Posts by PioneerSchmioneer

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Kosonen:

Pragmatism is the employment of something that is practical, useful. If a person has a broken leg and you offer them a slice of cheese, how practical or useful is that just because that is the easiest and quickest way for you to respond?

If you are going to be a true disciple of Christ, you have to respond the correct way. To be a disciple means you can't offer what is easy for you.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it."--Matthew 16:24-25, ESV.

You have to stop doing what is easy for you and sacrifice this. Otherwise you are fooling yourself. You might as well make an idol for yourself and follow that.

Did you even know what that quote meant that you cited? Have you ever read Against Apion? Did you know that in it Josephus is only counting 22 Hebrew books, and is leaving out Ecclesiates and Song of Solomon (Song of Songs)? I studied this work alongside the works of the Church Fathers and the sages of Judaism.

The work you quoted was just a snip from a much larger work, composed around 94 CE, and it was written by Josephus’ to a man named Apion Pleistoneices, a Hellenized Egyptian. Did you know that?

While Josephus had all but become a Roman in a secular sense, he was once a Pharisee. He had sold out to the live a life as a pagan contemporary and serve in the Roman army.

Josephus was not a religious authority, but even when he used to be a Jew, he belonged to the same Pharisee group so often condemned by Jesus Christ. Would you, a Christian, be offering the traditions of a Pharisee from Jesus' time as authoritative Christian doctrine? I doubt it.

Would you offer the words of a person who was an apostate Jew? I doubt that too.

Yet you did. Josephus was both those things.

And at the time he wrote this, he had turned away from being a fully practicing Jewish man to serve in the Roman forces as their official historian. So why are you offering his word at all since he is not an authority on religious matters?

The full quote of Against Apion 1:8 is as follows (note the added italics):

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, as the Greeks have, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.

In the current Jewish canon there are 24 books.

According to Josephus’ count, there would only be 22 books: the five books of the Torah, thirteen books of the Nevi’im, and four other books of hymns and wisdom.

Your argument is still wrong after offering this quote from Josephus. It didn't help a bit.

You offered a slice of cheese to a broken leg. Instead of proving something with this, the Watchtower (and you) proved MY point--that there was NO canon of Hebrew books until the establishment of the Church, as the writings of the Church Fathers prove.

And as history and the Church Fathers claim, it was the Alexandrine Septuagint--with the extra Deuterocanonical Books, including the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach--that made up the Old Testament. The first time these were removed was in the early 1800s by the British Bible societies in their Apocrypha Controversy.

All of this is backed up by history.

Would the Holy Spirit move you to use a flawed method? Or is this not proof you have no Spirit from God and that Jesus is not there with you?

What you have been taught and what you currently believe is incorrect. The Bible you have been taught to use is incomplete, and what you are teaching people here isn't helpful.

You need to be taught religion and the Scriptures from the beginning and unlearn all things Watchtower. You need to teach people not religion from the Bible, but how to use it to leave the Watchtower religion behind. That is what they will find most encouraging.

Until you do that, I will keep disproving all you post, disproving that you are not teaching the truth, until either you or this thread breaks, because you are hurting people with what you are writing--and you don't care.

You are offering what makes you feel good instead of sacrificing and doing the right thing. You won't give up what feels good to you. That is not right. You don't even realize what these things say that you are posting.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

So let's get back.

How did the writers in the Wisdom of Solomon get the details so exact?

Why do the Apostles and Jesus make reference to "scribes"--obviously to not just Malachi but also Sirach?

Why was the Apocrypha not removed until the Aprocrypha Controversy of the early 1800s and then only between the two British Bible Societies?

And why am I always able to give you answers saturated with references, Bible verses, and information--but all you can do is give me is cut and paste information from a religion you don't agree with, whose religious leaders disfellowed you.

That's like offering me poison and telling me it's good for me. That's not proving a point.

If you go back and rejoin the religion today, maybe you wouldn't sound like a hypocrite.

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

There was no "closing" of the canon or even an invention of the "canon" until Marcion of Sinope in the 2nd century CE.

First, Josephus is not a Jewish historian. Flavius Josephus is a Roman historian. Once a Pharisee, during the Jewish Revolt, when all was lost, he told his fellow Jews to surrender to the Jews. He became obsessed with the Romans after being captured and eventually attached himself to the Roman cause and joined the Roman army--all which was forbidden under the Mosaic Law.

There was no such thing as a "canon" as the word is Greek not Hebrew or Latin.

The idea for a "canon" was a Gnostic one, not a Christian idea. Marcion of Sinope was a bishop of the 2nd century who fell in love with the Hellenistic religion, mixing the Gnostic idea of "salvation" via "learning" or gathering knowledge (in Greek "gnosis").

At the time, the earliest Christians met on the day after the Sabbath, often as soon as the Jewish Sabbath broke, which was Saturday at sundown or the next day, Sunday morning, for a meeting which resembled the synagogue service, except it ended with an extra reading, from some of the writings of the letters of the apostles and then a sharing in the Eucharist and a collection of the poor (and sometimes a meal, if it was on a Saturday evening).

The "letters" and "writings" of the apostles that circulated were of interest to Marcion. He believed they were salvific in the way the Gnostics taught.

The Gnostics also taught that only a select class were demi-gods, and Marcion was convinced that Jesus Christ was one of these. He also believed that anyone who studied selected parts of these writings could become one of these "saved" demi-gods.

But Marcion rejected the Hebrew Scriptures and all these Jewish. So how could he get Christian to this "correct" path of "salvation"? Marcion created a "rule," which in Greek is a "canon." It consisted of select writings of the apostle Paul, from which Marcion removed parts when Paul cited or quoted from the Hebrew Bible or talked about anything "too Jewish."

Marcion also wrote his own gospel--but it was most likely the Gospel of Luke with the first two chapters removed because those two chapters have very many Jewish references in them.

Believing he would change Christianity forever and get awarded for what he was doing (and because he already had many followers), Marcion went to the pope in Rome for approval for his canon of books. What he received instead was a demand to repent under threat of excommunication. When he refused, he was expelled from the Church in shame.

Because he had so many followers, and the Gnostic threat was only growing, the Church began to study the issue of canonization. Was there such a thing a closed canon of select books, both Hebrew and Greek? It would take another 150-200 years before the Church had a complete answer (and before the Marcionist threat was silenced).

But Josephus was not around when any of this happened. He was long dead before the idea of the invention of the canon was invented. Josephus died in 100 CE and Marcion of Sinope did not come up with his idea of a canon until 144 CE.

And the New Testament canon was not closed until 367 CE.

Josephus, a Jew who betrayed his people to join the Roman army, could not be speaking about something that did not exist or had not even been invented.

Why would you quote something like this? It doesn't prove anything.

It doesn't prove a thing.

12

John 13:35 Mistranslated?

by KerryKing in

disclaimer!

i am not a bible translator not do i speak ancient greek or hebrew.. john 13: 35 nwt : 'by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves '.. (curiously, this verse is not listed in the nwt index under the word 'disciples'.).

the biblehub interlinear reads : ' by this will know all that to me disciples you are if love you have among yourselves '.. could it actually mean, contrary to all bible translations, that it is jesus himself, and not people in general, who identifies his disciples because they show love among each other?.

PioneerSchmioneer

You are just making things up. You obviously have no formal education in these subjects.

First, monasticism did not exist until the 4th century.

The historical method was created around the early 300s BCE, and when history was being recorded thereafter, a historian had to follow specific earmarks of this methodology.

Monastics specifically left the world behind so as not to be occupied or participate in the secular world. Since monks did not exist in the 3rd or 4th century at large, nor did they participate in the activity of the secular world, they were not the authors of 3rd century history that you find suspicious.

"Paulus the Hermit (c. 230-342) was the first Christian monk known by name to history. Eventually, many adopted a modified eremitic existence, living as hermits but near each other for occasional gatherings and support. Marcarius first encouraged this form of living, nicknamed 'the larvae.'"

https://www.dbu.edu › mitchell › m...

Overview of Medieval Monasticism | Dr. Philip Irving Mitchell

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Kosonen:

So could it be that the writers of those non canonical books based their writings on those that already existed and just paraphrased what the inspired God’s prophets already had written?
To my knowledge the Christian Greek Scriptures almost exclusively quote from the canonical Hebrew scriptures. Maybe that was an important criteria in deciding what Hebrew scriptures should be included in the Bible?

First, the Bible was canonized by the Catholic Church under the authority of Rome.

The process was begun by the invention of the canon by Marcion of Sinope, a bishop who was trying to introduce Gnostic thought into Christianity, and went to the pope in Rome with his "new invention" of a "canon" of Christian writings that supported his Gnostic ideas in the 2nd century (though he was not a true Gnostic himself). It ended in the 4th century, exactly on Easter Sunday of 367 CE, when a bishop by the name of Athanasius authorized the New Testament canon developed by Eusebius which included the 27 books we hold today.

By default, the Church was acknowledging the "Old Testament" of the Alexandrine Septuagint, which included the so-called "Apocrypha." In the 1500s, during the Council of Trent, the Church defined these books as "Deuterocanonical," and listed each one of them, including the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach. Interestingly, the King James Bible would also include a translation of each and every one of these, which to date are still included in many copies.

As to whether the writers of these books "copied" from others...

In the case of the Wisdom of Solomon, no one in Israel was expecting the Messiah to be betrayed by his own people, let alone the religious leaders. This prophecy is obviously about the leaders in Israel, most of which are religious, talking about murdering the Messiah by torture. The idea of this was even alien to the apostle Peter, remember?--Matthew 16:21-23.

Even when Jesus actually was betrayed, it was so unimaginable and confusing that his actual followers were scattered and hid. Some lost their faith. Only Mary, Mary Magdelene, and John the Apostle reportedly stayed with Jesus until the end--perhaps a few other of the women. Everyone else abandoned and fled who they believed was obviously a failed Messiah.

The section in the Wisdom of Solomon when read in context does not look like a prophecy nor does it even say it is about the Messiah, like most other prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is hidden. In fact, when you are reading the book, it is at the very beginning, talking about how the wicked reject righteousness in general and how they mistreat the poor and are unkind. It doesn't say outright that the writer is speaking about the Messiah.--See Wisdom of Solomon chapters 1 & 2.

The Church since the time of the Apostles has understood that this text is about the Messiah, since the Church Fathers who through Tradition claim it is one of the texts Jesus explained to them after his Resurrection.--Luke 24:44-46.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not study or read the Church Fathers--which is a very large collection of works. They just post a few tidbits of phrases here and there in their publications, and they tend to avoid any texts that are contrary to their beliefs. Catholics and most Protestants read and study these texts--Catholics and Orthodox Christians tend to do this daily along with the Bible in order to know the foundations of the Faith as these are the building blocks of where their faith and the teachings of Jesus come from.

As for the text in Sirach, it outright claims in the text that references to various other Scripture texts is taking place. The writer is obviously familiar with the Scriptures because he is talking about all the famous prophets in this section, and here he is talking about Elijah in particular.

But the point I was making is that in the gospel accounts the apostles do not claim that one prophet or scribe claims that Elijah comes first. They claim that plural scribes or prophets do this.

In other words, in Jesus time, the apostles and Jesus Christ himself acknowledged that multiple writers foretold the coming of Elijah, who would be John the Baptist.

They ask: "Why do the scribes say Elijah must come first?" and not "Why does Malachi say Elijah must come first?"

These "scribes" that the apostles and Jesus acknowledge as foretelling the coming of John the Baptist must not only include Malachi but also Sirach, because the Church Fathers and the early Church included that book in the Old Testament--and they teach this since antiquity. This is one of the reasons the book was left in the collection of the Old Testament.

In fact, it would not be until 1804 CE--almost 2000 years after Christ--when some Protestants in Britian would consider dropping the Apocrypha from their printings of the Bible. Up to that point, even Protestants always included the Apocrypha in their Bibles.--See the "Apocrypha Controversy" of the 1820s.

The criteria for including which Scriptures to include in the Old Testament was simply what was found in the Alexandrine Septuagint. This was the text used by the Apostolic college and the Church Fathers. Eventually this was the basis for the translation of the Latin Vulgate. Thus, this became the official canon of the Old Testament for Christians.

To this day, technically speaking, the Jews do not have a closed "canon." What they did was standardize and preserve the Hebrew text for fear it would be lost since Jews stopped talking in Biblical/litugical Hebrew before the 1st century CE (and there was yet no Modern/Israeli Hebrew to take its place to help preserve it). Beginning in the 8th century they had the family of the Masoretes, great scribes, begin collecting the best extant Hebrew manuscripts, compare them and then develop a standardized Hebrew text. They completed it in the 10th century. It is what we call today the Masoretic text.

It does not have, for example, the works of the Wisdom of Solomon or Sirach, for one reason since there were no Hebrew texts of these works at that time.

In the mid-20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. We found every book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha, except for Esther, among them, in Hebrew. Some of the most startling finds have been Isaiah and Tobit--Tobit being a so-called book of the Apocrypha.

One of the best new translations of Tobit based on the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls is now available in the official Catholic Bible for the United States, the NABRE. It can be found online.

So to answer you question, no. These books were not making these things up by copying from other books of the "canonized" Bible (there was no "canon" yet, so to speak).

You obviously have little knowledge of the Scriptures and Biblical history.

Why are you offering us "encouragement" if you don't know these things or studied canonization history or familiar with the Church Fathers or the library of what books were in the ancient Christians' canon?

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Kosonen:

Do you truly follow your own encouragement and teachings? Is it good to promote anything that talks about Jesus?

According to many Christians, there are several books in the Old Testament canon which are supposed to be there but the Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept as inspired. Some of these books, like the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach actually have prophecies foretelling the arrival of the Messiah.

The Wisdom of Solomon has a very detailed prophecy about how the Messiah will be rejected by his own people and what type of reasoning they will use to do it, and the Sirach has a prophecy spoken of in the gospels that says that Elijah will return before the day of judgement, giving us insight as to why the disciples of Jesus ask at Mt 17:10 & Mk 9:11: “Why do the scribes [plural] say that Elijah must come first?” instead of saying: "Why does Malachi say...?" The other "scribe" they are referencing is obviously Sirach, which has been preserved in the Septuagint to this day.

They were accepted by the Church Fathers and are still accepted by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Episcopal Churches (as well as some Protestant groups outside of Fundamentalism).

The texts are as follows:

The Messianic Rejection Prophecy

“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,/because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;/he reproaches us for sins against the law/and accuses us of sins against our training,/He professes to have knowledge of God/and calls himself a child of the Lord./He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;/the very sight of him is a burden to us,.because his manner of life is unlike that of others/and his ways are strange./We are considered by him as something base,/and he avoids our ways as unclean;/ he calls the last end of the righteous happy/and boasts that God is his father./Let us see of his words are true,/and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;/ for is the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him/and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries./Let us test him with insult and torture,/that we may find out how gentle he is/and make trial of his forebarance./Let us condemn him to shameful death/for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

--The Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20, ESV Catholic Edition

Elijah to Return Before the Day of Judgement

Then the prophet Elijah arose like a fire,/ and his word burned like a torch…
You who were taken up by a whirlwind of fire/in a chariot with horses of fire;/ you who are ready at the appointed time, it is written,/to calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in furry,/ to turn the heart of the father to the son, and to restore the tribes of Jacob. Blessed are those who saw you/ and those who have been fallen asleep in love;/ for we also shall surely live.

--Wisdom of Sirach 48:1, 9-11, ESV Catholic Edition

Again, the text from Sirach is so very important to Christianity as it fills us in on who Jesus’ apostles were talking about when they use the term “scribes” in the plural, referencing those who foretell the coming of Elijah before the Messiah. It also confirms the idea of life coming to people at the time of his return.

Of interest is that this book is rejected by those who produced the New World Translation.

Even more shocking is the details found in the Messianic Rejection prophecy in the Wisdom of Solomon. Composed no later than 100 BCE, the text description of “righteous man” who “professes to have knowledge of God,” who “calls himself a child of the Lord,” and is disliked for reproving this group that claims he “boasts that God is his father,” ends up being persecuted, violently tortured merely because he is a ‘righteous man” who “is God’s son.” The descriptions are hard not to connect with the Passion accounts found in all four gospels.

Again this book which is found in most major mainstream Bible versions such as the NRSV and ESV, but is also rejected by the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

So, Kosonen, what do you say? Shouldn’t we embrace these books as inspired since they clearly talk about Jesus and carry signs of inspiration and were accepted by the earliest Christians. Why aren’t you accepting them and using Bible translations with a fuller canon? What do you say about these two texts in the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach?

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

PioneerSchmioneer

Kosonen:

Philippians 1:16-18 does not (and cannot possibly) mean what you wrote. Your interpretation would cause Paul’s arguments to implode in on themselves.

What the apostle is talking about was his imprisonment and how it sparked opposite reactions. Some were emboldened to defend the gospel in the same way Paul did, (1:14) but some were stumbled by what had happened to Paul. An apostle in prison? So they were using this opportunity to try to worsen Paul’s hardship and undermine his ministry. (1:15) Some of these individuals were already in a competition with the apostle and so were all too eager to see Paul’s joy dampen, which Paul was not going to let happen, no matter what.--1:18.

Yet it is very important to realize that none of these other preachers, no matter how insincere they were, taught false doctrines. They were merely in competition with Paul or challenged his claim to being a chosen apostle since his call came after the initial Twelve. Paul would never rejoice in the spread of a false gospel or false doctrine.--See Gal. 1:7-8.

Therefore Kosonen’s above posting is not correct. As usual it is just a rerun of Watchtower teaching which takes no account of the context of the writing in which the verse appears or any methodology, such as having a basic knowledge of Pauline theology.

12

John 13:35 Mistranslated?

by KerryKing in

disclaimer!

i am not a bible translator not do i speak ancient greek or hebrew.. john 13: 35 nwt : 'by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves '.. (curiously, this verse is not listed in the nwt index under the word 'disciples'.).

the biblehub interlinear reads : ' by this will know all that to me disciples you are if love you have among yourselves '.. could it actually mean, contrary to all bible translations, that it is jesus himself, and not people in general, who identifies his disciples because they show love among each other?.

PioneerSchmioneer

Elderberry,

I believe the LDS church, the Mormons, have the JWs beat on your claim.

Where I live, when someone new moves into a home or apartment, missionaries (women and young men) greet them ready to help them move in if they need or see if they need any help with getting situated into the area, finding any practical help they need. They will make sure they get connected to their church or syngagogue or temple or secular group--and any charities. They will also keep in contact with them if they need any further assistance or help them network if they are new to the area. The people don't even need to be Mormon or require a "letter" like they do in the Watchtower.

@ KerryKing:

I don't think any people or organization, religious or non-religious, secular, atheist, agnostic, Catholic, Protestant, etc., is free of guilt from the abuse and rape of children and babes. I myself was abused by my parents in just this way growing up. They were secular people, without religion. Being that way and very well educated and very wealthy didn't keep them from being enlightened enough from being horrible to their own children in just the same way. People have the capacity and desire to be evil and terrible and want to hurt other people--and they have the capacity to be good. Most people just won't do it. However a person chooses to dress, whether in secular or religious dress, doesn't change the fact about you wanting to be hurtful and evil.

12

John 13:35 Mistranslated?

by KerryKing in

disclaimer!

i am not a bible translator not do i speak ancient greek or hebrew.. john 13: 35 nwt : 'by this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves '.. (curiously, this verse is not listed in the nwt index under the word 'disciples'.).

the biblehub interlinear reads : ' by this will know all that to me disciples you are if love you have among yourselves '.. could it actually mean, contrary to all bible translations, that it is jesus himself, and not people in general, who identifies his disciples because they show love among each other?.

PioneerSchmioneer

I was a catechist and religious teacher for some time after I left the Watchtower, and I taught Biblical Greek in some of my relgious classes.

This is how you translate the verse, and this is what the verse means:

ἐν τούτῳ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐστε, ἐὰν ἀγάπην ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις.

With this will know all my disciples you are--if love you have with one another.--My own rough interlinear rendering.

Or as rendered in the ESV-Catholic Edition:

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."--John 13:35.

The idea here is that Jesus wanted his disciples to be self-sacrificing, not merely in serving the public to make disciples, but ongoing once a person was a disciple and part of the group--to the point of dying for one another if the need be. And so this has been the case throughout history from time to time, whether it has been literal or not.

As early as the days of the Church Fathers, Tertullian of Catharge wrote of how people commented about the Church:

“It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See how they love one another, they say, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred; how they are ready even to die for one another, they say, for they themselves will sooner put to death (The Apology, ch. 39).”

The list of matyrs for the faith continues down to our era, many dying for the sake of others. There were grissly deaths of Catholics and Protestants in Asia in modern times, people who died at the hands of persecuting goverments at times in public demonstrations/executions after missionaries were sent away and all was left were these common, native people, many refusing to give up names of others who were practicing the faith. Some of these are now even canonized saints in the Catholic and Anglican faiths.

The JW interpretation has been one limited to how they themselves do good deeds to just members who stay faithful to their own religion. Once in a while someone might lose their lives due to persecution but it is rare. The number of canonized matyrs in Catholicism is over 14,000--that is just those canonized as saints. (See the Martyrologium Romanum Editio Typica Altera - 2004, which is the latest edition.) Many Christians die for their faith every year, out numbering the total of Jehovah's Witnesses who suffer matyrdom.

But the text also has reference to service to people in a way that Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to do, namely to love others as if they were members of their own religion even if they were not. This is how most Christians interpret the text.

They take the text and often see it as a parallel to Matthew 25:31-46 where Jesus talks about seeing and serving him in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, sick, imprisoned, etc. If one can see Jesus in the least of these and serve him in them, then they truly "love one another."

But when people fail to do things like serve Jesus in the least, another text is used in this link:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.--1 John 4:20.--ESV-CE.

Thus the difference in the way the text is often used by Christians in the mainstream compared to how it has been used by Jehovah's Witnesses. It is used to serve the public by Christianity, whereas it is used to be self-serving in the Watchtower.

68

Are Atheists Hypocritical in Celebrating Christmas?

by Sea Breeze in

jw
friends

richard dawkins revealed that he celebrates christmas on radio four's today programme.. here is is quoted as saying: .

'i am perfectly happy on christmas day to say merry christmas to everybody,' dawkins said.

'i might sing christmas carols - once i was privileged to be invited to kings college, cambridge, for their christmas carols and loved it.

PioneerSchmioneer

enoughisenough:

I believe Sea Breeze was speaking in the vernacular when using the expression "God's birthday."

Even Christians don't always go around being theologically exact and can call Christmas everything from "Jesus' birthday" to a "celebration of the birth of our Father in heaven."

None of this is technically correct, as I pointed out in a post on this thread earlier before.

After leaving the Watchtower, I used to teach both Catholic catechism and Protestant religion for a couple of decades. Christianity does not celebrate any "birthday" on the Christian yearly calendar, known as the "liturgical" calendar. It only celebrates or honors the death of martyrs, including that of Jesus Christ, on the day they died or were buried (such as "Good Friday" for Jesus).

Christmas (or as it is called on the Liturgical Calendar "The Nativity") is a religious observance to remind Christians of the miracle of the Incarnation, namely as described in Isaiah 7:14 where it reads that "he shall be called Immanuel," which Matthew explains means "God Is With Us," at chapter 1:23 of his gospel.

There were various Eucharistic feasts that were celebrated in honor of the miracle of the Incarnation (the belief that God became Man in the Person of Jesus Christ) throughout the early church, but they landed on different places on the Liturgical Calendar throughout the year.

One of the earliest celebrations of the Incarnation is known from the Jewish Christians that has come down to us in the Liturgy of Saint James. The written form of this mass that we now have in its current form is from the early 300s (probably right before the formal canonization of the New Testament) but portions of it do go back to before the Second Jewish Revolt.

There is a section for a celebration of the Incarnation. Still sung as part of the Roman Catholic liturgy today during the Christmas season, there is a hymn entitled Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, and it is notably still part of the Night Prayer for Catholics beginning on Christmas Eve until February 2nd in the Liturgy of the Hours.

It was not until Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire and there was a demand to thus standarize the liturgy for the civilized world that the a date was settled for the Nativity. As we all know, we ended up with the date we now have--and it is not one day, but actually an 8-day feast called an octave.

As to Jesus being "God Almighty," Christmas, being the feast of the Incarnation and not a birthday--the "Incarnation" is the doctrine of God-made-man. That is the literal definition of the word "incarnation."

There is nothing wrong with using wording like "Jesus' birthday" or "God's birthday" or an atheist joining in the fun any more than a Jew eating attending a holiday party and eating a Christmas cookie or a non-Catholic celebrating St. Patrick's Day. You don't have to believe in a doctrine to be happy and rejoice and wish for peace to your fellow man.

But you do have to be a JW to be a real Scrooge and rotten and judgmental and think you are better than everyone else.

There's an old saying: "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." There's a new saying too: "Read the room."