by James Mixon 49 Replies latest watchtower bible
<<The OP is right. It's all fear.>>
It's good to have a healthy fear of being associated with a dangerous religious group in light of Jesus' warning about false prophets. Healthy fear causes people to take careful stalk before commitment.
At this point I don't see any reason to accept Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God...but I await your reasons that I should.
I hate to admit this but I had no idea about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians until 1990's, my eyes were open. You ask people why are they fighting( in the 1990's), is it religious or about the land...I came across a book (can't recall the title) and it told about the history of Israel.I learned from the source and that is when I became an Agnostic. I study with two young Mormons, my daughter-n law is a Mormon..I realize how can I have a intelligent conversation about your religion if I don't know what's your belief..We as JW's was well informed about every religion in the world, yes our knowledge we received from the university of the WT left no doubt we were all wise and your religion was wrong.......So today there is one religion I know it's wrong, JW.......
Cold Steel also contradicted himself here:
The Jewish culture must not be lost under any circumstances, and what we deem as the old testament scriptures backs that up...
...shall suffer the judgments of Yahweh.
To utter and use the Name of God or use substitutes created by Gentiles (such as Jehovah and Yahweh) is one of the greatest means to attack and destroy the culture of Jews.
In Jewish culture, the holier something is, the less that thing gets used. Mundane names, like mine, may be used for humans and even other things. But the Name of God (YHVH) is a Self-Designation of the Divine. As such, Jewish culture and Law dictates that it must be handled the opposite way mundane names are used. Thus it is not uttered or written out, nor are Gentile substitutes like Yahweh used for it.
The use of the Name in this manner profanes it and goes against Jewish cultural and religious practice. So special the Name of God that some Jews even write G-d instead of "God" so as not to subject any name of God to possible misuse.
If Mormons really believed in preserving Jewish culture, they would not profane the Name of God in this manner.
Also the fact that Mormons "believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly" is also an attack on Jewish culture.
Jews generally don't require the use of a translation of Scripture. While many Jews may not actually speak Hebrew, all of them know enough to read from it liturgically in its original Hebrew. Some know at least enough to pray and sing in Hebrew, and the majority don't have to rely on translations of any type at all.
That the Bible would have to be "translated" at all for it to be accepted as God's Word is anti-Jewish. To preserve a culture means preserving its language. Translations do not do this.
While I know that Mormons are not forbidden to study Hebrew, it is the statement that belief in the Bible as the Word of God is with the stipulation that it be "translated correctly."
I could go on, but Cold Steel is not my target, nor is Mormonism. It is to demonstrate that religions like the LDS are just like the JWs In claiming to know the accurate truth about things but actually proving to be unfamiliar with much of what they claim to understand.
In fact, one might also add to the OP that the real problem is that many religious people do NOT fear that they CAN be mistaken. Because of this they don't listen to evidence, prefer to engage in confirmation bias instead of listening to and learning from a direct source. They claim to know more about things than they really do, such as the various points Cold Steel claimed Mormons know about Judaism and Jews. Instead of having the courage to say they are wrong, they make excuses or just go silent and ignore the fact that their religion leaves them quite unprepared and uniformed.
Maybe some religious people need more fear to keep them humble and modest enough to keep themselves from claiming to know things they have never really studied directly from the source (or only read a few blurbs). Perhaps some are not afraid that they can become taken over and blinded by pride.
Vanderhoven7 » It's good to have a healthy fear of being associated with a dangerous religious group in light of Jesus' warning about false prophets. Healthy fear causes people to take careful stalk before commitment.
At this point I don't see any reason to accept Joseph Smith as a true prophet of God...but I await your reasons that I should.
Why should people believe the claims of Joseph Smith? I can only speak for myself, but as I've said elsewhere, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only church in our time that meets all the requirements of a religion founded by God. Joseph Smith had nothing to gain by embarking on a career that would lead to persecution, severe hardship and ultimately death. Peter told the Jews of his day of the great “restoration of all things” that would come -- and that's what the LDS faith is, the foundation of the restoration of things. We know of the dire warning that before the great day of the Lord, a “falling away” (apostasia) would occur. Interestingly, in the early 1800s, a religious fervor struck the United States as a number of theologians realized that the first century church had apostatized and that a restoration was needed to set things right. Alexander Campbell was one of the most noteworthy ones, but though he and the Baptists appealed to many, his colleague Sidney Rigdon realized that the necessary authority was missing. Other small restorationist sects were started, but most fell into obscurity. Later, when Adventist churches arose, Charles Taze Russell and later, Joseph Rutherford, began what's now known as the Jehovah's Witnesses, but they also lacked divine authority to bind on Heaven and Earth.
Alexander Campbell was the writer behind what would become the churches of Christ, but Sidney Rigdon was the orator. Rigdon, however, was convinced that while Campbell's views on doctrine were sound, no man on Earth had the authority to act in God's name. So when he heard Mormon elders preaching that this authority had been restored, he became convinced that what they were preaching was true, but Campbell remained opposed to Joseph Smith and founded his own church, claiming it was the church Jesus started in the first century. But if so, Rigdon and others asked, who was the Christian who ordained Campbell, and who ordained him and so forth back to Christ? That niggling issue caused a divide in Campbell's group and he lost more than a few of his people.
Today, very few Christian movements even discuss divine authority. Ask any Jehovah's Witness elders where they get the authority to act in God's name and you'll be met with a blank look. Some will say they get it when they're baptized -- that they become ordained ministers. But this is absurd and is nowhere taught in the scriptures.
Peter spoke about the restoration of the gospel. As recorded in the book of Acts, he told the Jews:
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19-21)
As LDS writer Milton Backman notes:
Like most Protestants, [the restorationists] held that priesthood was conferred not by the laying on of hands by those having authority but was a direct endowment from God to believers. Consequently, they were searching for principles and practices other Protestants had failed to recover. ...
In some respects, Joseph Smith’s quest for truth was more in harmony with that of Roger Williams than Alexander Campbell’s. Both Joseph Smith and Roger Williams believed in the disruption and vanishing of the true apostolic church. Both held that churches which they investigated taught correct doctrines and that a recovery without divine intervention was impossible. Both also sought a restoration of authority by heavenly messengers.
I obviously lack the time and space to make my point; however, here's a debate posted to a churches of Christ website between Bill Jackson, of the Southwest church of Christ and me (conducted in 1984). It explains why I believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God and the LDS Church to be the literal restoration spoken of by Peter. Remember that he said the Father would “send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you, whom the heaven must receive until the restoration of all things.” Jesus Christ came to Joseph Smith while he was still a young boy, and he was subsequently tutored by many of the prophets of the past from Adam to Peter.
Since that debate many other evidences have been discovered about the Book of Mormon that adds to its veracity. The bottom line is that the LDS Church has apostles, prophets, teachers, deacons, elders, bishops, priests, seventy and evangelists (patriarchs), receives revelation as the ancient church did, and it has the authority that was given to the ancient church. I know of no other church that meets the criteria of the ancient church.
David_Jay » ...religions like the LDS are just like the JWs In claiming to know the accurate truth about things but actually proving to be unfamiliar with much of what they claim to understand.
I agree with what you're saying when it comes to the JWs, but we LDS have numerous recognized scholars of ancient scripture and LDS scholars helped found the Academy of Temple Studies that feature a host of scholars in both Jewish and Christian circles. The LDS church also maintains a close relationship with Israel, its culture, history and theology. It's not that we don't understand the Jews; it's that we're not always in agreement with them, especially when the revelations of God we receive differ from Jewish understanding. After all, we believe our God is the same as the Jewish God.
We just have to live with these differences of opinion. They aren't there because we don't understand them. Christians accept Jesus as our Messiah. If he comes and it's not Jesus, then we'll be wrong. But if he comes and it is him, the Jews will become Christians in a single day.
Here's one of the Academy of Temple Studies' presentations featuring Methodist scholar Margaret Barker. Her topic is how Christians view the temple.
Cold Steel,
Presenting new arguments and new information into this discussion is the tactic of JWs. It is called introducing a "red herring" into a conversation.
What you need to do is to back and read what you claimed and see how I responded.
For instance, you stated that certain doctrines like the one about baptism of the dead was foreign to Jews. I showed you how it was not.
You mentioned how Mormons are all for preserving Jewish culture, and then you used a Gentile attempt to pronounce HaShem, the Divine Name, an action that works to destroy our culture.
Instead of returning to these and other points I presented, you mention things that have nothing to do with Judaism, such as The Academy for Temple Studies.
You are distracting from the fact that you are wrong about what you claimed. This red herring approach is typical of cults.
When pressed you merely say that we have different opinions, but that is not true. You are merely repeating what your religion teaches you. Again, if you want to know about Mormonism you don't go to a Jew or a Catholic or a Baptist. You go to the source, to a Mormon. The same is true about Judaism and Jews. Why would someone believe a Mormon about Judaism over a Jew, over an Israeli Jew, of the tribe of Judah, or the House of David, like myself?
The truth is, no one here does. Go ahead. Ask everyone here what they think of your answers and what you're saying in comparison to mine. I speak three Jewish dialects, have citizenship in three different Jewish states, and have a trail of documents about my lineage that goes past beyond the Spanish Inquisition showing that my family lived in Jerusalem when the Temples stood. No one would believe you, a Gentile, over me, a Hebrew about Jews and Judaism.
With that I am finished with speaking to someone who is proselytizing to me, Cold Steel.
One last thing however. LDS leadership has promised the Israeli government that it will never participate in proselytizing Jews in exchange for building the education center there. Mormon missionaries have told me they have been instructed not to discuss their religion with me or pass on their literature to me or read it to me as I am Israeli.
You have claimed that Mormons intend to break their promise with the government in Israel an eventually engage in proselytizing the Jews. Either your religion has lied to us or you are a bad example of a Mormon.
We are off track anyway. Sharing your religion with me even in this forum is proselytizing, and proselytizing Jews is insulting to me. You might as well paint a swastika on my door and write GO HOME JEW, because that is what it does to me when you keep on like you are doing. It is very hateful of you.
David_Jay » 1 Corinthians 15:29 is not foreign to Judaism. Baptism is based on the Jewish practice of "tevilah." Converts to Judaism would engage in tevilah by immersion ( the Greek word from which "baptism" comes from) in an immersion pool or tub called a "mikveh." The experience symbolized rising from death to a new life in Judaism. But tevilah in a mikveh is also required by Torah if one comes into contact with a dead body. One "washes away death," so to speak, by means of this.
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you, but my wife's been sick with a summer flu, and it's been like summer here.
The thing about baptism for the dead, yes, I knew about the Jewish rites of baptism and I've seen the places of purification prior to entering the temple. But rites of purification that have to do with immersion have little to do with Christian baptism.
And baptism for the dead has nothing to do with the ritual purification of the dead. The apostle is clearly not speaking about immersing dead bodies because he's speaking about the resurrection of the dead. Christians view the rite of baptism to be redemptive, and an ordinance, not a rite of purification. It's symbolic, with the immersion of man in the likeness of the Messiah's death, and in coming forth out of the tomb in a newness of life as Jesus came forth in the resurrection.
The Lord teaches us through symbolism. In our book of Moses, Adam was taught about the nature of God and the Messiah: “And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: ‘Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord?’ And Adam said unto him: ‘I know not, save the Lord commanded me.’ And then the angel spake, saying: ‘This thing is asimilitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in thename of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore.’” (Moses 6)
And Paul, who like many first century was deeply schooled in Judaism, stated: “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the deadby the glory of the Father, even so we also should walkin newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” (Romans 6) Note that he didn't liken it in any way to the purification ceremonies practiced by the Jews of his day. Indeed, John performed his baptisms in a river far from the temple.
Early Christians saw baptism for the dead as a vicarious baptism for someone who has passed on. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the washing of dead bodies. (See Baptism for the Dead).
You also mentioned our agreement with the state of Israel and suggested because of what I told you that we might renege. This is not true. When the days of the Gentiles ends, and the gospel is once more taken to the Jews, it will not be in violation of an existing agreement, but an abrogation of that agreement by the Jewish authorities themselves.
The prophet Zechariah speaks of the return of the Messiah in glory, saying, “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart.” (Zechariah 12:9-12)
According to Christian eschatology, the Jews will, again, in a single day, will come to realize that Jesus is the Christ, and that they had rejected him in the days of his first coming. This is why they will break into mourning across the land. What should have been a joyous occasion will instead be overshadowed with grief. In a modern revelation, the Lord confirms this exegesis when he states, “And then shall the Jews look upon me and say: What are these wounds in thine hands and in thy feet? Then shall they know that I am the Lord; for I will say unto them: These wounds are the wounds with which I was a wounded in the house of my friends. I am he who was lifted up. I am Jesus that was crucified. I am the Son of God. And then shall they weep because of their iniquities; then shall they lament because they persecuted their king. And then shall the a heathen nations be redeemed, and they that knew no law shall have part in the first resurrection; and it shall be tolerable for them.” (D&C 45)
As someone who is himself a Jew, if you were to suddenly discover that, despite your expectations and beliefs, that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, would you not accept him? (And, conversely, if I were to suddenly discover that, despite my convictions, my beliefs in Jesus were in error, would I not want to put them behind me and believe in him no more?) We, indeed, do differ on much as Christians and Jews. Our beliefs in the nature of God, the identity and purpose of the Messiah, our rites and ordinances, how we view the temple, the afterlife, judgment, the return of the prophet Elijah and many other things. You may also wish to read the Book of Mormon to determine the differences between modern Jews and those living in 600 BCE. Those living in the city who were Lehi's primary enemies were convinced they were good people and had done nothing wrong. They were incensed (as were two of Lehi's sons) at the suggestion that they were wicked and would be destroyed because of their wickedness. Even in the wilderness, when Lehi had been told of the city's destruction, his sons refuted to believe it.
