Posts by Bart Belteshassur

14

Isn`t the scripture at Rev.12: 12,13 Pointless ? " Woe for the earth...because the Devil has come down to you having great anger...."

by smiddy in

doesnt the bible clearly show he has always been on the earth causing trouble and havoc ?

onwards.. then especially with the account in the book of job.. not forgetting his tempting jesus in the wilderness.. being reinforced in 2cor.4:4 "...the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of unbeleivers...".

all of which occurs on earth with humans , so whats the big deal about rev.12:12,13 ?.

Bart Belteshassur

Bobcat - My viewpoint on this is that the text is as in most apocalypic writing a cryptic history of pervious events. The start of Rev 12 is a more enlightening version of the Luke birth narrative which is not describing tthe actual birth of Jesus at all but his initiation at age twelve as aproperate for the Jewish sects which maintained monastic orders. At the time described in Rev12 Archelaushad been dismissed by Rome and his control on the Judean and dispora Jewish communities lost. He was allied with the Pharisee sect and the great dragon of Rev 12:3-9, this event took place in 6CE.

With the removal of the Pharisee high priest, who at that time was Joazar Boethus, the Devil who represents the Zealots in the person of Judus the Galilean were thrown from controlling the temple and the leadership pasted to the Sadducee high priest Ananus the Elder. The Sadducees were allied with the peace party politically and therefore supported Quirinius.

In 15CE Augustus died and Tiberius became emperor and being sympathetic to the Herods, allowed them to regained enough control to select a new Pharisee high priest Caiaphas 18CE. However the Dragon of Rev12:13 is Caiaphas and he was in opposion to Mary the woman mother of Jesus at his entry into monastic life at age 23 in 17CE.

Caiaphas then continues in the position of the Dragon throughout Rev13.

That all I can remember at present but if you want to know more about the meaning of revelation and the gosples and acts I'll dig out the approperiate references for you.

Mark

2

How long was Jesus' ministry, and how do we know?

by Bart Belteshassur in

jw
friends

there has always been some debate amoung the churches as to the lenght of the ministry, but on what evidence in the nt is it all based?.

Bart Belteshassur

This is all a bit vague. Luke 3:23 states "about year 30" and also defines the about as the year before, making it 29CE. It is also the case that Luke apears to date Jesus' birth to 6CE, and Matthew to pre 6BCE about 30 years old does not make any sense. After all Luke claims the gospel to be accurate.

John's goseple seems to indicate a period of over 2 years, however the other gosples could be seen as 6 months. I am still confussed.

2

How long was Jesus' ministry, and how do we know?

by Bart Belteshassur in

jw
friends

there has always been some debate amoung the churches as to the lenght of the ministry, but on what evidence in the nt is it all based?.

Bart Belteshassur

There has always been some debate amoung the churches as to the lenght of the ministry, but on what evidence in the NT is it all based?

14

Isn`t the scripture at Rev.12: 12,13 Pointless ? " Woe for the earth...because the Devil has come down to you having great anger...."

by smiddy in

doesnt the bible clearly show he has always been on the earth causing trouble and havoc ?

onwards.. then especially with the account in the book of job.. not forgetting his tempting jesus in the wilderness.. being reinforced in 2cor.4:4 "...the god of this system of things has blinded the minds of unbeleivers...".

all of which occurs on earth with humans , so whats the big deal about rev.12:12,13 ?.

Bart Belteshassur

Smiddy- You raise an interesting point. Before we debate the issue are you aware that the greek text of 12:12 clearly reads:-

"Therefore be glad, Heavens (norm) and those in them tabernacling: Woe to the earth and the sea, because came down the Devil to you ( 2nd person plural refering to Heavens) having wrath great, knowing that a small season he has."

Therefore this verse shows that the Devil has gone to the the Heavens, and is either not on the earth or the heavens are somewhere on earth.

12:13 does not concern the Devil only the Dragon. This Dragon should not be confussed with the Great Dragon of 12:9 they are not the same.

In order to make sense of the verse we must first determine their acurate translation, or their cryptic nature becomes as Jeffro puts it, idiocy.

40

Feb 15 study W/T up on jw.org

by konceptual99 in

latest wt is up.. reinforces jesus becoming king in 1914 (no let up on that date).

marriage of the lamb to the 144,000. yawn.... yawn..... celebrates the 100 year anniversary of the photo drama of creation.

it seems to me that every 100 year anniversary shall be celebrated just to try and take the wind from the sails of apostates.. .

Bart Belteshassur

I am amazed that the WT even admit to the existance of the Essene sect, but evidently in their hurry to not be read or understanding apostate lit, have come up with some teaching of 2 Messiahs an Essene teaching I have never come across.

They appear to miss the main point that the book of Daniel is most probably Essene lit written when they believed that they would restore the Davidic line, that they had been preserving, to the temple following the Maccabean revolt.

As I understand the early teaching it was based on the world weeks detailed in the book of Encoh, and that the Essenes had calulated the date for the 7th world week the formation of the plant of rightousness as 238 BCE (1 Enoch 93:10). This was determined to be year AM3430, and at this time the restoration of the Davids was due at the start of the 8th world week AM3920. This scheme was based on the fall of Jerusalem being determined as AM2940, 728 BCE the start of WW6.

During the Maccabean revolt the scheme was revised in the Essene hope that they could restore the Davids to the temple at its conclusion, and Dan 9 is the correction detail to enable them to start the restoration of AM3920 at 168 BCE. This involved changing the start of WW7 to the return from the exile 728BCE plus 70, giving AM3430 as 658BCE (Dan 9:2) and the restoration to of AM3920 to 168 BCE. The Essene David restoration failed to take place following the end of the revolt, and the prophecy was again altered, with a recalculation to place the fall of Jerusalem at 581 BCE, based on the Testiment of Levi 17:2-10.

Therefore AM3430 was now 511 BCE and the restoration of the temple moved to 21 BCE, AM 3920. The year AM3900 now fell at 41 BCE and was the start of the final world mellenium, with the final judgement due in 960 CE. The first generation of 40 years end AM3940, and was declared a zero generation therefore the first generation of the mellenium was now AM3941, 1 CE.

The beginning of the second Jubilee of the 8th world week was now AM3969, 29 CE the same year as Jesus declared it in Luke 4.

With all the date changes made by the Essene I wonder if they where proto-JWs.

17

What's your reading of Matthew 19:28 ?

by EdenOne in

matthew 19:28: "and jesus said to them, "truly i say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of israel.

" (nasb).

the context shows that jesus was talking to his twelve apostles.

Bart Belteshassur

Redeemer- why would he call himself the son of man?

As I understand the arimaic term for son of or servent of is bar, as in the name Barabbas meaning servant/son of the father, or Barnabbas servant/son of the prophet. Therefore it follows the the term "son of man" would be Baradam, and indecate a name, or a position in some heirachy, the term "son of God" would also indicate a different position when the induvidual was acting in that role. I believe that sadducesses in the position of High Priest refered to themselves as GOD, note not YHWH as that would have been blasphamy, and therefore could be a term to indicate the use of a substitute.

It is interesting that the tribes are also used in the temple scroll found at the Dead Sea, and whilst six of the twelve positions of the tribes are changed Dan is included in the list, and Joseph remaining singular. In the Revelation tribes Asher replaces the postion of Dan. In the temple scroll the tribes are placed in order of daily prayer sequence and refer to their time in the day to pray, set out as a sun dial. The monastic Essenes used a solar calander not the lunar as the Temple cult.

This may show that Jesus was saying that the twelve disciples would be judging the twelve monastic orders of the Essenes, and thus indicating that lay people could take on the role previously only allowed to be held by livites, and therefore equalling the status in religous terms of Sadducesses Livites and Pharacesses nobility.

17

What's your reading of Matthew 19:28 ?

by EdenOne in

matthew 19:28: "and jesus said to them, "truly i say to you, that you who have followed me, in the regeneration when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of israel.

" (nasb).

the context shows that jesus was talking to his twelve apostles.

Bart Belteshassur

BOBCAT- "every tribe of the sons of Israel."

What happened to Dan, did they get send home early from the party??

10

GHOST? SPIRIT? WRAITH? What the heck is holy spirit/HOLY SPIRIT?

by Terry in

we all know people who have opinions on things they've never been educated about--but, that doesn't stop them from acting qualified, does it?

no.. from time to time i read and hear some amazing opinions spoken with confidence and authority with nothing to back all that up.. i have watched pat robertson on tv close his eyes and receive "word" from the spirit.. i have met people who "talk" with god.. obviously these kinds of above-described activities are subjective.. .

it would be like hearing about somebody else's toothache.

Bart Belteshassur

Terry- Do you mean the Holy Spirit or are you referring the the spirit holy? The two evidently have different meanings and are used in conjunction with each other in the greek text on very rare occassions, something which the churches fail to point out in their translations, which probably comes from their following of the Volgate although I have not checked the latin yet. I'll do it in the next 10 mins.

40

The bible condemns Christian religions that teach, Wait!

by Crazyguy in

know where in the bible will you find christian religions being condemned for teaching the trinity or hell fire doctrines, but you will find jesus condemning those that come as messiah's or christs (both mean anointed) and declaring 'the time is near'.

you will also find paul cursing anyone that preaches a gospel different then the apostles preached as well as cursing those that change or add to the bible.

oh darn jw's thats you, you fit the bill in all of these!!!!!!

Bart Belteshassur

SFPW- Is the NWT in Greek? Not last time I looked at it, is there a new Greek edition? If JW's had been blessed with the ability to read it in the original form as some of us are, then there would have be no need to change the original text.

68

Atheist believe in aliens but not God?

by StopTheTears in

jw
friends

if you are a professed atheist, i ask you the question: do you believe in aliens?

could not god be an alien?

how do you know that there is no alien life?

Bart Belteshassur

Kate, the conditions for intelligent life are not restricted to those which will only sustain humans. There is life here on earth which live in the most hostile conditions with regard to temperature and atmosphere. As CL says the conditions on our planet are at present a function of life, and as the conditions change evalution results in the adaption of life to take advantage.