Justin

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Posts by Justin

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  22

  Washington Post -- Rev. "Jellyfish" R...

  by Alleymom in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  although i am pretty new to this board, i've been reading about jw issues for a long time, around 13 years.

  i have an old washington post article in my files, from may 4,1906, that i have never seen anywhere on the internet.. the article is titled "rev.

  jellyfish russell" and it is a very sarcastic commentary on russell's infamous jellyfish statement, made during his court trial for divorce.. i copied the article from microfilm in a university library, and unfortunately it does have scratch marks, but the words are quite plain.. last week when i was doing an altavista search i came across one of tom tallyman's webpages.

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  Justin

  To get the context of the statement which was put into Russell's mouth by the Washington Post, look at a copy of the court transcript found at http://users.skynet.be/awsid/eng/paws003e.htm .

  Russell did not make this statement before the court. The statement supposedly was made by Rose Ball to Mrs. Russell, who then repeated it to the court.

  XJW scholar James Penton, in his book "Apocalypse Delayed," has stated that Russell apparently had such a low libido that he didn't even consummate his own marriage! (p. 35) If any of you know James personally, you might ask him for some input on this.

  I feel there's enough to clobber the WT with, without digging up old Russell scandals that may or may not be true.

  Justin
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  3

  NW and Eze 23:20

  by Haereticus in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i just wonder if by any chance the new world translation is somewhere in the net?

  i tried to look for it but mostly i found critisism.

  i lost my copy tens of years ago and have to get a copy of my own.. the question in a local forum is about the eze 23:20 in which the nw translated into finnish sounds extremely strange when compared with other translations.

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  Justin

  Haereticus,

  The "Interlinear NIV Hebrew-English Old Testament" translates Ezekiel 23:20 as: "and-she-lusted after lovers-of-her who genital-of donkeys genital-of-them and-emission-of horses emission-of-them."

  The Hebrew word appearing above "genital" is a form of "basar," and according to the Brown, Driver and Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, it basically means "flesh," with a derived euphemistic meaning of "male organ of generation."

  The word appearing above "emission" is a form of "zirmah," which the Lexicon defines as "issue (of semen verile)."

  So "genital" belongs with the donkeys and "emission" with the horses. Therefore, the NWT has it wrong and the other translations have it right.

  Justin
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  13

  Trinty

  by encourager in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  hey i've been reading the magazine "should you believe in the trinity" - very well laid out and i know its been around for years.. i'm struggling with this whole issue and have looked at some of the quotes and they don't seem to match the actual quotes of the early church fathers.

  mainly the one by tertullian which reads as follows from the magazine.

  tertullian, who died about 230 c.e., taught the supremacy of god.

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  Justin

  The Church Fathers taught that the Logos was begotten from the Father rather than being created out of nothing. For example, Justin Martyr (second century) wrote that "God has begotten of Himself a certain rational Power as a Beginning before all other creatures. The Holy Spirit indicates this Power by various titles, sometimes the Glory of the Lord, at other times Son, or Wisdom, or Angel, or God, or Lord, or Word." (Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 61) Justin illustrated this, saying, "We can observe a similar example in nature when one fire kindles another, without losing anything, but remaining the same; yet the enkindled fire seems to exist of itself and to shine without lessening the brilliancy of the first fire." (same text)

  The NWT itself, at John 1:18, refers to the Logos-Christ as "the only-begotten god". We are talking here of a real god, because he is generated out of the Father and so must be a divine offspring. Even if we accept the NWT rendering of John 1:1, "the Word was a god," the Word must be a real god, and not a god in name only. But since there is only one God, not two, there must be some way in which these two divine Personages remain a unity.

  Tertullian attempted to illustrate divine unity as follows:

  "For God sent forth the Word, as the Paraclete also declares. This is just as the root puts forth the tree, the fountain the river, and the sun the ray. For these are emanations of the substances from which they proceed. I should not hesitate, indeed, to call the tree the son or offspring of the root; or the river, that of the fountain, or the ray, that of the sun. . . . Now, the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son. Just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. Nothing, however, is alien from that original source from which it derives its own properties. In like manner, the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the 'Monarchy,' while it at the same time guards the state of the 'Economy.'" (Against Praxeas) The Monarcy refers to the Unity of God, and the Economy to the Threeness.

  The Fathers were against the heresy of Modalism, which claims that the one God merely poses as three different persons. They taught that there is a real distinction between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why the WT can quote the Fathers favorably. But where the WT and the Fathers part company is that the WT claims the Logos was created, whereas the Fathers taught that the Logos is begotten of the Father and so is actually divine as the Father is divine. The WT is like Arius of the fourth century, who claimed that the Logos was created out of nothing (like the rest of creation). But the WT avoids ever mentioning this fine distinction which is so crucial.

  Justin
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  4

  Whats the deal?

  by huh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i don't understand this whole no celebrating thing is.

  please explain!!!.

  ~confused~

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  Justin

  Sorry, the website for Ralph Woodrow is http://www.ralphwoodrow.org.
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  4

  Whats the deal?

  by huh in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i don't understand this whole no celebrating thing is.

  please explain!!!.

  ~confused~

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  Justin

  The Ralph Woodrow Evangelistic Association provides material which is helpful in overcoming prejudice against celebrating Christmas and Easter, and other prejudices which groups such as JWs ingrain into the minds of their people. Their website is http://www.raphwoodrow.org.

  This is a good resource for those who have recently left the WT and would like some justification for observing popular customs. These taboos are meant to separate JWs from all other people, but those who have left the WT don't need to be different anymore.

  Justin
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  27

  How to Wreck the Watchtower

  by metatron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  use your imagination for just a moment...... clearly, the blood issue is heating up -internally!.

  the recent letters from the service dept.

  (exposed on the.

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  Justin

  I would like to see the WT's power broken so that it does not have the control it now does over its people. Let the JWs continue to function as a faith community, but get the damned monkey off their backs!

  I have two observations as to why this is so difficult to accomplish. (1) As far as exposing WT to the public is concerned, the JWs are an established cult. The public seems more easily aroused over the practices of newer groups. But older groups, founded in the nineteenth century, have almost become part of the American heritage and have even to some extent been adopted as examples of religious tolerance in the US. With the JWs, this is not completely the case because of their hostility to the mainline culture, but it is still largely true that they are considered an American religion (if a peculiar one at that).

  (2) The other observation is that atheism or unbelief should not be presented as the alternative to the Borg. It is one alternative, an alternative that many have taken. But people who leave JWs still have the option of being people of faith. When I and others engage in religious or Biblical discussions on this forum, it is frequently the case that someone who does not share our presuppositions will send a post with sarcastic remarks because they consider God and the Bible to be a bunch of crap. Sometimes I think people who make these posts may be drunk at the time, but I also think there are some who would simply like us "religious" people to leave this forum. But you must realize that there are people in the WT who, if they think the alternative is atheism, will remain in the organization and continue to take orders from Big Brother. So I suggest that those of you who are unbelievers should stay out of our hair (and many of you do). You have your posts, and we'll have ours. If we can't agree that our one objective is to help those victimized by the WT, you in your way and we in ours, then we don't belong together in an sense.

  Justin
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  13

  WT twists Daniel to any interpretation it likes

  by Moxy in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  this is probably well-worn territory, seeing as the wts daniel interpretations havent really changed in 50 years.

  i wanted to write some stuff out tho on the subject, just so i could see it all in one place.

  there was more to the "small" horn that the british empire.

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  Justin

  For the sake of those of us who no longer have access to the current WT publications, could someone please tell me if the Daniel book identified a new King of the North? Or are they just waiting for a new King to pop up somewhere?

  (I realize some think Ciro's talk gave Islam this role, but what I got out of the talk was that Islam may be the part of Babylon the Great that will cause the wild beast to turn on her. Be that as it may, what did the Daniel book have to say?)

  Justin
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  9

  The Watchtower's Bible Scholars?

  by stevieb1 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  witnesses are often told that is is not necessary to look to outside sources such as bible encyclopedias and commentaries because the society's writing department already has these and presents us with the best comments from them for us anyway.

  what i have noticed though, is that there are many comments from 19th century commentators and not much in the way of quotes from modern-day bible scholars and their works.. i understand that at the recent kingdom ministry school it was said that the society has the best bible scholars available for our instuction.

  if that was said (can anyone confirm?

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  Justin

  I agree with Joseph Joachim's reply that one of the reasons the WT writers use older sources is to avoid exposing themselves to a source which might use the historical-critical method in Bible interpretation. Even something as old hat as there being two or three Isaiahs (rather than the book of Isaiah being composed by one writer) would be anathema to them.

  Of course, they could refer to modern Evangelical scholars, many of whom would also reject historical criticism, but then their readers would have other contemporary sources to refer to other than the WT. That wouldn't do.

  Amazingly, in the fourth century, John Chrysostom wrote: "the prophets did not proclaim all their oracles at one time, but being inspired in different circumstances, they uttered short pronouncements, which were later put together to form a complete book." I don't think the WT will be referring to that statement, even though it's pretty old.

  Justin
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  10

  Rutherford the Marxist??

  by Satanus in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  rutherford went on and on about 'classes' of people: the esther class, the mordicai class, the haman class, etc.

  from where did this class bs come?

  russel had previoussly stated it was his belief that anarchy would break out as working classes revolted against their capilist masters.. an important doctrine of marx, and one of their main hopes later, after the bolshevik revolution was that the lower classes in society would rise up en mass and topple their govt's, thus embracing communism in country after country.. and so, it leads to my question of the origin of rutherford's creation of classes of people that corresponded to biblical characters.

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  Justin

  I do not think Rutherford was a Marxist. The idea of there being "classes" among God's people was already ingrained from the Russell era, and Rutherford just made up new classes of his own. It's almost impossible to think as a JW without being class conscious in this spiritual sense.

  Russell had his own classes. The little flock, of course, was tops. But there was also the Great Company which was conceived of as a secondary heavenly class. It was a class which Russell thought the anointed fell into if they were not faithful enough to rule with Jesus in the kingdom, but weren't bad enough to go into the second death. This class would end up in an angelic existence below the little flock. (Together these composed the "church class" which Russell also called the "sanctuary class" of Daniel's prophecy.) The great mass of nominal Christians (which today are considered nothing but "Christendom"), because they at least had faith in Jesus as their Ransomer, were considered to be justified (declared righteous). But in his mature thought, Russell considered them to be only "tentatively justified" unless they came into the church class, at which time they would be fully justified.

  Russell conceived of Armageddon as a social revolution, a conflict between capital and labor, but I recall one scholar (I don't remember who) felt that Russell had never directly studied Marx, but had simply been exposed to socialism generally. Of course, Russell had no intention of instigating a revolution - he simply predicted this would be God's way of cleansing the earth before the establishment of the new order. I think that this view became too much of an embarrassment once the revolution occurred in Russia, and that's why Rutherford's Armageddon is much more like the traditional end of the world (accomplished directly by divine agencies, but without destroying the planet).

  But Russell's class thinking in his theology was not, I believe, derived from socialism as much as it was from generally observing the social classes of his day. I understand that Europeans are very much more conscious of class than Americans. I wonder, though, if the New England of Russell's time could have contained more class consciousness.

  So Russell translated social class into spiritual class, and Rutherford took it from there because class was already imbedded in Bible Student/Jehovah's Witness theology.

  Justin
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  33

  Your FIRST reaction to these words:

  by belbab in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  and this good news of the kingdom will be preached inall the inhabited earth for the purpose of a witness to all the nations, and then the accomplished end will come.

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  belbab

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  Justin

  According to Charles Taze Russell, this scripture was fulfilled at least by 1861 - before the WT even existed. To quote: "This witness has already been given. In 1861 the reports of the Bible Societies showed that the Gospel had been published in every language of earth, though not all of earth's millions had received it." (The Divine Plan of the Ages, p. 91)

  Justin