Leolaia

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Posts by Leolaia

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  4

  Who does the 'God' in 1 Jn 5:20 reffer to?

  by grzesiek32 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  1 jn5:20 20 and we are certain that the son of god has come, and has given us a clear vision, so that we may see him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his son jesus christ.

  besides, they also noticed that in verse jn 17:3 the father is called the only true god.

  1 jn5:20 20 and we are certain that the son of god has come, and has given us a clear vision, so that we may see him who is true, and we are in him who is true,[*] in his son jesus christ.

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  Leolaia

  Greg.....see my post below from just a few days ago:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/63037/967257/post.ashx#967257
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  8

  here a prophecy there a prophecy

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  at the catholic encyclopedia on line i learned of some more bible "prophecies" and fullfillments (tongue in cheek)i had not heard of as a jw.

  it seems constantine used the actual nails from the cross and fashioned one into a bridle for his horse.

  this according to various church fathers fullfilled zechariah 14:20, "in that day there will prove to be upon the bells/bridle, holiness..".

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  Leolaia

  "Prophecies are everywhere it seems ,one needs only eyes of faith to see them!" Just look at the Epistle of Barnabas for all the prophecies it conjures up from scratch through typology. The most ironic thing I find about the Society is its heavy reliance on typology to construct prophecies about itself. Really, now. They rail on and on about how early Christianity was corrupted by Greek philosophy especially the worst of them all, Plato! That's where the Trinity and immortality of soul doctrines supposedly come from. Yet they are totally unaware that the practice of typology, so characteristic of Hellenistic Alexandrine Christianity (as Philo, the Letter of Hebrews, Barnabas, and Clement of Alexandria attest), comes right out of Plato's theory of types.
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  43

  The Crucifixion in History

  by hooberus in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  encyclopedia brittanica micropaedia vol.

  "there were various methods of performing the execution.

  usually, the condemned man, after being whipped, or "scourged," dragged the crossbeam of his cross to the place of punishment, where the upright shaft was already fixed in the ground.

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  Leolaia

  I noticed the picture too. It is worth saying tho that they don't deny the practice of crucifixion (as technically differentiated from impalement), they just insist Jesus was not killed this way.

  Except they also insist that neither the words crux or stauros meant "cross" until way into the fourth century A.D. So the Romans used crosses but just didn't have a word for it? You see the problem? That is what I focused in paper as the central problem with the Society's argument -- it makes no semantic sense. If the technology has already changed, and if the word was already used to refer to the earlier incarnation of the technology, existing words apply to the new technology if no other new words get coined. Otherwise, how else would the people refer to the new whachamacallit contraption? And so, the Society has had to deny that two-beamed crosses were in use by the first century (despite its clear attestation in the second century B.C. in the works of Plautus), and thus when they quoted from Tacitus in the Revelation Climax referring to the Neronian persection book they had to replace the words "crosses" with "[stakes]".

  Leolaia
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  48

  A serious question about the angels that materialized pre-flood

  by TweetieBird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to the bible, the angels saw the daughters of men, materialized into human bodies and married the women, had children.

  here's my question...did they create for themselves a human body or did they transform themselves into a human body that already existed?

  i know this may seem silly, but i was just wondering where the sperm came from to impregnate the women?

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  Leolaia

  1 Enoch came first. It was among the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumrun: 4QEn a - 4QEn g , these include 1 Enoch 1, the chapter quoted by Jude. Furthermore, there are at least 5 other allusions to Enoch in the short epistle of Jude other than this direct quotation. Jude is very much steeped in the language and thought of this book. The Book of Revelation also shows quite a bit of influence as well.

  Leolaia
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  48

  A serious question about the angels that materialized pre-flood

  by TweetieBird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to the bible, the angels saw the daughters of men, materialized into human bodies and married the women, had children.

  here's my question...did they create for themselves a human body or did they transform themselves into a human body that already existed?

  i know this may seem silly, but i was just wondering where the sperm came from to impregnate the women?

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  Leolaia

  Leolaia-- The book of Enoch has got to be one of the most obvious forgeries ever written

  Yeah, to us today it sure is, but it was esteemed by the Essenes (who used it at Qumrun) and quoted even by Jude as the real words of Enoch. It's as phony baloney as any of the other wild stories passed around, but it made a huge impact on Christianity. There was a huge amount of pseudepigrapha in the Hellenistic period, and some of it like the Book of Daniel, even got into the Bible.

  Interesting tho how the nephilim are called the men of fame and such but there doesn't seem like any credable accounts of their fame was recorded

  No, indeed there was! I wrote a longish post about this a few weeks ago. One of these "men of fame" was the ancient hero Danel, whose tale is preserved in Canaanite legends. Danel was a Rephaim -- a term that became practically synonymous with Nephilim. Ezekiel repeatedly made mention of Danel's wisdom and attempts at saving his son (known otherwise from the Lay of Aqhat). By the time 1 Enoch was written, Danel was reconceptualized as one of the fallen angels.

  Also several scholars have suggested that the tale of Nimrod in Gen. 10 originally followed the story of the Nephilim, but became dislocated from its original context when the Flood story was later added. It is interesting that the Nephilim are called gibbor "mighty ones" and yet in Gen. 10, Nimrod is called "the first who was a gibbor on the earth." There is even a saying about him, which fits with the Nephilim being "men of fame". Furthermore, later Jewish tradition viewed the builders of the Tower of Babel as "giants" (cf. Pseudo-Eupolemus). There is additional evidence that the story of the Nephilim/Rephaim originally knew nothing of a Flood (cf. the references in the Book of Numbers, which present the Nephilim as still living in Canaan) and that the story of the Flood was a later addition.

  Leolaia
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  6

  Jesus beside "the Only God"

  by grzesiek32 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  there are some verses that non-trinitarians like most, because those verses say about both jesus and "the only god".

  jn 17:3. now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true god, and jesus christ, whom you have sent.. (niv).

  "sovereign lord," (gr.

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  Leolaia

  If they claim, that The Father is the only God and in this way Jesus isn't God, let them be consistent!!! If Jesus cannot be God then Father cannot be Lord, because Lord is only one, and Jesus is this Lord!

  That is a great point!!! And indeed Jude 4 calls Jesus Christ "our only Master and Lord," applying both despotes and kurios to Jesus. This might be an allusion to Jeremiah 3:14 which says: "It is Yahweh who speaks for I alone am your Master." Kurios is the word that takes the place of YHWH in the Septuagint (cf. Romans 10:13, applied to Jesus, quoting Joel 2:32, referring to YHWH). Despotes, which in the Septuagint also refers to YHWH (cf. Jeremiah 4:10; 15:11) is used in Luke 2:29, Acts 4:24 to refer to "God" and 2 Peter 2:1, Revelation 6:10 to refer to Jesus (in addition to Jude 4).

  Leolaia
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  5

  Did Jeremiah deny the Torah as inspired?

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  "thus says yahweh of hosts, the god of israel: "add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh yourselves.

  for in the day that i brought them out of the land of egypt, i did not speak to your ancestors or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices ... how can you say, ?we are wise, for we have the law of yahweh, when, actually, the lying pen of the scribes has worked falsely?

  " (jeremiah 7:21, 8:8)

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  Leolaia

  Jeremiah 7:21: This is a very interesting statement, that God gave no orders or commands mandating sacrifice. But I don't think this means a rejection of the Torah. For instance, Jeremiah 34:13-14 says: "Yahweh, the God of Israel, says this: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; it said: At the end of seven years each one of you is to free his brother Hebrew who has sold himself to you; he may be your slave for six years, then you must send him away free. But your ancestors did not listen to me and would not pay attention." This is, of course, a reference to the law in Exodus 21:2-4. So clearly Jeremiah did not reject the Torah as such.

  Considering Jeremiah's wholesale rejection of sacrifices as part of pagan worship (cf. 6:20; 7:18), it is noteworthy that Leviticus 1-3 allows for sacrifice and holocausts but doesn't mandate them -- it just explains how to sacrifice correctly. It doesn't say when sacrifices are required or why one should prepare a sacrifice. It also limits sacrifices to the tabernacle or temple only. There are many texts in the OT that state that God does not want sacrifices or request them....what matters more is keeping his covenant: "You wanted no sacrifice or oblation, you asked no holocaust or sacrifice for sin" (Psalm 40:6), "I am not finding fault with your sacrifices, those holocausts constantly put before me; I do not claim one extra bull from your homes, nor one extra goat from your pens....Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink goats' blood? No, let thanksgiving be your sacrifice to God, fulfill the vows you make to the Most High" (Psalm 50:8-14), "Sacrifice gives you no pleasure, were I to offer holocaust, you would not have it" (Psalm 51:16), "I will extol him with my thanksgiving, more pleasing to Yahweh than any ox or bull" (Psalm 69:30-31), "I am sick of holocausts of rams and the fat of calves. The blood of bulls and of goats revolts me" (Isaiah 1:11), "When you offer me holocausts, I reject your oblations, and refuse to look at your sacrifices of fattened cattle" (Amos 5:22). Jeremiah's point is that nowhere in the Law are holocausts "commanded" or "ordered".

  Jeremiah 8:8: Jeremiah here says: "How dare you say: We are wise, and we possess the Law of Yahweh? But look how it has been falsified by the lying pen of the scribes." This is a criticism hurled against the priests who supposedly guarantee the tradition of the Law. It follows references in ch. 7 of people as making up "delusive words" (7:3) and "trusting in delusive words" (7:8), as they give lip-service to the Law, making the requisite sacrifices and then "going on committing all these abominations" (v. 10). It would seem from this context that the priests have "falsified" the Law by legalizing a rather lax penitence system that tolerated widespread idolatry, adultery, theft, etc. (v. 9) -- a system rather reminiscent of the "ingulgence" system that Martin Luther objected to. Jeremiah 2:8 has a similar statement: "The priests have never asked, 'Where is Yahweh?' Those who administer the Law have no knowledge of me. The shepherds have rebelled against me; the prophets have prophesied in the name of Baal, following things with no power in them." Jeremiah is thus complaining about how the Law has been perverted, not saying that the Law was false to begin with.

  Leolaia
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  1

  behind the curtain

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  the heavenly veil torn: mark's cosmic "inclusio".

  david ulansey.

  [originally published in journal of biblical literature 110:1 (spring 1991) pp.

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  Leolaia

  Interesting. There is also an early tradition that it was the lintel that collapsed, not the veil.
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  12

  Michael Jackson converts to Islam

  by Nathan Natas in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/13833.htm

  jacko finds islam .

  by cindy adams, barry bortnick and david k. li .

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  Leolaia

  Jermaine Jackson and Mark Gregarios said last night on Larry King that the rumors are not true.
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  48

  A serious question about the angels that materialized pre-flood

  by TweetieBird in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  according to the bible, the angels saw the daughters of men, materialized into human bodies and married the women, had children.

  here's my question...did they create for themselves a human body or did they transform themselves into a human body that already existed?

  i know this may seem silly, but i was just wondering where the sperm came from to impregnate the women?

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  Leolaia

  Great post!

  The Japanese narrate that when their forefathers, approximately 3 thousand years ago, came from the continent and invaded the isles, they found there long-legged, furry giants. These giants were called Ainu. The forefathers of the Japanese were defeated in the first encounter, but in the second encounter they were victorious.

  You can meet the Ainu today. They are a distinct racial group in Japan. They are far hairier than the Japanese, and a bit taller. Yet three thousand year old propganda is taken as evidence of 'giants', with out a extant skeleton that would prove such a thing.

  This reminds me of the "Menehune" legends in Polynesia, where the original population of the islands were conceived as tiny elves who build all the mysterious stone works in the middle of the night. Truth is, the word originally meant "slave, serf" instead of "elf" and the Menehunes were just earlier settlers who were turned into slaves by the more recent arrivals.

  By the way, did you know that Jesus is buried in Japan? There is another Japanese legend about how Jesus' brother Izikiro gladly lept onto the cross, allowing Jesus to catch a boat from Siberia down to Honshu. I know someone whose been to his tomb in the town of Herai (see, it sounds a little like Hebrew, no?)....

  Leolaia