Having doubts and wanting to air them isn't the same as being willing to be insulted and berated. There are many paths toward exiting, some are more meandering. It might be constructive to keep believing JWs posting and let them hear opposing views presented calmly.
peacefulpete
JoinedPosts by peacefulpete
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61
Why are so many Jehovah’s Witnesses Angry and Rude?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhy do you think many jws are hostile and rude?
or is that just my imagination?.
mark jones writes: the vast majority of jehovah’s witnesses are nice people.
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things shelved, not looked into because of group think
by enoughisenough inhere are some things i never really believed the jw taught...i just didn't really examine it closely.
i shelved it, so to speak, thinking no one is perfect and they know more than me...if i ever thought about it at all.. i never believed that only jws would be spared at armageddon.
i never believed the where in james, you went to the elders to confess being spiritually sick-always thought that referred to a real illness.
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peacefulpete
You used the term 'group think'. That is really the crux of the matter. It's about group identity, tribal loyalty. People do not become or remain JWs or Mormons or Baptists because of doctrine. Doctrine is merely the means of differentiation. I liken it to a language. Language is how we perceive the world and communicate
. But, even though doctrine is a large part of the identity, the group and its promise of 'specialness' is the appeal. This why the line about "nowhere else to go" is so powerful. The group is the safe place, the only place to be. It's only when the group identity no longer fits, does a person accept that there are options.
This why "stumbling" is such a prominent means of membership loss. My views about gravity and round earth are not threatened by my neighbor being a jerk. But my perception of group specialness can be shattered by a member treating me poorly or doing something shocking.
On the other hand, if my individual values change or I grow intellectually incompatible with the group, I'm forced to choose to either hide my true self or become alienated from the group. Unfortunately, even when a person leaves the group, the doctrinal patterns often remain. Like your first language, even after learning a new one, it may linger as the inner voice.
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Why are so many Jehovah’s Witnesses Angry and Rude?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhy do you think many jws are hostile and rude?
or is that just my imagination?.
mark jones writes: the vast majority of jehovah’s witnesses are nice people.
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peacefulpete
Vanderhoven...It was my impression this site was supposed to be a welcoming place of acceptance and interchange of ideas. There is a risk of this place descending into a circle jerk, especially if we make JWs feel unwelcome.
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Why are so many Jehovah’s Witnesses Angry and Rude?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhy do you think many jws are hostile and rude?
or is that just my imagination?.
mark jones writes: the vast majority of jehovah’s witnesses are nice people.
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peacefulpete
Fisherman, while frustratingly blinkered, has never been rude to me.
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Why are so many Jehovah’s Witnesses Angry and Rude?
by Vanderhoven7 inwhy do you think many jws are hostile and rude?
or is that just my imagination?.
mark jones writes: the vast majority of jehovah’s witnesses are nice people.
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peacefulpete
Whatever we say about them was true of us. It may still be.
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144,000 raise the dead and read hearts.
by enoughisenough ini sometimes catch a video of a lady calling the kh and asking questions.
this morning she was questioning something that was said in the annual meeting part 2 and i looked it up for myself.
( feb 23 ) at timeline 1:37 the claim is in the new world jesus and the 144000 will raise the dead and just shortly after that the claim is jesus and the 144,000 will read hearts.
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peacefulpete
Do you not know that we shall judge angels?
I know Boogerman was joking but really Paul did apparently make comments that suggest he believed his destiny was the same as Christ. They 'became' Christ through their martyrdom. A lot of this is lost through translating and editing but effectively the WT is not claiming anything Paul would have seen as blasphemy.
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What's going on in Ohio?
by Bartolomeo inreporter evan lambert arrested by ohio police live on train derailment for doing what big media won't do: ask questions about toxic chemicals that poison water and air.
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the largest "democracy" in the world that arrests journalists for simple questions.. imagine if it had happened in russia what they would have said.... https://twitter.com/thethe1776/status/1625202284144791552.
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peacefulpete
Notably the Governor has made clear he was not responsible for the confrontation nor supports it. The way it plays out in my head, Evan was talking too loudly and someone complained. The troopers and the Nat guard leader walked across the room to tell him to end his broadcast. From there it escalated. My takeaway is, when people in uniform tell you to move along, do it. You will not win the argument. You can complain about it afterward.
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How tall was Goliath?
by joey jojo ingoliath was a big dude, 6 cubits and a span, or about 9 feet 9 inches.
the septuagint version of the bible and the dead sea scrolls, on the other hand, both state his height as 4 cubits and a span, or 6 feet 9 inches.. his armour weighed a bit over 40 kg, about the same weight as a modern soldier would carry.
his spear sounds impressively heavy at 600 shekels, however , this is only about 6 kg (13 lbs), easily carried by a man of average strength, let alone someone with training.. the difference lies in whether we should believe the masoretic version of the bible, or the septuagint.. the masoretic text was written about 1000 years later than the septuagint and it is what the new world translation and a lot of protestant bibles are based on.. although the septuagint was accepted by 1st century jews, it is believed that medieval jews were not happy with the septuagint, as it lent weight to the argument that pointed to jesus as the messiah and they wanted to distinguish the jewish tradition from christianity.. jesus and other new testament writers (whoever they were) quoted the septuagint.. in an effort to support his own world view and to distance himself from the catholic church, martin luther chose the masoretic text over the septuagint on which to base his translation, which is ironic as the masoretic text was written, partly to separate itself from christianity.. when someone says they 'believe the bible', or, they 'live their life on what the bible says'- can that person really explain how they can trust the history and process of whatever bible they believe in came to be?.
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peacefulpete
Any chance I get to quote Leolaia's hard work I do:
The book of Samuel (originally 1-2 Samuel formed a single book) had a very complex literary history and the Goliath problem is just one facet of this history. The MT version that is the basis of modern translations is but one edition of this book; the LXX represents another ancient edition that was much shorter, and the Dead Sea Scrolls represent several other editions, some closer to the LXX and some closer to the MT. When the many versions are compared with each other, it is apparent that the book was reworked several times in antiquity.
It is generally accepted that the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 MT is a relatively late reworking of an earlier story of a confrontation between David and an originally unnamed Philistine. The oldest recension of the LXX omits 17:12-31, 17:55-18:5, 18:17-19, and this material has a different literary style than the other verses and introduces David as a new figure entirely (cf. v. 12-13 especially) -- suggesting that the interpolated material came from an originally independent story about David (cf. also the doublet between v. 4-9 and v. 23). In this material, the opponent is simply known as "the Philistine" and only in v. 23 is he identified with Goliath of Gath in a gloss that rudely interrupts the sentence: "While he was talking to them, the warrior (His name was Goliath, the Philistine from Gath) came up from the Philistine ranks and made his usual speech, and David heard it". The more original form of the story in 1 Samuel 17:1-11, 32-54 also refers to the opponent only as "the Philistine" except for another awkward (and extravagent) gloss in v. 4-7 which separates the warrior's "stepping out from the ranks" in v. 4 from his "taking his stand" in v. 8:
Probable original version: "One of their warriors stepped out from the Philistine ranks and he took his stand in front of the ranks of Israel" (v. 4a, 8a).
Interpolated version: "One of their warriors stepped out from the Philistine ranks (His name was Goliath from Gath, he was 4 cubits and one span tall. On his head was a bronze helmet and he wore a breastplate of scale-armor; the breastplate weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. He had bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze javelin across his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron. A shield-bearer walked in front of him) and he took his stand in front of the ranks of Israel" (v. 4-8a)
This gloss predates the interpolation of v. 21-31, 55ff, as it is found in both the MT and in the LXX, although the warrior's height has been reworked in the various editions, from 4 cubits in 4QSam a and the original LXX used by Josephus, to 5 cubits in the later text of the LXX, to 6 cubits in the MT. In other words, the oldest form of the story consisted of 17:1-4a, 8-11, 32-54 and then the gloss in v. 4b-7 was added (which identified the anonymous Philistine warrior with the famous Goliath), and then in a version that MT later represents, material from an originally independent version of the same story (v. 12-31, 55ff) were added to the text of 1 Samuel 17.
The writer who added the gloss in v. 4b-7 would have then took the name "Goliath" from the story in 2 Samuel 21:19 which says that Goliath was slain by "Elhanan, the son of Jair, the Bethlehemite". The extravagent description of Goliath's armor would then have been inspired by such descriptions as those in 2 Samuel 21:15, which describes another Philistine warrior's spear as "weighing three hundred shekels of bronze", and the description of Goliath's spear in v. 19 as having a "shaft like a weavers' beam". The fact that the hero is described as a "Bethlehemite" is also a point of contact with the Davidic story in 1 Samuel 17 as well. But the text of 2 Samuel 21:19 is problematic as well. The MT refers to Elhanan the son of Jair-Oregim whereas the parallel in 1 Chronicles 20:5 (the earliest witness to the text of 2 Samuel) refers to Elhanan the son of Jair. It is clear here that a copyist duplicated the word for "weavers" ('rgym) later in the same verse and misplaced it right after "Jair" (y`ry). Thus "Jair" and not "Jair-Oregim" (which is an odd name in Hebrew) is the name that occurs in 1 Chronicles and the older form of the LXX (which gives the name as Iare). It is in the later (hexaplaric) version of the LXX where the copyist error appears in the form Ariórgim (< Hebrew y`ry 'rgym), and since the late LXX text assimilates itself generally to the proto-MT text, this shows that the copyist error that produced the MT form of the text had already occurred by the third century AD.
Meanwhile, the version in 1 Chronicles has a copyist error of its own. In 2 Samuel 21:19, regardless of whether you consult the MT or LXX, Elhanan was a Bethlehemite (bytlchmy) who killed Goliath ('t-glyt), but 1 Chronicles 20:5 states that Elhanan killed Lahmi ('t-lchmy) who was the brother of Goliath ('chy glyt). The Chronicler here mistakes the word byt- (Beth-) as the inflection for direct object 't- and thus takes the remainder of the name bytlchmy (i.e. -lchmy) as a proper name, i.e. Lahmi. Meanwhile, the 't- inflection in the source was mistaken as the word for "brother" ('ch), making the Philistine the brother of Goliath, and not Goliath himself. Many of the Chronicler's departures from the Deuteronomistic History are ideological in nature, and there may be a motivation here to resolve the contradiction in 2 Samuel 21 by making Elhanan kill the brother of Goliath and not Goliath himself. Such a motivation presupposes that David had already been identified as Goliath's slayer. That would mean that the interpolation of v. 4b-7 in 1 Samuel 17 (which is found in all extant versions of the text) predates the composition of 1-2 Chronicles, and thus had already occurred before the fourth century BC. Or it could be that the interpolator of 1 Samuel followed the Chronicler in allowing himself to identify the slayer of Goliath as someone other than Elhanan (who for the Chronicler was not the slayer of Goliath). It is noteworthy that the LXX version of 2 Samuel 21 (which should go back to the third or second century BC) had an underlying btylchmy in its Vorlage, as it designates Jair as ho Béthleemités "the Bethlehemite", and there is no evidence anywhere in the textual tradition of 2 Samuel itself along the lines of "Lahmi the brother of Goliath". So here is an example of a text paralleled in two works (1-2 Chronicles being literarily dependent on 1-2 Samuel) which is corrupted in both.
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Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the Gentile Times are Fulfilled. — Luke 21:24
by Fisherman injerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the gentile times are fulfilled.
— luke 21:24 .
the bible book of luke records jesus prophecy of the last day with his parousia including the verse about the gentile times.
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peacefulpete
Jeffro...I 'll be brief in commenting on your 3.5 year span of Rev referring to 66-70. The writer of Rev was actively sourcing OT for parallels and symbols. The events under Antiochus (the blasphemer who called himself a god) became the archetype for a host of antichrist figures. Revelation has Rome in focus and its foremost blasphemer Nero.
Rev 13 uses the Daniel motif (1260 days , 42 months 3.5 year) in reference to the time Nero Redivivus will be limited to.
In (11:2) it's used as emphasizing the limits of the time of domination of the 'Holy city' and persecution of Christians until their death.
In (12:6) it is used in a different context, the woman being taken care of for 1260 days. Again, here it has become a placeholder metaphor for a period of waiting.
In other words, it has become thoroughly detached from any temporal meaning but rather has become a metaphor for limited time.
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Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the Gentile Times are Fulfilled. — Luke 21:24
by Fisherman injerusalem will be trampled by the nations until the gentile times are fulfilled.
— luke 21:24 .
the bible book of luke records jesus prophecy of the last day with his parousia including the verse about the gentile times.
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peacefulpete
The writers of Daniel, Baruch, Enoch, Revelation etc. and the Gospels naturally had a narrow focus on recent events. Their world was unraveling, and they desired and anticipated divine intervention. Typological interpretation was the rage. Parallels were perceived and pronounced. A review of the works from the late 2nd temple period reveals the strenuous effort to understand their world by looking at the past. Even a past that never really was.