Posts by David

12

Jesus as God. What do JW believe?

by Th3ArCh0n in

i've been looking into jehovah's witnesses beliefs and came up with a serious question, as i've found is that witnesses don't believe that jesus is god, same with the father.

but even in the new world translation, isaiah 9:6 (one of the ancient prophecies of jesus christ) it says "for a child has been born to us,+.

a son has been given to us;and the rulership* will rest on his shoulder.+his name will be called wonderful counselor,+ mighty god,+ eternal father, prince of peace.

David_Jay

We Jews have had this text in our Scriptures for millennia. Not only do we not accept that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, we have not ever read this to think it foretells the incarnation of God. The text isn't even viewed as messianic.

While I totally reject the teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses, even its anti-Trinitarian stance (though I don't subscribe to the Trinity, of course), these texts never literally say the child is "the Messiah," and the use of the word "God" in a name is very common in Hebrew. "Michael," for instance, is literally "Who is like God?" The Witnesses take advantage of such views to promote their very odd take on Christology.

Jews see these verses as applying to Hezekiah. He is given a name at his birth at Isaiah 9:5 which in Hebrew reads: Pele-joez-el-gibbor-abi-ad-sar-shalom. The "el" part is the word "God." In Hebrew it means: "The Mighty God is planning grace; The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler." It is describing Hezekiah as being the graceful, peaceable ruler planned by the Mighty God, the Eternal Father. Jews don't read it as if it is saying that the child is God.

However, the central view of Christianity is that God came in the Person of Jesus Christ. While not immediate from Scripture, the idea predates the canonization of the Bible (at least the New Testament). The teaching that Jesus is not God come as Epiphany creates a foreign, problematic form of Christianity. Christian tradition is that God became man so man could share in God's divine nature. The Watchtower view is a poor cousin form of Christianity by comparison.

17

Lets be honest, not a little leery of the resurrected ones????

by James Mixon in

jw
friends

maybe i have watched too many zombie movies but i would sleep with one eye open, inquire to see what is your favored menu,do you sleep walk, are your body parts functioning properly (i would hate to shake your hand and it fall off).

your wife never married after 10 years and now you are back, can you perform in the marriage bed?

?it would be hard for me to sleep at nights with someone that have been dead for over one year sleeping next to me.

David_Jay

I am more afraid of the so-called "theocratic society" that the Watchtower preaches and hopes for.

"Can you imagine what the whole world would be like once the Organization becomes the ruling Kingdom on earth?" Witnesses used to ask one another when I went to meetings, was out in field service, especially after being at a convention (we had week long district conventions in my day).

What would it be like? Zombies ain't scary. Just finished watching another chilling episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" on Hulu. That's the real thing to be scared of right there: a Christian Fundamentalist theocracy that takes over the land!

The real zombies are already among us. They are called "Jehovah's Witnesses." Now if there is such a thing as the resurrection and it does come as the Jewish prophets suggest, it won't be the way the Witnesses are gonna like it. Any literal resurrection of the dead would be a welcome sight, as it would mean the end of that horrible proselytizing cult. There will be no such groups if such a future such as the Jewish sages suggest occurs as literally as the Witnesses portray it in their books.

Not saying that even the Jews are sure about the "world to come." But I will say that a world without mind-eating zombies is a world where the Watchtower will have gone defunct.

Till then, lock your doors. Those JW zombies are planning on coming to your door next!

31

what is the craziest book the dubbers ever published?

by dogon in

so i was wondering what book is the nuttiest they ever printed?

i know there are several in contention for first place but which is your vote for no 1?

also if you don't mind post a bit of what is in the book you pick to show why you picked it.

David_Jay

Onthewayout,

Not just the newly revised "Silver Sword" edition, but ever edition of the New World Translation.

From the viewpoint of someone who has been speaking Hebrew my entire life for (almost) the past 50 years, and Biblical Greek for the past 20, in my opinion, the craziest, most asinine and totally messed-up thing they have ever published was and is the "New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures."

They might as well have made up the whole thing from scratch because it is such a far cry from what's really there in the original-language texts. And what gets me is when they try to defend it: people who can't read the Hebrew in my Siddur or my Hebrew Bible when I stick it in their faces yet claiming to defend the NWT's renditions anyway! That's insanity.

I recall that I developed some serious questions about the NWT when I was among them as a teenager and was told in response that I was lying about knowing Hebrew. That was the answer I was given from them, and that's the treatment they give to serious academic challenges: You have to be lying.

It's a fools Bible, a poor excuse for a translation, and come to think of it an act of sacrilege. They should be ashamed of such a shabby thing, but instead they are quite proud of it. In my humble opinion, their crazy claims in their books, tracts, magazines, brochures, and videos pale in comparison to their claim that they have authentically translated the Scriptures...and most accurately.

12

Jehovah intervened in Russia

by Sour Grapes in

i saw the recent video that the borg put out about the trial in russia and how pleased the russian brothers were that a member of the gibbering booty, brother sanders, came to support them for six days.

well, there was a one-day delay in the trial which enabled the russian witnesses to have the memorial in their kingdom halls.

well, brother sanders was very quick to point out that it was very evident that jehovah intervened to enable the brothers to celebrate the memorial.

David_Jay

That's not a Biblical attitude to take.

If you celebrate a day in honor of a deity that you're not supposed to, Biblically speaking, what happens to you NEXT is what defines things.

The Jews worshipped gods they weren't supposed to, and what happened according to the Bible? Their Temple got closed down and demolished by the authorities and the Jews got sent into Babylonian exile.

Thus the correct Biblical way of looking at this would be that the JWs celebrated the Memorial, and in response as a sign of divine disfavor the authorities closed down their shrines and temples and outlawed their religion.

If the Witnesses want to be Biblical about it, this is a sign they've been rejected, not assisted.

26

Saudi Man Sentenced To Death For Atheism

by Bangalore in

saudi man sentenced to death for atheism.. http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-man-sentenced-death-after-declaring-himself-atheist-online-video-591473.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html.

David_Jay

Chook,

Ancient Jews were not the enlightened community Jehovah's Witnesses (and even some other Fundamentalist Christian groups) claim we were. The Torah as spelled out in Scripture is more of an attempt at creating a just society but greatly hampered by ancient prejudices and limitations more than it being a law dictated directly from Heaven as the Witnesses teach.

The asinine idea that ancient religious laws are perfect representations of the mindset of God is quite well demonstrated in the award-winning novel, "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood. The story plays out over a dystopian paradigm created when a Fundamentalist Christian Government overtakes the United States and imposes a "theocratic rule" which mimics the type of religious world experienced by Mormons, the Amish, and often reflects the type of governing body rule experienced by Jehovah's Witnesses (though militarized).

Like these groups, the dystopia of the novel alleges Christianity but imposes a literal Old Testament application of law that ends up oppressing society, especially women. Among those suppressed by such a government, ironically, are the Jews who are forced to submit to proselytizing or live in Israel (where they are promised they can practice Judaism out of sight of the world, but all actually killed by the dystopian government if they choose such a way out).

For those interested and have access to Hulu, "The Handmaid's Tale" has been adapted into a new television series to great critical acclaim. Masterfully produced and so welcomed by viewers that it was instantly granted a second season even though the first has just begun. The novel has been discussed here several times on this forum, and it is a must read for an ex or current JW or LDS or Fundie (and the new show on Hulu is definitely worth watching).

19

Jerusalem's destruction.....

by Unstuck in

hello all - so me and stuckinarut2 are at the state library proving to ourselves that wt has it all wrong re: 607. i've read at length jwfacts, jwsurvey and crisis of conscience that all go into the subject and i've just downloaded gentile times reconsidered.. while it is fabulous to have someone else compile all the research and evidence for you, it is quite another to see it in print for yourself - and so, here we are.. while we wait for our array of books i couldn't help but share with you how the state library has catalogued jewish history - 586 bc to 70 ad.

no mention of 607 as a key date as far as the library's catalogue is concerned!!

evidence before we have our books!!.

David_Jay

As for the second date:

The fixation on the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 C.E.) by the Jehovah's Witnesses and other Christians is so very odd to me.

The Second Temple did fall in 70 C.E., but it was by no means the end of the Jewish people. And it is not fully believed by academia that the Christians fled to Pella.

It was with the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135/36 C.E.) when the Jews were finally barred from Jerusalem. The revolt was crushed and all Jews were removed and barred from Jerusalem by the Romans in 135 C.E.

The original Hebrew Christians had a church in Jerusalem up until then. In fact, the last Jewish bishop of Jerusalem was Judah Kyriakos, said to be the great grandson of the apostle Jude, a cousin or other close relative of Jesus of Nazareth.

Because the Romans had caught on to the Jewish idea that the Messiah would come from the House of David, they began to slaughter as many of them as they could after 70 C.E. Since the first bishop of the Jerusalem church was St. James the Greater, a relative of Jesus, his replacements were all relatives and descendents of David, or so they claimed.

Due to the Roman slaughter of the Ben David line, the Jerusalem church had 16 bishops from 33 to 135 C.E. when Judah Kyriakos and his Jerusalem congregation dispersed after Bar Kokhba was crushed.

So the date for the Roman diaspora of the Jews begins not in 70 but with 135 C.E. That is when Jerusalem was emptied of all Jews and the Christians. And the "run away" to Pella may be an embellishment of sorts. There is too much evidence against it.

26

Saudi Man Sentenced To Death For Atheism

by Bangalore in

saudi man sentenced to death for atheism.. http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-man-sentenced-death-after-declaring-himself-atheist-online-video-591473.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html.

David_Jay

_Morpheus,

I'm Hebrew. Muslims claim to worship the God-concept that developed and evolved among my people. The Christians that charged Stephen Fry with blasphemy claim the same thing.

My point was that it it doesn't bother me, a Jew, who is a descendant of those who developed this ancient concept, so I find it odd that other people slaughter atheists in the name of this God. I don't see that such views are blasphemous or criminal.

The persecution of atheist and humanistic thought seems to be highlighted less in the media. People in general seem to not care as much about this as they do about what happens to religious people, and that is not right IMO. Case in point: right now it seems everybody is covering Pence and his statements that the Islamic State is engaging in a 'genocide against Christians,' but how many people seem concerned that atheists around the world are undergoing torture and beheadings simply for exercising their freedom of conscience in their own way?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/11/vice-president-pence-isis-genocide-against-christians/101552368/

26

Saudi Man Sentenced To Death For Atheism

by Bangalore in

saudi man sentenced to death for atheism.. http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-man-sentenced-death-after-declaring-himself-atheist-online-video-591473.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-atheism-ahmad-al-shamri-hafar-al-batin-appeal-denied-a7703161.html.

David_Jay

I must say, the rise in intolerance against atheists is highly disturbing and distressing to me. Just a few days ago, actor Stephen Fry was charged with "blasphemy" for publicly declaring his views about God.

What is it? Atheists can't give their "testimony"? It's okay if they "do it in the privacy of their own homes," but you can't be one in public?

If you believe in God so much that the voice of a minority and that of a few outspoken individuals among them (who are simply exercising their freedom of conscience to speak their minds) calls for legal actions and mobs and executions, what kind of belief is that? If you already wholeheartedly have faith that "unbelievers" will suffer in Hell, why do you have to form a "send off party"? If you believe God will smite these people, why not just take a step back and let the god you believe in do what you say it will?

Sure, I don't like it at all when people say or do anti-Semitic things, but merely dismissing the idea of God, saying you have a bone to pick with God, or even putting up the world's largest sign that reads: "God isn't real people. Get over it already!" ...none of that is criminal. It's not even morally wrong, and my people came up with the God thing to begin with.

What's truly horrible, immoral, and criminal is to read about such a sorry state of affairs as this report.

15

When is a JW considered "awake"...?

by biblexaminer in

1) they begin question .

2) they stop field service.

3) they stop going to kingdumb hall.

David_Jay

This is a trick question.

Jehovah's Witnesses are never awake to the reality that they are in a cult. Only those who are not Jehovah's Witnesses are truly awake.

30

Marrying yourself is now a thing....

by James Mixon in

jw
friends

ok i'am old so i need some help to understand this new thing, what's the point in marrying yourself?

this sound like a gb brain storm idea....i guess you can never commit adultery....

David_Jay

I suppose this gives a new meaning to the phrase "Go f--k yourself"?

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay