Think for Yourself: Reform Judaism Uses JW Blood Issue For Shavuot

by David_Jay 87 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  myelaine

  dear David _Jay...

  "You said, "Do not boast over the branches," the Jews that did not accept Jesus as Messiah. "If you," the Christian, "do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root" of natural Israel, "but the root that supports you." Non-Jews are saved only because they believe in a concept that springs from Judaism, the Messiah. They are saved because the get grafted into Israel. Israel is not saved because it gets grafted onto you, Myelaine, at least according to Paul.--Romans 11.16-36."...

  I'm not boasting. I'm not saying that christians are better at interpreting Hebrew scriptures than hebrews. We know what we know because of Hebrew interpretation. What I'm saying is...IF as Jesus says, "If you had believed moses, then you would have believed Me." IS the goal, then neither jew or gentile is in a position to boast. We both need God to open the seals to give clarity to the most beneficial meaning of scripture.

  
  

  The branches are israel the root is the torah. (it is the branches that produce fruit not the trunk or the root, irl) Jesus called Himself the Root AND the offspring of David. The True Vine (and you are the branches). as Paul said, the natural branches will be grafted back into the olive tree to again draw nourishment up from the root ( not the branches).

  
  

  "If Judaism is so "unfaithful" as you, Myelaine put it, why base one's beliefs on the myths and legends of an unfaithful people?"...

  
  I believe that the individual people God inspired to write the bible were tasked with recording God's truth statements. I believe that God had His hand in the books that are included in the bible. Though jewish sages and christians can tease moral lessons etc. from the biblical accounts doesn't mean that these lessons are "of necessity" God inspired truth statements.

  
  

  xo

  
  
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  David_Jay

  Myelaine,

  It is hard to get things across through writing in a forum.

  For instance you got out of what I wrote that I was saying that you are "boasting." That wasn't the point at all.

  I think what is happening is that there is no possible way to explain things when there is no common frame of reference. We are also limited by our reading each other's words without knowing how much we know, how much and where each of us is limited, and the reasons we are in this discussion.

  I'm a Christian of Jewish ancestry, and I am not arguing for the sake of my particular convictions. I am arguing forensically. You might be defending your faith in what you write.

  I am often not emotionally connected to or even personally subscribe to what I write here. Others, I have learned are. This makes it difficult to get points across as there is sometimes a methodological disinterest on my part, but (I am only guessing) you are talking about what you believe, what you hold precious, your life's creed. This is not merely an analytical discussion for you, am I right?

  I cannot tell. I can only say that I am either a very bad writer or something else going on keeps you focused on details that are not a part of my argument. I don't think you are a bad reader, lacking in intelligence or ignorant. On the contrary, I see a very wise person in what you write.

  So something beyond our control is causing a great amount of interference in getting my point across. So I think it better that we just end this and realize that is may not be able to be communicated over the medium of a forum. In my experience we humans tend to project a lot of what is not there in these types of communications, and this can often make comprehension on both sides practically impossible.

  Respectfully yours, DJ
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  myelaine

  I agree that some discussions regarding the corpus of scripture will never be fully "realized" until God grants us eyes to see. Having said that, what Jesus taught about intellectual pursuit of the law and what we think it means (our possessions) may be of little value [to God] if it's not correctly understood and acted upon.(we lack) Mark 10:17-22

  love michelle
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  David_Jay

  And see, that demonstrates how we weren't even discussing the same things. I wasn't discussing Scripture, per se, but what reading something, anything, out of context with its fundamentals leads to. I was not talking about intellectual pursuit of the Law or any of those things you have in mind.

  My argument was along the lines of reading Gone With the Wind while refusing to learn or apply anything about the historical details of the American Civil War to understand it. It just so happens that Torah was being discussed here.

  We weren't even talking apples and oranges. You were talking apples and I was talking fish.
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  David_Jay

  I pushed the "Post Reply" button to early. I meant to add...

  Being objective isn't easy for many, and I am no different. But I do try to standup and argue for things that are right, even if they are things I don't necessarily find appealing, things I would not subscribe to, things which I don't like. Sometimes, I humbly believe, you have to support things outside your comfort zone not because you practice them, but because it is right.

  I cannot say you don't do that, but I have come to understand it is a bit more rare than I ever thought it was for people to take up a side of an argument that they are not personally invested in. This is a new thing for me.
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  TD

  Fisherman,

  Are you saying then that since blood is sacred because blood represent s life, then life is axiomatically more valuable than the blood representing it?

  I'm not comparing blood to property. (Although that argument has been made by some of the more vocal JW apologists on the internet and even at times by the JW parent organization itself.)

  My intent on this thread has simply been to illustrate the impropriety of lifting one law out of an entire body of law and interpreting it outside of the framework in which it was given. Because of the limitations of language, it is not at all unusual for circumstances to create conflicts between two or more individual requirements within any given body of law. This is true in both secular law and Jewish law and I brought up Jesus' reasoning on the Sabbath only to illustrate how those conflicts are ethically resolved.

  God has told you in plain and simple, black and white, clear and unambiguous, easy to understand terms that you cannot cause the death of an innocent human being. This includes acts of omission as well as commission.

  When it comes to the lives of minor children, adults of diminished responsibility and others in your care, on what basis would you refuse transfusion? --Especially in a case of AML or something equally awful where the survival rates of JW patients are dismal? If we were to place God's requirement to preserve life on one side of the scales, what do you have to place on the other side?

  Please don't reflexively reply, "God's Law on Blood." Before you may legitimately include transfusion under the umbrella of biblical prohibitions against eating blood, you would have to demonstrate either a physical, moral, ontological or some other sort of equivalency between two.
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  myelaine

  dear David_Jay...

  The thread opened with "THINK FOR YOURSELF...and judaism teaches QUESTION AUTHORITY". the author of the linked article quotes a rabbi who said that the greatest of moses' achievements is the breaking of the tablets and that when God instructs him to write for himself...the author says, "What does this act signify? It suggests to me that Moses understands that revealed law itself would become an idol, an excuse to relinquish what is most precious in us – our moral autonomy"...

  
  

  What does scripture say the inclination of the heart of man IS toward?

  
  

  Who IS authority?

  
  

  Job 42:1-3...6

  
  
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  David_Jay

  Myelaine,

  If you answer these Scriptural questions for me, then I will believe that your current convictions represent the truth of God. But fail to answer them and it will prove you are on the wrong path:

  1. If the Bible is true, how did the livestock of the Egyptians keep coming back to life during the plagues? In Exodus 9.6 the Bible states that the 5th plague killed all the livestock owned by the Egyptians. Then during the 7th plague in Ex 9.13-26 the Egyptians all of sudden have livestock again, and those who believe that God was bringing the hail bring their livestock in but those who leave them out subject their livestock to death once again. Then, though most of these animals have died before, the firstborn from among them die once more during Passover as stated in Ex 12.29. How could the same livestock die three times?

  2. Mark 7.19 states that Jesus declared "all foods clean," but at Acts 10.14 Peter tells the Lord that he, himself is still eating according to kosher rules and that he in fact still considers some food "unclean." Mark is said to have derived his Gospel account from Peter, yet Peter responds in Acts as if he never heard of Jesus' teaching in Mark. How is this?

  3. Many Christians reject the Book of Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon) which is found in the Catholic canon, but Wisdom 2.12-20 has one of the clearest and detailed prophecies of the rejection of Jesus by the Jewish leaders, including their motives and behavior that led up to his Passion and death. How can this be if it was not inspired? Where did the author get such information on how the Messiah would be rejected?
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  myelaine

  "If you answer these Scriptural questions for me, then I will believe that your current convictions represent the truth of God."...

  lol...really? No request that my answers actually reflect what's taught in scripture? ;)

  
  

  
  

  1. Just because we don't understand how something happened doesn't mean it isn't true. Did the hebrews let the fact that they didn't understand the mechanics of how the sea was parted cloud their belief that it happened?

  
  

  2. Because Jesus answered the pharisees in the midst of eating doesn't mean that He was refering to FOOD entering the mouth. He was answering the question of hand washing. (mark 5:2-3) If His disciples don't wash their hands what FILTH that enters their mouths with the food would be eliminated (it doesn't "touch" the heart). He went on to say that it was what comes out of the mouth (that which "touches" the heart) that defiles a man. Was His answer to the accusation of ritually unclean hands about food or filth?(mark 7:21-23)

  
  

  Peter was perplexed by the vision he had been shown thinking God was telling him that all these foods were now "clean". God showed him the vision three times and he kept pondering what the vision meant (acts 10:17, 10:19)...he was shortly given the wisdom to know for a certainty what the vision meant (acts 10:28)...(rev. 20:17-18)

  
  

  3. I'm not sure what you're asking here but, if you're questioning why the books veracity was questioned by the protestant church and not the catholic church, I don't know. I can suggest that maybe it was thought by protestant theologians that it didn't add germane teaching to "the FAITH that was once for all delivered to the saints".
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  David_Jay

  Myelaine,

  There are definitive answers for each of these, and they are very simple. The first you don't even attempt. The second you attempt to change from Jesus' statement of food to hand washing (the answer is about food only). And you flat out tell me you didn't know the third, which at least was honest.

  So if you who claim to have all this spiritual insight or at least expect me to see your answers as trustworthy, if you are suddenly going to give me answers like: I don't know...Well, then I am going to do what Jesus did when those he questioned answered him the same way.--See Matthew 21.23-27.

  If you are going to challenge someone on a forum and demand answers from them, then you need to be able to answer back. Otherwise you can't expect your own posts to be viewed as efficacious. But to merely answer back, "I don't know" like those who opposed Jesus after he questioned them, then I will be like Jesus and tell you, "Neither will I answer your questions."