by cofty 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
If a book is not written in your language, it can be quite dull and confusing.
Clearly, Jesus had special meanings for his own and outsiders were to look on in amazement and see nothing. So the Bible is not meant to be understood by everyone.
Whether you enjoy the bible or not might depend a lot on what you expect to get out of it. The phone book isn't meant necessary to be read from cover to cover. It's a reference work. So is the Bible.
Lorenzo,
You are speaking of the New Testament.
While Jews never expected their Scriptures to be read independent of their religion, it should be interesting to note the differences on some of the points you mention:
1. The Hebrew Scriotures were written to be understood.
2. Revelations from God are intended to be public, including written ones.
3. Secret codes or hidden meanings in messages violate the intention of public revelation.
One of the most significant reasons Jews did not accept Jesus as the Messiah was his repeated habit of teaching in parables specifically designed to hide revelations from direct public consumption. According to Jewish Law, prophets had to be like Moses to be authentic who himself never spoke in such riddles. Secondly Jesus' own disciples claimed that the Jewish texts were filled with hidden meanings kept secret from the Jews, and again like Moses' own works, written revelations had to be for general public consumption, not for future generations that would consist of people separated from Israel.
However it is curious that Christians make pledge to a text that is not meant for everybody to understand while Jews, though admitting it often takes a step into our culture to comprehend, believe the underlying message in Scripture can be accessible to anyone, even Gentiles despite the fact that the texts were not prepared for their immediate comprehension.
I often say the bible is an interesting piece of literature to be polite and not offensive but don't really mean it.
Buutttttt what I really mean is...read it...meh! Couldn't care less.
Postscript:
My above comments are not meant to discourage Christians or others from accepting their own beliefs or to claim that their approach is definitively incorrect. I am merely attempting to contrast the approaches to revelation in the texts and how they are used.
Some Christians view Scripture as a reference work, as Lorenzo mentioned, instead of also a liturgical text like Jews and Catholics, and though this might be different from the intention behind the Jewish composers of many of the works it does reveal a great respect and high regard for a text they view as worthy of their own in-depth study on their part.
2. Revelations from God are intended to be public, including written ones.
That’s why the book of Revelation should never have been accepted as being from God.
(Revelation 9:7-10) . . .And the likenesses of the locusts resembled horses prepared for battle; and upon their heads [were] what seemed to be crowns like gold, and their faces [were] as men’s faces, 8 but they had hair as women’s hair. And their teeth were as those of lions; 9 and they had breastplates like iron breastplates. And the sound of their wings [was] as the sound of chariots of many horses running into battle. 10 Also, they have tails and stings like scorpions; and in their tails is their authority to hurt . . .
I don't believe it's fair to characterize the bible as a terrible piece of literature. The bible certainly has its flaws and certainly isn't divinely inspired and it certainly isn't a remarkably good source for moral enlightenment.
But viewed purely as a literary work of art, the bible is actually good. You can't judge the literary quality of the bible based on English translations. You have to look at the writing in the source text - Hebrew. It is actually a good work of Hebrew literature.
I think the mistake is to view the bible as one book. Of course it isn't. A few books in the bible are interesting - personally I enjoy reading Job, Ruth, Ecclesiastes ..
The vast majority of books are dreadful, tedious and repetitive. The point of the article is that all you have to do to reassure yourself that it is not inspired by a supernatural deity is to read the thing.
Ask yourself what a book written by god would look like and compare it to the "good book". Inspiration is indefensible.
The early christians began to fabulate like the apocalytic jewish prophets, perhaps they did it even better?
There were streams withing the church that were chiliastic, John wrote the apocalypse, revelation,..especially in times of persecution people liked those stories.
But a end time hystery like in a cult was not the church's general attitude, i think.
I thinke one reason that the church did not put so strong meaning to the bible reading for all christians was, that the bible would after the end of the antique time in the western world not be understood easily at all anymore.
Later the protestant reformation and some single wolfes rediscovered the bible and got overexegerated of the apocalpytic pictures and thought to understand it literally is super. then came the mormons, the adventists and the messianic jews and all are so fascintated of the literal meanings and second fulfilmments. OMG.
@TheWomderofYou
The reason why the Catholic Church did not place strong emphasis on reading Scripture is that they viewed it as Jews do, mainly a liturgical text and not as Marcion of Sinope did, who started the whole canon controversy. Marcion upheld the Gnostic teachings that Scriptures were to be used as "proof" texts. In a liturgical religion Scripture is not so much read individually as proclaimed to you and used for your prayer.
It was one of those things that shocked me greatly upon leaving the Watchtower and I began studying to become a philologist: I had no idea what "liturgy" was and why it was so important. It instantly made me realize how stupid and unprepared for Biblical academia I was upon leaving the JWs, and more determined than ever to learn.
JWs don't have a liturgy like the Jews or first century Christians, and of course there is no liturgical calendar. Texts began to be saved and included in the various canons not so much due to Jews or Christians reading straight through them, but because the texts had portions used in proclamation during liturgical acts. If it were not for the Christians copying the liturgical paradigm for their services, the New Testament would have mainly been up in the air for it was largely decided by what was used for the liturgical readings.
You also cannot judge these texts as if they were meant to live in the vacuum that the Witnesses place them in. The Scriptures were meant to be read as liturgy, prayed as liturgy, and never meant to be used divided from liturgy or its liturgical settings.
CalebinFloroda:
Read about that too, very good commented, many formulas or texts that look to be "orginally" biblical were used
before in service and sayings.
The Revelation of John e.g. was not intended to bo read personally at home but was intended to be read in service as upbuilding hope.
I remember that I read that somewhere in the 2 Gonzales' Explaination of Johns Revelation: Do you know it?
