Who Did The Early Church Call Upon? Jesus or Jehovah?

by JCISGOD98 46 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  Why was Jesus begging in Gethsemane? Who was he begging? Why was he sweating blood?

  Jesus was pleading. He was importuning...even groveling.

  Does the greater beg the lesser?

  No, we all know the story.

  Jesus is very weak and human in Gethsemane. He was terrified in his prayer to his father.

  If he ever needed comfort and assurance he needed it right then and there.

  All of his disciples were sound asleep. They had been told to keep on the watch. But, they fell asleep anyway.

  Who is the reporter on the scene in this incident?

  Who was there watching?

  Who was listening to each and every word copying it down or memorizing it?

  Why was not one word of comfort or assurance spoken by Jesus' Father at that critical moment? An angel is inserted into the story at one point to comfort him, but, his Father does not speak.

  Is this incident in Gethsemane an eyewitness account or a fictional reconstruction after the fact?

  Why do I insert these questions at this juncture in the discussion?

  Simply to bring everybody's focus back to a salient point which cannot be ignored.

  You cannot FIGURE OUT the early church or what they did or said without reliable records with a solid provenance.

  We just don't have that with our Jesus stories.

  These were told word-of-mouth. Some of them might contain excellent details and some are probably entirely fictional.

  We don't know and can't know.

  We have to grit our teeth and pretend really hard we have anything at all that passes the sniff test.

  If you simply WILL yourself to accept and believe--that's okay. But, why also pretend you can PROVE any of it?

  Jehovah's Witnesses have an agenda they push and a BRAND NAME to promote.

  Take note! In the very SAME WAY JW's insert "Jehovah" into the mouths of these Jesus' story characters forcing them to sound like JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, early redactors and copyists were JUST AS FREE to do the same with their OWN agendas!

  A hundred years from now the NWT might survive some natural catastrophe of history. What forced conlusions will future historians argue over?

  What conclusions will they form holding their green bible?
• 

  Band on the Run

  Terry,

  I've often wondered how the story developed. Jesus may have recounted the story to the awakened apostles. One can find "truth" in these stories without every element being literally true. The purpose for me is to highlight his humanity. If he were conscious he was God and ruler of the universe, a crucifixion is an easy task.

  Affidavits were not supplied with the gospels. I'm recalling current events in my life that everyone believed - mostly believing the US govt is holy and never lies--. Wikileaks or Woodward and Bernstein bring hidden evidence to light that shows everyone has been fooled. A classic example is villification of the enemy in times of war. Modern day probitive evidence often tells a deceptive truth.

  It is the Bible. They are called gospels, "good news." They were written fairly late to provide a source of propoganda for different areas of the church. Hence, the differences in the gospels. The stories are a heritage. When I read the Upinashads (the Hindu holy books), or Buddhist stories, I see universal human stories. The gospels never pretended to tell unvarnished truth. They can be read at so many levels. If they only worked at a literal level, I believe Christianity would have vanished long ago. Indeed, I see a lot of disputes on this forum b/c one person in good faith reads the gospels broadly and another person in good faith has more of a JW stance. The Bible has so many different genres and contradictory statements. Ancient people were not stupid. All we have is technological improvement. Anyway, this is my viewpoint.
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  Terry

  For my sanity, I try to always sort the historical from the hysterical.

  We can "block in" certain areas and determine shapes and tones and colors about things that happened.

  The Roman civilization kept a lot of detailed records and yet, Jesus is not a blip on their radar! All those people healed, cripples walking, blind seeing again, the dead raised?? If that story got out wouldn't every wealthy Roman within a hundred miles be trying to hire Jesus?

  Some things happened to some people in some order.

  What we have is a slow and steady tidal wave that can be traced back to an impact when a pagan-cum-christian Roman Emperor came down on the side of establishing ORTHODOXY among fanatical believers. That was ground zero.

  The Authority and Power of Rome put an eight cylinder engine under the hood and zooooooom!

  A loud sucking sound was heard around the world as the Church vampired the life's blood out of the secular state for its own propserity and power.

  The rest, as they say, is history.
• 

  LV101

  Chalam --- Always great to see your posts and thanks for the ESV scriptures . . . another Bible I need to order.

  LV101
• 

  Chalam

  Good to see you too LV :)

  Check out the ESV Study Bible-excellent IMHO

  http://www.esvstudybible.org/

  Blessings,

  Stephen
• 

  LV101

  Stephen --- Ditto blessings and thanks for info/link on ESV. Will order today.

  Hope to see you here more.

  LV
• 

  myelaine

  dear Terry...

  you said: "What we have is a slow and steady tidal wave that can be traced back to an impact when a pagan-cum-christian Roman Emperor came down on the side of establishing ORTHODOXY among fanatical believers. That was ground zero.

  The Authority and Power of Rome put an eight cylinder engine under the hood and zooooooom!

  A loud sucking sound was heard around the world as the Church vampired the life's blood out of the secular state for its own propserity and power."...

  christianity became the state religion...rome wasn't "run" by the church as a totalitarian theocracy...no one was killed if they didn't convert...not like earlier when christians were tortured, maimed and killed if they didn't show allegiance to rome...christians also gave to caesar what was his and to God what was His. Jesus didn't tell the centurion to quit his post either.

  love michelle