by Solzhenitsyn 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
It is ironic that in the very prayer- the so-called Lord's prayer - JWs use to support their vocailizng of the divine name, the divine name is not actually used: "Our father who lives in Heaven, let your name be sanctified..."
What's that old saying? There are none so blind as those who refuse to see. I remember using these words to bolster the use of the name Jehovah - never realizing that in the prayer itself the name is not used!
Why does your religion demand your preaching hours to be reported. Does the Bible ever mention that ?
Do you keep a record of the time you spend with your loved ones ? Wouldn't that be silly ?
Isn’t reporting time, a corporate arrangement (To get paid basically)
There's the account in Luke where he's in the synagogue and reads from Isaiah. The passage he reads has the tetragrammaton in the original Hebrew.
The WTS teaches that Jesus spoke Hebrew.
The scroll he was reading from would have been written in Hebrew.
Thus, their argument goes, he would have read the divine name as written when he read those scriptures.
Half banana: Actually there is no record of Jesus having ever uttered a word.
All we have are words and sentences attributed to him a generation after he was supposed to have lived. There are no eye witnesses from Roman documents of the Bible's account of a miracle worker who could bring back the dead, let alone any verbatim records of his speech.
So by dwelling on what this fictional character said, this speculates on an existing myth and worst still it reinforces a credibility in the minds of those fixated by Christianity. After all if a person is quoted he must have lived?
Do you believe Socrates and Plato existed? If you do, what evidence supports your belief?
Most historians believe Jesus of Nazareth existed as a historical figure, whether or not he became mythicized over time. The Christ myth theory is a fringe theory which deviates from the mainstream historical view.
There is more evidence to support that Jesus existed as a historical figure than many of the other historical figures you probably accept as having really existed. Unless you're one of those people who believe the moon landing was fake.
Badfish, the thread is whether JC uttered the name Yahweh or whatever sound represented him at the time. As I said there is no record of what Jesus said because all we know about him was written a generation after he was supposed to have died and I repeat nobody wrote it down at the time and nobody remembers verbatim speech from forty or fifty years previously.
There are no historical records of Jesus only the unreliable Bible book of magic events recounts his life--and this is therefore not what historians would call "historical". Yet had he existed he would have made the headlines and been the focus of enormous interest. Had Josephus really known about him he would most certainly written expansively on this important matter since he was a Jewish historian writing for Romans and it was supposed to have taken place on his very doorstep. The comment he is supposed to have made about Jesus as the messiah is an uncharacteristically terse and a later 'Christian' insertion into his manuscript. Most people, possibly including historians want to believe in JC, however a majority believing in something does not make it true.
The mythicist view is not about mythologising a real living person after his death but about using a character in literature--like the myth of the god-man saviour-- then later claiming that he was a real person. Harry Potter lives!
This is what happened many times, the ancient story of a great healer, miracle worker who could raise the dead, the son of a god, was a character in folk tales and his tale was listened to by spellbound audiences at travelling theatre performances. The gospels manifest the language of a transcription of such a folk play.The character and life events of Jesus were known for millennia before Jesus of Nazareth. The attractiveness and leverage of the Graeco-Roman Jewish God man was to claim to the Roman world that he came to life and died a sacrificial death--just like all the preceding fictional saviours.
People will believe without good evidence if the idea gives them hope.
Half banana - "People will believe without good evidence if the idea gives them hope."
Or - more often than not - if their mental and emotional well-being are dependent on it.
