I have been reading Steven Hassan's books as well studying like never before. My wife has seen the amount studying I am doing, just hasnt known what all subjects instudy. Over the last few weeks I've slowly shared certain things. Examples would be selective quoting which happens in almost every book and brochure (these destroyed me, hurt me to see, but happen everywhere) Then yesterday just considered a couple scriptures with her. In John's account of Jesus death he has him die on Passover night as a sacrificial "lamb of god" whereas other accounts clearly show Jesus ate Passover with his disciples and died the following day... This amazed her. Then we looked at God saying different things as Jesus was baptized. Then how Matthew in an effort to show prophecy fulfilled has Jesus straddling a donkey and a colt as he rides into town. I showed her the verse in OT where this prophecy comes from. It didn't mean that Jesus needed to straddle them both. It was a poetic verse, saying he rides an ass, yes a colt of an ass. But Matthew misunderstood the meaning and wrote in the crazy straddle of them both. This led to showing her hiwnJudas gave the money to the religious leaders who bought "the field of blood" with it and called it blood money, then Judas hangs himself. Acts in chapter 1 says Judas bought the field and burst his guts open and bled on it thereby it being called "field of blood". Jehovah tells Moses he never revealed his name to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but then in Genesis Abraham calls him Jehovah and knows the name. This led to discussing whether or not every account was literal and factual history.
Somehow from there we got to religion in general, and found myself telling her about 607 and 587 and 1914 and N H Barbour. Pretty much everything. At one point I thought I should stop, not too much, but she was okay and wanted more... We talked for hours. Everything is changed now for her too. We even discussed how to handle things like birthdays and thanksgiving. Pagan holidays like Christmas or Easter will be out for us As of right now. She is against paganism and holidays that teach lies, but neither of us ever understood birthdays or Thanksgiving. Disfellowshipping is another one she doesn't get. Blood issue too.
We are still figuring it out. It won't be easy. But I have my best friend and wife to make the journey with. I want to thank each and every one of you. Without reading the posts here and getting tips in my first post I made, I wouldn't have been able to do this.
