Apostles, Judas, GB, Raymond, Satan, Holy Spirit

TrueTomHarley · February 9

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

can't tell for sure who you are talking to here. You addressed the post with the Op-Ed to @TrueTomHarley, but this current post that I'm quoting from directly responds to some points that I made. So if it's all the same to

It was probably for you. I had no idea what he was talking about and only responded to what I knew.

TrueTomHarley · February 9

3 minutes ago, Witness said:

IMy, you give Jesus little credit.

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

Jesus ‘in the hearts’ of renegade anointed who refuse to cooperate with an arrangement because they think they are not given their proper place results in those persons stuck with an archaic translation that they can neither understand nor afford.

That’s why I think he operates in the first way.

My, you give Jesus little credit.

Witness · February 9

6 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus ‘in the hearts’ of renegade anointed who refuse to cooperate with an arrangement because they think they are not given their proper place

Tom, who do I bring out constantly that have not been given credit as to their proper place? The anointed ones. I speak for THEM. Since these priests have been supplanted by those not priests, not spiritual Israel, but spiritual "Gentiles" ruling over them, then how can you say Jesus is in agreement "with an arrangement" that men have formed? Uninspired men?

Jesus, who is the Head of his anointed body and the Temple. Eph 5:22-30 These scriptures explain who the anointed are to be "submissive" to. It isn't to men.

What does Rev. 11:1-3 say? Have you read it?

Witness · February 9

32 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

The organization that he leads is built on his body with "living stones". Eph 2:20-22 Perhaps you've got the wrong organization. Rev 13:1-10 Notice..."this demands perseverance and faith of the saints". Why? Because this "organization"/Beast is bent on conquering them.

JW Insider · February 9

On 2/3/2019 at 2:59 AM, FelixCA said:

Just like the obsession you have with the 6000 years. Maybe if you look at it by someone else’s perspective.

I have absolutely no obsession with the 6,000 years. Pointing out that F.Franz had an evident obsession with something unscriptural, is not the same as having an obsession myself.

I see that the only support you offered about the 6,000 years was not from the Bible, of course, but from "HA 1423." (For anyone who is not aware, this is from Horae Apocalypticae, an infamous source of several of Nelson Barbour's chronology mistakes, that he passed along to a chronologically naive Charles Taze Russell.)

HA1423

Similarly the pseudo- Barnabas, a very ancient though Apocryphal writer: "Consider, my children, what that signifies, He finished them in six days. The meaning is, that in 6000 years the Lord will bring all things to an end," &c.
The same expectation as to the six days of creation typifying 6000 years, as the term of the present world's duration,
continued, as we have seen, (see p. 230, &c, supra) even among the anti- premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. Only they explained the sabbatical seventh day as typical, not of a seventh sabbatical Millennium of rest, but an eternal Sabbath: - - a view generally adopted afterwards.

An apocryphal writer, from the era of apostasy, as @Outta Here has elsewhere pointed out, had an obsession with numerology and gematria. He clearly misinterprets scripture by claiming that the words "he finished them in six days" means that in 6,000 years, the Lord will bring all things to an end. I'm not saying that Barnabas did not get some things right, or that the anti-premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries did not get some things right. But it's never a good idea to depend on a non-Biblical, apocryphal misinterpretation to impose an idea on scripture when absolutely no support for anything like it is found anywhere in the Bible.

It's actually a good thing that you pointed out that this is ultimately where the Watch Tower Society got this unscriptural idea from.

Outta Here · February 9

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

He clearly misinterprets scripture by claiming that the words "he finished them in six days" means that in 6,000 years,

Without getting too bogged down in this matter, I presume the discussion is around the length of the creative epoch/age/day we now find ourselves in?

Discussions on this apect of speculative chronology indeed have their fascinating side, (if you are in the mood for it), and there is no shortage in the contribution made by various Bible Students to the debate, even if it does venture into realms of reminiscent a Pyramidology type mentaliity at times. But as far as JWs are concerned officially , we do not seem to have ventured very far from the statement made in the old 1971 Aid to Bible Understanding, on page 392: "The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods ."

Witness · February 10

22 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

You might want to do some research to see just how many organizations offer free Bibles all around the world.

JW Insider · February 11

On 2/9/2019 at 3:45 PM, Outta Here said:

Without getting too bogged down in this matter, I presume the discussion is around the length of the creative epoch/age/day we now find ourselves in?

I recalled a comment from last year where you commented positively on the new way of referring to these days as aeons or epochs, rather than literal days, and then added the following comment:

On 8/12/2018 at 11:37 AM, Outta Here said:

By that old reckoning it appears that we are 43 years in to Adam's settlement/cultivation/animal naming/no helper period and still counting.

1975+43=2018 (last year). This old reckoning might seem ridiculous now, especially after the Watchtower once argued that this period could be a matter of weeks or months, but could not go beyond 2 years. But there are still some Witnesses who haven't kept up and believe there must be some validity to the 6,000 year theory. (A partial salvage of the theory, without any reference to 6,000 or 7,000 years, was rewritten in a much better way in a 2011 Watchtower:

*** w11 7/15 p. 24 God’s Rest—What Is It? ***
God’s Rest—What Is It?

During the time that Fred Franz was still alive and still working on his last prophetic book "Revelation -- Its Grand Climax at Hand" an article was written dealing with the Jubilee year and how the 49th year was related to the 50th:

*** w87 1/1 p. 30 Questions From Readers ***
Second, a study of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and of our location in the stream of time strongly indicate that each of the creative days (Genesis, chapter 1) is 7,000 years long. It is understood that Christ’s reign of a thousand years will bring to a close God’s 7,000-year ‘rest day,’ the last ‘day’ of the creative week. (Revelation 20:6; Genesis 2:2, 3) Based on this reasoning, the entire creative week would be 49,000 years long. . . . According to Romans 8:20, 21, Jehovah God purposes to liberate believing mankind from this slavery. As a result, true worshipers on earth “will be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.”—See also Romans 6:23. . . . While the small group selected to be taken to heaven have had their sins forgiven from Pentecost 33 C.E. onward and thus already enjoy the Jubilee, the Scriptures show that the liberation for believing mankind will occur during Christ’s Millennial Reign. That will be when he applies to mankind the benefits of his ransom sacrifice. By the end of the Millennium, mankind will have been raised to human perfection, completely free from inherited sin and death. Having thus brought to an end the last enemy (death passed on from Adam), Christ will hand the Kingdom back to his Father at the end of the 49,000-year creative week.—1 Corinthians 15:24-26.

So although the 1969/1971 Aid Book, as you pointed out, had said that we don't know the length of the creative days, this probably came from the idea that a Bible Dictionary should not contain esoteric beliefs that are not actually based on the Bible, but are just a traditional interpretation. R.Franz must have recognized this fact, while preparing the Aid Book, but apparently there was a faction that thought this "reasonable" approach was very dangerous. It admits that we don't know everything. I have personal anecdote that let me know that this is exactly what at least two brothers (Greenlees and Schroeder) thought would, initially, be the way to get R.Franz removed, by exposing the non-dogmatic approach in the Aid Book style that tends to erode dogma. I'll save the anecdote for another time, but I think it is easy to recognize that this kind of approach to the Bible takes a lot of power away from the interpreters. (The anecdote did not concern the length of the creative days.)

Even in the lead-up to 1975, there was a need, probably influenced by the Aid Book, to start using words like "evidently" rather than just speaking dogmatically:

*** w73 2/1 p. 82 Will Your Days Be “Like the Days of a Tree”? ***
Since each of the creative “days” or periods was evidently seven thousand years long, the whole creative “week” takes in 49,000 years.

Compare that with the dogmatism in the previous decades:

*** w51 1/1 pp. 27-28 The Christian’s Sabbath ***
Since the sabbath was a part of the law and the “Law has a shadow of the good things to come”, of what was the sabbath a shadow? Of the grand rest day for all mankind, the 1,000-year reign of Christ, the seventh 1,000 years of God’s rest day. For six thousand years mankind has been toiling and suffering under “the god of this world”, Satan the Devil. In that antitypical sabbath Christ will free men from the bondage of Satan and his demons . . .

*** w63 8/1 p. 460 par. 14 Religion and the Nuclear Age ***
We could continue verse by verse through the entire period of the six creative days, periods of time that other Bible passages show to have been each 7,000 years in length.

Of course, no other Bible passages were shown to indicate this, just a footnote to see the book by F.Franz, Let God Be True, 1943.

Hebrews 3 & 4 does connect Psalm 95:11 to Genesis 2:2, but without any connection to a certain number of years and without any reference to the millennium of Christ's reign.

Outta Here · February 11

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

we don't know the length of the creative days

All the "evidently"s, "reasoning"s, "understanding"s etc that are postulated with regard to a 49000 year creative week theory remain firmly in the realms of imagination in the light of the 1971 statement "The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods ."

I don't have a problem with the idea of Jehovah' having a rest day into which we can figuratively "enter" as Paul describes. No problem either with the notion that this rest "day" commenced after the creation of Eve. And also no problem with the idea that this period will of necessity include the 1000 year millenial reign of Christ. This reign, among other things, will oversee successfully the populating of planet earth and the bringing of it into a condition that Jehovah can judge as "very good" when the seventh creative epoch ends.

All the rest of the chronological surgery that goes on regarding the "time of the end" is quite simply "playing doctors" with time. Our Leader, Jesus, helped us to appreciate that when he stated clearly that "“Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father." Matt.24:36.

It seems that individuals get very "precious" about their own sepeculations about when this day or hour will be, or not be. The emotional ranting around this I do not really understand. For me it is interesting, even fascinating, to consider the many views on this matter, including the 49000 year idea, but to be honest, none of them do I loose any sleep over. In fact, since I have had it confirmed from the Holy Scriptures (or the Bible depending on your language) that we are in "the last days" and that there is something that we can do to work along with Jehovah and Jesus at this time, I have enjoyed my sleep infinitely better than ever before, knowing that my future is safely in the hands of the one who says:

From the beginning I foretell the outcome, and from long ago the things that have not yet been done. I say, ‘My decision will stand, and I will do whatever I please.’ Is.46:10

JOHN BUTLER · February 11

However in the 1960's the 'teaching' was that each creative day was 7,000 years long. I know as I was having a study at the time and that is exactly what i was taught in my Bible study.. That was part of the foundation of my learning about God and Christ and Creation.

I don't care who denies it, but that is what was taught. Creative days =7,000 years. Rest day 6,000 years then Armageddon, then 1,000 years of Christ's rule. Then Christ hands it all back to God ( possibly for a Jubilee year ? or some such)..

That is what I was taught.

TrueTomHarley · February 11

On 2/7/2019 at 12:54 PM, JOHN BUTLER said:

And you need an OUTLINE to give a talk at a funeral ? ...But they want you to stick to an outline to give a funeral talk and they much prefer you to be an Elder or M/S ?

You are confusing JWs with those churches in which everyone gets up and gives his ‘testimony.’

Were it at a funeral home, I could do anything I wanted, without regard for being elder or MS. But it is not a free-for-all at the Kingdom Hall, so my giving the talk there was not a given.

As it turned out, it was okayed, doubtless because people there know me well & I was a very close friend of the deceased.

Outta Here · February 11

5 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

what was taught

What Bible teach not what men teach many times. Motto? Better to know what Bible teach.

JOHN BUTLER · February 11

1 hour ago, Outta Here said:

What Bible teach not what men teach many times. Motto? Better to know what Bible teach.

Yes I agree with you. But my point was that Jehovah's Witnesses were given that information to teach others when they were taking a Bible study. And that information was lies. So Jehovah's Witnesses were teaching lies to their students.

TrueTomHarley · February 11

10 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

But my point was that Jehovah's Witnesses were given that information to teach others when they were taking a Bible study. And that information was lies. So Jehovah's Witnesses were teaching lies to their students.

No more than Isaac Newton taught lies.

Forgive me for saying so, John, but I think you have a basic disconnect with the way that God operates towards humans. Continually we read of Bible characters who propagate things that later turn out to be wrong.

JOHN BUTLER · February 11

23 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

No more than Isaac Newton taught lies.

Forgive me for saying so, John, but I think you have a basic disconnect with the way that God operates towards humans. Continually we read of Bible characters who propagate things that later turn out to be wrong.

And in your opinion that makes it Ok for the JW Org to teach lies does it ?

Showing your true colours I think. Gives you more to write about probably

TrueTomHarley · February 11

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

And in your opinion that makes it Ok for the JW Org to teach lies does it ?

On the contrary. It means that if anyone mentions Isaac Newton in my presence, I make them wash their mouth out with soap.

Srecko Sostar · February 11

1 hour ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Forgive me for saying so, John, but I think you have a basic disconnect with the way that God operates towards humans.

"the way that God operates towards humans"

Few of you (or us :)))) maybe ..... and GB undoubtedly, in full measure,.....know how god operates :))))

Amazing how we are ready to make interesting, big, loud claims: We know .....and than continue to talking about so many things we know for sure how, when, why ......

Outta Here · February 11

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

And that information was lies

It is not a lie. It is a notion. You can argue it back and forth as a preferred or not preferred idea, but not to disprove it or prove it. You are free to believe or disbelieve if you wish. People will always come unstuck of course if they stand firm on theoretical notions. This is how erroneous dogma develops.

JOHN BUTLER · February 11

2 hours ago, Outta Here said:

It is not a lie. It is a notion. You can argue it back and forth as a preferred or not preferred idea, but not to disprove it or prove it. You are free to believe or disbelieve if you wish. People will always come unstuck of course if they stand firm on theoretical notions. This is how erroneous dogma develops.

Ok so the GB and JW org is run on notions.

notion

Dictionary result for notion

/ˈnəʊʃ(ə)n/

noun

1.

a conception of or belief about something.

"children have different notions about the roles of their parents"

synonyms:

idea, belief, concept, conception, conviction, opinion, view, thought, impression, image, perception, mental picture; More

2.

an impulse or desire, especially one of a whimsical kind.

"she had a notion to ring her friend at work"

synonyms:

impulse, inclination, whim, desire, wish, fancy, caprice, whimsy

"you can't expect us to fire any of our staff just because you get a notion to come back"

The second explanation seems to fit the GB.

FelixCA · February 12

I have no idea where some of you learned the truth as prescribed by the Watchtower. I think TTH friend and distorter of the truth to gain favor by such people as Butler isn’t reason enough to twist the publications of the Watchtower to sway an erroneous interpretation by that individual.

It appears this person is saying the Watchtower somehow believes the 6 creative days is the same as the 1000 years, is like a day to God in 2 Peter 3:8. Now I can understand someone like TTH would agree with such misguided logic, it would, however, be wrong.

Since it’s a totally different understanding. This person JWinsider has gone beyond what the Watchtower is actually saying. Perhaps this individual is stuck in the same ideology as his mentor Raymond.

That is another way of attempting to disprove 1975. An erred perception but understandable. Since number 7 is a pivotal number in Biblical determination. Anyone with sense would surmise Peter was symbolically referring to what he meant with a 1000 years.

Therefore, the Watchtower used that same symbolism to interject the date 1975 as being the end of the 6^th day of man's existence, not creation.

That is something the Watchtower does relate to. So, I don’t see where the confusion would be, other than being man-made (conspiracy).

*** w75 10/1 p. 581 The End of 6,000 Years of Man-Rule Approaches—What Has Been Accomplished? ***

Panoramic Survey

This 6,000-year period of man’s existence was early marked by the loss of paradise. Since then, frustrated mankind has tried many kinds of government in an effort to regain at least some form of material paradise. But what has been accomplished? The result is world confusion. Mankind faces ruination, just as Jesus foretold concerning our day: “On the earth anguish of nations, not knowing the way out . . . while men become faint out of fear and expectation of the things coming upon the inhabited earth.” But God’s Word holds forth hope!—Luke 21:25, 26.

For as much as I make every effort to use small common words so people like Butler can understand, I see I continue to fail to communicate, other than those areas where my words are twisted.

That’s just dishonest. However, I do find it fascinating and funny how people want to distort the Watchtower’s understanding to coincide with apostate views. For this reason, I will no longer interact with certain people here anymore. Anyone wanting to seek knowledge with wisdom will find the Watchtower has related that message of the 6th day of man's existence, since before 1950. If, 1975 marked the day of rest for God, entering the 7th day. Humanity has proven how the God of this world has indulged himself since then to corrupt this world beyond comparison before 1975. Now are there those that are blind to what is before them?