PioneerSchmioneer

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Posts by PioneerSchmioneer

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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  You can just skip what I said and offer a list of those scholars to the other guy and prove your original point.

  That will learn me.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  When you learned the scientific method in either high school or college, and I am sure you learned how to validate someone's work, the critical method, etc?

  This is why you can't say something like, "My views are consistent with scholarship" to prove a point. That doesn't prove a point. The Watchtower does it all the time (and in fact cults do it--it's a big cult move to try to impress people). It's a fallacy. You can't prove anything by citing a professional or "expert."

  There are no real "experts" in anything. In academia there are only conclusions and theories which are changing all the time. All we can do is check someone's method at arriving at their answer.

  So when anyone says what you did, they usually do it with lots of emotion and don't like to hear that it doesn't prove anything.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  In other words, according to critical analysis (which all scholars follow) your view is not sound if your method is not sound.

  Claiming your view is sound because it "matches" with with another scholar is called "arguing from authority," which is a logical fallacy. That is not a sound way to produce anything in critical methodology.

  You two were wrong from the start.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  It doesn't matter if your views are consistent with scholarship. Your views have to stand on their own, as if no academics had ever existed.

  In other words, your methodology has to stand the test without being able to be consistent with scholarship--because it is your methodology that counts, not if what you say matches anyone else's.

  Critical analysis is a method that follows rules, and just like in sports or any other game, you are tested on how well you follow those rules, not if your views are consistent with another's.

  That is the way academia plays the game.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  "Argument from authority" or claiming your view is "based on sound scholarship" is not "sound scholarship."

  I used to tell my religion students this all the time, and it was the hardest habit to break for them--most never learned to do this.

  It is your methodology that proves your argument, not the scholars you cite or copy in your arguments. That is why you have to study well. If you can't or don't study how to research a subject according to sound and approved academic methods and principles, your conclusions cannot be tested by another indepent source and verified. You have to do the work yourself.

  Only when your view is independently verified by testing--not by whether you cited or copied the view of another scholar or academic (anyone can do that--even the Watchtower does it)--do we know you did your homework.

  Otherwise you are just a copycat.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  Peacefulpete:

  P.S. have you formulated an opinion regarding source critical analyses that see the work as a compilation of Jewish and Christian elements?

  Do I have a personal opinion? Not a personal one, no.

  As to whether there was such a thing as "Jewish and Christian elements," that would depend on your exact definition on those terms.

  In the United States, due to the influence of Protestantism, people tend to see religion in the terms of "denomination," but in the rest of the world, especially in the East where Judaism started, religion is more like something built into society that one acts out and less of something you believe in or sign up for via a creed.

  It was not until the late 1800s that Reform Judaism claimed that its branch was a "denomination," a claim that today it no longer really stands by. Judaism is actually a culture or civilization that developed a religion during its history, a religion that has had worldwide influence and has lasted for a very, very long time.

  But Judaism is not that religion that it created, anymore than Judaism is Jewish food, Jewish music, Jewish language, Jewish mythology, etc.

  Christianity is actually an offshoot of Judaism. Its foundational elements are Jewish. ("Messiah" is a Jewish concept, on which Christianity is based, for example.)

  The Book of Revelation is an apocalypse, which is a Jewish genre.

  The text employs Jewish tropes and Hebrewisms, inspired by other books in the same genre such as 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and--lest anyone forget--the Book of Daniel.

  And Christianity, at the time of its writing, may have seen itself as nothing more than another sect of Judaism. As the Acts of the Apostles tells us, 'many thousands of believers among the Jews were all zealous followers of the Law.' (See Acts 21:17-26.) Since Victorinus and the Church Fathers favored the preterist view that Revelation dealt with the time suffered by the disciples during the author's writing, there is a possibility that the "Great Harlot" represents Jerusalem, which the Jewish Christians felt had proved itself unfaithful to God, and the call to "get out of her" and the description of her destruction involves the Roman attack on Jerusalem when the Temple fell in 70 CE. Rome did not fall during the time of the writing of the Book of Revelation.--Revelation 18:4, 9-10; compare Jesus' words at Matthew 24:15-21.

  So is this a "Christian" work? Or is this a "Jewish" work? Did Christianity create works that were free of Judaism, and did these become part of the New Testament?

  I guess it depends on how you, personally, look at things.
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  78

  How can Babylon the Great be the WORLD of false religion?

  by BoogerMan in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  (revelation 17:5) “babylon the great, the mother of the prostitutes (plural!

  ) and of the disgusting things of the earth.”.

  btg is spotlighted as being the principal "disgusting thing" which affects christians & christianity, with other lesser "prostitutes" in the background... (revelation 18:4) “get out of her, my people, (christians) if you do not want to share with her in her sins, and if you do not want to receive part of her plagues.".

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  It is likely Rome, but there is a possibility that the writer is using the image to refer to apostasy/traitors who persecute the Church in general, and may include apostate Jerusalem. We understand this from the earliest references to it in Christian history.

  Since the Apocalypse of John was very late to the inclusion into the canon of the New Testament--practically unheard of in Christendom itself until the canon was officially closed by Athansius in 367 CE --the first commentary on it was not written until around 290 CE by Victorinus of Pettau, a bishop who was matryred by Diocletian.

  It was treated as, well, the title suggests--an "apocalypse" and not a "forecast." It talks about the visions being allusions to persecutions and intrigues already suffered by the church at the time of its composition.

  To further "blow the minds" of Jehovah's Witnesses, it makes reference to the Catholic teaching of the "restored" earth. Yes, the Catholics (like the Jews) have always talked about "Paradise restored." For instance, every Sunday at Mass they recite the words "I believe in...the resurrection of the body" (Apostles' Creed) or "I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." (Nicene Creed) Both this commentary from the 3rd century and the current Catechism of the Catholic Church talk about the "paradise" to come where the physical reuniting of soul and body will take place in a recreated universe in reference to the last chapters of Revelation.--See CCC 1046, 1047.

  I recall how many Jehovah's Witness who became converts to the Watchtower religion simply on the "paradise" claim that "they showed me this from the Bible, which was so clearly a Christian teaching, so they must be the only true religion because they were the only ones teaching this," yet it was far from being a unique teaching. Like everything else Watchtower, it was stolen and repackaged.

  I remember hearing from Bart Ehrman once (though he was talking from his experience with Fundamentalism and his disappointment from it) how he was startled to learn from reading Victorinus and the Church Fathers on Revelation and realizing that they did not believe it had anything to do with the future, like he had always been taught, but the past--except for those very last chapters--and then startled to hear about some "restored paradise" instead of heaven.

  This view, of Victorinus and the Church Fathers, is called by academics the preterist view. It maintains that much of the book concerns the events within the lifetime of the author and his readers.

  There are other views that developed afterwards:

  • Critical view: A current view--a struggle between Church and State withing the 1st century.
  • Idealist view: The never-ending struggles between good and evil in every Christian's life.
  • Historicist view: Panorama of the Church's life as it marches through history from beginning to the end.
  • Futurist view: The one held by the Watchtower (and some others) that the book is a forecast of events.

  The understanding of an apocalypse is not meant to be "set in stone," so to speak--though it is not a prophetic forecast. Jewish writers hoped future readers could get encouragement from it when they faced difficult times as well since the main thrust of an apocalypse was that justice would always prevail.

  This does not mean the writers knew that the details of their written visions were specific future forecasts of events. It was against both the Mosaic Law and Christian teaching to try to foretell the future or engage in divination. A writer of an apocalype was not necessarily the same as a prophet or a seer, and Christians often confuse the roles and the genres.
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  21

  Christians Encouraged to Read 'Pagan' Works

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  clement of alexandria.

  the stromata, or miscellanies.

  book vi.

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  PioneerSchmioneer

  I'm leaving this thread with this final post:

  I've said it before: we often confuse a certain familiar earmark of the Watchtower for "Watchtowerism" itself, and when we leave that type of belief system, when we see it elsewhere, we attack it, no matter where we see it, in whomever we see it.

  If the Watchtower served us its cult teachings via the medium of banana splits, we might mistakenly tell everyone how "evil" banana splits were, calling everyone who enjoyed them fools and jumping on any study that criticized the ingredients of banana splits with praise.

  In reality, banana splits are innocent fun. A cult can take any medium and twist it to do its bidding--including religion and a holy text.

  The fact that I became a teacher of religion and have taught critical textual studies does not mean that I also taught that religion and holy texts of any kind are evil, including Christianity or the Bible. Religion in itself can be good. The Bible is not evil nor necessarily incorrect in what it tries to teach, though it is a product of its time.

  What happens to people who leave the JWs is that they don't tend to shred the fear of the Governing Body and the elders and those who taught them their religion. So they invent targets that have nothing to do with what happened to them. Instead of blaming people that deserve the blame, we blame a thing that can't defend itself.

  You can't blame a banana split, even though many of its ingredients are, to be honest, artificial. It's yummy.

  I will leave you with the following to explain, even though it comes from a Catholic source. It's pretty smart, as it talks about the limits of critical study:

  Pseudepigraphy is the common ancient practice of attributing texts to a popular figure in order to assert authority, honor a legacy, or build on someone else’s work. Consider the Ripley’s Believe it or Not franchise. While the original author, Robert Ripley, has been dead for decades, the brand retains his name to assure audiences that his work lives on. Or consider Caleb Weatherbee, the eternal fictional weatherman from the Farmer’s Almanac. If copies of this almanac are analyzed thousands of years from now, someone likely might posit the existence of a historical Caleb. Those of you who are fans of The Princess Bride will recall that the legendary Dread Pirate Roberts was later revealed to be not one person but several people who carried on his legacy, since no one would have feared or respected names such as “Wesley” or “Cummerbund.” Ancient Judaism and early Christianity were constantly threatened by heterodox works like the Book of Enoch and the Gospel of Thomas. To establish legitimacy, the leading authorities of the time often attributed their texts to legendary figures like Moses....
  I fondly recall convincing my little cousin to eat broccoli because it was what gave Yoda from Star Wars his strength (and color). Similarly, Santa Clause is an excellent conduit for teaching children the virtue of justice, and George Washington’s ahistorical chopping of the cherry tree teaches them honesty. Children, who are vastly imaginative, craft impressive lore to understand the world, just as our pagan ancestors did when theologizing about God. If Christ had made Himself known to the Buddhist tradition, I guarantee that he would have invoked its mythical figures to teach His commandments, but God chose to reveal Himself to the Jewish tradition, which means Christ had to speak to His people by invoking their beloved characters, both historical and legendary.
  Christ was given the impossible task of translating perfect, immutable, divine laws into fallible, changing human language. His words are strictly analogous to a perfect and infinitely beautiful theological reality that goes beyond the limits of human vocabulary. This is likely why He spoke in so many parables. These stories conceal matters of faith and morals, regardless of their historicity. We do not care about who the Prodigal Son was or if he really lived. We are only concerned by how his story impacts our faith journeys. Americans have traditionally portrayed our founders as idealized caricatures, even if they were flawed human beings. When we teach our children to be like George Washington, we refer to George Washington the legendary symbol of strength, grace, and humility, not George Washington the historical owner of slaves. Likewise, Christ calls us to emulate Moses the myth, the beloved caricature constructed from generations of reflection and theologizing, not Moses the man.--Who Wrote the Bible? Three Catholic Perspectives on Biblical Authorship, Clarifying Catholicism

  Don't get angry or hurt when someone mentions a fact about religion or the Bible that does not sit well with you once you left the Watchtower. It is not the fault of religion or the Bible that the Watchtower screwed you over. The medium used by a cult is not the problem. The cult did it to you. A cult is people.

  A banana split is not people...unless you are thinking of those Sid and Marty Krofft characters (but they were just people in suits). Even if you got a banana split painfully smushed into your face, you can't be mad at it. Someone had to put it there.
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  21

  Christians Encouraged to Read 'Pagan' Works

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  clement of alexandria.

  the stromata, or miscellanies.

  book vi.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PioneerSchmioneer

  I don't know who literally wrote any of the gospels.

  I was discussing contrary to Watchtower doctrine. I thought that in the context of this discussion, as a rule, you, likely did not accept the traditional views that "the apostle Matthew wrote Matthew, etc."

  So I wrote that "Luke" is obviously a Gentile convert to Judaism--whether he is the traditional Luke figure, the "divine physician," the Gentile traveling companion of Paul, I don't have that data from the writing.

  As for Mark, the latest theory is that it may indeed be "Petrine tradition" as attested to since Q source theory is fading--leaving it later than a primative pre-redacted Matthew (but who was "Mark," I don't know).

  I wasn't off topic. Your brain was reading off topic--again.
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  21

  Christians Encouraged to Read 'Pagan' Works

  by peacefulpete in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  clement of alexandria.

  the stromata, or miscellanies.

  book vi.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  PioneerSchmioneer

  Thanks, Peacefulpete. I appreciate your comments very much as well.

  The stories in the New Testament are full of Jewish tropes, having been written by Jews, including Luke. So the stories of the 12 Apostles fits the idea of the Messiah establishing the Davidic monarchy due to the belief that during the Messianic Age the 12 tribes that were dispersed and lost would return and be restored to Israel--but now under Christ's leaders.--Matthew 19:28; Acts 1:6.

  Whether or not there were a literal 12 Apostles is hard to say. The narratives in the gospels are hard to reconcile with historical reality. The authors were trying to teach religion like Gamaliel or Hillel, not write like Josephus. This is true even of Luke who composed the Acts of the Apostles.

  Luke himself seems to be more of a Jewish convert than a "Gentile," as often claimed by the Watchtower. While it is clear that he was of Gentile birth, it is also clear he knows a lot about Jewish religion--a little too much for a mere Gentile. The first two chapters of his gospel are dripping with Judaism and details about the Temple, even what the inside of it looked like and liturgical details that most non-Jews today don't catch when reading it, such as prayer times during the day and how long preistly service lasted, etc. (Luke 1:8-11, 21, 23) And in Acts he talks about how Peter still keeps kosher and how all the Christians in Jerusalem are doing the same, following the Mosaic Law, even how Paul does this--though Paul keeps some of these details out of his own letters.--Acts 10:13, 14; 18:18; 21:20-26.

  Luke, like the other authors, is obviously a Jew, though a convert, and when he writes narrative, it is likely filled with religious overtones, folklore, and the like. Luke 2:1-2 is definitely the employment of the genre of Jewish mythology. Not only do the dates not work for any of the rulers mentioned, nor the events, the Roman government never had a census at this time nor did it have a census where it would make people return to their own hometown to register. Could you imagine the chaos of having the population of the Roman Empire do this? It's a narrative device to set up the story of the "birth of Jesus" so he, a Nazarite, could be born in Bethlehem--an origin story genre similar to the types used in Genesis.

  So the same author writing about the Apostles in Acts cannot be leaned upon for modern historical accuracy about what really happened in the first days of the Christian community.