by Spoletta 36 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
If Noah(and his family) were preachers of righteousness, then they were g'damn lousy preachers, IMHO! How could they possibly preach that many years and not convert even one soul?
As Blondie metnioned,
"Likely", or "We can assume", or "From this we can imply"
that jehober did not bless his ministry! How heartwarming and fulfilling it must have been for Noah and his family to have witnessed such a thrilling vindication of jehober's name as millions got to drown to death.
just saying!
For any who care, the idea of Noah being a preacher was common in the historic milieu that 2 Peter reflects. Josephus reports it (AJ 1.74), and an extensive description of it is in the non-canonical Jewish Sibylline Oracles (1.125-129, 148-198); it's also in numerous rabbinic works (like the one referenced above), and other early Christian authors (1 Clement 7.6; Theophilus, Ad Autol. 3.19; Apoc. Paul 50). Not that the WT writers know this or are allowed to share it, if they do.
Well, there's only one little problem with Josephus, and it's that Josephus was born in 37 CE, which means that writing about Noah being a preacher doesn't make his account any accurate. It just makes the fallacy older. He did not live any time near when Noah lived.
Along the same lines, the Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek, ascribed to the Sibyls, prophets who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive, in an edition of the 6th or 7th century. They are artistic work in a style that imitates that of the original Sibylline Books of the ancient Etruscans and Romans, which were burned by order of Roman general Flavius Stilicho in the 4th century. Again, the timing of the recollection only makes the fallacy older, not a reliable source of information.
Same thing with the works of any writer who lived during or after the Christian era. In other words, just because it's old doesn't mean that it's true, or that that the author can attest to those events.
scratchme1010: "Same thing with the works of any writer who lived during or after the Christian era. In other words, just because it's old doesn't mean that it's true, or that that the author can attest to those events."
Absolutely! Ancient history students are taught to be careful in drawing conclusions from ancient documents. We usually know little about the biases of any particular writer, Did they write with a confirmation bias, recording only information that agreed with any pet belief? One suspects that Christian writers would do that. Then there's the human tendency known as anchoring. This is described as -
"Anchoring is a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions. During decision-making, anchoring occurs when individuals use an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments."
We can easily see how encouragement to have "faith" will anchor one's thinking and prevent a critical assessment of information.
prologos: "Noah and Jesus were wood workers, If you have ever worked manually with wood, even when not using dull bronze age handtools, all day long, day in and day out, you will do little else."
I understand that bronze (an alloy of tin and copper) can be honed to be quite sharp, but generally it is considered that bronze cutting tools were inferior to iron implements.
But the point prologos makes is important. The stated size of the ark (Genesis 6:15) and its detail means a massive amount of timber had to be processed. Nothing is said in the Genesis account about the source of the timber. If Noah and his sons had to source the timber, cut it down and haul it to the construction site, then this would add a massive amount of labour to their task.
Of course, Noah could've paid others to source the timber, but that adds another dimension to the conundrum. Where did Noah get the funds for purchasing the timber (a voluntary contribution box maybe-haha). Who was Noah anyway? He just appears in the account. Was he a sort of local ruler? Did he have slaves to do his bidding? If he did, why are none of them 'saved.' (In the slave owning households of early Christianity, many slave became believers and are described as being saved).
But to return to prologos' topic of carpentary, Here's an illustration of two men using a method known as 'pit-sawing' to process timber. The guy in the pit gets covered in sawdust, and its often in his eyes too (no safety goggles), how long do you think it would have taken them to process the required timber? And no outside help, from either slaves or angels, the account specifically says Noah and his family did the work. (Gen. 6:22)
And on top of all that, they had to grow enough food for themselves and the animals for their time in the ark and afterwards (until they had planted new farms), and load it into the ark. Busy little buggers weren't they?
I think most thinking people, (except those whose metacognitive faculties are blinded by faith), will agree that Noah's flood story looks more and more like a fairy story, or what some people call, 'tooth fairy research,' which term describes a person researching something before establishing that the 'something' actually exists.
And sadly for those blinded by faith, both Jesus and Peter, were taken in by this story and are revealed as ordinary humans, having no special insights and without the ability to critically assess information.
Giordano » Doesn't god have knowledge of the future? Wouldn't he know that wickedness would resume immediately? And finally it was all right with Jehovah to drown the unborn? Really!!
The answer is yes, God does have a knowledge of the future. And though wickedness resumed on the earth, it was not the same manner of wickedness that existed before the flood. Two, you view death as the punishment meted out by God when it was merely the means of removing them from the earth. All people, all animals, when they die, don't cease to exist, but continue on as spirits.
Peter, writing of Jesus' death, writes that as his body lay in the tomb, his spirit went into the realm of the spirits and preached to these miscreants. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water." (1 Peter 3:18-20) A few verses later, he continues, "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. (1 Peter 4:6)
If one wishes to debate whether the flood took place or was just a myth, that's one thing. But a just God does not punish the innocent for the sins of the fathers. The infants, the animals and others were simply removed from the earth. They weren't denied resurrection, nor did they cease to exist. And I wonder how Christ could have preached the gospel to the dead if the dead were asleep in the grave?
FullTimeStudent » Of course, Noah could've paid others to source the timber, but that adds another dimension to the conundrum. Where did Noah get the funds for purchasing the timber (a voluntary contribution box maybe-haha). Who was Noah anyway? He just appears in the account. Was he a sort of local ruler? Did he have slaves to do his bidding? If he did, why are none of them 'saved.' (In the slave owning households of early Christianity, many slave became believers and are described as being saved).
It took forty years to construct the ark and no account of how it was done is given. We don't even know what it looked like. The Book of Jasher tells how, when it was finished, wild animals surrounded it and kept people from breaking into it when the rains came and the water began rising.
How did Noah light the inside of the ark when the doors were shut? It doesn't say, though it's safe to say it wasn't by fire. There are ancient traditions that he used stones blessed by the Lord. During the day they would burn brightly and at night the light would be diminished. The ark also likely had a hole in the top for fresh air and for observation, and one at the bottom. By sealing the hole at the top, they could open the one on the bottom and dispose of waste.
The actual truth is the story Noah's Flood is fictional and was done so by the ancient Hebrews to create power and relevance to their specific god YHWH.
As its known by reading the bible narrative after the flood, Noah and his family were not so righteous after all. You see Noah and his family would have carried the inherent sin from Adam, so the world quickly returned back to its wicked unrighteous state.
Just another element to consider about this biblical story, is that there is no evidence of a devastating killing flood occurring at the supposed time of 2348 BC. by any other ancient civilization through the archeological record. ie. Egyptian
The Watchtower Corporation is telling " The Truth " about this aren't they ?
