Ann O'Maly

The WT publications answer as follows: *** w03 6/1 p. 31 Questions From Readers *** This does not authorize the wanton killing of animals for sport. At Genesis 10:9, the Bible describes Nimrod as “a mighty hunter.” But the same verse says that this put him “in opposition to Jehovah.” *** g83 5/22 p. 11 The Hunter’s Role in the Wild Kingdom *** Shortly after the Flood, a notorious man of those days, Nimrod, began to distinguish himself as an outdoor sportsman. He became “a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” (Genesis 10:8, 9) He evidently violated the God-entrusted stewardship over the animals by wantonly killing them. Others followed his lead, and soon the sport caught on in a big way. Hunting became the sport of kings. On the matter of 'wanton killing of animals for sport' and how distasteful that was/is, I'd tend to agree. Humankind is supposed to be a good custodian of land and life. As you quoted, the suggestion was that the tower was to reach the top of the heavens, i.e. reaching God's domain. They wanted to unify, becoming powerful and renowned as if divine. Funny you related the extra-biblical myths about Nimrod ... considering you were so dismissive of the calendrical information contained in Jubilees and Enoch. Correct. Yes, you said Daniel "used some words in Akkadian in the book of Daniel and the writing on the wall also had some Akkadian words in it." But the book was written in Hebrew and Aramaic, and the writing on the wall was in Aramaic. So what do you mean?

Please show me, with your 'simple mathematics' how 360 days can convert into 360 365.25-day years, as is necessary when multiplied by 7, to get to the year 1914.

The book of Daniel was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The writing on the wall was Aramaic. This is just one of the many embellishments on the Genesis account that built up post-exile. This particular one about Nimrod hunting people seems to come from the Targum of Jerusalem (or Pseudo-Jonathan). The same source also contains a story about Nimrod casting Abraham into a fiery furnace because he wouldn't commit idolatry, but the flames did not hurt him (sound familiar?). And many of those carefully and long-preserved sites have been vandalized or obliterated by Daesh thugs, sadly.

The 1st Babylonian empire was 2nd millennium BCE - circa 1830 - 1531 BCE. The concept of the zodiac as we know it developed much later from the neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian periods onwards. Akkadian is a Semitic language which means it is closely related to both Arabic and Hebrew.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/360-day_calendar adds: "It is a simplification to a 360-day year, consisting of 12 months of 30 days each." Yet, a year of 360 days is neither a lunar year nor a solar year. Yes, simple and fascinating.

Do you disagree with the GB's conclusion about the date of "that invisible coming," then? On 9/2/2016 at 2:57 AM, AllenSmith said: Man’s Salvation [chap. 16 pp. 286-287 pars. 11-12] ... 12 ... However, events on earth since the end of the “appointed times of the [Gentile] nations” have been fulfilling Bible prophecy and prove that the promised “presence” or parousia of Christ in Kingdom power began first about October 4/5, 1914 C.E. Only since then has it been correct to speak of the invisible, royal “presence” of Christ as being in effect. We older folks of seventy or eighty years of age have seen come to reality practically all the things predicted by Jesus Christ in answer to the question submitted to him by his apostles: [Bold emphasis mine; underlining Allen's]

Holy scripture wasn't completed in the 3rd - 1st centuries BCE when Jubilees and Enoch were written. The NT hadn't yet been composed, had it? Regardless of whether the two books are now considered holy scripture or not (interestingly, Jude's epistle quoted Enoch so it must have been well known), they provide an insight into Jewish thinking and calendrical practices at the time, and therefore are pertinent to the discussion about a supposed 360-day year that JWs and some other Adventist groups have used in their prophetic time calculations. Just because a person questions or disagrees with your views of biblical passages, and puts forward helpful, relevant information suggesting another perspective, it doesn't follow that the person 'doesn't believe the Bible.' Neither does it follow that a person believes the Bible to be 'inconsistent' because s/he sees inconsistencies in your interpretations of it. Yes, that's pretty much what I said and expanded on in my previous post. So a 360-day year is neither a lunar nor solar year. You would have to explain how a 360-day 'prophetic' year could be counted as a 365.25-day solar year, when every day matters in JWs' end-times calculation. There also remains the other question of whether the Aramaic word for 'times' in Dan. 4 necessarily refers to literal years. If there are flaws with either of these components in the formula (and this is without discussing the validity of the start date), the end-times calculation falls apart ... quite simply.

The lunar year is 12 x 29.5 day months = 354 days. This means an intercalary (leap) month of either 29 or 30 days long had to be added every 2 or 3 years to re-calibrate with the solar year (thereby becoming a luni-solar system). An intercalary month would lengthen that year to 383 or 384 days long. The 360-day year is neither a lunar nor solar year, but is a schematic one of 12 x 30 day months which then have to have the 4 epagomenal days (2 equinoxes and 2 solstices) added to make 364 days and better align with the solar year. The 364-day year divides neatly into 52 weeks of 7 days. (See Book of Jubilees, ch. 6 and information on the Book of Enoch's 'Astronomical Book'). But several leaps in assumption have to be made to arrive at the 'simple' conclusion. E.g. Why are 7 (360 day) years of 2,520 days stretched to 2,520 (365.25 day) years? Does the Aramaic word for 'times' in Dan. 4 necessarily mean literal years anyway?

You mean you believe Russell thought Christ only assumed dominion over his Church in 1878? I can't find any evidence for that. It would suggest that Christ's Church has been without a Head from 33 CE to 1878. You surely don't think Russell believed that, do you? Russell had no concept of a temple inspection in 1918 or an appointment of a GB in 1919 - even before his death in 1916. This is where it would benefit you to learn something about Watchtower history. Thanks for this quote. The part I've colored in red supports what I've been saying - that for a person to be present, that person has to first come/arrive. How do your other quotes negate my previous points? One ideology derived from the other. As I said, JWs make an assertion nobody else does. It is up to them to provide evidence. Anyway, you may have missed this from the first page of the thread: "The 1st century Christians believed Jesus was already ruling amidst his enemies in their day, from as soon as Jesus ascended to heaven and sat down at his Father's right hand. - Acts 2:34-37; Eph. 1:20, 21; Heb. 10:12, 13; Rev. 3:21." JW Insider also provided scriptural reasoning on why it couldn't have been 1914. You have yet to produce any amongst all that word salad.

I am addressing Allen's misconceptions about Russell's beliefs. That is why I am reproducing Watchtower quotations, properly referenced so that anyone can read the surrounding material and check for themselves what was being taught. You will find that Allen makes erroneous statements that are corrected by the historical literature. Please do not confuse trolling with having an open discussion, which is what Holly and I are trying to do here. Challenging a view is not trolling. If you really want to see examples of troll-like behavior, you only need to read through Allen's posts. So what? Well, Holly's thread is titled, 'The timing of Jesus' 2nd coming' and her OP asks whether that 2nd coming can be calculated through Bible chronology. Seeing as the Organization has a Bible-derived chronological scheme to calculate Jesus' 2nd coming or presence which was partly inherited from Russell and his friend Barbour, a discussion of Russell's beliefs are relevant to this wider topic. Allen asserted the same and I asked him to provide that 'proof.' He has yet to do so. Maybe you can give it a shot instead?

That's not quite what he said in the excerpt. He said that Christ's presence will become revealed to people's 'eyes of understanding' over the next few decades, just like Christ's presence has been already been revealed to Russell and his fellow Bible Students living in 1881. Correct. If you read the context of the excerpt (that is why I gave a full reference so you can look it up), you will see that the Watch Tower was addressing the Second Advent Church's and others' expectations, based on Mother Shipton's prediction that Jesus would visibly come back in 1881. YES! Holly has already reproduced Russell's predictions. But regarding Christ's second coming or presence, my excerpt shows he rejected others' calculations about an impending second coming because he (really Barbour) had already calculated that the Lord's second coming or presence had happened invisibly 7 years earlier. He felt that Christ had been enthroned in 1878. "It will be remembered that after the spring of 1878, (when we understand Jesus was due as King) that the subject of holiness or the wedding garment, was very much agitated." - ZWT, January 1881, p. 4 [R180] As I say, learn your Watchtower history.

Another report: http:// http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/21/where-s-the-outrage-over-nun-beachwear.html VEILED THREAT Where’s the Outrage Over Nun Beachwear? While the French are banning Muslims in burqinis, Italian Catholic bishops find it ironic there’s alarm when a woman is “overdressed while swimming in the sea!” BARBIE LATZA NADEAU 08.21.16 5:15 AM ET

Immortality vs. everlasting life is a distinction without a difference. If you do not die, your life is everlasting. But if a life is truly indestructible, it means not even God Almighty can extinguish it ... which kind of puts the indestructible person on a par with the Supreme Deity, does it not?

Are you saying that a person can be present without coming? It's nonsense. You have to first arrive/come and, as a result of that, you are then present. Imagine a roll call in a classroom. The teacher calls, "Allen Smith?" No answer. The teacher calls again. Nothing. "I'll note him down as absent ..." A fellow student says, "Excuse me sir, Allen is present. He's here." The teacher looks around then quizzically at the student. The student continues, "He is present, it's just that he's not arrived at school yet." Teacher and class go Besides ... So you can see the words 'coming,' 'second advent' and 'presence' are used synonymously by Russell to refer to the same event that had been calculated to have occurred in 1874. No, the WTS thought Christ's enthronement was in 1878, which date was discarded back in the days of Rutherford and replaced with 1914. Learn some Watchtower history, Allen, for Pete's sake.

One cannot limit the scope of a word describing a belief because some believers disagree with others' ideas about that belief. Is calling people 'evolutionists' labeling people to dismiss their ideas? There are 'theistic evolutionists' (who believe God used evolution to create life) and 'atheistic evolutionists' (who believe evolution occurred on its own through natural processes) but despite their different outlooks on evolution, both camps are still evolutionists.

Creationists believe that God created the universe and everything in it as described in the Bible. Whether you are a 'young earth' creationist (in the '6 days/24 hours' camp) or an 'old earth' creationist (in the 'day = epoch' camp), you are still a creationist. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/creationism http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/creationist

I'm sure tears were running down his face too ... ... but for different reasons .

Oh I have no doubt that big corporations don't like their harmful products and practices exposed, and employ all kinds of dirty tricks to silence whistle-blowers. I'm under no illusions, Arauna. I'm also well aware that reputable scientists can produce flawed studies sometimes. What caught my eye was the comment that independent Japanese researchers as well as an Australian governmental authority could not replicate Hayes' findings. I was merely showing that there may be another side to this controversy.

I don't know who you were addressing, but can you tell me what the tangible difference is between the words 'present' (as in somebody being in another's presence) and 'coming'? Can somebody 'come' and not be 'present'? And I discussed that the NWT rendering 'took no note' was literally 'knew not' in the original Greek, which puts a whole new light on it, does it not? Another thread. Another thread. Jerusalem's trampling could only begin in Jesus' future - "will be trampled" and not "continue to be trampled." Another thread. Are you one of them? How about addressing Holly's Scriptures in the OP? What do you think? Based on the Bible texts, can the timing of Jesus' Second coming, or Presence, be calculated through Bible chronology?

Actually, I provided Scriptures to help you understand 1st century Christians believed Jesus was already ruling (invisibly) amidst his enemies in their day, from as soon as Jesus ascended to heaven and sat down at his Father's right hand. - Acts 2:34-37; Eph. 1:20, 21; Heb. 10:12, 13; Rev. 3:21. Did you contemplate these cited texts? I question a GLOBAL flood. You do see the nuanced distinction between questioning a GLOBAL flood and the flood per se, do you not? Which ice age? There have been a few in Earth's 4.5 billion year history. Did the 'different scientists' date a world-wide flood to the 3rd millennium BCE?

JWs are the only ones who make the claim. Everyone else on the planet doesn't. It's down to JWs to provide the evidence for their claim. Do you have evidence? Copying and pasting swathes of text from WT publications with the occasional assertion nestling within them (along the lines of 'it happened because faith') ISN'T EVIDENCE. So Jesus was mistaken? You can calculate the time of his second presence ... kind of ... after the alleged event ... twice, because they miscalculated the first time ... but the second time is bang on ... honest. Don't you properly read your own c&p quotes, Allen? Doofus. JWs believe it was a global flood, right? How did some ancient Australian aboriginal, sitting there with his kangaroo, witness the building of an ark on the other side of the world (which reminds me of another question but we won't go there now)? I don't even think the Egyptians got the memo since they were busy building their pyramids and stuff. Neither did the Chinese, who were apparently oblivious to what Noah was doing and were happily perfecting their exquisite pottery. The phrase in Matt. 24:39 that the NWT and rNWT render "took no note" is literally "not they knew" (check the Kingdom Interlinear) or "they knew not" and uses the same word (ginōskō) as is found in John 17:3, which the NWT rendered "taking in knowledge" but the rNWT now translates as "coming to know." Jesus is telling his disciples that, just like in Noah's day when people (all around the world, right?) didn't 'come to know' when the Flood would be - and Noah himself only got a week's notice (Gen. 7:1-10) - Jesus' second presence will also be unpredictable.

At least no lives were lost but ... all that hard work and investment

LOL. All I'm saying, Arauna, is that you are prejudging and condemning the booklet without having read it. For everyone's information, Walmart also sells exposés of the LDS church, Scientology, Catholicism and yes, Islam.

As I said before, you have to first arrive/come to become present. Imagine a roll call in a classroom. The teacher calls, "Arauna?" No answer. The teacher calls again. Nothing. "I'll note her down as absent ..." A fellow student says, "Excuse me sir, Arauna is present. She's here." The teacher looks around then quizzically at her. The student continues, "She is present, it's just that she's not arrived at school yet." Teacher and class go