Posts by EdenOne

99

New development in my life

by EdenOne in

jw
friends

no longer a ms ........................... can't give details atm, for it might be a dead-giveaway and it ain't quite over yet.

but, it really taught me one thing: if you're trying to fade or stay in, trust no one.

and i mean no one.. eden.

EdenOne

Ok time for another update.

The storm seems to be over (for now at least). To summarize what happened:

1. Someone close to me ratted to a couple of friends, elders, that I had penned a letter where I presented doctrinal points that were wayy different than those promoted by the FDS.

2. As a result I was summoned by two elders, and a 4-hour debate followed, where they tried to:

Doctrinally bend me into line up with the official teaching of the WTS; when they failed, they
Switched over to the question of loyalty towards "God's Organization"

When it came to that point, I knew I was stepping on very thin ice, for that was the crux of the whole matter, if I still considered the Jehovah's Witnesses as the only true religion and the FDS as Jehovah's channel. They even questioned (in a very daaarrrk way) if I was familiar with Raymond Franz's writings. I said I was, at least with the first book. I said also that my doctrinal position had nothing to do with Ray Franz's one, and if they knew RF's work they wouldn't even be making that question, so they were speaking about things they had no idea. In any case, I made an effort to say that I can concede that the WTS might be right and I might be wrong, but I needed much stronger evidence from the Bible and the WTS to change my doctrinal views. In that regards, i also said, if the leadership (GB) is right and I am wrong, then I'm sure time will tell, and I will keep praying to God for His Holy Spirit to let me know the answers.

Then the COBE raised the point if I felt I was still qualified to serve as a MS. I replied to it by saying that if he felt he had to ask the question, then clearly I didn't feel I had the trust from the BOE to keep my position, so I resigned to it there and then, and would put it in writing the next day. With some stern admonishing about the dangers of reading apostate material, the meeting ended well into the night.

Some 10 days passed on by, and the BOE had two (!) meetings to discuss my case. In the meantime those two elders went after my wife, and then my child, to fish out more information about me, if I was conducting the Family Worship, If I talked about my doctrinal views at home, etc.

Then some more days passed by and I started pressing the COBE to have a decision on the matter of what would they do with me. I asked him directly: Are you going to form a JC? Because if you do I need to prepare myself and prepare my family. The next day I got word from him that it was decided that it wasn't a case for a JC, and the BOE would decide what "privileges" would be taken away from me. Finally I got called, and I was informed that I would still have the "privileges" that any qualified publisher would have except having any parts on the platform with the exception of reading the Bible. (n.1). I would still get to comment on the meetings and go out in the field service (oh joy! :/ ) I was informed that a part in the Service Meeting would be held in the "local needs" section to address the dangers of apostates within the congregation.

The next meeting, my resignation was announced. A couple of weeks later, the pittiful part on "beware of apostate talk" was given in the form of a conversation between two elders.

And that's it. All things considered, despite a couple of weeks of anguish until I knew that I wouldn't be subjected to a JC, I can say that I had it light.

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Pelican,

I'm going to quote from another blogger, Chris Heard. It's a bit long, but worth reading:

"The problem is the Hebrew word שטן or satan, pronounced sah-TAHN. In the Christian tradition, “Satan” becomes a synonym for “the devil,” and this happens in Judaism too. But there is no “devil” in the Tanak (a.k.a. Hebrew Bible, a.k.a. to Christians as [part of] the Old Testament). The Hebrew word satan means thinks like “opponent, enemy, adversary.” In a courtroom context, the satan is the prosecutor or plaintiff, and hence the “accuser.” But it isn’t an enemy of God, and it definitely isn’t “the devil.” Satan is a common noun, not a proper noun, in Biblical Hebrew, and it’s important to note that satan appears without a definite article in 1 Chron 21:1. In other words, “Satan rose up against Israel” is a horrible translation of 1 Chron 21:1; it should be, “an opponent rose up against Israel.”

The translation makes a huge difference. According to the dilemma into which your English translation has misled you, there is a major contradiction between 2 Sam 24:1, which has God motivating David to take the census, and 1 Chron 21:1, which has Satan/the Devil motivating David to take the census. But once you understand the point made in the previous paragraph, a devilish Satan disappears from 1 Chron 21:1, to be replaced by two different possibilities.

1. A human satan. A substantial fraction of the few appearances of satan in the Bible concern human enemies or opponents. In 1 Sam 29:4, the other Philistines oppose Achish when he tries to take David into battle with him: “might he not defect from us … and become our enemy (satan) during the battle?” In 2 Sam 19:22 (v. 23 in Hebrew), David asks Abishai and his allies, “What conflict is there between us … that you should become my enemy (satan) today?" (By the way, note that satan here is not just a common noun referring to a human, but a collective noun referring to a whole group of humans.) I 1 Kings 5:4 (v. 18 in Hebrew), Solomon expresses gratitude that he has “no enemy (satan),” but after Solomon gets into idolatry in 1 Kings 11, God “raised up an enemy (satan) against Solomon: Hadad the Edomite” (v. 14).

2. A heavenly satan. In the story of Balaam and his donkey, the “angel of the Lord,” a.k.a. just “the Lord” in the same chapter, stands in the road “as an adversary (satan)” to Balaam. That story has all sorts of interesting “problems” of its own, but this usage establishes that an angel sent by God, or God himself, can be a satan.

So it turns out that, if you read 1 Chronicles 24:1 like a fourth- or fifth-century BC Judean instead of like a modern Western Christian, there is no contradiction between that verse and 2 Samuel 24:1. 1 Chron 24:1 could indicate that a human enemy arose against Israel—and this could even be another nation, like Moab or Edom or whatever—which prompted David to take the census (which is for military, not administrative, purposes). Or 1 Chron 24:1 could indicate that a divine enemy arose against Israel—not the Devil, who is otherwise unknown in the Old Testament, but God himself, as in the story of Balaam. If you go with a human enemy, the author of Chronicles might be trying to tone down God’s involvement by adding a second layer of causality—a proximate cause, if you will, that any reader familiar with 2 Sam 24:1 (of which there would have been very few at the time Chronicles was composed) could accept while still holding to God as the ultimate cause. (This is the same maneuver that allows a person to be an “evolutionary creationist” or “theistic evolutionist”—God as ultimate cause and evolutionary processes as proximate causes.) If you go with a divine enemy, then the two verses make exactly the same claim, with 1 Chronicles 24:1 expressed in a more circumspect way.

Again, I do not offer this explanation as a way to defend inerrancy. I don’t advocate that term or champion its cause. But there is such a thing as drawing a good conclusion from poor data, and I think you’ve stumbled into that thicket here. In fact, I’d suggest that the differing numbers for the census figures pose a bigger problem for “inerrancy” than the use of the term satan in 1 Chron 24:1, which as I’ve already said is only an illusory problem caused by English.

For the cognoscenti reading this comment, I should perhaps add that the Septuagint of 1 Chronicles translates שטן as διαβολος, diabolos—which is also a common noun rather than a proper noun here, “an adversary, an opponent.” (It’s just diabolos, not ho diabolos—no definite article). It’s a fine translation, as long as readers aren’t misled by the later history of the word diabolos through a kind of reverse etymology.

Finally, a parting shot: if either book was written as an apology for David's reign or the Davidic dynasty, it would have been 1–2 Samuel, not 1–2 Chronicles. Some scholars have argued that substantial parts of 1–2 Samuel were written during the 10th century BC as an apology for David, though to other scholars pushing the composition of these books so early seems quaint. But 1–2 Chronicles couldn’t have been written (or at least finished) before about 500–450 BC, since a few of the genealogies in the book go down that far. Its composition belongs to a time when David and his lineage were a treasured memory, but when in real life the temple, not the royal palace, stood at the center of civic organization. David didn’t need defending by the time 1–2 Chronicles was written. Defending him was irrelevant because there was no monarchy to defend."

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Here's another one to leave you scratching your head:

2 Samuel 24:1 [ASV] - " And again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah."

and, in the parallell account:

1 Chronicles 21:1 [ASV] - " And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel."

So, who did it? Yahweh, or Satan?

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Have you ever read the Book of Jasher?

If not, by all means read it. It expands on a lot of Genesis' accounts. Very interesting.

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Now seriously.

That prophecy isn't about Satan / Devil. It's about the King of Babylon, presumably Nebuchadnezzar, or about the Neo-babylonian dinasty.

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Was it before or after Eden?

Gee, I don't know. Was he around before 1971??

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Somehow I couldn't recall Genesis treating Satan like a veggie, but I might have missed it somehow... ;)

Eden

54

No Satan

by jgnat in

that was one of the first of the prepackaged beliefs from my church that i let fall.. why?.

because i'd stared evil in the face and lived to tell about it.

i know it's textures, it's dark places, the feel, smell, perversion, degradation, corruption of it.

EdenOne

Where, Jgnat?

6

IDOL WORSHIP

by The Searcher in

probably not an original thought, but after the nauseous watchtower today, i just wanted to say what occurred to me this morning:.

the present governing body is the witnesses given alternative for the modern-day golden calf!.

and most have contributed to its existence!.

EdenOne

When Abraham made the golden calf near Mount Sinai he said " "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32:4)

In effect, the GB is telling everyone: "This organization is your god, who saved you from this wicked system of things and will carry you to the earthly paradise".

Just like Aaron and the Israelites didn't believe that the golden calf was Yahweh himself, but rather, a visible representation of the deity, whom they promptly worshipped, the modern-day Aaron fashioned the organization to be the visible representation of the very God they claim to worship, in effect, rendering the organization said worship.

Eden

65

Literature carts are the cruisiest way to preach ever - photo attached

by jwfacts in

it was a perfect spring day, and a jazz band were playing in the mall near my work.

in front of the band, two watchtower literature carts stood in solidarity.

i could not work out who were the jws attending them.

EdenOne

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