Time Magazine has just run an article about afterlife topics (soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, heaven, hell) that mirrors almost exactly Watchtower publications

[TrueTomHarley]

After praising me for bringing the thread back on topic, JWI will maybe curse me for branching it off again—and Arauna, too, for that matter, because it really is a branch. He may even use his secret powers to make this a separate thread—I could live with that if he did.

The fork in the road here is Aruana’s link to Time Magazine. Enticed by an absurdly low rate, I subscribed to Time two years ago, with the thought I would cancel when the auto-renewal hit. When it hit, I did cancel, because the magazine—once a powerhouse, now upstaged amidst the digital revolution, seemed no more than “same-old same-old” to me. My curiosity had been peaked by the low subscription rate. 

I think it is because a sale was pending. Mark Benoif has bought it, he who is the Salesforce company founder—a guy worth 6 billion, I am told. He joins Bezos who bought the Washington Post, and Lourene Jobs (widow of Steve) who bought a majority stake in Atlantic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/16/business/dealbook/time-magazine-salesforce-marc-benioff.html

Not sure how the new owners will change the brands they bought, however Time Magazine has just run an article about afterlife topics (soul, psyche, Sheol, Gehenna, heaven, hell) that mirrors almost exactly Watchtower publications—I can’t picture this in the old Time (or in fact, anywhere).

And—the author is my new nemesis: Bart Ehrman! The occasion is the release of his latest book (he has over 30) ‘Heaven and Hell.’ 

https://time.com/5822598/jesus-really-said-heaven-hell/

 I have not been especially kind to Bart, and maybe I should walk some of it back. Or maybe I should double down. Is he coming around in his views? Or is he (more likely, I think, but only suggested—far from proof) ripping off the views of the Watchtower without crediting them? 

Not that he would accept the Watchtower as a source in itself, I don’t think. But what I can easily picture is him keeping abreast of their writing and the explanations that only they have, then tracing it back to original sources, whereupon he verifies it all and presents it as though his own research—which it would be, minus the credit for who put him on the right track in the first place. 

A few segments for the Time article, which I think is quoted directly from his book:

Neither Jesus, nor the Hebrew Bible he interpreted, endorsed the view that departed souls go to paradise or everlasting pain.

Unlike most Greeks, ancient Jews traditionally did not believe the soul could exist at all apart from the body. On the contrary, for them, the soul was more like the “breath.” The first human God created, Adam, began as a lump of clay; then God “breathed” life into him (Genesis 2: 7). Adam remained alive until he stopped breathing. Then it was dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Ancient Jews thought that was true of us all. When we stop breathing, our breath doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops. So too the “soul” doesn’t continue on outside the body, subject to postmortem pleasure or pain. It doesn’t exist any longer.

The Hebrew Bible itself assumes that the dead are simply dead—that their body lies in the grave, and there is no consciousness, ever again. It is true that some poetic authors, for example in the Psalms, use the mysterious term “Sheol” to describe a person’s new location. But in most instances Sheol is simply a synonym for “tomb” or “grave.” It’s not a place where someone actually goes.

and later: 

Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.

In traditional English versions, he does occasionally seem to speak of “Hell” – for example, in his warnings in the Sermon on the Mount: anyone who calls another a fool, or who allows their right eye or hand to sin, will be cast into “hell” (Matthew 5:22, 29-30). But these passages are not actually referring to “hell.” The word Jesus uses is “Gehenna.” The term does not refer to a place of eternal torment but to a notorious valley just outside the walls of Jerusalem, believed by many Jews at the time to be the most unholy, god-forsaken place on earth. It was where, according to the Old Testament, ancient Israelites practiced child sacrifice to foreign gods. The God of Israel had condemned and forsaken the place.

In the ancient world (whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish), the worst punishment a person could experience after death was to be denied a decent burial. Jesus developed this view into a repugnant scenario: corpses of those excluded from the kingdom would be unceremoniously tossed into the most desecrated dumping ground on the planet. Jesus did not say souls would be tortured there. They simply would no longer exist.”

Is Bart just taking our stuff? You know, I think he is. If I do a quick search of this site—

https://ehrmanblog.org, nothing about Jehovah’s Witnesses comes up, apart from a post about the name Jehovah itself, where he misses entirely the import of God having a name rather than a title, to focus on its Latin letters, and thus declaring it “false.” But I found nothing else. Nobody espousing on these ‘afterlife’ views like Jehovah’s Witnesses, and apart from them almost nobody does—and yet he never mentions them. I suspect we have found the ‘secret source’ that points him to much of his scholarship. 

Where are these items found in our own literature? I find it hard to keep track of anything, these days, now that all is digitalized and we have taking to presenting matters in bitesize tidbits. Basic study guides will show up much of it, however, and certainly the Insight Book—a Bible encyclopedia. But a favorite of my for being both concise and complete is the 1974 book ‘Is This Life All There Is?’ We were there light years ahead of him, on all topics except for those in which he is muddled, such as:

“Some thinkers came up with a solution that explained how God would bring about justice, but again one that didn’t involve perpetual bliss in a heaven above or perpetual torment in a hell below. This new idea maintained that there are evil forces in the world aligned against God and determined to afflict his people. Even though God is the ultimate ruler over all, he has temporarily relinquished control of this world for some mysterious reason. But the forces of evil have little time left. God is soon to intervene in earthly affairs to destroy everything and everyone that opposes him and to bring in a new realm for his true followers, a Kingdom of God, a paradise on earth. Most important, this new earthly kingdom will come not only to those alive at the time, but also to those who have died. Indeed, God will breathe life back into the dead, restoring them to an earthly existence.” (italics and bolded text mine. “Some mysterious reason”—he doesn’t know that?! after nailing it on so many other points)

Not to mention his muddled:

“And God will bring all the dead back to life, not just the righteous. The multitude who had been opposed to God will also be raised, but for a different reason: to see the errors of their ways and be judged. Once they are shocked and filled with regret – but too late — they will permanently be wiped out of existence.” Sigh...it is as Anthony Morris said: “just stick with publications of the slave, and you will be alright.” The moment he goes off-script he comes up with some half-baked “nah nah—told ya so!” diatribe from his born-again days.

Part of me wants to get my head around this more. Frankly, he’s got a good gig going—I’m jealous over some of it—and so I wonder where his head is at. He presents as an agnostic/atheist in his Great Courses lecture series. I’ve written about ten posts, none of them kind, with several more in the hopper that I may or may not ever get to. Most of them I posted here as well as on my site, but I can find them easier on my site: 

https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2020/01/the-gospel-of-ehrman-according-to-mark.html

Now—back to those Uyghurs...

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@TrueTomHarley @TrueTomHarley Yes I'd noticed that JWs on here were creating a smoke screen by talking about China etc, instead of looking at the faults in the CCJW and the problems with the GB. Very 'political' to shift the attention on to others that are doing bad things, but very expected of JWs. I wouldn't say that moaning about China was part of 'Keeping on the watch', more like 'being part of the world'   

As for all this rubbish about some one copying the Watchtower. You, and others, seem to find it impossilbe to believe that anyone outside the W/t and CCJW has a mind of their own. Your Org, your GB, the Watchtower, must be copying the Bible in 'some' of it's teachings, only some though . So is it then impossible for someone else to do the same ?  Remembering that your GB are not inspired, and besides which, most of the 'beliefs' in the CCJW were set up way before the words Governing Body were used publicly... 

Why are people, in your opinion, supposed to read their Bible, if they cannot make any sense of it ? But when some one does make sense of it and then puts it into words, you say they are copying the Watchtower. Even i can make sense of the 'simple bits'. 'The dead are conscious of nothing at all' is quite easy to understand for instance. 

I'll go along with what you said here "I’m jealous over some of it" , Yes I think you are. 

[TrueTomHarley]

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

As for all this rubbish about some one copying the Watchtower. You, and others, seem to find it impossilbe to believe that anyone outside the W/t and CCJW has a mind of their own

All one has to do is read this sample statement of Bart already quoted:

“Most people today would be surprised to learn that Jesus believed in a bodily eternal life here on earth, instead of eternal bliss for souls, but even more that he did not believe in hell as a place of eternal torment.”

Why would they be “surprised?” Because such things were never taught, despite a multitude of scholars most churches defer to. Instead, the near-universal teaching of church Christianity is that when you die, you go to heaven if you were good, and hell if you were bad. That is what just about everyone of “Christian” background thought before becoming a Witness, because apart from some occasional deviation on some minor point, that is what nearly all churches taught.

I have said since that, given the universality of the heaven/hell teaching, you would almost expect it to be on every other page of the Bible. Instead, apart from a handful of verses that can be tortured for that meaning, one never encounters it. Bart says something similar in his article, which I did not quote above: 

“There are over two billion Christians in the world, the vast majority of whom believe in heaven and hell. You die and your soul goes either to everlasting bliss or torment (or purgatory en route). ...The vast majority of these people naturally assume this is what Jesus himself taught.”

You have forgotten entirely the typical experience of most who become Witnesses, excepting only those born into the faith, of amazement at learning the truth of the scriptures for the first time. Some of them had made a lifelong search, and the crystal clear explanations of the Witnesses they had not seen anywhere else. I will grant that there may be a few quirky backwater faiths that have a piece or two of it, but nobody that has put it all together into a coherent whole. That typical experience is where the expression “coming into the truth” originates. It is an expression still in common use by Witnesses, and used no where else that I know of. Nobody says they have “come into the truth“ when they become a Methodist, for instance

There was a pesty fellow who used to challenge me a lot on trinity and other church teachings. One day he sent me a video of “4 famous church leaders“ hubbubing in conference, which he said acknowledged that everlasting life on earth was known to them, too, as the Bible hope—it wasn’t just JWs who taught it. I told him I’d take his word for it. Though these leaders knew and discussed it, this fellow pointed out, the problem was “Bible illiteracy” among the masses, he said. 

If the problem is Bible literacy among the masses, I replied, why don’t they fix it? Isn’t that their job as leaders? Our religion manages to keep its people on the same page.

No, this accurate take on scripture is not found just anywhere, for anyone to pick up on. In its entirety, it is found in only one place. You must have known that at one time, if you became a Witness in the usual way. But I fear, in harping on human imperfection, you have long ago gone the path of Titus 1:15:

“All things are clean to clean people, but to those who are defiled and faithless, nothing is clean, for both their minds and their consciences are defiled.” You just keep harping on one thing, and so plainly can’t see the forest for the trees. 

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

Even i can make sense of the 'simple bits'. 

Unfortunately, you have shown time and again that you cannot.

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

'The dead are conscious of nothing at all' is quite easy to understand for instance. 

You would never have found it on your own. You would have been thoroughly flummoxed by church doctrine that sweeps away the verse as though it Is nothing. An evangelical relative of mine, for example, attributes it to Solomon losing God’s spirit as he started multiplying wives for himself and saying some sour things that he would never say were he in his right mind.

Your typical oversimplification of everything means that you miss most points:

6 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

As for all this rubbish about some one copying the Watchtower.

I never said that. I said just the opposite:

8 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Not that he would accept the Watchtower as a source in itself, I don’t think.

Okay? He didn’t “copy.”

8 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But what I can easily picture is him keeping abreast of their writing and the explanations that only they have, then tracing it back to original sources, whereupon he verifies it all and presents it as though his own research—which it would be, minus the credit for who put him on the right track in the first place. 

Technically, he’s doing nothing wrong—if indeed, he is doing what I theorize.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@TrueTomHarley you do have a serious problem don't you ? You do worship your Gb and it's Org. 

You really have either been brainwashed or have deliberately blinded your self. 

It's in the BIBLE Tom, it is not from your CCJW or Watchtower. Your Leaders did not invent it. Your Leaders were not the only ones to find it. And it may be that your Leaders have got some things wrong too. 

You make false presumptions that people only learn 'truth' once they 'enter the Org'. And you make false presumptions that all people are misled or misguided by some church or other. Most people I know have never been to church for the teachings, only for weddings and funerals. Stop fooling yourself Tom, people are not as stupid as you like to think they are. Well here in the UK they are not so stupid anyway. 

Just because this man says “Most people today would be surprised to learn ", you jump on that as being true. You are no different than anyone else Tom, you use the 'statements' from people to suit your own purpose. Somewhere else you might say that 'most people don't believe in God anymore'.  

I do find it funny that you tell me I would never have found scripture on my own. But I think you forget about how many lies I was taught in the Org. 7000 year creative Days, Armageddon coming in the 70's.

And it seems most likely now that 1914 means nothing, and that Jesus was given his authority in 33 C. E. 

Matthew 28 v 18

Jesus approached and spoke to them, saying: “All authority has been given me in heaven and on the earth. ¹⁹  Go, therefore, and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit, ²⁰  teaching them to observe all the things I have commanded you. And look! I am with you all the days until the conclusion of the system of things.”

Think on this scripture for a while Tom. And then think on how your Org baptises people. And then think on how your GB tells the Anointed not to gather together for study or prayer, and how your GB says it would be 'working against the spirit'. 

As for  the expression  “coming into the truth”, it's a con Tom. A very clever con. It's a bit like your user name. 'True... You follow the Org's example of the same con. When people become JWs they are brainwashed with the expression 'coming into the truth' or 'I'm in the truth'.  It's a con because it makes people drop their guard. New JWs automatically accept ALL CCJW / W/t teachings without question because they are told it is 'truth'. But as I've mentioned above it is not all truth. 

Or is he (more likely, I think, but only suggested—far from proof) ripping off the views of the Watchtower without crediting them? 

Those are your words. Doesn't that mean copying them ? Or does it just mean stealing them ? 

Have a great day Tom, but please open your heart and mind a bit, think outside the CCJW / W/t box.

 

 

[TrueTomHarley]

12 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

It's a bit like your user name. 'True... You follow the Org's example of the same con.

Originally I wanted just TomHarley as a username, but it was already taken. I thought of RealTomHarley, but it sounds too much like Trump. So I settled on TrueTomHarley. I never intended the moral implications that the name carries—that was just an unanticipated plus.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@TrueTomHarley Yes,  I'm sure the Org would say the same about their pet phrase.  

[JW Insider]

On 8/8/2020 at 1:22 PM, TrueTomHarley said:

And—the author is my new nemesis: Bart Ehrman! The occasion is the release of his latest book (he has over 30) ‘Heaven and Hell.’ 

I saw that. I don't think all of this is that new to Bart Ehrman. I caught some of this on his site. But I had never noticed before, that he now sees Jesus' actual words in pretty much the same sense that JWs believe.

I gave in and subscribed to his site for a month. I think it was $5 which he claims goes to some non-religious charity. But I did it to be able to question him on his blog. There are actually several questions that must have come from JWs and several more from ex-JWs, too, on his blog. So he does have some "direct" exposure to JW beliefs.

You pointed out a few of the differences already. I think that in earlier statements it seemed like he was always aware that the Hebrew Bible had no "hell" in the torturous sense. But he also believed there were no references to resurrection (Ezekiel and Daniel, notwithstanding) or living forever on earth. Psalm 37:10,11,29 would have been taken as an eternal inheritance for righteous persons, not eternal life. He assumed, if I remember right, that references to eternal consciousness in Gehenna and Tartarus and Hades were a Greek-influenced development between the time of the OT and the NT and are reflected in the NT, but not by Jesus himself, who was more traditionally Jewish. I assumed he thought that some of what is written and attributed to Jesus was not actually his own words, or they were adjusted to fit a common 2nd century belief about torment of the wicked. (This doesn't seem impossible, as Trinity beliefs crept into the text by the 3rd century, and superstition about the use of God's name might have crept in as early as the 2nd century or so.)

I always wondered why Jesus would have brought up fire and torment in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus and Abraham, knowing that such beliefs had become common among Jews in the previous two centuries. It would be like you giving a public talk and telling a story that starts out in the style of a "Pearly Gates" joke: "Jeff Bezos, and a JW are in a car accident and both get to the Pearly Gates at the same time, to see how they will be judged." (I wouldn't put it past Jesus to get people's attention in almost this same way.)

At any rate, I think that the Watchtower (Bible Students and JWs) have done an enormous service to the religious world by "putting out the fires of hell." It has taken the last 100 years, but I believe that there are a lot of churches where the Watchtower has provided a strong influence so that those churches and their teachers are not so likely to emphasize the teachings that make God seem like a monster. For good or bad Ehrman does has influence, especially on new students, and this last book might even help a bit in opening up some opportunities for our own work.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@César Chávez I think you will find that 1914 has been knocked into touch long ago. The CCJW / Watchtower may be clinging onto it but its a lost cause. 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@César Chávez You are soooooo funny. It was you that mentioned 1914. What a clown you are.  

[TrueTomHarley]

19 hours ago, César Chávez said:

In Bart Ehrman new book, it seems he ...wants to find a way to believe in the afterlife...most of his writings deal with the exploits of noncanon material or the early church fathers understanding of Hades, Sheol.

Bart comes from an evangelical background. In his blog, he speaks rather poignantly of tragically losing his faith, something that happened once he began to examine the Bible through “critical thinking.” 

He never had a firm foundation to stand on. I would lose my faith, too, if I had to uphold all the nonsense that is part and parcel of church teaching. One can almost feel sorry for him—but one does not, because he does not feel sorry for himself. He has a good gig going—top selling author, nifty website with a paywall that donates to charity, a reputation that prompts the Great Courses Lecture series to engage him as a professor, chair of a university religion department, where he destroys the faith of his students—but since it was founded mostly on the doctrines of churches, it was barely defensible in the first place. No, he has a good gig. Nobody has asked me to chair a Great Courses series, nor (I assume) you.

If not atheist, he certainly is hard-agnostic, unless he has had a recent change of heart. I often wonder what would have happened if those now atheist had been presented accurate Christian teachings first—would they have gone atheist in that case? A naive me once assumed that the answer would be no. 

Sometimes it does work that way, but these are crazy times, and if you keep up with atheists, you find that they are likely to detest JWs most of all! It does not help that JWs have “accurate” Bible teachings. The allure of breaking free from any “control” is just too enticing to be countered by a fresh look at Bible teachings. There is no way that those on the “cramped and narrow road” are not going to be derided as “cult” members by those on the broad and spacious one. This is so predictable that I kick myself for not having predicted it long before—it is so obvious. 

To break free of “control” holds irresistible appeal today, and the atheists add (and even put foremost) those who would claim to represent God, as our brothers do, “controlling “ people by that means.. So, to them, JWs are the worst of the lot, because most churches have watered down “speaking in God’s name” to “God works in mysterious ways,” and have pretty much learned to roll with whatever happens, being content to add a smiling “God” emoji to events. Most have made their peace with the world—they seek to hopefully modify it for the better, and think the view of JWs far too extreme—even “murderous”—that God means to replace it. 

I see happening in these threads that 4Jah hopes I will comment on—but I probably won’t because they are “same-old same-old,” and few, if anyone, had written on the topic more that me, it forming a significant portion of ‘TrueTom vs the Apostates’—I see arguments included that are irrelevant to the topic of concern, such as how various ex-JWs strive to present the picture that obedience “to men” is essential if you are a JW, how they are under enormous pressure always from top leaders, and how JWs terrify children with expectations of Armaggedon. (How about when Newsweek surveys the world scene, and presents the magazine cover “What the *@#! Is Next?” I countered.)

The “obedience” that JWs are expected to render is no more than following directions of the teacher, the coach, the mentor, the employer, the counselor, the traffic cop—something that was once the most unremarkable thing in the world, but is now presented as selling out one’s soul. JWs have not changed—the world has. One may look no farther than it’s collective response to Covid 19 to see what chaos follows. Mark Benioff, the Salesforce founder, the fellow who purchased Time Magazine, has stated that if everyone had masked up for just three weeks, the virus would have been defeated. Of course, this is what JWs have done, because being obedient to authority is not an issue for them, but the illness is out of control today because the world ridicules obedience and challenges the authority of any who would advance it. The very first sign that this would escalate to disaster occurred very early on—when toilet paper sold out, despite knowledge that the virus doesn’t hit people that way. I told Hassan, the CultExpert, he of the “FreedomofMind” hashtag, that my people have behaved far more responsibly than his—you don’t think some will use their “freedom of mind” to tell the government where they can go with their “rules?”

It doesn’t matter if the world’s obsession with “independence” ends in disaster—as it surely will—as it is with Covid 19. To be free of “control” is just too strong a pull. Those on the broad and spacious road—that’s what makes it broad and spacious, ones on it listen to no one but themselves—will invariably present those on the cramped and narrow road as manipulated by a cult.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

@TrueTomHarley Oh Tom you must miss me so much when i don't comment, because you have to mention me so much in your comments . I think the reason you don't comment on my topics is because you know what i say is true and you don't have true answers. 

Quote you Tom "The “obedience” that JWs are expected to render is no more than following directions of the teacher, the coach, the mentor, the employer, the counselor, the traffic cop "

Read it through again Tom. All of those mentioned above are NOT inspired of Holy Spirit. AND all of those above DO NOT PRETEND TO BE THE 'FAITHFUL AND DISCREET SLAVE'. BUT, the GB used to pretend to be inspired and they DO pretend to be the F&DS. Plus, if all those people mentioned above were told to keep quiet and not have an opinion, and then they were all replaced with fake workers that didn't have a clue about the TRUE job, then people would not obey them. The true Anointed have been replaced by Elders. Elders judge the members of the congregations. But Elders are not qualified to judge, so they are fake workers. That is why so many people leave the 'Org' and so many people still in the Org do not trust the Elders. 

It really is time you and others stopped comparing the CCJW with the rest of the world. We all know how wicked the world is. You prove nothing. But, it is obvious that you need to do it to gain some kind of confidence for yourselves. Why? Because you really and truly know how wicked the CCJW is inside when compared to God's standards.