Posts by PetrW

15

Watchtower Campus

by Gorb in

jw
friends

information about the new watchtower campus, ready in 2027.. https://www.brplusa.com/projects/watchtower-bible-tract-society-new-headquarters-campus-development.

g..

PetrW

NotFormer: excellent point, as if they didn't count on the fact that the end is very near indeed! 😊

Eleven of the buildings on campus will utilize Mass Timber construction, displacing thousands of tons of carbon-intensive concrete. When complete this site will be the largest Mass Timber project in North America.

...I think they forgot - they didn't tell the architects that there is a text 1 Cor 3:12-14: “But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; each man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is…If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.”

I would rather use reinforced concrete or stones in such a "building"...but if Jehovah doesn't build the house, the builders toil in vain, don't they?😊

22

My latest letter to the WT organization

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

may 14, 2024. hello brothers at the writing committee.

many brothers and sisters are wondering when will the end come?

we were supposed to live in the last days of the last days as brother lett told a couple of years ago.

PetrW

I also think your letter (Kosonen) was more to the point of how to deal with the theological debacle of the JWs, somehow personally.

Rather, the question must be asked: under what circumstances would a protest/rebellion/revolution against the JWs be successful?

A frontal attack by an individual against a globally operating organization has no chance of success unless that individual - either alone or with the help of others - has sufficient resources to wage the struggle. If an individual had, say, a few billion dollars to spend on a media campaign where he could use the internet, TV, radio or newspapers to conduct propaganda against the JWs, and at the same time create an alternative for the "renegade" JW leadership (i.e. convert especially prominent JW members to his side), then there would certainly be some result. The assumption of course is that you use the whole repertoire: from truth, to disinformation, to lies and corruption. The goal of the financial and psychological operation, is to get a "Judas" or several Judases...this is a proven method, but as I say, it costs more than 30 pieces of silver today, because you are not catching some lone leader, but fighting a globally operating church.

The above is a rather hypothetical case. It has several variations, but basically it's still all about money.

A less financially demanding method is when the one who criticizes the church comes up with some attractive, phenomenal idea that forces the masses and the church leadership to respond in some way. This is the method: the "religious reformer". John the Baptist, Francis of Assisi, John Huss, Martin Luther...

Honestly, it's as unlikely a method as using gigantic amounts of money. But still, that's where I see the most potential. Example: suppose someone manages to solve the mystery of, say, the 70 weeks of Daniel. And this, of course, by answering without exhaustion the various interpretations that are available for about 2000 years. Because just because I think something and start expanding on it doesn't mean it's the right solution. We're really talking about unraveling some widely known biblical mystery where there are several competing views. It's not just a demonstration of ignorance...

This interpretation would become so widely respected that WT would have to respond with an article of some sort. The members themselves would question whether it is true. At the same time, they would question how it is possible that someone else knows this (e.g. 70 weeks) and the JWs leadership knows nothing about it. The JW leadership would have to get on the defensive. The failure would have to be so obvious that it would be difficult to lie their way out of it. I don't need to describe it, everyone probably knows what would happen.

However, the "religious reformer" method has a very high bar. It really means extensive research on a topic that must be acceptable to the widest range of people. Something in the quality of the greatest human discoveries and inventions. Copernicus, Newton, Einstein...alcohol distillation 😊, the steam engine, penicillin...

The abbreviation of the method "religious reformer" is only theological: the person in question gets the proper information directly from God. These people then usually raise 3 or 4 day old corpses, heal the blind, the deaf, etc. etc. So even this path is not entirely easy, although it is seemingly the quickest.

I can't think of any other solutions...but maybe I'm forgetting something?

15

Did you consider Paul as false prophet?

by PeterNobody in

dear brothers!

you as a bible researchers, refused the catholicism, but still use the books which catholic church defined as the source of truth.

did you consider paul as a false prophet?

PetrW

*

15

Did you consider Paul as false prophet?

by PeterNobody in

dear brothers!

you as a bible researchers, refused the catholicism, but still use the books which catholic church defined as the source of truth.

did you consider paul as a false prophet?

PetrW

Paul started splitting us - the Christians - from Jews. He started killing the Judean Christians on Jewish side, then they have been killed by Paul's "Christians". And his claiming about Jesus as "magician" is also used by Jews, this splits Jews and Christians.

In his letters he blures the good and evil, he removed the God's Law - those are the fruits of his teachings. You are bible researchers, verify the Pauls teaching against the Jesus teachings also against the God's words! Not Moses words, but Gods words! And please be careful to not make our God liar!

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I think your basic argumentative and virtually (today) irremovable flaw, is that you are proving/disproving a claim from someone, but only from what they themselves claim. Proof in the round. To our regret, we have no other sources to confirm/disprove your hypothesis. That leaves the only (obviously for some - unpleasant) option, to understand what is written in the NT as it is written there. The later texts don't add much credible information anymore.

56

Can God Change his Mind?

by peacefulpete in

is 31:yet he also is wise and will bring disaster and does not retract his words.. 1 sam 15: furthermore, the eternal one of israel does not lie or change his mind, for he is not man who changes his mind.. numbers 23: god is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes his mind.

does he speak and not act, or promise and not fulfill?.

when the god you worship pronounces judgement, is he, really just issuing a warning or has the matter been determined through all the godly powers of insight, foresight and perfect judgement?

PetrW

@peacefulpete

The message of the obvious satire is that if only Jonah had not been successful in converting Ninevah, the Assyrians would never have conquered Israel.

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The main message of the book of Jonah, however, is that the scheol, is an underwater, marine, mobile device that serves to secure living beings, including humans. The scheol allows for short-term (emergency) stay/survival (+/- 3 days) underwater, and is also capable of navigating above water and safely ascending to land. Entering with open flames or starting a fire is not possible there (unsafe exhaust and air intake, high risk of concentration of life-threatening gases).

This idea of scheol as a relatively cold place without fire is fundamentally different from the hellish ideas of the churches, but also from the JWs who associate scheol with the earth and the abstract place of all the dead. Jonah was alive there, he didn't see any other dead/living people, and there probably wasn't much room either. The JWs doctrine of the underworld would succeed if JWs considered that each dead person has a fish with a belly where the scheol is. Here, however, we must wait for new light!

27

Quality of jw.org translation?

by Wonderment in

someone asked the following question to an artificial intelligence (ai) website:.

how does the most translated website ensure accuracy of translations?.

answer: .

PetrW

@Wonderment

The thing about the revised translation of the NWT (Czech version 2019) in the case of Acts 2:46 is that it does not have the literal "house from house" in relation to the previous edition of 1999, which is now (2019) replaced by "they visited". The NWT translation (Czech version) of 1999 and the revised edition of 2019 never had the term "bread". In contrast, other 20th century Czech translations or even translations from translations (as far back as Latin or modern languages) translate this verse without a problem.

As you yourself indicate with a quotation from JWs-literature, the JWs sought to suppress any mention that the "breaking of bread" could - seemingly/actually - be considered a liturgy of the early Christians, which is fundamentally different from the JWs' practice. As one theological dictionary argues: the church in the time of the apostles, meant a "theological" rather than an organizational unit.

What bothers me is the "censorious" intervention of the JWs in the translation of the NT, where they first suppress any mention of "bread", only to then also delete the mention that they did it "house by house". Of course they can do that - I'm not forbidding them, but that's why I'm no longer a JW! 😊

As someone here wryly pointed out, we can expect the concept to be expanded in future revisions: Jehovah and his organization. Rather, I also expect the revised NWT translation to shorten, for example, just the text of the book of Acts to simply: "They obeyed the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses and what Jehovah communicated to them through the organization. And they did not doubt."

27

Quality of jw.org translation?

by Wonderment in

someone asked the following question to an artificial intelligence (ai) website:.

how does the most translated website ensure accuracy of translations?.

answer: .

PetrW

@Wonderment

In the case of Acts 2.46, the Greek structure, although not uncommon, is a bit complicated for readers of other cultures. Furthermore, to translate this text correctly, one must undertake various exegetical problems at hand. From the modern standpoint, is the bread referred to here the type of unleavened bread used in the commemoration of Jesus' death, or is it a term related to a common meal during the first century?

Should the translator render the Greek phrase katʼ oiʹkon (from house to house) literally? Should this expression be understood in the sense that the believers in this context were doing the action at their homes (adverbial), or in the consecutive sense (physically, in walking distance, from house to house), or in the distributive sense, that is, from one house to another, distance apart, not physically together?

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On Acts 2:46 - they broke bread in houses: there is a 1613 Czech Evangelical translation (Bible of Kralice) that was historically and culturally as important in shaping the language as the 1611 KJV was in shaping English. They had no problem translating the phrase "they broke bread in houses" back in 1613, and it's been going on for 400 years - in the meantime, there were Catholic translations as well, and in the 20th century alone, there are about 5 other translations of the NT in Czech that translate this passage without a problem. The exception is the NWT. Even the Jerusalem Bible, which has a similar history of origin (translation from the original languages into French and subsequent translation into the vernacular languages or translation of footnotes only) and exists in the Czech version, translates this passage completely and intelligibly without problem: they broke bread house by house.

Specifically, in the text of Acts 2:46, both translators of the English NWT and translators from the NWT into other languages are completely and utterly without apology. The problem is in turn compounded by the fact that in the JWs-interlinear translation, this passage is literally translated. But also this thing has a problem: there is a WT study(!) article (September 2017) that questions the benefits of studying biblical languages and refers to an infamous text, again from the WT, from November 2009, where the study of biblical languages by rank-and-file members is negativized to the point of creating some danger ("superficial knowledge"). All those (in the 2009 WT text) reasons against studying are exactly the reasons to remove them by studying...

In the passage Acts 2:46, "bread" (αρτος) and its breaking is mentioned, followed by the general term "food" (τροφη). This last phrase ("they took food"), Luke, as the writer of Acts, also uses in connection with Paul and the time just before the shipwreck, when he urges the passers-by to "eat food" (Acts 27:33). As noted below, it is even "liturgical" bread that is eaten by various people quite freely, without any restraint or restriction, both by Paul and by the other Christians on the ship.

The "breaking of the bread" in Acts 2:46 obviously refers in its wording to Jesus and his miraculous feeding of the multitudes (Matt 14:19), but especially to the situation at the Last Supper (Luke 22:19), which becomes early Christian liturgy - see 1 Cor 10:16 and 24.

JWs have an almost - I would say - paranoid fear of the "breaking of bread" as a particular liturgical element within the general community of early Christian believers, but also of non-Christians(!!!), becoming a pattern. Therefore, in the passages Acts 20:7 and 11, the phrase "breaking bread" (Paul), again translated as "food". But they have not been consistent, nor is that possible, so they finally let Paul (cf. above - the event before the shipwreck) "break bread" Acts 27:35 and even give it to others(!) - v.36.

If they can translate the phrase "take the bread...and break it" in Acts 27:35 with no problem, all the other passages where they don't do it, they do it with intent. There is no other explanation.

Conclusion: the reader of the Bible should be the sole judge of whether such and such a text is important to him or not. No matter how difficult a text it is to translate. If - instead of the reader - translators "censor" the text to suit their own ideas, then they are making a grave error. Sooner or later the trust and legitimacy of such 'translators' will be lost. The same psychological and sociological mechanisms will come into play for the addressees (the audience) as in the case of censorship, misinformation or half-truths in politics...

27

Quality of jw.org translation?

by Wonderment in

someone asked the following question to an artificial intelligence (ai) website:.

how does the most translated website ensure accuracy of translations?.

answer: .

PetrW

Translation of the NWT through the eyes of a foreigner - status 2024.

In addition to the oft-mentioned criticism of JWs for adding or, conversely, subtracting words or phrases to the Bible translation: The two examples of the 2019 NWT translation compared to the English version and the local language translation were not discovered by me - they come from another discussion, but are very instructive and are rather indicative of the declining quality of local language translations and, let's say, in the most important area, the text of the Bible. All quotes from the NWT are according to the online-version at jw.org.

Example 1:

Acts 2:46 reads as follows in the English version:

And day after day they were in constant attendance in the temple with a united purpose, and they took their meals in different homes and shared their food with great rejoicing and sincerity of heart.

Acts 2:46 in the Czech version:

Every day they were in united attendance in the temple, and they visited each other, and they took their meals together and shared their food with great rejoicing and sincerity of heart.

---

The first striking thing of a theological nature is the deletion of the passage which literally (see the so-called NWT study edition) reads, "they broke bread from house to house" (κλωντες τε κατ οικον αρτον), and reworded into the neutral took their meals in different homes. Why the JWs did this is open to question, but (more than one) explanation is offered: the members of the church of the day met house to house, presumably doing what bears a striking resemblance to the Lord's Supper, and participation in this "breaking of bread" was not limited in any way, and even took place in different places as need and opportunity arose. It almost tempts one to consider that this was not an annual/calendar celebration, but rather was motivated by a gathering of Christians who came together after some extended period of time and in the course of (beginning/end?) "breaking bread". A New Testament practice that differs from the JWs requirements...

However, the issue doesn't end there. The English part: and they took their meals in different homes, in Czech (and Slovak - they are very similar languages) shortened to the form: "they visited each other". Which, of course, they did when they met, but already in the 2019 revision "house to house" instead of various meetings has completely dropped out, and of course, there is no longer a word about bread in the English translation, so we can expect nothing in the secondary translation...

The 2019 revision of the Czech version differs from the 1999 Czech edition, which also - of course no longer had any mention of bread at that time - but still referred to the place where Christians met ("various houses"). Also the 1999 concordance to the Czech version of the NWT, mentions in the entry: "houses" verse Acts 2:46. Which we can no longer find in the 2019 revision.

Translation from translation tends to degrade the quality of the text and it becomes more of a paraphrase. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is certainly not a good thing either, especially when dealing with a text as sensitive as the Bible and especially in the environment of JWs who claim that "to translate the Holy Scriptures is to translate into another language the thoughts and sayings of Jehovah God, the heavenly Author of this sacred library...". If a member of the JWs consistently used a translation other than the NWT, even though it was available to him, as well as to other JWs, then it would probably not be accepted...

***
Example 2:
Rev 5:14 in the English version reads:The four living creatures were saying, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshipped.
Rev. 5:14 in the Czech version:The four living creatures were saying, "Amen!" And the elders fell to their knees and worshiped God.

At the end of the verse is added "God". No version of the Greek text that we have supports this addition ("God"). Therefore, neither does the modern edition of the Greek text, the NA26 type, nor does the old Westcott-Hort in the JWs-interlinear text. Neither does the English NWT, but neither does the German, French, or Spannish translation. Of the Eastern European languages, only Czech, Slovak and Slovenian have this suffix. Polish does not have the addendum.

--

Again. In the 1999 edition of the Czech version, this addendum ("God") was also not yet present. How did it get there if the original Czech translation (1999) did not have it and the English revision from which it was supposed to be translated does not have it either? It is not a big problem, but rather it shows the quality of the proofreading.

Sometimes (how many more times?) translation notes get into the text, and interestingly enough, in at least three languages (how many more?) in geographically different territories. Did these teams work together anywhere? Or does this point more to the possibility(!?) of a systemic failure of quality control of the work? One could understand if two or three people were working on the translation, but if it is a team effort and the translation is only from English into some "indigenous" language, then the translation task is easier...or is it?

--

I don't want to draw conclusions from two passages, but doesn't this suggest a declining quality of translation and proofreading work...?

153

When JW.org drops 607BCE...

by Nathan Natas in

probably everyone else thought of this long ago, but i, being an "independent thunker" thunk of it just a coupla weeks ago.. we all know that since the year zero (on the fredfranzian calendar) the wtb&ts has defied archaeology and insisted that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, even though the physical evidence shows that 587 bce is a more likely date.

in fact, the book "the gentile times reconsidered: have jehovah's witnesses been wrong all along about 607 bce?

" by carl olof jonsson and rud persson made this conversation public.. it is a difference of 20 years.

PetrW

@TonusOH

The claim was that the event (Christ returning) had indeed occurred, but it had happened so quietly that even those who expected it hadn't noticed.

It's the sort of obvious nonsense that we normally see through, when the stakes aren't as high as we believe them to be. If our hopes and dreams are dependent on a prediction coming true, we are willing to extend our credulity surprisingly far.

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What you write is absolutely spot on! The claim of the invisible(!) arrival of a person cannot be "tested", or rather, it may work for a while, but after a while, it ceases to be interesting. Invisible arrival, then, equals: not here.

For the one who claims that Jesus came invisibly, this is convenient. His statement is somehow not contestable, especially when he hedges it with the "authority" that anyone who questions this statement is the son of the devil...

153

When JW.org drops 607BCE...

by Nathan Natas in

probably everyone else thought of this long ago, but i, being an "independent thunker" thunk of it just a coupla weeks ago.. we all know that since the year zero (on the fredfranzian calendar) the wtb&ts has defied archaeology and insisted that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, even though the physical evidence shows that 587 bce is a more likely date.

in fact, the book "the gentile times reconsidered: have jehovah's witnesses been wrong all along about 607 bce?

" by carl olof jonsson and rud persson made this conversation public.. it is a difference of 20 years.

PetrW

@TonusOH

The "invisible presence" is another concept that is very dubious. The word "παρουσια" which means "presence" carries an element of physical presence. Paul in Phil 2:12 makes a distinction between his own physical "παρουσια" to his physical absence, i.e. "απουσια". JWs basically deny the possibility that Jesus ever appeared on earth physically, in the flesh. They literally forbid it in their theology. 😊 In this context, it is interesting that John claims in 2 John 1:7 that those who deny Jesus "coming" ("ερχομενος") in the flesh ( εν σαρκι) are seducers and Antichrist. The participle of present, "coming" is very interesting - it really means an activity that happens (and lasts) in the present. It is very important in the theologically significant passages Mat 24:30 // Mk 14:26 // Lk 21:27 about the coming Christ with the clouds, whom they will(!) see. In the future event (they will see) is the present event (the coming of Christ).

So if the apostles were asking about his "παρουσια" they were interested in how they would identify him again - physically - in the future. "Invisibility" would have been the direct opposite of what the apostles expected and also what Jesus assured them would come. And John even links the denial of Christ's physical (second) coming with the Antichrist. So it is clear that only the possibility of Christ's physical - second - coming opens up the possibility of false Messiahs appearing. And also the Antichrist himself (i.e., instead of Christ). And that is why Christ warns against them.

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But I think your question was mainly directed at whether Christ was somehow deliberately hiding the time of His coming. I don't think so. The answer to when His second coming will occur is really tied to when God Himself decides. The human answer to the timing of Christ's coming is - in my opinion - intimately connected to the question of God's love and justice, the "theodicey" question. Why didn't Jesus come in the 5th or 13th or 18th or 20th century? Will he come only in the 23rd century? It's a complex question and beyond the scope of the discussion...

But one can ask other things: did Jesus warn that his coming would not come immediately, within a generation or two after the apostles? That is a simpler question. 😊 At the end of Jesus' answer to the question of the time and the sign of his (physical) presence, he also communicates (Mat 24:42): watch, for you do not know in what day your Lord will come. He then communicates to them three parables that have a common, characteristic element: they always contain a moment in which the "actors" of these parables are responding in some way to the fact that the Lord is not coming (Mat 24:48), that He has tarried (Mat 25:5), or that He is returning only after a very, very long time (Mat 25:19). As in the first parable, it is again also emphasized that the (evil) slave will not know when the Lord is coming (Mat 24:50), so also in the second parable, the call to watchfulness is repeated (Mat 25:13). And in the third parable, the "unexpectedness" of the coming of the master after a very long time is actually the main source of trouble, for the "useless" slave.

In Rev. 1:1, we do encounter the statement that events will occur "soon," but the Greek phrase ( εν ταχει) has more of a "speed" meaning. The events that are described there will happen in rapid succession - if the 1260 days of preaching by the two witnesses who are killed by the Beast, who will be active for 42 months, then in terms of the 2000 years that have elapsed since this text was written, it would be very "quickly" indeed. The question is, did the Christians in Ephesus, who were one of the recipients of this Revelation, understand it that way as well? For in Rev. 1:3 it is written that "the time is at hand." What time? I assume that the Christians at that time had at least the same information as we do today: they knew that if they were the "generation that would not pass away", then the latest possible time for the second coming of Christ would be sometime between 130 and 140 AD. But Jesus did not come. So they had to pass on the information to their descendants or younger fellow believers that they may be the generation that will not pass away, so they have to be vigilant, but it is still true that they may not be the generation that will not pass away either. In fact, all that remains is the call to be vigilant. The question of why it's taking so long is addressed by the answers within theodicy... so we go back to the beginning again😊 It can be answered, but ugh, it's really quite a large area...