Posts by peacefulpete

15

Divisions deliberately caused by God?

by LostintheFog1999 in

assuming that you don't dismiss genesis outright as a collection of myths, i was musing about the actions of god as recorded in genesis 11:1-9 regarding the building of the tower of babel.. this origin story for the multiplicity of languages in the earth has god getting annoyed with humans for staying in one location instead of filling out across the whole world.. yahweh could have stopped the tower being built by collapsing it by means of an earthquake, sinking sand, or an extreme gale.

even using an angel to kick it over when everyone was tucked up in bed asleep.

but no, instead he muddles up the vocabulary and grammar and made brand new languages creating division and confusion.. what's more he didn't scatter them and send them off in mixed multicultural groups, but instead he lets them wander off in tribes and family groups.

peacefulpete

Many don't know that building the tower was an open rebellion to God.According to Josephus, Nimrod changed the nature of the government to tyranny under his brutal and evil dictatorship, just as an evil potentate would do, and even more importantly, just as an evil Nephilim potentate would do. Through the brutal and corrupt power of his government, Nimrod imposed his will and state-sponsored.............

This ever so brief pericope of the tower has inspired centuries of addition mythmaking and expansions. Josephus is reciting legends not found in the 9 verses in Genesis. Read the story in situ and you will see none of those colorful associations are in the text. No Nimrod, no rebellion, no arrows into heaven, no pagan idols. These are the embellishments of the intertestamental period and Talmud. The story stood alone as an etiological tale of the origin of languages. In that story the gods foil an effort to become godlike in much the same way they did in the Eden story. It might seem a difficult concept now but this idea is center to many ancient myths wherein the gods withhold something so as to keep humans in their place.

15

Divisions deliberately caused by God?

by LostintheFog1999 in

assuming that you don't dismiss genesis outright as a collection of myths, i was musing about the actions of god as recorded in genesis 11:1-9 regarding the building of the tower of babel.. this origin story for the multiplicity of languages in the earth has god getting annoyed with humans for staying in one location instead of filling out across the whole world.. yahweh could have stopped the tower being built by collapsing it by means of an earthquake, sinking sand, or an extreme gale.

even using an angel to kick it over when everyone was tucked up in bed asleep.

but no, instead he muddles up the vocabulary and grammar and made brand new languages creating division and confusion.. what's more he didn't scatter them and send them off in mixed multicultural groups, but instead he lets them wander off in tribes and family groups.

peacefulpete

Ray .....You have probably heard from others but no, 'Moses' did not write Genesis. It is an anonymous work that was not explicitly claimed to have been written by Moses until the Babylonian Talmud (200CE at the earliest) It is true the "Law" aspects of the Lev. and Deut. had naturally become identified with the Moses character due to his role in that story and over time even the works in general came to be called "Moses" by shorthand, but the claim that Moses wrote Genesis is a very late tradition.

Objective scholarship has suggested the book of Genesis went through stages of compilation and redaction from the 6th to the 3rd centuries BCE. If there was an historical Moses he was long, long dead.

37

Jw shot and killed in field service!

by nowwhat? in

another example of jehovah protects his people except when he doesn't.

https://www.wifr.com/2023/02/12/rockford-police-54-year-old-man-shot-killed-vehicle/.

peacefulpete

When my congo was in the South Bronx a young gal from the church was shot from a roof top while out canvassing. She was hit in the thigh and survived it. We had another guy (stranger) shot in the head right by the church on Sunday morning. I stopped going to that church at that point.

Regarding the quasi-assurance of divine protection, I once brought up the episode where a bunch of JWs starved to death in Africa in a conversation about every missionary's favorite verse, Matt 6:33. I made some angry by suggesting the verse could not mean what we thought it meant.

26

Another interesting comment made by a PIMI JW

by joe134cd in

i thought i’d shear this with you good people.

the cognitive dissonance is just breath taking.

i over heard this comment at a relatives family dinner the other night.

peacefulpete

Image is so important when message is so unattractive.

16

Article & Documentary on the Divine name

by Blotty in

video documentary and academic article on the divine name:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljpgxsyiqtc&ab_channel=johnwyatthttps://www.academia.edu/14029315/the_name_of_god_y_eh_ow_ah_which_is_pronounced_as_it_is_written_i_eh_ou_ah_simplified_edition?email_work_card=title this does not prove gods name was present in the nt, however some points do lead us to that conclusion simply by process of elimination.

peacefulpete

Sorry if I seemed to be correcting you. My use of the word 'actually' was meant as 'surprisingly' not as a corrective to your comment.

15

Divisions deliberately caused by God?

by LostintheFog1999 in

assuming that you don't dismiss genesis outright as a collection of myths, i was musing about the actions of god as recorded in genesis 11:1-9 regarding the building of the tower of babel.. this origin story for the multiplicity of languages in the earth has god getting annoyed with humans for staying in one location instead of filling out across the whole world.. yahweh could have stopped the tower being built by collapsing it by means of an earthquake, sinking sand, or an extreme gale.

even using an angel to kick it over when everyone was tucked up in bed asleep.

but no, instead he muddles up the vocabulary and grammar and made brand new languages creating division and confusion.. what's more he didn't scatter them and send them off in mixed multicultural groups, but instead he lets them wander off in tribes and family groups.

peacefulpete

Ray...Yes. Genesis is an especially obvious collection of stories from north and south that were collected and somewhat woven into a single text. This produced much inconsistency and duplication. The compiler was more interested in preserving disparate traditions than perfect harmonization. Surely you have seen this in the 2 creation stories, the two flood stories, the 2 genealogies, etc. The basic J (itself with layers J1 and J2) narrative seems to have been the most complete and formed the basic outline. The standalone Flood stories (J and P) placed into that narrative where they are, creates a number of storyline issues. Why are there Nephilim in Cannan when they should have drowned in the flood? Why are there people living hundreds of years after God decreed a limit of 120 years? (J has no one living older but P does) for examples.

Nimrod is one of the Nephilim, 'mighty ones' but that is lost on readers because of the Flood stories interruption.

The standalone J Tower story never mentions Nimrod and was inserted into the narrative at the mention of the city's name. A convenient spot but it doesn't fit the narrative again. Notice in chapt 10 before the tower story there is already a table of nations and empires (itself an insertion) Notice too that 10:31 is continued at 11:10, interrupted by the tower story.

29 and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab; all these [are] sons of Joktan;

30 and their dwelling is from Mesha, [in] thy coming towards Sephar, a mount of the east.

31 These [are] sons of Shem, by their families, by their tongues, in their lands, by their nations.

---------------INSERT TOWER STORY HERE---------------------------

10 These [are] births of Shem: Shem [is] a son of an hundred years, and begetteth Arphaxad (GLOSS two years after the deluge).

11 And Shem liveth after his begetting Arphaxad five hundred years, and begetteth sons and daughters.

12 And Arphaxad hath lived five and thirty years, and begetteth Salah.

13 And Arphaxad liveth after his begetting Salah four hundred and three years, and begetteth sons and daughters......................

25

Wedding Anniversary #62

by smiddy3 in

jw
friends

hi friends , i thought i would just let you know it`s my wife and i, 62nd wedding anniversary today.. not that we were able to celebrate much as my wife wasn`t up to it today .. however i did manage to give her a couple of champers at home ,while i had a couple o ales with friends down at the club and managed to put on lotto for tonite and a couple of keno`s from the club ,you never know the god`s might smile upon us for doing something right after all these years.?.

take care guys.. smiddy 3.

peacefulpete

Belated Congrats

29

Passport to Heaven

by JW Answers in

jehovah's witnesses believe that only 144,000 go to heaven, where as the bible teaches us that all who come to jesus can!

nothing in the bible for 144,000.. the bible teaches that salvation is not through religion, works, self righteousness or human effort.

but salvation is only through the person of the lord jesus christ.. feel free to watch below.

peacefulpete

You would not even be able to make your posts if Christianity wasn't true. How would you know what evil even was if we are nothing more that DNA

My dog knows that if someone abuses him he should avoid them.

16

Article & Documentary on the Divine name

by Blotty in

video documentary and academic article on the divine name:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljpgxsyiqtc&ab_channel=johnwyatthttps://www.academia.edu/14029315/the_name_of_god_y_eh_ow_ah_which_is_pronounced_as_it_is_written_i_eh_ou_ah_simplified_edition?email_work_card=title this does not prove gods name was present in the nt, however some points do lead us to that conclusion simply by process of elimination.

peacefulpete

JWGoneBad...They actually mention Martini few times. They contradict:

Divine Name Brochure....In time, God’s name came back into use. In 1278 it appeared in Latin in the work Pugio fidei (Dagger of Faith), by Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk. Raymundus Martini used the spelling Yohoua.

WT 1980 Interestingly, Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican order, first rendered the divine name as “Jehova.” This form appeared in his book Pugeo Fidei, published in 1270 C.E.—over 700 years ago.

Aid book: By combining the vowel signs of ʼAdho·nayʹ and ʼElo·himʹ with the four consonants of the Tetragrammaton the pronunciations Yeho·wahʹ and Yeho·wihʹ were formed. The first of these provided the basis for the Latinized form “Jehova(h) (In the 16th century).” The first recorded use of this form dates from the thirteenth century C.E. Raymundus Martini, a Spanish monk of the Dominican Order, used it in his book Pugeo Fidei of the year 1270.

Blotty you might find that last one interesting. The vowels were long known to be from Masoretic vowel points.

208

How to debunk the 1914 calculus ONLY using JW publications?

by psyco in

i remember having read somewhere, but i cannot find it anymore, that it is possible to debunk the 1914 calculus using only jw publications, like "insight on the scriptures" (chronologies) for example.. do you have any sources about that to suggest to me?.

thanks..

peacefulpete

70 was a number representing a lifespan. 7and 10 are also symbolic numbers used countless times. When Esarhaddon was moved to restore Babylon, after it was destroyed by his father, he references the belief that Marduke had decreed 70 years of desolation for their unfaithfulness, but due to his mercy he reduced it to 11 (70 upside down was 11 in their script). Interestingly enough even 11 wasn't literal either it seems he set to rebuilding it prior to that.

When in the reign of an earlier king there were ill omens, the city offended its gods and was destroyed at their command. It was me, Esarhaddon, whom they chose to restore everything to its rightful place, to calm their anger, to assuage their wrath. You, Marduk, entrusted the protection of the land of Assur to me. The Gods of Babylon meanwhile told me to rebuild their shrines and renew the proper religious observances of their palace, Esagila. I called up all my workmen and conscripted all the people of Babylonia. I set them to work, digging up the ground and carrying the earth away in baskets..."what was taken and plundered from Babylon, he has returned" and from Sippar to Bab-marrat the chiefs of the Chaldeans bless the king, saying, "(It is he) who resettled (the people) of Babylon"....Seventy years as the period of its desolation he (Marduk) wrote down (in the book of fate). But the merciful Marduk in a moment his heart was at rest (appeased) turned it (the book) upside down and for the eleventh year ordered its restoration.

The endless debates about what starting and ending points of a period that there is every reason to believe was a literary trope in lands controlled by Babylon just results in nothing but confusion and frustration.

Add to this the fact that Ezek 4:6 similarly uses the 40 year trope to indicate the same period.

Arguing about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin comes to mind.