by jonathan dough 189 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
So you think that everything you believe now, including end times prophecy, is exclusive to jewish and christian thought?
What makes you think I wrote that? You're changing the issue. You're a hypocrite if you think NT miracles are a myth but Moses' miracles aren't.
that ancient israelites, including those responsible for passing on oral traditions, did not take them literally like you do.
Any evidence to back this up? A web site? Or are you just making it up as you go along?
I am not Jewish; Robdar is. Ask her what she thinks.
Me? No, I do not believe the miracles of OT or NT. They are fables, exaggerations of oral traditions. My point is that the idea that they were literal is a relatively recent concept, less than 50 years old.
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The word “deity” does not appear in all Bible translations, and it is not defined in most Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias,
I noticed this on your site. It needs clarification because it is wrong. I haven't read all Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias so I don't know if most don't address the issue, but where it is addressed in Strong and Vines, it completely disagrees with your assesment. This is what I wrote in that regard.
Colossians 2:9 is convincing evidence of the divinity of Christ. It states of Christ that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Green’s Literal Translation). The Greek word for “Godhead” is theotes and means divinity. It “stresses deity, the state of being God (Strong and Vine’s, 115). It is to be distinguished from theiotes which refers to the attributes of God, his divine nature and properties and it is this definition which the Jehovah's Witnesses incorrectly attach to Col 2:9 when they claim that the Godhead there merely refers to His “divine qualities” (Reasoning, 420). This is manifestly incorrect according to Strong and Vine’s, and what the Jehovah's Witnesses are actually doing is swapping theiotes for theotes. Regarding the Godhead (theotes) at Colossians 2:9:
In Col 2:9, Paul is declaring that in the Son there dwells all the fullness of absolute Godhead; they were no mere rays of divine glory which gilded him, lighting up His Person for a season and with a splendor not His own; but He was, and is, absolute and perfect God; and the apostle uses theotes to express this essential and personal Godhead of the Son. Theotes indicates the divine essence of Godhood, the personality of God; (Strong and Vines, 114). [Theotes] stresses deity, the state of being God. (ibid, 115).
(Theiotes, on the other hand), … refers to the attributes of God, His divine nature and properties. (Strong and Vine’s, 114)
The Jehovah's Witnesses argue that “[b]eing truly “divinity,” or of “divine nature,” does not make Jesus as the Son of God coequal and coeternal with the Father, any more than humans are coequal or all the same age just because they share humanity or human nature” (Reasoning, 421). But that is not necessarily true. If all persons share humanity it does make them all human, and they are all equally “human.” One person is not more or less human than another. So, if the inevitability of death is one aspect of humanity, then all humans die, all are mortal; they are equal in that regard. Similarly, if divinity inherently includes an eternal nature, and Jesus and God are divine, of the same essence (consubstantial), then both are eternal.
Actually, the Jehovah's Witnesses’ comparison of Jesus with all humans who share humanity is another flawed analogy because Jesus doesn’t share God at all like humans have a share in humanity. Jesus is fully God, and not somehow made God by virtue of the hypostatic union.
At Hebrews 1:3 Christ is said to be “the very imprint of His (God’s) being” (NAB) (“the very stamp of his nature” (RS) (“the express image of His substance” (Strong and Vine’s, 269). The Greek word used here for image, stamp or imprint is charaktar and means an exact copy or representation, and stresses complete, not partial, similarity of essence.
(2) In the NT it is used metaphorically in Heb 1:3, of the Son of God as “the express image of His substance.” The phrase expresses the fact that the Son “is both personally distinct from, and yet literally equal to, Him of whose essence He is the imprint. The Son of God is not merely his “image” (His character), He is the “image” or impress of His substance, or essence. It is the fact of complete similarity which this word stresses. (Strong and Vine’s, 269)
Accordingly, such equality applies to His eternal existence, omnipotence and omniscient nature, as God and the Word are literally equal to each other with respect to their essential being.
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-6.html#29
Now, back to the topics.
You are a trifle more unknowing that your fundie brethren.
Do you read any serious scholars, besides maybe Karen Armstrong? Even she does not think like you do.
Have you read Judaism 101 as Robdar suggested? Try it, get out of your insular literalistic fundamental mindset.
I am not jewish, you did not save my ass. The christians did not save them either, the Allies did. I think the jews would have survived without them; by the way, germany signed an agreement with the pope, the boss of the largest christian religion.
Are you suggesting that the US, the UK and the rest of the allies are christian countries? Is that possible? I think only people can be christian, not countries.
My point is that the idea that they were literal is a relatively recent concept, less than 50 years old.
Says who? You're blowing this out of your ear-hole. Can you back this up? This is nonsense, complete idiocy. Not that you're an idiot, but this is hog-wash. You display a complete lack of understanding and I warn anyone reading your opinions not to take them as fact.
You are a trifle more unknowing that your fundie brethren.
Do you read any serious scholars,
As a matter of fact I have and I do. If it weren't for Christian sense of morality, during WW II and especially today, Israel would not exist. The nation of Israel exists today because the USA is its greatest ally. If we weren't, it would be gone, barring divine intervention. But you don't believe in that.
Page after page after page, the major OT theme is chastisement of the Hebrews. Read if for yourself.
Sigh. I have read it, but then I see it differently from you, because I have also read it compared to actual history of the times. It is an attempt to see their troubles in a framework of a just God, one who they believe is their God and they his people.
Since they believe God is all powerful, and that they are his chosen people, the bad things must have been their fault, so the record states. There is no INDEPENDENT affirnation of what happened to them, in fact quite a bit of history and archaeology to the contrary.
It is simple, but you insist on taking it literally. It demeans the value of the bible to take it literally.
Tell me, do you think God really killed 70,000 because David ordered a census? Is that reasonable to you? Or that David could whore and kill, and the punishment is not death like for the little people, but that God killed his infant to punish him? Can you not see that this is an interpretation of events, from the eyes of the writers?
Or that one is unacceptable to Yahweh if he has a foreskin? Really?
The bible is a fantastic library, and has great insight; it has survived a long time and has great merit. It is not history as we know it. It is a collection of oral histories edited by one or two brilliant redactors, who also happened to have a viewpoint and an agenda.
The NT is the same story; first Paul, then the gospels. By the time the gospels are written, long after the original Jesus is gone, he had a miracle birth, performed miracles, was resurrected. It was a way of seeing his death as anything other than a tragic event, unbearable for his followers, althoug not all; the gospel of Thomas has no birth stories, no narrative timeline and no miracles.
Tell me, do you think God really killed 70,000 because David ordered a census? Is that reasonable to you? Or that David could whore and kill, and the punishment is not death like for the little people, but that God killed his infant to punish him? Can you not see that this is an interpretation of events, from the eyes of the writers?
Yes.
Or that one is unacceptable to Yahweh if he has a foreskin? Really?
No. Not to the Christian.
So let me get this straight. You're an atheist? Or do you just hate God?
