Implications of Dropping "Types/Anti-Types"

by Antioch 39 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Antioch

  I've seen this part of the AGM folded in with other topics and poked around, but no really critical discussion of the implications.
  
  The hermenuetics of the type/anti-type practice was a big deal to me in realizing the TATT. I searched high and low for a rational basis for concluding that God was communicating in a type/anti-type format that wasn't special pleading and circular. Delving into Protestant and Catholic hermeneutics yielded heavy discussions on "second fulfillments" and "sensus plenior" concepts. But really I could find no foundation for believing that was how God was "writing" the Bible; that he "said" this but he REALLY meant that. It was hogwash and way over-complicated. And so, since the modern FDS groundwork was based on it, the religion crumbled in front of my eyes. I felt like I finally disrobed Franz and found out there was nothing under there. He was the Bernie Madoff of Biblical intellectualism and the grand experiment to apply rational thinking to the Bible was a big failure.
  
  So. You better minds. With the fall of types/anti-types, what doctrines just lost their columns and fell down? It feels like Splane just casually wiped away a MAJOR piece of their doctrinal puzzle as if it was no big deal. Can the "gentile times" concept survive without typology? Can pinpointing a prophesied FDS group survive? What other JW proof texts just got demolished?

  What are the implications of this type/anti-type change?
• 

  average joe

  Did you hear something about antitypes at the annual meeting?
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  Antioch

  Hi Joe,

  Yes, this was taken from the AGM Highlights thread:

  Speaker: David Splane

  TYPES AND ANTI-TYPES

  Type: representation of something that will happen in the future (tabernacle/copper serpent Jn 3:14,15)

  Anti-type: the reality (the temple)

  Why do our publications no longer refer to types? Who decides this?

  Only if a type is referred to specifically in the bible then we refer to it. Scholars have tried to make types of bible accounts.

  Our aim is to look for practical application. We Cannot go beyond what is written, Romans 15:4 "For all the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope.

  End of quote
• 

  EdenOne

  Soooooooo ... will this preclude some "new light" that the "sign of the last days" was, after all, only for the first century, and no future second fulfillment is warranted from the text? I wonder ....

  Eden
• 

  Londo111

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/279533/1/Rumor-New-light-comes-from-outside-marketing-consultants

  I've already added this to another thread, but I do wonder if it lends credence to the rumor in the above link: that after ramping up 1914 for the 100-year spectacular, what they are really doing is maneuvering to drop it altogether in a few years.

  If this is what they are doing and this happens, say around 2017 once they’ve moved into their new HQ, I will take that as evidence two things:

  (1) The leaders of the Watchtower are not mere captives of a concept…they know exactly what they are doing and employing intentional deception. It’s 100% of business and their main concern is to protect that business.

  (2) The GB are not the real leaders of the Watchtower.
• 

  Apognophos

  Well, all they're really saying is that they won't read a type/antitype into a passage if it's not "warranted". This gives them plenty of license to still see types/antitypes where they want to. They're not dropping the concept of types/antitypes, just telling us that they're moving away from F. Franz's antitypophilia.
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  OneEyedJoe

  While I certainly won't claim to have a "better mind" than yours - I think this is just the next step on the path of dumbing down the religion. They've realized that doing such deep analysis of the bible is a mine field these days since it can easily be shown to be false. It also would encourage independant study of the bible, which they don't want (only independent study of WT magazines!). By sticking to a simpler message, they no longer intimidate the idiots in the flock with a bunch of stuff they can't understand, and they stop shoving so much obviously absurd doctrine in the faces of the few that are smart enough to work it all out if they're pushed to do so.

  It's also important that they dumb things down since they seem to be in a shortage of "qualified" brothers to be used as elders/ms/etc. The ones that are there, are mostly idiots that couldn't explain any of the more complex doctrine without reading it straight from an app. If they get rid of the complicated doctrine and pare it down to a more managable "obey the FDS or you'll (soon) die at armageddon" then they don't have to worry about finding elders that have two brain cells to rub together.
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  Apognophos

  It's religion by idiocracy
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  donuthole

  I believe that they are laying the ground work to jetison 1914 and probably the FDS doctrine.
  
  Check the new literature, talks, JW Broadcast, there seems to be a very deliberate use of the term "Governing Body" instead of the "Faithful Slave".
  
  The new, flashy, modern JW.ORG religion will serve as visible proof of Jehovah's favor on the Governing Body.
  
  I believe that just as Mormomism is the template for the religioun's overhaul, that the Quorum of Twelve is the concept behind the new form of the Governing Body.
• 

  St George of England

  About half of my congregation use the "Simplified WT" and this includes elders and their families.

  There is no way they could cope with any of the old Franz publications on prophesy and types etc. Even my wife says "How would they cope with old Babylon book?"

  George