important news just in........
phil says six more weeks of winter!
on gobbler's knob, punxsutawney, pennsylvania at 7:27 a.m. this groundhog day, february 2nd, 2003, punxsutawney phil, king of groundhogs, seer of seers, imitated but never equaled, responded to the summons of groundhog president bill cooper.
yes, i could never understand the WT's hardline stance on celebrating Groundhog day, citing numerous so-called 'pagan' origins and supposed orgiastic fertility rites in honour of the ancient Sumerian groundhog god Uilli. im so glad to be free to celebrate it now.
mox
id like to hear some *reasoned* explanations for why you believe the bible is gods word.
ive been so fascinated by the study of *real* biblical scholarship since i began educating myself, i now find it incredulous that i used to take the bible as divine, along with all jws and tons of christians, including a good number here.
so id like to entertain your very best lines of evidence that this is the real deal.. mox
Gumby said:there is not ONE writer other than CHRISTIAN writers that wrote about Jesus....other than Josephus who mentioned little about him and his writing is believed to be forged as it does't rhyme with the writing style he had. Why? With the many who wrote back then wouldn't you think someone would have written about a man who turned water to wine, walked on water, raised the dead, healed the terminally ill???? None!
I disagree on this and I will post more info soon
this is indeed a controversial point, and gumby may be stating the matter too simply. certainly there were other writers that wrote about jesus, but the question is where did they get their information? if their information came only from what christians were saying about jesus, then this is not independant evidence. tacitus, for example, writing in 115, is certainly basing his statement about jesus on christian testimony, not from 90-year-old roman records.
exactly what was included in the original testimonium flavianum is one of the most common questions for debate in biblical scholarship. almost no one thinks josephus wrote the entire thing, so at a minimum the entire thing is called into question. below is the entire testimonium with the parts most commonly believed to be christian insertions in bold:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.
but how exactly does this show the bible is gods word?
mox
many opinions have been expressed on this board as to what is killing the society today.
i am positive that issues such as the un scandal, the pedophile issue, etc.
are having a negative effect and contributing to a general slackening off and sense of malaise amongst the rank and file.
as someone who is skeptical of any 'news' i hear on this board, but has been away for a long time, i would like some elaboratation on this:
For instance, recently it has been made known the Governing Body plans to "liquidate" many tangible assets, buildings in New York city, like they did with the Stanley Theatre a little while back, to the tune of some $35 million we recall.
i cant find any reference to this anywhere in old posts, except someone who said they heard speculation from an elder about stanley theatre but seemed unclear on details. i see mention of a D.O. who said the furman st building was being sold, but thats it. ive heard a lot from my own sources about out-sourcing printing and sending home a large fraction of the bethelites, but the scope and details are not clear. whats the deal?
mox
while many have had their hopes dashed concerning the change on this "generation " teaching, there is yet another teaching yet to fall very soon.it must and will fall because it connected to the generation doctrine that has already been changed.. the teaching that could shortly cause the governing body a serious problem and could bring about a major change for the vast majority of the rank and file is "the great tribulation".while this teaching has been put off to the " indefinite future"the gb.continues to have a serious problem with it.if the great tribulation fails to occur reasonably soon,the doctrine concerning the earthly hope for the vast majority of jw's.will have proven to have been false.the' great crowd' are those who will have come out of the great tribulation.according to the society those persons began to be identified as present as early as 1932.so the youngest members are now in their 70's or 80's.. again, the time-line is running out!
and has the potential of adversely affecting hundreds of thousands of other witnesses in the not to distant future,as time passes without the fulfilment of their hopes for a new heavens and a new earth.. also, some time ago,there was a watchtower study article, i don't remember which one it was .it spiritualized, armageddon!
psalm 91,especially verse 7.it said that a thousand will fall at your very side and ten thousand at your right hand,applies to those leaving the org.
why shouldnt all the statements about millions never dying simply have their fulfillment moved farther and farther forward as need be? after all, all the bible statements on the matter have been moved forward thousands of years and theres no indication that the writers thought they were speaking of anything but the present. my favourite is the old WT standby 2 tim 3. remember that? 'in the last days there will be critical times... etc.' remember how it ends? in speaking to timothy, paul describes the people in the last days and tells him: "...from these turn away." he clearly thought the last days would occur in his lifetime! but no one has the slightest qualm imposing future meaning onto the words where none is implied. the same will be true of russell and rutherford.
mox
id like to hear some *reasoned* explanations for why you believe the bible is gods word.
ive been so fascinated by the study of *real* biblical scholarship since i began educating myself, i now find it incredulous that i used to take the bible as divine, along with all jws and tons of christians, including a good number here.
so id like to entertain your very best lines of evidence that this is the real deal.. mox
im really baffled here. and i didnt mean to accuse anyone of 'derailing' the discussion. i know what this board is like. its just that i regularly read from lots of intelligent ex-jw posters here about bible topics that imply continued belief in it as gods word. i would like to know why. some of the responses have dealt with faith in god and this is not what i was asking. i understand that it may be very difficult to divorce the bible completely from faith in god after having vested so much sacred meaning into it for so long, but it should be possible with some effort. it is a matter of science. it may not be as hard a science as physics, but literary analysis, archeology and history are all empirical fields of study. the source of the bible should be open to the same types of inquiry as the nature of the atom, regardless of ones faith in god.
it puzzles me now that the WT produces so little information on the subject. the notion is always assumed that the bible is the base point. is almost seems as everything starts from that and there is nothing before it. the require brochure does not even attempt to. no wonder there is so little conversion among cultures that had no prior exposure to the bible, especially those cultures that had their own sacred texts. is this really the case then, that these people have simply assumed it and never given it more than cursory thought? put yourself in the shoes of a member one of these non-biblical cultures, eg muslim, who never really knew anything about the bible before. how would they become convinced of its truth? would you follow more or less the same lines of reasoning you did when you were faced with this very situation in service?
for those of you who believe the bible is gods word, you still share this important aspect with the WT. perhaps you do not feel the need to proselytize on the matter, but i would assume you are still able to present a reasoned defense for this foundation belief. would the freeminds people, for example, still find the WT 'God's Word or Man's' book to be an excellent reference on the matter, except where it delves into WT doctrine? since people like this have claimed to have discovered all kinds of meaning in the bible that were hidden to them as witnesses, perhaps they have a very different view on the reliability of scripture, using different lines of evidence than those typical of WT literature: prophecy; candor; harmony; scientific accuracy; beneficial power. i dont know. could anyone tell me?
mox
id like to hear some *reasoned* explanations for why you believe the bible is gods word.
ive been so fascinated by the study of *real* biblical scholarship since i began educating myself, i now find it incredulous that i used to take the bible as divine, along with all jws and tons of christians, including a good number here.
so id like to entertain your very best lines of evidence that this is the real deal.. mox
hi safe and expat - good to see u guys again.
im dissapointed. i got a lot of responses but only one curious sentence in actual response to my question. and i know that many people reading this believe the bible is gods word. just give me some lines of evidence. i promise not to call anyone a stupid hominem. im really interested.
The book.."The Jesus Mysteries" is excellent in explaing the formation of the bible and many facts about 'jesus'.
i would also recommend 'the jesus puzzle' by earl doherty to anyone who is interested in actually studying the bible. i find the bible to be a wonderful and fascinating book once i remove it from the realm of sacred literature. i have enjoyed so much learning about the ironic book of J, the thoughtful book of Q, the masterful melding of Mark's mythology, the archeological finds in bible lands and what they really say. its like coming out of an office of idiot amateurs and getting a job with some professionals.
so anyone have an answer to my original question?
id like to hear some *reasoned* explanations for why you believe the bible is gods word.
ive been so fascinated by the study of *real* biblical scholarship since i began educating myself, i now find it incredulous that i used to take the bible as divine, along with all jws and tons of christians, including a good number here.
so id like to entertain your very best lines of evidence that this is the real deal.. mox
Id like to hear some *reasoned* explanations for why you believe the Bible is Gods Word. Ive been so fascinated by the study of *real* biblical scholarship since I began educating myself, i now find it incredulous that i used to take the bible as divine, along with all JWs and tons of christians, including a good number here. so id like to entertain your very best lines of evidence that this is the real deal.
mox
i am having great trouble with distinguishing between where the nwt refers to jehovah in the nt and where it should really read lord meaning, not god, but the lord; jesus.
the problem comes to light in a passage quoted in this weeks watchtower study.. the passage in question was romans 14:8, though you really have to read verse 9 as well to a better flavour of what paul was talking about.. in the nwt, the passage reads;.
9. for to this end christ died and came to life again, that he might be lord over both the dead and the living.. other translations, which do not attempt to substitute gods name, render the passage along the lines of;.
youll also find a ton of references here:
http://home.europa.com/~lynnlund/itmidx2.htm
some have a bit of an evangelical bent, but it contains some thorough documentation. incidently, they cite 115 of the 237 instances of jehovah as having OT precedence.
mox
ok yesterday i was talking to my dad (moe's thread reminded me) he said something about how bad satan was...and said, yeah but "wasn't it eve and adam's fault?
i mean yeah satan laid out the sales pitch but they could have said no.
you know gone home, talked it over with god, it wasn't even that high pressured a sales pitch.
the issue of determinism may not have a simple answer, but it is a simple question: can the state of a closed system at some time t be fully determined from measurements taken at some time before t? in the newtonian worldview, it can. in the einsteinian view, certainly the more correct view, it cannot, since absolute measurements cannot be taken to begin with. this is certianly not the end of the matter, and philsophers should certainly be free to continue pondering this all-important question unfettered by knowledge of quantum physics.
more importantly, the WT view of the matter (selective foreknowledge) not only belies a total ignorance or lack of concern with these questions, it is, as religious doctrinal explanations go, purely banal and juvenile. it amounts to an argument as silly as homer simpson posed: "could jesus bake a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it?"
mox
ok yesterday i was talking to my dad (moe's thread reminded me) he said something about how bad satan was...and said, yeah but "wasn't it eve and adam's fault?
i mean yeah satan laid out the sales pitch but they could have said no.
you know gone home, talked it over with god, it wasn't even that high pressured a sales pitch.
why does it make any difference whether or not god did or did NOT see something? this type of thinking is anthropocentric, or anthropomorphic, a primitive worldview in which god is just like one of us, but stronger. the REAL question is whether or not the universe is determistic or not, that is, whether or not future events are fully determined before they happen. whether or not someone actually SAW the future or not is besides the point when it comes to free will. if the future is fully determined, then seen or unseen, both free will and time are illusions. if god created a deterministic universe and started events rolling then the outcome was as certain if he had done it himself. the passage of time would be irrelevant. the question would become as ridiculous as questioning whether a man was guilty of murder if he closes his eyes before firing the gun. the trajectory of the bullet and the outcome are as certain as the events in the imaginary garden of eden would have been if you accept a determinstic universe. and if you dont believe in determinism, then god cannot be all-powerful and all-knowing, there is simply no future to know beyond probabalities.
mox
