Posts by Disillusioned JW

24

Two Bible teachings JW's DON'T know about....

by BoogerMan in

....but the november 2022 study watchtower will definitely instruct them.. 1) god's name is jehovah!.

2) jehovah is using an earthly organization to do his will - not jesus!.

in study article 45, 'jehovah' is mentioned at least 60 times.

Disillusioned JW

About 15 year ago I owned all the volumes, except for one, of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. The edition I had said in the introduction that when one reads the writings one will notice they do not teach certain doctrines which the churches (or Roman Church or Church?) now teach as main doctrines. I bought those volumes in order to check the claims the WT about what the "Church Fathers" said about Jesus, primarily to see if they taught he was God (in the full sense) or not. I noticed that almost none of the authentic writings (ones which scholars said were not forgeries) in the volumes of the earliest writers made any claim of Jesus being God, other than sometimes to the extent that the NT Bible appears (at least to some people) to claim Jesus is God. What I read in the books confirmed the message I had read in the WT's literature on the subject of claims of Jesus being God or not!

In a number of manuscripts of the writing of the "Church Fathers' there are likely variant readings (including added words which deify Jesus), like in the NT manuscripts. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/polycarp.html lists three translations of Polycarps' Letter to the Philippians. While the first two do say "Lord and God Jesus Christ" (which I think is very strange wording and I think ) the third tanslation says "Lord Jesus Christ" instead! Notice that it says the following (in chapter 12).

"But may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Himself, who is the Son of God, and our everlasting High Priest, build you up in faith and truth, and in all meekness, gentleness, patience, long-suffering, forbearance, and purity; and may He bestow on you a lot and portion among His saints, and on us with you, and on all that are under heaven, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Father, who "raised Him from the dead. Pray for all the saints."

I own a copy of the book called "The Lost Books Of The Bible ..." and that edition is copyright 1979.The main text is a reprint of the 1926 edition which is based upon an edition from 1820 called The Apocryphal New Testament (I once saw a copy of that very old edition). The 1979 edition I have has a different chapter and verse numbering than the one quoted above from http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-roberts.html . In this edition (the one from 1979) the chapters are much longer, with a total of four chapters. Chapter IV verses 10 and 11 correspond to the quote above. The book says the translation contained within it (for The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians) is by Archbishop Wake. Verse 11 says the following.

"And grant unto you a lot and portion among his saints; and us with you, and to all that are under the heavens, who shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in his Father who raised hm from the dead."

I once owned (but no longer own) the edition called The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden (and before that I owned a different copy of the same edition of The Lost Books Of The Bible which I now have). That edition includes some Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Books_of_the_Bible_and_the_Forgotten_Books_of_Eden ). Some of the books included in the Forgotten Books of Eden teach NT Christian doctrines, so much so that critical scholars say the Christian sounding portions are insertions by Christians into books which were originally pre-Christian Jewish books. But some scholars think that those books (thought to have been originally written before 1 CE) actually were teaching those doctrines which we find in the NT as Christian doctrines.

Some years after I had studied The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden, but probably before I became an atheist, I sold that book. But now that I am an atheist I wish I still had that book since it can be used to dispute some of the claims of trinitarians about what the "Church Fathers" said and to show that a number of doctrines attributed as being of Jesus might have actually predated the first century CE, or if not that, that it can be shown that Christians more than 1,000 years ago tampered with some Jewish books by inserting Christian teachings into them. That is one reason why I purchased my current copy of The Lost Books of the Bible when I found it at Friends of the Library book sale in 2019 for a very low price.

24

Two Bible teachings JW's DON'T know about....

by BoogerMan in

....but the november 2022 study watchtower will definitely instruct them.. 1) god's name is jehovah!.

2) jehovah is using an earthly organization to do his will - not jesus!.

in study article 45, 'jehovah' is mentioned at least 60 times.

Disillusioned JW

A moment ago I learned of Kermit Zarley who is a retired professional golfer and now is an author of books on biblical studies. He apparently is a progressive Christian who no longer believes in the trinity doctrine and apparently is now a unitarian in regards to his concept of the biblical God (see https://21stcr.org/author/kermit-zarley/ ). Though he believes "that Jesus never thought he was God or claimed to be God", he nonetheless disagrees with a number of Bart Ehrman's ideas. He also believes some things about Jesus which the WT also believes. At https://www.patheos.com/blogs/kermitzarleyblog/author/kermitzarleyblog/ Zarley says the following.

"Ehrman begins his Introduction by saying (p. 3), “The idea that Jesus is God … was the view of the very earliest Christians soon after Jesus’s death.” I strongly disagree. I show in 322 pages in my RJC book that nowhere does the NT declare that Jesus is God, and I treat the critical biblical texts in depth. Ehrman further surmises (p. 6) “how Jesus came to be considered God. The short answer is that it all had to do with his follower’s belief that he had been raised from the dead.” WOW!

This is the thesis of Ehrman’s book, How Jesus Became God. Some Christians have also believed this. But it is irrational and antithetical to Judaism. Thus, it is highly unlikely that the early Jewish Christians believed that. Tom (N.T.) Wright and other leading NT scholars have convincingly refuted this argument. Most Jews during Jesus’ time, including him and his contemporaries, the Pharisees and Essenes, believed in the future resurrection of God’s people, and they certainly did not think that would make them gods.

... Ehrman ... takes the typical position of historical-critical scholars about Jesus and the NT gospels. They correctly state that, according to the synoptic gospels, Jesus did not believe he was God or say he was God, and his early disciples didn’t believe he was God either. But Ehrman errs in saying the Gospel of John identifies Jesus as God. (See pp. 124-25, 248). About Ehrmans’ quotes of Jesus in John 8.58, Jesus therein didn’t mean he preexisted but that he was superior to Abraham. The prior context of John 10.30 shows that Jesus meant he and the Father work together in unity as “one,” not that they are one in essence as some church fathers asserted. (Cf. “one” in John 17.11, 22-23). And Jesus saying, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9), does not mean he is God or the Father since he then explained it to mean, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (v. 11; cf. 10.38). Scholars call this the Mutual Indwellling, and many people have confused it with Jesus being identified as God. Yet Ehrman is right in saying that if Jesus publicly said he was God, Matthew, Mark, and Luke would have mentioned it in their gospels. Moreover, Jews would have argued with him about it far more than that he was the Messiah. Ehrman rightly says later that being a Jew (p. 98), “Jesus would have believed that there was one true God.”

... As stated above, Ehrman says that right after Jesus’ death, the early Jewish Christians began to believe that Jesus was God. On the contrary, I maintain that the NT does not say Jesus was God, so that it was not until the second century, after the apostolic era and the writing of the NT, that some Christians began to say Jesus was/is God. But for the next two centuries they said his divinity/deity was less than that of the Father, making Jesus essentially subordinate to God. It was not until the Nicene Creed, in 325, that Christians declared Jesus is God just as much as the Father is. And only in the latter half of the fourth century did Catholic Church officials construct the doctrine of the Trinity that we know about today.

... In Chapter 2, Ehrman says again of early Christians (p. 49-50), “How could they say that Jesus was God and still claim that there was only one God. If God was God and Jesus was God, doesn’t that make two Gods?” Indeed. And I am surprised Ehrman fails to mention that both the Ebonite and Nazarene sects of early Jewish Christians lodged this argument. It was Gentile Christians in the next century, such as Ignatius, who started saying Jesus is God. When they did, critics accused them of believing in two gods. But Ehrman says (p. 49) that he was enlightened to learn that “Christians were calling Jesus God” in “competition” with “the Romans calling the emperor God.” Maybe in the second century, but not the first century as Ehrman claims.

27

Did the Watchtower Society ban Vaccinations and Organ Transplants?

by Vanderhoven7 in

an avid wts supporter writes:.

re: vaccinations: vaccinations have never been banned.

if they were, then no representative of the wts would have been allowed to travel overseas when vaccines were compulsory around 1920 when vaccines was regularly in the news, there was both positive and negative information printed in the golden age (forerunner of the awake) but not from the staff writers, but from out side sources of article by medical doctors at the time and others that responded to those articles.. re: organ transplants: organ transplants were never forbidden by the society.

Disillusioned JW

I think (based upon my recollections of quotes of WT literature) that initially WT literature said that organ translates were fine, that later for a short period of time the WT condemned them (and I think they banned them), but that even later once again they did not ban them.

24

Two Bible teachings JW's DON'T know about....

by BoogerMan in

....but the november 2022 study watchtower will definitely instruct them.. 1) god's name is jehovah!.

2) jehovah is using an earthly organization to do his will - not jesus!.

in study article 45, 'jehovah' is mentioned at least 60 times.

Disillusioned JW

In considering this topic thread it is important to realize that the NT gospels embellish what Jesus said. They incorporate ideas about Jesus which Jesus did not hold about himself. This is brought out at https://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/did_jesus_think_he_was_god_new_insights_on_jesus_own_self_image/ which is an except from Bart Ehrman's book called How Jesus Became God.

In the except Ehrman says that though the historical Jesus taught about the Son of Man, Jesus did not consider himself the Son of Man, nor did Jesus consider himself God. Ehrman says the message of Jesus was about the coming of the kingdom of God, and that Jesus never publicly (except when he was on trail before Pilate) said he would be the king (though Jesus had privately told his apostles that he would be king). I think that Ehrman is correct about this. [H. G. Wells got some of this right in his book called The Outline Of History, but Wells didn't conclude that Jesus taught an apocalyptic message, and Wells seemed to believe Jesus taught the kingdom would only exist within people and only be manifested by their actions.] As a result, the WT's emphasis on Jehovah God and his kingdom (with the kingdom having an administration on Earth which benefits human subjects) is much closer to what the historical Jesus taught than what virtually all of the Christian religions teach. [However, it is very improper for the governing body of the JW to elevate themselves and the WT organization so very high. They have no scriptural basis for doing it, nor do they have any basis in the teachings of the historical Jesus for doing so.]

The excerpt of Ehramn's book says, in part, the following.

'According to our accounts, the trial of Jesus before Pilate was short and to the point. Pilate asked him whether it was true that he was the king of the Jews. Almost certainly, this was the actual charge leveled against Jesus. It is multiply attested in numerous independent witnesses, both at the trial itself and as the charge written on the placard that hung with him on his cross (e.g., Mark 15:2, 26). Moreover, it is not a charge that Christians would have invented for Jesus—for a possibly unexpected reason. Even though Christians came to understand Jesus to be the messiah, they never ever, from what we can tell, applied to him the title “king of the Jews.” If Christians were to invent a charge to put on Pilate’s lips, it would be, “Are you the messiah?” But that’s not how it works in the Gospels. The charge is specifically that he called himself “king of the Jews.”

Evidence that Jesus really did think that he was the king of the Jews is the very fact that he was killed for it. If Pilate asked him whether he were in fact calling himself this, Jesus could have simply denied it, and indicated that he meant no trouble and that he had no kingly expectations, hopes, or intentions. And that would have been that. The charge was that he was calling himself the king of the Jews, and either he flat-out admitted it or he refused to deny it. Pilate did what governors typically did in such cases. He ordered him executed as a troublemaker and political pretender. Jesus was charged with insurgency, and political insurgents were crucified.

The reason Jesus could not have denied that he called himself the king of the Jews was precisely that he did call himself the king of the Jews. He meant that, of course, in a purely apocalyptic sense: when the kingdom arrived, he would be made the king. But Pilate was not interested in theological niceties. Only the Romans could appoint someone to be king, and anyone else who wanted to be king had to rebel against the state.

... The evidence for Jesus’s claims to be divine comes only from the last of the New Testament Gospels, not from any earlier sources.

Someone may argue that there are other reasons, apart from explicit divine self-claims, to suspect that Jesus saw himself as divine. For example, he does amazing miracles that surely only a divine figure could do; and he forgives people’s sins, which surely is a prerogative of God alone; and he receives worship, as people bow down before him, which surely indicates that he welcomes divine honors.

There are two points to stress about such things. The first is that all of them are compatible with human, not just divine, authority. In the Hebrew Bible the prophets Elijah and Elisha did fantastic miracles—including healing the sick and raising the dead—through the power of God, and in the New Testament so did the Apostles Peter and Paul; but that did not make any of them divine. When Jesus forgives sins, he never says “I forgive you,” as God might say, but “your sins are forgiven,” which means that God has forgiven the sins. This prerogative for pronouncing sins forgiven was otherwise reserved for Jewish priests in honor of sacrifices that worshipers made at the temple. Jesus may be claiming a priestly prerogative, but not a divine one. And kings were worshiped—even in the Bible (Matt. 18:26)—by veneration and obeisance, just as God was. Here, Jesus may be accepting the worship due to him as the future king. None of these things is, in and of itself, a clear indication that Jesus is divine.

But even more important, these activities may not even go back to the historical Jesus. Instead, they may be traditions assigned to Jesus by later storytellers in order to heighten his eminence and significance. Recall one of the main points of this chapter: many traditions in the Gospels do not derive from the life of the historical Jesus but represent embellishments made by storytellers who were trying to convert people by convincing them of Jesus’s superiority and to instruct those who were converted. These traditions of Jesus’s eminence cannot pass the criterion of dissimilarity and are very likely later pious expansions of the stories told about him—told by people who, after his resurrection, did come to understand that he was, in some sense, divine.

What we can know with relative certainty about Jesus is that his public ministry and proclamation were not focused on his divinity; in fact, they were not about his divinity at all. They were about God. And about the kingdom that God was going to bring. And about the Son of Man who was soon to bring judgment upon the earth. When this happened the wicked would be destroyed and the righteous would be brought into the kingdom—a kingdom in which there would be no more pain, misery, or suffering. The twelve disciples of Jesus would be rulers of this future kingdom, and Jesus would rule over them. Jesus did not declare himself to be God. He believed and taught that he was the future king of the coming kingdom of God, the messiah of God yet to be revealed. This was the message he delivered to his disciples, and in the end, it was the message that got him crucified. It was only afterward, once the disciples believed that their crucified master had been raised from the dead, that they began to think that he must, in some sense, be God.'

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).

Disillusioned JW

Correction: In my prior post where I said "... applying the wors of ..." I should have said "... applying the words of ...".

Further information: I notice that the 1885 RV, the 1898 ARV (published by Oxford and by Cambridge), and the 1901 ASV each have the translators' note for Psalms 45:6 of "Or, Thy throne is the throne of God &c."

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).

Disillusioned JW

The Bible in Living English (by Byington; copyright 1972 by the WT) in Hebrews 1:8 says "... God is your throne for ever and ever ..." and at Psalms 45:6 it says "God is your throne forever and evermore ...".

The Bible; A New Translation (by Moffatt; copyright 1935) in Hebrews 1:8 says "... God is thy throne for ever and ever ...". Oddly at Psalms 45:6 it doesn't use the word "God", but uses the phrase "shall stand" instead.. In that verse it says "Your throne shall stand for ever more ..." The reason for such could be the scholarly conjecture (#3) mentioned in the translators' note to Hebrews 1:8 in the Fifth Edition of the The New Testament In Modern Speech (by Weymouth and "Newly Revised By James Alexander Robertson") in reference to Psalms 45:6. That NT by Weymouth says the conjecture says the following.

"(3) A corrupt Hebrew text, ' Yahweh ' (God), being a mistake for the almost identical Hebrew word meaning ' shall be '--' Thy throne shall be for ever and ever.' This conjecture is widely adopted, but the writer of the Epistle, in applying the wors of the psalm to the Son, would not feel the difficulty ; and ' Thy throne, O God ' may stand."

Weymouth's NT says conjectures #1 through #2 say the following.

"(1) ' Thy throne is the throne of God ' (so. R.V. mg. in the Psalm).

(2) Thy throne is God for ever and ever.' "

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).

Disillusioned JW

On page 23 of this topic Vanderhoven7 quotes the 1995 NASB translation of Hebrews 1:8-12 of which verse 8 says in part "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever". On the same page of the topic thread I also made a comment about Hebrews 1:8. In this post I am documenting scholarly support of the NWT translation of "God is your throne" for part of verse 8.

The translators' note for Hebrews 1:8 in the 1901 ASV says "Or, Thy throne is God for &c.". The translators' note for Hebrews 1:8 in the RSV (in both the First Edition of the NT [copyright 1946] and in the Second Edition of the NT [copyright 1971]) says Or, God is thy throne". The translators' note for Hebrews 1:8 in the NRSV (copyright 1989) says Or, God is your throne". The translation of Hebrews 1:8 in The Twentieth Century New Testament ... Revised Edition (copyright 1904) says "... God is thy throne for ever and ever ...". The Complete Bible: An American Translation (of which the NT was translated by Edgar J. Goodspeed; copyright 1939) translates Hebrews 1:8 as "... God is your throne forever and ever ...".

34

1985 and baptism...I wish I had read this before today

by enoughisenough in

i am posting a link as to being legally bound to jw rules at time of baptism.

i only did a quick skim, but what i gathered is interesting, and what it says about 1985 may be of use to some hoping to just fade and not be bothered.

in 1985, the questions were changed at baptism for legal purposes so they could have causation to defend themselves should you decide to sue for whatever reason.

Disillusioned JW

Thanks Earnest for the update of what the Organized book says.

45

Does Jesus Live Inside JW's ?

by Sea Breeze in

examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.

know ye not your own selves, how that jesus christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

- 2 cor.

Disillusioned JW

Correction: In my prior post where I said "Mark 18:30" I should have said "Luke 18:30".

45

Does Jesus Live Inside JW's ?

by Sea Breeze in

examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.

know ye not your own selves, how that jesus christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?

- 2 cor.

Disillusioned JW

The account at Mark 10:30 (NASB Updated) does say "will receive a hundred times more now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms ... and in the age to come, eternal life" but I don't see evidence of that literally happening now for people. As a result I don't believe it. Yes some people get many more friends and quasi family members when they become an evangelical Christian and join a mainstream Christian congregation (and even some people purportedly received more friends when they become a JW) and you received a much better life, but I don't believe any of them received a hundred times more houses and farms (or a 100 times other possessions after selling all of their possessions and giving away all of the proceeds to the poor). It is good though that you are much happier now.

Furthermore, Matthew 19:28-29 does not say that any of the material blessings or new family members will come in the current age. Verse 28 (NASB Updated) says "in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne" the 12 apostles (thus apparently including Judas, according to this verse) "shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." That obviously hasn't happened, and if it hypothetically happens it will be in the future (but I no longer believe it ever will happen). Verse 29 doesn't say "a hundred times more" but makes a much more modest claim of "many times as much" and it does not say when that will be be, but the context of 28 gives the impression that Jesus was claiming it will be in the future, "in the regeneration".

The account of Matthew was written later than that of Mark and after Christians noticed that the kingdom hadn't come yet, even though Jerusalem had been destroyed in 70 CE.

Luke 18:29-30 combines elements of Matthew 19:28-29 and Mark 10:29-30 and uses some wording not found in Matthew and Mark, but admittedly Mark 18:30 does say (in the NASB Updated) "at this time and in the age to come, eternal life." By the way Luke 18:29-30 makes it sounds like those who lost their wife "for the sake of the kingdom of God" (1984 NWT) will receive many times more wives "in this period of time" if they become a true follower of Christ; very interesting!