if this has been covered before i apologise in advance.
using only the bible and a bit of common sense.. ok, here goes:.
do the "seventy years" count from jerusalems destruction or not?
Witness,
you could have stopped after the first three words in your post and you'd still have been spot on.
"He can't count....."
That's one of the things that's been most obvious to me about DJeggnogg during this debate/debacle. The dude can't count.
http://www.str.org/site/news2?page=newsarticle&id=5725.
i fought against this with all my wts-trained power, but truth prevailed.. any way you cut it, it comes out the same.. peace and strength in your search.. sylvia.
Podo,
imagining you understand the points of view of others has no relevance to interpreting Scripture, which is what this thread is about.
Psalms 2 reads perfectly to me too, yet I have a very different view of it, obviously. If you are presenting it somehow as an obstacle to the Trinity then you will have to explain how it supposedly obstructs the Trinity to me first, seeing as I don't see how it does. That is your responsibility because it was your request. You at least need to make your own arguments clearly.
Your claim regarding "Jesus is Jehovah": "NOT according to the Psalmist" is flawed on 2 counts.
1. No one said this was a proof text for that notion, as far as I'm aware. If you want to use it as a proof text against the notion, then you need to make your argument instead of imagining your argument is obvious, when it's not. (probably because you mistake your interpretations for reality, for fact, and imagine everyone else must see what you see).
2. You can only rightly interpret Psalms 2 by the Scriptures, the entire context of the Bible, and especially all the other passages dealing with the Messiah and "The Son". This you are not doing, but are taking it in isolation and allowing human reasoning - "Psalm 2 reads perfectly clearly to me" - to direct it's interpretation. This leaves you at odds with many other Scriptures, when the aim is to harmonize them all, being forced to the position that such an attempt to harmonize leads you, even if doing so leads you to conclusion you did not expect and may not even welcome.
if this has been covered before i apologise in advance.
using only the bible and a bit of common sense.. ok, here goes:.
do the "seventy years" count from jerusalems destruction or not?
You really are tireless in your attempts to humiliate yourself in the most excruciating manner possible, aren't you DJ? And the "check-mate" flouriish on the end was more than usually cringeworhy, especially as you lost this particular game many pages ago.
But keep it up, this is compelling 'car crash' type stuff. I can't stop watching.
Where are you Ann? DJ doesn't feel quite pummeled enough, apparently.
if you are an elder or an ex-elder please add a comment.
i hope that the governing body will see this.
it is too bad it has to be on an anonymous forum.
Bttt (How to participate on bottom of page 2)
could we be doing more brothers and sisters?
i'm sure i'm not alone in wishing that there was more we could do to hasten the demise of the wtbts and to speed up the exodus of it's members.
and i'm sure i'm not alone in thinking of possible ways to do this.. one which i have been considering lately is to make use of the fact that many who leave the organization actually leave the area, move away, and start a new life.
I agree Mad,
It's information that usually frees JW's. Strategies then simply become creative ways to get that information into their hands, bypasing the systems of control the Society has installed in order to prevent JW's from being exposed to that info.
He died?
I wonder if his last words were
"I just have one last question..." (Or a variation thereof )
they regard themselves as "true christians".. do you view them as christians?.
@Quendi and Psacramento
Quendi, you said: "Individuals can certainly be Christians, but I don't think organized religions are." and Psac, you said "a direct personal relationship with Him is hallmark of being a Christian."
I agree, but any Organization that allows or encourages such a direct personal relationship as described in the NT is therefore 'Christian'. Any Organization which disallows and discourages it, is not 'Christian'.
The many Churches of Christendom, despite all their various faults, generally do not attempt to stand in the way of or disallow a personal relationship with Christ as described in the NT. Whereas, the Watchtower actively teaches members and preaches to prospective members that a relationship with Christ and the hope associated with it as described in the NT is not theirs to have, and it actively discourages it. This means it is not a Christian Organization, no matter what it claims. It is very literally an 'Anti-Christian' religion.
It's a personal thing, I agree. But a Religion being designated 'Christian' or not depends IMO on whether or not it allows/encourages or serves to hinder that personal relationship.
they regard themselves as "true christians".. do you view them as christians?.
No the JW's are not Christians. The bear no resemblance to the first century Christians. And they don't preach what Christ preached.
Unless "false Christian" can be accepted as a type of Christian? In which case they may qualify on that definition.
...in return for someone else doing the same with your friends or family?.
this is a hypothetical question to see how many would be interested in something like this and if it could work.
(i created another thread about this but the title and op wasn't clear enough.
Thanks Quendi.
Obviously there will be those who don't agree on the particular approach. And while I understand and appreciate your devotion to honesty I see it in a similar way to the letter of the Law.
The letter of the the Law is honesty at all times, under all circumstances. But Jesus explained that love trumped Law, and that it was right to break laws for a moral purpose. I see this in a similar way.
It's a loving act with a right motivation which infringes upon the letter of the Law. So each must choose what is more important to them.
http://www.str.org/site/news2?page=newsarticle&id=5725.
i fought against this with all my wts-trained power, but truth prevailed.. any way you cut it, it comes out the same.. peace and strength in your search.. sylvia.
Hi Podo,
Unfortunately, trying to accurately put yourself in the mindset of readers of the time is very difficult (or impossible) and ultimately pointless - because the only safe and legitimate way to interpret Scripture is by Scripture, not by what we may think other readers were thinking. What they were thinking is largely irrelevant and by the time we get to what we think they were thinking it's utterly pointless as a guide to accurately interpreting the Bible. What the writer meant is the issue, not what any reader may have thought they meant.
I feel this is the fundamental error you are making, and it's the same error many JW's make on this issue.
When you read a Scripture you seem to be reasoning "what does this make me think, or what might it have made someone else think? Well then, that must be what God wants to convey, otherwise why would he have said something which would make me think this?"
This is literally "human reasoning".
Thus He says "Son", and you think "I know about Sons because Sons is a human concept. Human Sons are separate beings from their Fathers. Therefore the "Son" must be separate from the "Father" because thats what humans think about human "Sons' and "Fathers", and why would God have made me think that by saying "Son" if he didn't want to make me think that"? So the "Son" must be separate from the "Father". Any human reader would reason that way, so it must be what God wants us to think"
Do you see the inherent flaw in that kind of thinking? It's perhaps reasonable, in isolation, but it's not Scriptural. Actually, many interpretations can be reasonable but inaccurate. It's also arbitrarily applied (because it's human reasoning). For instance, it's apparently reasonable to think that as human sons are separate from their fathers, then the Biblical "Son" must be separate from the "Father". But this line of reason is not sound, because human sons also have penises, and so do their fathers. So according to the line of reasoning you used earlier to interpret Scripture, both the Biblical "Son" and the "Father" must also have penises.
Sounds silly right? And that's why you cut off your line of reasoning before that point. But it's the same line of reason. And you decide where to stop and start it at the points you feel it's "silly" or "reasonable". That's human reasoning. It's arbitrary. And it yields vastly different results depending on how each person is choosing to apply it based on what they think and what they feel.
But if "interpretations belong to God" and we consider the Scriptures to be God's word, then we are obliged to only interpret Scripture, by Scripture.
As for Psalms 2, I'm going to have to put the ball back in your court. Having read it and knowing basically what Trinitarians believe and what else the Bible says about the Messiah and the "Son" I don't honestly understand what problem Psalms 2 present to the Trinity doctrine, so you are going to have to point it out to me. You direct me to it as if it the problem should be obvious, but it's not. It may be obvious according to human reasoning, but according to the entire context of the Bible, the other things said about the Messiah, the other things said about the "Son", the reams of Scriptures applied exclusively to Jehovah which are then explicitly applied to The "Son" in the NT - according to all that and bearing all that in mind, there is no problem I see.
So break it down for me, if you don't mind?
