Posts by David

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

David_Jay

@The Question,

The Genesis account is not about HOW we got here. It is the Jewish RELIGIOUS explanation of what we believe is the place humanity plays in the fabric of the universe. There is no actual HOW included anywhere in Genesis.

There are three creation stories in Genesis, namely the Week Paradigm, the Eden Narrative, and the Deluge Paradigm. All three employ a cosmology that did not originate with my people. We borrowed them from our Mesopotamian neighbors as a tableau into which we placed our own religious lessons about the Jewish meaning of life. The cosmology, however, came from the heathens and not from Jews.

The Scriptures are not a book of history and science facts. The Scriptures are narratives that teach religious or philosophical truths. The idea that people like you who have no connection with the Jews and can't even read our Scriptures unless they are translated into your pagan tongue, yet decide that the Jewish purpose for the Scriptures should be ignored for your non-Jewish interpretation is insulting and ridiculous. You don't correctly interpret a book by ignoring the writers, their culture, and their family's explanation of what the book is about. It doesn't have to be anything more than a book of mythology if all it is doing is teaching religious lessons. Claiming it has to be historical and scientifically accurate for it to be true means you don't see a value in it as it is. That's a very insulting way to treat the culture of another people.

@Azor

I wasn't countering your post. I was explaining that the views on inspiration also include what I was adding. Your post was not incorrect, however.

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

David_Jay

People don't need a degree or perform a "background" study in Scripture to either embrace or reject what it entails. It's contents and background have never been secret, as the JWs often teach it is.

A person who makes an honest conscientious decision to reject the Scriptures are not viewed as morally flawed or evil by Jews or Catholics unlike Jehovah's Witnesses do. Freedom of conscience is even fought for and advocated by these religious groups, including not merely the right to reject religion but the right to being treated justly, with more than mere tolerance, and ensuring the dignity and fair treatment of all regardless of creed or rejection thereof. If a Catholic or Jew does not judge a person by their view of the Bible, of what significance can such judgment be from lesser, insignificant religious groups and their adherents?

The problem with some of these questions is that they mistake rejection of the Bible with disrespect or failure to act with wisdom and insight. The important matter at hand is not the varied views among ex-JWs, whether some accept or reject Scripture now, but that despite these current views all are united in the stand that the Jehovah's Witnesses are not the teachers of religious truth that they claim to be. The Watchtower view of Scripture is so flawed that even when the Bible is merely viewed from a secular non-inspired point of view, the Jehovah's Witness interpretation of this Book can honestly be labeled as an axiom of disrespect and a poor excuse for scholarship.

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

David_Jay

Don't forget, Azor, that neither Jews nor mainstream Christians think the Bible was written directly by God, and the majority accept the interpolation and editing process up to the time of canonization as part of the inspiration process.

Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses who believe the Bible was somewhat dictated from God to humans, critical hermeneutics dismissed this view centuries ago for a far more complex definition of what the inspiration process entails. In some fields of Jewish and Christian thought divine inspiration is not synonymous with divine revelation. The work of scientists, doctors, artists, etc., even if their work excludes support in the concept of God often falls under the more critical interpretation of inspiration advanced by modern exegetes.

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

David_Jay

The critical method does not allow opinions to be employed for the validation procedure.

A party disinterested in your field must perform the same steps you do in your research and verify the steps you make, checking your conclusions. And then the work of the disinterested party needs to undergo the same. When two of more disinterested parties do the same research and independently come to the same conclusions, your conclusions are validated.

Opinion is never used in critical methodologies. A methodology requires the use of a method, something opinions cannot offer.

33

The Triune Polytheism; the 'Trinity'

by the-Question in

the most ridiculous of all dogmas anywhere in the universe is the very foundation of churchianity.....thus, all their other claims are just blah, blah!.

.

David_Jay

@The Question

It is not true that the plural used in Hebrew often suggested by Trinitarians as support for their beliefs refers only to power and authrority (more precisely "majesty").

We who are Jews often see these expressions as referring to God sharing his authority with angelic beings God has assigned to perform certain duties in unison with God. The "majesty" argument is not universally accepted among Jews and is often advanced by Christians who don't read and speak Hebrew like we do.

Thus your claim itself shows your lack of understanding of Hebrew. I speak, read, and pray in it daily and have done so for most of my life. Do you?

64

Is the Bible from Men, NOT God?

by the-Question in

for those claiming that- how much thought or research have you done?.

objective or non-objective?.

ever read the other books claiming to be from god?

David_Jay

The answer to these questions: yes, I've done all the above type of research you suggest.

However it is never enough to do research for yourself. Like all proper critical methodologies, a person needs to take what they learn and have their conclusions verified by independent, disinterested parties.

Jehovah's Witnesses often create people who like to claim things like: "I know these things are true because I did research and now I know from my own experience that what I believe is true."

That is always sign number one that the person has not come to correct conclusions. We have to rely on the work of others, especially those with contrasting views, to ensure we do not make mistakes due to personal bias. We have to have fail-safes in place that will prevent us from believing what we prefer.

It's not the quantity of study you do but the quality. If you don't listen to voices that prevent you from trusting your own conclusions without validation, it doesn't matter how much study you do.

6

Question (and answer): What does it mean to believe in someone?

by schnell in

"do you believe in jesus?".

yes.. "do you believe in jehovah?".

yes.. "do you believe in the grand man of the universe?".

David_Jay

Oh yeah, I got that. I ran into a few of them myself and had similar feelings.

I was just using your OP as a launching post to again highlight where JW teaching does not match up.

P.S.--My favorite literary work on "belief" is the song "I Believe" from the musical "The Book of Mormon." With lines like "I believe God lives on a planet called Kolob...I believe that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America...I believe the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri...I believe that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people...I am a Mormon, and a Mormon just believes."

6

Question (and answer): What does it mean to believe in someone?

by schnell in

"do you believe in jesus?".

yes.. "do you believe in jehovah?".

yes.. "do you believe in the grand man of the universe?".

David_Jay

The "belief" issue is almost entirely exclusive to advanced Protestantism (those after Luther) and more especially to movements from the Second Great Awakening. The type of "belief" that schnell admits is a "loose" usage is indeed that.

Movements from the American Great Awakening eras redefined theological concepts, mostly from a lack in formal and classical education. Groups like the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses share an almost identical understanding of "belief," and mistakenly apply this concept to the Great Christian Churches.

In Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, and most Protestant churches mere belief is considered unsatisfactory. In Christianity, for instance, James tells Christians that to have faith in God is to do no better than the demons. (James 2:19) Groups like the Mormons and JWs, however mix the terms "faith" and "belief" up so much, that even some ex-adherents of both movements almost never untangle the concepts well enough to understand the vast differences involved. This may explain the high percentage of atheism among existing born-ins from both movements in comparison to those converts who come from other religious groups (existing converts from other faiths generally do not become atheists).

Whereas JWs and Mormons are constantly having to tell people they do indeed "believe" in Jesus, rarely do they explain they have "faith" in Jesus. JWs also make the mistake of accepting Hebrews 11:1 as a definition of faith, whereas the text is merely speaking of various facets of the concept in relation to the material that follows in that chapter.

The words used in both Scripture and doctrinal treatise in the classical religions define "belief" as a mental grasping and assent to a concept, something that is static. "Faith" refers to something neither static nor limited to the mind. The word means to demonstrate one's trust.

To believe in someone, in the Judeo-Christian manner, means to attribute something to the subject either based on past evidence or merely credit. But to have faith in someone is to do what they ask of you, to literally act when the subject of faith is absent. The expression "faith can move mountains" is actually a mistranslation. The Greek word Jesus used means "faithfulness"

The difference is enormous. If one believes God will move a mountain, the person will pray and then sit on the side of the road waiting for God to act. This is not faith, just belief. Faith, on the other hand, or better faithfulness will cause a person not merely to pray but to then begin pushing the mountain on their own. A faithful person does wait on God to move the mountain. A faithful person instead expects God to bless their own efforts of mountain-moving.

37

I will only believe in demons if...

by deegee in

jws are known to have an obsession and preoccupation with demons.. this obsession and preoccupation is not without merit given that jesus, his disciples/apostles, and the general public of 1st century ce judea and galilee are reported as believing in the existence of demonic spirits and in the possibility of demon possession of an individual.. exorcism formed a large part of jesus' ministry on earth.

the gospels and the book of acts describe many exorcisms where jesus and his disciples release people from demonic possession.. ___ .

but how do demons get inside a person's brain or body?

David_Jay

Unfortunately I only know what I wrote. I don't know any more specific details. Sorry.

33

The Triune Polytheism; the 'Trinity'

by the-Question in

the most ridiculous of all dogmas anywhere in the universe is the very foundation of churchianity.....thus, all their other claims are just blah, blah!.

.

David_Jay

I can say one thing about the Trinity: the Jehovah's Witnesses don't teach it right.

The mistake they make is that the Trinity is a dogma to teach people that God is Three. In reality, the dogma was designed to fight heresy by proving that God is only One.

Jews as you know don't believe in the Trinity. But when I left the Witnesses I was able to learn not only from my own personal research but from Judaism that Christianity is not teaching that God is Three, but that the Shema of Deuteronomy 6:4 (Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad) is not violated by its claims about Jesus.

The fact that Christians claim Jesus to be an incarnation of the God of Abraham in the flesh was taken up by the Gnostic Christians and Marcionism to teach that Jesus was a superior deity, more loving and powerful than the God of the Hebrews. The claim from Marcion of Sinope was that Jesus was an incarnation of a deity, and different god, but not the deity or the Messiah of the Hebrews.--Compare 1 John 2:22.

Eventually all the various heresies that sprung from Gnosticism and Marcionism got squelched when the Trinity doctrine was formalized. Instead of being a document that defines the Trinity in full detail, it is actually does the reverse. It is a formula of anathemas explaining what views of God are not valid.

As the Church recognized that Jesus was God in Epiphany, they also claimed that God was also the Spirit that was guiding the Church through Providence. But unlike the claims of the heretics, there was still only One, single God. The persons may be separate in identity, but not in substance. Christians were claiming they were only worshipping and having contact with the same, one God, whether it be the God of the Hebrews (the Father), the Son (Jesus, the Incarnation of God) or the Holy Spirit (the Providence of God).

The teaching of "one God in three Persons" is what the Trinity is about, not that God is three. The JW argument that claims Christendom is saying 1 + 1 + 1 = 3 is a misrepresentation. The teaching is that Jesus is the same God that appeared to the Patriarchs and so is the Holy Spirit.

Of significance, Jews don't reject the Trinity on the grounds argued by Jehovah's Witnesses. The problem is that Jews cannot accept the teaching that the Immortal One can become mortal and experience death. Jews have less of a problem recognizing God come in various forms (for instance, the Shekinah is God, the Angel of the Burning Bush was in a sense God, and the Theophany on Mt. Sinai was God, as was the manifestation of God that Moses and the elders of Israel ate before while on the mountain at Exodus 24:9-11). And yet, at the same time, all of these things is God and none of these things is God. The JW claim that confusion makes the Trinity invalid obviously doesn't read what the Jewish Scriptures have to say about God that closely.

Or you can validly take the view of nicolaou too (problem solved). But the whole, "THREE GODS" thing taught by the Witnesses is not correct. The Trinity Doctrine is designed to prevent that belief. Witnesses are just uneducated idiots who couldn't understand a creed even if they read it...Oh, wait. That is the case.

David_Jay

Posts by David_Jay