Posts by peacefulpete

26

What if JWs voted in elections?

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

Coincidentally, just today my JW Dad (yep still kicking) expressed his disgust with the so-called modern Right. His objection was a rather insightful recognition that women should be the ones who make decisions on matters like birth control and abortion, not government officials. He of course opposes abortion but opposes government intrusion into personal and religious matters more.

We also discussed the stupidity of believing caring for sick and elderly is communism. Everyone knows there is no way to make money insuring the sick and elderly, and that a civilized society must share that burden knowing our turn is coming.

I'm certain he would vote Democrat this election if he could.

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

Yes, pre-Christian Jewish literature sometimes personifies Wisdom and speaks of God’s agency through intermediaries, but early Christians did not merely adopt these categories. They transformed them.

Absolutely. Did they 'transform' them over the course of a few decades or centuries seems to be the question. I'm arguing the former, the 'transformation' of a spiritual agency, a Son, Logos etc. into a God/Man was the result of literalization of a Gospel narrative. Whether you share that premise of not, we agree that many of the underlying language and concepts existed in Jewish precedent.

What I understand you to be saying is that early Christians appropriated' the terminology but not the theology of Jewish precedent. However, in my mind intentional reuse of terminology implies intent of either continuity or obfuscation. I think we agree early Christians were not seeking to confuse Jewish converts, if not then we have to believe that Christian conversion was facilitated through familiarity with prior concepts.

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

What I resist the most is the silly, Hislopian approach that automatically creates genealogy from analogy. The fact that one concept resembles another does not mean that it originates from the other.

There is nothing 'Hislopian' about analysis of late second temple Judaism and their interpretation of their texts. This was the soil in which Christianity sprouted. The same culture, the same time, the same texts used in many cases the same way.

Some terms were used as a way of speaking of the activity of God himself....The point is that when Wisdom, or God’s glory, or the Logos did become a person in the tradition, then in Judaism and in early Christianity that person is consistently distinct and subordinate to God .......Only in the fourth century was the ‘second god’ put on a level with God himself by Christians who moved beyond the early teaching about Jesus, thus overturning the earlier teaching. ...

Emanations of God are precisely both God himself and subservient to God.

The Holy spirit has a voice and will in certain passages, yet it is understood he/she is sent by God. Christ is described identically. The Gospel story has Jesus identify as Wisdom and Word. The lines get blurred.

It gets easier to see when you read the Gospel as a theological text not historical. Whether you understand a historical person at the center or not, the texts were written and freely adjusted with a message in mind. Not documentation.

The Trinity doctrine is both sophisticated and naive. It is an attempt to reduce concepts to a formula. It could for instance just as easily arrived at 4 or 5 'faces' of God as three, but the choice of three does have a certain economy and appeal.

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

Things get reduced to semantics quickly when this topic has arisen over the centuries. What slimboy seems resistant to is the idea that the second power theology, to use as a shorthand label, included concepts like "Glory" and "presence/ Shekinah of God. There is no actual second person intended but a word/title served as agency in human and earthly affairs. It/he/she was a stand-in for God.

Aqwsed seems resistant to the idea that there is anything resembling equivalence with pre Christian use of expressions of agency, like great Angel, that emphasis subservience.

It is not surprising Christians similarly described their Christ in terms of both subservient and as his stand-in.

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

Hallucinogens have always been a key element of religion. Especially shamanism. Stories of shamans divining the future though visions and psychedelic imagery and casting bones or stones and conjuring animals like flies, snakes and frogs were a staple of ancient near East. Usually these are accompanied with burning "incense" and holy oils. Think about it.

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

Well, ok,. The Bayesian theorem is an interesting approach, it actually makes a great deal of sense to apply it in a case like this when we have only 'balance of evidence' to guide us. Years ago I illustrated the illogic of simply assuming historicity when reading an internally plausible narrative. Goldilocks and the three bears (an English tale). It could be argued that the story has a historical 'core' because about 1000 years ago there were bears in the English countryside, bears have been observed eating porridge and little precocious girls can be destructive. No one does however, because the fantastic elements negate any meaningful argument for historicity. Bayesian theorem takes the likelihood of each element into consideration. The likelihood of bears in the countryside was at one time good (100%), the likelihood that they could talk is 0. Times the two and you have the odds of the story being historical in any meaningful way. In the case of the Jesus stories Carrier, unlike most scholars, takes the story at face value and assesses the likelihood of historicity. Most scholars, like Goodacre, begin with the assumption that the story is an embellishment of an ordinary man. I agree with Carrier that this is a mistake. If we are being asked the odds for the one-time existence of a man who was killed for religious disruption, the odds would pretty darn good. That is what is dominating scholarship.

Additionally, the lack of biographical elements in Paul and other early writings (e.g. Hebrews) strongly suggest those to be secondary. And as I said, far too often what is pinned as historical elements are actually OT allusions. I argued with Tim Callahan over diner a dozen years ago or so about this. He saw the 'Nazareth' element as a evidence of historicity because he deemed it an embarrassment that no writer would include unless forced to. That is ignoring the way the author used the "Nazareth' element, he used it because he thought it was from the OT. Thats's another evidence that these story details are secondary, (As it happens, Nazareth probably didn't exist as a village yet and the likely word the writers had heard from tradition was Nazarene).

BTW, Carrier does rely to Goodacre: Mark Goodacre on the Historicity of Jesus's Execution • Richard Carrier Blogs

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

You, and many others, are reading into the text. The point of the author's statement is to repeat the mantra that a ruler would be from the ancient line of Ephratahites from Bethlehem. It is that simple. His 'goings forth' ancestry/origins went back to the 'days of old'.

It would make no sense to a 5th century writer to say the Ruler would be from the Ephratahite's lineage and then say he was from long long before them. Grammatically it only flows with a straightforward reading without Christian coloring. I haven't seen any examples of pre-Christians interpreting the passage that way, but it is possible as we have shown there were many novel readings of the OT regarding 'agency' of God in the 2nd temple period.

This is a great example of chicken of egg questions regarding evolving theology. Did an aberrant interpretation/reading lead to a new doctrine or was the doctrine formulated through other influences and then proof texts sought?

15

U turn in vac mandate

by ElderBerry in

so now they don’t want defib machines in khalls because it shines a light on the increasing blood clots from the shots that they said were safe.

https://youtu.be/yvvyiuqv3nm.

peacefulpete

Mark Crispin Miller - Wikipedia

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

Yes, the writer of Matt used the passage. He quote mined the OT to add 'fleshing out' details to Mark. Even then he does not however suggest the passage is referring to a prehuman eternal origin. He says the King/Ruler would go forth from the ancient clan of Ephrathah of Bethlehem of 'days of old'.

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

This is misdirection in the extreme. The operative word in Micah 5:2 is "origin." Jesus is indeed ancient, though the definition of olam as "eternity" is flawed. His age is indeed beyond human comprehension, but the reference is still to an origin, a point in time, a time when he went forth....

Actually you are equally disregarding the intent of the author. As I briefly said the context says simply that the promised King would be from an ancient clan of Ephrathah, the origins of which were "from of old, from ancient times". There is nothing about a prehuman spirit implied.