Posts by peacefulpete

41

Is Watchtower totally off base on Armageddon?

by Vanderhoven7 in

to me it is quite evident that the gt spoken about in matthew 24, mark 13 and luke 21 is a one time, non-repeatable localized event resulting in the destruction of jerusalem and the temple followed by the dispersion of surviving jews throughout the nations.. however, what is not so clear to most is that the gt of revelation deals with the same event.

my understanding is that the gb of jehovah witnesses has no clue as to how to interpret the apocalyptic messages found both in the synoptics and revelation.

but steve greg has armageddon down pat.

peacefulpete

Even though Luke attempts to protract the span of time from the "great distress in the land and wrath against this people" and the arrival of the Son of Man, even that writer linked the two together. There is no way to honestly avoid that conclusion. Regardless whether the writers or redactors had 70CE or 135CE in mind, they still understood the events of their life would trigger/precipitate the Son of Man's coming.

Luke defines it as he understood Matt and Mark:

There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people.

So we can dispense with the idea that this expression has future meaning.

Revelation also has such an expectation. Some scholars have concluded the text was originally a Jewish apocalypse, or a collection of them, that was reworked, extensively interpolated by a Christian about 50 years later.

The 'tribulation' Christians were having 'gone through' so as to be standing in the temple of God, is clearly describing martyrdom, likely under the reigns of Nero and/or Trajan. (Rev 7)

It can be said that similar to the Gospels, the Christain writer here anticipated divine intervention before long and that he and his living contemporaries would have a protective 'sealing' when God unleashes his vengeance.

In short, while both the Gospels and Revelation share a recurring idea (oppression and distress upon the righteous precipitating divine action), neither happened as hoped. And neither were referring to a time thousands of years later.

22

WHEN WILL THE ANOINTED BE TAKEN TO HEAVEN

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/sptboe8_kuc?si=cnb837qqdlm1glx0.

this is a question that has preoccupied the minds of the governing body " when will the last anointed be taken up to heaven?

" when did this nonsense begin ?

peacefulpete

Not soon enough.

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.