Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? This is what was on their minds as they wanted to know when they would obtain a place in such a Kingdom here on earth.

What about the other planets? Well that has been left for later. The scriptural record is not finished. More information will be made available to us after the final test is completed. But regarding mankind the redemption of the human race is just that. There was never a plan to take some humans and convert them to a nature that is not human. After all such non-humans already exist in abundance.

Joseph
http://home.earthlink.net/~jmalik/

19

What are your thoughts on the composite sign?

by Leander in

jw
friends

lately i've been giving a lot of thought on my decision to leave the wts behind and during the course of my musing i contemplated the meaning of the composite sign.

and then it kind of struck me that perhaps this composite sign was really just a declaration of the obvious.

for example some of the elements of the composite sign are: famine, pestilence, reports of natural disasters (earthquakes, etc..).

JosephMalik

Leander,

The Watchtower?w composite sign demonstrates how badly they understand scripture. Historical events intended to prevent such speculation are mixed in with simple statements intended to give hope to the believer. What amazes me is how stupid witnesses are. Can?t they read think or analyze the texts for themselves?

The scriptures teach that Christ is coming back in the flesh to rule in a human body just like the one that the apostles saw going up in the clouds. The hope for the faith always was a resurrection on the last day for all humanity just like Lazarus was raised. Therefore no one will go to a place called heaven and exist in a body that is not human. The 144,000 and everyone else will exist here on earth in human bodies that are resurrected or changed at this time into immortal ones like the one Christ had when He left.
If the mighty Watchtower can not get this right why believe anything else they say or teach? They do not have a clue as to what the Kingdom is all about and have never preached the good news of this kingdom as they claim.
Joseph