in bible times the phrase "the son of god" was understood as a claim to the nature of god, not a claim to be a lesser being:.
" john 19:7. .
ron rhodes commments:.
Kenneson,
The question in Hebrews is whether God "said" to any angel, "You are my son."
This does not negate the clear fact that angels are called "sons of God" in the Bible. Do a little reading and check it out.
Anointed Christians are also called "sons of God" and "sharers in divine nature." This does not make them God.
in q 4:1-13 (luke 4:1-13), we have the well-known story of jesus' temptation by the devil, which appears to be a haggadic legend derived largely from texts in deuteronomy 6 and 8. here is a list of parallels provided by dale allison: .
1. jesus is "led" in the wilderness (4:1); israel is "led" in the wilderness (deut.
2. jesus is in the wilderness for 40 days and there tempted (4:2); israel is in the wilderness for 40 years and there tempted (deut.
Both OT and NT are Jewish stories. Even the gentiles who accepted Christ became the New Jews, the "spiritual Israel."
There were many "Judaisms" around in the 1st century. It is not unthinkable that that present religous milieu contributed to what is recorded in the NT.
Even the Greek Septuagint, utilized by many NT writers, was a Jewish work.
It's all a Jewish conspiracy!
in bible times the phrase "the son of god" was understood as a claim to the nature of god, not a claim to be a lesser being:.
" john 19:7. .
ron rhodes commments:.
I agree, Mr. Kim!
Arian, and proud of it!!!
check out http://members.shaw.ca/stanm/books/theobooks.htm.
theocratic library.
these are my recommendations for books that we can add to our own personal theocratic libraries.
Furuli is like a lot of us: He really wants to believe that what he has spent his life with is true. So long as there is a shred of possibility that the Society may be right and secular historians wrong, he will hang in there. And when one is dealing with ancient history, there are few things that are absolutely certain, so he has wiggle room.
But I wonder if he would be trying to undermine secular dating for Jerusalme's fall if 607 BCE were not integral to the Society's dogma of proving its relevance based on that date and 1914? Probably not. Doctrinal pressure makes rational men do irrational things. It's happened with Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals -- and us. (Not to mention Jews, Muslims, and other "believers" as well.) It's the same tyranny of belief that makes creationists insist that the earth is only a few thousand years old despite all geological evidence to the contrary.
in bible times the phrase "the son of god" was understood as a claim to the nature of god, not a claim to be a lesser being:.
" john 19:7. .
ron rhodes commments:.
In the Bible angels are also called "sons of God" and even "God." Does that make them "God by nature"?
Does having the "nature of God" make someone "God by nature"?
do the wt authors consider the early church fathers to have been apostates?
i seem to have a vague recollection that they do.
however, they don't seem to have a problem reading and selectively quoting or citing from their writings which would then be the writings of apostates.
They use those writings just like they use writings of modern-day theologians, when those writings appear to agree with some facet of Watchtower doctrine. But they do not consider such persons, ancient or modern, to be "true" Christians. Usually they are referred to as "nominal" or "professed" Christians.
comments you will not hear at the 4-4-04 (varying) wt study
review comments will be in black and parentheses ().
wt quotes will be in red and quotes "".
A sister at our WT study today told of her encounter with an "apostate." One of her co-workers approached her upon seeing her with a copy of the Draw Close to Jehovah book and said that he had once been a Witness. In fact, he said, he had been an elder for many years and his wife had been a pioneer for many also.
Makes you wonder why those held up as examples (elders, pioneers) leave.
It is so sad that it is not "Satan" who discourages and weakens Witnesses today. It is the Organization, with its mantra that whatever we do is never enough, that is guilty of promoting the "lie that we are worthless in God's eyes." (paragraph 17) This idea that Jehovah is only provisionally satisfied with us, but unless we do more, more, more, all that we have done already is meaningless, worthless.
Tomorrow, we will gather to remember that Jesus died for us. But if we want to get into that new world, what Jesus did is not enough. We just have to keep on pushin' and work out our own salvation, Watchtower-style.
in prior posts, i discussed how older ane material from canaanite and sumerian/akkadian tradition can survive quite late.
in 1 enoch, for example, we see how a famed rephaim from canaanite epic poetry, the wise judge danel (cf.
ktu 1.17-19), mentioned in ezekiel 14:12-20, 28:1-3, was recast as a fallen angel in 1 enoch 6:7, 69:2 (see [1] for discussion), and how the stories of enoch's journey to the ends of the earth and into the underworld mimic that from the epic of gilgamesh (cf.
Well, our view is that the Bible stories are the purer original that was distorted by retelling in other cultures over time. I don't know which is correct. I wasn't living back then.
I don't have a shred of evidence to prove it, but I've often wondered if the Garden of Eden story with Adam and Eve being the first humans is really the story of the first ancestors of the Semitic peoples. Abraham sprang from "Ur of the Chaldees" and that is also close to the site of the Garden of Eden. Science presumes an origin for humanity somewhere in Africa, not the Middle East. So maybe the "first humans" in the Bible story were only the first ancestors of Semitic memeory.
Or not.
this is a typed copy of a new boe letter i recently received from one of my sources: .
dear brothers, .
you will soon make several changes to our current literature arrangement.
Yeah, it was a good effort. Really, we don't need all these magazines anyway. Probably could consolidate the WT and Awake in one monthly mag, and let the people who want them pay for them by monthly subscription. At least in developed countries. Probably give 'em away in the poorer nations.
But that would free up a lot of paper, a lot of man-hours, and let the Bethelites do something more useful.
the argument witnesses make is that they are not encumbered by the world and its so-called "freedom".
they feel they are "free" from all the typical problems of this "worldly system of things"........if you could reason with a witness as to whether or not they are truly "free'', what would you say to help them see the light?
That's the real problem, not being able to say what one really believes from reading the Bible, if it disagrees even a little bit from "official" teaching.
Having to believe even speculation to be truth, without deviation. "Accepting the entire range of WT teachings," even the speculations based on faulty logic and missing evidence.
We're not free to do anything except as Brooklyn dictates, unless we wish to be smeared as malcontents, murmurers, "independent thinkers," slackers, spiritually weak, low-hour publishers, unappreciative, etc., etc.
Really, the organization just makes hypocrites of those who really want to serve God, but haven't found any better place to go.
