Posts by Leolaia

20

Do the Sadduccees deserve to be seen in a more favorable light?

by True North in

does anyone remember the old joke about the sadduccees, that they didn't believe in the resurrection and that's why they were "sad-you-see"?

i think that on the whole, the sadduccees get pretty bad press from both jews and christians and i've often thought that maybe they don't entirely deserve it.

i know that they are said to have been "the establishment", collaborating with the romans and trying to keep a lid on the trouble being stirred up by the pharisees, the zealots, and the assorted messianic movements in order to preserve their own privileges and status.

Leolaia

Ecclesiastes is thought to be an early Sadducee writing. It's views on death and its finality are those of the Sadducees, tho it lacks the Epicurean spirit the Sadducees were to have and which was condemned in the Gospels, 1 Enoch, and other writings.

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

Again, you twist my words. I never used "unsupported speculations." Please show me where I did.

I think the feeling is mutual, because I also never said that you said, quote, "unsupported speculations", unquote. You said "claims with little or no proof", and "unsupported speculations" was just my own rephrasing of this. If this substantially changes the thought of what you said, which apparently it did, I apologize because that was not my intent. I think what led to my interpretation was the perceived subtext that the positions you disagreed with are "claims with little or no proof" in contrast to your own position. Now perhaps PP felt that the evidence he was citing was "proof" (and he generally makes assertions without hedges, and so as I said I agree with you there), but in my case, I hedge my posts a lot, and in this particular thread I never said that my views and opinions are proved or that the evidence I cited constitutes "proof". So in answer to your question:

I stand by my claim that there is more than one plausible explanation. Can you and PP agree to this claim?

I would say, Of course!! Sure, there are more than one plausible explantations, and what I have been discussing is which explanation is more plausible than the other. And while I make conclusions about which explanation is more plausible, and cite evidence which I feel demonstrates this, I try to refrain from saying -- in this matter -- that the evidence proves the case and constitutes proof. And so when I was critiquing PP's view, I said "this doesn't historically establish ...." and "I would definitely not state as a fact...", so again we are not disagreeing with each other on this. When I also critiqued the article you cited, I was attempting to assess whether its explanation or my explanation was more plausible, and whether it "accounts for a wider range of evidence". I would thus see both positions (mine and yours) as "with little or no proof", to be assessed with evidence in terms of plausibility, and I was pointing to evidence that shows (at least) that the theory of the Eucharist as a "Christian Passover" as not proven. So do you agree that both our positions lack true proof, or do you regard your position as proven?

About your objection to what you meant by referring to my practice of "appealing to authority", you specifically made an allusion to citing the theories of flat-earthers to prove the world is really flat, and so naturally I cited the Nizkor site to show that not all appeals to authority are the same, and that what I was doing (e.g. citing JD Crossan who has researched this very question and is a very competent scholar who, of course, is fallible) is not at all equivalent to citing a flat-earther to show that the world is flat, since a flat-earther is not an expert in the relevant field. You may disagree with other aspects of the Niskor definition and say how it differs from your own, but I think it was quite legitimate on my part to cite this definition, which is btw not a mere "internet definition" but that published by Dr. Michael C. Labossiere, professor of philosophy, in a tutorial which is widely accepted. (Do you object to this "Appeal to Authority" as illegitimate?) As for its deficiency for not ruling out the fallibility of experts, of course they're fallible, but that doesn't make citing them fallacious. Arguments need to assessed on their own terms. But I cited an expert to show that my opinion is not just my own unique, idiosyncratic speculation, but one that is based to some extent in the work of someone who has professionally researched this subject -- just as you cited an article by Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph D. to support your opinion. If you weren't referring to my mention of JD Crossan, please let me know what "appeal to authority tactic" you were referring to.

47

HOW ABOUT MENTIONING JESUS AT THE MEMORIAL!

by Mary in

jw
friends

well i went last night...........did anyone else notice how the talk focused almost exclusively on the 144,000???

jesus was barely mentioned.

the first couple of minutes talked about when the israelites left egypt and the passover was instituted.

Leolaia

Daniel never outright identifies Michael with the Son of Man figure ("one who is like a son of man"), but it definitely implies this when we compare the various visions together which all relate the same thing: the destruction of the Seleucid kingdom by the coming Messiah, who will establish a kingdom that will last forever (cf. Daniel 2:41-45; 7:14, 18; 8:11, 25; 9:26-27; 11:45-12:3). In Daniel 12:1, Michael is designated as the "great prince" (hsr hgdwl) who resists the forces of the "king of the North" (the Seleucid king), who "stands up" (an idiom meaning "begin ruling as king"), and ushers in the eternal Messianic kingdom and resurrection of the dead (v. 3-4). The description of Michael as "mounting guard over your people" in 12:1, in the midst of a description of the war between the king of the North and the king of the South (cf. 11:40-45), the mention of "Michael your prince" as supporting the "fight against the prince of Persia" and the "prince of Javan" (10:21), and "Michael one of the leading princes" is described in 10:13-14 as "confronting the kings of Persia". This sugests that the angelic "prince" (hsr) bearing the name of Michael leads the military fight against the nations persecuting the Jews. Now consider 8:10-11 which refers to the Seleucid king as challenging "the armies of heaven" and flinging "armies and stars" to the ground, and "even challenging the power of the army's Prince (sr-hzb')". Since Michael is elsewhere described as having this role (cf. 10:21), it is thus important to note that the "army's Prince" is later called the "Prince of Princes (sr-srym)" in 8:25 -- an epithet that is reminiscent of "Prince of the kings of the earth" in Revelation 1:5. Now, as for the Son of Man figure, he is described as a heavenly (i.e. angelic) figure "coming on the clouds of heaven", who was also part of God's heavenly court (Daniel 7:10, 13). The "coming" of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 is paralleled by the "Prince (sr) who will come" and "the coming of an anointed (ms'ch) Prince" in 9:25-26. Now, the Son of Man figure is "conferred sovereignty, glory, and kingship" in 7:14, and in 12:1 Michael is the one who "stands up" ('md), an idiom that repeatedly in Daniel refers to beginning one's kingship (cf. 8:22-23; 11:2-3, 20, 21). And the books of judgment are mentioned in connection with Michael in 12:1-2 and with the Son of Man figure and the Ancient of Days in 7:10-13 (cf. Revelation 20:12). So there is a general equivalence between the Son of Man figure who "comes" in kingship, the "Messiah the Prince" who also "comes" in kingship, and Michael who "stands up" in kingship.

A very similar role can be found for Michael in the War Scroll (first century B.C.), who is appointed to combat and subdue the "prince of the realm of wickedness", in a divine war that comes very close to the struggle described in Daniel 11-12:

"You appointed the Prince of Light from of old to assist us, for in his lot are all the sons of righteousness and all sprits of truth are in his dominion....Today is God's appointed time to subdue and to humiliate the prince of the realm of wickedness. He will send eternal support to the company of his redeemed by the power of his majestic angel of the authority of Michael. By eternal light he shall joyfully light up the covenant of Israel -- peace and blessing for the lot of God -- to exalt the authority of Michael among the gods and dominion of Israel among all flesh. (War Scroll, 1QM 13:10; 17:5-8)

The "book of Similitudes" of 1 Enoch, on the other hand, distinguishes the Son of Man "whose face was like that of a human being and his countenance was full of grace like one of the holy angels" and who would "depose kings and mighty ones from their thrones" from Michael, who is one of the four archangels blessing the Lord of Spirits (40:4, 9; 41:1-5). Revelation designates Michael as the commander of the heavenly hosts in 12:7, but distinguishes him from the Messiah who "rules all the nations with an iron sceptre" (12:5). The Jewish expectation of an angelic deliverer (as attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls) undoubtedly contributed to the early belief of Jesus Christ as an angel, a view that Hebrews 1:1-14 is designed to refute. The synoptic gospels characterize Jesus as the "Son of Man", utilizing the motifs in Daniel 7 as did 1 Enoch, but do not go so far as identify him with Michael. So while Michael and the Son of Man figure are likely one and the same within Daniel, this does not mean that the gospel writers conceived of the Son of Man in the same way.

6

Creed

by ignorance is strength in

why do you think that jws are so against putting all their beliefs down into a creed?

is it because they realised it would change so often?.

i always remembered in the das that they would criticise other christian denominations for having creeds, but if you asked them their faith in a nutshell, would they be able to tell you?

Leolaia

Why does the Society act as if creeds are unbiblical when there are creeds in the NT?

"Keep believing exactly what I preached to you, believing anything else will not lead to anything. In the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely, that Christ died for our sins, in accordance to the scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance to the scriptures, that he appeared first to Cephas and secondly to the Twelve...This is what you all believe" (1 Corinthians 15:2-4, 11)

"We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:14).

"The mystery of our religion is this: He was made visible in the flesh, attested by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the pagans, believed in by the world, taken up in glory" (1 Timothy 3:16).

"I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.... We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved " (Acts 8:37, 15:11).

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

However, the "appeal to authority" tactic is not convincing. I can provided "supported" theories that state the world is really flat. So what?

An appeal to evidentiary support and to experts in biblical studies is not an a priori fallacy akin to citing the opinions of flat-earthers who know nothing about geophysics. You seem to be posing a "false dilemma" by not distinguishing between the two situations. Please read the following explanation of the "Appeal to Authority" fallacy:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:
Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.
This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.
This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.
When a person falls prey to this fallacy, they are accepting a claim as true without there being adequate evidence to do so. More specifically, the person is accepting the claim because they erroneously believe that the person making the claim is a legitimate expert and hence that the claim is reasonable to accept. Since people have a tendency to believe authorities (and there are, in fact, good reasons to accept some claims made by authorities) this fallacy is a fairly common one.
Since this sort of reasoning is fallacious only when the person is not a legitimate authority in a particular context, it is necessary to provide some acceptable standards of assessment. The following standards are widely accepted:
The person has sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.
The claim being made by the person is within her area(s) of expertise.
There is an adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question.
The person in question is not significantly biased.
The area of expertise is a legitimate area or discipline.
The authority in question must be identified.
As suggested above, not all Appeals to Authority are fallacious. This is fortunate since people have to rely on experts. This is because no one person can be an expert on everything and people do not have the time or ability to investigate every single claim themselves.
In many cases, Arguments from Authority will be good arguments. For example, when a person goes to a skilled doctor and the doctor tells him that he has a cold, then the the patient has good reason to accept the doctor's conclusion. As another example, if a person's computer is acting odd and his friend, who is a computer expert, tells him it is probably his hard drive then he has good reason to believe her.
What distinguishes a fallacious Appeal to Authority from a good Appeal to Authority is that the argument meets the six conditions discussed above.

42

Gospel of John - Why no Emblems, no Bread and Wine?

by Greenpalmtreestillmine in

since today is the memorial i thought it would be a good time to ask this quesion: why is it that the gospel of john does not include the passing of the bread and wine representing jesus' blood and flesh?

of all the gospels, john's goes into the greatest detail of jesus' last evening with his disciples yet he omits the passing of the covenant emblems.

and of all the gospels you would think john's would include that since his is filled with more symbolic and mystery material than the rest.

Leolaia

Here is another example. Who made the claim that your statement is "unsupported"? (However, the "appeal to authority" tactic is not convincing...

It wasn't my statement, but you were the one who raised the "appeal to authority" question about PP's comment, and I was simply responding to it. Don't you remember what you wrote?

I am always amazed at the speculations, suppositions, then followed by claims with little or no proof, that then almost always provides a negative conclusion regarding the Christian issue, put forth by some here.

And tho you say you believe my "theory is very narrow", it actually accounts for a far wider range of evidence than the theory that the Last Supper was the Passover seder (ignoring John), and that the Eucharist is the Christian Passover (ignoring evidence from 1 Corinthians that the meal was a more frequent occurence, and the direct evidence from the Didache, Justin Martyr, and perhaps Acts on a weekly Eucharist on Sunday). That is not to say that the Eucharist wasn't influenced to some extent by the Passover (indeed it may have been), but what I'm saying is that it draws more broadly on the more common weekly sabbatical meals which also precede Passover. I'm asking for recognition of this as a contributing factor, if not the factor, as Crossan and other scholars who have studied the matter in detail have concluded.

12

The temptation of Jesus

by Leolaia in

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.

Leolaia

ThiChi....I hedge my posts a lot, just to make sure I'm not stating things as facts, though I probably don't need to, since literary dependence in this case is clear. How do we know this is a case of literary dependence? Because the allusions in the Temptation narrative are all to just one book of the Torah (Deuteronomy), and aside from the vision on the mountain are all clustered to one small section of the book and are even told mostly in the same order. There are verbal parallels, where again the wording has been influenced by the Deuteronomy text (and not the original Hebrew, but a Greek translation), and even a few formal quotations which should remove all doubt on the dependence. According to the rules of literary analysis, the text fully qualifies as an instance of literary borrowing. So whether you believe the story in Q really happened, it is still clear the author of Q used Deuteronomy to tell and phrase the story. And it isn't the original Hebrew texts that is used to inspire the wording of the story, but the Greek translation which worded things a particular way. So in one sense, we can readily see that it isn't simply "OT events" in the Hebrew Bible that foretold the story that then Q relates, but rather a specific Greek translation written hundreds of years later that was an immediate source of such allusions as Jesus seeing the kingdoms of the world from a mountain, which follows directly the wording in the Greek. And it isn't just the use of a much later Greek translation, but also extrabiblical Jewish tradition that is used in Q, such as Satan being present with the Israelites in the wilderness which is nowhere stated as such in Deuteronomy or the OT. This is readily explained, most simply, by saying that the author of Q is simply constructing his narrative by borrowing from Deuteronomy (mostly one specific section of the book) and extrabiblical tradition.

Now if you know a little bit about haggadah, midrash, apocalyptic literature, and so forth, you can see that this is far from unusual in Jewish writing. We find it time and time again, in both extrabiblical texts and biblical ones as well. To use an example from the OT, the fleeing Jonah lies down and falls fast asleep (wyskb wyrdm) in Jonah 1:5. In 1 Kings 19:5, another prophet, Elijah, who is also fleeing, lies down and falls asleep (wyskb wyysd). This by itself would not be sufficient proof that Jonah is recalling the story of Elijah, except that three chapters later, Jonah contains lines that strongly recall 1 Kings 19:4:

1 Kings 19:4: Elijah "went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die saying (wys'l 't-npsw lmwt wy'mr), 'It is enough; now, O Yahweh, take away my life for ('th yhwh qch npsy ky) I am no better than my ancestors".
Jonah 4:3: "And now, O Yahweh, please take my life from me, for ('t-npsy mmny ky w'th yhwh qch-n') it is better for me to die than to live".
Jonah 4:8: Jonah "asked that he die, saying (wys'l 't-npsw lmwt wy'mr), 'It is better for me to die than to live".

There is also a broader thematic correspondence between Jonah and Elijah: both are dejected, disillusioned prophets who, while sitting beneath a plant, ask to die and have a dialogue with God. There is even a coincidence of numbers. Elijah first takes a day's journey into the wilderness (1 Kings 19:4), and then a 40-day journey (1 Kings 19:8), whereas Jonah fortells Ninevah's destruction 40 days after his day's journey into the city (Jonah 3:4). There are other correspondences that I won't get into, but all this is sufficient to show that the Jonah story is literarily dependent on the Elijah story in 1 Kings. The Elijah story was certainly not a prophecy of Jonah that was fulfilled in Jonah; it is simply a case of motifs and even dialogue from one story being copied and used to construct a different story about someone else. The story of Jesus and the fig tree in Mark 11:12-22, on the other hand, appears to be influenced by the story in Jonah of the curse declared on Jonah's castor-oil plant (Jonah 4:5-10 ). Jonah was in ill spirits because God did not attack Ninevah as he had warned and God made a castor-oil plant to grow over his head to give him shade and soothe his temper. The story continues: "But at dawn the next day, God arranged that a worm would attack the castor-oil plant -- and it withered (apexeranthe)" (Jonah 4:6; LXX). The story in Mark relates how Jesus cursed a fig tree and then, "as they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away (exerantai, the same root as apexeranthe in Jonah) to its roots" (Mark 11:21).

And neither are these isolated incidents. Dale Allison has a whole book on the intertextuality between the OT and Q, JD Crossan has written extensively on the intertextuality in the Passion narrative, and so forth. I have previously written on the whole story of Judas Iscariot and the arrest of Jesus draws on OT passages [1], how the hand-washing scene with Pilate draws on Deuteronomy and Psalm 26 [2], how the story of Jesus as an exorcist draws on language about Moses from Exodus and extrabiblical tradition [3], how the story of the Faithful and Wise Servant draws directly on the story of Joseph from Genesis [4], and how the stories of the Miracle at Cana and the Woman at the Well in John 2, 4 draw on OT motifs surrounding Isaac, Jacob, and Moses [5]. Some interesting parallels in the latter example:

"When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians: 'Go to Joseph and do what he tells you (ho ean eipe humin poiesate).' " (Genesis 41:55; LXX)
"When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, 'They have no wine'... His mother said to the servants, 'Do whatever he tell you (ho ti an lego humin poiesate).' " (John 2:3, 5)

"He also performed (epoiese) the signs (ta semeia) before the people, and they believed (episteusen ). And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.... And when the Israelites saw the great power of the Lord displayed (epoiese) against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him (episteusan eis auton) and in Moses his servant." (Exodus 4:30-31; 14:31)
"This was the first of the signs (ton semeion) Jesus performed (epoiesen) in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him (episteusan eis auton).... Many other signs (semeia) Jesus also performed (epoiesen) in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written that you may believe (pisteuete) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." (John 2:11; 20:30-31)

"I will strike the water (to hudor) of the river and it shall be changed (metabalei) to blood.... Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters (ta hudata) of Egypt, over their rivers and their canals, their reedy places (ta hele auton), and all their reservoirs, and let them become (egeneto) blood throughout the land of Egypt, even down to the contents of every tub and jar (lithois).... [Moses] struck the waters (to hudor) of the river, and all the water (to hudor) in the river changed (metebalen) to blood. The fish in the river died, and the river smelt so foul that the Egyptians found it impossible to drink its water (piein hudor)." (Exodus 7:17, 19-21)
"Now there were six stone water jars (lithinai hudrai) set there.... Jesus said to them, 'Fill the water jars (hudrias) with water (hudatos ).' And they filled them to the brim. And he said to them, 'Draw some out now, and take it to the head waiter.' And they took it to him. And when the head waiter tasted the water (egeusato to hudor) which had become (gegenemenon) wine, and did not know where it came from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew, the headwaiter called the bridegroom." (John 2:7-9)

"In the evening, at the time when the water bearers go down for water (tou hudatos), he made the camels kneel outside the town (tes poleos) near the well (phrear)...[Rebekah] had a water jar (hudrian) on her shoulder. The girl (gunaikos) was very beautiful, and a virgin; no man had touched her. She went down to the well (pegen), filled her water jar (hudrian) and came up again. Running to meet her, the servant said, 'Please give me (potisan me) a little water (hudor) from your water jar (hudrias sou).' She said, 'Drink, my lord (pie kurie),' and she quickly lowered her water jar (hudrian) on her arm and gave him a drink (epotisan)....She quickly emptied her jar into the trough, and ran to the well again to draw (antlesai).... 'I said to her, "Please give me a drink (de potisan me)". Quickly she lowered her water jar (hudrian autes) saying, "Drink (pie su), and I will water your camels too." '.... Isaac, who lived in the Negeb, had meanwhile come into the wilderness of the well (phrear) of Lahai Roi. Now Isaac went walking in the fields as evening fell, and lifting up his eyes (anablepsasa tois ophthalmois) saw camels coming (erkhomenas). And Rebekah lifted up her eyes (anablepsasa tois ophthalmois) and saw Isaac. She jumped down from her camel, and asked the servant, 'Who is that man walking into the fields (eis to pedion ) to meet us?' The servant replied, 'That is my master'; then she took her veil and hid her face. The servant told Isaac the whole story, and Isaac led Rebekah into his tent and he married Rebekah." (Genesis 24:11, 15-19, 45-46, 62-67)
"He left Judea and departed again into Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a city (eis polin) of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob's well (pege) was there. Jesus, being weary from his journey, was sitting thus by the well (pege). It was about the sixth hour [i.e. 6 pm]. There came (erkhetai) a woman (gune) of Samaria to draw water (antlesai hudor). Jesus said to her, 'Give me a drink (dos moi pein).' For his disciples had gone away to the city to buy food.... She said to him, 'Lord (kurie), you have no bucket (antlema) and the well (phrear) is deep; where then do you get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well (phrear), and drank (epien) of it himself, and his sons, and this cattle?' ... So the woman left her water jar (hudrian autes), and went into the city....'Behold, I say to you, open up your eyes (eparate tous ophthalmous humon), and look into the fields (theasasthe tas khoras).' " (John 4:3-8, 11-12, 28, 35)

"When Pharaoh (Pharao) heard (ekouse) of this, he tried to kill (ezetei anelein) Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went (elthon) to live in Midian, where he sat down (ekathisen) by a well (epi tou phreatos). Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water (entloun ) and fill the troughs to water their father's sheep. Shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses came to their defense and watered their sheep for them.... So Moses settled with this man, who gave him his daughter Zipporah in marriage ." (Exodus 2:15-17, 21).
"The Pharisees (Pharisaio) heard (ekousan ) that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back (apelthen ) once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground Jacob gave to his son Joseph, and Jacob's well was there. Jesus, being weary from his journey, sat down (ekathezeto) by the well (epi te pege). It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water (antlesai hudor)." "For this reason the Jews tried harder to kill (mallon ezetoun apokteinai) him." (John 4:1-7; 5:18)

In many of these examples, the allusion is not simply to the events of OT passages but to specific wordings, and it isn't the original Hebrew text that anticipates the gospel wordings but the much later Greek translation. Some of the above examples also draw on extrabiblical tradition, again showing that it isn't the OT events per se that directly influenced the NT text but the literary tradition, both canonical and extracanonical.

And whether you believe that the Temptation in the Wilderness story is historical, you can believe that as a matter of faith, but the historian has certain rules of evidence in determining historicity. And borrowing narrative, dialogue, and specific motifs and details from OT sources and folklore is usually regarded as evidence against historicity, not just in the case of the Jesus but in any study of separating history from legend. Thus, in a separate thread, I showed how the earliest poem on the King Arthur legend incorporated folkloric material from Celtic legend, suggesting that they do not represent events from the life of the historical Arthur (if one existed). Just going by Occam's Razor, we can account for the entirety of the Q Temptation story through allusions and quotations to Deuteronomy and extrabiblical tradition. It is simpler to just regard it as a story that was constructed through OT intertextuality rather say that it was written through OT allusion as well as (1) faithfully representing a historical event wherein all the described events happened, and (2) these events just happened to correspond to both OT events and the way they are described in later translation and characterized in extrabiblical tradition. It's the kind of story that, if it were a case of an ancient Greek romance extensively alluding and quoting the Iliad, a historian would regard as historically doubtful.

47

HOW ABOUT MENTIONING JESUS AT THE MEMORIAL!

by Mary in

jw
friends

well i went last night...........did anyone else notice how the talk focused almost exclusively on the 144,000???

jesus was barely mentioned.

the first couple of minutes talked about when the israelites left egypt and the passover was instituted.

Leolaia

It's sad, isn't it? And what I don't understand is....if no one in the congregation is part of the 144,000, why have the Memorial in the first place? The purpose is to partake of the sacraments; the "do this" in "do this in remembrance of me" refers to eating the bread and drinking the wine, not to holding a talk about the 144,000 where wine and bread gets passed around without anyone doing what Jesus commanded. Really, as Paul explains in 1 Corinthians, the "Memorial" happens when Christians get together, when the Body of Christ gets together, and partaking the bread is the Body becoming one with Christ through the bread "which is my body". But the way the Society has divided their group of "Christians" into the 144,000 (in reality around 8,000) and the million-or-so "other sheep", we can no longer have the Body of Christ getting together in each respective congregation expect perhaps Bethel and a few other places; they are far too scattered, and most congregations have just one or two or none at all. And so there is a gathering-together, but for the most part not of the ones (according to WT interpretation) commanded to partake in remembrance of Jesus. Theoretically, all the 8,000, er, 144,000 -- though scattered and isolated in different congregations -- would still obey the command individually in their own respective communities, but here is the kicker: if the Memorial is for those under the New Covenant, for them to "gather together", why are they instead gathering together with vast numbers of "other sheep" instead of their own kind? And why are "other sheep" gathering together if they are not even under the New Covenant and thus not even commanded to "do this" (that is, eat the bread and drink the wine) in remembrance of Jesus? It's almost like Elijah coming to your Seder .... members of the great crowd hold a big Memorial in a local congregation, lacking anyone of the "anointed", passing the wine and bread hoping maybe some anointed passerby showed up?

I like Nosferatu's suggestion.... If Jesus already came in 1914, there's no point in continuing this Memorial waiting for him -- he's here, he's present, he's reigning as king, though of course he is still waiting for his 1,000 year reign to start, tho he was enthroned in 1914.

Then the inevitable John 3:16 where it talkes about "exercising faith" with HUGE emphasis on the word "exercising" and how this can ONLY be done through Jehovah's Witnesses. He compared it to physical exercise which I thought interesting because with that sort of logic, it would mean that there was ONLY ONE right gym in the whole world where you could get the correct exercise

What bullcrap....the actual word translated "exercise faith" is pistueo "believe", and so the Society has exploded a simple matter of believing in Christ into an unending series of works on the basis of one's faith; translating pistueo in this way in Romans 4:3 and Galatians 3:22 pretty much destroys Paul's argument that justification lies in faith in Christ and not works. This whole exercising in a gym thing is building on something that is not part of the Bible in the first place.

23

Is the author a Witness: Yes

by Quotes in

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.

Leolaia

Also, if Rolf Furuli is an academic linguist, does he believe all the languages of the world arose in the country of Iraq about 4,200 years ago? Does he believe that the Semitic languages are only that old? And knowing what he knows about phonemic change and comparative linguistics, does he agree with the Society that Adam, Noah and the first humans before Babel spoke Hebrew?

23

Is the author a Witness: Yes

by Quotes in

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.

Leolaia

So has anyone here read Rolf Furuli's new book on chronology, and has Jonsson fired off a rebuttal yet? Interesting that Furuli is busily engaged in translating 1 Enoch, Gilgamesh, and the Dead Sea Scrolls into Norwegian. And does anyone know anything about his book "Science and Bible translation - Christianizing and Mythologizing of the Hebrew text of the Bible"? While he is surely correct about not Christianizing the text of the OT (i.e. smuggling NT-style exegesis into the text of the OT), for the obvious reason that such would anachronistically anticipate much later theological developments, one cannot speak of "mythologizing" the OT in the same way, because it explicitly builds on Canaanite/ANE mythological material already in place and otherwise known from both extrabiblical and biblical texts. I haven't read what he wrote, so I cannot represent his position, but it is interesting that he is evidently well-familiar with ANE material and has thought about these issues himself (taking, evidently, a very conservative WTS-conforming position).