Posts by David

29

What is your understanding of the terms "Ransom" and "Redeem"?

by Doug Mason in

with respect to christ being the "redeemer" and of having "paid the ransom", i would like to know:.

(1) what is your technical understanding of each term?.

(2) what is the watchtower's understanding of each term?.

David_Jay

While as a Jew I do not subscribe to this doctrine, the "ransom" of Christ is his becoming the "Lamb of God," an offering to humans as "food" for their journey to "passover" from the mortal state to that of the divine.

Originally atonement theology was very basic. It suggested that God was being appeased by the suffering of his own Son. But it changed over the centuries, and currently the teaching is that Christ offered himself to humans, not to God. As 2 Peter 1:4 states, Jesus paid the price of himself in order to "enable you to share in the divine nature."

As the lamb was food for the Exodus out of Egypt for the Jews, the life of Jesus is Viaticum, food for the journey to pass from mortality to share in God's divine nature. Jesus flesh and blood are "paid" over to humans as "true food" and "true drink," not on an altar to God but on a table to humans.--John 6:55.

"Redemption" is different, however. It refers to restoring people by legal claim, or restoring something to people by legal means. Jews view the Exodus as God's redemption of his people from slavery. God paid no one to redeem the Jews as God owes no one. But God had legal claim to them by means of the Abrahamic covenant. The same covenant claimed rights and privileges to the Israelites that they could not possess as slaves in Egypt. Thus a "redemption" took place via the Exodus. Redemption in this sense involves restoration.

Some Christians still hold to an "appeasement" view of Christ's ransom. In these instances, "redemption" is somewhat of a synonym for "ransom" in a paradigm when Christ offers a sacrifice to God.

But where the theology that rejects appeasement exists, "redemption" keeps the original meaning as used by the Jews. In Christian terms it refers to restoring what was lost in Eden (according to Christianity's Original Sin doctrine), giving this back to humans via the "cost" of Christ's sacrifice.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe in appeasement theology, where God requires blood to be spilled to appease his sense of justice. This view has been rejected by almost all forms of mainstream Christianity today. Even some Fundamentalist movements find the appeasement view appalling as it draws God as a bloodthirsty deity.

49

Do religious people fear that their religion may be wrong???

by James Mixon in

because there are so many religions in the world and it is obvious that no matter what the truth is, a large population of people will be wrong about it.

we at one time believe we had the truth and 99% of the world population were in darkness, but i wonder about folks in other religions today.

speaking with a christian friend about this and he told me," that's for god to decide, i hope i'am serving god"...the sad thing about all of this if one die and still believe in his religion, he will never know he was in the wrong religion.

David_Jay

Cold Steel,

Thank you for your comments.I appreciate your reply.

This is actually very different from Judaism which doesn't believe it's possible to perfectly know beyond doubt.

But I find it interesting that you and other LDS members have such a religion. I wouldn't subscribe to anything like that, but that is me.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

TD,

Now that would definitely take this thread off in a different direction. That should be the subject of a different thread entirely.

Also, while I will comment on what the Jewish view is of a certain thread's subject in connection with JW theology, and some supplementary material might spring from that, my personal opinion is rarely given. Some people have thought I was giving my personal views, even on Judaism, but this isn't always the case. I often don't subscribe to what I've added. It's data that I think can help, and it's usually given in an objective manner. Usually.

On another thread I could tell you what Judaism views about a certain subject, but I wouldn't always include my personal opinion (sometimes because I have none). Rating various tenets of Christian Fundamentalist theology according to my personal isn't something I think would be of benefit to anyone. Who am I to do that?

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Half banana,

Remember the song...?

We're Jehovah's Witnesses./We speak out in fearlessness.
Ours is the God of true prophecy;/What he foretells comes to be.

The whole Mars thing would really screw up their theology.

I will say it once again: JWs have reduced the Bible to a crystal ball and made God into a fortune teller. This is why I laugh at them why they lie and say "we are not here in this religion based on the setting of any daste, whether we predicted one right or not." Uh, yes you are! Your theme song says so.

No wonder many of us upon leaving might still think the Bible claims to map out the future for the earth! It's all the Witnesses claim it to be. I have even heard brothers state that God won't allow space colonization until after Satan has been destroyed to ensure the "test upon humanity" plays out right.

49

Do religious people fear that their religion may be wrong???

by James Mixon in

because there are so many religions in the world and it is obvious that no matter what the truth is, a large population of people will be wrong about it.

we at one time believe we had the truth and 99% of the world population were in darkness, but i wonder about folks in other religions today.

speaking with a christian friend about this and he told me," that's for god to decide, i hope i'am serving god"...the sad thing about all of this if one die and still believe in his religion, he will never know he was in the wrong religion.

David_Jay

Cold Steel,

Can a Latter-day Saint have doubt and even wrestle with their religious concepts and doctrines as Jews as encouraged to? Or is doubt to be avoided?

49

Do religious people fear that their religion may be wrong???

by James Mixon in

because there are so many religions in the world and it is obvious that no matter what the truth is, a large population of people will be wrong about it.

we at one time believe we had the truth and 99% of the world population were in darkness, but i wonder about folks in other religions today.

speaking with a christian friend about this and he told me," that's for god to decide, i hope i'am serving god"...the sad thing about all of this if one die and still believe in his religion, he will never know he was in the wrong religion.

David_Jay

James Mixon,

Judaism is the religious practice (or expression) of the Jewish people. Like Buddhism, Judaism does not require a Jew to believe in anything specific as a requisite to membership. There are also no concepts of salvation or eternal damnation.

Taoism, Jainism and Hinduism are similar, though Hindus may incorporate theist belief. This aspect of Hinduism is similar to Judaism as Jews could technically "believe" in God, but as "faith" is disregarded in exchange for "faithfulness," one might say this is still a response as the central definition of the Jewish God is that YHVH is unknowable or inconceivable.

As for an eternal metaphysical aspect of the human person, this is hard to say. In some respects all these above religions do, and yet technically they don't. For instance, Judaism recognizes that God has future plans after this world (universe) is gone, but it also includes the concept of God being totally alone at this point too. We are unconcerned about the afterlife, and many Jews do not even hold to such a concept. This is similar to Taoism in some respects.

49

Do religious people fear that their religion may be wrong???

by James Mixon in

because there are so many religions in the world and it is obvious that no matter what the truth is, a large population of people will be wrong about it.

we at one time believe we had the truth and 99% of the world population were in darkness, but i wonder about folks in other religions today.

speaking with a christian friend about this and he told me," that's for god to decide, i hope i'am serving god"...the sad thing about all of this if one die and still believe in his religion, he will never know he was in the wrong religion.

David_Jay

That is the problem with religions built upon and requiring assent of belief.

Not all religions are about believing something. Judaism and Buddhism are religions of practice. You can be atheist and be one or both (I have atheist friends who practice one or the other and know of some who practice both). Doubt and wrestling with central concepts are earmarks of Judaism, and there are forms of Jewish instruction regarding how and why to do this.

Not all religions have afterlife concepts, and therefore there are no reasons to worry they are wrong. Christianity seems to be peculiar in that it demands assent of mental belief in concepts that are supposed to be transcendent and defy reason. At the same time it often claims that doubt demonstrates unfaithfulness or even failure. Obedience and unquestioning are often requisites, and eternal punishment is always looming over the faithful just in case they think something incorrectly or fail in some way.

I have no reason to fear that my religion is wrong today, but Judaism also often teaches that it has no exclusive claim on truth anyway (or that there is necessarily a definitive truth in every matter). Thus I also don't go around thinking it is "right" either. It is what I do and how I respond to the universe, but it is just as much about being a Jew as it is about being in a covenant with the God of Abraham.

While I cannot speak for all Christians, the 11 years I did try it as a JW kept me in a state of constant worry and dread. I felt that my thoughts were not my own, that if I thought the wrong thing even for a split second that if I didn't immediately pray for forgiveness and repent that God would get me, especially should Armageddon begin before I could repent fully. Even though I had the "truth" as a Witness, I was in fear that I was believing hard enough or letting even a second of doubt in. It was always scary.

37

Circumcision....Perfect Adam....Uncircumcised....1st century Christians...circumcision ont required

by blondie in

jw
friends

i know this has been discussed many times, but i was watching a news story about female genital mutilation (not female circumcision) and segued mentally into why the hassle about male babies having to be circumcised, christians especially.

even the wts flipflops on this...... if adam, the first perfect man, not under the jewish law code, was given a foreskin by god as an aspect of his physical perfection, why then do so many "christian" people have their boy babies circumcised?.

if a health issue....why did god create the perfect man, adam, with a foreskin?.

David_Jay

First off, Judaism doesn't teach that Adam was perfect. It also doesn't teach that he lost his perfection. Neither situations occur at Eden in the narrative of Genesis according to Jewish exegesis.

Judaism does not teach that there was a fall from grace at Eden either and that death is a punishment for sin. These ideas and those of Original Sin being passed on from Adam are originally from Christianity. Death is actually seen by Jews as natural, and even as a type of reward of well-earned rest.--Genesis 15:15; 29:8; 49:29, etc.

Judaism acknowledges that circumcision did not exclusively originate with God and Abraham. It was the custom of the Semitic and Egyptian people that we descended from, and the narrative in Torah is likely linking an already-adopted practice of the Hebrews into its storytelling of the Abrahamic covenant.

Originally it was connected with marriage, performed as a rite of passage at the age of puberty, upon which the boy received a new name and, after healing, was considered purified for the marriage act.

Remnants of this practice are seen in the account of Moses' neglect to circumcise Gershom and Zipporah performing the rite in connection with a renaming ceremony.--Exodus 4:25-26.

The Jewish Encyclopedia adds:

The ancient Hebrews followed the more primitive custom of undergoing circumcision at the age of puberty, the circumcision of young warriors at that age signifying the consecration of their manhood to their task as men of the covenant battling against the uncircumcised inhabitants...After the settlement of the Israelites in Palestine, the rite was transferred to the eighth day after birth. In fixing the time of the initiatory rite at an age when its severity would be least felt, the Mosaic law shows its superiority over the older custom.

So it was not a health issue or even something originally ordained directly from God to the Jews. It was a rite we Jews inherited from our heathen days and later ascribed to our covenants with YHVH.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

TD,

The concept of "Bible prophecy" is not one of mainstream Christianity anymore either.

Being exposed only to the doctrine of the Watchtower and learning about the Bible and other religions through its filter can create what I call the "Marie Antoinette Effect." Especially upon leaving the JWs and rejecting all religion (which can be a fine thing to do), a problem can occur that we are left believing that all religion is like what we were exposed to from this very American, anglosphere-centric, Adventism-based cult. Many ex-Mormons born into that religion have a similar experience sometimes.

The idea that the Bible has a foretelling of world history in both the Old and New Testaments has been rejected by all mainstream Christianity. The Holocaust was the turning point for the revision of much Christian theology. Christianity's direct and indirect involvement in the Shoah led to the Christian-Jewish dialogues that began around 1950. Originally started (and actually initiated) by the Catholic Church, the dialogues created reform in all forms of Christian religion, even indirectly initiating Vatican II which changed Catholicism forever.

Teachings like supersessionism and rejection of the Jewish exegesis on their own Scriptures have been officially done away with in mainstream Christianity. This includes the idea of a foretold "march of nations" predicted in Daniel and other books. Such ideas actually played a part in the anti-Semitism that led up to the Holocaust, and thus the idea of such a forecast of Bible prophecy was dismissed from all major Christian denominations likely before most of us here were even born. Even the so-called "70 Weeks Prophecy" of Daniel has recently been rejected by mainstream Christianity as a prophecy about Jesus. For instance, the Catholic Church now teaches the exact same view on the 70 weeks as does Judaism.

But many of us who grew up in the JW world and left religion entirely are quite unaware of these changes. They didn't happen in Watchtower-land, and we weren't taught exactly about what was really happening in the real world of theology. Rejecting religion often means not keeping up on what really changed.

So we sometimes leave the JWs thinking that all Christians believe in Bible prophecy regarding the earth. Some still do, like the other cults that keep predicting a date for the end of the world. Like Marie Antoinette of whom legends says was unaware that people who had no bread to feed their children would at least surely have cake to give them, ex-JWs are sometimes products of being just as closed off from the real world of religion. Some of the reasons we might become atheist may not even be a thing in any other religion, but coming from a closed off society we can sometimes be like Marie Antoinette.

One friend wrote me that if Bible prophecy isn't really a thing, then he can't be an atheist anymore because that is the main reason he rejected God. I told he could still be an atheist even though Bible prophecy is not a real thing outside of the Watchtower and a few Fundamentalists Christian movements. The fact that the Bible isn't anything like the Jehovah's Witnesses taught doesn't automatically mean God exists. It only means Bible prophecy also doesn't exist.

Thus moving to Mars or living anywhere in space cannot invalidate a concept that doesn't exist.

61

Would human settlement of Mars invalidate Bible prophecy?

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i don't think this topic has been discussed before but yesterday i read something to the effect that trump wants a human mission to mars to be completed within his presidency.. with that being said, the watchtower teaches that what started on earth ends on earth, in other words, the fall of adam and eve would end with the passing of the 1,000 year millennial reign when christ destroys all his enemies, rebellious "perfect" humans, and the devil and his demons who are let out the abyss for a short while.

he then hands the kingdom back to his father.

an elder in my old congregation once told us during a public talk that he was an ardent astronomer but then referenced the scripture where it says, "the earth he has given to the sons of men" (psalms 115:16).

David_Jay

Well, isn't the question about whether colonizing Mars an invalidation of so-called "Bible prophecy" the subject at hand? There would have to be such a thing as Bible prophecy in the first place, no? If one can prove that there is no such thing, isn't that still part of the same subject? That was what I was doing (if you followed along from the beginning).

Only Christians like the JWs believe in such things as the Bible foretelling and mapping out the future of the earth. It isn't taking the OP off topic if one proves that there is no such thing to begin with.

What may be the problem is that there are some people I've met that want the JW concept of "Bible prophecy" to be real, as if the Jews really intended such a thing. But when you offer critical analytical data from Judaism to show that such a concept is of Gentile origin, that makes some people uncomfortable. Some people need the "Bible prophecy" concept to exist as an intention from us Jews in order to have something to "prove" their current convictions about how wrong "Bible prophecy" is.

There is no such thing as the Gentile concept of "Bible prophecy," ergo colonizing Mars doesn't invalidate something that doesn't exist. Christians made up the concept of a "march of nations" and a foretelling of the earth's eternal future being in Scripture.

At least for our Jewish Scripture, it has no such "prophecy," which is what I was pointing out. And someone raised points about establishing this, so I answered.

The OP raised a question about a concept that is moot because there is no such thing as "Bible prophecy." Colonizing Mars can't invalidate something only Fundies and JWs say is real.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay