Ann O'Maly

Off topic. Don't change the subject.

Blowing smoke then. You cannot make a robust defense, @bruceq. Perhaps someone else can help you. Anyone?

All I see is JW.org's unsubstantiated assertions that there is a second fullfillment. So please, highlight the relevant part that gives Scriptural basis.

2 minutes ago, Nana Fofana said:

What?  628 or something?

Nebuchadnezzar succeeded the throne in 605 BCE.

You already c&p'ed a whole section from JW.org. The answer to my question was not there. Highlight it for me please. Explain in your own words (1 Pet. 3:15). Or are you just blowing smoke?

I did miss the explanation about the Scriptural basis for expecting a fulfillment of Dan. 4 beyond what Daniel said it was. All I saw was JW.org's unsubstantiated assertions that it was so. So please, highlight the relevant part that gives Scriptural basis.

3 minutes ago, bruceq said:

In the greater fulfillment of Daniel chapter 4, the immense tree symbolizes God’s rulership.

What 'greater fulfillment? Where does the Bible indicate that Dan. 4 has a fulfillment beyond Nebuchadnezzar. Book, chapter and verses, please.

Besides,

"Humans cannot know which Bible accounts are shadows of things to come and which are not. The clearest course is this: Where the Scriptures teach that an individual, an event, or an object is typical of something else, we accept it as such. Otherwise, we ought to be reluctant to assign an antitypical application to a certain person or account if there is no specific Scriptural basis for doing so." - https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2015204

So. Where is the Scriptural basis for the immense tree in Dan. 4 to represent Judah and God's rulership?

2 hours ago, bruceq said:

Just did Â JW.ORG !!!

Then you know the interpretation Daniel gave of the tree dream, and you know that it applied to Nebuchadnezzar and his kingship - no one else. The question is,

• Do you believe Daniel's divinely-inspired interpretation here?

1 hour ago, JW Insider said:

Thinking about a farmer, as your did, if experience tells you that barley takes about 105 days from planting to harvest, you could easily translate that to 3.5 months. If you planted on the new moon, you could expect to harvest at the full moon (always on the 14th or 15th). If someone tells you that wheat takes 120 days, then you could translate that to 4 months, and if you do all your planting at the same time, then you could expect to plant on the same new moon with the barley and expect to harvest on the first new moon after the earlier barley harvest. (Oats, if they had them, might take 115 days to ripen.) It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable that you might want to know these number of days if you were hiring laborers, or for planning, but it also seems reasonable that a quick, close estimate was all that was needed, and thus there was no need to worry about the fact that a time period of 3 months might have 88 days in some cases or 89 days in some cases. (29+30+29) or (30+29+30).

http://www.livius.org/pictures/israel/gezer/the-gezer-calendar/

His two months are harvest
His two month are planting
His two months are late planting

His month is hoeing up of flax
His month is harvest of barley
His month is harvest and feasting

His two months are vine-tending
His month is summer fruit.

Translation by W.F. Albright

9 minutes ago, bruceq said:

Then go to JW.ORG and find it. Im not going to argue about it sorry. 

Haha. So you cannot follow through on what you started. Ah well.

Let's focus on the Bible's own interpretation instead, hey?

Who did God (through Daniel) apply the fall and regrowth of the tree to? (Read Dan. 4:22, 24, 28, 33).

I didn't ask what wasn't Christendom's interpretation of it. Do you even know what Christendom's interpretation of it is?

Just now, bruceq said:

Why should we believe Christendoms interpretation of this over Jehovah's Witnesses?

What is Christendom's interpretation of it?

1 hour ago, Arauna said:

So please tell me HOW this proves the Bible to be INCORRECT -  which in every instance gives a ROUNDED number of 30 days for a month (so 29 days or 30 days does not really matter because the Bible ONLY  refers to 30 days in a month) - a BIBLICAL month

We're not saying the Bible is incorrect for giving rounded numbers. Rounded numbers are easier to remember. The fact however remains that, astronomically if the Hebrews had a lunar-based calendar, their months would run from "new moon to new moon" as indicated in Isa. 66:23*. New moon to new moon averages at 29.5 days. As @JW Insider said, the month lengths had to alternate (although not necessarily in a strict 30-29-30-29 pattern).

Problems arise with regard to people's interpretations of prophetic numbers - especially when they want to convert rounded or schematic months and days into solar years, in which case, a 360-day schematic year is magically converted into 360 solar years of 365.24219 days each! The method is inconsistent and there is no scriptural warrant to convert '7 times' into 2,520 years in the first place.

* Also see Isa. 1:13,14 and Amos 8:5 which show the importance of new moon festivals in ancient Hebrew culture.

2 hours ago, Arauna said:

The formal moon calendar was only set in stone some years after Jesus.

It was formalized in Exodus.

15 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Don't know if you saw it, but I quickly edited out a line in that last post

No - didn't see that. But yes, I can understand why one might not want to stray into the murky waters of non-canonical texts and the potential late dating of Daniel lol.

19 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Another reason is that the Flood account in Genesis counts the 5 month range as 150 days, even though it would have been about 147 or 148 days using "new moons."

148 or 149 if we add on the summer solstice. But yes, the Bible often uses rounded numbers.

21 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

"solar" 360 day calendars

It's not 'solar.' 360-day years are 'ideal' or 'schematic' - never 'solar.'

24 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

there was typically only one leap year in the period.

With a 354-day lunar-based calendar, yes.

26 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

However, describing a 7-year period as 2,520 days (which the Bible NEVER does) would have involved a larger practical error since there would have been at least 2 and sometimes 3 leap years in that period.

It's neither fish nor fowl. If 7 years are 2,520 days, then it's neither lunar-based nor solar-based and it's several days short of the 365.24219-day tropical year assumed in the 'day-for-a-year' conversion to get to 1914.

You may find these two sources helpful.

Sacha Stern, Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies, p. 193 f.

Jonathan Ben-Dov, The 364-day Year in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jewish Pseudepigrapha

The earliest manuscripts of Daniel date to the 2nd century BCE, btw, as you probably already know.

The tl;dr version is that, when using the 360-day schematic year in calculating anything, you have to always remember to add on the 4 epagomenal days - i.e. the 2 solstices and 2 equinoxes - thereby making the year 364 days, which was the calendar the Jews used at the time.

So with 42 months (of 30 days each), you'd have to add on 3 x 4 epagomenal days = 12 days + another 2 epagomenal days for the 6 months left over which in total = 14 days to add to that schematic 1,260-day period, which comes to 1,274 days in those 42 months or 3.5 years.

16 hours ago, Arauna said:

Daniel spoke of seven periods - regarding the fall of the tree and the new growth of the king on the throne of Juda....

Daniel certainly spoke of 7 periods. He did not, however, apply the fall and regrowth of the tree to the throne of Judah. He applied it solely to King Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:22, 24, 28, 33).

1 hour ago, Anna said:

True, one reason is because these are targeted questions, the kind of questions not necessarily asked by the general public, but mainly the questions WE, Jehovah's Witnesses ask the public to think about. To illustrate, if I was a random person, (someone perhaps who has never heard about Jehovah's Witnesses) and I begun to be conscious of a spiritual need, I might wonder where to begin. I might google "getting to know god" .  This search brings up various Christian denominations from the Christadelphians to the Mormons. JWs do not appear even after 3 pages (I didn't look any further). The same results come up after searching for "ways to praise god"  "how to find god"  and "where can I find god".  On the other hand questions such as "Truth about god"  and "Who is god" brings up JWs as the first entry. “Who are true Christians” brings up  6 “Christian websites” first, and  7th one is ours with the slightly curious heading “Origin of the Cross—Why True Christians Do Not Use the Cross”.

Good points.

Also, some terminology is more common or even unique to JWs, so if we punch in those terms (e.g. 'God's kingdom' or 'ransom sacrifice'), we are going to get jw.org at the top of the list. Punch in 'Kingdom of God' or 'atonement doctrine' and jw.org will be way down the list if it appears at all on the first page.

1 hour ago, bruceq said:

Yes about the web browser thingy I did this test at the Public Library {therefore hopefully a neutral ground browsers not tainted by apostates or Witnesses browsing} and unless most of the people using that particular computer were JW well...you get the idea.

Which test did you do? Did you put in the same search criteria as you said you did in your p. 8 post?

Did you log into your Chrome or Google account on the Library computer?

2 hours ago, bruceq said:

And of course that dosen't negate the facts about the most important fact I mentioned about JW being now the most read website of all religious websites AND being the most translated. 

Sure.

2 hours ago, bruceq said:

Just look at religioustolerance website and compare the JW with ANY other and you will see we are the MOST hated religion in the world by far.

Nah.

https://www.thetoptens.com/most-hated-religions-world/

http://religionnews.com/2016/09/14/muslims-surpass-atheists-as-most-unpopular-group-in-us/

If 'Johnny the Bethelite' reported this (from his Bethel hidey-hole (more likely) Rick Fearon's closet ) then it must be legit.

Having said that, the mental distress of suddenly being cast out and shunned by family and friends is no laughing matter and, tragically, there have been suicides or suicide attempts by those who have suffered this treatment.

 

 

Pretty much. There has to be evidence that the departing spouse has committed adultery thereby 'scripturally' releasing the abandoned one from the marriage. If not, then, pfft, stuck forever.

However, I saw this in the Branch Correspondence Guidelines (2007, revised 2008):

"What if a mate is long missing and
presumed dead? The law may allow
that after a set time and a diligent but
unsuccessful search for the person, he
or she may be declared legally dead. If
that occurs and the 'survivor' truly believes
the absentee to be dead, he or
she may remarry but should be willing
to bear responsibility before God.—w69
7/15 447-8." - p. 75

1 hour ago, bruceq said:

Since the true religion would be preaching the "good news of the kingdom in ALL the earth"  I GOOGLED "God's Kingdom" to see who is fulfilling that prophecy. Answer JW.ORG. Then I looked under "Last Days", "Prophecy", Armageddon" and of course "Ransom Sacrifice"? Same result!  Then after that I searched under :"God's Name", "Who go to heaven", "What happens when you die", "Why does God allow suffering" and so forth...JW.ORG came up FIRST in all these searches which is impossible because even to get on the first page of google's search is extremely unlikely given there are OVER a BILLION websites out there but to be NUMBER ONE at the top of the page on ALL of these searches?

Hm. You do realize that Google remembers your computer's search history, your likes and interests, don't you? Therefore, if you are a frequent visitor to jw.org, Google will bias your searches toward the sites you've shown past interest in.

When I opened a Chrome incognito window and searched "the kingdom of God," my first result was a wikipedia article, my second was the gotquestions site, third was the lifehopeandtruth site, and JW.org came fourth.

4 hours ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Not conclusive arguments these, because wider context demands otherwise. I believe the Bible presents Jehovah alone as the Hearer of prayer at Ps 65:2. This (for me) overrides any narrower contextual argument otherwise. ...

... Jehovah's name is included at Acts 7:60 for clarity of understanding about which Lord is referenced. No more a problem than understanding Jesus's earlier reference to Ps 110:1 at Mat.22:44 and maybe asking the question: "Who was David's Lord?" (Oh dear!! Is that another WTS interpolation I see??)

The wider contextual argument has to factor in, surely, that Jesus was placed in the highest authority over the cosmos [you know the Scripture texts]. This, along with the immediate context of Stephen's appeal to Jesus (and how did he do that other than directly talking to him, or as we would term it as 'prayer'?) means that the 'Lord,' to whom Stephen appealed for his executioners' forgiveness, was indeed Jesus.

'Jehovah' at Acts 7:60 is incongruous with the explicit identification of the Lord's identity at v. 59. If the writer of Acts really wanted to convey that Stephen called upon Jehovah in v. 60 in contrast to 'Lord Jesus' in v. 59, he would have put 'Lord God' or 'Father' or even scratched in the Tetragrammaton.

Ps. 110:1 is a red herring here. We have, in the Hebrew manuscript 'YHWH' and 'my Lord' - a 'Lord' in addition to 'YHWH' so clearly differentiated. But yes, at Matt. 22:44, the Greek has κύριος so 'Lord' should have been translated in the main text rather than 'Jehovah.'

That Acts 7:59, 60 and 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 speak of Jesus being directly addressed are, to me, a slam-dunk . But I recognize, from within the JW mindset, how uncomfortable the thought is of talking to/praying to/supplicating Jesus directly. And so, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

32 minutes ago, Eoin Joyce said:

I feel no, actually. The text seems to display Paul's earlier recognition as expressed at 1Cor.1:24.

However, the context and wording of the passage in the other letter - the second one to the Corinthians - strongly suggests Paul was addressing Jesus. Let's take another look:

Three times I begged the Lord [which Lord?] about this, that it would depart from me.  But he said to me: “My undeserved kindness [which Lord's 'undeserved kindness'? But cp. Acts 15:11; Rom. 1:7; 16:20; 2 Cor. 8:9; etc. - 'undeserved kindness' can derive from Jesus as well as from God]  is sufficient for you, for my power [which Lord's power?] is being made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly, then, I will boast about my weaknesses, in order that the power of the Christ [ahh, Paul clarifies that he means the Lord Christ] may remain over me like a tent.  So I take pleasure in weaknesses, in insults, in times of need, in persecutions and difficulties, for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am powerful.

56 minutes ago, Eoin Joyce said:

Just your opinion of course. However, I can accept such a rendering conditional on a marginal reference as mentioned, particularly as Stephen's words "“Lord, do not charge this sin against them.”  would appear to reflect what was expressed by Jesus at Luke 23:34: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" , similarly directed.

Well, I'm of the opinion that it's the translator's job to translate what's there - not to interpolate. Yes, the NWT should have put the replacement 'Jehovah' as a footnote rather than into the main text. 

Regarding the parallel phrasing Stephen used:

Jesus cried out, "Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit." (Luke 23:46) Stephen similarly cried out, "“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Seeing as Stephen was clearly addressing Jesus here, it's most natural that he'd continue addressing him when, a moment later, he says, "Lord, do not charge this sin against them."
 

I've heard devout JWs use the expression. 

Some say the phrase comes from an old Scottish poem; others say it originates from the 99th 'The Nines' Wiltshire Regiment who were known for being very smartly presented. There are other hypotheses, but Its origin is unclear.

I've not come across the 'nine gods' idea before. Given that no support has been provided, I'm guessing it's been made up.

The book has been discontinued. There was a congregation notice back in November 2015 which said it was among those that "will no longer be available once stock has been depleted at the branch."

Just another thought.

The Org highlights in its QFR that 'God' was inserted into the KJV translation of Acts 7:59, thereby giving the wrong impression (in its view) that Jesus is God. However, it is also important to note that 'Jehovah' has been inserted into the NWT translation of the following verse 60 rather than keeping to the original 'Lord,' thereby similarly biasing the reader - this time into thinking Stephen was addressing the Father instead of the Son (the latter is consistent with the immediate context).

This is how the verses ought to read:

Acts 7:59, 60 - As they were stoning Stephen, he made this appeal: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”  Then, kneeling down, he cried out with a strong voice: “Lord, do not charge this sin against them.” And after saying this, he fell asleep in death.