Posts by moggy lover

9

Are the GB/FDS and the "Domestics" still the same people?

by Doug Mason in

the grammar of matthew 24:45 46 (nwt) reads as follows:.

(a) who really is the faithful and discreet slave.

(b) whom his master appointed over his domestics,.

moggy lover

The Watchtower teaching on this subject gets a bit fuzzy if one asks too many questions about the theological ramifications of this teaching.

Yes. The "FDS" and the "domestics" are the same group, but viewed differently. The Rev Climax! book says on page 201 the following: "The slave, as a body, is responsible for supplying the food, but the domestics, the individual members of that body are sustained by partaking of the spiritual provisions . They are the same group but described in different terms - collectively, and individually"

This may be all very well, but the pratical application of this piece of wisdom has a glaring difficiency. For instance:This means that Ted Jaracz as part of a group of some 8,500 people is the FDS, but as an individual, when he reads the material he has contributed to, becomes a "domestic". Thus: When he writes a Watchtower article, he is part of the Slave, but when he studies what he has written, he is a "domestic".

I mean and all. Come on. You mean, he doesn't know what he has written, but has to study it as well? Then, these men "study" the material they have contributed to collectively, never individually. They meet, supposedly, at regular Watchtower studies, and along with the rest of the gathered "anointed" they study this material. So there is no partical difference between the individuals and the group.

Hi, Ted, are you really a member of the FDS?

Ted: What's today? Wednesday? Nope. Today I am studying what I wrote on Monday. So toaday I'm a domestic.

See? Logical as quicksand.

The other "non anointed" sheep are the other sheep whether considered as a group or as individuals. So what is sauce for gander is not sauce for the goose. By the way, they are the part of Matt 24:47 where it says "all His belongings" so: The FDS= the anointed as a group, the domestics= the anointed as individuals, who evidently teach themselves individually, and the "belongings"= the other sheep.

The other parts of your question also become murky in the telling. As far as we can tell it was Mrs R who first broached the subject of the FDS=CTR. There is no record of CTR actually admitting that he was the FDS publically, but we do have anecdotal evidence from his associates who confirmed that he declared this several times privately.

It was Rutherford, who when he felt sufficiently strong to break free from the straitjacket of Russellite theology, invented the FDS "class" doctrine. In fact this was one of his favourite buzz words. He made up the "Mordecai" class, the "Esther" class, the "Naomi" class, the "Ruth" class, and his particular favourite: the "clergy" class. Oh, there were others that were part of his creative writing expertise, but none of them are now in regular use.

The GB was established in 1971, which would have been when they were identified as the FDS. Knorr made the proviso that to be a member of the GB, one had to be of the FDS.

Whatever you do, don't mention the years 1919 or 1943 to a dyed-in-the-wool Watchtower follower. Throughout his years at the helm of the Watchtower Empire, JFR did not have the creative ability to unfold a concrete theology that explained Christ's "invisible" presence as occurring in 1914. He did make allusions to this date in some obscure passages of his literature, but whether these were ghostwritten for him by others is uncertain. Certainly he died believing that Jesus actually did come in 1874.

It was his evil genius of a disciple, Freddy Franz, who, in 1943 first outlined a detailed theology that explained 1914 as the date for Christ's "invisible" presence. When this detailed theology was unfurled, no attribution to the former date of 1874 was made, and those newly converted who had no inkling of CTR's 1874 date swallowed it whole. Which suited friend Freddy very nicely indeed.

5

Lexicon and concordance

by PSacramento in

i used the lexicon and concordance over at blueletterbible.org, a very awesome site and one i higly recommend for all, but i would like to buy one for home, any suggestions?.

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moggy lover

Unfortunately there is no one single book that will answer all your requirements, and you will need to assess your own personal needs before investing in either a good lexicon or concordance. There is no one book which acts both as a concordance and lexicon for a serious investigation into the Bible text.

For instance, Zondervan books publish a comprehensive concordance of 1650 pages which lists every single occurence of every word in the Bible text of the NIV Bible. It is called the "Strongest NIV Exhaustive Concordance" They do this for the KJV Bible translation as well. At the back of each book a lexicon is featured which also lists all the original langauge words that undergird the English translation.

Holman books do the same for the NASV Bible.

You can get various editions of the "Strong's" concordance which have various sub features that highlight certain aspects of the text of the Bible in English as well as the original languages. You will need to investigate each of these to be satisfied on your needs.

If you are a Roman Catholic, the Liturgical Press have published the "Nelson's Complete Concordance of the New American Bible" which opens up the Catholic NAB Bible to readers. Tyndale Publishers have done the same for the New Living Translation.

There are other kinds of concordances that are more comprehensive which are called "Analytical" and which are formatted slightly differently. For instance, "The Analytical Concordance to the Revised Standard Version of the NT" is formatted not according to the English but the original Greek. Through this formatting you can look behind the original word that is used for the RSV NT, and you can see how many different ways it is translated into English.

Young's Analytical Concordance does the same for the the whole Bible. In a sense, these ought to be favoured over the comprehensive concordances because the variety of translation is more easily accessible. For instance, if you want to do a word study on the word "Hope" in the Bible, looking up a Comprehensive Concordance transcribing any particular version, you will get every occurence of the word in the Scripture text, but: 1 You will not be able to distinguish between the verb and the noun 2 Whether there are various original language words behind this word.

An Analytical concordance solves this problem by listing the occurences according to the origianl languages. For instance for "hope" an analytical concordance can tell you that is derived from 9 separate Hebrew words such as "betach" "bittachon" "kesel" "mibtach" etc.

It will also show you how the verbs are translated as well. The drawback is that naturally the occurences are not listed chronologically, but analytically. So with an analytical concordance you will be able to tell how many times "hope" is translated from the original Heb word "Bittachon" or "mibtach" but not how many times it occurs chronologically. [Unless of course you are game enough to count the various analytical occurences to get an overall number.]

Oddly enough, in 1973 The Watchtower Society published a very good "Comprehensive Concordance" to the NWT but I fear that it is no longer in print, since the original print run was for only 200,000 copies.

There are various editions of Hebrew and Greek lexicons available in the market today. For their price which is moderate, considering their invaluable content, Thayer's Greek Lexicon, and Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon are the best available. A more comprehensive Heb lexicon is that of "Brown Driver and Briggs". Probabaly the best and most comprehensive available for the NT is that of "Bauer Danker Arnt and Gringrich" [BDAG]which has the added advantage of helping the student to see the evolution of meaning in these Greeks words from their earliest usages in pre-Christian times. Unfortunately it is not cheap, and like me, you may need to forego several meals before purchasing one of these.

Apart from Lexicons, there are "Exegetical Dictionaries" which detail, within any given context, the application of any given word. The three volume "Exegetical Dictionary to the greek NT" by Baltz and Schneider is recommended. Less comprehensive though worth its price is "Renn's Expository Dictionary of Bible Words", as is the "Word Study Dictionary of the NT edited by Spiros Zodhiates.

So, as you can see, there is a veritable smorgasborg of literature available to the serious, and not so serious student of the biblical text. A visit to your nearest Christian book store will help you to decide your needs.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

22

Was pastor Russell right about ANYTHING?

by bohm in

hey!.

pastor russell was wrong about a lot of things - one could make a really long list from any 10 random pages from the finished mystery.

but for fun i want to turn it around, so my question is this:.

moggy lover

Evidently CT Russell was incapable of conceiving a single original theological idea. According to Ray Franz, one GB member confessed to him that most of CT Russell's doctrines, and certainly all of his more important ones, were got from the Second Adventists. Thus, if he was right about anything and time has shown that he was not, he would have to attribute that to someone else.

Cheers

19

Man Blames Cat For Child Pornography Images On His Computer

by minimus in

he told detectives in martin county, florida that his cat would jump around on his keyboard and that's the reason over 1000 images were downloaded of child pornography!

the 48 year old man couldn't understand how it happened either!!

!.

moggy lover

You mean the cat was droolin' over kittens?.

Randy sod.

'Ave him desexed I'd say.

53

How Would You Prove That Abstaining From Blood Is Not Prohibiting Transfusions?

by minimus in

jw
friends

last night my grandson got a blood transfusion.

it occured to me how stupid the belief is that to "abstain from blood" refers to a transfusion.

how would you reason with someone to show that abstaining from blood would not refer to accepting a blood transfusion?.

moggy lover

Unfortunately this is a complex issue and cannot be resolved simply by reading Acts 15:29, and then extrapolating from that one text an injunction against blood transfusions. There are issues of exegesis that become involved, and this leads to interpretation which itself has to include various problems of context. For instance, who were being addressed by the abstinence order of this verse? All Christians? No. The letter that was to be circulated among the various Christian congregations of that time only referred to Gentile Christians. Thus whatever Acts 15:29 means it applied at a certain moment in time, to a certain section of Christians that existed at that time.

The problems of exegesis are therefore contextually interwoven around several subtext issues which thus makes interpreting this section of Acts intensely difficult. There are various points of delineation that need to be addressed:

1 What does "apecho" translated as "abstain" mean? Is it purely a dietary term involving the ingesting of fluids into the body? The fact that it is used with "idolatry" and "fornication" shows that it has a range of meanings extending to conditions beyond the human digestive system. For this reason several mainline conservative scholars believe that "abstaining from blood" takes in, not only the need to refrain from taking into the body but to avoid any contact with blood whatever. Thus abstaining from blood can, using "abstaining from idolatry" as a locus, mean also "abstaining from spilling blood.

2 How many prohibitions are listed in vs 29? Three? or Four? The Watchtower has always assumed that it was four: Idolatry, blood, strangled meat, and fornication. But this ignores the use of the Greek "kai" which Freddy Franz, Watchtower wunderkind, translated as "and". Lets digress a moment, and look at this little word:

How many groups are sighted as being in heaven in Rev 20:4? Two, if you take "kai" to mean "and" as in:1 Those who sat on thrones [acc to Wt theology= 144000] AND 2 Those who were Great Tribulation martyrs. In order for Franz to make only one group appear in heaven this is how he manipulated the word "kai": "Those who sat on thrones, YES, the great Tribulation martyrs.

Now lets look at Acts 15:29, paying attention to how we can apply "kai", 1 idolatry and 2 blood, yes, strangled animals 3 fornication. We can see from this that the the list of prohibitions may actually have been three, not four. This is in fact favoured by a majority of interpreters. [See Bible Knowledge Commentary - pg 395] If this is the case then the prohibition against blood is purely a dietary issue, referring back to Gen 9, where blood should be drained from an animal before eating, and has nothing to do with medical ethics and practice.

3 Were these prohibitions to be permanent? According to the Watchtower they were. But others are not so sure.

Again remember that these prohibitions were legislated when an issue occurred in the Primitive Church: a threatened split in the Church caused by the two divisions of Jewish and Gentile Christians. As long as that division persisted, the letter sent out to Gentile Christians asking THEM [not the Jewish section] to observe 15:29 would be in force. [See vs 19, where Freddy referred to the addressees as "those of the nations" Most intelligible translations read: "Those among the Gentiles" NASB]

By the 21st century, when this division is no longer prevalent, the issue addressing that division is correspondingly irrelevant.

By the time the Bible canon was completed, and distributed, especially the Pauline corpus which was written some thirty years and more after this event, True Christians would have a complete record of God's will on the subject. Especially relevant would be Rom 14. Where Acts 15:29 was a blanket prohibition for Gentile believers, now Paul reveals that a measure of conscience becomes involved, and Christians, whatever their ethnic background, should learn to flex their theological sinews in making their own decisions.

Also curiously enough, Acts 15 was relevant at a time when such things as "prophets" as a unique sub group were still current in the Church [Acts 15:32] When this office would pass away as the Watchtower insists that it would, the relevance of this part of the Bible would be in its historical content, not prohibitive analysis.

Thus Acts 15 is by no means so inflexible a construct that it requires only one authorized and censured version of interpretation. Christians have long discovered something that the arrogant strangers to God's word who fraudulently pose as God's exclusive spokesmen in the Watchtower, have not. And this is to tolerate and accept various possible permutations of evidence, all of which are based on sound biblical exegesis.

Back then we can see the loving reaction of the two groups within Christianity. The decision made at the Jerusalem involved doctrinal and practical matters. Jewish Christians agreed doctrinally to drop the need for circumcision, and the Gentiles agreed to adopt certain moral and dietary codes that they previously had had. The principle today is the same. We must accept differing opinions, knowing that no one or no group possesses absolute truth.

We must all struggle with biblical revelation, and whether such things as blood transfusions have any connection, no matter how tenuous with Acts 15 becomes moot, not inscribed in stone. Most intelligent Christians would consider it foolish to hang so much, including a possible danger to ones life or ones loved, on a circumstance that involves interpretation of a complex Bible passage..

53

How Would You Prove That Abstaining From Blood Is Not Prohibiting Transfusions?

by minimus in

jw
friends

last night my grandson got a blood transfusion.

it occured to me how stupid the belief is that to "abstain from blood" refers to a transfusion.

how would you reason with someone to show that abstaining from blood would not refer to accepting a blood transfusion?.

moggy lover

11

"professes" to be annointed

by stillin in

what's that all about??

?.

moggy lover

It is part of the double talk that makes up Watchtower gobbledygook.

Those who "profess" to be Christians are false Christians.

Those who "profess" to be of the Other Sheep are "true" Christians.

Those who "profess" to be of the "anointed" are weirdos

Go figure.

44

Animals living forever

by startingover in

does anyone know?

did jw's ever believe that animals will live forever in the paradise?

i was having a discussion with a jw friend and he said they did..

moggy lover

You mean the elders aren't already, lobotomized I mean? And the anonymous writers of the literature?

The literature is a perfect example of lobotomized writers simply writing to arrive at preconceived conclusions rather than presenting a logical and objective submission of evidence.

10

ROMANS 8:18-25 PROVES 2 CLASS WT TEACHING.. SAYS THE WIFE

by whereami in

can someone help me here?.

maybe narkissos or laolaia can help?.

.

moggy lover

I'm not entirely sure what point your wife is attempting to make by quoting Ro 8:18-25, but it can't be to establish that there are two classes of Christian believers, because this is certainly not being discussed here.

Chap 8 of Romans is a discussion of what True Christians call the Doctrine of Sanctification and the specific role that the Holy Spirit plays in this regard. From vs1 to about vs 25 Paul discusses the believer's bondage to sin and its attendant trait- death. Before the believer became a believer he/she was a slave to sin, and consequently walked according to the flesh, which is a path that leads to death. [vss 1-6] However through the grace of God, He has imparted to the believer the Holy Spirit, who by indwelling the believer impels him/her to walk according to the spirit and consequently to life. Unforttunately the Watchtower knows nothing about this doctrine of the In-dwelling Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit thus dwells in the believer [vs 11] He brings about the miraculous work of redefining the believer according to the ways of the Spirit and not the flesh. This in turn leads to the believer being adopted as a "Son Of God" and like any child who is privileged to inherit the estate of the parent, the believer becomes an heir of God and fellow heir of Christ. [vs 17]

Now in all this section there is only one "class" of believer mentioned. This "class" is referred to in the first person plural personal pronoun: "us" or "we". The Christian believer cannot read this section, as Watchtower followers do, and apply the third person pronoun: "they" "them" to the text. Either you read it and believe, or you don't read it. But to read it and apply it opportunistically, and selectively, simply because of a precognitive requirement of Watchtower theology is to make a mockery of the Word of God. Having constantly being fed on the monotonous and propagandizing literature of the Watchtower, the Watchtower follower has this remarkable ability to apportion sections of scripture to make it apply as and when it aligns with Watchtower theology. Ultimately that is the epitome of Watchtower success in brainwashing.

For instance the Watchtower follower will read vs 12 which says: "We are under obligation not to live in accord with the flesh" and the "we" bit refers to the individual Watchtower follower, but mystically, this "we" by some arcane mutation, transmutes into "them" just three vss further. Thus a dichotomy is strained out of the text and forced into a preconceived mould to prop up Watchtower theology.

We now come to vss 18-25. For reasons that Paul does not specify, not just humanity and the terrestrial abode we all inhabit, but all the physical universe became enmeshed in this decline into decay and corruption, with the whole "creation" being subject to "futility" not of its own accord, but simply because God subjected it to this dissolution. Thus slowly, not just all humanity, but all creation is dying, and slowly running down.

The expression in vs 19, "eager expectation" [NW "T"] "anxious longing" [NASB] is from the Greek "apek-dech-omai" and is used seven times in the NT and every time refers to Christ's Coming Again [Ro 8:19, 23,25, 1Cor 1:7, Gal 5:5, Phil 3:20, and Heb 9:28]. Thus,"we" the regenerated [born again] sons of God, will be "revealed" when Christ returns for His own. "We" will share His glory, but always as inferiors, and all creation will be restored to its pristine glory as originally envisioned by God. All hope then, not just for "us" but all physical creation, rests not in some "kingdom" or the "vindication of Yahweh's name" but in Christ coming again. Physically, tangibly, corporeally, and personally.

As can be seen then there is only two classes mentioned in Ro 8:

1 "We" who are sanctified by the Holy Spirit and made "sons of God" by adoption. [8:16]

2 Those who are in the flesh. These ones cannot please God. [8:8]

Unfortunately for Watchtower followers there is NO third group. Those who are in the flesh, but who because they prostate themselves before the "spirit-directed" organization, can please God.

49

Debunking the WTS view of apostasy

by Awakened at Gilead in

just created a new video that uses the bible to show how jw's claims about apostates lack biblical basis.. your comments are welcome.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eg219nkire.

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moggy lover

The problem that we have when discussing "apostasy" and "apostates" is twofold:

1 Who can lay claim to being the true inheritors of the ancient Jewish tradition that is encompassed in the OT?

2 Does the word "apostate" as understood in the the stylized patois of the Watchtower, actually occur in the OT? [There is no problem about it occurring in the NT because we know it occurs twice]

1 To suggest, as the Watchtower leadership suggests, that they and they alone can singularly wrap themselves around the mantle of the OT is not just sheer arrogance, but it spills over into the ancient Greek concept of "hubris", defined in their vocabulary as: "wanton arrogance that leads to violence against opposers, an insufferable arrogance accrued from claims to divine exclusivity" [paraphrased from Liddell and Scott Lexicon] In other words, anyone making claims of such insularity is dangerously bordering on blasphemy.

To make these claims solely on the basis of their use of the tri-syllabic mongrelized word "jehovah" which has an etymology that is neither Hebrew nor English, is puerile to say the least, especially when you consider the fact that there are several Sacred Name sects out there, most of whom are more closely linked to the OT system than the Watchtower, and whose use of Yahweh is more accurate than anything the Watchtower can match.

The Watchtower system is a proto-fascist ideal which replaces the freedom that the individual has with God, with a centrally controlled organizationally infused dynamic that supposedly serves the interests of all. Such an imperialism may be regarded as benevolent by the majority of the more somnolent of the movement, but nevertheless it is still an imposition, a manifestation of raw power. Dissenting from such systematized and institutionalized piety, is regarded as apostasy only by those cocooned in the veiled facade of Watchtower doctrinal probity.

It must also be remembered that the Watchtower leadership expresses its authority in a modern Americanized jargon with its metaphors derived from the American pop culture of the 1960s, and not from OT idiom. No Sabbath is observed, no tithes paid, and no festivals observed, all part of the warp and woof of OT cultural idiom. The Watchtower links to the OT, then, are tenuous, at best. So any "apostate" from the OT system must be a subject of interpretation, not of pre-cognitive functional subjectivity.

2 Should the word "apostate" or "apostasy" occur in the OT? The Watchtower wunderkind, Freddy Franz, whose legacy, the NW "T" is constantly being defended by his successors, certainly thought so. He introduced it 16 times in his "translation" of the OT. All these occurrences are from the Heb word "hho'neph" and its cognates. The word is clearly defined by Strong, Gesenius, and BDB as: Impiety, godlessness.

The NIV consistently translates this word as: "Ungodliness" as does the NASB. The NLT has the same.

As one can see, the use of "apostasy" in the OT, so useful to facilitating the Watchtower agenda of self-righteous posturing is entirely bogus. An "apostate" is one who has abandoned a certain regimentation which either he or his peers once regarded as "truth", while the OT word is referring to those who never had any spiritual dimension in their lives in the first place and who cared nothing about it anyway.

It is matter of scholarly debate whether the Heb vocabulary, as used in the OT had a word for "apostasy". The NASB for instance uses the word "apostasy" four times in the OT to translate the Heb "Meshubah" the meaning of which is interpretive. It can mean "faithlessness" or a"a turning away" etc, as is found at Jer 8:5. NIV has "turned away" and the NW "T" has "unfaithful" To confuse matters, Greek speaking Jews who translated the OT into the Greek LXX, used the word "apostrepso" which can mean "to return" as to an original fold, or lit, as Adam "returned" to dust. The debate continues.

The Watchtower appropriation of this word to refer to those who dissent from their structural authorization, is at least pretentious, if not, utterly mad.