thinker

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  48

  JW Preaching Work Ends in 20th Century ?

  by Scorpion in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  page 12 of the january 1,1989 wt original magazine paragraph 8 ends with the statement that the apostle paul's missionary activity laid a foundation for a work that would be completed in our 20th century.".

  (a subtle prophecy that 'the end' will come by the year 2000 a.d.).

  this sentence is changed in the bound volume reprint to read "a work that would be completed in our day.

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  thinker

  Gozz,

  You may be interested to know that statements on the Watchtower CD don't always match, either.

  thinker
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  25

  need help re 607 date

  by hosebracket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am new to this.. i have a problem.

  someone on my ministry asked me about the date that we hold so dear....607 bce and asked me to prove it to them.

  this would not be a problem i thought as the f&ds would have solid basis for using such a date.

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  thinker

  Thank you for the post ianao, but I doubt scholar got past the first few sentences of my reply. I've found true believers tend to ignore any real facts that threaten their belief system.

  To Scholar:
  Here's some schloarly research for you: Does the word "ignore" and "ignorance" come from the same root word? Just something to think about.

  thinker
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  58

  Living A Lie

  by MoodyBlue in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am sick of living a lie, yet afraid to change it.

  married to a man who refuses to listen, who would rather plug his ears and shout "nooooooo" is taking it's tole.

  i am afraid to speak my mind about my doubt, my thoughts, and what i'm learning, as i'm not ready to cross that point of no return.

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  thinker

  Dear Moodyblue,
  I don't know your exact situation, so I'll just tell you some things that have worked for me in times of crisis.
  I'll spend some time alone, ususally in a natural setting; to claer my head. If you can't get alot of time by yourself then maybe an hour or two in a park would do. Next, I write out my options and lsit two columns, pro and con. I find this very helpful to stop all the "what if's" from swirling around my head.
  You DO have options! None may be very inviting right now, but time changes everything.
  Get some time to yourself, write down your choices and think it through. And keep coming here for the advice and comfort of others.

  thinker
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  28

  Things said from the platform

  by MoodyBlue in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i recalled something said a while back by an elder during a service meeting a while back.

  i beleive it was a local needs part on getting out in service.

  basically what he said was this:.

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  thinker

  Moody Blue,
  Go to this site and read the statistics on the JWs and you will have a better understanding of their "push" for more hours.

  http://www.jwic.com/stat.htm

  thinker
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  87

  Heresy of the Month

  by thinker in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  heresy of the month (from a website).

  don't you hate it when someone you know comes up with some new thing that you have never heard about?

  you sit there in apparent ignorance as they pontificate about the proofs and merits of some idea so far beyond common knowledge that it can only be revealed by people of exceptional enlightenment such as they.

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  thinker

  Enlightened Brother Larc,
  Further proofs of our "truth": Gen.1:3-4: "And God proceeded to say, "Let the LIGHT (not heavy!) come to be." After that God saw that the LIGHT (not heavy) was good, ..."

  ps
  Once we have 12, we can form the GB. I here by appoint you chief scholar and interpereter of the Leaner Day Saints.

  thinker
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  25

  need help re 607 date

  by hosebracket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am new to this.. i have a problem.

  someone on my ministry asked me about the date that we hold so dear....607 bce and asked me to prove it to them.

  this would not be a problem i thought as the f&ds would have solid basis for using such a date.

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  thinker

  "Scholar"
  You have made a number of statements, so let me address them one at a time.
  

  It is incorrect to say that there is overwhelming evidence for 587. Other scholars prefer 586, so how can such dates be factual.

  
  It is true that 586 or 587 has been sited by experts. But, a difference of one year does not invalidate the research. The society once claimed 606 instead of 607. See "the time is at hand".
  

  The bottom line is that any chronology in respect to dating the fall of Jerusalem is based on interpretation and methodology.

  You still have not explained the interpretation and methodology of the WTBTS. So allow me to present it now:
  What chronological evidence did Charles Taze Russell use? His chronological argument was borrowed completely from the second-adventist Nelson Barbour. They had a long list of dates, one of which was 1914.

  Barbour said Jerusalem was destroyed in 606BC.

  Counting 2520 years from 606BC gives us 1914, right?

  Wrong.

  Barbour was, like Russell, very ignorant about chronology and history. When the calendar we use (Julian, later improved to the Gregorian) was created, there was no zero year, so 1 BC was followed by 1 AD. 2520 years from 606BC would give us 1915, which Russell actually used instead of 1914 for a few years. But then World War I started in 1914. Russell had predicted something for 1914, something did indeed happen, so Russell thought he had been right. Russell then 'forgot' about the zero-year, and changed the chronology to 1914 again.

  But sooner or later this had to be corrected. How? By moving the destruction of Jerusalem by one year, from 606 to 607BC.

  The Watchtower book Revelation - Its Great Climax is at Hand! (1988) quotes the old Barbour booklet on page 105:

  "'It was in B.C. 606, that God's kingdom ended, the diadem was removed, and all the earth given up to the Gentiles. 2520 years from B.C. 606, will end in A.D. 1914.' - The Three Worlds, published in 1877, page 83."

  A footnote informs us:

  "Providentially, those Bible Students had not realized that there is no zero year between "B.C." and "A.D." Later, when research made it necessary to adjust B.C. 606 to 607 BC, the zero year was also eliminated, so that the prediction held good at "A.D. 1914." - See "The Truth Shall Make You Free," published by the Watch Tower Society in 1943, page 239."

  What new "research" changed this date? None, of course. If you examine the WTS' books, you will find no evidence whatsoever for this new date.

  As we have seen, the WTS claims they follow the Bible and defend it against criticism. Is this true? Sometimes, but not in this case.

  We noticed that Daniel 1:1 said that Nebuchadnezzar took prisoners from Jerusalem in the 3rd year of Jehoiakim (accession-year system).

  According to Watchtower chronology, this is not possible.

  The WTS Bible encyclopedia, Insight on the Scriptures (hereafter: it), Volume 1, page 1269, states:

  "Evidently it is to this third year of Jehoiakim as a vassal king under Babylon that Daniel refers at Daniel 1:1. It could not be Jehoiakim's third year of his 11-year reign over Judah, for at that time Jehoiakim was a vassal, not to Babylon, but to Egypt's Pharaoh Necho."

  "Evidently," they say. A person not versed in the Bible may find it possible that Daniel refers to "the third year" since a specific event of a king's reign. But when we know that this was the way time was counted in those days, we understand how extremely unlikely this is. To use an example: Is it likely that any person living in our days will date the start of World War II to 1869, simply because he meant the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans was a more interesting event to initiate the start of our calendar? If Daniel had made such a strange statement, he would have known he would almost certainly be misunderstood. Also, Daniel like many other Bible writers use this dating frequently (Daniel 7:1; 8:1; 9:1; 10:1; 11:1).

  Daniel 2:1 has the prophet interpret the dreams of Nebuchandezzar in his 2nd year. Again, the WTS must appeal to acrobatics, when the text itself says "in the second year of the kingship of Nebuchadnezzar" which is extremely unambiguous.

  This refusal to put Scripture ahead of dogma becomes especially embarrassing in Your Kingdom Come (hereafter:kc), which in an appendix tries to refute criticism against WTS chronology. On page 188 they try to refute the value of the Babylonian chronicles by Berossus:

  "Though Berossus claims that Nebuchadnezzar took Jewish captives in his accession year, there are no cuneiform documents supporting this."

  The society in its wisdom have presented a simple, historical and scriptural methodolgy for dating the fall of Jerusalem as nicely explained in the literature.

  Please provide this "simple" explation. In the meantime, let me show you an early explanation of the year 606 from Pastor Russell:
  The Time is at Hand
  Written in 1889 by Pastor Russell

  "According to the words of the prophet (Ezek. 21:25-27),
  the crown was taken from Zedekiah; and Jerusalem was besieged
  by Nebuchadnezzar's army and laid in ruins, and so
  remained for seventy years--until the restoration in the first
  year of Cyrus. (2 Chron. 36:21-23) Though Jerusalem was
  then rebuilt, and the captives returned, Israel has never had
  another king from that to the present day. Though restored
  to their land and to personal liberty by Cyrus, they,
  as a nation, were subject successively to the Persians, Grecians
  and Romans. Under the yoke of the latter they were
  living when our Lord's first advent occurred, Pilate and
  Herod being deputies of Caesar.
  With these facts before us, we readily find the date for the
  beginning of the Gentile Times of dominion; for the first
  year of the reign of Cyrus is a very clearly fixed date--both
  secular and religious histories with marked unanimity
  agreeing with Ptolemy's Canon, which places it B.C. 536.
  And if B.C. 536 was the year in which the seventy years of
  Jerusalem's desolation ended and the restoration of the
  Jews began, it follows that their kingdom was overthrown
  just seventy years before B.C. 536, i.e., 536 plus 70, or B.C.
  606. This gives us the date of the beginning of the Times of
  the Gentiles--B.C. 606."

  As for secular evidence of 587:
  One of the most extensive and overwhelming pieces of evidence is the enormous amounts of business and administrative documents unearthed from the Neo-Babylonian era. These are contemporary documents, not later copies, and there can be around 50,000 (!) of these documents, many of them stored at British Museum in London. Some thousand of these documents are documented. The WTS admits:

  "Business tablets: Thousands of contemporary Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets have been found that record simple business transactions, stating the year of the Babylonian king when the transaction occurred. Tablets of this sort have been found for all the years of reign for the known Neo-Babylonian kings in the accepted chronology of the period." (kc, p 187)

  So for every known year in this era, there are such contemporary documents. However, the WTS claims twenty years are missing. Where is the business documents covering this period? They do not exist. If some king reigned for more than the years assigned to them in the established regnal lists, or if some unknown king reigned for twenty years (or a combination), there must have been hundreds if not thousands of business documents dated in this period. There are indeed none. The documents contains details of hundreds of thousands of trivial and not-so-trivial business transactions -- buying and selling -- and the idea that this did not happen during this period is absurd. Moreover, we can track business transactions from delivery of goods to payment of the same goods. We can establish who is head of the company in the given year. It is patently obvious that to believe that the WTS chronology can be defended against this evidence, makes the infamous "illuminaty conspiracy" seem likely by comparision. It would involve not only hundreds of scribes, chroniclers, officials and astrologers from the Neo Babylonain period onwards through the centuries, it would also require a conspiratory silence from thousands of business man in a whole empire!

  It is more than obvious that there are no records for the "missing twenty years" because they never existed. Not a single piece of cuneiform text has ever hinted that they existed."

  SHOW ME THE SIMPLE WATCHTOWER EXPLANATION ! The only way to accept the Society's date of 607 is to isolate yourself from the real world and blindly accept whatever crap they feed you.

  thinker

  Edited by - thinker on 15 January 2001 16:50:16

  Edited by - Thinker on 15 January 2001 16:58:47

  Edited by - Thinker on 15 January 2001 17:1:1

  Edited by - Thinker on 15 January 2001 17:7:35
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  58

  Living A Lie

  by MoodyBlue in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i am sick of living a lie, yet afraid to change it.

  married to a man who refuses to listen, who would rather plug his ears and shout "nooooooo" is taking it's tole.

  i am afraid to speak my mind about my doubt, my thoughts, and what i'm learning, as i'm not ready to cross that point of no return.

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  thinker

  Moody Blue,
  It sounds like you've learned a few things already about the REAL truth of the WTBTS. If you want more info. I can send you some very good links to informative websites. All of these use very logical discussions.
  As for your hubby, maybe you can introduce these subjects slowly. Bring up one point at a time and don't overwhelm him with everything at once.

  thinker
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  87

  Heresy of the Month

  by thinker in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  heresy of the month (from a website).

  don't you hate it when someone you know comes up with some new thing that you have never heard about?

  you sit there in apparent ignorance as they pontificate about the proofs and merits of some idea so far beyond common knowledge that it can only be revealed by people of exceptional enlightenment such as they.

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  thinker

  Heresy of the Month (from a website)
  Don't you hate it when someone you know comes up with some new thing that you have never heard about? You sit there in apparent ignorance as they pontificate about the proofs and merits of some idea so far beyond common knowledge that it can only be revealed by people of exceptional enlightenment such as they. Well now you have recourse! You can baffle your friends. Impress the opposite sex. It can be easily accomplished by joining the Heresy of the Month Club!
  Imagine the deep sense of satisfaction you can feel the next time a Jehovah's Witness knocks on your door. When he says, "Have you heard about Jehovah's kingdom?"
  You confidently reply, "Of course. But have you heard about the Church of the Leaner Day Saints?"
  Invite him in and you become the one with the higher knowledge benevolently leading him down the path of truth. And you got it here, before anyone else, at Heresy of the Month!
  This month's heresy, The Church of the Leaner Day Saints, finds it's origin in a rather creative interpretation of Matthew 7:13-14.
  "Enter ye in at the straight gate: For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
  Yes, even Jesus himself, was known to be a thin person. How else could you get through that narrow gate? Jesus criticized the obese pharisees who were too fat to wear normal clothes.
  "But all their works they do to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the boarders of their garments." Matthew 23:5
  Consider the deep and profound symbolism of the dream of Pharaoh recorded in Genesis 41:1-7. Pharaoh sees 7 fat cows followed by 7 lean cows. The lean ones eat the fat ones. Then he sees 7 fat ears of grain followed by 7 lean ears of grain. The lean consumes the fat. This is symbolic literature. Both the animal world and the vegetable world are included. This signifies the totality of God's condemnation of fat. The consuming doesn't mean that we are to eat fat people. It rather refers to the tendency we all have to consume what we love. This very thing was pointed out by Sigmund Freud and is intrinsically tied up in our subconscious desires to still be breast fed. Though we still love those who have fallen into the error of gluttony, we who are called of God to walk the narrow path must not fall into the same pit of obesity, for the fat are to be destroyed and the lean will prevail. Is it any wonder that Leviticus 4:31 says, "And he shall take away all the fat thereof"
  The truth can more clearly be seen by critical analysis of some texts such as Leviticus 1:12 If one accounts for the obvious redactor's comment added between the words head and fat and corrects for the author's dyslexia then, "with his head and his fat" becomes, "with his fat head" which the author then instructs the reader to lay on the alter and cut to peaces.
  But how, you may ask, is one to achieve this gaunt and salvific state? The answer can be found in Philipians 2:12: "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."
  So we are to work out. But what type of exercise is best for entering that narrow gate? Certainly not weight training. Muscle bound meat heads could never fit in. Look at Ezekiel 34:16.
  "I will destroy the fat and the strong."
  The scripture recommends running for that sevete look. Hebrews `12:1 states that we should lay aside every weight and run with patience.
  Now you have the inside scoop. You are the enlightened one. Memorize these verses and you can astound anyone who hasn't read the Bible because they think it can't be understood. Be careful however not to read whole books of the Bible as a unit. That type of knowledge can be rightly interpreted only by super spiritually enlightened people, such as we here at Heresy of the Month.
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  51

  Do you still attend meetings?

  by Sassenach in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i'm wondering if you still attend meetings?

  do you hold out hope for the watchtower organization?

  if you've left entirely, have you found another form of worship?

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  thinker

  To ALL,

  Thank you very much for confirming my wife's feelings on this.
  Our discussion started when I visited a site recommended on this forum: ("Paul's Page") the guy who did 4 yrs research at the kingdom hall library and is selling a CD. His research showed me that the WTBTS changed, added, or omitted words from their own bible translations. My wife has always told me the NWT is the most accurate translation and was surprised to read this site.
  After all the frustration of seeing so many people mislead by the Society, I thought "At last, this is something that JW's would find to be the last straw."
  Obviously, I still have more to learn about the JW mindset.
  I guess I'll have to be content hoping and praying that more sheep find their way out of the wolf's den.

  Again, Thanks everyone. Peace reigns once again in our happy home!
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  99

  Who really is the FDS?!?!?!?!?

  by LDH in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey all, hope you're having a great year so far.. before witnet was closed down, there was an interesting discussion regarding the fds and their failed prophecies.

  i asked a question, but unfortunately there wasn't enought time to get everyone's view.. so i'll rephrase my posts, and wait to hear from y'all.. if we are so quick to say that the fds is a false prophet because of some failed prophecies (even tho they say they don't prophecy, we all know better) then how would you explain the bible book of jonah?.

  a faithful prophet, jonah, followed (after much trial and tribulation to himself) jehovah's command to declare destruction on the city of nineveh.

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  thinker

  I believe larc has it right. The story about the FDS is an illustration, nothing more. In Matt. 24:36 and Matt. 24:42 Jesus clearly states that no man will know when the Lord is coming. Then you read about the FDS in Matt. 24:45-51. Jesus then follows up with the MAIN point (no one will know the day and hour of the Lords return) in Matt. 25:13.
  The WTBTS has completely twisted the verses to give them authority over others (more like the illustration of the evil slave IMHO).
  THE MAIN POINT: NO MAN WILL KNOW, NOT ANGELS OF HEAVEN, NOT JESUS. ONLY THE FATHER (Matt. 24:36).
  For the Society to take a small part of this chapter and start saying they know when the Lord will return is completely opposite of what Jesus was try to teach!

  thinker