w98 2/1 p. 22 par.
16 - "what of the dead who are resurrected on earth?...they also will have to love the name of jehovah, ministering to him, offering acceptable sacrifices......".
(daniel 9:26, 27) "and after the 62 weeks, mes·siʹah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.....and at the half of the week, he will cause sacrifice......to cease.
The information I posted is to give various options to counter the views of the Watchtower--and only against the views of the Watchtower.
I have nothing against anyone's personal views. There are various ways individuals who left the religion of the Jehovah's Witnesses can embrace and interpret the Bible.
w98 2/1 p. 22 par.
16 - "what of the dead who are resurrected on earth?...they also will have to love the name of jehovah, ministering to him, offering acceptable sacrifices......".
(daniel 9:26, 27) "and after the 62 weeks, mes·siʹah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.....and at the half of the week, he will cause sacrifice......to cease.
In so doing, he refuted the interpretation found in the book of Maccabees, indicating that the verses in Daniel, which include the phrase “abomination causing desolation,” point to a future date.
Or, as the above Bible commentaries explain, the reference is that as the heathen Antiochus once caused sacrilege and desolation, stopping the sacrifices of the Temple, so would the pagan Romans.
Apocalypse is a genre that allows for multiple and even generational interpretation, states the editorial staff of both the Jewish and SBL Study Bibles.
These are not my personal views.
w98 2/1 p. 22 par.
16 - "what of the dead who are resurrected on earth?...they also will have to love the name of jehovah, ministering to him, offering acceptable sacrifices......".
(daniel 9:26, 27) "and after the 62 weeks, mes·siʹah will be cut off, with nothing for himself.....and at the half of the week, he will cause sacrifice......to cease.
The commentary from the following Bibles, namely The SBL Study Bible, The Catholic Study Bible, The Jewish Study Bible, and The New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (using all the most recent editions) generally agree that the verses in Daniel refer to the Maccabean Revolt, the Jewish uprising against the Seleucid Empire that took place from 167–160 BCE.
They define the verses from Daniel 9:26-27 almost exactly the same as follows (the NRSV Updated Edition is being employed in the following):
After the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing,
Sixty-two weeks, a round number to describe the period down from the 70 weeks (9:24) that point to the arrival of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Anointed one, Onias III, the deposed high priest who was murdered in 171 BCE (see 2 Macc 4:32-34).
and the troops of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The prince, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The city and the sanctuary, Jerusalem and the Temple.
Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. He shall make a strong covenant with many for one week,
He shall make a strong covenant with many, describing the falling away of many Jews to hellenizing practices at 1 Macc 1:11-15.
and for half of the week he shall make sacrifice and offering cease,
A description of when Antiochus stops legitimate sacrifices and Jewish practice in Jerusalem (see Daniel 7:25).
and in their place shall be a desolating sacrilege until the decreed end is poured out upon the desolator.
The desolating sacrilege was described as a pig sacrificed to the Greek gods on the altar to YHWH. This ignited the war for religious freedom fought under the command of Judas Maccabeus which would in turn lead to the desolator being defeated, the re-dedication of the altar and Temple, and the yearly celebration of Chanukah.
i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.
this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).
i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).
I am happy to receive any criticism that comes my way. Thank you for it.
The story was meant to come in four more parts. Like most stories, it wasn't going to explain everything right away. I gather, however, that either you just do not wish to read it or you just wish to criticize it as I go along. And that is great! I am happy for you.
I am not a victim. I am successful in life. I have a family and a successful career. I have been here on this site I guess for all the wrong reasons, so if I have failed at anything it was that.
But as you say, you have every right to do and feel as you wish. Please continue. I will stop and not continue with anything more.
Best wishes.
i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.
this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).
i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).
i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.
this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).
i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).
it's that time of year again .
in the words of the bard ( noddy holder ) " it's christmaaas " .
merry christmas everybody .
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah...or since I am Jewish, and since this year Hanukkah begins on the evening of the 25th of December, Happy Chrismukkah!
This photo is from a previous "Chrismukkah" celebration, in 2005. Yes, this was the actual color of the lighting from the tree and the lights.
(And for those who might wonder, this was the first night of Hanukkah, but the electric hanukkiah in the photo is an outdoor Hanukkah menorah and was therefore lit from the outside instead of inside. When that happens it appears backward in light order when viewed from the inside. Usually on the first night of Hanukkah you would see the first candle on the right in a photo, but only if you were looking at the menorah from the front and it was lit from the inside. Some have asked about this--Jewish rules, sigh!)
While I have several menorahs, some with candles that I light for Hanukkah, I tend to use electric ones in the windows and for the outdoors, like the new red one down below. My other half is a Catholic, thus there is always a Christmas tree in the house come December. (If the JWs could see me now--so many holidays thru the year!)
i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.
this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).
i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).
Jeffro, I wasn't saying the test had anything to do with Judaism itself.
This was meant to be a joke at those two elders (and people like them) who claimed they know all about Jews.
If you notice, the reference claims that 'all doctors were Jewish' back then (a stereotype) and a reference to the Yom Kippur ritual as well as pregnancy tests, modern and past being "voo-doo."
Both of the elders who insisted that I become one of Jehovah's WItnesses when I was 17 claimed to know exactly what they were talking about, that I wasn't Jewish. It turned out I was indeed a Sephardic Jew and just a few years later with the help of both Jewish and Christian clergy traced my family line back to the days of the Spanish Inquisition (and possibly further). I was also related to countless others who perished in the Holocaust.
It turned out it was those two JW elders who were the ones practicing the real voo-doo.
Jews tend to be self-deprecating as we generally have high self-esteem. We are told we are valued, we can make a difference, and we are equipped through life and through community to do so. Our religion, however, well, we are taught it's pretty much mythology and, yes, it was kinda voo-doo. So there's a lot of humor in it.
I mean, generations ago on the Day of Atonement we threw innocent goats over cliffs and thought that meant God would forgive us.
If there really is a God, don't you think God would be pretty pissed that we threw his goats over cliffs? How on earth does a society equate atonement of sins by punting goats into a deep gulch and thinking, "Yep, we good"?
Jeffro, please, take it from me. If you don't start seeing the humor in things, you are going to end up being as stuck and stupid as those two elders still are.
Your constant following me around on this site to find flaws in everything I say is exhausting. Move on.
just published in cambridge university press's elements in new religious movements series, a short book or oversized pamphlet is now available by two witnesses, jolene chu from warwick and ollimatti peltonen from the selters branch.
https://www.amazon.com/jehovahs-witnesses-elements-religious-movements/dp/1009509764.
it's small, just 84 pages, including the bibliography.
A highly problematic work.
It is academically dishonest in many places. For instance, on page 14, in the 2nd paragraph from the top, the claim is made that during Russell's lifetime the early Bible Students "concluded that 1914 had marked the beginning of Christ's heavenly rule." This, we know is not true. The earlier 1874 date for the parousia of Christ according to their doctrine was not revised until after WWII. 1914 did not mark the "return" to Christ's rule until the late 1940s.
The claim that the Governing Body never said they were a prophet and their failure regarding 1975 is highly glossed over on page 23.
By page 25 it begins to read like a glorified Watchtower publication, not an academic paper, sounding preachy and attempting to proselytize. It is just too much to stomach, really.
The "Exit and Reentry" list adapted to fit the Watchtower reminds me how this same argument was applied by Mormon leaders not too long ago. They used this argument to explain that those who were leaving were to blame, not the Mormon leaders who may have lied or made up stories about Joseph Smith and the origins of the Book of Mormon. The application of similar data towards exJWs sounds like Watchtower has been coached or is stealing from someone else who already "sang that song."
While I may be wrong, this smells fishy and the "academic" Witnesses who wrote this were just pawns working as beards and pawns for the Watchtower attempting to produce something for some scheme to use in a legal battle.
i thought i would give my personal experience on who i am, how i came into the world of watchtower, why i left, etc.
this would explain a lot about the answers i give and why they don't directly reflect my personal convictions (like a normal person--and i do mean that literally, kinda).
i cannot put everything here, but i can start bit by bit.. when i was 17 years old, my mother was on her third marriage and kinda starting her fourth (as she was dating this surfer dude-like guy who wasn't even 5 years older than me).
Thanks everyone.
The whole thing came down to the fact that Elder Barry (the main elder who was studying with me--not his real name) had originally belonged to this weird Penecostal church that had taught Jewish deicide. Barry had been attracted to the Witnesses back in 1973/74 on account of the "1975--End of the World" commotion, and so he was an emotional, dramatic kinda guy.
It was November 1984 when all this was happening. So the Witnesses themselves still were spinning and trying to figure out if the end was still going to come any day now (they believed that maybe there was this math involving Adam being in the garden naming the animals until God put him to sleep to make Eve out of his rib and then that was how long you could count from 1975, therefore, any day now--KABOOM!).
Witnesses themselves are not normally this antisemitic as a rule. This was mostly a holdover from that church Barry had attended. I would later trace his weird comments to pamphlets from that group as none of what he said (some of it was too horrible to print here) came from Watchtower materials.
There was this pioneer friend and his married elder buddy that would come by my place all the time. The elder would often drop by after his work, usually when I was showering (he seemed to always know) to "use the bathroom"--WHILE I WAS IN THE SHOWER!
Handsome guys. Tended to wear little clothing. Liked to invite me over for sleepovers. I think I was once supposed to be a "pillow" and it was almost a Pillowgate situation, I think. I slipped out of that quite quickly once I got a bad vibe. I was so naive.
