Posts by David

240

Introduction - Any Believers?

by Believer in

i’ve been reading it for a few of years off and on, but have been a little too ... maybe ... timid to join.

i left the watchtower organization almost 20 years ago but never abandoned my faith and belief in god.

i knew the gb/organization didn’t represent god, so when i lost my faith in them, i managed to keep my faith in an all wise benevolent creator.

David_Jay

Several years ago a man with a metal baseball bat ran into a store selling Judaica and began swinging at some of the people inside, Jews making purchases for the upcoming Passover.

The man belonged to some Fundamentalist group, I would later be told because I was one of the victims. He swung the bat and hit hard at the side of my head after yelling out an insult to the Jews.

Today I have to go to physical therapy twice a week every week due to the brain damage I suffer. My breathing has been left impaired, and everything from walking to speech has become challenging. I still have my mental faculties intact, but my motor skills are what the man damaged in his horrible rampage.

The phrase this religious zealot used before he started swinging? "Jews are monsters because their God is a monster. Jews are savages."

I can't say I remember all the words used, but I do remember these. He kept repeating other statements too on how we messed up the world by our lies. Some of it is still clear, some of it had to be told to me because part of the attack I don't remember, like what happened after the first strike. I had forgotten the "monster" comment until I read Simon's words.

You are all entitled to your views, but for my own personal reasons after reading Simon's post and those of a few others, I must bow out.

Some of your words against those who believe in God are too similar to the man who ran into that little shop. I'm not quick to judge, and so I won't say that there is any more of a comparison whatsoever because I don't know anymore than that.

I am not like some of you. I am not angry at the JWs or the man who did this to me and left me for dead. But I don't understand how logical and intelligent people can curse at someone because of their beliefs and call them ignorant and otherwise insult them and at the same time claim they are more enlightened than those they treat this way.

Many of you may have left the JW religion but you may not have left the part that taught us to think we were right and should hate others were who had a different belief system. That last part is just a much a lie as 1914, and apparently some are not merely believing it, they're still practicing it.

Leaving suddenly, exactly as I left the JWs so many years ago, I say good-bye.

77

New commentary on revelation coming up?

by EdenOne in

i heard through the grapevine about a forthcoming book:.

together through the great tribulation - come to jehovah's mountain.

still awaiting solid confirmation though.

David_Jay

Doug (who can jump in with his own thoughts) may be referring to the fact that the Revelation to John is an apocalypse of the Jewish genre, and the individuals addressed by Christ are called "Jews" in contrast with their enemies who also go by the same term. (Revelation 3.9) While there is a bit of evidence that some Gentile Christians also wanted to go by the term "Jew," the metaphors, symbolism, and terminology are very Jewish. Many scholars see this as an argument in favor of a Jewish apocalypse composed by Jewish Christians.

If that is the case, "Babylon the Great" is unfaithful Jerusalem that rejected Jesus of Nazareth instead of "Rome," the other favored interpretation by those who see this as a Gentile Christian composition. The author, in this case, is making a "prophecy" of its assured rejection. This hermeneutic view makes Revelation highly anti-Semitic which could explain its late introduction into the canon. The Apocalypse of Peter instead was widely read in Christian Liturgy until the 4th century, and John's apocalypse remained challenged until the Council of Trent.

There is a third view that it is a mixture of Jewish and Gentile authorship, heavily influenced by Jewish Christian thought and written as a Jewish apocalypse, with both Jerusalem and Rome being spoken of in its judgments.

Jewish authorship, however, would not have necessarily meant the authors were from St. James' congregation. It appears that most of not all the Jewish Christians who engaged in writing were of the Diaspora or not in Jerusalem during composition, except for maybe the epistle of James.

240

Introduction - Any Believers?

by Believer in

i’ve been reading it for a few of years off and on, but have been a little too ... maybe ... timid to join.

i left the watchtower organization almost 20 years ago but never abandoned my faith and belief in god.

i knew the gb/organization didn’t represent god, so when i lost my faith in them, i managed to keep my faith in an all wise benevolent creator.

David_Jay

Outsiderlookingin,

As a Jew I can testify that, though your admiration for defending the Hebrew text is not in question by me, I must side with Cofty and others due if nothing but from the Jewish explanation of the texts you are arguing about.

Without going into detail about each separate comment, there is a rule of thumb to all of it that you are missing. It is likely because you don’t know how Jews view Torah, and that is to be expected. But as Cofty and others demonstrate, one can merely apply logic, even logic separate from a belief in God, and see that your conclusions are questionable.

The rule of thumb is simple: The Mosaic Law did not introduce new ways to treat others and ways to live. The Mosaic Law introduced a new way to govern the way the Jews already lived.

The culture of the Jews did not fall down from the sky with the clouds and fire of the Great Theophany. The way the Jewish culture treated women and slaves and viewed national enemies as described in the Bible was not inspired by Torah or any part of the Hebrew Bible. My people lived very much like their neighbors around them, viewing women and slaves and enemies the way most other ancient cultures did. We held the same limited view of the nature of the universe and medicine and even the “right” way to worship our God as other cultures who were heathen.

The only difference is that Torah, the Law of Moses, introduced a demarcation, changing us from a people once ruled by the whims of taskmasters in Egypt to law from Heaven that governed the way freemen should live. Much of our culture did change, but a lot of it just got rules limiting how we did things that ancient peoples without Torah, Gentiles, did similarly.

To illustrate: God did not demand the Jews to take the women of enemies we conquered for ourselves. Neither did God demand we keep any of the spoil for ourselves. This is what people did. The only thing introduced by Torah were set limits on what we already did.

Jews may not have invented a lot of the things Christians give us credit for. Our sacrificial system was based on the way other cultures did things, and it served a practical need to slaughter food correctly, humanely, and with thanks all at the same time. The Jews didn’t get a new culture, new dress code, new way of doing things with Torah. We merely got a Law governing the way we and cultures already lived. The Law taught us no remarkable scientific truths, made us no different from those around us unless we learned the meaning of the Law: we are not free to enjoy life if we use our freedom to rob our neighbor of the same freedom.

So much of what you are saying, though you may have admirable aims, isn’t truly representative of Jewish Mosaic Law or the views we have held through generations. Viewing the way you explain it makes it look like God wanted us to commit genocide, to treat women as lesser beings than men, to rape, to strip others of their rights.

Now I have no need to convert you to Judaism or any other religion. Jews don’t convert. We are not in the business of trying to get you to adopt our views and make them your truths. I don’t have any interest in having you join me at my local synagogue or even accepting a theist view.

But what I am saying is that these other posters are closer than you are in what they are saying, verifying that your views warp something you are convinced you know better of. Some might be challenging your belief, but I think even then what they are really challenging is your logic.

You are chopping the tree branch you are sitting on. Stop it. If you don’t it will eventually fall, and you with it. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen. And you will have only yourself to blame because you ignored not just the voice of reason being offered you by these other posters but a Jew who just might know a thing or two you are failing to consider.

24

Why the Bible cannot be the work of an all-wise God that epitomizes love.

by Island Man in

there's simply no way to honestly deny that the ot condones genocide, slavery and misogyny.

there are too many passage showing yahweh commanding his people to wipe out this nation and that nation - women and innocent children included!

it leaves us with a god who wrote a book that very, very, very much seems like it condones genocide, but it doesn't, etc.. what kind of god does that?

David_Jay

"God is All-Loving, Perfect, God wrote the Bible, God literally commanded the Jews to kill those who once dwelt in Canaan, God commanded slavery, literally asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and the Bible can only be correctly understood if you have Jesus Christ."--Signed Christians and those who believe that their interpretation more accurately represents the God of Abraham than the Jews'.

Dear Mr. George Lucas:

Someone taught me that your Star Wars stories were fact and that Jedis were real. I spent my life and money trying to learn the Ways of the Force and praying to Yoda on the hopes he would hear me and grant me powers to defeat the Evil Sith. But it turned out your stories were pure fiction. I blame you for creating these false stories and will spend the rest of my life angrily telling everyone that your works are nothing but pure science fiction! I now hate you and everything Star Wars!--Signed Someone Who Ignored the Fact that George Lucas Said Star Wars Was Only Fiction.

DEAR JEWS,

We hate your God and your Scriptures because we chose to ignore you, the people who wrote them, and listened instead to Christians who told us these stories in the Hebrew Bible were factual history. Even though you taught differently for millennia, we chose to ignore the fact the you probably knew better when you said that these works could not be taken at face value. Therefore we adversely judge your God and your Scriptures, even though it is clearly our fault for going to the Jehovah's Witnesses and Fundamental Christians (who by the way teach you Jews won't and can't be saved) who, ignoring your intentions behind the Bible, taught us that the stories valued by your culture are literal. It is not our fault that we decided to AVOID the source of the Jewish Scriptures and went to cults and Gentiles instead.--Signed It's the Bible's Fault That I Ignored Jewish Thought When I Read the Scriptures.

27

Proof that Daniel was written 400 years after the events it describes and how much it gets wrong

by purrpurr in

i've been studying the bible anew and have just realised that the writer of daniel gets the kings of babylon completely wrong and confused.

he says that nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son belshazzar .

then along comes good old cyrus the great who liberates the jews.. yet this is wrong!

David_Jay

Joe134cd,

The problem with the point you present and that the WT endorses, none of them are supported by Jewish secular history.

The story about Alexander being shown the book of Daniel is considered Jewish legend.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1120-alexander-the-great

The Dead Sea Scrolls play no part in Judaism, nor do they represent anything contradictory to what Judaism claims about the Book of Daniel. It would be counterproductive to claim that a book we cherish and consider to be the Word of God as not a prophecy if we believed it was a prophecy. Apocalyptic works were designed to be read and distributed widely during the period of political intrigue they dealt with. The book could not have reached prophetic status without some record in Judaism that this happened. The Qumran collection is not representative of mainstream Second Temple Judaism.

But this is your choice to view things this way, and it doesn't affect me as a Jew anyway. It involves your view of how we Jews understand our own Scriptures, and you stand to disagree with it and claim you have authority to say I am wrong.

And my apologies to Vidqun. I must admit that I cannot understand any of your writings, though I have tried and re-read them over the past two days. Your points completely escape me, demonstrating where I definitely am lacking. So until I can comprehend them better, I cannot claim that any of what I have written applies.

11

Were leading characters in the history of Judeao-Christianity suffering from psychotic symptoms?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

i don't think i've seen any reference to this academic study on this site.

the analysis in question was published in a serious academic journal, the journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences, in 2012, with the title, the role of psychotic disorders in religious history considered.. the authors were evan d. murray, m.d., giles g cunningham, m.d.

ph.d, and bruce h.price,m.d.. it was published online october 01, 2012, reference link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11090214.

David_Jay

Girodarno,

I see where you are coming from. To add to what you stated, in particular...

"...it is that semi insane people can and do have a profound effect on the general public if they can present themselves as totally sane."

I can't say there isn't evidence of this as one could argue that this describes Jehovah's Witnesses.

But it doesn't have anything to do with Judaism and its Scriptures, unless you are saying:

There is empirical evidence that the Jewish authors and redactors of the Hebrew Scriptures were insane. I think it would be awesome if you can present evidence that these people were insane because then, at least, we would know who wrote and edited these volumes. Most of the Scriptures were composed by anonymous authors, let alone that we equally have no idea who the redactors were. None of the books fell out of the sky or even off a writer's desk in the form we have today, so this would be an awesome first step in learning who wrote what, despite the fact there were "mentally diseased."

There is such a thing as "semi" insanity. I was unaware that being just a "little" insane meant that part of you wasn't, or does it? If semi-insanity exists, how does the other part of a person remain unaffected, especially when, as you say, the same "semi-insane" people can have such a "profound" effect on others? Your partial insanity can profoundly affect others who are sane but not have enough effect to change you, a semi-insane person, and make you totally insane?

It is more insane to write false stories than to attribute reality to them and base a religion on them. I know this is going to insult some people, so to show it's not my own view I'm going to quote the musical The Book of Mormon: "Wow! God says go to your own backyard and start digging? That makes perfect sense!" I think the actual Book of Mormon is totally false, but I am not sure this means Joseph Smith was insane. I think it says more about you and your sanity if you believe "that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America," to quote another song from the musical.

Okay, I know that you weren't necessarily writing this to counter what I wrote. In fact you were generally agreeing with some of what I said, it appears. But the report, despite being produced by "sane" and "expert" individuals, still argues an illogical point: blame fiction for your own stupidity of believing the same fiction was real (which you did despite the fact that the culture that produced and uses the very same fiction told you not to take it literally).

After all, who is the real "insane" one? The person who tells you that "God lives on a planet called Kolob," or the person who believes it?

25

List of "pagan" things JW's allow

by problemaddict 2 in

what i'm looking for specifically is things that are "pagan" in the sense they predate christianity (or i guess judiasm to cover the ole mosaic code), that jw's allow or do.

the ones that come to mind are below.. rings - rings seem to originate in egypt.

for wedding ceremonies it became a symbol of "ownership" in rome.. pinatas - looks like possibly it originated in china as a part of the new year and a request for luck, and catholics later turned it into a beating of temptation type thing.. anything else?.

David_Jay

From me, a Jew...Much of our culture was borrowed from our "pagan" neighbors. Aspects of the Bible such as various rules in the Mosaic Law, much in our festivals, dress, etc. comes from the culture of our ancient neighbors.

But first, let me set something straight that the uneducated Jehovah's Witnesses have passed on to many of us that we should think about abandoning:

Paganism refers to the Roman religious system that ran concurrent with Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity (and there are some who practice a religion identified as "pagan" today). This is a particular unique description that is limited when speaking in Biblical terms, limited in scope and to a period of history and polytheistic practices associated with Rome.

What Jehovah's Witnesses should be saying is "heathen," not pagan. "Heathen" is a generic term for any and all religions that do not worship the God of Abraham. Not knowing the difference, JWs keep using a limited term in place or a more general term. Don't make the same mistake.

Now, Judaism didn't really adopt much that was pagan, but we did have a lot in our culture and Law that was heathen. Many in Judaism recognize that Passover was likely a spring festival observed by the Hebrews and their neighbors way before the Exodus. Abraham's clan may have carried it with them and passed it to their children. It would later take on a different significance when the Exodus allegedly took place at the same time. The Biblical account seems to suggest this, linking our use of unleavened bread for Passover with the detail that the escape prevented wait times for proper bread leavening, as if the command from God came after this situation and was based on this fact (though it is placed before it in the written narrative).--Note Exodus 12.39 with 12.18-20.

Many of the Laws in Torah did not introduce new ways of living, such as how to handle marriages, sex relations, treatment of women, slaves, etc. Instead the Law governed these aspects of life already in place, customs and mores borrowed from heathen cultures which the Jews held in common. JWs might have you believe God invented and introduced these laws at Sinai, as if the Jews suddenly had an entire culture and way of life cast upon them overnight. Nope. We lived pretty much like our heathen neighbors, and the Law merely introduced new ways of governing this behavior.

So, guess what. A lot of what you find Jews doing in Scripture when my ancestors are following the Mosaic Law was, indeed, pagan...I mean, heathen.

JWs don't know the difference between a pagan (Roman) and a heathen (anyone who does not worship the God of Abraham). So it should come as no surprise that they are confused as to what is "pagan" and what isn't, and whether this makes something wrong.

11

Were leading characters in the history of Judeao-Christianity suffering from psychotic symptoms?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

i don't think i've seen any reference to this academic study on this site.

the analysis in question was published in a serious academic journal, the journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences, in 2012, with the title, the role of psychotic disorders in religious history considered.. the authors were evan d. murray, m.d., giles g cunningham, m.d.

ph.d, and bruce h.price,m.d.. it was published online october 01, 2012, reference link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11090214.

David_Jay

Also, be careful you don't become like those you hate.

Jehovah's Witnesses call those who leave "mentally diseased." Have we just dispensed of the doctrine but left the attitudes upon our exit?

I understand people's anger and even deep hatred for religion. It is not unjustified. To be honest, there is not enough uproar in my opinion regarding what we suffered and what continues to go on under the shadows cast by the Governing Body.

And while everyone deserves their opinion, how logical is it to claim that the characters in Jewish literature must be suffering from psychotic symptoms? If you already claim they aren't even real to begin with, how intelligent is it to further declare fictional characters as 'suffering from psychosis' because in the genre narratives (which is a story about a deity communicating with people), some of the people in the story talk to another character who happens to be a deity?

Would people waste time and money producing a study declaring that Luke Skywalker and other Jedis in the Star Wars stories had mental problems because they heard voices and moved things with their minds? It would be ludicrous to do so because these stories aren't meant to be taken as fact. In the genre narrative some characters have these powers, and the story moves along as if certain aspects, like mind reading and control, are true.

And if somebody told you the stories were factual and you believed them for years, changing your life based on this idea despite George Lucas screaming out, "They're just fiction!" Why get mad at the stories and even Lucas because you believed someone not associated with Lucas that Star Wars was fact?

And then you turn around and blame the stories and George Lucas because you ignored George who kept telling you it was fiction all the time? And that sounds sane?

How are "studies" like this and similar views warranted or even logical? Just because you believed a snake oil salesman and turned over all your money to him is no reason for you to go around killing snakes. They had nothing to do with it.

Can't you just admit you were wrong and stop blaming the snakes, fictional characters, authors, and a book? Even if the book claimed that it was 100% fact, it still isn't the book's fault or its authors that you believed in that claim.

If you believe that Uncle Sam is a real man living in America and that Paul Bunyan is his landscape specialist, you can't blame Americans. Sam and Paul aren't insane because you were gullible enough to believe fictional characters were real.

And it doesn't speak too well about your own sanity that you keep blaming fictional characters for your own mistake.

11

Were leading characters in the history of Judeao-Christianity suffering from psychotic symptoms?

by fulltimestudent in

jw
friends

i don't think i've seen any reference to this academic study on this site.

the analysis in question was published in a serious academic journal, the journal of neuropsychiatry and clinical neurosciences, in 2012, with the title, the role of psychotic disorders in religious history considered.. the authors were evan d. murray, m.d., giles g cunningham, m.d.

ph.d, and bruce h.price,m.d.. it was published online october 01, 2012, reference link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/appi.neuropsych.11090214.

David_Jay

As a Jew I am very bothered by the term "Judeo-Christian."

It is like Christians can dictate how Jewish Scripture is to be translated, but what we say doesn't matter. So if Christianity teaches that the stories of the "Old Testament" are literal, we get blamed because, "after all, it's all a part of Judeo-Christian culture."

So you end up believing that my forefather Abraham literally attempted to offer up his son as a sacrifice.

You end up viewing our narratives about Moses as history.

You lump Jesus and Paul into the same group as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob...even though those who followed the teachings of Paul and Jesus later apologized for the part they played in the pogroms, the tortures of the Inquisiton, and the genocide of the Jews in the Holocaust.

For centuries we have declared our stories as legends and moral plays or history retold as religiously reconstructed opera, but off you have gone ignoring all this. Then when you learn the truth about these writings, you blame us Jews and our stories for lying to you.

Sorry, but we didn't tell people that the Hebrew Scriptures required a lens named "Jesus Christ" to understand them.

Some among us might see more history in them compared to others, but we never promised anyone that they were supposed to be read at face value. If you read our works through the eyes of those who can't even read our texts unless they are translated out of Hebrew into another language, why are we to blame?

The term "Judeo-Christian" is nothing but a farce. There's nothing Jewish about it except what has been taken from us and interpreted without us.

Sorry if you listened to Christians and they gave you the wrong ideas about Jewish tales, but why blame Jews or the stories themselves? If you really wanted to understand them, why did you go running to non-Jews and folks of a different religion? If you want to know what Buddhists believe, would you ask Mormons? Should people learn the truth about atheists from Jehovah's Witnesses?

Don't point the finger at our legends and mythology. We weren't the ones who told you to read them out of line with Jewish thought.

27

Proof that Daniel was written 400 years after the events it describes and how much it gets wrong

by purrpurr in

i've been studying the bible anew and have just realised that the writer of daniel gets the kings of babylon completely wrong and confused.

he says that nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son belshazzar .

then along comes good old cyrus the great who liberates the jews.. yet this is wrong!

David_Jay

Vidqun,

See if you can read this correctly.

The comment I made was that the "Daniel" mentioned in Ezekiel is not the author of the Book of Daniel. You wrote: "Scholars insist that the persons mentioned in above scriptures are examples of the past and has nothing to do with the writer of the book of Daniel." I totally agree, and that is my argument. I don't know why you are finding a problem with a point upon which we both agree.

My words do not concern whether Daniel was historical, whether or not he was faithful or an idol worshiper, or whether the current legends of Daniel in Judaism have value. I was countering the JW views regarding the Book of Daniel, not making an argument for a real Daniel or claiming he was a good man. For all I know the Daniel you are speaking of was an idol worshiper. I don't know if there was a historical Daniel, personally speaking.

So I still don't know how you came up with conclusions that I was speaking against the conclusions you have come up with. I wasn't. They are quite identitical. All I can think of is that you were not reading them in full context, perhaps mistook that my position was supportive of something else and this colored your reading to misunderstand the whole thing.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay