Funny thing scholar is that I was were you are, I know what you know, I experienced just about all there was to be experienced as a JW. I used to sit with F.Franz in the sauna and listen to his ravings. I heard the infighting and debates carried on in the elevators and halls. I read the books the WT writers quote mined and marked up in the "research library". I got emotionally abused by the system that I devoted my life to. I was there when a dysfunctional foreign branch office was rebuilt by other dysfunctional people. My assigned congregation was impoverished in every respect. I've seen the system work and I've seen it fail miserably. I'm not ignorant of the sincerity of some nor am I ignorant of the duplicity of others. It's a church, nothing more.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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349
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman inif anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
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349
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman inif anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
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peacefulpete
Jeffro...Obviously chronology is a passion of yours. Clearly you have spent a great deal of time on this topic and I'm not suggesting what you have done was worthless. However, I've read a number of well argued articles who similarly found ways to work the math with the objective of defending Bible literalness. IMO, and that is all it is, the point is mute. If you are correct that the 70 year topos, while referring to slightly different things for different authors, can be understood through various math formulas to be close to literal 70 years I'll not debate your numbers. You are making the point that the oversimplified interpretation of the WT or others are certainly not correct and cannot by any stretch be an anchor date for scaffolding a church upon.
As I see it, there are just toooooo many variables and potential starting and ending points to convince me that any calculation is the last word in interpreting exactly what some ancient cryptic mystics meant. For me those esoteric and peculiar usages by both Yahwists and non-Yahwists combined with the prolific numeric symbolism present in the OT add up to the expression resembling a figure of speech or trope. 7 times 10 =70. A sacred number times a sacred number equals a sacred number. Why 70 years defined as a typical lifespan? Why not 71? Why 70 nations, why 70 sons............
Never in a million years, once in a blue moon, in a coons age, a month of Sundays, years on end, light years away, These are modern proxies, void of any sacredness they still mean something other than what a literalist 2500 years from might assume.
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Striving for more
by punkofnice ini hate my life!
i have to say it, but i do.. i have a sneaking suspicion that because i was raised in the dangerous jehovah borgness cult, that this is the reason.
i was told if god didn't watch me masturbating or smoking, then he'd let me live forever in perfect conditions.. i left the borg and as a result my jw wife left me and re-married another gung ho jobo.
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peacefulpete
IMO religion, at least those which promise something bigger than reality, do people a disservice. Reality is pretty amazing without needing to imagine something better. I'm not just saying the huge scale and variety of the universe, I mean something more grounded. What a trip this life is, a pretty damn cool thing to have gotten a turn at looking around and experiencing it. Not in any hurry for it to end but know it will. That gives value to time. -
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Anyone know of specific subliminal pictures?
by cognac inthe only one i know about is the big jesus in the revelation book.. know of any specific other ones?
i want to show hubby....
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peacefulpete
Instead of a poodle skirt it's a Pluto skirt.......Apollo skirt?
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349
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman inif anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
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peacefulpete
It's all a momentous waste of time.
The only reason to pursue this question is to deconstruct the WT's chronology for those who may still be impressed with their "calculations". The house of cards chronology is foundational to their claim to be "The" FDS.
There I brought it back on topic.
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349
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman inif anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
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peacefulpete
Jeffro......IMO the point in discussion is whether a precise start and end date are required. I'm suggesting, as do many commentators, the 70 year motif was flexible and simply implied a lifetime of disfavor. With this perspective, knocking yourself out proposing dozens of dates, as countless literalists have done, is tilting at windmills. There would be no issue allowing that simpler explanation if it were not for the WT's pathological need for secret hidden chronology that uses a specific date to start its convoluted eisegetical take on Dan 4.
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JWs near of losing their status a religious organization in Norway
by Festus inlast spring norweigian state refused to give public contribution to jws (religious organisations can apply that in norway and previously wtbs has been granted that).
the decision was caused because of practise of disfellowshpiping.. now there is a new twist.. 25.10.2022 authorites in norway send a letter to wtbs and told them that they have four weeks to fix that practise.
if they don't do that they will loose their status as a religiouse organisation.. intrestingly jws did not "understand" what authorites meant by that and requested more time.. how can they not understand?
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peacefulpete
I meant when they "win". not will.
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Parable as an example of Editorial Fatigue.
by peacefulpete in16 the first appeared, saying, ‘[d]master, your [e]mina has made ten minas more.’ 17 and he said to him, ‘well done, good slave, because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities.’ 18 the second came, saying, ‘your [f]mina, [g]master, has made five minas.’ 19 and he said to him also, ‘and you are to be over five cities.’ 20 another came, saying, ‘master, here is your mina, which i kept put away in a handkerchief; 21 for i was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.’ 22 he *said to him, ‘[h]by your own words i will judge you, you worthless slave.
23 then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, i would have collected it with interest?’ 24 then he said to the bystanders, ‘take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’ 25 and they said to him, ‘master, he has ten minas already.’ 26 i tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
luke....‘take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.
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peacefulpete
TD. ...It's possibly related to what's called Luke's great omission. For some reason Luke ignores everything in Mark 6:45-8:10 and Matts version of that section. Most often its suggested the copy of (what later came to be called) G.of Mark the writer of Luke had in front of him did not have that section, whereas the version Matt had did. The text was in flux. The style and terminology of that section of Mark seem to betray another hand. However, it's noticed the first Markan feeding story (5000) ends with hopping in a boat crossing the sea (again) to Bethsaida. (6:45)
Luke ignores or doesn't know about the second feeding story (4000) as it is part of the omission section. IOW Luke opens his feeding story with a detail from the first verse of the section he omits from Mark.
IMO, as I hold the Farrer hypothesis to be very persuasive, I have to think either the writer of Luke did see Mark 6:45 in his copy and awkwardly used Bethsaida to open his feeding story as a result or it's a later gloss by some well intentioned editor. I'm torn on which is more probable. The writer of Luke might not have liked the section in Mark for theological reasons as it has Jesus failing to completely heal, be a ghost walking on water, using spit to heal and felt the second feeding story was a doublet. I'm leaning to Luke's objecting to the section on the grounds that it explains ,kinda, the Bethsaida reference and I'm of the view that he had Matt's version in front of him that includes that section of Mark. In which case he was ignoring not just Mark but Matt.
Intriguingly Matt does not copy Mark in in saying Bethsaida at verse 45.
Mark 6:45 Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away.
Matt 14:22 Immediately He [a]made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to the other side, while He sent the crowds away.
We may never know.
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JWs near of losing their status a religious organization in Norway
by Festus inlast spring norweigian state refused to give public contribution to jws (religious organisations can apply that in norway and previously wtbs has been granted that).
the decision was caused because of practise of disfellowshpiping.. now there is a new twist.. 25.10.2022 authorites in norway send a letter to wtbs and told them that they have four weeks to fix that practise.
if they don't do that they will loose their status as a religiouse organisation.. intrestingly jws did not "understand" what authorites meant by that and requested more time.. how can they not understand?
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peacefulpete
…membership growth and success in the courts have been touted as evidence of God’s favor for so long, there’s gotta be at least some cognitive dissonance by now…
So are "persecution" and "demonic machinations" , so they have both covered. They have proof of blessing when they lose and when they will.
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349
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman inif anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
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peacefulpete
Once again, I don't know if you are pulling my leg or not but the text's meaning is not dependent upon a translation. The writer is clearly saying Yahweh's anger, denouncement, punishment etc had not ended. It's often assumed his concern was the temple not having been rebuilt as that is what immediately follows.
16Therefore the LORD says this: “I will return to Jerusalem with compassion; My house will be built in it,” declares the LORD of armies, “and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem.”’ 17Again, proclaim, saying, ‘This is what the LORD of armies says: “My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.”’
There is no way to misinterpret that. In the mind of Zechariah the "70 years" was just now closing and the reversal of God's disfavor was imminent. It's also quite possible the writer of proto-Zechariah was embittered that while Babylon was technically no longer their master the Achaemenid Empire was. And perhaps to his dismay few wanted to leave their homes and businesses to go to a land they had never seen to start over. Even getting priests to go was a struggle.
But as long as you are obsessed with Babylon, what was supposed to happen at the end of the 70 years?
Jeremiah 25: 12But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the LORD, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.
Even students of the Bible know that did not happen. Babylon did not suffer destruction, according to Daniel it fell without so much as the gates damaged.