Personally I believe that everybody will be saved in the end. I think Russell was closer to this position than modern JWs although he certainly denied being a universalist. Why do I think everyone will be saved? Because Jehovah is good and wants it to be so and has the power to make it so. When anyone disobeys God it is always based on a misunderstanding of what is right and how one should behave. As these barriers are removed everyone will be reconciled with God. This is taught many places such as 1 Cor 15, Romans, 2 Peter.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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41
Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT
by Sea Breeze inhere's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.
why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.
zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .
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slimboyfat
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41
Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT
by Sea Breeze inhere's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.
why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.
zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .
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slimboyfat
Hi no-zombie that’s interesting. I remember for a while Ray Franz was selling a book called Paul’s Idea of Community: The Early Christian House Churches by Robert Banks, which made an argument along the lines you indicate. Some who leave JWs go down that root, which is not only closer to early Christianity, but closer to the early Bible Students too. In some ways the Christadelphians are similar to the early Bible Students in structure. What Christadelphians gain in congregational autonomy they lose in unity and effectiveness. Consider that in the early 1940s there were around 100,000 of both JWs and Christadelphains, and after more than 80 years of tighter control among JWs and maintained autonomy among Christadelphian ecclesias, there are now only around 50,000 Christadelphians worldwide whereas there are nearly 10 million JWs.
On archaeology and early Christianity I recently got the book Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction by Clint Burnett. Among other things, he argues that 1st century inscriptions indicate that the title “Lord” for Jesus was connected to his claim to the Davidic throne and not the later Trinitarian idea of divinity.
There’s no doubt that the GB make many mistakes but does that disqualify them from being used by God? When you consider the kinds of mistakes that Moses, David, Paul and Peter made, and the problems in the early churches in Corinth and the churches in Revelation, are the problems of modern JWs in many ways not similar to those?
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41
Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT
by Sea Breeze inhere's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.
why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.
zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .
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slimboyfat
I notice Robert Alter agrees with the NWT on Zechariah 12.10.
No-Zombie I’ve got some of the same books you mention. I wonder if you’re aware of the new book about palaeography by Brent Nongbri “Working With Manuscripts” that was released this year. The paperback version is due out in a few days. His earlier book “God’s Library” is good too.
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41
Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT
by Sea Breeze inhere's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.
why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.
zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .
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slimboyfat
The verse is totally understandable from a biblical monotheism perspective either way. Clearly God himself was pierced by the death of his only Son. Or it could be referring directly to the death of God’s Son making the Son the one who was pierced. Either one makes perfect sense. What is total nonsense is to say that the verse contains some esoteric reference to the 4th century doctrine of the trinity implying that God and his Son are consubstantial and all that.
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4
1975 Quiz.
by mikronboy inhaving been asked to prepare and present a general knowledge inter-pub quiz, i decided to include a question relating to jw's.
there were 12 teams in all, 4 persons to each team.
this was the question:.
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slimboyfat
This was a Trivial Pursuit question in the official board game, I seem to remember. A surprisingly large number of outsiders are aware of the 1975 prediction. I guess it should not be too surprising because JWs were apparently quite vocal about it at the time, some of them featuring it in their ministry presentations, and in conversations with family and friends. It no doubt left an impression even if JWs themselves don’t talk about it much now.
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27
How many times did they say armagedon was coming?
by Witness 007 in1914 1918 1925 1940s 1975 1914 generation what did i miss?.
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slimboyfat
Yeah I agree, the generation teaching was not date specific, but highly significant. Arguably in a sense it was the most definite of the “dates” JWs promoted because it was stated categorically in the Awake! magazine for years that Jehovah himself had promised to bring the new world within the lifetime of 1914 generation.
1925 was meant to be the return of the ancient worthies not the date of Armageddon as such.
1975 was strongly implied but not definitely claimed as the date for Armageddon, at least in the literature, public talks were reportedly more definite.
1914 was initially to be the culmination of the end times which switched to beginning of the end times as it got closer.
1874 was claimed after the fact to be a significant date so it wasn’t a prediction as such.
1881 I honestly don’t know what the deal was with that date but it’s cited a lot.
2034 has been mooted as a possible date because the days of Noah have been likened to the last days and 1914 + 120 = 2034. Given the impending AI apocalypse maybe this has a chance of being correct!
I don’t know enough about the other dates to say.
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3154
It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)
by Simon inuh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.
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slimboyfat
What does he make? Somewhere in the religion of more than he should and less than he thinks he’s entitled to.
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5
Do not gaze about!
by slimboyfat inthe 2013 revision of the nwt has destroyed some of the best phrases in the original version and rendered them utterly bland.
a case in point is isaiah 41:10 which was as evocative as it was peculiar in the original nwt.
do not be afraid, for i am with you.
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slimboyfat
The 2013 revision of the NWT has destroyed some of the best phrases in the original version and rendered them utterly bland. A case in point is Isaiah 41:10 which was as evocative as it was peculiar in the original NWT.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not gaze about, for I am your God. I will fortify you. I will really help you. I will really keep fast hold of you with my right hand of righteousness.’
Now turned pedestrian as any other version in 2013.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you. Do not be anxious, for I am your God. I will fortify you, yes, I will help you, I will really hold on to you with my right hand of righteousness.’
Check out the change to Psalm 15:4 too. The original was admittedly slightly cryptic, but more memorable than the revision. Many examples could be multiplied. The new version is invariably easier to understand, there’s no doubt about that, but at what cost as some of the best turns of phrase have been eliminated. Some phrases in the old version are easier to remember because they are slightly odd, and smoothing them out loses something, even if it gains intelligibility.
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20
Putin was almost killed.
by liam inif you have been seeing the world news, you probably aware that zelensky launch a drown attack on putin and almost killed him.
putin lost it and hit ukraine with the largest drone and missile attack of war so far, killing not only soldiers by many civilians.
even trump has said putin has changed.
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slimboyfat
What is the evidence Russians don’t support Putin’s war in Ukraine? From what I gather the voices of opposition to Putin inside Russia consist mainly of folk who think Putin isn’t being hard enough or should have acted earlier to prevent NATO expansion and western control of Ukraine. If Putin is removed, there is every possibility he would be replaced by somebody more hawkish and less stable than he is.
One point I think illustrates just how skewed western perception of Russian public opinion involves the fact that Alexei Navalny was held up in the west as a good democratic alternative to Putin. Yet even Navalny supported Russian annexation of Crimea and would never give it back to Ukraine. He was a right wing nationalist who opposed Putin mainly on corruption grounds. That’s how far Russian opinion is away from western understanding of it - even the guy they turned into a hero fully supported Russia keeping Crimea. How is that compatible with western demands or how is that significantly better than Putin from a western viewpoint? It was never explained, because it doesn’t make any sense. The goal of the US was to weaken Russia and they’ll use any tool at their disposal including lionising so called dissidents who actually agree with Putin or in some cases are even more hard line than he is.
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75
Why do they want to kill all the White People?
by liam inthe hatred against whites is escalating to an unprecedented degree.
in south africa, they are calling for complete genocide of white people.
for some reason they are targeting all the white farmers.. i’m so glad trump noticed.
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slimboyfat
Watching youtube videos with the mind turned off is not a good idea.
Watching YouTube videos about the world’s most venomous snakes and spiders, with the light turned off - also not a good idea. 💡
Sand spiders, Gaboon vipers, wandering spiders, black mambas, king cobras - they hold a certain fascination though …