Posts by kepler

15

5 Common Misconceptions About the Bible

by undercover in

jw
friends

a blog on huffington post.... interesting thoughts...that mostly would go flying over the average jw's head, those that think they know the bible oh so well.... i've highlighted certain points that pertain (technically they all do, but some really stand out) to how jws view things.. my main reason for posting this is so i can find it easily later, as it'll disappear from huffpo eventually.. .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-hayes/5-misconceptions-about-the-bible_b_2173965.html.

when it comes to the bible, modern americans are at a distinct disadvantage.

kepler

About item number 5 - which was addressed as well in another topic recently - I am often drawn to think about episodes in chapters 13-15 of I Samuel. Things come to a head at chapter 15, verse 10 with this (NJB):

The word of Yahweh came to Sameuel, "I regret having made Saul king, since he has broken his allegiance to me and not carried out my orders." Samuel was appalled and cried to Yahweh all night llong.

In the morning, Samuel set off to find Saul....

17: "Yahweh has appointed you as the king of Israel. "When Yahweh sent you on a mission he said to you, 'Go and put those inners, the Amalekites, under the curse of destruction and make war on them until they are exterminated.' Why did you not obey Yahweh's voice? Why did you you fall on booty and do what is wrong in Yahweh's eyes?"

The situation has leaves much room for question on both sides? Are we to suppose that God had second thoughts about Saul? Or did Samuel who had misgivings about the appointment of a king in the first place? Would Saul have taken the higher road if he spared not a single Amalekite, but did as instructed via Samuel: "Now, go and crush Amale; put him under the curse of destruction with all that he possesses. Do not spare him, but kill man, and woman, babe and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."( 15:3).

(15:4) Saul summoned the people and reviewe dthem at Telaim: two hundred thousand foot soldiers ( and ten thousand men of Judah). Saul advanced on the town of Amalek and lay in ambush in the river bed.

----

There are a lot of problems with this story. Whether camels were domesticated in this presumed period is one matter that comes to mind. Whether a force of 200,000 would have existed anywhere circa 1000 BC is another matter; but if it did, it did not simply lie in ambush in a riverbed to take a tribal stronghold. The intent of this expedition was to punish Amalek for laying a trap for Israel as it had come up from Egypt.

So, who is talking? Yahweh or Samuel? Then, once Saul is discredited and disposed of, why is David such a terrific improvement?

74

HELP! I've stepped in it now... mast head change - JW response!

by NeverKnew in

he's asking if i've read the first page of the new watchtower.. says page 8 admits and exposes the society's mistaken expectations.. says that both mags have been adjusted to reflect the understanding of generation.

asking if it is my position that witnesses have made claims to be inspired prophets.... and saying if it is, maybe *we* can consider together some examples in the bible of others who have had wrong expectations and have gone ahead of god's timetable and see how god handled that..

kepler

In that quote from Habakkuk 2:3, there are a lot of square brackets to make a round peg fit into a square hole. That has not been an exceptional.

Over this weekend, I happened to catch the new film "Lincoln". It's worth a topic of its own and I think it already exists. But at the beginning of the film there was a brief incident in which husband and wife petitioners from the state of Missouri interrupt cabinet deliberations about passage of the thirteenth amendment.

You're from Jefferson City, Lincoln pauses to note. I knew a judge there who had a parrot who was taught to say each morning "Today the world will end as the scripture has foretold." Eventually, the owner, to have some peace shot the parrot. And thus the scripture was confirmed for the parrot.

From there Lincoln went on to take care of other things, but I thought for a moment of a bird of another feather.

529

Analysis of anti-607 BCE Rebuttals

by Ethos in

i agreed yesterday to engage in the '607' topic.

i've read numerous threads and am well aware that this topic has been addressed and dissected quite thoroughly.

therefore, if you are uninterested in participating, that's fine.

kepler

Greetings.

I have to say that 11 pages thus far is an extremely strong dose of eschatology, some of which has been administered many times.

I have poked my head in every once in a while to see where things were going, but I probably missed some pertinent points. Still, perhaps on reflection, I am puzzled by a couple of things. And then reading over the debate a couple of questions arose in my mind. So here goes:

1. Since the topic is presented as "Analysis of anti-607 BCE Rebuttals", how is it that it immediately presents an argument for starting a clock at the year 609? The title is not exactly double negatives, but it is as confusing as the wording on an election proposition vote. I couldn't tell if the topic is a "vote" for or against a 607 fall of Jerusalem. And having the introduction conclude "quid erat citatandum" that things started in 609... What gives?

2. Some time ago, after noting this particular chronological discrepancy along with others vs. secular sources, I did get around to reading Gentile Times Reconsidered and noted as well that Ray Franz had a hard time collecting any evidence for the 607 argument (CoC). So after mulling this around a bit, I used some some astronomical software to re-calculate some lunar eclipses cited in Babylonian records before and after the presumed siege date and attributed to Nebuchadnezzar's reign. What do you know: it worked and it was consistent.

3. I also noticed that the Assyrians had a habit of destroying cities for 70 years. So habitual that they had a due process about it, invoking Marduk and then rescinding the sentence when they decided to rebuild. In this case, Sennacherib destroys Babylon - I mean really destroys it - and then Esarhaddon decides to rebuild it by re-reading the proclamation upside down so that it reads 11 years instead of 70. The point being is that Jeremiah was a bit imitative in invoking 70-year sentences.

4. But Jerusalem and the Temple get re-built. And it is rebuilt with gusto. And another funny thing. Nobody in the OLD TESTAMENT ever mentions anything about the possibility that it will get smashed again. Maccabees certainly give an account of its desecration. And Daniel does the same thing in a veiled sense. But I am not aware of OT prophets warning against it getting pulled down again. And this is a really big deal, right? I mean, ask the writers of the Gospels in the NT.

5. Now speaking of the New Testament. Let's consider what they have to say about the destruction of the OLD TEMPLE and Babylon. I don't think they have much of anything to say about it. Whenever they were writing or getting edited, they were concerned about the NEW TEMPLE getting leveled by Romans. They do speak of Babylon a few times. Mostly in Revelations. And in context it is hard to connect Revelations with the Babylon of the OT, other than as an epithet to hang on Rome or someone else. Babylon is mentioned by Matthew in terms of geneaology. Stephen the martyr in Acts gives a long speech in chapter 7 where he mentions how the people of the covenant were removed to Babylon. 1 Peter claims to be written in Babylon by Peter. ... Now how do you like that? What was he doing over there? Was it Jeremiah that said that it was destroyed forever? Or was that Isaiah? Or was it both of them? Well, maybe he was calling Rome "Babylon" because... Rome was acting like Babylon, because Rome knocked down the Temple just like the NeoBabylonians did. ... But the trouble is, if this was all obvious to Peter's audience, then he must have wrote it after he had passed on himself. Or he had assumed the readers had read Revelations, perhaps. ...Odd.

But on that last point, I'm digressing a little. What this should show is that the New Testament is rather silent about cycles of 2520 years. Instead we have a very massaged Old Testament talking to apocalyptic people in the 19th, 20th and now the 21st century largely bypassing the NT and making Christ's life and passion a brief visit before he really gets down to invisible business after 1914.

If a writer named Ezekiel or Jeremiah says something about cities disappearing for decades or forever and there is alternative evidence, then we are confronted with a dog wagged by its tail. If Ezekiel said Tyre or Egypt fell, then it must be true. And if Babylon was destroyed in similar pronouncement by agency, I presume, of Cyrus, then it must be gone. This is the foundation on which one can base the transpiring of other invisible events. Evidently, all one needs to do is climb to a seat of authority based on invisible event consequences or invisible step two and dare anyone to even think otherwise.

83

Is the WT the only true religion?

by Christ Alone in

jehovah's witnesses do not do that!

again: jehovah's witnesses do!

jehovah's witnesses!.

kepler

All apostacies great and small...

Just for the record - I bought a bridge to Brooklyn.

I won't get mad. I'll just get even.

"Don't you think you need someone to explain to you the contents of Holy Scripture? An expert? I can get you in touch with someone.

And an organization...."

83

Is the WT the only true religion?

by Christ Alone in

jehovah's witnesses do not do that!

again: jehovah's witnesses do!

jehovah's witnesses!.

kepler

Christ Alone,

You said:

"The Apostles served as the Governing Body in the 1st century. Then the great apostacy set in and true Christianity was largely missing through the ages. There were glimmers of light as individuals attempted to shine truth."

Don't know what has been going on with you since you were counseling Kate82 a few weeks ago - and then our discussion about Daniel. But either you are pulling people's legs or acting very bi-polar. Are you in or out? Or are you trying to get a rise out of people?

As to the "great apostacy", I admit that that is an interesting intellectual concept on which to build a Protestant foundation. But it is nebulous at best, only describing concepts that dissenters of the 18th century English world disagreed with vs. previous generations. Something to trump linkage of ordination and priesthood until they could concoct some of their own such as anointed numbers and governing boards.

In all the idolatry of the Biblical text as it came to that generation, the very notion of a great apostacy also saws away on the limb on which Biblical inerrancy stands - the development of a canon. I suppose there is a year where everything that was in the non-JW bloodline diverged into a futility? Calendar year 99? After Constantine consolidated things? When it comes to events related to Temple wrecking balls, timing is refined to and predicted to the last hair. So this part is comparatively vague and "under-prophesied'. But if is so, then is this really a successful correction, since it is just in time to load a remnant of humanity on a barge to paradise earth after a lightless two millenia no fault of anyone therein born? Or does God really despise all of human kind as much as the guiding lights of the supposed 1919 beauty contest do?

It was one of the greatest early achievements of the era of the great apostacy. The apostates had to sort through the numerous documents with claims of "Yes, I knew your name sake very well, and also the apostle Paul, or I ghost wrote the memoirs of Mary..." And those that would like to condemn every one in the councils who deliberated over these and vetted the documents - the people viewed as agents of Satan... they bought into it. For if there was no continuity and the scripture was in someone else's hands, then what more can be said.

As for missionary work, it was centuries before the Protestant reformation gave it any thought, trailing Dominicans, the Society of Jesus and others. If someone in the non-English speaking world cares a wit about JW views on the Bible and salvation, such missionaries are the ones to thank for ready receptions in South America, Asia or the Pacific - even in parts of the mideast where year books don't even care to admit that the populations any longer exist. As to early Protestant efforts, their successes were smaller and their mistakes were just as calamitous. Ever hear of Prince Phillip's War? Just a native American gathering inferences from your Puritan and Congregational predecessors in the 17th century, having them read the exploits of Joshua in the Promised Land and duly noting that the guys with big belt buckles thought they were in the same. That's the war that my instructors who came to my house gave full endorsement to - whatever Joshua needed to get done. How did they know that was holy? The same way they know Christ invisibly returned in '14. They were told. What will they be told next?

Subsequently when Rutherford publishes his yearbooks of voyages over seas, he is harassing with pamphlets communities that already have Bibles, literacy and institutions. He needed another ten years to figure out doctrines and translations to distinguish his movement from others aside from his notion of importance. And now, thanks to his vision, practically everything I encounter in the present day JW system, I see as almost a perfect analog for the Soviet one of the mid twentieth century. Read the Truth/Pravda, attend the party meetings, march in the rallies, act in the theocratic theatre, inform on and conform to everybody - and take away the party billet and you're dead.

For a while I could laugh, but it isn't funny any more. Just a pathetic cultural bias.

30

F&DS New Light Official JW Statement

by konceptual99 in

the new light (tm) is on jw.org.

not had time to digest it but it's looking pretty much whathas been divulged already.

looking forward to seeing the responses from the forum and the brothers and sisters now it's in the open.

kepler

00DAD:

Your observation is well worth repeating: "The essential point is this: the slave in the parable was put in charge while the master went away. That slave was identified as either "faithful" or "evil" when the master returned, but based upon his activities while the master was away.

Matthew 24:45-51:

45 “Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Happy is that slave if his master on arriving finds him doing so. 47 Truly I say to ? YOU , He will appoint him over all his belongings.

48 “But if ever that evil slave should say in his heart, ‘My master is delaying,’ 49 and should start to beat his fellow slaves and should eat and drink with the confirmed drunkards, 50 the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect and in an hour that he does not know, 51 and will punish him with the greatest severity and will assign him his part with the hypocrites. There is where [his] weeping and the gnashing of [his] teeth will be.

--------

So according to doctrine as of now, the master returned in 1914 and appointed the slave five years later. Was the master gone again? How can that be if he returned invisibly and appoints a slave? Did he invisibly leave and then return invisibly again to appoint the slave? And then did he leave again just to place the slave in authority? How can ANYONE tell? It was certainly not in Rutherford's hands to detect the arrival in 1914. No governing board existed at that point, right? And he wasn't in charge. The foundation here is worse than sand. The claim is as substantial as Wiley Coyote's footing when he runs past the edge of a cliff.

If there wasn't a governing board and being anointed is for naught, then how could the event have been witnessed? The main proponent is a persona non grata. And he was shooting from the hip for forty years. Armageddon was supposed to be on with the recalibrated arrival.

As for Joseph Rutherford, when did he realize this selection had happened? In the mid 1920s? Did he have a governing board? Did he have any other witnesses? If so, can their testimony be separated from his?

How do you corroborate testimony about invisible events. Faithful and discreet slaves see more profound invisible goings on in the world than other mere mortals? Why is is it that the "discreet" slave toots its horn and requires more attention than any servant I can recall?

I read WatchTower statements from the 1930s and Rutherford speaks of a "wise and faithful servant class", revised to the current "faithful and discreet" form after the Olin Moyle controversy. He speaks not of governing boards. Just of Satan's organization and Armageddon coming soon.

Does the imputed slave even read to itself verses 48-50?

33

Gravitation and Electric Energy, Golden Age, August 17, 1932 [Repost]

by VM44 in

the sheer literal stupidity of clayton woodworth publishing this article in the golden age demands that it be reposted.. this article is in the "not even wrong" category!.

*** the golden age 1932 august 17, pp.707-710 ***.

gravitation and electric energy.

kepler

Hmmm in that account of the nature of things from 80 years ago, I noticed an absence of

nuclei, neutrons and a periodic table.

Was there ever any "nu" or "neu" light on these matters, or are we still obliged to contemplate the valence electrons in wood atoms and other such transuranian elements?

Since this material appeared in Golden Age, it reminded me of little verse by Alexander Pope. It starts...

The mighty mother, and her son, who brings
The Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings,
I sing. Say you, her instruments, the great!
Called to this work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate;
You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed,
Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first:
Say, how the goddess bade Britannia sleep,
And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep.

In eldest time, ere mortals writ or read,
Ere Pallas issued from the Thunderer's head, 10
Dulness o'er all possess'd her ancient right,
Daughter of Chaos and Eternal Night:
Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,
Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave,
Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,
She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.

Still her old empire to restore she tries,
For, born a goddess, Dulness never dies.O thou! whatever title please thine ear,
Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver! 20
Whether thou choose Cervantes' serious air,
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais' easy-chair,
Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,
Or thy grieved country's copper chains unbind;
From thy Boeotia though her power retires,
Mourn not, my Swift, at ought our realm acquires.
Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread
To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.
Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monro would take her down, 30
Where o'er the gates, by his famed father's hand,
Great Cibber's brazen, brainless brothers stand,
One cell there is, conceal'd from vulgar eye,
The cave of Poverty and Poetry.
Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess,
Emblem of music caused by emptiness.
Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down,
Escape in monsters, and amaze the town.
Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly boast
Of Curll's chaste press, and Lintot's rubric post: 40
Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines,
Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc'ries, Magazines:
Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,
And new-year odes,and all the Grub Street race.

In clouded majesty here Dulness shone;
Four guardian Virtues, round, support her throne:
Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears
Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:
Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake
Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling sake: 50
Prudence, whose glass presents the approaching jail:
Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,
Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,
And solid pudding against empty praise... - the Dunciad

52

How credible is the dating of Daniel?

by itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat in

for example the hairy he-goat is very precise?

i have read some works on the subject but would like your input..

kepler

Brokethechain,

That's a very interesting observation you just made above:

"...But I couldn't find ANY evidence that any of the prophecies were written before they happened. The prophecies that refer to the Roman empire & the Messianic prophecies (which would not have happened yet for those scrolls dated B.C.) were not in the Dead Sea Scrolls (chapter 9, the last part of chapter 11 and chapter 12 are all missing from the dead sea scrolls that date BC). "

------------------

I hope you will have some time to devote to elaborating on this.

Some of the discussion above among several of us seemed to reach agreement on the idea that Daniel was an "evolving" book. But how a book like this might have evolved over time is a slippery matter. If you ( or anyone else) could further illustrate the situation with the Dead Sea Scrolls, we might all come to a better understanding.

I don't know what to expect from such myself. But it is my understanding that chapter and verse in Biblical documents are additions contributed several centuries later in the Christian era. So, when you say that the chapters are missing, are you saying that a scroll skips text that would be in 9, moves on to ten - or that these segments of the scroll are illegible or missing?

Very interesting!

- Kepler

52

How credible is the dating of Daniel?

by itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat in

for example the hairy he-goat is very precise?

i have read some works on the subject but would like your input..

kepler

I think I got that...

Daniel must have dictated the introduction to the Peloponnesian Wars to Thucydides, if Thucydides wasn't his pseudonym.

And, since he foresaw how Marshall Petain fared in post WWII France for similar services to the nation late in life (vs. those earlier), he never bothered to return to Judea.

All doctrines can be explained by obscure idioms of Hebtrew, Aramaic and Greek when referring to cousins through the matriarchal lineage several tribes removed.

52

How credible is the dating of Daniel?

by itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat in

for example the hairy he-goat is very precise?

i have read some works on the subject but would like your input..

kepler

Christalone,

Re: "I did not notice in the text, that Daniel is noted for saving his own sons and daughters..."

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jewish Nation, chapter 10

18) That Daniel was made one of these eunuchs of which Isaiah prophesied, Isaiah 39:7, and the three children his companions also, seems to me plain, both here in Josephus, and in our copies of Daniel, Daniel 1:3, 6-11, 18, although it must be granted that some married persons, that had children, were sometimes called eunuchs, in a general acceptation for courtiers, on account that so many of the ancient courtiers were real eunuchs.

Regarding Daniel as a book of prophecy, here is another quote from a later book of Josephus, a "first clear conception of the [OT] canon" is presented. In his Contra Apionem (I. 38-43), written to establish the antiquity of the Jews and the trustworthiness of their history, he writes,

‘We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another; but only 22 books, which contain the records of all past times and which are rightly believed in. And of these, five belong to Moses, which contain the laws and the tradition of the origin of mankind till his death for a period of 3,000 years. From the death of Moses until the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes ( or Ahasuerus), the prophets who came after Moses wrote down the things that were done in their times in 13 books. The remaining books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life.’ …

Since Daniel in Chapter 9, verses 1 to 2 seems to claim that he was active after Ahasuerus, by the words of Josephus Daniel has already disqualified himself as a prophet.

---

Admittedly, you provided on the first page of this thread a number of arguments in defense of the antiquity of Daniel, or arguments that Daniel wrote the document himself. However, several of the arguments that I presented, such as Thucydides and mention of satraps in Nebuchadnezzar's reign were not addressed. At least one of these observations (Thucydides - and perhaps the satraps), I have never heard anything about either. They are simply my observations from considering this book of the Bible. So when you find things on your own when investigating a controversy, admittedly it causes you to tilt in that direction of argument.

The first time I read Daniel was at a summer camp between 3rd and 4th grade. I was also reading Legends of King Arthur which made just as plausible claims clothed in Judaeo-Christian traditions. These days, my New Jerusalem Bible with the deutero-canonical books mentioned earlier as well the additional chapters of Daniel excluded elsewhere also includes comments of that presumed minority of biblical scholars that believe Daniel was largely written in the 2nd century BC. It also describes the Danel in Ezekiel much as Leolaia did above.

In the midst of all the discussion about which century this material was written in, I guess I should go back and examine what you said at the beginning:

The majority of textual scholars say that Daniel was written ca. 536-530 BC. The book predicts much of middle eastern history from 605BC to 165BC. Many skeptics reject the dates of 536-530 because the predictions are so detailed that it could not have been written so early.

"Historians don't dispute the 4 kingdoms predicted in Daniel 11 because archaeology and ancient history confirms their existence exactly as predicted (i.e Herodotus in ca 200 BC). ... I believe the general view of skeptics is that Daniel was an evolving book. Portions were written early, others later. "

On the remainder, I would like to point out that Herodotus lived from about 484-425 BC and wrote of the Greek and Persian wars which Thucydides spoke of in his introduction to the Peloponnesian Wars. I can't make heads or tails of what your point about Herodotus is; but I would suggest that you actually do a little reading of pertinent parts of both Herodotus and Thucydides writing, especially when it comes to Medes.

Your final point about an evolving book, considering all the patching within it, I would concede that you are basically right. However, the seams are much more obvious in Daniel than most of the other highly edited books.