In the 70's we built a KH (now sold off and congregation dissolved). Paper wall murals were popular so Dad picked one of a park scene for the wall behind the podium. After it was pasted up we noticed a nun dead center in the background! Dad refused to admit it and it stayed there for decades. It was a little inside joke.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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Christmas Decorations at the Kingdom hall
by Simon ini can't remember if i've told this story before .... but back in the day, in irlam congregation (northwest england, uk, cheshire #1 circuit i think) we used to rent a kingdom hall for many years before we eventually built our own.. preston hall.
ah, the memories .... it was primarily used as a community hall for old folks, but we had it friday night and sunday morning.. there was a loft and fold-out ladder and we used to store the chairs up their.
every meeting, there would be an assembly line of all the "lads" to pass the chairs down and set them up, then collect them up and pass them back up at the end of the meeting.
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The (Shunned) Woman at the Well
by Sea Breeze ini always found the account of the "woman at the well" to be particulary interesting.
this unknown shunned woman of ill-repute was specifically sought out and chosen by jesus.
why?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7dzonv3iy&ab_channel=michaelpapale.
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peacefulpete
Who heard the conversation so as to record it later? -
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What is Greg Stafford up to these days?
by slimboyfat inyou may have been wondering: what is greg stafford up to these days?
lots of interesting things, is the answer.
exposing the false trinity doctrine, of course, but keeping on top of other issues too.
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peacefulpete
Worse than sad. It's delusional. He clearly has not read anything on the site. The series of some 20 temple circles are filled with anthropomorphic idols/steles. They are humans wearing loin cloths/flaps. At least one is giving birth. The largest circle has steles that weight at least 8 tons. So he is now supposing an old vine dresser and his sons spent hundreds of years creating these temples to house his animal collection? on the side while making the ark? -
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Why are JW's THIS blind?
by BoogerMan ini had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.
an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.
the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.
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peacefulpete
I understand.. Christian origins and early development is a puzzle with a lot of pieces missing. Even so, I really enjoy the detective work.
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41
Why are JW's THIS blind?
by BoogerMan ini had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.
an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.
the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.
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peacefulpete
I've pondered trying to "recreate" a hypothetical Jewish form. It just seemed pretty much impossible to divine what was Jewish from Jewish Christian. Like I said earlier, it strikes me as a series of verbal dioramas. They may not have even been drawn from a single original document. IOW the Christian author/redactor may have collected material from separate works and married these with his own. Without at least some guidance, it would be impossible convincingly separate sources.
You may have read that Cerinthus was one of the proposed authors. IOW, It was apparently at some point anonymous. The name 'John' is the single reason it was eventually included into the Canon of most churches. It seems reasonable to say that it was added to facilitate its inclusion into the Canon. Even then keen readers recognized the style differences from the Gospel and so assumed it referred to a different John. Eventually the Orthodoxy firmly established the tradition that the writer was the same man as the author of the 4th Gospel, the epistles and the John from the Gospel story.
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Why are JW's THIS blind?
by BoogerMan ini had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.
an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.
the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.
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peacefulpete
I think my last comment addresses the issues you are seeing. The way the writer (and redactor) structured the whole thing wasn't meant for it to be read as a narrative but a collection of scenes, utilizing familiar symbols and language from earlier apocalyptic works. Ultimately it was written for a particular sect of Christians experiencing Roman oppression who felt sure things would deteriorate. The basic themes are vindication and vengeance. Few Christians read it or liked it then. It took hundreds of years for it to be widely accepted. Ironically about the time Christianity became the State religion of the empire.
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Yahweh the Angel
by peacefulpete ina small thread that may be of interest to some.
in short, there are 3 occasions in the ot where yahweh is identified with the epithet "angel".
(mal ak).
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peacefulpete
Phizzy, Yep. That's what I suspect as well. While all three texts are in the Persian era, they may have been written early enough for the word to not have fully taken on a limited application that would have invoked concerns of blaspheme. It is very interesting to analyze the later attempts to revise the passage in Eccl (LXX 'Elohim' e.g.) out of this very concern. The NIV and others interpret that word as referring to a priest or temple 'messenger' and add the word 'temple'.
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Why are JW's THIS blind?
by BoogerMan ini had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.
an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.
the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.
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peacefulpete
DisiJW...I won't spend a great deal of time breaking it all down, but in short, Revelation is a work that that attempts to incorporate OT and intertestamental apocalyptic symbolism and even diverse scenarios. For instance, the description of a war of all the nations is repeated in various ways, notably before a 1000 year interval and also after. Some commentators suppose the 1,000 year chiliasm is an original idea of the author that he had to shoehorn into his collection of motifs and scenarios he is reinterpreting from his sources. Whether you find it intellectually satisfying or not, the author was not overly concerned with a completely logical outcome. IOW. regards what you observed, yep taken literally and read as a single harmony, it would be an issue that no one is left on earth to rule over during the 1000 years, (that is until you read that all the nations are soemhow still around to oppose the saints after the 1000 years). It's an artifact of the way he used his sources.
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Why are JW's THIS blind?
by BoogerMan ini had a conversation about this 22 carat gold contradiction with a couple of zealous jw's a couple of days ago.. even their personal "explanations" contradicted each other as they tried justify their cognitive dissonance!.
an absolute delight to witness such absurdity.. "after all, no one will be allowed to practice vile things in the new world.
the unrighteous must have practiced these vile things [john 5:29] before their death.
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peacefulpete
Rev describes the Christian martyrs are raised to heaven by the throne, then says the dead were raised after 1000 years and judged out of the things written in the book of life. This might seem odd but it was one of the Jewish perspectives that the dead would be reanimated in the flesh to receive judgement for their past. Rev represents a melding of ideas in early Jewish Christianity. An earlier/better resurrection for those who are martyred or just and a resurrection to judgement for the rest. This is repeated in the Bible in those terms a number of times. Again, this might seem redundant, but it fit the overall narrative that the 'righteous' would be vindicated over the wicked. To accomplish this in many minds, the dead had to have their condemnation explained and witnessed. No one among those in the 'second resurrection' are ever said to beat the rap, they are raised exclusively to be condemned and have justice pronounced.
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Yahweh the Angel
by peacefulpete ina small thread that may be of interest to some.
in short, there are 3 occasions in the ot where yahweh is identified with the epithet "angel".
(mal ak).
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peacefulpete
A small thread that may be of interest to some. In short, there are 3 occasions in the OT where Yahweh is identified with the epithet "Angel". (mal ak)
Genesis 48:15 And he blessed Joseph and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the Yahweh who has been my shepherd all my life long to this day, 16 the Angel who has redeemed me from all evil.......
Malachi 3:1Behold, I send Malachi, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the Angel of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, He cometh, saith Yahweh of armies.
Ecclesiastes 5:2 Do not be quick to speak, and do not be hasty in your heart to utter a word before God. After all, God is in heaven and you are on earth. So let your words be few.
(and the parallel in vs.6)
Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the Angel that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?
All of these texts have inspired many textual variations and countless interpretations that obscure this use of the epithet Angel (messenger) with Yahweh, however the best explanation is that in the mind of these writers, the word was not offensive or dishonoring. Might this reflect a theology prior to the full adoption of the Greek daemon concept, (lesser deities called angels)? Or maybe its use was not relegated to that limited use yet.
Malachi is of course the same word (messenger/angel) The author of the book by that title is anonymous.