Narkissos
JoinedTopics Started by Narkissos
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18
WT typology and the NT
by Narkissos inthis is a question that came to my mind from a couple of recent threads.. we are all familiar with the traditional wt use of typology on ot material (you know, ot characters and events being "types" of modern-day wt features and history, the latter being "antitypes" of the former).
i'm not sure whether this interpretive method has been strictly restricted to ot texts (in fact i don't think so, because i doubt there has been much methodological thinking about it), but it seems to me that it has been only rarely applied to the nt.
and i am wondering why.
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Isaiah 26:20-21 another misapplied scripture by WBTS
by Narkissos inlet's hope brownboy weighs in... ;).
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Redemption, Reductions
by Narkissos inas i have told before, one turning point in my exit from the wt was a conversation with a close friend about the "ransom".. we were in the (french) bethel library, i don't remember what we were talking about until she said to me: "you know, i never understood why jesus had to die for us.
" this surprised me so much that the only reply i could offer consisted in reciting the wt theology which she, of course, knew as well as i did.
and as she kept smiling at that i began to understand what she meant by "i never understood".. this was the first in a series of conversations which led us very far from wt theology and started me reading the nt again from a completely different perspective.. this basic question ("why jesus had to die") is central to christianity and, when you actually read the texts, already produces dozens of (slightly to wildly) different "answers" in the nt itself, not to mention later theology.. however popular religion does not work with multiple or complex answers but with unique and simple ones -- the variety of which constitutes the complexity as they add to and combine with each other in "history," i.e.
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Trends in counter-culture?
by Narkissos inafter some time of silently watching the "conspiracy" threads thriving on jwn with a mix of amusement, consternation, boredom and irritation, i suddenly felt like stepping back and trying to think about the phenomenon in its historical development.. of course, any attempt to understanding requires a measure of simplification, and the pattern that is emerging in my mind is only intuitive and merely offered for the sake of discussion.. it seems to me that the "anti-conformist" flock of "open minds" who can "think outside the box" and "see through the agendas of the establishment" have been going places over the decades.
in the 70s they were into (mostly left-wing) political activism.
then the english-speaking "enlightened" crowd parted ways from their continental european counterpart (which tended to vanish into the general society) and moved on either to christian fundamentalism (especially of the eschatological, dispensationalist kind) or to "new age" spirituality (both being nebulas and networks rather than "organisations").
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The "Historical Jesus" and Christian Faith
by Narkissos inin the wake of lovelylil's recent threads on the "historical jesus," a side question.. let's assume, for the sake of the discussion, that the four canonical gospels are not historical accounts of jesus' life, but a much later elaboration of christian faith in narrative form -- there are many reasons for such a proposal, but i'm not going into them right now -- let's just assume.. what do you think would be better or worse to find out in the historical field, from the perspective of christian faith:.
1. that there was no "historical jesus" at all, and that the gospels are essentially a religious myth made (hi)story, "the word made flesh" so to say;.
2. that there was a "historical jesus" completely different from the christian saviour -- for example, a galilean apocalyptic prophet and political zealot, trying to cleanse the nation and the temple from both the roman occupation and ritual disorders, with no interest at all in starting a new universal (i.e.
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Freedom from choice?
by Narkissos injust a few reflections as i announced on blueblades' thread about 'the commands to love and free will'.. what is freedom?.
i think it is practically impossible to give an absolute (= timeless, or contextless) answer to such a question.
there is both continuity and difference in the use (hence meaning) of notions like "freedom" (or "liberty") from one language, culture, civilisation, period of history, to another.... we can, to an extent, provide contextually defined answers -- and those will be mostly negative: to the ancient world "freedom" would have been construed as the opposite of slavery, or captivity, or foreign rule (for instance).
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: )
by Narkissos inthis may not be my last post on jwd but i feel the time has come for some kind of "goodbye thread" nonetheless.. i first ventured on (french-speaking) xjw forums in 2003, when my own jw past was already old history and practically meaningless to any of my acquaintances in so-called "real life".
looking back, beyond mere curiosity i certainly felt the need to revisit this almost-forgotten chapter of my life story.
what especially drew me to jwd and made me stick to it for the past five years was undoubtedly the extraordinary diversity of this board, and the wealth of experience, information and reflection it offered.
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How is the Internet changing us?
by Narkissos inopen question: i really don't have any ready answer for that one.... my basic assumption is that mankind has always been different.
every period and situation of history can be construed as a "system" involving specific political, economical, social and technical conditions and a corresponding set of ideas, or beliefs, allowing for a certain type of self-, community- and world-understanding.
just to follow one particular line among many: .
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Subjective "truths"?
by Narkissos inthis is somehow related to my previous topic on "truth and freedom" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/159428/1.ashx) and to an even more recent exchange with hamilcarr on the issue of "authority" of scripture/writing, on the fringe of another thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/159703/2.ashx).. truth in the "objective" sense implies a strict and exclusive correspondence of language and fact (or, more modestly, perceived "phenomenon").
the kind of correspondence (whether provable or not, that is still another issue) which is sought in both "scientific" and "fundamentalistic" speech.
once the signifiants (words) and the signifies (phenomena) are accurately defined, an assertion can be qualified as either "true" or "false" (tertium non datur: there is no "third" option, according to the famous aristotelic principle).