Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?

Simon

When I was a kid, it seemed like not a meeting went by when you didn't hear about Jonah or Sampson and other tall tales from the bible.

Now though, they seem to have been sidelined. I guess the rest of the world caught on to the fact that these stories couldn't possibly be true and were so far fetched (yeah, even by bible standards) that they are just treated as 'stories' like Aesop's fables. Saying that you believe in them as genuine accounts just makes you look like a crazy zealot.

But the WTS is different. They threw their hat into the "bible is 100% literal and true" ring a long time ago so they can't now say "erm, yeah, it's just a story" because ... well, how many others are just (bad) stories to make a questionable moral point? (hint: it's all of them)

Why are they unbelievable?

Who genuinely believes that someone spent days living inside of a fish?! Even kids don't believe that happened to pinochio.

And Sampson ... what a curious and completely unbelievable story. Never mind the fact that he supposedly killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers with his bare hands and a 'jaw bone' but we're supposed to believe that once the people who suffered these crushing defeats (who strangely weren't immediately conquered by their neighbours) found out the secret of his super-human power secret that was .... having long hair (WTF?!) what did they then do?

THEY LET HIS HAIR GROW BACK ?!?!

Really? They couldn't assign one guy with the important instruction: You shave his head EVERY DAY you understand? That guy grows his hair back and we're all toast ...

It's a rediculous story and nothing more than a tall tale. Today we call it comic book fiction and it is entertaining so Victor Mature would be the Robert Downey 'Iron Man' of his day. But no one believes it could ever be true.

Except certain religious groups who once decided it was and so now can never admit it wasn't.

What do you think? Are certain sections of the bible now off limits for discussion? How does that fit in with the mantra that ALL scripture is INSPIRED and BENEFICIAL?

What other tall tales am I missing? Talking donkeys? Child-killing bears? Towers reaching up to heaven?

What a bunch of laughable nonsense.

Comatose

I used to beleive that stuff! Add in the fiery chariot coming down from heaven and carrying Elijah away. It's real!

The angel killed 185k enemy soldiers ONE time, but all the others the people had to fight their own battles and die too.

The sun stood still as in the earth stopped moving so they could fight.

Simon

Yeah, one angel could kill 185k soldiers in one night and the next one can't wrestle free from a wrinkly old prophet all night and has to put his hip out to get free.

Rediculous stories with no consistency and like most everything else in the bible, they make no sense when you think about them for more than 3 seconds.

Terry

The best way for me to understand the Bible as a product of human imagination (or lack of) is to recognize how analog Jehovah is.

Yes, analog.

In Eden Jehovah is actually walking around in the breezy part of the day.

What an odd detail! But-importantly, it is the product of an analog mind.

The only way Jehovah can prevent something like humans banding together to build a tower--the ONLY WAY He, the Almighty, can stop it is

to confuse languages. Is that Jedi Mind Trick, or what?

Hey--Jehovah, how about this? How about, while you're tinkering around inside human brains re- wiring and interfering with "freedom of choice", how about you tweak the frontal lobes a bit and simply bring about correct decision making ability instead?

But, no. Analog thinking from a human writer spoills it.

Angels have to kill using swords. Analog thinking.

Jehovah, if better written by human thinkers, could have merely remotely caused any consequence without resort to angelic agency. But, no.

To destroy the wicked and the giants and the rebellion of angels, old analog Jehovah has to do what? He has to make it rain. Analog drowning makes a really whopper of a tale. But, so wasteful!!

What about millions of floating dead bodies of humans and animals afterward? No mention of the cholera epidemic and rotting flesh--huh?

On and on and on, the Bible reads like Rudyard Kipling's JUST SO stories and not divine thought at all.

My guess is most of these stories were made up as bedtime stories and very naive, simple-minded and uneducated people began taking them seriously.

Just So Stories - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"How the Whale Got His Throat" — why the big whale eats such small prey.
"How the Camel Got His Hump" — how the idle camel was punished and given a hump.
"How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin" — why rhinos have folds in their skin and bad tempers.
"How the Leopard Got His Spots" - why leopards have spots.
"The Elephant's Child/How the Elephant got his Trunk" — how the elephant's trunk became long.
The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo — how the kangaroo turned from a grey, woolly animal with short, stubby legs, to one with long legs and tail
"The Beginning of the Armadillos" — how the hedgehog and the turtle transformed into the first armadillos.
"How the First Letter Was Written" — introduces the only characters who appear in more than one story, a family of cave-people, called Tegumai Bopsulai (the father), Teshumai Tewindrow (the mother), and Taffimai Metallumai, (the daughter). Explains how Taffimai delivered a picture message to her mother.
"How the Alphabet Was Made" — Taffy and her father invent the earliest form of the alphabet.
"The Crab That Played with the Sea" — explains the ebb and flow of the tides
"The Cat That Walked by Himself" — the longest story, explains how man domesticated all the wild animals except for the cat.
"The Butterfly That Stamped" — how Solomon rid himself of troublesome wives, and saved the pride of a butterfly.
"The Tabu Tale" (missing from most British editions; first appeared in the Scribner edition in the U.S. in 1903)

Finkelstein

I think overtime the writing editors of the WTS. thought it would be better to try and focus on the bible's tangible capabilities of prophesying modern current events rather than

the assuming aspects of its mythological fictional story telling, thereby bringing more importance and relevancy to what they were publishing.

Most bible propagators try to dismiss the more obvious fictional side of the writings of the bible intensionally which could inevitably create the realization that the writers were

NOT god's words at all or inspired by god but written solely by men's other intentions of creating power and relevance to their own specific god of worship.

Religion is mostly a game of power and money and the most important part of this game is creating aspects of believability, without believability you acquire no power or money.

Billy the Ex-Bethelite

But the Bible HAS to be 100% true!

How would JWs react if they faced reality?

confusedandalone

I aways found it funny that bible god allowed Samson to capture 200 foxes... which would take an immense amount of time and tehn tie their tails together with a torch inbetween. Thenthey all ran in unison directly at the guys to the point they thought it was an army of men. So how long were these foxes tails.

How did he get them to sit still.

Did no one see this mad man doing this

When he lit these torches how fast did he do it. Were the foxes tied together just chilling waiting for the command to run as these incindiary devices were burning inches from thier faces.

Why didnt the torches burn out?

Did he place them in a giant cae and then open the door at once.

How many fraking questions arise in the minds of an individual who isn't mind controlled?

If we could just apply these types of thinking to every event in the bible it would help us to see just who on this planet is easily persuaded and deal with them accordingly

OnTheWayOut

To me, it seems the WTS always takes a completely different stance on most Bible issues.

1. Is the Bible very literal?
2. Is the Bible allegory and symbolism?

WTS says a combination of both- Yes, Samson had a trick haircut and what is written is literal, but it symbolized Samson's dedication as a Nazerite (or whatever, please correct me, current Bible experts) and how he let his guard down in some way comparible to a JW letting the world tempt them away from WTS. It wasn't REALLY just the haircut, but how he gave in to temptation from "the world."

Yes, bears killed the children for yelling "Baldy" but it represents how we must respect Jehovah's mouthpiece or some gobble-dee-gook like that.

WTS takes the Bible to be literal and symbolic at the same time.

Now, they write less and less about these things and focus on more upbeat stuff. I think the biggest reason is that the writers don't have the imagination (nor the balls) of someone like Freddy Franz. They just cannot come up with 18 paragraphs on subjects like how the ancient Bible points to modern JW's like that anymore.

J. Hofer

you fools. anything is possible for the creator of the universe.

bohm

ON a similar vein, it seems like they gave up on noahs ark about 20 years ago. Sure it still happened, but no details..

Is the WTS backing away from "Bible Tall Tales" ?

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