Now we see why JWs want to be a part of the anointed/144,000 and why the number of memorial partakers has been rising.........it seems the rank & file have figured out which is the better group to be a part of, LOL.
deegee
JoinedPosts by deegee
-
16
The glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the Great Crowd
by deegee inthere is a glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the great crowd (gc):.
the gc will experience:.
1. the great tribulation - a gruelling/horrifying time which has never occurred before.. 2. armageddon.. 3. a thousand years of “loving” molding and refinement.. 4. a second armageddon at the end of the thousand years.. the 144,000 will experience none of these things.. isn't it strange that the gc has to prove themself so much but the 144,000 don't???!!!
-
-
deegee
-
16
The glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the Great Crowd
by deegee inthere is a glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the great crowd (gc):.
the gc will experience:.
1. the great tribulation - a gruelling/horrifying time which has never occurred before.. 2. armageddon.. 3. a thousand years of “loving” molding and refinement.. 4. a second armageddon at the end of the thousand years.. the 144,000 will experience none of these things.. isn't it strange that the gc has to prove themself so much but the 144,000 don't???!!!
-
-
deegee
There is a glaring inequity between the 144,000 & the Great Crowd (GC):
The GC will experience:
1. The Great Tribulation - a gruelling/horrifying time which has never occurred before.
2. Armageddon.
3. A thousand years of “loving” molding and refinement.
4. A second Armageddon at the end of the thousand years.
The 144,000 will experience NONE of these things.
Isn't it strange that the GC has to prove themself so much but the 144,000 don't???!!!!
-
28
Why Judaism and the Torah ?
by Crazyguy inso i have been studying early christianity a bit and noticed that before christianity really took off after 325 ce, there were a lot of religions.
gnostics teachings , belief in all sorts of different gods from egypt to greece .
the practice of emperor worship etc.
-
-
deegee
- Did Constantine want to bring the internal Pauline disharmony to an end as stated by Doug Mason?
- Was there also the goal to use Christianity to achieve harmony and unity in the wider Roman Empire, not just within Christianity?
- Was Constantine himself involved in this aspect?
- Do we know why Constantine converted to Christianity?
The following is a quote from Professor Dale B. Martin who teaches the Yale University open course INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY AND LITERATURE:
http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/894/rlst-152:
"Constantine also wanted to stop all this feuding about what was orthodox Christianity. So he uses the power of the emperor's throne to force bishops to come together in several different councils.
The most famous of which, in 325, is the council of Nicaea, and of course this is where we get the term the Nicene Creed, which if you're Roman Catholic or Episcopalian or several other kinds of Christianity, you may recite the Nicene Creed on certain holy days or in church. This is the longer creed, which talks about Jesus being fully man, fully human. It brings in the Trinity, so you have Trinitarian theology becoming a bit more solidified at the council of Nicaea. It didn't win the day because throughout the fourth century you still had fights among different bishops, some people not accepting the Nicene Creed. Years later you had another creed pronounced at Chalcedon, so that's called the Chalcedonian Creed.
And all of these were attempts though promoted by the emperors. The emperors wanted to use Christianity to solidify a one empire again and to keep it from being split. You couldn't do that if you had different groups claiming to represent the right Christianity and claiming that everybody represents the wrong Christianity. That was the real push for what counts as orthodox Christianity and the bringing of more unity to Christianity.
What we have not seen in this semester is what you would call correct Trinitarian doctrine in the New Testament, it's just not there. You've got all kinds of views about Jesus that would later be declared heretical. They're still there in the New Testament, and what Christians do is that we just read kind of carefully and interpret it a little bit slickly so that it makes it look more orthodox than it actually is. That's because there was no orthodoxy that could claim to rule different Christians who called themselves Christians throughout the empire. This is what starts changing in the fourth century. Like I said, they don't succeed.
So you have debates about orthodoxy for centuries, but it's with Constantine in the beginning of the fourth century, and he had a long dynasty. His progeny, his sons, and then their sons, and their sons retained the throne for years after that. So you had this Constantinian dynasty that was able to bring a good bit of solidity to the Roman Empire in the fourth century that it hadn't enjoyed in the third century. And therefore, they used this to sort of bring about orthodox Christianity as the single form of Christianity. That's the most important change, therefore, for the fourth century.
Do we know why Constantine converted?
He says it's because he saw a vision right before the battle. Scholars debate that. Some scholars say he converted because he looked around and he saw that this was, although it was a minority movement, there was no way that this was a majority, it was a vibrant movement that was going on in Rome, in the Roman Empire, and maybe he said, that's something I can use. He was already an admirer of the sun god, and he was moving toward a certain form of monotheism where the sun was the only god. Some people say it wasn't that big of a jump for him to switch that to Jesus, and so some people say, he had this political idea that it would be a smart thing to do and that he made up the vision later.
There are different reasons. We don't really know truly his psychological motivations for conversion.
Obviously with Constantine you get the emperor promoting this religion now."
-
28
Why Judaism and the Torah ?
by Crazyguy inso i have been studying early christianity a bit and noticed that before christianity really took off after 325 ce, there were a lot of religions.
gnostics teachings , belief in all sorts of different gods from egypt to greece .
the practice of emperor worship etc.
-
-
deegee
Saename:
What I was talking about is whyConstantine became Christian.deegee made claims that it was for political reasons—to bring unity and peace to the Roman Empire. I believe that this is total nonsense. This is what I was talking about, and I gave reasons for my stance in one of my previous posts.
It seems there are 2 things at issue here:
1. The reason for Constantine's conversion to Christianity.2. Why did Constantine back/promote the Paulines out of all the other early forms of Christianity, after his conversion.
Please note that in my previous comments I never stated anything about the reason for Constantine's conversion to Christianity (#1). My comment addressed why Constantine backed/promoted the Paulines out of all the other early forms of Christianity, after his conversion (#2):
Of great importance is the fact that some of Paul's writings pandered to the Roman authorities e.g. Paul's writing in Romans 13 calls for submission to governmental authorities, although passages in 1 Corinthians may be said to contradict this. 2 Thessalonians, a pseudonymous letter, also preaches a politically conservative and accommodative message.
(http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-24).
Given Paul's pandering to the Roman authorities, Constantine saw the political value of Pauline Christianity - Pauline Christianity was not just seen as a religion but as a political solution to bring about the unity and harmony and control of the populace which Constantine desired.
With this in mind, one can understand why Constantine and Theodosius promoted the Paulines out of all the other conflicting voices of early Christianity. -
28
Why Judaism and the Torah ?
by Crazyguy inso i have been studying early christianity a bit and noticed that before christianity really took off after 325 ce, there were a lot of religions.
gnostics teachings , belief in all sorts of different gods from egypt to greece .
the practice of emperor worship etc.
-
-
deegee
Saename:
My comment above was not about Constantine's pre-conversion status but about the likely reason why Constantine promoted the Paulines out of all the other conflicting voices of early Christianity, after his conversion.
According to:
http://www.jwstudies.com/Why_Does_WTS_Accept_Christendoms_Scriptures.pdfAmong the early Christianities were the Ebonites, Marcionites, Montanists, Gnostics, Docetists, Valentinians, Sabellianists and others who considered themselves to be true followers of Jesus. But the group that ultimately triumphed were the Paulines who became known as Orthodox - their opponents were branded as heretics.
The dominance of the Pauline sect was recognized and spread by Emperor Constantine and its beliefs were further influenced by Emperor Theodosius.
The Church Fathers and the churches that ultimately delivered a list (canon) of sacred Scriptures, could not be described to be in any way in complete harmony with one another. They added to the cacophony of conflicting ideas. The nation that consistently sought for harmony and unity imposed its will upon this babble of conflicting ideas. It became involved in the internal disharmonies that existed within the maelstrom of conflicting Christian ideas and drove them.
That nation was the city-state of Rome.The division among the Christians grew until Emperor Constantine in 325 CE called a general Council, in order to heal the rifts.
The men who strove for harmony, even to the point of deciding doctrine, were Constantine and Theodosius. They promoted Christianity and they promoted only one of its many voices: the Paulines.
The outcome includes the rejection of Arianism (Theodosius in 381 CE) and ultimately the list of sacred Scriptures, the New Testament.If Constantine had installed a different form of Christianity, then the list of sacred Scriptures, the teachings and the practices would have been completely different.
The Christianity which Constantine joined was that proposed by the successors of the Apostle Paul. Other forms existed, with at least Marcion operating from Rome for a while. Constantine caused the survival of Christianity, having made it the formally recognized state religion and the recognized format was Paul's religion. Constantine became closely involved in it, bringing with him the Roman desire for harmony and unity. For that reason, he instituted the church-wide Council at Nicea, its task being the setting of the date for Easter.
A few decades after Constantine instituted Christianity, the Roman desire for harmony and unity, this time within the Church, manifested itself in 381 CE when Emperor Theodosius instructed that Arianism was not acceptable - the long and detailed philosophical discussions within the church on the nature of Christ were resolved by imperial decree.
-
28
Why Judaism and the Torah ?
by Crazyguy inso i have been studying early christianity a bit and noticed that before christianity really took off after 325 ce, there were a lot of religions.
gnostics teachings , belief in all sorts of different gods from egypt to greece .
the practice of emperor worship etc.
-
-
deegee
http://www.jwstudies.com/Why_Does_WTS_Accept_Christendoms_Scriptures.pdf
and http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152#sessions
also offer insights into what transpired back in the day.
These are some of the thing which I think were significant contributors:
1. There was a maelstrom of conflicting ideas among the various early Christianities. The Paulines (who owe their origin to the Apostle Paul) eventually won out and became the dominant force in Christianity; all other groups were branded as heretics.
The first followers of Jesus were Jews, as Jesus himself was, and these followers saw Jesus as a wise teacher, not as God. It is said that Paul embellished the Jesus story in order to undermine the Jewish Christians so as to take power away from them.
2. Of great importance is the fact that some of Paul's writings pandered to the Roman authorities e.g. Paul's writing in Romans 13 calls for submission to governmental authorities, although passages in 1 Corinthians may be said to contradict this. 2 Thessalonians, a pseudonymous letter, also preaches a politically conservative and accommodative message.
(http://oyc.yale.edu/religious-studies/rlst-152/lecture-24).Given Paul's pandering to the Roman authorities, Constantine saw the political value of Pauline Christianity - Pauline Christianity was not just seen as a religion but as a political solution to bring about the unity and harmony and control of the populace which Constantine desired.
With this in mind, one can understand why Constantine and Theodosius promoted the Paulines out of all the other conflicting voices of early Christianity.
3. There were only a certain number of writings which were recognized as Christian writings by the Catholic Church. From that number, the books which comprise the NT were selected by the Catholic Church.
The Gospels, Pauline letters and other NT texts which were selected were a midrash on the OT scriptures and as such the OT and Torah came to be recognized as being relevant/important because of the NT writers.
-
28
Why Judaism and the Torah ?
by Crazyguy inso i have been studying early christianity a bit and noticed that before christianity really took off after 325 ce, there were a lot of religions.
gnostics teachings , belief in all sorts of different gods from egypt to greece .
the practice of emperor worship etc.
-
-
deegee
Interesting question Crazy Guy especially when one considers that the Paulines (who owed their origin to the Apostle Paul) was the group among the early Christianities that won out and became the dominant force in Christianity YET there was in fact an irreparable gulf between Paul and the Jerusalem Church as Paul was teaching his Gentile converts that with the advent and mission of Jesus, there was no longer a requirement to observe Jewish practices such as their dietary constraints whereas men from Jerusalem were telling Paul's Gentile converts that they had to follow the Laws set down by Moses. These men were teaching that as followers of Jesus, Paul's Gentile converts had to be Jews.
So one wonders why the Torah was not scrapped given Paul's differing view point regarding some Torah issues.
It seems to me however, that the reason why the Torah, and by extension, the entire Old Testament (OT), was retained by Christianity, was because of the need to prove that Jesus Christ was the person who fulfilled the OT prophecies regarding the Messiah.
This is however, not the case, since the prophets of old did not speak of a second coming of the Messiah. That the Messiah would come into the world but then have to come again is a New Testament (NT) idea. The NT writers forced the OT to conform to the NT - this is one of the reasons why the NT can be used as a Jewish polemic against Christianity.
-
6
Jehovah God,Christ Jesus ,IBSA ,why no direct communication between Heaven and Earth ?
by smiddy inaccording to jehovah`s witnesses christ jesus was enthroned in heaven in 1914 .. the international bible students ,c.t.russell as president was approved byjesus christ shortly after as the channell approved by jehovah god to dispense spiritual food to his faithful followers here on earth.. why is it that after 100 years of jesus christ rule from heaven over his chosen people , the jw`s , that their is no direct contact between jesus christ and his earthly channell of communication ,namely the wtb&ts , and no direct contact from jehovah god either.. jw`s do not claim to have direct contact with god or jesus christ , isnt that strange ?
after 102 years ruling as king ?.
jesus christ is the greater moses , moses had direct contact with god and his people , so shouldnt the greater moses ,jesus christ have direct contact with his people especially since he is now ruling over them from heaven ?.
-
-
deegee
Smiddy,
Question:
Just wondering, has God ever communicated with you personally at any point in your life?
-
6
Jehovah God,Christ Jesus ,IBSA ,why no direct communication between Heaven and Earth ?
by smiddy inaccording to jehovah`s witnesses christ jesus was enthroned in heaven in 1914 .. the international bible students ,c.t.russell as president was approved byjesus christ shortly after as the channell approved by jehovah god to dispense spiritual food to his faithful followers here on earth.. why is it that after 100 years of jesus christ rule from heaven over his chosen people , the jw`s , that their is no direct contact between jesus christ and his earthly channell of communication ,namely the wtb&ts , and no direct contact from jehovah god either.. jw`s do not claim to have direct contact with god or jesus christ , isnt that strange ?
after 102 years ruling as king ?.
jesus christ is the greater moses , moses had direct contact with god and his people , so shouldnt the greater moses ,jesus christ have direct contact with his people especially since he is now ruling over them from heaven ?.
-
-
deegee
What transpired with regard to the writing of the Bible gives a clear answer as to whether or not God actually communicates with anyone.
The writers of the New Testament (NT) did not consider the Hebrew Canon closed or aligned with today's 39 books. They freely cited Hebrew texts that are today considered NON-CANONICAL. The most influential of the Hebrew books was that of Enoch. It exercised a greater influence on the NT than all the other non-canonical books put together. It was eventually rejected by the Jews and subsequently Christians, yet quotations from the book of Enoch can be found in Jude and verbal echoes if it can be found in Matthew, Luke, John, Hebrews, Thessalonians, 1 Peter and Revelation and probably in other books.
There is no universally accepted Bible Canon:
Roman Catholics claim that the Bible contains 73 canonical (authentic) books, while most Protestants accept only 66 because they reject the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books. The Orthodox Christians accept 76 books.
The Ethiopian church, which traces its roots to the fourth-century church, claims a Canon of some 81 books.Several ancient biblical manuscripts include non-canonical Christian writings.
It is commonly held by Bible scholars in recent centuries that mistakes were made with the selection of books for the NT Canon.
http://www.jwstudies.com/Why_Does_WTS_Accept_Christendoms_Scriptures.pdf
The Bible is a book of contradictions, inconsistencies, discrepancies, forgeries, myths, folklore, legends, fables, stories that did not actually occur, plagiarisms, midrash on scripture, revisionist history, failed prophecies or pretending to write prophesy when the writers were actually writing old history and not prophecy, morality that is incompatible with current standards of morality and ethics, inaccuracies - it is at odds with science and archaeology and historical facts in some instances; lots of writers of the Hebrew Bible, with editors/redactors trying to make the texts appear as though there were less writers; a nationalistic/political agenda propped up by god-talk which has led to the land-grab problem in the Middle East.
Yet we are told that God directed the thoughts of the men who wrote the Bible and inspired the wording of the Bible.
As far as I can see, God is a silent God - he does not communicate with anyone, or lead or direct anyone as we have been told/led to believe.
-
8
How the Churches got the ‘End of the World’ wrong in 1492.
by fulltimestudent inin 1453 constantinople (also known as byzantium), the last remnant of the once mighty roman empire was a christian island in an islamic sea.
the city had been seriously weakened during the holy fourth crusade (1202-04), when fellow christians of the catholic brand had besieged the city, captured it, and savagely sacked it.. ( who needs enemies when you have christian friends?).
a miniature of the siege, artist unknown.
-
-
deegee
The author of the article: "The Babylonian Exile Shaped the Future [of Prophetic Speculation]"
https://ad1914.com/2015/10/27/the-babylonian-exile-shaped-the-future-of-prophetic-speculation-doug-mason/presents some very sound points regarding the Bible's end of the world eschatology which are worth considering - in summary:
1. The Hebrews considered themselves to be “God’s Chosen People”, yet Israel had been dispersed by the Assyrians and Judah was dominated by Egypt and then by Babylon.
2. In response to Judah’s captivity, its prophets promised the nation that God would restore them to their rightful position and that God would forever maintain the throne of David.
3. When exiles returned from Babylon, they set about creating a nation that was faithful to God.
4. Centuries passed but the Hebrews remained oppressed by successive Gentile powers. In response, the Jews anticipated imminent divine intervention.
5. Followers of Jesus Christ applied the prophets’ promises to their leaders and to themselves, anticipating an imminent divine intervention.
6. In every succeeding century, people kept expecting divine intervention during their life.