by bebu 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
This is so, but I can't think of a single person who ever recognized these characters as more than fiction from the very beginning. Perhaps Santa Claus is as successful as any of these wise/kind fictional characters have gotten.
Oh, what about SOCRATES?
Terry
Didier:My response was to Terry's comments, here:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/89266/1499239/post.ashx#1499239
Whether you view Jesus and Moses as literal characters (hyped up, or not) or literary ones, the result is a philosophy that proliferated far more effectively than any conventional army.
Terry:
Back in the 2nd Century people were superstitious to a fault, naive no end, gullible and easily excited by all things religious.'
And for all that, the philosophy continues to evolve and grow, even in the modern age.
Besides, you are giving credit to Jesus that belongs to Paul. He is the author of Christianity. When churches start mumbling creeds and orthodoxy it is always Paul, Paul, Paul.
I'll grant that you have a point there. One of the reasons I would claim to be unorthodox is that I find some of Paul's reasoning suspect. Nonetheless, when people think of Christianity I'm pretty sure things like "love thy neighbour" and a resurrection to heaven, are associated with the name "Jesus".
Jesus is just the figurehead. Paul is the philosophy and the big stick behind the carrot of Jesus.
And yet Paul wasn't deified. How strange
And yet Paul wasn't deified. How strange
I beg to differ, my friend!
Paul was (and is) a SAINT in the Catholic Church. He lives in heaven. He has God's ear. You can pray to him. He can intercede and grant prayer requests.
How does this differ from being deified in any meaningful way?
Terry
Terry....Actually, there is a distinction but it is a rather thin one. It's similar to the difference between monotheistic Judaism and the earlier polytheistic Israelite religion. Under polytheism (and to a lesser extent under henotheism), there were many different gods who were responsible for different activities and responsibilities in the cosmos. In the context of ancestor worship, the dead were also regarded as "gods" (cf. 1 Samuel 28), and some (called Rephaim, or "healers" in Hebrew) could be beseeched for healing from disease (cf. 2 Chronicles 16:12, corr.). Under henotheism and especially monotheism, these gods could no longer be worshipped or even thought of as deities. Rather, the old gods of the popular Canaanite and Israelite religion were turned into angels in post-exilic Judaism (the same process occurred in Arabia in the emergence of Islam). These angels functioned as maintainers of the cosmos (such as controlling the movements of the sun, moon, the seasons, etc.) and as intercessors between man and God. The fine distinction is this: (1) these angelic intercessors were less than fully divine and thus could not be called "gods", and (2) they were not to be objects of worship. However, they could still be prayed to because as intercessors, they were believed to be "messengers" between man and God (who now was believed to be so remote from humanity that he could not be directly approached). So now, for instance, instead of the god Rapha in the Canaanite religion who was the chthonic king of the Rephaim, we now have in the post-exilic era the angel Raphael who had oversight over the souls of the dead (cf. 1 Enoch 20:3, 22:3-14) and was associated with healing (cf. Tobit 3:17; 1 Enoch 10:4-7, 90:9). The concept of angels as intercessors underwent one further crucial development. The term qdshym "holy ones" originally applied to the gods (= "sons of God", "sons of El") and later "angels" as Job 5:1, 15:15; Psalm 89:6-7; Zechariah 14:5 attest, but by the second century BC, the term became ambiguous between applying to divine beings and applying to those faithful to God (cf. especially Daniel; cf. Wisdom 18:9; Testament of Levi 18:11, Testament of Dan 5:11-12). By the first century AD, the Greek term hagioi "holy ones" (= Latin sancti, from which "saint" is derived) referred most frequently to the Christian community in the NT (cf. Romans 15:25-26, 31, 16:2, 15; 1 Corinthians 14:33, 16:15; 2 Corinthians 1:1, 8:4, 9:1, 13:13; Ephesians 1:1, 6:18; Philippians 1:1, 4:21-22; Colossians 1:22, 26; 1 Timothy 5:10; Philemon 5-7; Jude 3; Revelation 5:8, 8:3, 13:7, 17:6, etc.), tho the older sense of the "holy ones" as the host accompanying the Lord on Judgment Day is still found in 1 Thessalonians 3:13, Jude 14. The identification of the Christian community with the (originally angelic) holy ones is made clear in 1 Corinthians 6:2 which refers to Christians as the holy ones who "will judge the world". This merger is also facilitated by the belief that the resurrection occurs at Judgment Day (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17), that the resurrected are like angels (cf. Daniel 12:3; Matthew 22:30; Luke 20:35-36; 2 Baruch 51:10), and that the resurrected will join with the angels in heaven (cf. 1QH 3:19-23, and especially Revelation), and that those still living would be transformed to be like the resurrected (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:51-54). When the church adopted more of a realized eschatology and reinterpreted the resurrection in fully Platonic terms, the dead "saints" were no longer viewed as inactive (e.g. "sleeping in death") but active in the present. The belief that dead saints function as intercessors is a natural development from the pre-Christian belief that angels were intercessors and the early Christian identification of living and dead Christians with the "holy ones". There is also a pre-Christian precedent in 1 Enoch, in which the human Enoch was taken into heaven and was commissioned as an intercessor between God and the fallen angels (cf. 13:4-7). Not all forms of early Christianity accepted the notion of angelic intercessors, BTW. The homily of Hebrews denied that angels have such an exalted role and claimed that Jesus Christ is the exalted high priest who alone mediates the holy covenant (cf. 9:15, 12:24). The Pastorals similarly posit Jesus as the single mediator between God and mankind (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5).
Terry:
Paul was (and is) a SAINT in the Catholic Church. He lives in heaven. He has God's ear. You can pray to him. He can intercede and grant prayer requests.
You're not addressing a Catholic.
I don't pray to "saints" and angels.
From a pragmataic POV, why would I go to my brother when I can go directly to my older brother?
This kind of illustrates my point. The "religion" has evolved and fractured into a variety of "denominations", some of which flourish, some of which die (just as occured in the first few centuries of it's existance).
Observable philosophical evolution, working to a similar model as organic evolution.
For all that, some common themes prevail, which leads me back to Augustine:
"On essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity (love)."
You're not addressing a Catholic.
I don't pray to "saints" and angels.
My point was historical; not personally directed at your beliefs.
The Church (until Martin Luther) was about the only game in town for Christianity with any sway and to that enormous bulk of an orthodoxy Paul was as close as you can get to a deity.
The distinction between worshipping Paul and merely giving obeisance is about as feeble as the JW's attempt to separate the apostle's treatment of Jesus from their worship of Jehovah. Mighty thin slices.
T.
You're not addressing a Catholic.
I don't pray to "saints" and angels.From a pragmataic POV, why would I go to my brother when I can go directly to my older brother?
The catholic longs for a chance to kiss the pope's pinky, while the mystic-opticleed merely wishes for an approving pat on the head. Come 'ere ya big lug, big brudder's got whatcha need, aye
Terry:
I do believe you have a fair point
Now, how does that bear on the subject of the resurrection?
Six:
(((hugs)))
This is so, but I can't think of a single person who ever recognized these characters as more than fiction from the very beginning. Perhaps Santa Claus is as successful as any of these wise/kind fictional characters have gotten.Oh, what about SOCRATES?
What about him? Why shouldn't he have lived? Because he didn't make front page in some ancient newspaper?
I say it's hard to prove a negative. Until proven guilty, I presume innocence.
bebu
