Posts by Leolaia

747

Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie

by Farkel in

it was made by a women who in later years wore crotchless panties and bras which had holes in the nipple areas.

he not only knew the woman in question (she's now deceased), he has met her numerous times.

up until recently this secret of her year's long sexual affair with rutherford was kept by the family.

How many decades/centuries before 1914 becomes irrelevant?

by jwfacts in

how long do you think the watchtower can speak about 1914 and have followers think it relevant?

i think for people born in the 1900's, it feels like an acceptable year.

but what about those born since 2000, will 1914 seem like a year of relevance?

Leolaia

Don't Adventists still consider 1798 and 1844 to be significant dates?

747

Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie

by Farkel in

it was made by a women who in later years wore crotchless panties and bras which had holes in the nipple areas.

he not only knew the woman in question (she's now deceased), he has met her numerous times.

up until recently this secret of her year's long sexual affair with rutherford was kept by the family.

ekaiser83.....WELCOME! It is a pleasure to meet someone else who is a relation of the people mentioned in this thread. I hope we have helped fill in some information in your family history. I wouldn't expect Bonnie and Joe would have been known as "Princess" and "Prince" beyond the reference to them in the Messenger, but that is the language that was used. I would really like to know if there are any family stories about Blanch and August. I would be all ears!! I have surmised in my research that Blanch was already good friends with Bonnie Boyd and her mother Virginia when they lived together in Houston, Texas, in the 1920s, and that is probably the reason why 1) Blanch named her daughter after Bonnie and why 2) the Balkos had the privilege of moving to Beth Sarim to work there.

Interesting that Joseph's middle name was Clark, not Barak. I wonder if there was a change, or if the Messenger had incorrect information. So Bonnie's family are still JWs but not Joseph's side? Did your grandpa leave the JWs, and if so, did he and his sister still get along okay?

I would love to see some photos...are there any available of Blanch and/or August?

40

What is the I.Q. of a Jehovah's Witness?

by Terry in

being an idiot or a genius would not be average or normal in ordinary walks of life.not by the conventional definition of those terms.in measurements of intelligence tests the average score is 100. i.q.

test score breakdownidiot-0-25imbecile-26-50moron--51-70mildly gifted -- 115 to 129moderately gifted -- 130 to 144highly gifted -- 145 to 159exceptionally gifted -- 160 to 179profoundly gifted -- 180marilyn vos savant--228 (highest recorded i.q.).

you would have been "wrong" until 1928!

Leolaia

We do know the levels of education of everyone at Bethel in 1940. Some with executive/board positions had as little as fourth grade education, others (like Franz and Rutherford) had several years of college education.

40

What is the I.Q. of a Jehovah's Witness?

by Terry in

being an idiot or a genius would not be average or normal in ordinary walks of life.not by the conventional definition of those terms.in measurements of intelligence tests the average score is 100. i.q.

test score breakdownidiot-0-25imbecile-26-50moron--51-70mildly gifted -- 115 to 129moderately gifted -- 130 to 144highly gifted -- 145 to 159exceptionally gifted -- 160 to 179profoundly gifted -- 180marilyn vos savant--228 (highest recorded i.q.).

you would have been "wrong" until 1928!

Leolaia

My IQ was professionally measured at 117 when I was 11 years old. Nothing special. I don't think the full-scale score means that much compared to the subtest scores (which indicate areas of strength and weakness). And I've heard some critics claim that Marilyn vos Savant's score was inflated.

64

Anyone Else See Les Miserables?

by BizzyBee in

jw
friends

i went to see it today - by myself (mr bee is on a golf junket).

i was glad that that i was by myself because i cried so much at the end, i wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone who wasn't crying - and that would not have been mr bee!.

les miserables the current film is adapted from what is considered one of the half-dozen greatest novels of the past 150 years and one of the longest novels ever written.

Leolaia

I went to see with my bf's mom and she said it was the worst movie she ever saw in her life. lol

Not my cup of tea either, but it was okay.

259

The Gentile Times Reconsidered (607 B.C.E.) -Part A1 - Jeremiah 25:10-12 Reviewed

by FaceTheFacts in

during the last three to four months, i have spent a great deal of time sinking my teeth into various critical biblical commentaries and lexicons.

naturally, after beginning to research "the truth about the truth" one of the most commonplace yet controversial arguments revolve around the "gentile times" doctrine (i.e.

the application of the seven times of daniel 4 from 607 b.c.e.

Leolaia

I haven't read this thread yet....So what did I miss?

20

Is the Trinitarian view point correct based on this passage-Titus 2:13?

by I_love_Jeff in

titus 2:13- "while we wait for the blessed hope-the appearing of the glory of our great god and savior, jesus christ, " .

the part in question lies at the end of the passage "...of our great god and savior, jesus christ,".

*granville sharp's rule-when you have two nouns, which are not proper names (such as cephas, or paul, or timothy), which are describing a person, and the two nouns are connected by the word "and," and the first noun has the article ("the") while the second does not, *both nouns are referring to the same person.. this, as far as i know, has been an ongoing argument among trinitarians and non trinitarians for a very long time.

Leolaia

I haven't made any study of Sharp's rule, and I know there is a current ongoing debate about its empirical basis in Greek scholarship. I can however make some more general linguistic points. When one talks about "rules" one must distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive rules. Prescriptive rules are programmatic and place demands on linguistic usage, whereas descriptive rules generalize observations on how a specific language works. There are also two main kinds of descriptive rules: I-language grammar, which refers to the inferred internal, intuitive cognitive rules that generates a speaker's linguistic output, and E-language grammar, which refers to the external, community-based level of grammar that embraces the heterogeneity of a multiplicity of idiolects. Sharp's rule is a generalization based on a limited corpus of Koine Greek, the NT. It is an abstraction based on actual stylistic usage, it is an E-language descriptive rule. It is not a prescriptive rule and is only reflective of possible I-language rules; it does not itself rule out the possibility that there were I-language grammars that did not include such a rule, as Koine Greek was heterogenous and contained a lot of grammatical variation. So it is important to first understand that rules devised by Greek scholars are abstractions that do not necessarily correspond to actual mental constructs in the heads of ancient Greek speakers that governed how they wrote and spoke. Unless it is a core grammatical rule that must be respected categorically for the language to work (violations of which would produce sentences that a given speaker would reliably regard as ungrammatical if not incomprehensible), it is a probabilistic generalization of a stylistic tendency of usage and thus does not necessarily demand its observance. So I think it overstates things to say that such a rule, even if 100% valid, "proves" that a text must be read in a manner consistent with it. And Sharp's rule concerns a form of nominal coordination (TSKS constructions), which strikes me as a less "core", more fluid area in a language's grammar.

The flip side to this is that such rules are generalizations of actual linguistic usage, so counterexamples do not necessarily invalidate their descriptive utility. It isn't a matter of disproving the rule by finding a counterexample or two in the corpus, unless of course the corpus is so tiny that such counterexamples have a major effect on determining whether there is a grammatical tendency or not. So even if the rule isn't categorical, it does have some weight in assessing a given text like Titus 2:13, and may offer a strong argument for preferring one rendering over another. That is a different matter than saying that it "proves" that Translations X,Y,Z are valid or invalid. The NT is a quite small corpus, but the validity of the rule may be tested further by checking other closely related corpora to see if it holds there as well. The LXX is an important corpus because it is a direct source for much of the NT; at the same time it is quite distinct because it has a level of interference not found in much of the NT and antedates the writing of the NT by at least a century (while at the same time corrected and revised for hundreds of years later). A more closely related corpus is that of the apostolic fathers, which overlaps the time period of the NT's composition and includes writings that were sometimes incorporated into the NT before the canon was finalized. I am not clear on the details but my memory is that Sharp's rule holds up quite well in these other corpora. That isn't to say that there aren't possible counterexamples or ambiguous cases, but by and large it holds up in an overwhelming majority of the examples. I am sure the current discussion of the rule in scholarship concerns just how well the rule does hold up, i.e. how robust a generalization it is. If it is, then it offers a strong argument for handling Titus 2:13 in a manner that respects it. But I am somewhat doubtful a constructed "rule" based on usage can demand a given rendering, or "prove" a rendering is correct beyond doubt. I have personally regarded passages like Titus 2:13, 2 Peter 1:1, Acts 20:28, etc. as ambiguous, and I have wondered if perhaps they are intentionally ambiguous and represent one stage in the development of a more explicit expression of higher christology.

63

New Article regarding the Global Flood of Noah

by jwfacts in

i have put together a new article regarding whether the global flood of noah is possible.

it utilises a lot of information from threads on jwn, and some of you may recognise your own comments.

please feel free to proof read, make suggestions, provide further references, etc.. http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/flood-noah-global.php.

Leolaia

I really like your point here because it echoes some points I brought up myself....

This reasoning creates a catch-22. For a global flood to have any merit, the mountains had to be lower, as there is not enough water on earth to cover Mount Everest, whereas if mountains were lower than today, less water would be needed. However, this means after the flood there were monumental land transformations, with mountains being pushed up out of the floodwaters. Mountains usually grow at a rate of only millimetres per year, and even then the result of such movement can be earthquakes. For mountains to have grown thousands of metres over a rapid period, the resultant earthquake activity would have made the earth uninhabitable, in a state of constant, violent movement by earthquake and volcanic activity. What the waters had not destroyed, this continental reshaping would have, removing the majority of archaeological trace of life from any time prior to 4,400 years ago. Yet neither the Bible nor recorded history discusses such upheavals in the period after the flood. Earthquakes are a sign of the last days, yet modern quakes are almost inconsequential in comparison to what would be required for Everest to form after a flood just 4,400 years ago.

The Himalayas arose via the northward collision of the Indo-Australian Plate into the Eurasian Plate, folding the ocean floor of the Tethys Ocean and lifting it along the convergent plate boundary (as opposed to other plate boundaries where subduction of the seafloor occurs). The majority of the uplifted rock, meanwhile, was eroded away via yearly monsoons to produce the many foothills and landforms south of the Himalayas. To have this all occur in just 4,000 years involves an impossible speed of plate movement. The distance the plate would have to move is in the thousands of miles (over 3,000 miles), which means that the Indo-Australian Plate must have a velocity measured in miles per year as opposed to the actual speed of 67 milimeters per year it presently has (as measured by GPS). Think about that. To put things into perspective, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was the second most powerful quake ever recorded, 9.3. It produced one of the most devastating tsunamis in recorded history. The plate shifted about 20 meters in this event. That's it. How long does it take a person to walk 20 meters? "Hyper plate tectonics" would require plates moving thousands of miles very quickly. This would have, say, the Indian subcontinent move countless times faster than the seafloor could be laid down at the central and southeast Indian mid-ocean ridges. Such a speed would also posit an impossibly immense amount of friction at the collision boundaries, fracturing the lithosphere and triggering a flood basalt event that would have surely dwarfed the Siberian Traps. Nothing like that ever occurred, nor even daily 9.0+ earthquakes throughout recorded history, and there is no mechanism for such a ridiculously fast speed (certainly not normal mantle convection).

The process was geologically slow, as it took yearly monsoonal erosion to produce all the foothills (which would constitute large mountains by any other standard) south of the Himalayan peaks. Don't just think of the amount of uplift required to push land up to the height of Mount Everest, for Everest itself was being eroded down as fast as it was being lifted up. According to surveys of the Himalayan plateau, a total of 5-9 km of vertical rock was eroded from the Tibetan Himalayas and about 12-25 km from the Higher Himalayas. Compare these figures with the height of Mount Everest, which is only 8.8 km in height. So the height equivalent of one or two Mount Everests have been eroded away throughout the whole plateau as the Himalayas were pushed up. And considering that under normal monsoonal conditions 2.9 mm is eroded away per year, it would take millions of years of weathering to accomplish this feat.

The Society also likes to mention seashells in the Himalayas as evidence that the Flood covered the entire earth. This ignores the fact, as mentioned earlier, that the land uplifted into the Himalayas was originally oceanic crust of the Tethys Sea. Go to the supermarket and buy some pink Himalayan salt mined from halite evaporite deposits laid during the drying up of the enclosed sea.

79

Yahweh was a Cannanite god Ashtoreth his wife...before the Jews!! Unreal!

by Witness 007 in

this i did not know till recently.

buts a whole new meaning to "let us make man in our image.." no wonder all the kings of israel turned to other gods..

Leolaia

Anat-Yahu at Elephantine was an Israelite syncretism under Aramaean influence. What happened was that after the fall of Samaria in 722 BC, the Assyrians imported Aramaeans from Hamath, Hadrach, Arpad, Ivvah, and other areas to repopulate the northern kingdom of Israel, and they mixed with the Israelites who remained. This brought the cult of Bethel (a god native to the Aleppo area) into seventh century BC Israel, which included the gods Ashima-Bethel (cf. 2 Kings 17:31) and Anat-Bethel. It is also possible that there was already an imported Aramaean cult prior to the fall of Samaria. The prophet Jeremiah claimed that the "house of Israel" placed its trust in Bethel as Moab did in Chemosh (Jeremiah 48:13). Under syncretism, Bethel became identified with Yahweh and the two deities merged. There may have also been a reference to the "Ashima of Samaria" in Amos 8:14. At some point Anat-Bethel became Anat-Yahu. The colony of Elephantine was originally Israelite and only secondarily became Jewish (following the fall of Jerusalem). It was a place where the seventh-century BC Israelite cult survived into the fifth century BC, and the names Anat-Bethel and Anat-Yahu both appear. There was no native cult of Anat in Judah where Anat had long before assimilated to Yahweh (who had the same role as divine warrior), but the emigration of Israelite refugees into Judah in the seventh century BC reasserted the worship of Anat as the "Queen of Heaven" in Judah itself (Jeremiah 44:15-18), producing a newer alternative consort for Yahweh, implicitly pairing Yahweh and Anat together as they would be at Elephantine in the fifth century BC. The pairing of Yahweh and Asherah owes from the identification of Yahweh with the older Canaanite god El, and the pairing of Yahweh and Asherah can be found in texts found at ninth or eighth century BC Kuntillet Ajrud.