Posts by kepler

37

Peter in Babylon? - 1 Peter 5:13

by Bobcat in

for any looking over the wt study article for 3-30-2014, paragraph 9 refers to peter spending time in babylon.

the paragraph speaks of peter living in babylon as if it were a well established fact.

in fact, the only evidence for this idea is 1 peter 5:13.. see here for a writeup that analyzes 1 peter 5:13 and whether "babylon" really means the city of babylon.

kepler

Bobcat, Phizzy,

Probably some people are tired of hearing me relate my take on this. It started with the days about 4 years ago when my instructors armed with "What the Bible Really Teaches" kept insisting that Babylon was destroyed because Isaiah said so. And that it was destroyed forever as a consequence of messing around with things in Jerusalem, whether as an instrument of the Lord's ( Jehovah's) punishment of Israel or not.

This was a position of the WTBRT as well.

Well, at that point, I hadn't given the matter much thought, but my intuition or casual reading indicated to me that Babylon had remained as a municipality for centuries and my immediate inquiries seemed to confirm. Moreover, it seemed like the time that Babylon really got clobbered just so happened to be in Isaiah's time - by Sennacherib.

But then I happened to notice the verse in question.

And that NWT text which I came across subsequently had a "Table of the Books of the Bible", pp. 1546-1547. Beside many other questionable dates and authorships for the OT, it stated that Peter I and II were written by Peter between 62-64 AD in Babylon.

Babylon the city that was destroyed forever centuries earlier in another "document" I was supposed to take on faith.

Well, I suppose if I were really credulous, I could believe that Peter consigned himself to a non-existent city to take advantage of it as a communications center with other Christian congregations in Asia minor. Or I could presume that he was referring to another place which was likened to Babylon...

But then there had to be a reason to make any comparisons to Babylon for a place like Rome, would there not?

The most obvious would be destructions of Temple I and Temple II.

But that does not match up very well with writing in the early 60s of the first century AD. Nor does the text of the II Peter. For it concludes speaking of Pau's writing as a body of work, a body which was largely written at the same time or even later than when we are to presume that Peter is living in isolation in Babylon. "In all his letters there are some passages which are hard to understand... and these are the passages which[some] people distort in the same way as they distort the rest of scripture". What's more, its advice given to elders is that of running a very institutionalized organization. As many have asked, are these concerns of 64 AD or decades later?

Reading the two books or epistles, it seems like another window on beliefs or perspectives of those times -but how they are all related seems so mysterious and complicated. Still, I suspect that some arguments for what has become canonical are not so much based on genuine Greek letter authorship of a supposedly aramaic speaking fisherman, but the nature of the beliefs and understandings that are passed on. In part I am reminded of Hebrews when Peter speaks of angels...

But in the second epistle, in contrast to JW theology, I am struck by this passage:

(II Peter 2:4) " When angels sinned, God did not spare them, he sent them down into the underworld and consigned them to the dark abyss to be held there until the Judgment. "

That's one translation anyway. But consider the NWT version. Look how it's finessed in that one so that they have a day pass - like fall to Earth '14 if that is the new requirement.

17

A Saturday Knock on the Door & the JWN Forum

by kepler in

this is, of course, a recurrent topic that's made possible whenever a kingdom hall decides to march out on your neighborhood and street.. today it happened again in my neighborhood as a drum up for the memorial observance scheduled for monday the 14th of april.. why christ's passion and death should be observed on a monday of holy week i failed to ask this morning.

perhaps someone else might like to volunteer, but it seemed just another reason to be sceptical about the whole thing, though hardly ranking with changing ancient chronologies to get jerusalem's temple destruction 2520 years before 1914.. anyway two gentlemen in white shirts and ties greeted me politely enough at my door and presented me with a flyer about an event which they described as momentous.

they asked me if i had ever intended one and i assented.

kepler

This is, of course, a recurrent topic that's made possible whenever a Kingdom Hall decides to march out on your neighborhood and street.

Today it happened again in my neighborhood as a drum up for the Memorial observance scheduled for Monday the 14th of April.

Why Christ's passion and death should be observed on a Monday of Holy Week I failed to ask this morning. Perhaps someone else might like to volunteer, but it seemed just another reason to be sceptical about the whole thing, though hardly ranking with changing ancient chronologies to get Jerusalem's Temple destruction 2520 years before 1914.

Anyway two gentlemen in white shirts and ties greeted me politely enough at my door and presented me with a flyer about an event which they described as momentous. They asked me if I had ever intended one and I assented. They asked me if I had ever taken instructions and said, "Oh yes I had indeed." Did I plan to attend this year's and I said, "No", because I thought that the last one I attended several years ago was not "momentous" recalling that the talk was blather about how the world situation was getting progressively worse and that the head of the governing board or whatever had something important to say or that the 144,000 were on the verge of setting forth on their mission to govern and somehow in passing coming up with dates in ancient history about Egypt and the Exodus that didn't seem to pass historical muster. I was underwhelmed.

I did observe a number of credulous people in attendance back then and the two men somewhat younger than I was reminded me of them. They didn't seem to be as intrusive as a previous salesmen, but certainly looked pained to fulfill their pre-memorial quotas. But I just couldn't leave it at that. When I asked me about my studies, I had to tell them that I just plain concluded that their doctrines just plain wrong and repeated three times.

Then they asked me if I had any questions.

I said that when I was taking instructions several years back I did indeed have some questions. I did not mention that I was desparately trying to come to terms with my ex fiancee's spring back to Jehovah Witness belief after her grown son had died, and how I had no reservations about asking questions directly or even walking into a Kingdom Hall and demanding answers. But I told them this much:

I asked and I didn't get answers. I was told to submit my questions in written form to the WatchTower question box, mailing address at the headquarters in NY and await a reply ( an activity for which my ex-fiance had asked me not to mention her name). I told them I decided not to do that. Rather, I sought and found a forum on line and posed my questions there.

I told these two individuals that I found a forum where a whole lot of people had the same questions I had and had to wade through the same fog that I had. But what's more, an awful lot of them were WITHIN their organization, elders COs, rank and file or officers of the WT&BTS. And, "You know what? I observe that you have an awful lot of people WITHIN your organization that are very unhappy with it. Now here's a question for you. Why should I be interested in joining an organization that causes so many people so much grief?"

Looking across the street I could see the other two person patrols knocking at neighbors' doors. My wife, a hospital chaplain whom I had met and married since the incidents described, peeked around the corner of our door to see what the ruckus was about. By coincidence we had been discussing a Bible related issue of our own, rather than Saturday chores and the knock at the door had caught me replacing a reference on the bookshelf. In a way she had managed to bail me out of any further elevated response to those who were doing their duty.

I am of two minds about this matter. One is that I was antagonistic toward people who are used as pawns in a struggle. But the other was the satisfaction of remembering some of the words I wanted to say at the moment. I wanted to emphasize an important part of what I had learned, the result of very much grief of my own.

14

How many elders does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

by mynameislame in

just one but he has to be constantly ready to replace it at a moments notice..

kepler

What does the Watch Tower say?...

Wait, I think I can find that in the KH Library. I'll tell you next meeting.

5

Sherlock Holmes predicted WWII - I saw it in a film

by kepler in

it was either "hound of the baskervilles" or "adventures of sherlock holmes" where sherlock himself, played by basil rathbone, after wrapping up the case with dr. watson and friends turned to the audience in the theater and urged them to fight on against the threat that menaced europe, the empire and the blessed isles alluding to hitler and mussolini.. since sherlock holmes lived in victorian times this must have been a revelation from god.. no doubt about it.

there is no other way that this could have happened.

and sherlock holmes wrote the story himself.. we studied sherlock holmes short stories attributed to arthur conan doyle in english class.

kepler

Well, now that others have had their say and business is as usual on other topics, I would like to give my rebuttal to several claims or efforts to debunk Sherlock Holmes' writing and prophetic work.

The fact that Sherlock Holmes made his prophetic statements on film is merely a difference in medium ( vs. printed word on paper). Sherlock Holmes foresaw the great conflict of the 1940s and warned against it, urging the Anglo-American alliance to soldier on to the end. It's quite clear.

What other possible explanation could there be for such a document but a direct message from God via his prophet to the faithful of this age?

101

The Most Insane Thing Ever Printed by the Watchtower?

by Leolaia in

i found this while perusing through old golden ages at the new york public library.

it is so patently ridiculous and offensive, i thought i'd just post the thing without comment.

*** g27 11/30 pp.

kepler

One of the things I often wondered about Rutherford was his connection to the 19th century underbelly of the American politics, the No-Nothings and Nativists (sic). Here was why:

There was reading his rants in the early Yearbooks (excerpts of the WT as "thoughts for the day" 365 or 366 of them) and reading accounts of harassments of immigrant attending churches, especially Roman Catholics. And then there was the famous letter to Adolph Hitler. All of this struck me as the sort of thing associated with the Klu Klux Klan or the Nativist movement.

Other than that he was an intolerant midwestern tied to the campaigns of William Jennings Bryan, I never did find anything conclusive. It seemed like most of his ties in that regard were probably over drinks at his private bar or over cigars and cards. For sure he was part of the the attitudes that seemed to permeate the world 8 or 9 decades back and still seemed to leak out of crevices in my 1950s childhood.

More than anything else he seems to emerge like one of those characters that were sitting int he same parlor car on the train with Sinclari Lewis on a cross country ride. Fact stranger than the fiction Lewis wove in "Elmer Gantry" and "It Can't Happen Here" combined. He actually was a combination of the two.

I hope to God we don't have to look back the same way on this era someday...

13

Wheels within wheels of celestial chariot? this FEATURE is discovered in our galaxy

by prologos in

jw
friends

in today's 'astronomy picture of the day' are clearly shown rotating rings that move at 90 degrees and through each other.

it is celestial, mysterious, entirely possible, and physical.

luminous.

kepler

Thanks for digging this one up. It's an interesting image.

But when you look at it closely, you have to wonder whether it is in this galaxy ( e.g., a planetary nebula) or another galaxy. I went back back to the APOD site and it turns out that is another galaxy. NGC 2625 according to its catalog name, 40 million light years away and about 50,000 light years across. In Ursa Major, it should be visible off to the north somewhere near or within the Big Dipper.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

As to why there should be two spiral pattern? A merger of two galaxies? There is some discussion at the web page, but the spiral patterns are so clear it is tempting to think that one galactic image is imposed on top of the other - whereas in contact you would expect more disruption.

Probably have to stay tuned...

5

Sherlock Holmes predicted WWII - I saw it in a film

by kepler in

it was either "hound of the baskervilles" or "adventures of sherlock holmes" where sherlock himself, played by basil rathbone, after wrapping up the case with dr. watson and friends turned to the audience in the theater and urged them to fight on against the threat that menaced europe, the empire and the blessed isles alluding to hitler and mussolini.. since sherlock holmes lived in victorian times this must have been a revelation from god.. no doubt about it.

there is no other way that this could have happened.

and sherlock holmes wrote the story himself.. we studied sherlock holmes short stories attributed to arthur conan doyle in english class.

kepler

It was either "Hound of the Baskervilles" or "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" where Sherlock himself, played by Basil Rathbone, after wrapping up the case with Dr. Watson and friends turned to the audience in the theater and urged them to fight on against the threat that menaced Europe, the Empire and the Blessed Isles alluding to Hitler and Mussolini.

Since Sherlock Holmes lived in Victorian times this must have been a revelation from God.

No doubt about it. There is no other way that this could have happened. And Sherlock Holmes wrote the story himself.

We studied Sherlock Holmes short stories attributed to Arthur Conan Doyle in English class. English is our sacred mother tongue and it's ancient.

God spoke in that tongue in the King James Version of the Bible which all the disciples carried with them everywhere and every land.

It is also the ancient language of King Arthur's court and the Knights of the Round Table. They discovered the Holy Grail.

If you don't believe this, then you will never achieve salvation. In fact, you will die with the rest of them...

If you don't go door to door telling other people that this is true, you are going to be in trouble too.

If you don't meet your monthly quotas telling people about this, then that's another problem.

Do not associate with anyone who does not believe this. Or even think that it might not be true.

You will receive more instructions and commentaries about these and similar phenomenally glad tidings in a bi-weekly leaflet. The opinions of our leader will be explained in anonymous editorial content. He is president of our corporate body - or a governing board.

You will receive extra copies. Distribute them.

Now about your selections in attire...

11

March of the world powers in DANIEL 2. Proof the Bible is the inspired word of God. Wadda ya think?

by punkofnice in

.

how would you answer the jw that says that the vision of daniel predicting world powers into the future (where the toes have no significance according to the wbt$), is proof of the inspired prophecy in the bible?.

could it be that the 'powers' are not actually named and can be interpreted any way you want?.

kepler

Daniel 2:1

"In the second year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar had a series of dreams, he was perturbed by this and sleep deserted him."

So this means Daniel was already in the service of Nebuchadnezzar before any of the Jerusalem sieges.

Later:

At this, King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel; he gave orders for Daniel to be offered an oblatin and a fragrant sacrifice. The king said to Daniel: "Your god is indeed the God of God, the Master of kings, and the Revealer of Mysteries..."

But Nebuchadnezzar goes off to besiege and capture Jerusalem and, eventually leveling it entirely, desecrates its temple. So why are we informed of his declaration. Either it was empty or it never occurred. When all of Daniel is read, you have to wonder if there is any historicity to it.

Question:

Is there any evidence that Babylonian kings were described as divine? Now how about Antiochus IV - Epiphanes?

Chapter II concludes with Shadrach, Meshach and AbedNego appointed to provincial rulers.

In chapter III, the King builds a golden statue of himself, confounding the lesson he supposedly learned in the previous chapter and threatens to burn the trio to death in an oven. In calling high officials to admire and worship the statue, he includes "Satraps" - a Persian Empire official ( an Empire yet to be invented). People "heard the sound of "horn, pipe, lyre, zither, harp, bagpipe and other instruments."

Strange? Not only he desecrate the temple of the God he acknowledged, but claims he himself is divine to boot amid anachronistic descriptions.

If you want to consider two empires encountering each other, study in detail how the Romans displace the Seleucids that ruled Palestine in the mid second century BC. Antiochus III ("the Great") was defeated by the Romans in Asia minor in 190 BC. Rolled back. The Greek mainland sought Rome's protection. The Romans spread around the Mediterranean and then (drawing from sources):

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

...In 168 BC Antiochus IV Epiphanes led a second attack on Egypt and also sent a fleet to capture Cyprus. Before reaching Alexandria, his path was blocked by a single, old Roman ambassador named Gaius Popilliu Laenas, who delivered a message from the Roman Senate directing Antiochus to withdraw his armies from Egypt and Cyprus, or consider themselves in a state of war with the Roman Republic. Antiochus said he would discuss it with his council, whereupon the Roman envoy drew a line in the sand around him and said, "Before you cross this circle I want you to give me a reply for the Roman Senate" – implying that Rome would declare war if the King stepped out of the circle without committing to leave Egypt immediately. Weighing his options, Antiochus IV Epiphanes decided to withdraw. Only then did Popillius agree to shake hands with him.

While Antiochus was busy in Egypt, a rumor spread that he had been killed and The High Priest appointed by Antiochus, Menelaus, was forced to flee Jerusalem during a riot. On the King's return from Egypt in 167 BC enraged by his defeat, he attacked Jerusalem and restored Menelaus, then executed many Jews.

"When these happenings were reported to the king, thought that Judea was in revolt. Raging like a wild animal, he set out from Egypt and took Jerusalem by storm. He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery." - 2 Maccabees 5:11-14

To consolidate his empire and strengthen his hold over the region, Antiochus decided to side with the Hellenized Jews by outlawing religious rites and traditions kept by observant Jews and by ordering the worship of Zeus as the supreme god (2 Maccabees 6:1–12). This was anathema to the Jews and when they refused, Antiochus sent an army to enforce his decree. Because of the resistance, the city was destroyed, many were slaughtered, and a military Greek citadel called the Acra was established...

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

The book of Daniel is NOT history of Babylonia. For further evidence, compare Daniel Chapter 4 and Dead Sea Scroll 4Q242"The Healing of King Nabonidus".

"I Nabonidus wsa smitten with a severe inflammation lasting seven years ... I was thus changed becoming like a beast. I prayed to the Most High and he forgave my sins. An exorcist, a Jew, in fact, a member of the community of exiles, ..."

Daniel is un-named in the scroll, but Nabonidus is. As recounted by the editor of the DSS, "the name was changed not to protect the innocent, but to implicate guilty ... who had sacked Jerusalem, burned the Temple and carried the people into exile in 586 BCE." Repeat: 586 BCE.

Any resemblance here to Antiochus IV?

Curiously enough, events in chapter 5 pick up the Nabonidus story again, without using his name, when Cyrus acquires the city for the Persian Empire.

It seems to me that ,the more people talk about how Daniel seems to concern the present day, the less they seem to dwell on Daniel in context. ...But this could go on forever.

6

Why Do Some People Still Disagree With Special Relativity?

by DT in

jw
friends

i have to admit that i feel poorly equipped to address this subject.

i'm more interested in the feedback of others than in trying to persuade others of my opinions.

i should also point out that although this topic is specifically about special relativity, much of what is said could also apply to general relativity.. special relativity has had a profound effect on both science and modern culture.

kepler

DT,

This is a challenging writing topic, but I'll give it a try. Not my specialty, but I have had exposure as well...

When I first scanned your introduction, my knee jerk reaction was to respond and somehow say something in support of relativity theory being a theoretical answer to physical observation. But then when I look more closely at what you said, I don't think that would be necessary. It sounds like you've been examining the subject for yourself and find it plausible enough to defend in argument yourself.

To others I would say that special relativity arrived on the scene because there was an odd discrepancy in physical observations: No matter what motion was observed in a source of light, arriving light seem to be moving at the same speed. And if the speed always remained the same, then maybe time was not absolute... The physical and geometrical implications are included in college introductory physics courses, but the philosophical implications are left to the student. Special relativity was the camel's nose of this initial observation. General relativity gave us a concept of space and time that made time another dimension which was warped by mass - or as the saying goes:"Space time tells matter how to move, matter tells space-time how to curve." In the space of 10 years from 1905 to 1915 Einstein and some correspondents worked out most of the deep implications of this theory, derived from the initial observations...

And continually confirmed by subsequent experimental observations ( residual movements in celestial space of Mercury's perihelion, the bending of light in neighborhood of stars about twice what Newtonian theory would predict...) and practical applications (GPS satellite programming includes corrections for relativistic effects).

Speaking of Newton's theory, celestial mechanics for centuries and present day space navigation have done very well without Einstein, save for:

- such small discrepancies in the solar system

- and much larger effects elsewhere in the universe where there are objects where motions often approach light speeds

- or in the laboratory with particle accelerators

All these regions depart from newtonian mechanics. But what's more. Newton never had an explanation for why matter attracted other matter. Einstein's GR does. Matter warps the shape of space. And energy has an equivalence to matter ( e= mc^2) - so that means a sphere of energy would alter the path of passing matter as well - just by being intensely "hot".

And in describing the physical world - all this seems to work.

That's about where special and general relativity theory stand. Explanation. But as edifices of human thought, they are as excellent as anything ever produced.

Is there no argument about either in the science community?

I wouldn't say that. There have been periods of neglect between 1915 and the current day, because GR seemed to be removed from practical application other than an explanation for stellar evolution or making bombs. But there have been controversies within it.

In recent years my e-mail box has been stuffed with arguments about the nature of GR and the discussions have been heated. One that is easier to characterize than most is the issue of inertia and Mach's contribution to Einstein's thought. Since Einstein explained attraction of bodies there was still the question of where does inertia or centrifugal force come from? If a bar bell with two masses were rotated in space, an inhabitant on one of the ( balanced ) pair would feel accelerations. He might become dizzy as he watched the spin of the fixed stars. Mach attributes this effect to the fixed stars, the entire mass of the universe causing a resistance....

OK. Now what if there weren't any? You wouldn't be able to tell if you were spinning or not. What if there were fewer or farther away? Would the acceleration be less. There are arguments pro or con or whether the effect is attributable to the total mass ( and energy) at all. But would either answer overthrow GR? Hardly.

Researching this question I found that Mach was a proponent of positivism. Which is to say that he did not believe in atomistic theory since there was no "observational" evidence for them in the 19th century. So he advised Einstein accordingly. Einstein at first adhered to his general advice, but broke with him later. On the other hand, Thompson in England attributed experimental results to a particle he named the "electron". Kaufman in Germany with better instruments and procedures saw the same phenomena more clearly, but discovered nothing. He was a positivist.

I gotta go...

11

Egyptian Timeline Research

by konceptual99 in

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23947820.

it is suggesting that the accepted dates for the egyptian timelines need to change.

does anyone have a more informed and scholarly view on this?.

kepler

Wow!

I used to think that the Egyptian timeline discrepancy with JW beliefs was simply that they were about 300 years off in the events during the New Kingdom, the time when Moses and Joshua were supposedly on the move. But then, when you add all the Flood and Tower of Babel inferences from the Society, you can see no matter of subtlety left here. Tthis is the realm of the looney bin.

Five years ago, when it might have made a difference, when I was watching someone jump back into this, I wish I had been aware of all this.

Thanks for digging this up.