Posts by KalebOutWest

74

Doctrines and Bible Interpretations

by IWant2Know in

i would like to know if ex's and formers who are not church christians, believe that many of jws' doctrines and bible interpretations are correct, or do you feel that they aren't?

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KalebOutWest

I don't even know what a church Christian is, so I guess that pretty counts me out.

But I stopped believing in much of what the Watchtower taught while in the JW religion back in the 1990s before I left. I was only in for about 10 years. It started to unravel their teachings very quickly and easily.

Reading the Church Fathers made things fall apart for me. Also studying the way the Bible canon came about and learning the history of Marcion of Sinope, the inventor of the first Bible canon.

And I had already learned Hebrew from Hebrew school due to having Jewish parents before entering my first KH back in 1984 (10 years and I ~~slept though~~ paid attention to the whole thing, I swear), so that kind of destined me to a crash course ending with the JWs. (I remember the subject of my knowing Hebrew came to the attention to a young couple that I didn't know me too well, but one night they came to me out of the blue after a meeting and the husband said: "My wife and I had a family meeting and we decided we don't believe you know Hebrew. I thought you should know." And he turned around and walked away. Really weird. I'm like: שתוק, יא מטומטם!)

I don't think non-church or non-Bible Christians who left the Watchtower are going to give you the most interesting answers. I think the ones who are going to give you those are ones who are still stuck on believing that the Bible is where all belief must still come from.

People who are in the mainstream, even in mainstream religions, don't hold to a strong Bible-based view of the world or theology. So if someone leaves the Watchtower religion and is able to enter mainstream society, they of course aren't going to be holding any of the Watchtower's views whatsoever because no one in mainstream society does.

It is those who leave the JWs who still hold on to their NWT Bible or to the Bible as the source of focus, doctrine or truth that would be holding on to some of the doctrines of the Watchtower.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

PetrW,

I don't believe the Bible is literal or history. I am not a Bible Christian. I stayed only a short time with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

And in the end, who even cares what I, myself think. I am only writing what I learned from years of studying mainstream critical theology after leaving the Watchtower.

I don't even personally subscribe to much of what I write. It's just academic data. I don't even know if I have an opinion on much of this except that I think there are far better things to do than debate about Bible texts.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

Kasonen wrote:

Why would someone argue that in Revelation 16 a similar thing will not be literal?

Because the text of Exodus 7:20 is not literal either but based on the Haggadah, the Passover story that is told during the Seder celebration.

It was once believed that the Haggadah was written after the Exodus account. And it is true that modern versions are. But the one you read in Exodus is based on an even older version, maybe oral or maybe written, but obviously from at least two combined sources. One can find two or three different Haggadahs quoted in the Bible from different periods, especially if you use a Catholic/Orthodox Bible and read the last chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon.

But Exodus and Psalms have different accounts of what happened and tell different stories too. Psalms 78 & 105 say there were only 7/8 plagues and not 10. The two idependent versions from the Psalms were interwoven into the final narrative of the Torah after the Exile from Babylon, not before. These stories are older than what came to be the Psalms themselves.

When Exodus was composed, the narrative section was developed to teach Jewish people to celebrate the Passover with a story--the Haggadah--in order to hold a Seder celebration. At first, as early as the time of Ezra, priests wrote a part, but then, even later, non-priests added to it, and we went from the 7/8 to 10 plagues concept we know today:

The Non-Priestly account lists eight plagues (blood, frogs, arov, pestilence, hail, locusts, darkness and death of the firstborn) and the Priestly source has only five (blood, frogs, lice, boils and death of the firstborn).--How Many Plagues Were There In Egypt? Suprise!, Haaretz, April 9, 2023.

So if the first plagues came from sources which were not literal, then it is not likely that a book that calls itself an "apocalypse" in the first verse of its own writing is describing anything that we would expect to literally happen.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

"I am an idiot because I chat online with idiots. You are too if you read this."

--Made You Look 1:1, from I Feel So Grown Up To Make Pee-Pee Quotes from the Bible, I Must Have the IQ of A Jar Of Mayo

49

Will the GB Eventually "observe" Tithing?

by Sea Breeze in

jw
friends

found this on fb from the recent losch talk.

time for a new business model?.

.

KalebOutWest

Earnest, wrote in reply to my earlier comment on that the ancient Jews did keep track on who paid tithes and how this was mentioned in the Talmud, stating:

The Talmud contains the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period. After the destruction of the temple in 70 it was only rabbinical Judaism that remained to reconstruct the religious system. If we rely on the Bible rather than rabbinical Judaism then there is no indication that the tithe was monitored.

First, I was not stating that the Jews were following the Talmud, but that the Talmud states and goes into detail that the Jews have always kept track of this via a system. A tractate is based on this system, I mentioned, and claiming that this tradition was preserved, it was written first in the Mishnah.

This got later transfered into the Talmud and became the tractate known as Ma'aserot.

Second, Jehovah's Witnesses teach that the Biblical record is historical, and that Solomon's Temple (and even Moses' Tabernacle) existed, including the tithing system of that era. But both history and the Jews say that Solomon's Temple is more legendary than history.

It was more of a shrine in competition during an era when the Hebrews were clearly worshipping various idol deities. Only after the Babylonian Exile did the cult of YHWH survive and did the tithing system to the kohens become the mainstay of Jewish religion at that point in history, with Ezra, a genuine historical figure, directing the rewriting of religious history making the creative changes to what people know today.

While this is not what Jehovah's Witnesses learn (and may be shocking to even some ex-JWs), it is what mainstream Christians read in their study Bibles and the basics you learn in Hebrew school.

So yes, the rabbis did kinda invent the tithing system, because the ancient Jews did not keep account of it in the "Biblical" days.

But in reality, there were no "Biblical" days. The stories before the return from Babylon are all legends, folklore, and myth. There is a bit of history, but most is colored by these type of stories. Think of it like American history, including tales of George Washington chopping the cherry tree down as a kid, Betsy Ross creating the first American flag, Paul Revere making his midnight ride and crying out, "The British are coming! The British are coming!"--all of which never happened in US history...just American myths.

But when the tithes started to get paid--yep, the Jews did indeed keep track of them.

If we rely on the Bible rather than rabbinical Judaism...

I'd be careful about that Bible you are relying on. A bunch of rabbis wrote and edited that thing too.

49

Will the GB Eventually "observe" Tithing?

by Sea Breeze in

jw
friends

found this on fb from the recent losch talk.

time for a new business model?.

.

KalebOutWest

I see it being repeated here and especially since the new arrangement on NOT keeping time, that the ancient Jews (and I guess modern) don't and never did have a system for checking on who paid their tithes...

I may be a JW, but I have Jewish parents and thus I went to Hebrew School for 10 years. The Governing Body lied. The ancient Jews sure did check on who paid their tithes and who did not throughout ancient history, and they kept this system going until modern times. It is in the Talmud.

And they make you study about it as a kid (which most think is boring). In fact this whole thing on how and what to pay and offer was so detailed (because it had to be memorized back in the day due to so few Jews could not read or write in the Bronze Age) that it eventually became what is known as a tractate of the Mishnah known as Ma'aserot. For centuries and generations this tractate was used by the rabbis to dictate how to pay to the kohen (the priests) to ensure that each person paid the right amount of what came to each kohen so they could survive. Even after the Second Temple fell, this system was still in use because the kohen played a major part in synagogue services until the Reform movement came about in the 1880s.

Today, modern Jews must pay--that is "must"--a membership fee to belong to a synagogue, community, or Jewish movement as Jewish law teaches such a stipend is deserved and only right, and the fee is registered, monitored, and carefully noted because Jews are under the Mosaic Law (for the most part), even though Ma'aserot is no longer in effect outside of Orthodox Judaism--and the law teaches such a thing.

So the Governing Body is lying about their "basis" for removal of the hours reporting requirement. (On a scriptural basis for giving a report to Jesus after being in the ministry, see Luke 10:1 and 17.)

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

The passage of Isaiah 13:9-16, like all Jewish oracles, deal with something the prophet saw in their past or were living through. Unfortunately people exposed to the theology of the Watchtower might still hold to the view that the writers were claiming to see the future.

The passage that Queequeg cites is not about God killing infants but about "Isaiah" writing a commentary on what happened to and around the nations of Israel and Judah during and after their exiles based on theology that, interestingly, all denominations of Judaism (including Orthodoxy) currently rejects.

The theology (which is likely that of Second or Third Isaiah) is that God punishes nations for their sins by bringing losses in wars upon them.

The words of Isaiah 13 describe what are supposed to be an eyewitness account lamenting the fall of Babylon after the manner of the fall of Nineveh. But the details are wrong. In fact it's "total destruction" descriptions are just poetic--as are likely the "infants" being "dashed to pieces" and the "wives being ravished" in verse 16 as the original invasion of the Persians was sudden and rather peaceful, and its was only during the Babylonian revolt that happened later wherein the Babylonians themselves took their own lives to keep from falling into the hands of the Persians (with some Babylonians strangling their own wives and children) that children died.

29

BREAKING NEWS | Highlights of 2023 Worldwide Service Year Report

by Drearyweather in

breaking news | highlights of 2023 worldwide service year report.

on november 15, 2023, the service committee of the governing body shared highlights of the 2023 worldwide service year report with the bethel family.

the following exciting increases were announced: baptisms: during the 2023 service year, 269,517 persons were baptized.

KalebOutWest

Yes, Slimboyfat, that report from the Vatican that I noted says the same thing you pointed out...

The Catholic Church is in rapid decline in Europe and North America

And more, such as there is a striking drop in priest-to-Catholic ratio and that there are fewer nuns than ever before.

The study contains much of the same data, and in fact the news article where the study is presented is meant to be alarming as it talks about the shortages the church is facing and the very problem caused by unbalanced growth and low religious vocations in that religion. Unlike the JWs, growth, the Vatican article explains, is nothing to cheer about if there is no way to properly care for it.

29

BREAKING NEWS | Highlights of 2023 Worldwide Service Year Report

by Drearyweather in

breaking news | highlights of 2023 worldwide service year report.

on november 15, 2023, the service committee of the governing body shared highlights of the 2023 worldwide service year report with the bethel family.

the following exciting increases were announced: baptisms: during the 2023 service year, 269,517 persons were baptized.

KalebOutWest

The report is really nothing.

Because of the size of the Catholic Church--which is staggering and in the billions--it takes two to three whole years to process the numbers and the report (imagine data that large that it takes a couple of years to collect and you have to settle for it always being two years behind because you are so big) before they can publish it.

Released this past October 22:

The report compared the numbers on the day of 31 December 2021 to the previous year on 31 December 2020.
There were 1.375 billion Catholics in the world, representing an overall increase of 16.24 million Catholics compared to the end of 2020.

You can download the report from this article on the Vatican News site if you want to read it in detail for yourself.

What Jehovah's Witnesses report are just dewdrops by comparison. Because they don't know any better they "oooo" and "aaah" when they hear these numbers, but it really is nothing.

The JWs have a worse child abuse scandal going on than the Catholic Church ever did and the news media barely blinks. This is why, because the JWs aren't even peanuts by comparison. Little tiny religions don't matter much to folks--itty bitty cults wherein the general public expect to find "child molesters" even less.

(And to be honest, almost every Catholic that I know is ignorant of their annual report. They couldn't tell you how many of themselves are in the world or know that their church publishes such a thing. That is telling you something--you're really big when you don't care about the numbers.)

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

I think also that some of what the Watchtower taught us (and maybe a few liberties taken by Hollywood movies, like The Ten Commandments and The Prince of Egypt) warp our memories of the Exodus narrative. First of all, the story of "plagues" and the exodus itself is believed to be a liturgical drama and not history by both Judaism and Christianity.--See the footnotes, introductions, and additional materials in both Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, the official Bible of the Conservative Jewish movement and the NABRE, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church in the USA.

Second, in the Tenth Plague, "children" of the Egyptians are not killed by God, only firstborn "sons" die--and these are generally the eldest in each family (a significant point). The Book of Exodus opens with a pharoah of Egypt demanding the murder of infant "sons" of Israel, but allowing the girls to live. (Exodus 1:22) So in the final plague, God attacks Pharoah (who claims to be a god) by killing his "firstborn," or his next in line to rule, another "god," so to speak.

In Judaism, "firstborn son" means "heir" and refers to the eldest male who inherits the same rights as the father. For example, Jacob offer Esau a bowl of stew in order to get his right as firstborn, and later was helped by his mother to seal this with stealing his brother's blessing from his father. (Ge 25:29-34; ch 27) And it often means a royal heir, not literal child at all.--See Psalm 2:6,7.

This is what what was meant at the very beginning when God told Moses to warn Pharoah using these words:

You shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.” If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.”--Exodus 4:22, 23, ESV.--Compare Ex. 19:6.

Thus, the drama unfolds with the Hebrew God striking Pharoah a blow to his heir, as promised via Moses at the first revelation at the Burning Bush. It was actually the first warning Pharoah ever got when Moses first visited him before even the first plague broke out--and thus foreshadowing how the story of the plagues end, with Pharoah losing his heir to the throne, not with literal children dying all over Egypt as you often see playing out in Hollywood movies or perhaps the way Jehovah's Witnesses mistakenly understand the text.

Finally, by definition "theodicy" is actually not a debate over why God would punish another with death if they deserved it. In the above drama, the pharaohs of Egypt are guilty of infanticide and thus God repays them by killing their firstborn, so to speak. (Again it's a liturgical drama, not a historical piece.) Why does theodicy not work here?

Because theodicy is not questioning why God brings justice upon the wicked, but why God allows evil if God can obviously do something in the first place. That is the opposite of what happens in the Ten Plague story: Pharoahs kill Hebrew sons, God kills Pharoah's sons. That is a story about God actively bringing justice for all to see.

Theodicy is questioning why doesn't God act at all, if there is a God. Why is there suffering? Why does evil exist? If God is good and omnipotent, then how can all this other stuff be? Why doesn't God act? Where is God? That is theodicy. For that, we have the Book of Job (which by the way, does not answer the question--it merely adds more questions and recognizes that humans cannot answer it).