Posts by SharonUT

19

Advice requested on response to mom's letter

by paulvarjak in

jw
friends

i received this recently from my mother.

the only contact i've had with any of my family since october has been an occasional email.

you are 28 years old and you made the choice to put yourself, and us, in this position.

SharonUT

What a mess. So..... if you just slowly became "in-active" and didn't speak of your unbelief, they would still love you huh?

3

Disfellowshipping

by mdfreels in

i'm really feeling like i need some advice (please none from ex-witnesses).

i have a friend {he was my study} who recently was disfellowshipped.

it hurt me deeply.

SharonUT

Isn't it now that he really needs you? I mean... it isn't like he is asking you to be his drinking buddy.

22

Baptism in whose name?

by SharonUT in

if this has been answered before, just point me in the right direction.

matthew 28:19 says to be baptized in the "name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy ghost.

" what is the justification used in jehovah's witnesses changing this.

They came again today - gee, we must have spoken over 2 hours. I asked them about the practice of "shunning" and found out that indeed the one JW man "shuns" one of his sisters who has left the church. He has another sister who is an inactive JW and he doesn't shun her since she has not out right rejected the message.

In the end, they were unable to explain to me several things. They asked me if I thought the Pope
was a humble servant of Jehovah and I told them I didn't know the Pope's heart and didn't know very
much about him. He talked about how the pope wears those fancy robes and has people call him
Father and stuff like that and how he says his word overrules the Bible.

I asked them if their organization does not do the same though - using the example of baptism
according to Matthew 28:19. Since about 1985, they are no longer baptized in the name of the
Father/Son/Holy Ghost. Their governing body has changed that.

All in all... I tried to bear my testimony to them about my having direction from God in my life. (I feel I failed though.) They explained to me that they don't believe that God deals with them directly - no personal answers to prayer... and I told them that indeed, I have heard God's will for me... his word directly to me (through the Holy Ghost.) I'm sure they understand that as me being influenced by an evil spirit... but I did testify to them all the same. Once that started... they were quick on their feet and out of there. I told them that I had to be honest with them, and that I did not wish to become a JW, but hat they were welcome to come visit me anytime to get their hours in. I wished them good luck in their continued work.

6

The Adventist Movement

by SharonUT in

after study... i have concluded that the jw's are nothing more than another off-shoot of the adventist movement.

see below.. the adventist movement (millerites) was started by william miller (a lay baptist minister) in 1843 and that created 3 off-shots.

the advent christian church, the life & advent union, and the seventh-day adventists (which sprang the branch davidians).

SharonUT

After study... I have concluded that the JW's are nothing more than another off-shoot of the Adventist Movement. See below.

The Adventist Movement (Millerites) was started by William Miller (a lay Baptist minister) in 1843 and that created 3 off-shots. The Advent Christian Church, The Life & Advent Union, and the Seventh-Day Adventists (which sprang the Branch Davidians). From The Advent Christan Church came the Adventist Magazine (Nelson H. Barbour) and from that Magazine came Zions WatchTower Magazine (Charles Taze Russell or Russellites which include Modern-day Russellites). From the Russellites came the Chicago Bible Students, the Dawn Bible Students, the Laymens Home Missionary Movement, and Rutherford's Jehovah's Witnesses.

Why doesn't the JW book, "Mankind's Search for God" explain this? They outline all the other reform movements except themselves! They mention nothing of the Adventists AT ALL!

I'm trying to make a list of the MAJOR ADOPTED DOCTRINES that JW's take from the emergence of the Adventist Movement. I've come up with four... perhaps you can add more.

1) Invisible presence of Christ's advent/coming
2) New Light
3) Non-existence of hell
4) Annihilation of unsaved people

Okay - so moving this in a little different direction... what of "missing scripture?" There is so much proof in history and the Bible itself that the Bible is NOT complete. For instance, we know that several extant books that were once part of the Bible but which arc now excluded from the traditional Protestant canon. My concern is not as much as the apocryphal works accepted in the Catholic church as that there are several places in the Bible where scriptural books and passages are mentioned or quoted which are either lost or are no longer part of the canon. I've specifically discussed this with the JW's visiting me with no real answers.

Some examples that perhaps you could comment on individually? Jude 14-15 quotes the book of Enoch as scripture. In fact, the quotation of Enoch is the fullest, most apparent use of an older scriptural text in Jude. Enoch is quoted to prove that the sort of evil Jude is discussing "had been foreseen in the distant past" (C. Thompson 943). Thus, Enoch is regarded as having prophesied and his prophecy is utilized by Jude to prove an important point.

In Jude 9, "a vivid illustration is given from a Jewish writing, the Assumption of Moses.. . ." (C. Thompson 943). Verse 9 refers to a controversy between the archangel Michael and Satan regarding the body of Moses. This account is found in the Assumption of Moses, an ancient Jewish text, but it is not present in our modern Old Testament.

In Matthew 2:23, Matthew refers to a prophecy that Christ would be called a Nazarene. However, no such prophecy appears in the Old Testament as we now have it. Some writers have asserted that Matthew 2:23 does not pretend to contain an Old Testament quotation. This is simply blinking at reality. It is unabashed evasion to claim that Matthew was not quoting what he considered to be a scriptural source here. Matthew's intent is so plain it is undeniable: "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, he shall be called a Nazarene." How much clearer could Matthew be?

Some fundamentalist scholars concede that Matthew is quoting scripture, and they attempt to find potential sources for the prophecy. Unfortunately, these efforts consist of erroneous linguistic analysis and/or appealing to Old Testament passages (e.g., Judges 13:5) that have nothing to do with Christ. The plain fact of the matter is that Matthew quotes a prophecy concerning Jesus that is not found in our current Old Testament.

In Luke 24:46, we read that the Savior said the following to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead" (RSV). The statement "thus it is written" is a standard New Testament formula for introducing quotes from the Old Testament. However, there is no passage in our current Old Testament which speaks specifically of the suffering of the Messiah and of His resurrection from the dead on the third day. This means that the version of the Hebrew scriptures from which Jesus was quoting contained a prophecy that the Messiah would suffer and die and then be resurrected on the third day.

In Colossians 4:16, Paul bids his Colossian readers to "likewise read the epistle from Laodicea." "According to Col. 4: 16," says Mary Milne, "Laodicea received a letter from Paul, and it was to exchange letters with the neighboring community at Colossae" ( 547). Victor Paul Furnish notes that this verse relates to the custom of sharing apostolic letters: "The instruction that this letter [Colossians] be shared with the Laodicean church and that the letter to that congregation be read also in Colossae shows how the custom of exchanging apostolic letters must have grown up--leading gradually to their collection and joint circulation... ." (1971a:864, emphasis added). The Letter to the Laodiceans is now lost.

Another missing epistle of Paul's is referred to in 1 Cofinthians 5:9, where the apostle says, "I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators." James Price observes that Paul "is clearly referring here to a previous letter" (800). Elisabeth Fiorenza of Harvard University agrees:

According to 1 Cor. 5:9 Paul is not writing to Corinth for the first time. He sends what we know
as the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians from Ephesus in part because his previous letter has
been misunderstood and in part because new problems have arisen, about which the community
had written him. (1168)

Thus, we should have three epistles from Paul to the Christians at Corinth, but we only have two.

Some of the material in 1 and 2 Kings was taken from a book that was called the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, and the material that was used was only a selection from that book (1 Kings 15:31; 16:20; 2 Kings 10:34; 13:8).

Below is a listing of some of the other scriptural books which are mentioned in the Old Testament but which are now lost:

Book of Jasher - Joshua 10:13
Book of the Acts of Solomon - 1 Kings 11:41
Book of Nathan - 1 Chronicles 29:29
Book of Gad - 1 Chronicles 29:29
The Prophecy of Ahijah - 2 Chronicles 9:29
The Book of Iddo - 2 Chronicles 12: 15
Sayings of the Seers - 2 Chronicles 33:19

There are many places in the writings of the early church fathers where scriptural sources are cited which can no longer be identified and/or which arc no longer included in the Bible.

For example, Clement of Rome (ca. A.D. 40-100), the revered bishop of that city, in his first letter to Corinth, quotes what he himself labels a "Scripture" concerning the wretched condition of "the double-minded" (1 Clement 23: 3; Sparks 31). However, "the source of this quotation is unknown" (Sparks 31). We no longer possess the scriptural source which Clement quoted to the Corinthian saints.

2 Clement, a highly regarded homily among the ancient Christians, composed sometime between A.D. 100 and 140, quotes a scripture attributed to the Lord Himself regarding the importance of good works. The homily's author introduces the quotation with the words "the Lord said" (4:5; Sparks 62). The source of this quotation is unknown, although some believe it comes from the lost Gospel of the Egyptians (Sparks 62).

The Epistle of Barnabas quotes as scripture a passage which closely resembles two verses from 2 Esdras in the Apocrypha (12:1; Sparks 289; 2 Esdras 4:3; 5:5).

The Epistle of Barnabas itself was quoted as scripture by Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150-215), an early Christian theologian and president of the Christian academy in that city (Sparks 263). The epistle was already in circulation by the early part of the second century and was widely read in the ancient church clear into the third century. Significantly, the epistle appears in one of the oldest New Testament manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus.

The devout Christian apologist Justin Martyr (ca. A.D. 100-165) treated the books of Esdras as scripture and accused the Jews of having removed from one of them a passage which connected the Passover to the Savior (Roberrs and Donaldson 1:234). Justin even quoted the passage. However, the verse he quoted does not appear in any existing manuscripts of 1 and 2 Esdras.

Justin also claimed that the Jews had removed two passages from many contemporary copies of Jeremiah (Donaldson and Roberts 1:234-235). Justin supplied the verses in question. One of the passages he quoted corresponds to Jeremiah 11:19. However, the other one is not found in any existing version of Jeremiah (Donaldson and Roberts 1:235). Interestingly, this verse speaks of Yahweh visiting Israelites in the spirit world "to preach unto them His own salvation" (Roberts and Donaldson 1:235).

In an early Christian text entitled the Shepherd of Hermas, the pious Hermas is instructed by an angel to quote to a local Christian the Words of Eldad and Modat, a lost prophetic book of ancient Judaism (Fox 383; Sparks 166).

The Shepherd of Hermas itself was a greatly revered text in the early church Written between A.D. 100 and 150, it was cited with approval by Irenaeu (ca. A.D. II5-180), bishop of Lyons and an esteemed Christian apologist Clement of Alexandria regarded it "as divinely spoken and by revelation (Sundberg 1221-1222). The Shepherd of Hermas enjoyed considerable reverence and popularity in the ancient church well into the fourth century. The book, like the Epistle of Barnabas, appears in the Codex Sinaiticus.

In addition to all of the above, according to a number of church father' in the early church there were vitally important "higher teachings" that we deliberately withheld from the written scriptures and which were given on to those church members who were deemed ready and worthy to receive the (Roberts and Donaldson 4:399; MaGil147; Robinson 96-103; Evenson 71-101

Sorry so long.