Fisherman,
How does that establish that Rome is the Rev HOB or debunk WT interpretation that it is WEFR?
The point of the observation is that a faulty methodology yields faulty results. Jehovah's' Witnesses have provided ample proof of that.
Have you considered the possibility that the value of Revelation today might be primarily historical / instructional rather than a collection of prophecies to, for and about Jehovah's Witnesses themselves?
Fisherman,
The idea that the 1600 stadia is the distance from Scranton PA to Brooklyn NY provided you take the Hoboken Ferry (The Finished Mystery 1917) or that the breaking of one of the seven seals was the installation of new printing presses in Brooklyn (Then is Finished the Mystery of God 1969) are two examples of where an egocentric approach to interpretation leads.
There are many more.
Perfect example:
Revelation 17 describes a thoroughly despicable woman via a series of cryptic allusions that don't make a lot of sense on the surface.
These allusions, however come together on the obverse side of the Vespasian coin, where we see a female figure seated on the seven hills of Rome just as she's described.
This was Dea Roma, (The personification of Rome as a goddess) which the Jews absolutely despised. They saw Rome as a greater Babylon and Dea Roma as the symbol of their servitude. The called her the "mother of whores" and scrawled obscene graffiti about her in public places when they could get away with it.
Everyone at the time would have been familiar with this symbology. And that's why Revelation was copied and circulated because it made sense to the people at the time
Revelation was about cryptic references to events that affected early Christians under the Roman empire during the first and early second centuries. Relevance to anything now, or to the future, is exactly zero.
^^^This^^^
It made perfect sense to the people it was written to and for.
It only made it into the NT by the figurative "skin of its teeth" because the relevance was already fading away
in a recent post ffghost made a comment about how they're always inserting modern concepts into biblical narratives to make it relatable to jw's organization.
here are some that come to mind:.
- the capitalized term "governing body" when referring to the older men in jerusalem (really just another group of christians that paul outspokenly disagreed with and didn't look to for approval).
If your goal is to drive home the message "beards are bad" why draw one on a "good guy"?
Obviously Judas of the Sicarii (Sorry, couldn't resist )
i have noticed this on many many forums.
so i don't have this forum in mind for this topic.
so you may have noticed this also, but many times on threads once someone does an attack or a negative comment about someone, or the way they write or anything else on the thread, everyone else seems to just pile on by reaction not thought.
Human nature is ugly sometimes. What can you do?
i just picked up a few from mark jones as follows:.
i see is that the vast majority of jws don't seem to understand what their religion actually teaches.. the more controversial or embarrassing doctrine - although still official doctrine that has never been rescinded - is just not talked about anymore in the magazines.
there are dinosaurs living on venus.https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/comments/2fowhx/dinosaurs_on_venus/.
This falls into the category of teachings that they simply shut-up about and never mentioned again:
--That Adam had both "male" and "female" qualities prior to the creation of Eve and that the "rib" was simply a metaphor for splitting him physically and psychologically into two halves.
This was taught as recently as the 1960's.
mcfree v. watchtower.
a us federal judge has ruled against watch tower pennsylvania, denying their dmca subpoena to identify the creator of the jehovah's witness parody videos known as "dubtown.. .
see last page (page 20).
"Jehovah hates whole beards. Beard fractions are a conscience matter"
(Wiping the coffee off my monitor....)
hae anyone come across a quotation to that effect?.
I think this is one of the better sources you can find to make your point. It's a reprint of an article that appeared in the August 1988 issue of Discover magazine.
The article, written by Doctor Elisabeth Rosenthal, describes in step by step detail the unnecessary death of a JW from refusing blood.
https://culteducation.com/group/1267-jehovah-s-witnesses/11522-vital-signs.html
hae anyone come across a quotation to that effect?.
One was an Apache Junction woman who had ignored the pain of an ectopic pregnancy and had collapsed on her front lawn with a ruptured fallopian tube. By the time help arrived, she had bled out internally. No pulse, no respiration. The resuscitation and subsequent surgery required 42 units of blood.
Another was a DPS motorcycle officer who had been in a bad accident. She needed a number of emergency surgeries in a short period of time. There was a valley wide blood drive in her behalf.
Maybe it was something along these lines I said? I'm not sure.
