VM44 asks-
Can someone explain why The Watchtower cannot make up its mind when answer this question?
What is the cause of their going back and forth?
The WTBTS' waffling reflects fundamental contradictions and theological evolution which is seen in the Bible, since Christianity evolved out of Judaism as an off-shoot. There's a contradiction between Matthew and Luke in the account of Sodom, with both recording the same account of Jesus' mentioning Sodom, although Matthew added detail that Luke leaves out and leads to the flip-flops.
However, this is small potatoes, as they're also missing the forest for the trees and trying to baffle readers with theological BS in order to conceal a much BIGGER problem:
ALL of these accounts of judgment (and many others, eg Nineveh is the most obvious example, except it is a town that WASN'T destroyed when everyone repented) rely on the idea of ENTIRE populations of cities being judged by God, based on the COLLECTIVE MERITS of the town's inhabitants (just as Sodom and Gomorrah was). That's hardly consistent with the concept of destruction at Armageddon, where some TOWNS are destroyed and others are saved, i.e. live in a town with a high % of righteous inhabitants, and you get to pet Pandas for an eternity, EVEN IF you're a bad person!
In fact, recall the scene with Abraham negotiating on behalf of the unknown righteous men of Sodom right before it was destroyed, where Abraham negotiated on behalf those he may not have even known, finally getting God to agree to spare Sodom if only 10 righteous men were found inside. The obvious question is, so what would happen if only 9 righteous men were found? Answer: the town would be destroyed, and the merits of the 9 righteous men wouldn't matter!
(I suppose some Christian will claim that God seemingly lacked selective target acquition weaponry at that point, so there was a certain amount of what modern men refer to as 'collateral damage' to be expected when delivering judgment (esp by fire and brimstone!). But that kind of excuse falls on it's face, since as Jesus said, "remember Lot's WIFE": she was turned into a pillar of salt for disobedience with a targeted kill. Ask a rabbi, and they'll tell you ALL ABOUT the doctine of shared responsibility which ancient Jews believed, and one which modern Jews accept.)
The idea of "shared responsibility" is found in the Torah in many OT scriptures, as seen in the "slaughter of the heifer" (Deut 21:3) where the entire community of the town nearest the murder victim had to sacrifice a heifer to avoid sharing in bloodguit for the unpunished murder, if the murderer wasn't found. The idea of offering a scapegoat is another well-known example of a proxy being used to pay the price for everyone inside the community (as is reflected in the idea of Jesus' sacrifice). Heck, even the idea of every Israelite, guilty or not, being vomited from the Promised Land to pay for the sins of the few is well-known to Jews (and Christians alike, who know the OT).
HOWEVER, the idea of collectively judging an ENTIRE CITY conflicted with later Christian theology that held that every individual would be judged based on their OWN merits and works, not based on the sins of their NEIGHBORS. In fact, few readers realize that Genesis clearly says that Lot was NOT spared due to HIS righteousness, but on behalf of his Uncle ABRAHAM'S righteousness! This concept of 'transferrable righteousness' (doctrine of merit) obviously didn't sit well with the author of 2nd Peter, so he had to upgrade Lot from an OT heel to a NT saint, completely ignoring the Genesis author's attempts to suggest Lot was unworthy of salvation on his OWN merits, and thus declared Lot as "righteous".
Hence for the past 1,900 years, Christians have been forced to defend an amoral Lot, since 2nd Peter (widely recognized as a fraudulent author, BTW, the last book to be canonized to the NT and needed to support Christian doctrines, in this way) didn't want to deal with Genesis' uncomfortable doctine of 'transferrable righteousness' which didn't "fit" into Christianity.
BTW, the author of 2nd Peter ALSO engaged in a bit of Torah account scripture-twisting by saying that Noah preached of the need for repentence and salvation, when the Genesis account makes it perfectly clear that God had CONDEMNED the ENTIRE WORLD for destruction, EVEN BEFORE telling Noah of His plans to destroy the Earth with a Flood, and God didn't offer ANY chance for salvation to those who repented (and unlike Abraham, Noah didn't ASK on their behalf: Noah doesn't speak during the entire account, until near the end to deliver the so-called "curse of Ham").
Paul mentions in Hebrews 11 how Noah condemned (damned, i.e. sentenced them to death, as if the trial had already been held in absentia) the ENTIRE WORLD, which once again, apparently didn't sit well with later Christian beliefs of fairness (where everyone should be given a chance to repent, with every individual being judged on their OWN individual merits and offered a chance to accept Jesus in their hearts or die). Hence, a misunderstanding of the Flood and Sodom accounts means JWs are CONDEMNED to contact EVERY individual in the inhabited Earth, even erroneously using the accounts of Noah and Sodom as their examples when NEITHER originally fit; a hasty and sloppy patch job was applied in 2nd Peter, leaving nasty visible scars of the contradictions, as a result.
I've written extensively about BOTH of these issues in articles on my blog (a 3-part article on Lot, and a 2-part article on Noah), even discussing how both lead to JW abuse (eg JWs abuse Genesis to derive their flawed "no blood" policy, JWs abuse the Noah account to force door-to-door preaching).
http://awgue.weebly.com/
Adam
