Posts by David

30

The Pagan Origins of the Memorial Observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses

by David_Jay in

“we don’t celebrate holidays because god doesn’t approve of any celebration that is rooted in pagan customs and manmade traditions.” (see here for a similar jw response.).

if you were once an ex-jw like me, you have probably said something like this out in field service to someone who asked the question: why don’t you people celebrate holidays?

as the witnesses' official website states in an faq about not celebrating easter:.

David_Jay

Phizzy,

Both Melchizedek and Jethro were high priests of the monotheistic God that Jews worship today. They were also partial contributors or at least represent those peoples who contributed to the concept of "God" as recognized by the Jews.

Historically and according to anthropology, it appears that the Israelites adopted labels and some facets of God from the people living around the Fertile Crescent area and the areas referred to as Horeb or Mt. Sinai in Scripture.

Jewish theology and tradition agree that Abraham rejected the notion of the existence and worship of all deities, coming to see life and creation as the "effect" of a "Cause" greater than the human-made deity concept. In Abraham's mind it was this Cause and only this Cause that was responsible for the universe he could witness.

By likely attaching the monotheistic concept Abraham learned from his meeting with Melchizedek (whoever that was or represents) and Moses' meeting Jethro generations later, the Hebrews attached the words and labels these peoples used in their particular version of monotheism and we Jews attached it to what eventually we now call "God."

The God of Abraham that we Jews worship is therefore not a god in the traditional religious sense, but being greater than gods worshipped and invented by people we have attached some of the more common labels and words used for "deity" to this Cause. For exmple, the word ELOHIM in Hebrew is actually the word for a mighty wind storm or tempest. Since heathens often worshipped a storm god, Jews merely transferred the term to show that they attributed all such things to the First Cause of all that we worshipped.

Melchizedek is one of those clues in Scripture by which critical analytics can tie in with history and science to provide a clearer picture for understanding a more accurate evolution of the Jewish Revelation of God.

63

We Pass the Bread and the Wine Just like in the Bible! But, why is forbidden to eat?

by lusitano o tuga in

see what bridget azaz did!.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzbe5yo7uq4.

David_Jay

TheWonderofYou,

Actually, being a Jew myself I can attest that even we acknowledge that the Passover itself has pagan roots. I mentioned this in another thread: https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5639150466236416/pagan-origins-memorial-observed-jehovahs-witnesses

True, Adventism has the earmark of being obsessed with ridding itself of anything "pagan," but the truth behind that is that certain forms of Christian theology tend to see our Scriptures as literal Jewish history when we ourselves know that they are not.

The NRMs that were born from the Second Great Awakening rejected many pastors and Christian scholars who had formal training. They often rejected the entire world of academic seminaries as part of "Babylon the Great," leaving themselves with a theology that read the Bible literally.

As a consequence, allegorical narratives in Scripture which seem to give Jewish customs and observances the status of being unique and "comes down from Heaven" are really religious ways we Jews have us to explain our adaptation of the very same. This was misunderstood by these New Religious Movements since they rejected actual religious scholarship.

Passover itself has pagan origins, likely a Spring full-moon festival observed by Abraham's ancestors that was passed on to Israel before they migrated to Egypt. The Exodus has been connected to that time, perhaps historically having occurred on the night of Spring's first full moon, and the feast and its emblems were thus given new meanings.

There was a movement in Judaism around 300 BCE to attribute historicity to the Exodus account, but the original view of it being more allegorical than historical resurfaced and won out. While Jews see no evil or shame in being honest about our celebration's origins, it creates a paradox for those who say pagan culture is a bad thing. This means that Easter and the JW Memorial observance, being based upon our Passover, both have pagan origins too.

12

Santa Claus or the Talking Snake, which did you take?

by waton in

who are more gullible, believers in santa or the ones in "the serpent"?

an old man that delivers gifts?

quite possible, grandpa does it all the time!

David_Jay

Being Jewish we take the "talking snake" as mere allegory.

Since this also means that by default I don't observe Christmas even now after leaving the Watchtower, I will have to choose Santa Claus.

Eight nights of Chanukah presents not enough for me, you ask? Where would Santa leave the gifts since we don't have a Christmas tree? Under the menorah, of course! And I'm sure St. Nick wouldn't mind latkes and some Maxwell House coffee (it's kosher) instead of milk and cookies.

No, I don't believe in Santa, and I am sure no Jew feels comfortable with the idea of a Gentile with German origins sneaking around their home while they sleep. But if it means a 9th day of presents, where do I sign up?

30

The Pagan Origins of the Memorial Observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses

by David_Jay in

“we don’t celebrate holidays because god doesn’t approve of any celebration that is rooted in pagan customs and manmade traditions.” (see here for a similar jw response.).

if you were once an ex-jw like me, you have probably said something like this out in field service to someone who asked the question: why don’t you people celebrate holidays?

as the witnesses' official website states in an faq about not celebrating easter:.

David_Jay

Pistoff wrote:

The idea of sacrifice predates Judaism.
It is a vestige of animism, the idea that killing an animal, or a human, to appease the gods is acceptable.
The 'ransom sacrifice' is only ancient ritual killing dressed up with a 1st century cloak.
The central tenet of christianity is based on pagan practices, a brutal one at that.

You are exactly right.

Even the Jewish Tabernacle/Temple system was not unique to Torah or invented by God and sent down from Heaven. It was the way ancient societies butchered meat, in a system where they honored their national deities for the life of the animal they were taking, acknowledging where the life came from by ceremonially pouring out or "offering" the blood "back" to their god, and then giving a gratuity from the meat to the priest/butcher for their services.

The only difference in the Jewish sacrificial system was that Torah allowed for such an offering to coincide with the act of repenting from a "sin" or erroneous action or crime. This got abused by the Jews so greatly (merely offering the animal but not repenting) that by the time of the Prophets a new theology developed that taught that God did not require sacrifices or eat the blood and flesh of animals offered at the Temple. The Prophets also taught that the sacrifices wouldn't work without actual repentance, and introduced the current Jewish view that God forgives not by animal sacrifice but by heartfelt repentance and practical reparation.--See for example Hosea 6:6, Isaiah 1:11-14, and note especially Jeremiah 7:22-24 and compare Psalm 50:12-15.

Christians have never bothered to learn what the Jews did about the lack of value of the priest/butcher system.

63

We Pass the Bread and the Wine Just like in the Bible! But, why is forbidden to eat?

by lusitano o tuga in

see what bridget azaz did!.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzbe5yo7uq4.

David_Jay

Despite the fact that the Levites were a priestly class, the Passover meal is partaken by all in the Jewish household. There are years when we have non-Jewish guests at our Passover Seder, and they freely eat along with us, even participate by performing some of the rituals that occur during the meal. No one is excluded. So it is very peculiar the way the Jehovah's Witnesses have done things with their Memorial observance.

What many people do not realize is that the Passover has pagan roots, likely from the family of Abraham before he was called by God to the Promised Land, even before Abram knew of God. We Jews, however, do understand this, and we view the Biblical narrative in Exodus as reflective not merely of the past days when we were slaves in Egypt, but through the lens of our time in Babylonian exile. The Exodus account is where "allegory constitutes a form of historiography" in which the Jews in Babylon reflected on their traditional history of once being slaves in Egypt and retold it using themes based on being separated from their home in the Diaspora, hoping to be reunited to their Promised Land again.

As The New Union Haggadah states: (the book Jews follow on Passover night to direct them though the Seder is called a "haggadah" for those who are unfamiliar):

What is described in the Passover story should be considered a veiled depiction of Jews displaced to Babylonia and eventually through the Levant after the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE....They had to invent a new paradigm of peoplehood and leadership...In exile, Moses encounters God not in a sacred Temple or an otherwise renowned holy site, but in a lowly bush. The experience transforms him, as will the story transform every Jew's sense of the possibility of a divine encounter in the Diaspora [Babylonian Exile]....In fashioning their allegorical narrative, the authors of the Book of Exodus mythologized an array of rituals that were likely part of ancient Near Eastern society for centuries."
--The New Union Haggadah, "The Biblical Exodus," Rabbi David H. Aaron, PhD., Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio; Italics added.

It is accurate to say that the memories of any connection to a historical exodus from Egypt among the Hebrews connects its dating to this spring festival. So the elements of it were only changed to give it the added significance it grew to have not just from leaving Egypt but longing to go home while in Babylon. Especially in the Diaspora this played an important part in helping to preserving our Jewish culture while living without king, without a temple, and outside our own nation.

But the way this also applies is that whether it was the original Near Eastern spring festival or the Passover that was adapted from such, it was a celebration of a culture, among all its members. As the above haggadah mentioned, actively participating as a partaker in the Passover meal is meant to "transform every Jew's sense of the possibility of a divine encounter" wherever they may be. No participation, no "divine encounter."

Thus the Jehovah's Witness way of observing the Memorial cuts off a majority from that underlying "divine encounter" designed into the original Passover meal (and likely into Jesus of Nazareth's own reason for employing its emblems the way he did). When you tell others they are not to partake, it's really a way of saying, "You don't deserve to encounter the divine" or worse, "You are incapable of it and not even chosen for this divine encounter."

It has been transformed from a festival of inclusiveness that unites and preserves a society to a ritual of exclusion, reminding people of what they are not, not of what they are as the Passover does.

21

I need your opinions and recommendations please.

by bola in

after my exit from the watchtower shunning cult, i have received tons of invitations from different churches.

but because i am aware of religious cults, i need recommendations of churches that are not cults at all.

after exiting the watchtower cult, i don't want to fall into another religious cults.

David_Jay

Thanks, Anders.

I was kinda like this as a Witness, but was afraid to be this way fully till I left.

And while I must give some credit to what I learned from returning to Judaism, I have to say it has played more the part of a catalyst to be more myself than anything else.

Jews have become more egalitarian for the most part, but we're definitely not all there yet (the current conservative ruling party in Israel is a good example of Jews who can be as unfair and judgemental as the JWs).

But you can imagine how I didn't fit in as a JW as a lot of this never quite went away from me even in the deep, dark recesses of the Watchtower. (I feel I should add some maniacal laughter, like, "boo-ha-ha" after using the term "deep, dark recesses," like it's a requirement whenever those words are used together in a sentence.)

30

The Pagan Origins of the Memorial Observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses

by David_Jay in

“we don’t celebrate holidays because god doesn’t approve of any celebration that is rooted in pagan customs and manmade traditions.” (see here for a similar jw response.).

if you were once an ex-jw like me, you have probably said something like this out in field service to someone who asked the question: why don’t you people celebrate holidays?

as the witnesses' official website states in an faq about not celebrating easter:.

David_Jay

Phizzy,

You are absolutely right. It would allow them to be practically identical to mainstream Christianity. Someone earlier on this thread started toward that argument from a JW perspective but it fell apart before even getting there.

As you are likely quite aware, the argument that I am presenting is not that there is anything wrong with the Passover having both pagan and human origins. Jews don't teach that. We acknowledge this truth and embrace our celebration wholeheartedly without excuse for how it began. There is no Devil that inspires pagans to worship him through false religion in Judaism, so adapting something from the Gentile world isn't necessarily wrong. Purim, for example, is celebrated using almost exclusively Gentile and pagan elements.

The idea that something has to be "sanctified" because it had origins in pagan society or because it came from a human tradition is a Christian way of dealing with the paradox they often create for themselves. Teaching that the world is under a curse due to Adam's sin and that the Devil is real and inspires paganism, they create a problem when they develop and engage in celebrations and observances that come from this "cursed world." They aren't breaking a real rule, but they are going contrary to their own when they do this.

The answer? You said it. "Jesus sanctifies!" Simple answer, no? They need to use Jesus as this type of answer because they tend to contradict themselves when they say "pagans are evil but we like their celebration elements that we adopt for ourselves." Thank God for the "Jesus-solution," then, huh? They reduce Jesus to a talisman almost by saying what is tantamount to "Jesus touched it so now it's good."

The reason that didn't even did start to work before here is that Jesus is not considered to be an answer to anything in my discussion. Remember, I'm Jewish. While I do believe and recognize that Jesus of Nazareth was a Jewish sage of the first century, I also recognize him as an imposter to messianic claims and dead...and probably long eaten away by worms. Whatever Jesus "touched" doesn't change the historical origins of anything.

Jews don't see the world as "cursed under sin due to Adam" or "under the control" of "the Devil." (As mentioned before we don't even believe in the Devil.) We see the world as innately good. Thus we have adapted practices from other cultures and attached new meanings to them, but we don't teach that such things were in some mire of evil that required Jesus to declare them "sanctified." And whatever new meanings we give these practices doesn't erase their origins.

21

I need your opinions and recommendations please.

by bola in

after my exit from the watchtower shunning cult, i have received tons of invitations from different churches.

but because i am aware of religious cults, i need recommendations of churches that are not cults at all.

after exiting the watchtower cult, i don't want to fall into another religious cults.

David_Jay

I'm a religious person, but I have to agree with those who say don't go down the path of jumping into another religion now, at least not yet.

If you ever make that decision to do so after leaving the Witnesses it should never be something that takes away your freedom of thought, your use of critical thinking and logic. It should be something that adds to your personal fulfillment, not get in the way.

But till then you need to heal from being in a cult. This means un-learning to think, reason, and accept everything you learned as a JW. This is not easy. One of the things you must accept is that having been a member of a cult, whether converted or born into it, you don't have a good record when it comes to choosing a religion wisely (none of us who were JWs can claim to shine in that area). So kind of hold off till you learn that you can avoid traps.

Religion may not even be for you. Take some time to just breathe. Armageddon isn't coming. You don't need to be saved because you're a sinner. You don't have to believe in God. It's okay to just be you.

If you do think religion might be for you, learn it critically. Study only with persons and groups that admit they are not perfect, that admit that they are not the only source of truth, that is egalitarian. Maybe you just need a spiritual practice or discipline like Buddhism. Or maybe you just need to follow your own heart and spirit.

If a more traditional religion does become your choice, try investigating those hated most by the Witnesses or the ones they said cannot be right. You don't have to join them, but it will help erase a lot of Watchtower thinking if you see the mainstream religions on their own terms, as they are, without a filter.

In the end, whatever you choose, let it be your choice. Choose a path that will be fine with you if you decide to change again or even completely abandon it without penalty. May it be something that contributes to your personal freedom, not take that away. And my it be a healing step in your life.

30

The Pagan Origins of the Memorial Observed by Jehovah’s Witnesses

by David_Jay in

“we don’t celebrate holidays because god doesn’t approve of any celebration that is rooted in pagan customs and manmade traditions.” (see here for a similar jw response.).

if you were once an ex-jw like me, you have probably said something like this out in field service to someone who asked the question: why don’t you people celebrate holidays?

as the witnesses' official website states in an faq about not celebrating easter:.

David_Jay

Hecce

I wrote my response to you in peace, not aggravation. It is merely your personal opinion (and only yours) that it was not part of an intelligent exchange.

In fact, a great calm came to me from writing my response to you. The more I responded, the calmer and more at peace I became.

6

Why is the memorial Sometimes not on the Night of the passover?

by NikL in

jw
friends

do the jaydubs follow a different calendar?.

sometimes it is not in line with the jewish celebration and it should be no?.

David_Jay

The Governing Body decided that it was only correct to consider the beginning of the lunar month of Nisan based upon when the new moon should be visible from the city of Jerusalem. Their reasoning is that this is the way Jews did it in the first century so it must stay this way.

Modern Jews have decided to begin their lunar months based on what science has contributed to humanity. So now official Jewish law states that months begin with the astronomical new moon (as weather conditions can make it difficult to decipher a visible new moon). This allows Jews anywhere on earth to know exactly when a month begins and remain united in counting time.

This can cause a difference of up to 30 hours between the Jehovah's Witnesses calculations and that of the Jews. Also the Governing Body is confused by the fact that a second Seder occurs on the 15th day of Nisan to mark the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Thinking this to be a practice of "some Jews" observing Passover on the day after the 14th, the Governing Body feels justified in this decision. They seem also to be confused in this due to the way some Jews in the Diaspora still "double" up on some holy day observances.

But the actual Jewish calendar can only be the one recognized by the Jews at large in order for it to be legal according to Jewish law. Thus the JW date can often be invalid when it differs like this.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay