How Does the WT Explain this verse

by XBEHERE 49 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  XBEHERE

  (John 2:18-22) 18 Therefore, in answer, the Jews said to him: "What sign have you to show us, since you are doing these things?" 19 In answer Jesus said to them: "Break down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." 20 Therefore the Jews said: "This temple was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" 21 But he was talking about the temple of his body. 22 When, though, he was raised up from the dead, his disciples called to mind that he used to say this; and they believed the Scripture and the saying that Jesus said.

  Not that I believe in the trinity persay...but anyone recall how they wormed around this one? I dont have the WT library at work and I am just curious.
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  carla

  I've brought that one up too. My jw says, 'yeah, uh uh, ' and then proceeds to change the subject. Maybe a an ex here who was a long time jw or an elder can answer that?
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  Wolfgirl

  I don't remember them worming around it at all. They just completely ignored the bit about JESUS being the one to raise up 'the temple of his own body.' And like a fool, I didn't see it. (I'm agnostic now, for the record.)
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  Hellrider

  And what`s more: The WTS says that Jesus ressurection was "spiritual", and that his physical body was "disposed of by Jehovah". There is nothing in that passage that would indicate that his ressurection would be spiritual, on the contrary. There is a metaphor of body=temple. What`s inside that temple/body is the spirit, the spiritual, as the Temple in Jerusalem itself was made of stone, but what was inside it, was spiritual (worship of God). So (the spiritual...)Jesus, who spent three days in the underworld, raised up his Temple (body) on the third day. And by the way: If his ressurection on the third day was spiritual, I sure wonder what the heck that was, that travelled to the underworld and preached to the fallen angels in Tartarus...Another kind of Spirit? From one spirit to another? Makes no sense at all.
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  Gopher

  As I recall, the Watchtower explanation focused on the word 'body'. They explained it to mean his body of believers, which would be 'raised up' or re-energized by his resurrection after 3 days.

  It's a reach, but I believe that is how they still explain away that verse.
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  Leolaia

  Yes, when you combine John 2:18-22 with the doubting Thomas story in ch. 20 (and also the focus on Jesus' "flesh" in ch. 6) it becomes very hard to reconcile this with the JW pseudo-resurrection doctrine ("pseudo" because nothing really is resurrected, it is more of a "recreation"), which doesn't correspond to ancient Judeo-Christian beliefs about the resurrection anyway. These always assumed that SOMETHING -- whether the body or an internal spirit or soul -- is "raised up" and restored to embodied life. By denying any sort of afterlife or resurrection of the body, the Society has substituted resurrection with recreation. This is made explicit by JW claims that Jehovah destroyed Jesus' body. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 does speak of a "spiritual body", but note that this involves a BODY that is raised up and thus there is continuity between the person who had died and the person who is raised up. Rather, the physical body is described as TRANSFORMED into a spiritual body involving a change in nature, from corruption to incorruption. Hence Paul's metaphor of a plant germinating from a seed -- the plant is derived from the seed and has physical continuity with it but at the same time has a more glorious form than the seed that is "buried" (like a corpse is buried). The Society's pseudo-resurrection doctrine eliminates this continuity and thus they must rely on an unbiblical notion of "God's memory" as remembering someone's "lifepattern" so that it can be perfectly reproduced in the "resurrection". But this reproduction is still a reproduction, a copy, the person that is recreated would have all your memories but would be a new creature who will believe that he/she is you while the real you is rotting in the grave. This is essentially what the Society claims happened to Jesus. In no sense was his "body" raised in three days.

  The rationalization that the "body" refers to a re-energizing of the apostles is a strained attempt to accommodate this verse into their belief system. It depends on a distinctively Pauline notion of the "body" of Christ that appears nowhere in Johannine literature.
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  tijkmo

  the explanation is in the grammar...in ezekial this comment is made by ezekial..

  (Ezekiel 43:1-3) 43

  Then he made me go to the gate, the gate that is facing toward the east. 2 And, look! the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the direction of the east, and his voice was like the voice of vast waters; and the earth itself shone because of his glory. 3 And it was like the appearance of the vision that I had seen, like the vision that I saw when I came to bring the city to ruin; and there were appearances like the appearance that I saw by the river Che´bar, and I went falling upon my face.

  in fact ezekial did not bring the city to ruin...he merely prophecied that it would happen..therefore the language allows for him to adopt a dont-shoot-the-messenger approach...thus the footnote reads

  *** Footnote ***

  "When I came," M; ThVg and six Heb. mss, "when he came"; T, "when I prophesied for making [the city] waste away."

  jesus was not saying he would raise himself...(obviously that would be impossible)..he was prophecying that he would be raised
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  drew sagan

  So yet again the Watchtower focus is on translated English grammer with possible submeanings and less on what the text would have really ment to those that wrote and heard it.
  Interesting how a group that focuses on physical ressurection would change from the commmon belief in this portion of scritpure to support the opposite doctrine, but that's making everything fit the WTS mold for ya.
  Fhewww! That was a close one.
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  fjtoth

  Who raised Jesus from the dead? Did God do it, or did Jesus raise himself?

  • Acts 2:24: God raised him from the dead.
  • Acts 2:32: God has raised this Jesus to life.
  • Acts 3:15: God raised him from the dead.
  • Acts 4:10: whom God raised from the dead
  • Acts 5:30: The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead.
  • Acts 10:40: God raised him from the dead.
  • Acts 13:30: God raised him from the dead.
  • Acts 13:34: God raised him from the dead.
  • Acts 13:37: the one whom God raised from the dead
  • Acts 17:30-31: He [God] has given proof of this to all men by raising him [Jesus] from the dead.
  • Romans 4:24: him [God] who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead
  • Romans 6:4: Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father
  • Romans 10:9: God raised him from the dead
  • 1 Corinthians 6:14: By his power God raised the Lord from the dead.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:15: we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead
  • 2 Corinthians 4:14: the one [God] who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus
  • Galatians 1:1: God the Father, who raised him from the dead
  • Ephesians 1:20: he [God] raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand
  • Colossians 2:12: God, who raised him from the dead.
  • 1 Thessalonians 1:10: wait for his Son from heaven, whom he [God] raised from the dead
  • 1 Peter 1:21: God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him
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  Shazard

  And so if Jesus rised himself, and God rised Jesus, so Jesus is God :) It is like 2+2