Flowers would be nice
But a drink would be appreciated more
Jesus Is Not the Atonement.
by whereami 30 Replies latest watchtower bible
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undercover
But a drink would be appreciated more
I'm sure he'd turn some water into wine for ya...
Wouldn't that be some power to have on a date. "here, baby, let me fix that water for ya..."
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Leolaia
God's Book of Eskra
That is not a historical source. That is a modern apocryphon written by a dentist named John Ballow Newbrough published in 1882:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oahspe:_A_New_Bible
In fact, I seriously doubt that the book you cited (God's Book of Eskra, Prof. S. L. MacGuire's translation, 1922) even exists. First I examined WorldCat and looked for any book by a MacGuire published in 1922 or any book with "Eskra" in the title or any book by a MacGuire with "Oahspe" in the title. There were no relevant hits. Since WorldCat combines 71,000 library catalogs in 112 countries (including the Library of Congress), this is strong evidence that a book allegedly published by a university professor doesn't exist. Second, what professor would publish a "translation" of a book published in English by Newbrough in 1882? Newbrough himself characterized his book as an instance of automatic writing, revealed to him spiritually which he wrote without any prior text before him. So the whole concept that a later professor would give another translation in English is ridiculous. Indeed, the portion you quoted is word-for-word identical to what Newbrough published in 1882. Third, I searched "Book of Eskra" and "MacGuire" in Google and a very interesting pattern emerged. Every single hit was to the same identical reference that you gave. They were all dependent on the same original source that gave that citation. And what source is that? Tony Bushby's Forged Origins of the New Testament (2007). I believe Bushby made up "Prof. S. L. MacGuire" and his alleged "translation" in order to make Newbrough's book appear to be an actual ancient source.
And what Newbrough wrote is ludicrous to begin with. The history of the council at Nicæa and its agenda are very well known and attested in actual ancient historical sources (see [1] and [2]). They were there from May to July AD 325 to settle two main issues — the Arian controversy and the date for Easter — and to deal with a few smaller issues such as the trouble surrounding Bishop Meletius, the aftermath of the persecution of Licinius, and whether baptism by heretics was legitimate. They were not there to decide on what god to worship to become delocked with indecision on whether to choose Kriste, Jove, Mars, Siva, and Crite. I mean come on! The Arian controversy which they were actually there to debate is nothing compared to deciding whether they were to choose between Christ, or Mars the Greek god of war, or the Hindu god Siva! Newbrough obviously had no knowledge of the actual history of the council, and instead was interested in his own Oahspe myth. For instance, he writes that Christ's original name as discussed at Nicæa was Looeamong, a warrior angel who was worshipped as a false god. This name is Newbrough's invention; there is no such name found in any ancient source. Newbrough said he simply wrote what came to him spiritually, and I believe him.
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BurnTheShips
This guy is a joke.
Yup. When someone comes out and says that they can prove what Christians have pretty much all believed for the last 2000 years is wrong, take it with a grain of salt.
BTS
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AGuest
May you all have peace!
According to the Exodus account, the night before leaving Egypt Israel and those who were going with them were to take the blood of the slaughtered lamb and splash it on their door posts so that the Destroyer would "passover" that house and not harm anyone it it. Today, the Household of God, Israel, and those who go with do the same thing when they "drink the blood" of Christ: that act is a demonstration of their faith... and constitutes a symbolic "splashing of blood" on the "door post" of the "house" that is their physical body (the "temple"). Christ himself is not the "atonement," per se; rather, it was the pouring out of his blood. Because "unless blood is poured out, no atonement takes place."
He poured out his blood, literally, when pierced by the soldiers. Then, blood and water came from within him. At that time both... the blood and water... poured upon the ground.
He poured out his blood, spiritually, when he granted holy spirit... which is the life force and thus "blood" of the Most Holy One of Israel... as well as "living water"... to his servants in the upper room. At that time both... "blood" and "water"... poured upon them.
"The blood, the water... and the spirit... these three agree."
Again, I bid you all peace!
A slave of Christ,
SA
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Leolaia
Forgive me for taking this off-topic again, but the depth of dishonesty in Bushby's essay is staggering. Just as in his ironically-titled The Bible Fraud, Bushby never ceases to amaze with his duplicitous citing of sources. Consider this ludicrous passage:
At the end of that time, Constantine returned to the gathering to discover that the presbyters had not agreed on a new deity but had balloted down to a shortlist of five prospects: Caesar, Krishna, Mithra, Horus and Zeus (Historia Ecclesiastica, Eusebius, c. 325). Constantine was the ruling spirit at Nicaea and he ultimately decided upon a new god for them. To involve British factions, he ruled that the name of the great Druid god, Hesus, be joined with the Eastern Saviour-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ), and thus Hesus Krishna would be the official name of the new Roman god. A vote was taken and it was with a majority show of hands (161 votes to 157) that both divinities became one God. Following longstanding heathen custom, Constantine used the official gathering and the Roman apotheosis decree to legally deify two deities as one, and did so by democratic consent. A new god was proclaimed and "officially" ratified by Constantine (Acta Concilii Nicaeni, 1618).
Here Bushby cites two historical sources as supporting his claim that the council of Nicæa involved the selection of the god for a new state religion. He actually has the temerity to cite Eusebius' Historia Ecclesiastica as his source for the claim that the bishops meeting at Nicæa "had not agreed on a new deity but had ballotted down to a shortlist of five prospects: Caesar, Krishna, Mithra, Horus, and Zeus". Notice that he doesn't actually give a proper citation with chapter and section numbers. But you can read the entire work here. In fact, there is nothing about the council in it, for it was completed in AD 323 or 324 just prior to the convening of the council. But go ahead and read Bushby's supposed source anyway, for it clearly demonstrates that — contrary to Bushby's inane claims — Jesus Christ was not a new deity created at the council but was central to the Church all along. The second source that Bushby cites in support of his claim that a "new god" was ratified at the council is the Acta Concilii Nicaeni. Notice that he fails to name the author, give a section or paragraph reference, and he cites an extremely obscure edition. WorldCat shows that this is the narrative of the council written by Gelasius Cyzicenus in the fifth century AD, and Bushby is citing the edition published by Coloniae Agrippinae in 1618. Since this book has never been translated into English (but here is an edition from 1599 with the Greek and Latin text), this is a prime source for Bushby to claim whatever he wants to claim about it with little risk of discovery. But Roger Pearse has read it and affirms that it describes the Nicene council as concerned with the Arian dispute and has "no reference to decisions about books of the Bible". With no proper citation given, the burden is on Bushby to show what passage in Gelasius Cyzicenus supposedly refers to the ratification of a "new god" at Nicæa.
Now Bushby also refers to a second work of Eusebius, the one that is actually concerned with the council. His first citation is to: "Life of Constantine, attributed to Eusebius Pamphilius of Caesarea, c. 335, vol. iii, p. 171". This work is easily accessible online, such as here. But the citation is a worthless one. He doesn't state what edition or publication the volume and page number refers to. It could pertain to any published version. The proper way to cite Eusebius is by the book and section number. This is like quoting from the Bible, say the book of Isaiah, p. 597, without saying of which translation one is citing the page number. It couldn't have been in the NPNF series that Bushby next cites, for that would be Vol. 1 in series II. And the reference to Ambrose in that NPNF citation is also incoherent since the volume on Ambrose was in Vol. 10, not Vol. 4. And the word "maddened" in Bushby's quotation is not found in any published version of the Life of Constantine available on Google. The second reference to the Life of Constantine in Bushby's article has another specific quote:
According to Eusebeius (260-339), Constantine noted that among the presbyterian factions "strife had grown so serious, vigorous action was necessary to establish a more religious state", but he could not bring about a settlement between rival god factions (Life of Constantine, op. cit., pp. 26-8). His advisers warned him that the presbyters' religions were "destitute of foundation" and needed official stabilization (ibid.).
Here Bushby claims that Eusebius' Life of Constantine discusses the dispute between "rival god factions" at Nicæa. This is BS as would be clear to anyone who reads the book (which I have linked above). So what is the source of the quotation that Bushby gives? He quotes from a 1996 republication of Dean Dudley's 1886 book History of the First Council of Nice: A World Christian Convention A.D. 325, With A Life of Constantine. This edition was published by Health Research Books of Pomeroy, Washington. The volume by Dudley is actually a sober history of the Nicene council complemented with a translation of the Life of Constantine by Eusebius. But Bushby does not quote from the Life of Constantine like he claims. He quotes from the forward added to the 1996 republication. The foreward in this peculiar edition states:
"The two chief Gods of the day were the Hindu Krishna of the east and the Druidic God Hesus of the west. The deceived peoples knew not that both had originated as Sun Gods and were worshipped as such for centuries before the cunning priesthood had slyly transformed them into persons. The bishops of Krishna grew worried by the waves of increasing doubt and skepticism regarding Krishna that filtered into the rank of file of their followers from the supporters of Hesus. Each faction proclaimed that its God was the oldest and the only true God. By 324 A.D. the strife had grown so serious that vigorous action was necessary to establish a more peaceful religious state. This was the religious condition of the Roman Empire in the 4th Century A.D., some 300 years after the alleged death of the gospel Jesus....The burning question which the Nicean Council was called to settle, was whether the Hindu Krishna should prevail over the Druidic Hesus".
What is especially dishonest is that the name of the author is clearly and unmistakably given at the end of the forward (p. 3) as Hilton Hotema. According to Wikipedia, this is the pen name of George R. Clements who "authored numerous books on dietetics, fasting, fruitarianism, breatharianism, vitality, cellular regeneration, longevity, higher consciousness, spirituality, alternative medicine and ancient wisdom, published by Health Research Books, Washington". Bushby dishonestly portrays his quote from Clements as if it came from Eusebius. And check out the first quote I gave above, the one with the citation from the Historia Ecclesiastica. The nonsense in that paragraph about the compromise between the Druid Hesus and the Hindu Krishna comes straight out of Clements. Note too that Bushby's fake citation gives a pagination of pp. 26-28 that corresponds to Dudley's essay and could not possibly pertain to Clements' brief forward of three-pages' length.
As one final instance of Bushby's bogus citing of references, consider this:
Dr Richard Watson (1737-1816), a disillusioned Christian historian and one-time Bishop of Llandaff in Wales (1782), referred to them as "a set of gibbering idiots" (An Apology for Christianity, 1776, 1796 reprint; also, Theological Tracts, Dr Richard Watson, "On Councils" entry, vol. 2, London, 1786, revised reprint 1791). From his extensive research into Church councils, Dr Watson concluded that "the clergy at the Council of Nicaea were all under the power of the devil, and the convention was composed of the lowest rabble and patronized the vilest abominations" (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.)....It was at that puerile assembly, and with so many cults represented, that a total of 318 "bishops, priests, deacons, subdeacons, acolytes and exorcists" gathered to debate and decide upon a unified belief system that encompassed only one god (An Apology for Christianity, op. cit.).
Maybe Bushby was counting on the obscurity of this old work to attribute whatever he wanted to it, but unfortunately for him it is scanned and fully OCR'd by Google Books. Check out the 1776 edition that Bushby cites here. Go ahead and see for yourself whether the quotes Bushby gives are contained therein. It doesn't take too long to peruse through the book. Or you may search for words like "gibbering", "idiots", "clergy", "Nicaea", "devil", "convention", "composed", "rabble", "patronized", "vilest", "abominations", "bishops", "priests", "deacons", "subdeacons", "acolytes", and "exorcists" in the search bar on the left of the screen.
These are just a few examples. I could mention many others I have noticed in that brief essay, but I think this is sufficient to make the point to BEWARE of using secondary or tertiary sources, especially those making outlandish, unhistorical claims which are not properly sourced to genuine primary sources. This is similar the kind of dishonesty we have seen displayed by the Society, but I don't think the Society has ever gone so far as fabricating non-existent sources.
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wobble
"I don't think the society has ever gone so far as fabricating non-existent sources"
Maybe you are not being over-generous in your estimate of their honesty, dear Leolaia, but I have my doubts about the non-cited "many scientists believe" or "a number of experts say" etc.
And in the non-scholarly area I have extreme doubt as to the questions in the WT's QFR section ever being genuine.
But, back on topic, it has been a good thread as to get this clear in ones mind is vital when talking to the muddle-headed JW's who think that an atonement, or as Chazzer Russell loved to write it, an AT-ONE-MENT, with God can only be achieved by slavishly following the GB of the Wt Org.
The Bible's clear teaching is that Jesus is The Way, The Truth and The Life, and the ONLY way to the Father, and being at one with Him, is through Christ.
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Leolaia
Hi wobble...I agree. But "many scientists believe" is a vaguery whereas "God's Book of Eskra, Prof. S. L. MacGuire's translation, Salisbury, 1922, chapter xlviii, paragraphs 36, 41" is a very specific turd of bullshit. That's an actual citation of a (probably imaginary) source whereas "many scientists believe" is not.
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ProdigalSon
Thanks Leo!
I appreciate your pointing out Bushby's literary dishonesty. It's important for everyone to know the truth. In light of this, its obvious to me that Bushby is a Vatican shrill, lying and trumping up what went on at Nicea to make it appear as if EVERY ACCUSATION against them is a lie, and they were actually doing something a little more benevolent for humanity. It doesn't take one iota of their guilt away. It doesn't matter WHEN they finalized their canon, it only matters that they carefully selected only the books they could build their evil empire around, after making all the necessary changes, redactions and interpolations. Over the centuries SINCE then, they have made THOUSANDS of more changes to the "Word of God".
~PS
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AGuest
It doesn't matter WHEN they finalized their canon, it only matters that they carefully selected only the books they could build their evil empire around, after making all the necessary changes, redactions and interpolations. Over the centuries SINCE then, they have made THOUSANDS of more changes to the [so-called] "Word of God".
Amen... and amen.
Peace to you all.
A slave of Christ,
SA