Posts by peacefulpete

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

peacefulpete

aqwsed12345......Moreover, if the early Church had simply invented authorship to lend credibility to these texts, they likely would have chosen more prominent apostles like Peter or James.

Just an additional note. Tertullian in his Against Marcion says the following regarding Gospels:

Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of their narratives, provided that there be agreement in the essential matter of the faith, in which there is disagreement with Marcion. Marcion, on the other hand, you must know, ascribes no author to his Gospel, as if it could not be allowed him to affix a title to that from which it was no crime (in his eyes) to subvert the very body. And here I might now make a stand, and contend that a work ought not to be recognized, which holds not its head erect, which exhibits no consistency, which gives no promise of credibility from the fullness of its title and the just profession of its author.

Now Marcion's conviction was that the works of Paul and the Gospel had been corrupted and altered by his own church. His version of the Gospel (possibly he had available a form resembling what was named Luke) has no name attached. It seems likely he regarded the names as part of the corruption.

Tertullian's argument is strange, he accuses Marcion (perhaps rightly so) of starting with a copy of Luke then faults him for not giving his redacted version a pseudonymous name. Going so far as to say anonymous Gospels "should 'not be recognized'. He clearly illustrates why names were assigned to anonymous Gospels; it supplied "credibility".

72

The Watchtower's Depiction of 'paradise'..

by Ron.W. in

perhaps we could post the pictures the wt have presented in their literature that depict their version of paradise here for comment/discussion:.

from: spirits of the dead—can they help you or harm you?

do they really exist?.

peacefulpete

What I take away is that everything in the pictures from comfortable modern housing and technology to the large, delicious cultivar varieties of fruit and vegetables are due to the hard work, schooling and ingenuity of "worldly" people. According to a literalist reading of Genesis, Yahweh left them to fend for themselves in a cursed land, wearing animal skins and sweaty brows.

33

Sorcery = Pharmakeia

by KerryKing in

rev18:23 '....you deceived the nations with your sorceries'.. the interlinear for sorceries reads pharmakeia.. bible hub has some interesting definitions, i'll try to share screenshots below.

the gist of it is that sorcery involves drugs/medicines/poisons, with or without spells, sorcery is not the same as witchcraft or divination, or white/black magic.

i have long wondered about the connection between the medical/pharmaceutical industry's symbol of the serpent wrapped around a pole/stake, and the use of the word pharmaceuticals/pharmacy.. considering the common use of fluoride in public drinking water, nsaids with side effects such as depression, brain fog, dizziness, and opioids, mrna gene therapy, vaccines and so on, i wonder am i going mad, are these all coincidences??

peacefulpete

So, to reduce the risk of poor health they threatened you with loss of family and friends.

33

Museum Pic

by peacefulpete in

a lot of ink has been spilled on the topic of the cross.

the wt felt it had uncovered some deep conspiracy when they found a number of words were used to describe how jesus was understood to have been killed.

there was an extensive thread many years ago that in short strongly supports the conclusion that at least some nt writers envisioned a cross, while others had a tree in mind.

peacefulpete

Stumbled across an interesting bit regarding the "Alexamenos graffito" as was shown in this thread. According to wiki, a work by David Litwa describes the Ptolemaic period connection between Seth the donkey headed god (not the man in Genesis) and Yahweh.

wiki:

Following the Assyrian conquest of Egypt in the 7th century BCE, Seth was seen as an evil deity by the Egyptians and not commonly worshipped, in large part due to his role as the god of foreigners.[17] From at least 200 BCE onward, a tradition developed in the Graeco-Egyptian Ptolemaic Kingdom which identified Yahweh, the God of the Jews, with the Egyptian god Seth.[18] Diverging from previous zoologically multiplicitous depictions, Seth's appearance during the Hellenistic period onwards was depicted as resembling a man with a donkey's head.[19][20] The Greek practice of interpretatio graeca, ascribing the gods of another people's pantheon to corresponding ones in one's own, had been adopted by the Egyptians after their Hellenisation;.....Furthermore, the story of the Exodus was adapted by Ezekiel the Tragedian into the Ancient Greek: ἐξαγωγή, romanized: Exagōgḗ, a Greek play performed in Alexandria and seen by Egyptians and Jews. .....In this context some Egyptians saw similarities between Yahweh's in-narrative actions and attributes and those of Seth, in addition to a phonetic resemblance between Koinē Greek: Ἰαω, romanized: Iaō, Yahweh's name as used by hellenised Jews, and Coptic: ⲓⲱ, romanized: Iō, lit. 'donkey', then seen as the animal of Seth.

Give this connection, it would not be surprising some would depict the Crucified Christ as a donkey. It is also suggested this association with Seth as a capricious god developed into the self-interested demiurge conceptualization of Yahweh in many Gnostic sects.

26

What if JWs voted in elections?

by Las Malvinas son Argentinas in

all this political banter is exhausting, so i want to ask a question that has probably been asked before, so here it goes….

let’s try to keep this non-partisan - just give your opinion and why you think that way.. i’ll go first.

i think jws would generally lean to the right, but not by a whole lot.

peacefulpete

Realistically, I suppose if the church presses them to vote against social issues like gay rights and reproductive rights, most would toe the line. If not, then it probably would fall about50/50 like the rest of the population.

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

peacefulpete

The Deutero-Pauline Colossians is an interesting work. Essentially 1:19, 2:9 Sum up what is said throughout the 'Paulines'. Christ was understood as having all the power, the wisdom, the glory, the authority, the worship of God. At least at a point in time. This is likely because of the concept I've been discussing, the 'pleroma' of emanations of God.

9 For in Christ all (pan) the fullness (pleroma) of the Deity lives in bodily form

This and other aspects of the Paulines sound very Sethian, a gnostic sect of Hellenized Judaism with a 'Christ' as of the 'pleroma' of God.

Note that most would insist the sect originated through a merging with Christianity, that is assumed because of the mention of Christ.

However, Philaster's Catalog of Heresies (384CE), using older sources, identifies them as Pre-Christian. If that is correct, it could be a parallel to the reconstruction posed by Doherty and Carrier.

Note the Jewish sectarian link...

From wiki:

According to John D.Turner, (a foremost expert on the Nag Hammadi works,) two different groups, existing before the 2nd century CE,[11] formed the basis for the Sethians: a Jewish group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites,[12] named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth".

Further references to Barbelo from the Christian historian Epiphanius, include the concept of a 'virgin birth' of "Light" aka "Christ" in the heavens, not from a human mother as the Gospels dramatize.

In short there are sufficient reasons to consider the idea that the earliest Christians were a sect of Judaism that embraced hypostatic conceptualizations of God. Subsequently, through a literary and storytelling process, the heavenly dramas of birth, death and resurrection became literalized/materialized in the minds of later Christians as something that took place between John the Baptist (followers called Mandeans/Gnostics) and the tragic events of 66-70.. The above Sethian/Gnostic parallels demonstrate Jewish and Christians theology which may in fact have stayed the path rather than strayed from it.

Pauline thought as expressed in Col 2:9 supports the conclusion that the writer understood God in a much more complex way than we were taught. ALL the fullness (pleroma) of the Godship (emanations of God, (Wisdom, Light, Logos, Sonship etc.) were in Christ.

37

NO SUPPORT FOR EXJWS DRAFTED IN UKRAINE

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/ulan2hhagz8?si=jpedzunzb5o_6axd.

here’s a cautionary tale for anyone counting on past ties with jehovah’s witnesses to dodge conscription: they’ll throw you under the bus faster than you can say “conscientious objector.” a man in ukraine learned this the hard way after refusing military service and hoping his old religious connections would save him.

spoiler alert—they didn’t.

peacefulpete

The nutty part is that conviction or longtime religious beliefs are reduced to membership status. The WT is wrong to not defend a person, any person, who they have reason to believe is a conscientious objector, the government is wrong to make a policy based upon membership.

33

Museum Pic

by peacefulpete in

a lot of ink has been spilled on the topic of the cross.

the wt felt it had uncovered some deep conspiracy when they found a number of words were used to describe how jesus was understood to have been killed.

there was an extensive thread many years ago that in short strongly supports the conclusion that at least some nt writers envisioned a cross, while others had a tree in mind.

peacefulpete

I threw a couple threads back to the top because there is a comment that related to another thread and it took me an hour to find them.

26

What if JWs voted in elections?

by Las Malvinas son Argentinas in

all this political banter is exhausting, so i want to ask a question that has probably been asked before, so here it goes….

let’s try to keep this non-partisan - just give your opinion and why you think that way.. i’ll go first.

i think jws would generally lean to the right, but not by a whole lot.

peacefulpete

Funny how many of the Christian Right decry undeserving welfare recipients while praising a God who gave them undeserved grace.

152

Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?

by slimboyfat in

i would suggest:.

the short answer is yes.. the longer answer is a qualified yes, with some caveats.

the short answer is yes because jehovah’s witnesses teach that jesus is michael the archangel, their leader, eldest and most powerful, and have taught this since the very beginning of the religion.

peacefulpete

Moreover, if the early Church had simply invented authorship to lend credibility to these texts, they likely would have chosen more prominent apostles like Peter or James.

Of course, there already were Gospels of Peter and James, and they were very popular.

While this is an interesting interpretation, it lacks solid historical evidence. The idea of a Messiah ben Joseph is not attested in Jewish writings until much later, primarily in rabbinic literature.

(1) David C. Mitchell, Messiah ben Joseph in the Babylonian Talmud, Review of Rabbinic Judaism 8 (2005): 77-90 | David C Mitchell - Academia.edu

(1) Messiah bar Ephraim in the Targums | David C Mitchell - Academia.edu

Jesus reinterpreted this expectation in a radical way, claiming that His own body was the true Temple (John 2:19-21)

The expectation that a Messiah would build the temple is again from Zechariah. 6:
12Then say to him, ‘The LORD of armies says this: “Behold, there is a Man whose name is [f]Branch, for He will [g]branch out from where He is; and He will build the temple of the LORD. 13Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the LORD, and He who will bear the majesty and sit and rule on His throne..."

This Is also where the 30 pieces of silver element comes from.

On this topic see an old thread I did.

Temple Talk.

In short it seems at an early stage this tradition was altered. The statement was perceived as a Messianic claim, but as time went on it became necessary to adjust this element. Matt and Mark distance Jesus from the statement by saying it was a lie, but the Gospel John instead has him say it but turns it into a metaphor.

Sorry I have trouble with the quote function sometimes.