so nice to see thousands upon thousands of fighting-age ukrainian men managed to escape the war and reach wembley to support their national football team yesterday.
things must be improving, eh?.
Everyone knows the power of morale and emotions. Sports are a metaphor for war in many ways. It's a huge boost to national pride and cultural identity for Ukraine to have a winning team. If I was in charge of the war in Ukraine I'd absolutely promote the game.
Recall the legendary Ukrainian/German soccer match of 1942 during WW2. It is still celebrated as a huge moral victory.
one of the recent threads on the talk about the hailstone message got me to thinking.
the problem with putting out a message like that is what to do when nothing happens.
i have to think that somebody will be asking that question.
mass shooting at a kingdom hall in hamburg, germany this evening.
at least 6 or 7 killed, dozens injured.
single shooter on the run, police doesn't rule out more shooters.
i happened to come across this video at the beginning of the week.
you feel so sorry for this poor woman who experienced csa and then the hardheartedness of the elders (what's new there) when she needed genuine love and help.. https://fb.watch/j1qacgxphi/.
This stuff moves slowly through the system. It almost has to be reworded. Imo.
it seems the watchtower are ploughing ahead with bigger and better film studios but come on, they really have no idea.. how come all the people in times past look like healthy, middle class americans/ europeans/australians in costume?
get real.
even a visit to rural india today would give a hint of how people probably lived back then.
we all know that despite many scriptures to the contrary, jw's believe that when they die, their consciousness will cease.
my question is this: what will be the likely reaction of jw's if they find themselves conscious after death?.
https://www.amazon.com/Shades-Sheol-Death-Afterlife-Testament/dp/083082687
Great book. Discusses obscure passages like 2 chronic 16:14
we all know that despite many scriptures to the contrary, jw's believe that when they die, their consciousness will cease.
my question is this: what will be the likely reaction of jw's if they find themselves conscious after death?.
Often John 3:13 "no one has ascended to heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man." has been understood as insisting that Jesus was telling Nicodemus that no one had gone to heaven prior to Jesus. Yet oddly Jesus appears to be saying that he alone has ascended to heaven. Commentators are struck by the surprising use of the perfect tense.
"The perfect tense "has ascended" is unexpected." Morris, The Gospel According to John, 223
:"The use of the perfect tense is a difficulty, for it seems to imply that the Son of Man has already ascended into heaven." Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:132.
"The difficulty of the verse lies in the tense of "has ascended." It seems to imply that the Son of Man had already at the moment of speaking ascended into heaven.? C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1972), 177.
So then what was the author of the words at John 3 trying to say? An answer may be found in comparing Jewish and Christian idiom. It appears that "No one has ascended to heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven" is a figure of speech indicating a special divine enlightenment. Jesus in the context of verse 13 is revealing his unique understanding of the secrets of life and salvation.
Significantly the phrase "who is in heaven," at the end of verse 13 which appears in many Greek as well as Latin and Syriac manuscripts, (A [ * ] Q Y 050 Ë 1,13 Ï latt sy c,p,h and late second early 3rd century Hippolytus, Against Hersies of Noetus 1, 1:7 )
This would suggest that Jesus, while living on earth, was at the same time also "in heaven".. IOW We are speaking in metaphors. Being in communication with God could be said to have 'ascended to heaven' to have heard these things. Nicodemus wants to understand "heavenly things" and it is only Jesus who "ascended to heaven" and "is in heaven" who can reveal them.
Following this then, the variants and omission of the closing words in some leading mss, "who is in heaven" possibly resulted from literalizing the expression and trying to make sense of it in the same way that modern readers usually do.
Perhaps this is similar to what is meant at Eph 2:6 when it says Christians are "seated in heavenly places", meaning having received enlightenment, a familiarity with heavenly things.
Similarly, Baruch 3:29 asks:
"Who has gone up to heaven and obtained her [Wisdom] and brought her down from the clouds?"
Adam Clarke commented on this passage: This seems to be a figurative expression for "no one has known the mysteries of the Kingdom," as in Deuteronomy 30:12 and Romans 10:6; and the expression is found in the generally received maxim that to be perfectly acquainted with the concerns of a place, it is necessary for a person to be on the spot.
A German expositor, Christian Schoettgen, in his Horae Hebraicae observed of John 3:13
: "It was an expression common among the Jews who often say of Moses that he ascended to heaven and there received a revelation on the institution of divine worship.? He quotes the rabbis as saying, "It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Oh that we had one like Moses the prophet of the Lord to ascend into heaven and bring it [the Law] down to us." (Jerusalem Targum on Deut. 30:12).
So John 3:13 cannot be used as evidence that the author/editors of John denied the commonly believed idea of ancient worthies ascending to heaven. This understanding dovetails well with Jesus' assertion that Abraham Isaac and Jacob were raised and alive to worship God in Mark 12:26,7.
we all know that despite many scriptures to the contrary, jw's believe that when they die, their consciousness will cease.
my question is this: what will be the likely reaction of jw's if they find themselves conscious after death?.
6
Does not mean what you think it means
There were also those that held the soul was immortal but unconscious or at least impotent until the resurrection. A fairly cohesive melding of Greek ideas with ancient Canannite. The author of Revelation seems to have held that view.
prophecy or bad guessing spoken with authority?
_________________________________________________________________________ (53 years ago!
) september 2022 broadcastgoverning body member, stephen lett:“we’re living in the final part of the last days.
Amen
we all know that despite many scriptures to the contrary, jw's believe that when they die, their consciousness will cease.
my question is this: what will be the likely reaction of jw's if they find themselves conscious after death?.
Philo when commenting of the Jacob's Ladder story:
Somn. 1.138–139
For so far is air from being alone of all things untenanted, that like a city it has a goodly population, its
citizens being imperishable and immortal souls equal in number to the stars. Of these souls some, those
that are closest to the earth and lovers of the body (φιλοσώματοι), are descending to be fast bound in
mortal bodies, while others are ascending, having again been separated (from the body) according to the
numbers and periods determined by nature. Of these last some, longing for the familiar and accustomed
ways of mortal life, hurry back again (παλινδρομοῦσιν αὖθις), while others, pronouncing that life great
folly, call the body a prison and a tomb but escaping from it as though from a dungeon or a grave are
lifted up on light wings to the ether and range the heights for ever. (De somniis 1.138–139)1
