Posts by slimboyfat

35

2022-07-29-Announcement!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

2022-07-29-announcements--english.

2022-07-29-announcements-spanishpage 2, par.

3. on the other hand, some brothers and sisters—younger and in good health—have more favorable circumstances that may allow them to attend christian meetings regularly at the kingdom hall.

slimboyfat

I can’t seem to find the letter but I thought that when they announced going back to meetings at memorial time we weren’t supposed to criticize those who decide to stay watching on zoom.

Well that didn’t last long, did it? Judging people is a habit JWs just won’t give up.

It was the same in the UK with the letter writing. At first it was presented as a possible breach of privacy law and each person would have ‘make up their own mind’. People were even told to go read the relevant laws, which caused a bit of confusion because they was no guidance where to find it or how to make sense of it. Within a few weeks everyone was expected to write letters, and there was no such thing as making up your own mind. People who didn’t were certainly judged.

They just can’t help bossing people around it’s deep in the culture. They can’t stand the idea of people arriving at their own conclusions that may differ from their own, so they label any dissenters as disobedient to the Bible. At lot of people are seeing through it however.

35

2022-07-29-Announcement!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

2022-07-29-announcements--english.

2022-07-29-announcements-spanishpage 2, par.

3. on the other hand, some brothers and sisters—younger and in good health—have more favorable circumstances that may allow them to attend christian meetings regularly at the kingdom hall.

slimboyfat

I don’t know what the official policy was about meeting parts, but locally the rule was initially that talks and meeting parts needed to be taken by people present in the Kingdom Hall. Then after a few weeks they seemed to change the policy and some parts were being handled by brothers and sisters over Zoom. I guess following the new announcement they will go back to the policy of only allowing people to deliver talks and meeting parts in person in the Kingdom Hall. Utter confusion and mixed messages.

The pattern has generally been that most elders and their wives are present at the KH in person and most other publishers view over Zoom. There are a few exceptions in either direction but as a general rule that seems pretty accurate.

263

What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?

by Vanderhoven7 in

it seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.

who is the way, the truth and the life?

(john 14:6).

slimboyfat

I don’t think we can determine from history one way or another about the intention of God regarding his name because it’s all open to interpretation. Say we focus on the disuse of God’s name in the Christian Era, we can either conclude that was God’s will that people no longer use the name, or else we can say that was Satan trying to hide the name of God. Point out that Jehovah’s Witnesses revived use of the name in the 20th century and you can say they were 1) going against the will of God 2) other churches use the name as well so JWs are not actually that distinctive, or 3) Jehovah purposely used JWs as the means to revive awareness about his name. You could make coherent arguments for any of those perspectives, it seems to me. The facts of history alone don’t provide one overwhelming interpretation.

What I am pretty convinced about is the fact that Jesus and the early Christians probably did use God’s name regularly and that this has been obscured by later Christian tradition. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, for example, that Jesus’ name includes the divine name, and the meaning of Jesus’ name is highlighted in Matt 1:21. I don’t think it’s a coincidence either that Jesus three times answers Satan using quotations containing the divine name (Matt 4 and Luke 4). All the earliest LXX contain forms of the divine name. Christian names lists contained the divine name in the form Yaho for centuries. Plus Leviticus fragment used Yaho, and Roman authors say that Jews called their God Yaho in the first century. This means the earliest Christians understood and used the divine name in the form Yaho - I don’t see what other reasonable conclusion can be drawn.

35

2022-07-29-Announcement!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

2022-07-29-announcements--english.

2022-07-29-announcements-spanishpage 2, par.

3. on the other hand, some brothers and sisters—younger and in good health—have more favorable circumstances that may allow them to attend christian meetings regularly at the kingdom hall.

slimboyfat

Plus they are probably shooting themselves in the foot. There are a number of people who started attending on Zoom who would never have attended meetings at the KH. This means that generally Zoom attendances were higher than typical KH meetings. By forcing people back to the KH they will not succeed in getting these people into the KH, but they will just drift away as it becomes apparent that Zoom participants are viewed as second class, and somewhat unwelcome fellow travellers. Talk about own goal.

35

2022-07-29-Announcement!

by Atlantis in

jw
friends

2022-07-29-announcements--english.

2022-07-29-announcements-spanishpage 2, par.

3. on the other hand, some brothers and sisters—younger and in good health—have more favorable circumstances that may allow them to attend christian meetings regularly at the kingdom hall.

slimboyfat

What I find annoying is that the GB were obviously very scared personally at the beginning of the pandemic, that’s why they imposed the strictest lockdown possible at Warwick which affected “young, healthy” Bethelites, as well as old, overweight GB members, as well as suspending all congregation gatherings worldwide. Now they’ve had the vaccines, they see the numbers are more in their favour and they are not personally scared of catching the virus. So, once again, a worldwide and heterogenous group of 8 million people plus are being told to copy their example in going back to meetings. There is no account taken of the fact that other people might feel differently about the situation than they do for various reasons and are still scared of catching the virus. Everyone should just copy them because they say so, and if they don’t, it’s because they are not following the Bible, and they should think about it harder. It is so arrogant, self-centred and self righteous because they believe everyone should respect their fear but show non consideration for others who may still feel scared even if they don’t.

263

What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?

by Vanderhoven7 in

it seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.

who is the way, the truth and the life?

(john 14:6).

slimboyfat

Well it seems to me that some on this forum think that Jesus name is getting sufficient coverage and consideration at kingdom halls across the globe.
And when I say "name" I mean person, not merely a bunch of syllables.
My take is that Jesus is all but marginalized by so called Jehovah's Witnesses and relationship with Jesus aka Michael the super angel is not only not promoted but also not possible .

That is a totally different question! If you say JWs downplay Jesus then I’d definitely agree with that. It’s pretty unarguably the case. In terms of mentions, Jesus is probably competing with the Governing Body for second place after Jehovah. (I’ve not done any quantitative analysis on that it’s just an impression)

I don’t see how that affects what the New Testament says about Jesus being the firstborn of creation, Son of God, messiah and so on. And I do think there is a good case that Jesus is Michael and/or an angel. Even Ehrman concludes that Paul calls Jesus an angel at Gal 4:14.

11530

It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars

by Newly Enlightened in

original reddit post (removed).

slimboyfat

People need his videos? Need them like a bang on the head. Definitely preferable, at least it’s over quicker, and less risk of lasting brain damage.

263

What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?

by Vanderhoven7 in

it seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.

who is the way, the truth and the life?

(john 14:6).

slimboyfat

Yes it’s a very odd approach to simply count the number of times a name is used to claim that someone is more important than God and totally ignore what the text actually says about Jehovah being the source of salvation and Jesus being his obedient servant.

An excellent book on Jesus’ role in the New Testament is James McGrath’s book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish Context (2006). It really cuts away later dogma to show what the New Testament authors said

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Only-True-God-Christian-Monotheism/dp/0252078799

263

What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?

by Vanderhoven7 in

it seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.

who is the way, the truth and the life?

(john 14:6).

slimboyfat

Hi Disillusioned, my post on Psalm 110 was intended for Gman.

I agree with you that the NT authors took a meaning from Psalm 110 that was different from what the author originally intended. But I don’t know that means the interpretation is not valid. The Bible itself contains the idea that authors sometimes do not fully understand what they are writing. And it’s not so much that Christians tend to deny the original meaning of a text, but that they add another meaning on top. For example, I’m pretty sure the original Christians realised that when God ‘called his son out of Egypt’ in Hosea 11:1, it meant the nation of Israel. When Matthew applied this verse to Jesus I tend to think that he was not denying the original meaning of the verse but that he was adding a prophetic significance and applying it to Jesus. The NT makes such typologies explicit when Hebrews says Jesus is the greater Melchizedek, when Jesus talks about the ‘sign of Jonah’, and when Paul says that Jesus is the rock that the Israelites followed in the desert. It is true that Acts 2 apparently argues against applying Psalm 110 to David, but even here, I suspect, what the author means is ‘not only to David’ and picks out a clue that a more appropriate application of the text can be made to Jesus.

As for the matter of ruling among enemies, I don’t know. There are lots of possible ways of understanding this if the current JW interpretation is wrong. For example, during the millennium there will continue to be unbelievers, culminating in the rebellion at the end of the thousand years. Jesus could be said to be ruling among his enemies at this time and they are only finally put under his feat at the end, as indicated in 1 Corinthians 15.

263

What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?

by Vanderhoven7 in

it seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.

who is the way, the truth and the life?

(john 14:6).

slimboyfat

Psalm 110:1 is a clear example where Jesus is called Lord (Adonai) in distinction from Jehovah (YHWH) and is a text that Christians found so useful in identifying Jesus that they referred to it more than any other Old Testament text. (Matthew 22:24; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:41–44; Acts 2:34, 35; Hebrews 1:13; and alluded to in other places)

Acts 2:34–36 For David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, ‘Jehovah said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.”’ Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for a certainty that God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you executed on a stake.”

If the attempt by the first Christians was to confuse the identities then why did they so often quote a text that distinguishes Jesus from Jehovah? Really the first Christians made a clear distinction and it was Christians of later centuries who confused the identities of Jesus and Jehovah.