I can't remember. Don't really care, just something that popped up in my head. To all the people who are going, I feel sorry for you... ;) I have not set foot in a KH in YEARS!!!
Is the Memorial on Nisan 14 after sundown in Israel or whatever country it is held in?
by sinis 11 Replies latest jw experiences
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anezthy
Your question is very interesting. I have always wondered about this other inconsistency: If one JW passenger is flying on a jet plane with 350 other worldly passengers over the Atlantic Ocean and Armagedeon begins and the pilot and other passengers are cut into death.... what happens to the single JW passenger as the jet plummets towards the ocean? Will an angel give him a parachute? Will there be a life raft waiting for him on the ocean? Will Armagedeon only happen when there are no Jets flying? And don't get me started on what happens to a JW undergoing open heart surgery and the crap hits the fan. I have to remember this the next time they come knocking on my door.
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Glander
The Memorial of Christs death is not a big holiday among Jews.....
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sinis
...true, but if we go according to the scripture we get an absolute location, ie Israel.
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OnTheWayOut
I don't bother to look anything up in any WT publications, so someone else will have to answer.
But I imagine the Governing Body members all wear these t-shirts under their shirts, so I suppose it's based on where they are:
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WTWizard
As much as some things do matter, doing things by Isarel standards is moot if you are not in Israel. You might, for instance, be able to get guidance on celebrating things by looking at how they used to do it before 4000 BCE. Many of our festivals date 10,000 years ago--though corrupted and fractured by culture-destroying religions (the Big Three are all responsible). While we are not living then, they still carry significance today.
However, this is not true in terms of location. A tradition in Israel could be based on Israel time, and would be ruined if you try to do it Israel time in some foreign country. Trying to assume Nisan 14 as when the full moon appears in Israel is as much a disaster as trying to fish in Hawaii or New Zealand based on Greenwich Mean Time. For optimal results, they need to adjust to local time in matters like that, as conditions found in Israel now will not appear in Hawaii for another 12 hours.
Nor do I believe that one should be focused solely on those maps of Israel. Places do change with time--cities are remodeled, towns are built and torn down, and even the land itself can be altered. One good earthquake is all it takes to obliterate an island or small peninsula (or one good cyclone). Not to mention that, unless you are in that land, those maps are worthless. Don't believe me? Try finding your way around Auckland for the first time with nothing but a map of Jerusalem. I bet you will find yourself lost.
Which is more than can be said about gods and goddesses, which do not go out of date with time. As science catches up with religion, their workings are more readily understood. Once science advances to the point of exploring more than our 3 dimensions, much of what these legends will be understood. And, as science and technology advance to the point where they can measure and directly observe what goes on in the astral plane, we will have definitive proof of what happens after death, and the absolute truth will come to light. Now, if only Christi-SCAM-ity would have kept out of things, we might have proof right now--and definitive answers as to whether things should be observed Israel time or local.
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moggy lover
You have put your finger on an interesting and perplexing problem which concerns the interpreting of the one text in the OT which nails the time of the Passover. Is it to be observed on the 14th evening of Nisan, or the 15th?
The problem text is Lev 23:5, and the ambiguous reference to "between the evenings". Which evenings? Does it mean the evening of the 14th of Nisan when the Passover lamb is to be eaten [as the Watchtower proposes]? If it is so, then the lamb would have had to killed on the afternoon of the previous day, ie, Nisan 13.
Or does it mean the evening of Nisan 15th? If it does, it must mean that the Passover lamb, would then have to be killed on the afternoon of the 14th and eaten on the evening of the 15th.
The answer is both obtuse and prolix, and remains virtually incomprehensible, especially to someone only marginally interested in the subject. Suffice it to say that Israel, as do most Jews all over the world, eat the Passover lamb on the evening of 15th Nisan, the day [or rather, evening] after that of the Memorial observance of the Watchtower and its followers.
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Disillusioned Lost-Lamb
Good Question.
Doesn't matter though, witlesses are doing it all wrong anyway.
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Leolaia
moggy lover....That is the question discussed in my thread on the subject (http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/209120/1/Why-the-Memorial-Is-Held-on-the-Wrong-Day). The lambs could not have been slain on the afternoon of Nisan 13, as per Exodus 12:6 which directs that the lambs are to be slaughtered on the fourteenth of the month. And the eating of the Passover meal in the early hours of Nisan 15 is indicated in Numbers 33:3, for the Israelites departed Egypt in haste the same night as the tenth plague (Exodus 12:29-39, Deuteronomy 16:3). The idiom "between the evenings" simply meant late afternoon; the biblical references show that it referred to a time shortly before the start of the new day at sunset, the Septuagint renders it by the Greek word meaning "afternoon", the book of Jubilees (second century BC) understands it to refer to the late afternoon before sunset, and Josephus stated that the "between the evenings" Tamid sacrifice occurred between 3-4 pm and the "between the evenings" Passover sacrifice occurred between 3-5 pm.
And btw the Society does not argue that the lambs are slaughtered in the afternoon of Nisan 13 and the meal is eaten early on the 14th. They deny that the lambs were slain in the afternoon at all (which is contrary to all the biblical and historical evidence). They claim that the lambs were slain immediately at the start of Nisan 14 (just after sundown) and then the meal eaten right after that. Placing the meal early on Nisan 14 is problematic because it would mean that instead of leaving Egypt that night in haste (without time to even cook the dough), the Israelites would have to wait around a whole day until the next sundown. Actually though the Society ignores what is written in Numbers 33:3 ("The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month") and declares instead that the "Israelites left Egypt on the night of Nisan 14, 1513 B.C." (1 August 1963 Watchtower, p. 478; cf. 15 June 1965 Watchtower, p. 368; 15 March 1973 Watchtower, p. 175; 15 August 2001 Watchtower, p. 17). Oops.
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Quarterback
Num 33.3
And they proceeded to pull away from Ram′e·ses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month. Directly the day after the passover the sons of Israel went out with uplifted hand before the eyes of all the Egyptians
That's interesting, Leo. This is what the NWT is quoting for that verse. Did this get altered?
