Posts by Leolaia

33

I have some old literature for sale

by libra_spirit in

if intrested please email me [email protected] , tell me what you are willing to pay, how you want it shipped, and what if anything you are going to do with it!

otherwise most is headed for the landfill where it belongs!.

watchtower bound volumes available.

Leolaia

Gerard....I was about to say the same thing!!!!!!!!!!! Man, don't let JCanon take a look at it! It could be construed as proof of something. ;)

33

I have some old literature for sale

by libra_spirit in

if intrested please email me [email protected] , tell me what you are willing to pay, how you want it shipped, and what if anything you are going to do with it!

otherwise most is headed for the landfill where it belongs!.

watchtower bound volumes available.

Leolaia

Wow, that's quite an impressive collection. You should get a university with a strong religious studies focus purchase the collection for its library.

4

Psalms when-who?

by peacefulpete in

the recent thread about ps 110 made me think about the psalms and their dating.

anyone doing a search online will find that there is as usual a great difference of opinion between religiously motivated and secular writers.

i thought it a good idea to toss out a few thoughts that might stir a discussion.

Leolaia

Here is S. R. Driver's synthesis (in INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT), based on linguistic and allusional evidence:

pre-exilic: Psalm 2, 18, 20, 21, 28, 29, 45, 46, 61, 63, 72, 76 (possibly from 701 B.C.), 90, 91, 101, 110.

exilic: Psalm 22, 25, 33-34, 51, 66-70, 102.

early post-exilic: Psalm 37, 77, 78, 80, 93, 96-99.

late post-exilic: Psalm 103, 124, 129, 133, 135, 137, 144, 146 (most of these are heavily Aramaic)

Maccabean: Psalm 44, 74, 79, 83

This, of course, is based on evidence prior to the discovery of the Ras Shamra texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

10

spit

by peacefulpete in

mark 7:33-37: the healing of a dumb man by putting of fingers in his ears and the application of spit to the tongue .

mark 8:22-26: the healing of a blind man by the application of spit to the eyes .

john 9:1-12: the healing of the blind man by the application of mud made of spit and then bathing .

Just a few random comments.....James 5:14 and Mark 6:13 refer to Christians as healing the sick by anointing them with oil, and in a similar way John 9:6 describes Jesus as "anointing" the blind man's eyes with the mud made from his spit. Within the context of John, I wonder if there is a connection between the "living water" that Jesus dispenses (John 4:13-14; 7:37-39) and Jesus' spittle. Note that Jesus dispenses the "living water" (Holy Spirit) by breathing on his disciples (20:22). Outside John, it is also interesting that Jesus is anointed as the Son of God by the Holy Spirit as the unction (Mark 1:9-11), and it is with the Holy Spirit (= oil, =spit) that Jesus and the apostles perform miracles (cf. Mark 6:13; Acts 10:38). It is also interesting that the two Markan spitting stories are not paralleled in Matthew and Luke; might these originate in the Secret Mark recension (which stresses baptismal themes)? Mark 8:22-26 is partly paralleled by Matthew 9:27-31, but the latter story is also dependent on the healing story in Mark 10:46-52, combining the two stories into a single story of "two blind men" being healed at the same time. And interestingly the Matthean story specifically has Jesus "touching their eyes" (neither Markan story mention such touching), and ends with a very characteristic Markan ending of Jesus sternly charging the men to not tell anyone what happened -- an ending which is also absent in both Markan versions (compare Mark 7:36). So I wonder if Matthew 9:27-31 might preserve the original version of the healing story in Mark 10:46-52 which presently includes a reference to Jesus' spit? And what do you make of the miracle story in the present text that has Jesus' miracle as initially unsuccessful?

Another interesting thing is that according to Leviticus 15:8, the spit of an unclean person defiles another. And yet the people that Jesus heals were already considered "unclean" by the Pharisees because of their disabilities, and by spitting (=healing) on the Sabbath, Jesus renders himself as also unclean by "sinning" (cf. also Jesus as ritually "unclean" in Mark 7:1-23). And so Jesus reverses the usual expectation of clean + unclean = unclean by making it so unclean + unclean = clean. In this connection, note Luke 11:41: "Give that which is inside to the poor, and then all things are clean for you." One other interesting tidbit is that the Greek word for "poor" is ptuos, which is either derived from or is a homophone with ptuo "spit". In other words, the "poor" are "those spat upon". Jesus' ministry to the poor is thus to those spat on in contempt. And interestingly in the synoptics Jesus himself lives a lifestyle without belongings (cf. Matthew 8:18-22) and he is later spat upon during the Passion (27:30).

22

Spankings In The KH Bathroom

by Hunyadi in

.

oh, how many times have we heard the loud hard spankings of toddlers' and preschool aged children by their parents for making noise at the meetings echo from inside of the kingdom hall restrooms?

until now it was a memory i had forgotten, but it really bugs me now.. hunyadi

Leolaia

It is amazing the awful things this board can stir from long-dead memory. How could I have ever forgotten about that??? BTW, my mom tells me of her experience when she converted to the JWs in the '70s. The Witness sisters taught her how to "properly" correct her children and advised her on the most effective implements for this purpose.

26

Do you ever have a kingdom melody in your head?

by itsallgoodnow in

jw
friends

this drives me crazy.

i woke up with "i want to" in my head this morning... havent been to a meeting lately, so what gives?

does this ever happen to any one else?

Leolaia

I've been out for over a decade and I can still fall victim to "We Are Jehovah's Witnesses" if I still deign to remind myself of that annoying song.

30

Where did evil come from?

by laurelin in

i'm new here, i only just found this site the other day so i don't know if i'm repeating something that has already been covered.

i'm sorry if i am.. can anyone help me on the scripture in genesis 2v9.. it says that god created two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.

these were put into the garden before adam and obviously before adam and eve sinned.. if this is the case, does that mean god created bad?

Leolaia

There are many other examples from the OT of the same thing Narkissos was talking about. In Exodus, we repeatedly read how "Yahweh made Pharaoh's heart stubborn" (cf. Exodus 9:35; 10:20, 27), so that Yahweh had a hand in Pharaoh's defiance. In Judges 9:23, we read how "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, who acted treacherously against Abimelech." Similarly, we repeatedly read how Yahweh sent an evil spirit to demonize and possess Saul:

"Now the spirit of Yahweh had left Saul and an evil spirit from Yahweh tormented him. Saul's servants said to him, 'Look, an evil spirit of God is the cause of your terror. Let our lord give the order, and your servants who wait on you will look for a skilled harpist; when the evil spirit of God troubles you, the harpist will play and you will recover.' Saul said to his servants, 'Find me a man who plays well and bring him to me.' ... And when ever the spirit from God troubled Saul, David took the harp and played; then Saul grew calm, and recovered, and the evil spirit left him." (1 Samuel 16:14-23)

"On the following day an evil spirit from God seized Saul and he fell in a fit of frenzy while he was in his house. David was playing the harp as on other days and Saul had his spear in his hand. Saul brandished the spear, 'I am going to pin David to the wall,' he said. But David twice evaded him." (1 Samuel 18:10-11)

"An evil spirit from Yahweh came on Saul while he was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand; David was playing the harp. Saul tried to pin David to the wall with his spear, but he avoided Saul's thrust and the spear stuck to the wall.... Saul accordingly sent agents to capture Daivd; when they saw the company of prophets prophesying, and Samuel there as their leader, the spirit of God came on Saul's agents, and they too fell into an ecstacy." (1 Samuel 19:9-10, 20)

A further example can be found in the story of Micaiah in 1 Kings:

"Yahweh was seated on his throne and all the array of heaven stood in his presence, on his right and on his left. Yahweh said, 'Who will trick Ahab into marching to his death at Ramoth-gilead?' At which some answered one way, and some another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh, 'I will trick him,' he said. 'How?' Yahweh asked. He replied, 'I will go and become a lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets.' 'You shall lie and trick him,' Yahweh said, 'you shall succeed. Go and do it.' Now see how Yahweh put a deceitful spirit into the mouths of all your prophets here. But Yahweh has pronounced disaster on you." (1 Kings 22:19-23)

Of course, in the NT, Satan or the Devil is the one who is ruler of the demons (i.e. as Beelzebub), who sends evil spirits forth to demonize people, and who is the "father of the lie" and who lies behind false prophets and antichrists (cf. 1 John and Revelation). But in the OT, Yahweh is the one who sends forth evil spirits and false prophecy.

65

US, UK poles apart over breasts

by Big Tex in

to be honest, i'm a leg man myself

http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13384854.

monday, 09 february , 2004, 22:59

Leolaia

15

OK, here's another "Hmmmm" bible-thread

by robhic in

gen 3:22

and jehovah god said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever- (asv)

ok, putting aside all the trinitarian implications and the contradictory/chronological problems in genesis so as not to cloud the issue, how can this (above) be accurate?.

Leolaia

The primeval history of Genesis 2-11 has a repeated theme which was borrowed from Babylonian mythology: although man may aspire to divinity, the gods will make sure to put him in his place. The tower of Babel story is an example of this. Genesis 3:22 makes clear that one may become a god if one 1) has eternal life and 2) godlike wisdom. One can have one but not both. Man was invited to have eternal life but banned from having divine knowledge and when Adam chose to have the latter, Yahweh banished man from Eden to prevent him from "becoming like one of us" by eating of the tree of life. A similar story can be found from Babylonian mythology where it was the other way around -- Adapa had divine wisdom and the god Ea invited him to eat from the food and drink of life, but one of the lesser gods deceived Adapa to reject the food of life to prevent him from becoming a god. This was a very ancient attempt to explain why man is so much smarter from the beasts of the field, yet is only a mortal and lacks the eternal life the other gods are supposed to have. I think in the modern age we can explain the same problem in a rather different way with science.

8

Question for anybody schooled in Aramaic or Greek

by skiz in

i'm looking for info about the hebrew word 'satan'.

i'll be specific so that you know what i'm asking for ( bold print added by me ).

numbers 22:32 nwt, "then jehovah's angel said to him: "why have you beaten your she-ass these three times ?

Leolaia

Here, try these webpages, they talk about the difference between satan and ha-satan (with the definite article):

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/5663/satan.html

http://www.deliriumsrealm.com/delirium/mythology/satan.asp

The use of "Satan" as a name might be a shortened form of the name Satanel ("El's accuser" or "God's accuser") which occurs in pseudepigraphal writings as the name of one of the angels that rebelled.