Smiddy, commenting on the previous post by BluesBrother, asks,
"Does that mean that Jehovah and Jesus are at odds with each?"
That's the implication, No matter how believers try to explain the changes in attitudes and doctrines.
there's been a few commentaries on this topic of late, so i'm offering a few more thoughts.. here's an extract from 2 samuel 12, consider for a moment the implications.. 7 then nathan said to david, “you are the man!
this is what the lord, the god of israel, says: ‘i anointed you king over israel, and i delivered you from the hand of saul.
8 i gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms.
Smiddy, commenting on the previous post by BluesBrother, asks,
"Does that mean that Jehovah and Jesus are at odds with each?"
That's the implication, No matter how believers try to explain the changes in attitudes and doctrines.
there's been a few commentaries on this topic of late, so i'm offering a few more thoughts.. here's an extract from 2 samuel 12, consider for a moment the implications.. 7 then nathan said to david, “you are the man!
this is what the lord, the god of israel, says: ‘i anointed you king over israel, and i delivered you from the hand of saul.
8 i gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms.
YHWH's threat didn't happen, because David repented, but then YHWH punishes someone else, who has to die, because David did something wrong.
Continuing to read in the Divine record:
15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. 16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth[b] on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.
18 On the seventh day the child died.
So this unborn child is condemned to death, and has to die because his father did something wrong.
YHWH doesn't come out of this biblical experience looking good, does he?
there's been a few commentaries on this topic of late, so i'm offering a few more thoughts.. here's an extract from 2 samuel 12, consider for a moment the implications.. 7 then nathan said to david, “you are the man!
this is what the lord, the god of israel, says: ‘i anointed you king over israel, and i delivered you from the hand of saul.
8 i gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms.
There's been a few commentaries on this topic of late, so i'm offering a few more thoughts.
Here's an extract from 2 Samuel 12, consider for a moment the implications.
7 Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. 8 I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.
So no individual choice for these women. They seem to be just property, Iike Saul's 'house.' Even if they didn't want to be given to David, they became his property.
But read a little further and ... and YHWH threatens to give David's women to someone else.
11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’”
And we note that their next owner was going to have sex with these women in public, because that was YHWH's way of punishing David. So again women appear to be, in YHWH's mind, just property.
That threat didn't happen, because David repented, but YHWH punishes someone else, who suffers death because David did something wrong.
We can think about YHWH's next threat in the next post.
hello elle2 and welcome to the forum.. thank you enoughisenough for the post about alternatives to babylon the great.. i tend to go back to the first babylon account in genesis ch 11 – a very short fascinating event.. mankind it says, was of “one set of words” they understood each other.
apparently it was after the flood and they were working unitedly they built this thing, tower ziggy what thingy and they all had the same language, understood each other and achieved stuff.
it was called the tower of babel.. babel means confusion.
OMG!!!!
see: https://7news.com.au/news/crime/senior-jehovahs-witnesses-member-charged-with-rape-torture-and-assault-of-teenage-boys-c-8044666.
"senior jehovah’s witnesses member charged with rape, torture and assault of teenage boys...".
the 61 year-old man "faces 21 counts of rape, 17 counts of sexual assault, 13 counts of procuring sexual acts by false pretence and one count each of incest, torture and common assault.".
Some more details are emerging -
And the mind sort of flips at this claim, that the accused
Quote: "According to court documents obtained by the ABC, several victims were allegedly convinced by the defendant to participate in "energy sessions", which consisted of standing naked in front of a mirror chanting affirmations."
and, quote: "The documents show that police allege the extent of abuse greatly varied between the victims and that in some cases others were present."
It's getting salacious, isn't it.
And, quote: "A day before his arrest the defendant allegedly met with one of the victims and was recorded electronically allegedly admitting to having multiple videos of his sexual offences."
If video's are presented in court, this guy's wife will have a difficult time maintaining her attitude that her husband is innocent
see: https://7news.com.au/news/crime/senior-jehovahs-witnesses-member-charged-with-rape-torture-and-assault-of-teenage-boys-c-8044666.
"senior jehovah’s witnesses member charged with rape, torture and assault of teenage boys...".
the 61 year-old man "faces 21 counts of rape, 17 counts of sexual assault, 13 counts of procuring sexual acts by false pretence and one count each of incest, torture and common assault.".
An interesting case, and unusual among JWs. Had a chat to my friend, who is gay and a former witness. The case is unusual in that there were 4 young men, apparently from the one congregation, who over a 10 year period were victims of this (alleged) abuser. So the 21 rape charges against the alleged offender appear to be multiple charges of rape against one of more of the 4 young men involved. So not 21 different young men (which was my first impression) but each time he had sex with one of these young men (more especially, if at the time of the offences the young men were under 16) was counted as a charge of rape, etc.
We wondered, did these young men all know each other had an interest in gay sex, or did the offender introduce them to gay sex. Why after 10 years did one (or all) get overcome with guilt and went to the police? Did they confess to someone in the congregation first? Its unusual for more than one other person to be involved in sex cases among the witnesses. The only group sex case, that I can recall, among Australian witnesses was 50+ years ago when about 40 young girls and guys, getting together socially, decided that sex meant penetrative sex, and that other forms of sex (oral sex, petting etc) were not sex. OK, they were soon disabused of that idea.
We noted 1 charge of torture - this could indicate that the charged man, used bondage or S&M with one or more of the 4 victims. S&M (if you have not heard of it) is (quote): "interaction, especially sexual activity, in which one person enjoys inflicting physical or mental suffering on another person, who derives pleasure from experiencing pain. gratification, especially sexual, gained through inflicting and receiving pain; sadism and masochism combined."
For people (both str8 and gay) who want to push the boundaries of sexual experience, often use bondage and S&M to do that
Of course, this person may have committed offences against non-JWs also, and we (my gay ex-JW friend and I) thought the police would be investigating that aspect of the case, and that the police fear that there may be more victims, was a general call to the entire community.
One account I read noted that the man used his 'position' in that congregation to 'rape and assault' the young men. We thought that the word 'grooming' was more likely to be the word that described what he did.
So I'd agree with Sea Breeze that the perpetrator was most likely an Elder, who else could be described as having a 'position' in a congregation.
i was passing through a very liberal college town recently during rush hour.
so, i decided to stop for some refreshment at a fine-looking establishment and wait for traffic to die down.
a young waitress waited on me who probably could have been stevie nicks twin when she was young.
I'll add one more, because it concerns the great East-Wests Trade Route (the so-called Silk Road)
The oasis villages of the Tarim Basin served as hubs along the ancient Silk Road, and they played an important role in facilitating communication between the imperial centers of Asia. These villages were supported by an irrigated form of cereal farming that was specifically adapted to these early oasis settlements. In this manuscript, we present the results from new archaeobotanical analyses, radiocarbon dating, and organic carbon isotopic studies directly from carbonized seeds at the Wupaer site (1500–400 BC) in the Kashgar Oasis of the western Tarim Basin. Our results showed that early farming in the oasis relied on a mixed wheat and barley system, but after 1200 BC was intensified through more elaborate irrigation, the introduction of more water-demanding legumes, and possibly a greater reliance on free-threshing wheat. These crops and the knowledge of irrigated farming likely dispersed into the Tarim Basin through the mountains from southern Central Asia. Improved agricultural productivity in the Tarim Basin may also have led to demographic and socio-political shifts and fed into the increased exchange that is colloquially referred to as the Silk Road.
link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70515-y
That's downloadable, so it will be easier to read.
i was passing through a very liberal college town recently during rush hour.
so, i decided to stop for some refreshment at a fine-looking establishment and wait for traffic to die down.
a young waitress waited on me who probably could have been stevie nicks twin when she was young.
--------
Can't offer a book, but here are some articles:
Refer some additional articles at the end.
And here's a book:
i was passing through a very liberal college town recently during rush hour.
so, i decided to stop for some refreshment at a fine-looking establishment and wait for traffic to die down.
a young waitress waited on me who probably could have been stevie nicks twin when she was young.
I've specialised in Asian history, and if I was in my twenties, I'd likely be heading for either High School teaching, or an Academic career. (Though, there is a current alternative choice - becoming one of those talking heads on TV who can explain why the present Eurocentric (aka, western, aka white supremacy) system will never end).
But what I really want to say, is that SB's young girl (who he seems to be deriding) has made a remarkable choice. It's a very interesting field of study. How did primitive man manage to select the primitive plants that were selected and learn the skills that allowed them to develop into the important crops we use to feed the world today.
I have no idea what the curriculum of the young woman's degree course includes, but plant breeding (as some call it) is today a very important branch of science. Here's one definition: (quote) -"Plant breeding is the science of changing the traits of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. It has been used to improve the quality of nutrition in products for humans and animals. The goals of plant breeding are to produce crop varieties that boast unique and superior traits for a variety of agricultural applications."
I'm not suggesting that this young woman's course covers the science behind plant breeding, but can easily imagine that it covers the primitive plants used and how they may have managed to improve them.
Once, I may have imagined that all that was done by a magical process produced by a loving father/god, and if I had I may also have derided the young woman's choice.
it really wasn't the end of the jewish world in70 ce, when the romans laid siege to jerusalem.
jewish thought, since it had developed a philosophical (i.e.
fictional) foundation, survived until today.
It really wasn't the END of the Jewish World in70 CE, when the Romans laid siege to Jerusalem. Jewish thought, since it had developed a philosophical (i.e. fictional) foundation, survived until today. I wanted to play with significant words, so used that title. Some readers of this site may be interested in the post.
The article I'm posting (from a site called Heritage Daily) has a tidbjt of information about the way the Romans knocked down old YHWH's defensive walls around his sanctuary, and used this painting by David Roberts to illustrate the article.
The article was headed: AN ARCHAEOLOGIST FROM THE ISRAEL ANTIQUES AUTHORITY HAS IDENTIFIED THE POSITION OF THE ROMAN SIEGE ENGINES USED IN THE ATTACK ON JERUSALEM DURING THE JEWISH–ROMAN WARS.
If you're interested here's the link: https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/08/archaeologist-identifies-position-of-roman-siege-engines-used-during-attack-on-jerusalem/144375