Posts by Phizzy

29

Newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls with the tetragrammaton within the Greek text

by dropoffyourkeylee in

big news from israel, some previously undiscovered dead sea scrolls have been found with portions of the ot in greek.

it says the name of god is included in hebrew letters within the greek text.. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/middleeast/dead-sea-scrolls.html.

"the new fragments contain verses from zechariah 8:16-17, including part of the name of god written in ancient hebrew, and verses from nahum 1:5-6, both from the biblical book of the twelve minor prophets.".

Phizzy

" Of course if the early Christians believed Jesus was God ". The very early Christians did not believe Jesus was the same person as Jehovah.

The belief that he was Divine was beginning to take hold, and was given impetus by the Gospel of John , but that is a very late work, more than likely early 2nd century. The earliest writings we have are the genuine writings of Paul, remember, a good number of what pretend to be his Letters were not written by him. The genuine ones have no concept of Jesus being Jehovah.

The concept and eventual full Doctrine of the Trinity is very late, but the Divinity of Christ in some way was debated and accepted at least by the late 2nd Century, by which time the Trinity was well on the way in the minds of some perhaps.

But what would be fascinating, if a really early fairly full text of an early Gospel were found, would be to see how far an incipient belief in the what became the Trinity Doctrine was perhaps growing, this would be made clear if the Tetragrammaton or Divine Name were used consistently in such a manuscript. The first Gospel was probably " Mark" , but even that was written at the earliest just before 70 CE, and in fact probably after, so time for Christian thought and belief to evolve.

43

When You Were A Witness Did You Believe Everything Taught?

by minimus in

jw
friends

obviously at some point you stopped believing the witnesses had the truth or else you wouldn’t be here.

.

but for the most part, were you a true believer or were you typically a rebel or a doubter?

Phizzy

Born in, but from a very young age could not swallow all the crap. I did believe far too much of it for too long of course, or I would have woken up far earlier in life.

But certainly from my early teen years i was questioning, and did not accept a lot of what they spewed out.

I was pleased, but maybe cursed, to join a Congregation that contained a good number of rebel Spirits when I was 20. WE , the Rebels, used to question everything that struck us as a bit off, not just in teachings but in the Rules about Practice too.

When I joined the Congo. no Bro wore Tie when on the platform ! This independent attitude continued for a good number of years, hence i did not wake up, the seeming freedom of my new Congo keeping me content to remain.

But from the age of ten or so, I never believed it all. I was amazed when I came across some who did !

24

6000 yrs for mankind

by lastmanstanding in

i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?

please reflect on why you think the question was asked.

(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).

Phizzy

As to the History of Writing, we can only go by examples that have been found, on Clay Tablets, as nothing inferior would have survived.

It could well be that systems of " writing" in some form, perhaps keeping a tally of goods and stocks of stuff say, may have existed long before writing on Clay Tablets, it just never survived, if carved on wood or whatever.

Pure Hunter Gatherers of course were as TD hints above, unlikely to need or to use writing. But later Hunter Gatherers who were moving toward being agrarian may possibly have done so. If the need was there. And that is the point, most advances and changes by humans were driven by need.

There is no doubt at all that humans have been around, a lot longer then the Bible allows for.

If we say that as recently as 150,000 years ago mankind was fully sentient, fully conscious of " Self", which is what makes us Human in part, what was the Bible God doing for 144,000 (LOL) of those years until he made Adam ?

23

Did The Witnesses Mess Up Your Sex Life?

by minimus in

jw
friends

most of the witnesses i knew never really talked about sex.

whatever couples did was pretty much kept quiet.

every once in a while a wife might complain to the elders or a friend that the husband is too demanding or even immoral because of the sex practices the husband wanted.

Phizzy

Growing up in any milieu that says Sex is a Sin, at least generally, apart form in certain circumstances is bound ot affect your Sex life, and your whole life in various ways.

Had I exercised more sexual freedom as a teenager, because of what Society was at the time I would probably have ended up married to someone else than my wife of over 50 years anyway. Because i would have been shagging one of my previous girlfriends regularly, i would have felt obliged to marry one of them. Extricating yourself from a marriage is always painful.

So, although I wish I had not had the constraints of being a JW , or of Society in general at the time, my life may have been very different because of the " freedom".

But for JW kids today, when Society in general has become much more adult and sensible about Sex, the restrictions imposed by the Org cause too many to rush in to inappropriate marriages, which end up in heartache and pain, the kind that often goes on for the rest of the life of the people involved, even kids who have been born to the folks who never really should have married.

The Org causes unnecessary suffering once again by a 19th Century view of Sex.

13

Joe Biden can not get my guns now.

by mickbobcat in

i moved them upstairs.

.

Phizzy

10 more dead from a mass shooting morning. However big your personal Arsenal is, how are you going to save your loved ones from a random Shooter at a Shop or wherever ?

Not totally banning gun ownership, but far stricter controls seems to me to be the only way to go.

27

Spiritually Weak Ones Are Bad Association according to the Governing Body

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

after you read the words of jesus in mark 2: 17, you will see that the contrast between the teachings of jesus and the governing body.. .

you clearly read what's written in the bible, but the society is always twisting and bending scriptures to their benefit.

here is stephen lett talking about ''spiritually weak'' members and twisting jesus's words teaching on sinners:.

Phizzy

Thank you for putting that Scripture firmly on context DisJW.

It means that any other application is the usual dishonest thing done by JW Org thing of " going beyond the things written".

Anybody in the JW Org denying the Resurrection would be quickly and firmly ejected, so such people are not in the Org to associate with. So the passage, or single verse, in Corinthians 15 cannot be used by JW Org to limit association with fellow members, unless they do so dishonestly.

75

Misquotes, Lies and deception in Watchtower Publications

by jwfacts in

i have just finished an article misquotes, deception and lies and would like your comments, proof reading, and any other examples that you think are important to add.

most of these already appear on jwfacts.com within specific articles, but it is more powerful seeing them included together.

there have also been a number of requests over the years for such a collection.

Phizzy

Well thanks for that Dis.JW, I wonder if what you have is a later Edition of the brochure than the one I had in front of me 8 years ago ? I can dig that one out, but at present access is difficult, as my wife has stacked a lot of storage boxes in front of the bookcase where I keep all my old JW stuff, but from memory there was no such Footnote as you mention.

It is of course possible I missed it ?

Anyway, they did their usual of chopping up what Dr. Cleland said, and making it appear to say something she did not, typical lying by Quote Mining. I agree with what she said, she objects to making her words appear to say something she never said, that you may not call a misquote, and maybe it isn't , because it is a deliberate chopping of a quote , and is quite scurrilous.

29

Newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls with the tetragrammaton within the Greek text

by dropoffyourkeylee in

big news from israel, some previously undiscovered dead sea scrolls have been found with portions of the ot in greek.

it says the name of god is included in hebrew letters within the greek text.. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/world/middleeast/dead-sea-scrolls.html.

"the new fragments contain verses from zechariah 8:16-17, including part of the name of god written in ancient hebrew, and verses from nahum 1:5-6, both from the biblical book of the twelve minor prophets.".

Phizzy

" It does underline once again that practice among Jews was to include the divine name in their texts in one form or another, and it’s a fair conclusion that the first Christians probably did as well."

Possibly and more than likely they would follow the example of the Text they were quoting, so if a first century Copy of the Septuagint is found with the divine name in that would be conclusive proof, I doubt the N.T writers were using Centuries old Copies.

It would still not be proof that they early Christians pronounced the name aloud. More than likely they used the word in their language that equates to "Lord".

JW's have NO PROOF or Basis for their practice of saying Jehovah this and Jehovah that at every opportunity. Nor can they say that the Divine Name would even have been written elsewhere in N.T Texts than in quotes from the Septuagint. That is mere opinion.

24

6000 yrs for mankind

by lastmanstanding in

i have a question to the board.. if someone asks you the below question, how do you respond?

please reflect on why you think the question was asked.

(background... the spouse was talking to dubs about 6000 yrs and wanted to tell them that it was proved false).

Phizzy

The JW Org stance has always been that Adam and Eve were crated a little over 6,000 years ago. As they try to make every story in the Bible literal, they believe Adam and Eve were real people and the first humans.

In which case they are in deep do-do, because there are buildings , which appear to be Temples, but certainly built by human hands , that are at least three thousand years OLDER than when A&E were supposedly created.

Scientists in any field do not merely " believe" what has been established , use of the word "believe" is deliberate by the Org and other Bible believers who are anti-Science to make it appear there is room for doubt.

There is no doubt at all that life on Earth got to be as it is today by Natural Selection, or if you prefer Evolution. No room for doubt.

What is not 100% proven , and probably will not be, is when the first true "man" Homo Sapiens actually appeared. We know it was hundreds of thousands of years ago possibly, or maybe a bit closer to our time, but as it probably was with most changes, it happened slowly, and with a few cases at first, there was no single point in time we can identify. But we DO know, and no room for doubt, that it happened at least 100,000 years ago, and probably much earlier.

Men and women like us have been around a lot longer than Bible Myths and Fables would have you believe.

With the original question there was the element of "should I tell the truth", I always think you should, if you are sure that the person will not react angrily, in a devastating way. But you cannot sacrifice truth to spare mere feelings.

Perhaps the best thing is to say " Why don't we have a look at what Wiki says together ?" JW Org does not disapprove of Wiki. Then when you get something like " Pfffttt, so that is what they believe is it ?" you can explain as I did above, that the Scientific Method results in Facts and Evidence that are Truth, no belief needed.

140

Why So Many Young People Are Leaving The Watchtower

by Jeremy C in

i have been giving a lot of thought to the young people who are leaving the watchtower organization in recent years.

last night, i was reading the thread posted by jwfacts a while back in which he provided some statistics and graphs showing the rapidly declining growth in the watchtower.

one factor that was discussed at length was the high number of young people who do not stay in the organization.

Phizzy

"All the intelligent ones have left" Talk about cognitive dissonance".

Yes, I thought it strange at the time. Shortly before I left this guy resigned as an Elder, stopped answering at meetings, and used to just sit there reading the Bible, not listening to the waffle, so I guess he had wakened up a bit ! He and his wife started missing Meetings, and she told me "they did not take the religion as seriously now ".

They both remained in, officially, because they have a huge extended family still in and I guess didn't want to lose contact with them. It must be painful to know it is Bullshit, and have to put on a bit of a show, to stay in. But that is the fate of many.

The sad thing too, is that it may well be the kids and grandkids are staying in because of this very couple still being in ! I bet they have never discussed it.