Posts by Sea Breeze

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

Simply said, if you take away the Christian sources on the subject, what is the story on Jesus you are left with? There is no Jesus in any contemporary record, Christians are mentioned as a sect from the Jews, Pontius Pilate is a footnote at best.

What you don't seem to understand is that the most prominent agnostic-atheist-skeptic scholars use parts of the NT as literal history. Why are atheist scholars allowed to do this, but not anyone else? Doesn't make sense, and thinking people don't buy that restriction. These skeptic scholars may not use it as a believer does sitting in church on a Sunday morning. But, they do allow 7 or 8 books of the NT as legitimate historical sources., where the writer is corroborated and where he was at the right place at the right time to know what was going on.

Using only these sources, the 12 facts of Jesus Resurrection are agreed upon as literal history by the majority of skeptic scholars who publish in this area. And, as such cannot be dismissed by thinking people.

Here are an additional couple dozen sources or so surrounding the historicity of Jesus from extra biblical sources.

We know from history that tens of thousands of orthodox Jews, (right in the heart of Jerusalem where their claims could be easily refuted if not true), made the Resurrection their central message, abandoned Saturday as their holy day, and accepted Sunday (the day of the Resurrection) as their new holy day. Jews don't change even over millennia. But, they did.

They did this at great personal expense - shunned forever from family and friends, and worse. Can you provide a plausible explanation for this fact of history other than the Resurrection? Why would people just up and submit to the harshest abuse possible unless the Resurrection is true?

What say you?

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

They are simply articles of faith.

@ Anony Mous

There are contradictory (or complimentary) accounts of how the Titanic sank. But, none of those belie the fact that it sank. Testimonies often present facts in a fragmentary way. In spite of this, or perhaps party because of it, scholars agree the tomb was empty of Jesus' body. That is only one of the facts that scholars agree on.

I believe you have seen this presentation before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOW7k3hQ-vE&ab_channel=FallenEmbers

They are simply articles of faith.

No. Critical Scholarship, not faith, produces the12 facts above.

So, if this is what even atheist/skeptic scholars agree are the minimum facts surrounding the Resurrection, then there is a basis other than faith to deal with the implications of these facts, since they are rooted in evidence. And if the evidence produces these facts, then there is a logical reason to attempt to explain the facts without a Resurrection. The evidence is good enough to require a verdict.

Hand waving is easy, especially if you are biased and your faith (bias) wants these facts to simply go away. But, if you are honest, you will come to the conclusion that these facts a very difficult to explain away, in spite of some variance without the Resurrection.

We have to keep in mind that this man (Jesus) radically altered the course of world history and the whole planet counts time by his life. Which are more reasons why hand-waving isn't warranted, as if the topic is so insignificant that it is not even worthy of the slightest consideration.

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

After examining it and cross examining it I found it to be a fine example of Apologetics - it sounds reasonable, but there is still no evidence. It is just logical argument.

Contemporary Apologetics

The above represent the minimum facts that the most skeptic scholars who publish in this area concede to. Can you give plausible explanations for these facts that do not include a resurrection?

Especially 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11,12

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

You are certainly welcome to your view. But it is not in line with modern scholarship which views the resurrection as one of the most well attested to events in history.

The NT contains several ancient creeds that even atheist scholars agree were formed within months, or a couple years at most from the Cross. These "verbal scriptures" served as doctrinal aids, since most people didn't read or write. The creeds and the writings themselves, are all well within the lifetimes of the eye-witnesses, and could have easily challenged them as nonsense or fake by people who were all still alive at the time. That didn't happen.

Creed Examples:

1 Timothy 3:16

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion:

God was manifested in the flesh,
Vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

I Corinthians 15:3-4

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

Christians usually accept many ancient writings as history books, but not inspired as infallible scripture. But, even as history books, they may contain legitimate prophecies that were given to various people of God.... all the way back to Adam.

From the beginning, Christians used the New Testament as their ONLY guide. Even the OT, while viewed as the word of God with valuable background information, was not in the same class as NT apostolic writings. Why? Simple. Christianity is a single event faith. Jesus rose from the dead. And that supersedes everything else.

Books like Enoch were viewed as history books by the early church leaders and worthy of study, but were generally not viewed as the infallible word of God. - Just a good history book for reference.

Here is a brief discussion of the book of Enoch from scholar Ken Johnson that is interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaDfq3nEp9Y&t=371s&ab_channel=ProphecyWatchers

54

Do you think the big A will come after Russia invades Ukraine?

by Iamallcool in

jw
friends

any takers?

.

Sea Breeze

*** w05 12/1 p. 6 Armageddon -- A Happy Beginning ***

"Many wonder, however, why a God who is the very embodiment of love would inflict death and destruction on much of humankind. The situation might be compared to that of a pest-infested house. Would you not agree that a conscientious homeowner should safeguard the health and well-being of his family by exterminating the pests? ... The battle of Armageddon is actually one of the best things that could happen to us!

Wow! The above that VB posted is just outrageous. When I read stuff like this it has really makes me look closely at what it is they are so obsessed about that it drives them to use this level of misdirection.

Revelation is about revealing the full nature and role of Jesus Christ as the King of Kings.

"The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants" - Rev. 1:1 It's all about revealing Jesus.

The imagery that the WT has crafted in the minds of their readers is that Jehovah will be running around squashing people like ants. This is not what Revelation or Armageddon is about. God progressively allows the anti-christ more and more power over people, since they have rejected his appointed King. - Jesus.

At the very end Jesus shows up and defeats the imposter King who has been killing a lot of the world's people with his globalism. Jesus prevents a total extinction of the human race. "Unless those days were cut short, no flesh would be saved".

God is the good guy in the story. Stop taking the Watchtower's bait. .

48

Marc O'Donell's statement: Lloyd and the conflict of Interest

by Diogenesister in

as expected from a man who prioritizes the most vulnerable members of our community, marc has made a sober statement that explains why there's a deep conflict of interest between lloyds recent behaviour and the work they do at jw watch.

you can read it here:.

public statement of mark o’donnell.

Sea Breeze

Nitty-Gritty: You are a sick person. Just as sick as Lloyd.

And nobody forced her to give Lloyd oral sex. Gosh, I knew so many girls at my school (yes, aged 14) who would do just that behind the bike shed.

My 12 YO could drive a car since he learned to drive 4 wheelers at our family ranch. But, we don't give 12 year olds a license to drive because THEY ARE NOT EMOTIONALLY MATURE enough yet to navigate the complexities of driving on streets.

I can assure you that parents do not want their 14 year old girls navigating their natural, God-given pubescence by jacking off old men in public parks.

So why am I saying all this? It’s because of this false pretend morality some of these accusers have. It’s like watching a witch hunt by those who are witches themselves.

People who have been fed on a steady diet of porn, think "everyone is doing that stuff". I can assure you that people with family values (atheist, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu etc.) are not practicing or complacent about this kind of depravity.

Your attitude is incredibly offensive.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

Sea Breeze

If this stuff is legit, then the man is a classic sociopathic pedophile. That explains everything anyone needs to know.

More lyrics come to mind like: White Liar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEhAOVdAq4s&ab_channel=The0Good0Lyrics

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

@ Jeffro..... good point.

Apparently, there are gnostic versions of a lot of these works by the same names floating around. They are reportedly easy to spot once you know what to look for.

47

JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous in

so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

Sea Breeze

The book of Jasher is referenced in the bible. Enoch is quoted once; and Jubilees was referenced by the early church leaders a lot.. These are best understood as history books, (recommended reading) just as we have history books today. They never claimed to be inspired or infallible, nor were held up as such.

The Go-To resource in my opinion in all things dead sea scrolls related, is Dr. Ken Johnson. He has a website and YouTube channel. He writes "readable" books on many dead sea scrolls (books) sorta like cliff notes that are easy to digest by the common person. I have been listening to his YouTube channel for years.

I believe his work is some of the most interesting stuff going on in the Christian community right now. Many other Prophecy Watchers agree.

He pieced together from dead sea scrolls the original calendar the Jews were using prior to Babylonian captivity, and has a digital version on his website. It was a 364 day calendar which is divisible by 7 and 52 allowing for every festival to consistently fall on the same day of the week. They had a leap week every few years to compensate for the 1.25 days short each year.

The calendar issue was one of the main issues to split the Essenes and Pharisees. The Jews were forced to use the moon based system of the Babylonians when they were conquered by them. and taken as slaves back to Babylon. After being freed, they were supposed to go back to the original 364 day solar calendar that was in use since the time of Adam. But, they didn't which caused a division.

Most people are unaware that there are hundreds of dead sea scrolls, many of which are just now becoming available. " I found "Gad the Seer" to be fascinating. Most people are bored to death by this kind of thing but I find the whole topic to be utterly fascinating.

Now that we have found fragments of "Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs" in pre-Christian era dead sea scrolls, we can disregard the critics that claimed this was a medieval work to bolster Christianity. They claimed that because the theology in the book is virtually a carbon copy of New Testament theology. (Too good to be true)

Dr. Johnson's work shows that this theology ("Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs") was followed by the Essenes to interpret scripture, while the Pharisees used their oral tradition from all their "elder meetings" to interpret scripture.