Ordo Templi Orientis did use tetragramiiton. whether the current OTO's use it, I doubt.
How long has man been on earth - an epiphany of sorts
by Dawn 16 Replies latest jw friends
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gaiagirl
I don't see the repeated incidence of 'divisible by seven' as proof of heavenly inspiration. It indicates that the writer viewed seven as particularly significant, nothing more.
If someone finds a book of haiku poetry, every example will consist of seventeen syllables arranged in three lines-five syllables, then seven syllables, then five again. It doesn't mean there is a code or hidden meaning, it's just a symmetry which the writer viewed as desireable.
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little witch
Dawn, I agree with you 100%
The questions may forever linger, but the freedom to learn and discover is the most important thing.
Shouldn't we keep our questions of God between us and God? If God is all knowing, all seeing, all loving, wouldn't He want us to use reason in our search and trust Him, and not some fallible human being as our guide?
I congratulate you on seeing reasoning and self exploration as a gift. For too long the wtbts has cursed this gift as something foul and evil.
Now if God created us as the bible states, then he created our intelligence, our minds. If this is evil to use, then either God is a screw up and not perfect, or some person claiming authority has lied to us.
I trust that God has not made an error in our creation.
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Leolaia
asleif....You may regard my Christianity as very liberal, as I recognize that the Bible does not present one single theology, the Bible does not completely represent everything Jesus and the early Christians believed and taught, the Bible contains the word of man (as Paul admits in his epistles, cf. 1 Corinthians 7:12, which Paul gives as his own addition to the Lord's command in 7:10; cf. 2 Corinthians 11:17-18, 13:10), and the Bible itself is an arbitrary selection of sacred scripture put together at a later date -- thus our own 66-book Bible only reached its final form during the Reformation, the text itself not standardized until the 1800s. That is why I stress the process of seeking because we don't have the human Jesus to teach us and instead have his message as it as filtered through the teachings of his later followers, who understood Jesus and his message in their own idiosyncratic ways (e.g. compare James 2:10-14, 20, 24 with Romans 3:27-31, Galatians 2:16, 3:11-12 which argues for the opposite view). If James is to be believed, faith is not an end-to-itself (i.e. being saved by accepting a belief system) but a process of following God through good deeds. In my humble opinion, I think you can believe whatever the hell you want about Jesus (i.e. that he was God, that he is part of a Trinity, that he is an angel, that he was the only perfect man, that he was the greatest rabbi, that he was Elijah, that he never existed), it is only through practicing the moral teaching of Jesus that one shows faith in what Jesus represents and shows oneself as a follower of Jesus. That is the moral philosophy found in the gospels, the Epistle of James, the Didache, that Paul attributes to the "Lord," which basically stresses love for others (no matter who they are) as the foundation of behavior and all things that follow from it: humility to others, care for the needy and oppressed, giving selflessly to others, reserving judgment, forgiving others their sins, and so forth. By forgiving the sins of our brothers, our own sins are forgiven. That is the salvation and justification from sin that James and the synoptics taught, which is very Jewish and builds on and transcends the earlier teachings of the Essenes. To this Paul added a metaphysical theory of salvation drawn from Hellenistic mystery religions, in which Jesus bore the collective sin of the world as a redemption paid by his blood, and this idea later became standard in the church. But as even Paul admitted, faith in that is not what saves because "I can have faith as to move mountains but if I do not have love, I am nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:2). Even John, who gave the most metaphysical characterization of Jesus' message, taught that Jesus saves because he revealed the Father and his love for mankind, so that "anyone who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him" (1 John 4:16). Anyway, my "Christianity" is one that does not assume any metaphysical theory of Jesus, nor does it insist on believing that anything else in the Bible has to be literally true or whatever, only that the "way of righteousness," the "law of love," the praxis of love taught by the gospel writers, Paul, John, and throughout the Church (in their own embellished ways) is what can bring us into God's presence, into God's love, and into God's salvation.
For my opinions on evolution, you may read my comments from the following thread, but having no theological encumberments in regard to scientific theory, I have no problem in assuming the existence of natural processes of biological change as I assume the existence of proceses of geological or cosmological change:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/62761/1.ashx
Leolaia
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asleif_dufansdottir
L~
Cool, thanks (I remember that discussion now!)
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SYN
Well, considering that there's clear evidence of human habitation of what is now the North Sea, between England and Northern Europe, it's pretty hard to swallow some of the claims of the Bible.
Oh well.
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a Christian
Dawn,
Good questions.
As you know, Bible chronology seems to clearly indicate that only about 4,000 years passed between the creation of Adam and the birth of Christ 2,000 years ago. But paleontologists, anthropologists and archaeologists all assure us that mankind has lived on earth far longer than 6,000 years. For instance, anthropologists date the first settlement of the Americas by modern men to 15,000 B.P. (Before the Present) and their first settlements in Australia to 35,000 B.P. To explain this apparent conflict between well established science and scripture some Bible believers have suggested that there may be gaps in the Genesis genealogies and that, if there are, Adam may have been created by God near the time scientists tell us modern man first appeared on earth. However, such an explanation does not solve the apparent conflicts here referred to because the same scientists who tell us modern man has been around for at least several tens of thousands of years also tell us that the things Adam and his immediate descendants were involved in did not take place anywhere on earth prior to 10,000 years ago. These things include raising crops, herding animals, forging tools of copper and iron and building cities. (Gen. 4)
Some Christians say that this seeming conflict between Bible chronology and well established human history can be resolved by understanding that the Bible does not tell us that Adam was, in an absolute chronological sense, "the first man." They say that God simply used Adam and Eve, and orchestrated the events in Eden, to illustrate the unrighteous condition of all mankind. ( This understanding also answers the questions, "Where did Cain get his wife?" and "Who were the people living in the land 'east of Eden' whom Cain was afraid might kill him?" Gen. 4:14-17 )
The only place in Scripture Adam is referred to as the "first" man is in 1 Cor.15:45-47. There Adam is called "the first man." But there we also find that Jesus is called "the second man." The context shows that the writer of those words was referring to Adam as the "first" man only in his relative chronological position to Christ. In other words, since Adam came "first" and Christ came "second," Adam came before Christ.
Some who object to this understanding point out that Genesis 3:20 tells us "Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all living." However, a careful reading of Genesis 3's context shows us that Adam did so only after God prophesied that He would raise up a Savior and that He would count that Savior as Eve's descendent. (Genesis 3:15) Since everyone given eternal life by God will call that Savior their "Eternal Father" ( Isaiah 9:6 ), Adam could truly say that Eve "would become the mother of all living." For she was the one God said would be counted as the original human ancestor of that promised Savior and "Eternal Father."
Some also point out that their Bible tells them that God "made from one man every nation of men." (Acts 17:26) However, the words "one man" do not appear in Acts 17:26 in any ancient Bible manuscript. Most ancient manuscripts simply say that God "made from one every nation of Men." Other ancient Greek manuscripts, from which this portion of the Bible is translated, tell us that God "made from one blood every nation of men." For this reason The Amplified Bible here reads God "made from one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men." The New English Bible translates this verse to tell us that God created every race of men from "one stock." So, Acts 17:26 can only be used to confirm that all people on earth are descended from ancestors who came from the same gene pool, and that all people on earth have the same original source of origin, a teaching which fully agrees with the findings of modern science. This verse does not say, in any Greek manuscript, that mankind's common origin was one man.
Most other objections to this understanding of Scripture come from those who adhere to the doctrine of "the fall" of mankind. Those who say that the Bible does not portray Adam as "the first" man in an absolute chronological sense say that the doctrine of "the fall" is based on a misunderstanding of the apostle Paul's words in Romans 5:12-20 and 1 Corinthians 15:21,22.
It is said that the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate (A.D. 331-363) held this understanding of scripture, but he thought it could be used as a counterpoint to Christianity to restore paganism. Isaac de la Peyrere, a Catholic priest, is also said to have held this understanding of Scripture in 1656. For his efforts he was forced to recant and his books were burned. In 1860, one year after Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, Bible scholar Edward William Lane published this understanding, but anonymously to escape reprisals.
Today this understanding is being advanced by Christians such as Richard Fischer. Fischer graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Science degree. His first article on religion was published in The Washington Post in 1986. He received his master's degree in theology in 1992. He has published articles in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, and has reviewed articles for publication in Christian Scholar's Review. He is a member of American Scientific Affiliation, Interdisciplinary Biblical Research Institute, Evangelical Theological Society, and he is listed in Who's Who in Theology and Science. Fisher's book on this subject is entitled The Origins Solution. It does a good job of making sense out of several controversial "origins" related subjects, such as biological evolution, the creative "days" of Genesis, the extent of Noah's flood and the tower of Babel. I found it to be a well worthwhile read. Some sample chapters of it can be read and copies of it can be ordered, here: http://www.orisol.com/Mike