I joined after he left but his old posts have been very enlightening. Let me too join in the others' wish to send him a hearty thank you, JWF, if you still email him!
aristeas
JoinedPosts by aristeas
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20
Whatever happened to Narkissos?
by tenyearsafter ini just happened upon one of his posts, and i realized i hadn't seen him post in over a year.
i really enjoyed his insightful comments and scholarly knowledge.
he and leolaia could always contribute to those difficult biblical questions that really required a knowledge of the languages and history of biblical times.
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European Court to favor the WT and condemns the French goverment
by Nick! inthis news was announced today on the journal "le monde": http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2011/06/30/temoins-de-jehovah-la-cour-europeenne-des-droits-de-l-homme-condamne-la-france_1543102_3224.html#xtor=rss-3208.
unfortunately, the european court of human rights has just condemned the french government against jehovahs witnesses.
if you recall, the french state was claiming 23 million euro (abt 33 million us dollars) taxes on contributions received by the french watchtower during the years 1993-96, which, by now, had climbed to about 58 million euro (abt 83 million us dollars) counting interests and charges.. it is not easy to size the wt.
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aristeas
Thx for the English translation.
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33
How many times was Christ begotten?
by GOrwell inin light of all the recent trinity threads, how many times do you think christ was begotten?.
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aristeas
GO,
Are you hinting at the doctrine of being born of the spirit?
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140
The effect we are having on the Watchtower is HUGE
by jwfacts ini was inspired by a recent thread i know i aint gunna crumble the wt, but a girl can dream to look at the effect we as individuals are having on the watchtower society.. 3dogs1husband quoted a story to show that even helping only one person is worth it.. it is encouraging to note that the one person you may have helped has lead to millions being helped, due to the power of compounding growth.. compounding growth is well illustrated by the rice on a chessboard problem.
if you start with 1 grain of rice on square one, and double it to 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth, by the last (64th) square there would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice.. likewise, if you help one person out of the grip of the watchtower this year, then next year you help one more and they help one, in a few years that is going to have a formidable result on the number of jehovahs witnesses.
look at the following statistics.
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aristeas
MdSw,
Thanks very much for the post. I always had problems wih the 'old understanding' b/c the sheep were just as surprised that they had done good to Christ's brothers as the goats were, and that didn't fit the 'old understanding' at all. But, of course, I could never speak out about this, and on a multitude of other things either. Well, at least they admitted that they were wrong — albeit in a subdued way. Do you think they'll follow suit in other areas? They ARE v-e-r-y s-l-o-w to change though, even with mountains of evidence staring them in the face! Some day they will have to jettison that absurd 607 thing.
So are some the paragraphs of the WT study article really so small now? That must have happened after I left too. Much of it really is written on a simple level (the into. paragraphs). I wonder if the translators like it more that way now...
How does one get this CD-ROM?
NO BITES in the 120 year (Genesis generation) thing from anyone?
Thx again, MS.
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The effect we are having on the Watchtower is HUGE
by jwfacts ini was inspired by a recent thread i know i aint gunna crumble the wt, but a girl can dream to look at the effect we as individuals are having on the watchtower society.. 3dogs1husband quoted a story to show that even helping only one person is worth it.. it is encouraging to note that the one person you may have helped has lead to millions being helped, due to the power of compounding growth.. compounding growth is well illustrated by the rice on a chessboard problem.
if you start with 1 grain of rice on square one, and double it to 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth, by the last (64th) square there would be 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 grains of rice.. likewise, if you help one person out of the grip of the watchtower this year, then next year you help one more and they help one, in a few years that is going to have a formidable result on the number of jehovahs witnesses.
look at the following statistics.
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aristeas
jwfacts,
WOW, what a great post! You are really onto something. All their entrenching re: the net — well, it doesn't seem to be working.
sir82,
PLEASE give me the ref. to the change in the sheep and goats of Mt. 25. I've been out a long time and was unaware of this. I think that's a rather biggie.
'What's the point of collecting all this detail if they don't pore over graphs like the one above?'
From what I remember, sir82, they DO pore over graphs just like this one. Their main belief is that Jehovah's blessing on their work comes via growth. They are probably REAL concerned over this, but won't show that to the publishers.
Old Goat,
your input is appreciated!
MS,
'They will create a "new" meeting earlier in the week so that no JW has to go more than 3 days without indoctrination reinforcement anymore. '
FUNNNNYYYY b/c it's so true!Also has anyone heard anything definite re: using the 120 years from Gen. (Noah/flood) to put off Armg. till 2034? I saw this recently in ano. post here. It sounds plausible that they might do something like that...
The number of replies here just confirm WHAT A GREAT POST THIS ONE IS!!!
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Journal Club: Are Professors All Atheists? (video)
by bohm inthis is a must-see no matter religious orientation for anyone who believe universities are mostly populated by atheists:.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urv-bqyrbfa&feature=feedu.
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aristeas
Well, no doubt there ARE many atheists on campuses, but I know some who are not so. I had lunch with a philosophy professor fairly recently. He teaches in a dept. where only a few of the faculty are 'theists' (including him, though not religious) to use his term. Most are atheists. But I've known numerous others, esp. in theology/religious studies, history, the arts, music, social sciences, and a few even in the hard sciences who believe in some sort of God/god. I've known a number of Catholic professors. Of course, there are some Jewish professors at all sorts of universities, and many of them are believers (but not all —just think of Freud).
Hope this helps.
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Watchtowers Enlightenment And Then Comes Blood
by Marvin Shilmer inwatchtowers enlightenment and then comes blood .
recently my blog presentations have peered into tall tales of demonism published by watchtower.
what is my point?
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aristeas
Marvin
thx for the reply. Any info on this other elder from 2006? Perhaps available on your site? Elsewhere?
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Anyone know of a list of the 540+ variants?
by aristeas inlast year (oct.) the society of biblical literature (sbl) published a new greek text of the new testament, called the sbl edition.
its editor is michael holmes, a prof. of biblical studies at bethel college in st. paul, mn.
he had previously published a number of greek editions with english translations of the apostolic fathers (af, basically the church fathers who most immediately followed the apostles, usu.
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aristeas
I think we are both having more time to spend with the text. Here are those links wiht non-professional review that I was going to post, but I got interrupted:
http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2010/10/initial-impressions-of-the-sbl-greek-new-testament.html
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2011/06/review-of-sbl-greek-new-testament.html
If you want to try to DL Elliott's scholarly review, here's the link (it's in the JTS), but you have to access it at a library that subscribes or shell out the money yourself:
http://jts.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/03/06/jts.flr014.extract
Jas. 5:4 isn't the only substantial variant; 2 Jo 12: 'you' vs. 'us' is an important difference too!
What happened with the NIV was the same as the NEB. Originally a group of scholars worked indepently on translating different books, each probably using and comparing the available texts. Then editorial committees had their say. What resulted was a translation based on no one single text, but a variety. Like RGV Tasker did with the Greek text 'behind' the NEB, that is, put together the ecclectic Greek text as a retroversion from the English long after the NEB was published, so these chaps Goodrich and Lukaszewski, via Goodrick and Kohlenberger, have done the same with the NIV. Verstehen Sie?
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Watchtowers Enlightenment And Then Comes Blood
by Marvin Shilmer inwatchtowers enlightenment and then comes blood .
recently my blog presentations have peered into tall tales of demonism published by watchtower.
what is my point?
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aristeas
Marvin,
Do you know whatever became of Randy Jensen whose correspondence re: blood with the O has been published all over the net? Is he still in? Been DFed or DAed? The correspondence (some of which you quote in your most recent blog) ends in 2003 with his resigning as an elder. Sort of leaves the reader hanging...
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Anyone know of a list of the 540+ variants?
by aristeas inlast year (oct.) the society of biblical literature (sbl) published a new greek text of the new testament, called the sbl edition.
its editor is michael holmes, a prof. of biblical studies at bethel college in st. paul, mn.
he had previously published a number of greek editions with english translations of the apostolic fathers (af, basically the church fathers who most immediately followed the apostles, usu.
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aristeas
I have had some more time to spend with the SBLGNT. Here are some of my observations. The on-line version may be a little more difficult to use than the hardbound copy b/c it’s easier to flip pages perhaps than open up several pdf documents at once due to desktop space. On the issue of brackets, let me correct my last post. On p. xiv, note 16, Holmes states that they ‘have been employed in this edition sparingly’ and goes on to list only 6 instances at the end of the long note. Sparingly indeed! Below are some links to non-professional reviews. There is one professional review I found on line, but one must get to a university library that subscribes ($/£/€) to DL those. I will try to do this soon. If anyone wants a copy, you’ll have to PM me as I tried to post a link to Zoe Knox’s article after I DLed that, but it would not take at two hosts. I suspect these electronically ULed scholarly articles are somehow coded so that someone who has DLed one cannot then UL it and link it. Otherwise, I would just UL it and post the link here.
I found a partial list of the 540+ passages in the text itself. The last pdf document is labelled ‘back’. When you open it up, it’s called an appendix. Here it gives a list of where the SBLGNT differs from the ECM. Although ECM is not defined, I think it’s the Editio Critica Maior, a huge project of producing a NA sort of text with ALL the variants listed. Evidently, so far only the Catholic letters have been done. Hence that’s all Holmes has listed. If I’m wrong here, someone can correct me. Anyway, there is a list of 39 differences between Holmes and the ‘standard text’. Now we need the other 501+! I’m still looking for that info. Surely some computer geek has already done this, so if you run into it, please share the link.