Posts by pseudoxristos

16 And he came to Nazareth, where he was brought up; and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And the book of the prophet Esaias was given to him; and having unrolled the book he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, 19 to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:16-19 (Darby's)

Interestingly though, the gospel of John suggests that the Jesus had not been taught to read. Although John does show that Jesus taught in the temple, he does not record the event where Jesus reads from the book of Isaiah.

14 But when it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. 15 The Jews therefore wondered, saying, How knows this man letters, having never learned? 16 Jesus therefore answered them and said, My doctrine is not mine, but that of him that has sent me. John 7:14-16 (Darby's)

The gospels indicate several times that Jesus taught in the synagogues. His method of teaching in the synagogues would most likely have been the same method he used while instructing his Disciples. From the many examples of Jesus’ teaching of the Disciples, there is no indication that he is reading from the Scriptures. Like many of his contemporaries he instructed using an oral tradition, full of stories, parables and inexact quotes to make his points.

The literacy rate for Jews in the first century was most likely less than 10%. With Jesus’ lower social standing it is reasonable to conclude that he was illiterate.

A simple explanation for Luke 4:16; is that Luke stretched the truth in an attempt to put Jesus on par with the current Jewish teachers.

pseudo

Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the first centuries c.e.

…..

For example we can observe data of illiteracy gathered from different societies in the first half of the 20th century: Turkey 1927: 91.8%; Egypt 1927: 85.7%; South Africa 1921: 90.3%; India 1921: 90.5%; Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia before 1950: above 90%. Our question is, what can be learned from these rates of modern illiteracy that concern ancient illiteracy, from societies before their industrial revolutions? In other words, can't a tentative conclusion be drawn that in ancient 'traditional' societies the rate of literacy was less than 10%?

Certainly, there is no definite answer to such a question, and maybe there is no comparison between 20th century Egypt and the Land of Israel in the first century. An examination of the data in Egypt would reveal that if ancient Jewish literacy was somewhat around 5%, then the modern figures of 10% in Egypt are an exaggeration of 100%. Nonetheless, the modern figures might give us an idea concerning the literacy rate we are dealing with in pre-industrial ancient society: the Jews in the Land of Israel in Late Antiquity. …… http://faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/illitera.html

19

JW Superstitions

by sandy in

jw
friends

yesterday i got home and i realized i accidentally brought a necklace with a cross on it from my boyfriend's house.. it was in a regular brown paper bag i put some of my things in.

i was lying in bed last night thinking about it wondering if i should take it outside.

i was afraid the demons were going to invade my house.. i decided to leave my tv on all night because we all know the demons will not bother you if your light or tv is on.

pseudoxristos

Don't even think about reading the fortune cookie after eating Chinese.

I tried this once after eating at a Chinese restaurant with Witnesses. They freaked out, it was if they thought that I was Satan himself.

Next time Witness come to my door; I think I will offer them some old fortune cookies. I can see them slowly backing away now.

pseudo

18

Were there other Christs?

by JH in

jw
friends

matthew 24:5 .

5. for many shall come in my name, saying, i am christ; and shall 1deceive many.

that was written 2000 years ago.

pseudoxristos

<-------waiting for pseudochristos to wade on into this thread
Craig

LOL @ ona BTW, I have a condition called wadophobia. It flares up while I'm near water. When I was in my early 30's I tried several times to wade through water, but each time I ended up walking on it instead. Unfortunately this always seemed to draw a large crowd. They keep trying to follow me everywhere I went. I constantly had to remind them that my name is pseudo, but they insisted on calling me xristos. Where in the world do these people get these strange ideas? I ran across this today, and remembered seeing this thread. I thought it might be appropriate.

In the first century of the Common Era, there appeared at the eastern end of the Mediterranean a remarkable religious leader who taught the worship of one true God and declared that religion meant not the sacrifice of beasts but the practice of charity and piety an the shunning of hatred and enmity. He was said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. His exemplary life led some of his followers to claim he was a son of God, though he called himself the son of a man. Accused of sedition against Rome, he was arrested. After his death, his disciples claimed he had risen from the dead, appeared to them alive, and then ascended to heaven. Who was this teacher and wonder-worker? His name was Apollonius of Tyana; he died about 98 A.D., and his story may be read in Flavius Philostratus's Life of Apollonius. [1] http://bismikaallahuma.org/Bible/Text/g-fictions.htm pseudo edited to added signature and link (they disappeared, kind of like that time in my early 30's and I was.... oh, never mind. Its a long story)

40

Is the baby being thrown out with the bath water?

by Chap in

if god spoke to a man and told him to write down what he said, how are we to distinguish this writing from other people who say god spoke to them?

we know the human beings can lie about anything for any reason.

if a writing supposedly contains prophesy, some say it wasn't prophesy and was written after the fact.

pseudoxristos

Chap,

Christianity is based on the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. All the Pharisees or the Romans had to do was produce the body and Christianity would have been stopped in its tracks.

This statement is ridiculous.

By the time that the Christian movement became large enough for the Pharisees or Romans to notice, the body was long gone. Most of the writings were not produce until late in the first century at best. They were more likely produced early second century. They weren't accepted as canonical until the fourth century.

There is no way that the Pharisees or Romans would even care about an incoherent group of Jews with a few strange ideas.

The NT is presented as fact concerning Jesus and the Christian faith. These facts are meant to convince its readers that Jesus is the Christ and that the Christian faith is the only true religion. When skeptics start pointing out problems with these so-called facts, those who still want to believe will switch modes from reliance on facts to reliance on faith.

It seems pointless to continue the discussion. You're going to believe what you want.

pseudo

37

What About The Soul?

by Francois in

jw
friends

i don't recall that we've ever gotten into this issue; maybe we did and i just don't remember.

if so, it won't hurt to revisit it; if not, it's way past time that we did.. we were all trained to believe that humankind does not have a soul, but that we are souls.

this teaching came from the spiritual geniuses abiding at jw headquarters in brooklyn, likely assisted by their undefined "spirit-led" descision making activities and with help from someone's secret decoder ring with the secret compartment.. personally, i have 86-ed that particular piece of nonsense a long time ago.

pseudoxristos

SS,

Its funny that you would bring up dreams while on the topic of the soul. I believe that it was dreams of the ancient people, in which dead loved ones appeared, that gave them the idea of a soul.

pseudo

37

What About The Soul?

by Francois in

jw
friends

i don't recall that we've ever gotten into this issue; maybe we did and i just don't remember.

if so, it won't hurt to revisit it; if not, it's way past time that we did.. we were all trained to believe that humankind does not have a soul, but that we are souls.

this teaching came from the spiritual geniuses abiding at jw headquarters in brooklyn, likely assisted by their undefined "spirit-led" descision making activities and with help from someone's secret decoder ring with the secret compartment.. personally, i have 86-ed that particular piece of nonsense a long time ago.

pseudoxristos

SS,

LOL

Do you think I can get my SUV into heaven also?

pseudo

37

What About The Soul?

by Francois in

jw
friends

i don't recall that we've ever gotten into this issue; maybe we did and i just don't remember.

if so, it won't hurt to revisit it; if not, it's way past time that we did.. we were all trained to believe that humankind does not have a soul, but that we are souls.

this teaching came from the spiritual geniuses abiding at jw headquarters in brooklyn, likely assisted by their undefined "spirit-led" descision making activities and with help from someone's secret decoder ring with the secret compartment.. personally, i have 86-ed that particular piece of nonsense a long time ago.

pseudoxristos

Brummie,

In a way, I can understand your point.

Dub theology concerning the soul has always bothered me.

If Man does not have a soul, this means that his thoughts and attitudes are physical. Even though thought is based on chemical and electrical reactions, these processes exist in a physical realm. In order to gain favor with their God, their thoughts must conform to a certain standard. In the end it is their physical condition that God is accepting or rejecting.

Does God really care about someone’s physical condition?

pseudo

37

What About The Soul?

by Francois in

jw
friends

i don't recall that we've ever gotten into this issue; maybe we did and i just don't remember.

if so, it won't hurt to revisit it; if not, it's way past time that we did.. we were all trained to believe that humankind does not have a soul, but that we are souls.

this teaching came from the spiritual geniuses abiding at jw headquarters in brooklyn, likely assisted by their undefined "spirit-led" descision making activities and with help from someone's secret decoder ring with the secret compartment.. personally, i have 86-ed that particular piece of nonsense a long time ago.

pseudoxristos

With all the pets that I've had in the past 40 years, heaven would be more like hell.

I hope your wrong

pseudo

37

What About The Soul?

by Francois in

jw
friends

i don't recall that we've ever gotten into this issue; maybe we did and i just don't remember.

if so, it won't hurt to revisit it; if not, it's way past time that we did.. we were all trained to believe that humankind does not have a soul, but that we are souls.

this teaching came from the spiritual geniuses abiding at jw headquarters in brooklyn, likely assisted by their undefined "spirit-led" descision making activities and with help from someone's secret decoder ring with the secret compartment.. personally, i have 86-ed that particular piece of nonsense a long time ago.

pseudoxristos

Ok, here's what I think about the ideas concerning the soul in the Bible.

The Hebrews initially did not believe that there was an immortal soul. Their original thoughts centered on the welfare of the tribe. As the tribe became more established, their thoughts naturally started to center more on the individuals.

Thoughts of individuals obtaining a resurrection eventually became popular; in part to rationalize the injustice of the wicked living a long and prosperous life, while the pious sometimes did not do as well.

In the time period between the OT and the NT, the Jews incorporated the Greek idea of an immortal soul. At the same time they retained many of their ideas concerning the resurrection. This lead to the confusion we currently call the New Testament.

The Rich Man and Lazarus story closely parallels many of the ideas in the non-canonical writings produced between the two Testaments. The thought that Abraham would receive the righteous in paradise (not really heaven, kind of a purgatory) is found in these writings. It was also believed that the one of the pleasures that the righteous would enjoy, would be the ability to observe the unrighteous suffer in torment, for they would both go to the same place but to different areas. A chasm would prevent them from crossing to the other area. In the end the righteous would be resurrected.

The dub claim that this is just a parable, just does not cut it. A parable uses a well known and understood concept to explain a new idea. These concepts of the afterlife were well known and were being used to explain something?

The canonical and non-canonical writings do not really provide a complete and coherent picture of these different ideas, but for some to say that the NT does not teach some concept of an immortal soul they must completely deny many of it’s scriptures. Yet the older idea of the resurrection is also there.

Personally, I would like to believe that we have a soul, but logically I cannot justify it with my belief in evolution. The point at which man or proto-man obtained a soul is problematic.

pseudo