JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

by Anony Mous 47 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  pistolpete

  Question is why they rejected them, especially since the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates those books were very much in circulation amongst Christians ca 100BC and have to date existed amongst Ethiopian Churches (one of the earliest churches still in existence)

  The men running the WT, (Governing Body, and perhaps others) are not so much interested in finding out what the truth is, but instead more inclined in CREATING THEIR OWN TRUTH.

  A good example of this is their latest teaching regarding "THEIR IDEA" of how the resurrection is going to proceed.

  A gay person that dies gay will be resurrected gay and little by little the gay will be removed depending on his progress in obedience.

  There is no biblical information or other ancient historical references alluding that the resurrection will proceed in such a way.

  Everyone has a certain way of extrapolating information from the past, and this is how these men work in dispensing their theological views upon their members.

  The members love their ideas and continue to support the information they come up with.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Anony Mous, this topic you started is fascinating to me, but I am puzzled by one thing you said. I notice you said "... in circulation amongst Christians ca 100BC ...". Did you instead mean to say ".... in circulation amongst Christians ca 100 AD/CE ..."? Or, are you really saying that Christians existed about 100 years before approximately 4 BC/BCE and thus about 100 years before the time the Bible says Jesus Christ was born?

  A number of books of the Pseudepigrapha (meaning books authored in a false name, at least for those which claim to name the author) and the Apocrypaha were in use by Jews about the time of 100 BC/BCE, but virtually no biblical scholar says anyone back then was a Christian (though some Jews back then had some ideas which are identical with some Christian doctrines).
  

  Readers in general, a number of books are actually Pseudepigrapha and thus are technically not Apocrypha. The Pseudepigraphal books were first written hundreds of years after the time of their alleged authors (the names that the books claim as their authors), and thus could not have been written by their alleged authors.

  For example, "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" is classified by scholars as part of the Pseudepigrapha instead of as part of the Apocrypha. "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" was first written hundreds of years after the times that the patriarchs (according to the Bible) supposedly lived, and thus could not have been written by the patriarchs.

  Sea Breeze, I notice you use the term "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" instead of the term "Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs", but I presume you are talking about what Dr. Ken Johnson (in the title of a number of his books), scholars, and other people call "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs". Am I correct about that?

  Readers in general, especially Sea Breeze, "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" is not classified by biblical scholars as part of the Apocrypha; it is classified by scholars as part of the Pseudepigrapha. It was written in stages and first began to be written hundreds of years after the time that the patriarchs (according to the Bible) supposedly lived, and thus could not have been written by the patriarchs.

  The pre-first century AD/CE fragments which have been found of "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" do not contain any of the Christianity theology contained in the Christian era editions of "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. It is thus uncertain if any of the Christian theology was ever contained in the "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" prior to the first century AD/CE. I know that because I studied that subject to see if such is the case or not. If Dr. Ken Johnson claims that one or more of fragments does contain Christian theology (of kind not found in the Bible) then I would like information about that.
  

  I had first looked into this matter more than 15 years ago when I was still a Christian and I had owned books about the Pseudepigrapha and the Apocrypaha, including a book which contained an English translation of the "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs". [One book I I owned is called "The Lost Books of the Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden".] I read the "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" (at least all of the sections which sound the same as NT Christian theology). From reading that book (translated from Christian era manuscripts/books) I had wondered if the Christian theology contained within it existed prior the first century CE, and if so, if Christianity existed before the human Christ Jesus. If Christianity existed before the alleged birth of Jesus Christ, then it would support the idea that Jesus Christ started out as a cosmic Christ myth and only later came to be believed as a historical human Jesus Christ.
  

  "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" are not classified by biblical scholars as part of the Apocrypha; they are classified by scholars as part of the Pseudepigrapha and they (at least those which claim to name the author) are known to be written in false name. They were first written hundreds of years after the time that the patriarchs (according to the Bible) supposedly lived, and thus could not have been written by the patriarchs.

  slimboyfat, is the person speaking in the YouTube video about Jesus someone who is (or was) one of Jehovah's Witness? I ask that because he uses a number of the Bible verses and arguments/reasonings as the WT.
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  Disillusioned JW

  Correction: In my prior post please feel free to ignore the fourth paragraph and the second to the last paragraph since it is redundant. I had meant to delete them after editing the post but I ran out of time to delete those paragraphs.
  
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  smiddy3

  Good post , I often wondered why the books that were mentioned in the Bible were not included in the Bible canon,?

  Such as the book of Enoch , Jubilees , Jasper , Jasher , Maccabee 1& 2 ,The testament of Noah .?

  Any that I have missed ?

  If the Bible was the word of God and these books were referenced in the Bible ,in my mind there is no reason to exclude them.

  I do remember reading somewhere in WT literature that they recommended reading Maccabees to get a good feel of jewish history.

  Dead Sea Scrolls indicates those books were very much in circulation amongst Christians ca 100BC and have to date existed amongst Ethiopian Churches (one of the earliest churches still in existence)

  That`s the other thing that surprised me ,the WTB&TS could have differed itself from Christendom by including some or all of these books to be more in-line with first Century Christians. ?
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  Disillusioned JW

  BC literally means "Before Christ". smiddy3, do you think there were Christians 100 years before Christ was born, or you believe Christ was born about 100 years before the conventional date of his birth year? Or, if you don't believe in a supernatural Christ, do you think there were Christians about 100 years before the year that the NT Bible says (or implies) Christ was born? If you mean the latter, I think you might be correct in that view.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Correction: I made an error when I said 'Sea Breeze, I notice you use the term "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" instead of the term "Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs" ...'. I meant to say 'Sea Breeze, I notice you use the term "Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs" instead of the term "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" ...'.

  Further information: The vast majority of scholars writing about the Christian era copies of the "Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs" say that the very Christian sounding sections of that book (sections that sound nearly identical to NT wording and which also don't appear in the OT Bible) are additions by Christians to what originally was written only by non-Christian Jews.
  
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  Anony Mous

  @disillusioned:

  Yes, Christianity has existed in some form archeologically speaking at least since ~100BC, there are several books that explore the archeological evidence of the Judaic traditions that eventually become Christianity, some trace back elements like a messianic 'carpenter' to 1000BCE.

  By ~50CE the religion was already well established that it threatened political stability in Rome, hence why Nero persecuted them. The oldest known Pauline letters (which are likely to be copies and edits) date back to ~30CE, according to Paul, he had not heard about Jesus before that and Paul supposedly wrote his letters towards the end of his life when he was already an established Christian "elder", this would effectively put Paul's writings and potentially Paul's own life and death and the spread of Christianity, before the death of Jesus if you accept 1CE = Jesus birth.
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  joey jojo

  It is a fascinating part of bible history.

  Ask a JW who compiled the bible and they will say 'Jehovah'. But the truth is far, far more complicated.

  JW's often cite and mention the Septuagint, which is apparently the version of the OT that the early Christians, including , Jesus would have likely used, however it contains the apocryphal books.

  It would be a nice, romantic idea for the JW's to think that the bible was completed , in full, with Gods backing and widely accepted by the end of the 1st century- but it wasnt. The earliest version of the complete bible that exists, the Codex Sinaiticus, written sometime in the 4th century, had the apocrypha, so , it wasnt complete, according to the JW's own standard, and by the time it was written, Jesus and the apostles were long gone.

  You could argue that the bible, as it is used by JW's , was not completely established until after Martin Luther once again played with the contents of the bible, as others before him had done, in 1534, when he published his protestant version of the bible, although he still didnt view James, Jude, Revelation and Hebrews as deserving to be in the canon.

  For a book that is supposedly inspired and directed by god, humans seem to have had a lot of influence on its contents.
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  Disillusioned JW

  Thanks Anony Mous. What are some of the books you have in mind which "... explore the archeological evidence of the Judaic traditions that eventually become Christianity ..."? Do they include the books by Earl Doherty about his version of the Christ myth theory in which Jesus did not exist as a historical person? Do the books you have in mind also include a book published by American Atheist Press called Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?? Do you believe that pre-first century CE Greek speaking Christians (at least some of them) were calling themselves Chrestians instead of Christians and that the term "Christian" (instead of "Chrestian) was not used in NT manuscripts till after 300 CE?

  The idea that Christianity had existed in some form by ~100BC makes it easier to understand how it could be well established by ~50 CE. In contrast, the idea that it came into existence at ~ 30 CE in Galilee and/or Judea makes it hard to understand how it could be well established by ~50 CE in Rome.

  Your idea that the "... oldest known Pauline letters ... date back to ~30CE ..." is an idea I had never read before. That is because numerous theology books I have (not merely WT ones but high quality influential ones written by people of 'Christendom' [Catholics and Protestants] with degrees in biblical theology) say the first canonical NT letter of Paul was written in about the the year 51 AD (CE). Perhaps began teaching Christianity in ~30 CE but didn't write his first letter to a Christian congregation till ~50 CE, or perhaps no copies of his earliest Christian letters managed to get into the canonical New Testament Bible.
  
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  Anony Mous

  @Disillusioned:

  There is a difference between theology (Bart Ehrman and co) and archeology (a good primer would be The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Archaeology).

  The archeological evidence for a Jesus or a Paul is very scant, no graves, no contemporary accounts at the time, no records. This indicates their existence was already a myth by the time it was written down.

  According to the The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Paul's own conversion was dated to be ~31CE based on the writings, that would put it 3 years before Jesus died if you accept 1CE as the year of his birth. Now most scholars and even the Church now date Jesus' birth to ~3 BCE just to keep everything in line, but there is a lot of compression going on.

  Basically the entire story of Christ and the expansion of the religion to all of Rome has to fit between ~1CE and 70CE with mass-conversion for the stories to make sense. However archeologically speaking, there is simply no evidence of a widespread mass-conversion.

  Most scholars therefore now believe that Christianity was an offspring of Judaism that after the loss of autonomy to the Romans concocted the messiah stories to fill in the gaps of basically where God went and eventually included stories why he allowed the temple to be destroyed. It is believed that the first Jewish rebellions Roman fought (4BCE, when they massacred 2000 messianic Jews) was basically the same group that eventually called themselves Christians.