i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
Parker,
No, those points are very general, shared among most Jews, not just Reconstructionists.
Also, why did you not read my post before the one where you posted the video?
If you wanted a rebuttal to your video, why didn't you just read what I had posted before? I touched on the same points, even said the same things:
Take your time to do it, but you will never find any Hebrew text that prophesies about "the Messiah shall do" such and such. It just doesn't occur in the Hebrew Scriptures.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
I had posted all the material the video speaks about and had already given a rebuttal to it before you posted the video.
You read nothing I wrote--NOTHING!
And now I added more, and I bet you read none of that too.
What do you have to say about yourself and your video and your points of view and beliefs now?
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
Parker,
I actually wrote the very same thing, the first point of the video in my post that is right above the video:
The first text to mention the Messiah as a person is post-Biblical, namely the Targums (where the phrase malka meshiḥa is first applied) and later elaborated in the Midrash. Take your time to do it, but you will never find any Hebrew text that prophesies about "the Messiah shall do" such and such. It just doesn't occur in the Hebrew Scriptures.
You obvious didn't read anything I wrote.
That's why your video is funny and silly.
There's your rebuttal. You didn't give me the benefit of reading my own words.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
Parker,
Your video is weird. And funny.
The Jews didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah is because the historical Jesus of Nazareth was nothing like the Gospel Jesus and unlike the Jewish prophets and Moses.
According to the Gospel accounts, most of what Jesus does is in secret, such as his healings and when he raises the dead. He impresses heavily upon others not to tell the public that they know he is the Messiah. And when he is glorified in the Transfiguration he forbids the apostles to tell anyone of the event until he is dead.
According to the Gospel and the Book of Acts, when Jesus is resurrected he does not appear to everyone and anyone to prove he has risen. He appears only to select people, "by the witnesses God has chosen beforehand" claims Acts 10:41.
This Messiah sounds less like the God of the Jews who appeared on Mount Sinai before a nation or who worked wonders by the hands of prophets before believers and unbelievers, Jews and Gentiles, even enemy nations and armies--
--No, Jesus sounds more like Joseph Smith who secretly received golden plates with the Book of Mormon and visions of angels, things no one else ever saw. People had to take what Smith said he had in his possession and what he claimed to have heard from heaven on faith.
This is what Jesus of Nazareth was like. Jesus was all secret. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. Nobody could say anything. And after he rose, only select people, supposedly chosen by God saw him.
That sounds like the story of the golden plates of the Book of Mormon and the supposed select witnesses, chosen beforehand by God who claim to have seen them before the Angel Moroni supposed took them back from Smith after he finished translating them into English. Do you believe that story too?
The prophets of Israel and especially Moses are said to have performed signs before the nation as a whole. They did not do things in secret. Jesus did his things in secret. How could the Jews have "missed" Jesus as the Messiah? Easy. Jesus kept it a secret like Joseph Smith hid his secrets and then the Mormons started preaching that people had to believe Smith's revelations on faith like Jesus' story.
Jews can't miss a messiah that stayed hidden.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
A decent religion needs to be focused on the needs of humanity. Education, good health, food and shelter and a reasonable ethical balance. We lift each other up, we make people accountable, we care for one another if their is a god in this..... He, She and/or IT has never shown up. We humans show up.
Giordano hit the nail on the head. That's what I've been trying to say all this time.
A central teaching of Judaism is Tikkun Olam, the repair or healing of the world is humanistic in nature. It does not rely upon or expect a supernatural influence of any type.
Instead of seeing God as a supernatural influence, most Reconstructionists see God as the humanistic influences in the world today that strive for justice, peace, and practical care. Messianic hopes are classically seen to be fulfilled humanistically, not supernaturally as they are by the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Park this BS some where else...
I thought this forum was open to ideas, unlike under the religious sphere of the Jehovah's Witnesses.
The Governing Body acts the same way, telling people the exact same thing about ideas. We learn intolerance we practice.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
Apparently a glitch here on this line.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
I am not here to defend or recommend the Bible. You need to go somewhere else for that.
After leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses, I returned to Judaism as most of my families are Jews. Jews don't believe the Bible is literal. I am a Reconstructionist Jew.
Traditionally, Reconstructionist don't believe in a personal God or that the Torah was divinely revealed by God.
In line with such, most Reconstructionists don't believe in a God that can foretell or foresee the future, nor is God seen as a divine being that rewards or punishes or demands sacrifices or ransoms for sins.
Like most Jews, Reconstructionists view the Adam and Eve story as lesson-bearing narrative and not as historical. I don't embrace any of the ideas I had as a Jehovah's Witness from over 20 years ago.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
...why Jesus seemed to refer to the Adam and Eve story as history, along with the Apostle Paul in some of his writings and who were both Jews.
The Gospel texts were composed long after the time Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have lived and supposed to have said the things. Both Paul and the writers of the Gospels believed in Messianic literalism: i.e., that the Messiah was a literal person who would bring the return of the David monarchy.
However, Paul and the Gospel writers believed something that the Jews did not, namely that the Hebrew Scriptures directly mentioned the Messiah in prophetic anachronisms. This is one of the main reasons why the Jews rejected Jesus' teachings and believed that he and his followers were Jewish apostates.
The first text to mention the Messiah as a person is post-Biblical, namely the Targums (where the phrase malka meshiḥa is first applied) and later elaborated in the Midrash. Take your time to do it, but you will never find any Hebrew text that prophesies about "the Messiah shall do" such and such. It just doesn't occur in the Hebrew Scriptures.
It doesn't matter what the Christians say or the Gospels or the so-called Jesus of Nazareth. They are Jewish apostates that according to Judaism twist the Hebrew Bible. You have to drop the idea of what Jesus believed and what Paul taught if you care so much about trying to comprehend a Jewish text.
You wouldn't try to understand a Catholic text through Mormon theological eyes now, would you?
In the end, I am NOT at all trying to push you to learn one way over another. What I am trying to get you to do is see that you are engaging in a pointless exercise. The text you are examining is 3,000 years old. If you really want to know what it means, then you are going to have to get to the source. But to do that, you are going to have to abandon Christian interpretations.
Are you really willing to do that? And if so, is this the place? What you need to do is let go of Watchtower views that the Bible is the text by which to govern your life. Even the Jews who have respect of the Bible don't view the Hebrew Scritures as the basis for their lives.
And no, that was all I had to say the first time.
i was wondering about this question and wanted to ask: was sin inevitable?
also, i had thought about past watchtower articles or publications related to this topic and did some research and found this from our readers ask if adam was perfect, how was it possible for him to sin?.
well, then, did god create adam with a moral weakness, so that he lacked the ability to make sound decisions or to withstand temptation?
Inevitable?
The narrative is not considered history by Jews but a lesson. Unlike Jehovah's Witnesses that place the story in history and therefore raise a plethora of questions such as you raised, the story's original intention was to teach something about the Mosaic Law necessary for humans.
Remember this is the story of creation but within the Torah, the Law of Moses. Nothing in the Torah, from Genesis to Deuteronomy, is free from a legalistic meaning--at least the way Jews say they wrote it (and after all, the Jews wrote it).
Though there are a myriad of things that can be learned from this section of the Law (known as "Bereshit" after the first word of this section), the basic lesson is simple:
anyone here thats a former mormon?
a person in the internet wrote abouth them.
that community could not be more impressive in its cohesion, sincerity, benevolence, decency, patriotism, and faith.. i seen mormons go from house to house before the convid virus.they always seem cheerful.
My father was LDS. My mother was JW. My relatives were Humanistic and Reconstructionist Jews (which my parents were raised as). There is sincerity in the ranks of the LDS, but a lot of what you see in public can be and truly is just show.
The best way I can describe the smiles on the faces of the missionaries that you see are "forced sincerity."
The "excessive happiness" on the faces of missionaries "elders" is very much Part 1 of the Love Bombing that all missionaries and LDS members are trained to engage in. Non-members are meant to be "smiled and loved" and "fussed" all over, even to the point of pretending that you are interested in the non-member's religion, attending their religious services once or twice, and then asking them if they can "practice" a lesson with a newer missionary at your place. That's how it starts. (Yes, they are trained to do this like Witnesses are trained to publically preach).
Mormons "love" their non-member neighbors and workmates the same way. They feign interest in them to the point that the non-member feels obligated to go to church with them. Part 2 of the Love Bombing then occurs at the Ward church building and continues on, hoping to get the person baptized and qualified for Temple attendance.
Temple attendance and work is the main goal. Mormon religion is all about going to their Temples and baptizing for non-Mormon dead people. They love to convert Jews because they can't baptize dead Jews unless they are relatives of the converted proxy.
A lot of what you see in LDS people are their attempts to stay clean enough in daily life to remain holy enough to qualify to visit their local Temple. If they mess up in any way, they have to confess their sin to their Ward bishop. If they don't do this, they can't visit their Temple and do this most important work (even more important that missionary work). Even the most private and embarrassing thoughts and personal things must be confessed to the Ward bishop--who is a man in his 50s--and children have to confess too!
Some live this way because they want to advance to the highest levels in the Church and Temple service in order to advance in the afterlife. They are told to tell the press that Mormons don't believe that they can become gods over their own worlds if they advance enough in this life, but they do. Some of what you are seeing is this, believe it or not.
There is some fear to do right too, of course, but that is mainly among those who do not fit in with the LDS standard: i.e., LGBTQ people, women, and yes, people who are not white men.
They have become a little more normalized into the culture than the Witness, but only because they have been around longer and their end of the world prophecies that have failed have been pushed to the back for over 100 years (until just recently, that is--the latest prophet is pushing the idea that "we are very near" the end). They tend to lightly celebrate Christian and worldly holidays but mostly to purposefully fit in with the objective to try to proselytize about the "Restoration." This another part of the smiles and happiness. They are told to act like close families for this purpose.
First answer here: Been reading for a while.
