The End Of The World

[PGH]

Thank you Jensen for being brave enough to care to read that mess. I never picked up on that amazing feat of pre-birth weaning. Truly biblical times were fantastic indeed.

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

Thank you Jensen for being brave enough to care to read that mess. I never picked up on that amazing feat of pre-birth weaning. Truly biblical times were fantastic indeed.

Pssstt! You will notice that the time line in B.C.E. goes back numerically rather than foreword.

We'll pretend like that didn't happen oh knowledgeable skeptic.

 

[AdMan]

Care to address the question of whether Velikovsky is the source of at least some of your ideas, Johnny?

 

[Ethnikos]

I've tried. When people get to believin' there is no helping them.

When Jesus told his followers that the world would see him no more, that should have been a clue.

Jesus was talking about the Advocate coming into the world to point out how the unbelievers are wrong.
So what follows was Jesus describing how this works. John 16:7-19
Jesus is to die, be raised, thus indicating that God had judged him righteous, and then to be glorified as part of his receiving his kingdom. The problem for the disciples was that the being proved right made him unavailable for looking at directly because we still being in a sinful state by living in the still sinful world, can not look upon this glory and live. Only when we are either transformed into uncorruputible bodies, or resurrected into same can we stand to look at him.

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

Care to address the question of whether Velikovsky is the source of at least some of your ideas, Johnny?

Never heard of him.

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

oops, I was on the wrong verse. They separate the verses strangely.
I'm at the right spot and in the normal text it has Kurios, meaning Lord.
In the Sinaiticus it has what looks like an abbreviation with two letters which look to me to be for Kurios.
Probably what you should say in your post is something like:
Certain scholars interpret these obscure scribal markings to be a way to indicate Yahweh but never actually used anything that resembled that name.

The manuscripts of the so called "New Testament" are not the originals, of course. The copies we have today are at least two centuries later than the originals. By then they were replacing the Tetragrammaton with the generic Kurios or Kyrios which is the Greek word for "Lord."

It is clear that when Jesus read from or quoted the so called "Old Testament" he was pronouncing God's name. (Deuteronomy 6:13, 16; 8:3 / Psalm 110:1 / Isaiah 61:1, 2 / Matthew 4:4, 7, 10; 22:44 / Luke 4:16-21)

For a considerable time the Tetragrammaton was thought to have been missing from the Greek Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Hebrew text) but then some very old fragments of the Greek Septuagint were discoverd from the time of Jesus which included the Tetragrammaton.

The divine name does appear in its abbreviated form at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4 and 6.

 

[Ethnikos]

When the Bible says that his sacrifice was for once and all time, how could his body be resurrected in the flesh? Why didn't his followers recognize him when he came back after parts of three days in the tomb? Because he had another body.

When I was 8 years old, and a confirmed atheist who thought all religious people were nuts I got into an argument over this with a little old Jehovah's Witness. At the time they taught that Jesus used his original body and though I had never even looked at a Bible I told her, based on her own account, that their thinking was ridiculous. Later they would change their teaching in agreement with my argument to her.

Here's a blurb from Watchtower literature:

. . .Jesus simply materialized or took on a fleshly body, as angels had done in the past…While Jesus appeared to Thomas in a body similar to the one in which He was put to death, He also took on different bodies when appearing to His followers. Thus Mary Magdalene at first thought that Jesus was a gardener. At other times his disciples did not at first recognize him.… Jesus Christ…was the first to be raised as a spirit person.

Unless you are a lot older than I am (I doubt it), this stance of the JW's was not changed in your lifetime.

 

[Ethnikos]

The divine name does appear in its abbreviated form at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4 and 6.

Could you point out which versions, if you know, otherwise I'll see if I can find out which one. The Sinaiticus is one available for close viewing online.

Anyway I am not aware that there is a general agreement that these mean Jehovah specifically, among the scholars who specialize in the manuscripts.

I think your point is that if you see a reference to the Lord coming, it is not Jesus coming, but (apparently by your way of thinking, not mine) God, the Father of Jesus, is coming. And how would that be any different from the alternative? Wouldn't it be essentially the same thing?

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

Leumas' translation:

Notice how each translation is DIFFERENT from the other? Does that mean we can ever tell which is right and which is not? Why select one over the other? Could it be that all translations are WRONG? Can it be that the basis for you choosing one rather than another is YOUR preference? What if I choose MY OWN translation (i.e. it is all bull) why would that be less applicable than yours?​

Why is it that many skeptics seem so very sensitive about the alleged implication of superiority? The constantly cry "What makes you think yours is better than mine?!" When nothing of the kind was implied. My translation is best for me, yours is best for you. Same with beliefs.

Translations that differ are a good thing, its like having many different viewpoints or witnesses of the same events, you get a broader picture of what might have happened, and you see the history in different ways and shades and colors.

So why are you in anyway invested in the Biblical stuff rather than the Upanishads or Mahabharata or the Iliad or the Eddas or the Quran or Harry Potter or Little Red Riding Hood or Narnia or One Thousand and One Nights.

I have a website with The Dhammapada, Four Noble Truths, Bhagavad Gita, Chuang Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Nihongi, Kojiki, Quran, Analects of Confucius, Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Pirqe Aboth.

I like Frank Herbert's Dune series, Douglas Adams . . . is that okay?

What is it that makes the Bible in anyway TRUE or correct or valid to life today??????

There's that superiority complex again. That's for you to decide and when you reject it are you going to get all defensive because the majority disagree?

Just consider this very possible likelihood..... you are reading translations of translations of books written in dead languages that hardly anybody can read or understand today with certainty without speculations. Even when they know the words they can have numerous meanings and nuances that render any comprehension of the original writers' intents impossible.

BUT....BUT.... even worse.....these books could have been no more than the equivalent of Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales of the time.

Well . . . it could be worse, it could have been discovered painted on a cave wall and dissected by idiot archaeologists with an agenda and penchant for wild interpretation. But that would be really cool, right?

Imagine thousands of years from now ignorant people who are descendents of humans after a major apocalypse and they find One Thousand And One Nights and they think that it is tales of real people and real moral directives.

Just imagine how stupid they would be!

A recent study compared a 1,000 year difference in copies of a chapter in Isaiah. There were three letters comprising one word; "light" which was a copyist marking error. The addition of this didn't change the meaning of the text.

Not to be disrespectful but you don't know what you are talking about. What scares me is if 1,000 years from now all they have is the opinions of some very verbose but uninformed "skeptics."

 

[PGH]

Pssstt! You will notice that the time line in B.C.E. goes back numerically rather than foreword.

We'll pretend like that didn't happen oh knowledgeable skeptic.

Points to you, but like I said I didn't read your nonsense. Because, well, it's nonsense. As far as I can tell you're a YEC and that belief is so backwards and without merit that there's little point in pretending that we're in any kind of rational debate. Any facts that refute your misguided notions will be ignored by you. There's no point in trying to debate if you honestly believe that life started 6,000 years ago with one man who was poofed into being. You aren't being intellectually honest with yourself, much less anyone else.

 

[CriticalSock]

<snip>When I was 8 years old, and a confirmed atheist who thought all religious people were nuts I got into an argument over this with a little old Jehovah's Witness. At the time they taught that Jesus used his original body and though I had never even looked at a Bible I told her, based on her own account, that their thinking was ridiculous. Later they would change their teaching in agreement with my argument to her.

Hi Johnny Marseilles, welcome to the forum. I have one question: If you think that Jehovah's Witnesses thinking is ridiculous, why do you hold to so many of their beliefs?

No Immortal soul.

Chosen few go to heaven, the rest carry on living on earth.

The dating of the Old testament books.

The meaning of the book of Revelation.

Gods name originally in the NT but changed by scholars.

Ignoring Marduk's quote from the Epic of Gilgamesh...


Are you not, in fact, a Jehovah's Witness yourself?

That's not a problem, although it will make having a discussion on the veracity of the bible somewhat difficult.

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

Points to you, but like I said I didn't read your nonsense. Because, well, it's nonsense. As far as I can tell you're a YEC and that belief is so backwards and without merit that there's little point in pretending that we're in any kind of rational debate. Any facts that refute your misguided notions will be ignored by you. There's no point in trying to debate if you honestly believe that life started 6,000 years ago with one man who was poofed into being. You aren't being intellectually honest with yourself, much less anyone else.

Perhaps if you worried about your own intellectual honesty you would refrain from labeling me as a YEC (which I take as an insult) before reading my post, or abandon the pretense of even the possibility of rational debate under those circumstances.

Just say you don't agree with my position, though hard to determine without knowing it. On second thought don't - because that might be an indication of a proclivity of doing so and compromise your obvious and passionate willful ignorance and xenophobic hatred of the Bible.

Typical skeptical.

 

[dafydd]

Perhaps if you worried about your own intellectual honesty you would refrain from labeling me as a YEC (which I take as an insult) before reading my post, or abandon the pretense of even the possibility of rational debate under those circumstances.

Just say you don't agree with my position, though hard to determine without knowing it. On second thought don't - because that might be an indication of a proclivity of doing so and compromise your obvious and passionate willful ignorance and xenophobic hatred of the Bible.

Typical skeptical.

I don't hate The Lord Of The Rings,The Harry Potter Books or the bible. How can you hate a work of fiction? The use of the word xenophobic puzzles me. Do you know what it means?

 

[Belz...]

The skeptical often think that, according to the Bible, the end would come within the lifetime of Jesus' listeners. It is a mistake to conclude this.

Jesus said it would occur before the generation was out. That seemed pretty clear to me that, after 100 AD, something was wrong with his prediction.

 

[PGH]

Perhaps if you worried about your own intellectual honesty you would refrain from labeling me as a YEC (which I take as an insult) before reading my post, or abandon the pretense of even the possibility of rational debate under those circumstances.

Just say you don't agree with my position, though hard to determine without knowing it. On second thought don't - because that might be an indication of a proclivity of doing so and compromise your obvious and passionate willful ignorance and xenophobic hatred of the Bible.

Typical skeptical.

If you're not a YEC than what's with the belief that mankind started when Adam was born 6,000 years ago? If you don't want to be lumped in with them don't share their dogma.

I'm clearly not ignorant of the bible. And I don't know how it's even possible to be xenophobic of a book. I just know that it's wrong. I don't need to hate it. I can just look at most any page, take into consideration when it was written and by who, and know that it's all made up.

Do you have "an obvious and passionate will ignorance and xenophobia" of Dianetics? Of course not. But you don't buy into it, I would guess. So why are you so enlightened for believing in the bible and not this other book that people pretend contains all the wisdom of the ages?

 

[Ethnikos]

Jesus said it would occur before the generation was out. That seemed pretty clear to me that, after 100 AD, something was wrong with his prediction.

I was looking at those last night and checking what the various key words in the "original" Greek were.
There are two issues, one being, what is this Kingdom of God that has come, two, what is this kingdom that Jesus refers to as being his own.

The "near at hand" from what I can figure out is not temporal proximity but a co-existence as in a parallel existence that access to has been now opened.

The kingdom of God came into existence at the moment Jesus ever uttered a word about it.
The kingdom of Jesus is a future event as in the party, but the bestowing of it was done, like he said, in the lifetime of the hearers of his words.
Think of two people getting married. They go to the courthouse and get the paperwork all in order and some sort of ceremony according to that particular jurisdiction. At this point they are legally married. Then they have a select list of people invited to the church service. Then they have a general reception open to a lot more people. So, the civil would have been his resurrection. The church wedding would be his ascension to heaven and whatever reception he had there. The general reception where the party starts is the second coming.
This explanation is not in agreement with the views of the OP but is with the NT, as best as I can figure.

 

[Johnny Marseilles]

Hi Johnny Marseilles, welcome to the forum. I have one question: If you think that Jehovah's Witnesses thinking is ridiculous, why do you hold to so many of their beliefs?

Hi Critical Sock, thanks for the welcome, its nice to be here.

My comments on the Jehovah's Witnesses dealt with something that happened when I was very young. Having been told by one of the JWs that Jesus sacrificed himself once and for all time and then saying he was walking around in that same body was to me like paying for a candy bar then taking the money back.

What the Jehovah's Witnesses did do is gradually remove all of the pagan influence in Christianity and that is saying something because most of the modern day Christian teachings are pagan, unscriptural. But at the same time they are very religious in nature. What I mean by that is they have all of these zealous trappings of a cultish nature.

They ban organ transplants for years and years costing hundreds of people their lives for no other reason than, to them, Jehovah thought of it as cannibalism. Then they wised up. Similar bans on education, vaccinations. I remember some local JWs telling me they didn't use the Internet because the "Society" discouraged it. I said, oh, yeah? Well if you get a chance you might want to check out their new website. ON THE INTERNET!

Its just nonsense. Jehovah didn't prescribe a figurative lobotomy.

Ignoring Marduk's quote from the Epic of Gilgamesh...

Oh, c'mon! Gilgamesh! What about the Babylonian Atrahasis Epic? Its older. Gilgamesh, originally discovered on a cuneiform from the library of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh who reigned from 668 - 627 B.C.E. from earlier sources. Now you ask the skeptic to figure out the time and they will put the Bible writing way ahead and Gilgamesh way behind. Why, you ask them? They read it on a website.

It takes more than a bold assertion and a link to get my attention.

Are you not, in fact, a Jehovah's Witness yourself?

No. Never have been, never will be a part of ANY organized religion.

That's not a problem, although it will make having a discussion on the veracity of the bible somewhat difficult.

Well, we sure wouldn't want that complicating things.

 

[Ethnikos]

Hi Johnny Marseilles, welcome to the forum. I have one question: If you think that Jehovah's Witnesses thinking is ridiculous, why do you hold to so many of their beliefs?

There is also a tie-in with the Johannes Greber's translation (that the OP was quoting), in relation with the New World translation.
I did not look further into it because I have an aversion to studying evil.
Others less fearful may want to check it.

 

[Ethnikos]

No. Never have been, never will be a part of ANY organized religion.

Is the J.W.'s an "organized religion"?

 

[Leumas]

My translation is best for me, yours is best for you. Same with beliefs.

Fine...but that in the past was and still in the present is the justification for most wars of rapine and extirpation.

Translations that differ are a good thing, its like having many different viewpoints or witnesses of the same events, you get a broader picture of what might have happened, and you see the history in different ways and shades and colors.

That is fine if it was humans witnessing human events. But not so when it is supposed to be DIVINE WORDS about DIVINE stuff.

Also that is not the case with TRANSLATIONS....you are confusing your apologetics..... when two people INTERPRET the same words or event differently that is fine (but not divine stuff) ...... but it is not fine if two people READ the VERY SAME WRITTEN WORDS and sound out DIFFERENT WORDS from each other.

If two people read the following sentence:

Your stuff is a load of rubbish​

They should read it as it is (if they can read english)...they then can have as many opinions and interpretations as they want.....but NOT READ THE WORDS as different words.

In this case we have the very same words on a manuscript and different people are translating it into totally different sentences because they are arguing about the original words being different words and having different meaning. The word WATER to anyone who knows how to read english has ONE MEANING....but a thousand years from now people who have never seen an englishman or heard an english word being uttered or ever seen one written down, may argue at what WATER means or how it should be read.

But all that indicates is that it is all HUMAN stuff....not DIVINE stuff.

You may argue that the Jews know. You would be wrong…. Modern Jews can no more read ancient Hebrew than you or I. Only scholars can read ancient Hebrew and most of them cannot agree.

Also Ancient Hebrew was written without vowels which can render one word to be 4 or 5 possible words in certain cases. And that of course when a word is even known.

try t rd ths sntnc nd s f y cn ndrstnd t. Als thnk bt th fct sm wrds cld hv mltpl wrds Als wht f y d nt vn knw th lngg nd n n ls ds nd y r jst gng by nfrncs nd spcltns nd ddctns?​

Or even worse...since in the past they did not have spaces between words....so try this version

trytrdthssntncndsfycnndrstndt.AlsthnkbtthfctsmwrdscldhvmltplwrdsAlswhtfydntvnknwthlnggndnnlsdsndyrjstgngbynfrncsndspcltnsndddctns?​

Besides…..even if jews knew but gentiles did not…..that only means one thing….. Like Jesus said….. the DOGS are not MEANT TO KNOW…..

You are altogether worshiping a God who does not care a pigs foot if you worshiped him or not….all he cares is that the Israelites worship him. He only spoke Ancient Hebrew (which in fact is Canaanite) and did not care to make his word known except to a few murdering ignorant Bedouins in the middle of some meaningless hell hole called Israel. He did not want DOGS to know his word and did not care for you to understand or be able to translate it.

If he did he would have appeared to your ancestors and given them books they could understand in their respective languages and not have them wait until some ROMAN SOLDIER came over to their land and conquer, massacre, rape and pillage and then force them to follow the religion DECREED by the EMPERROR under threats of torture and killing.

He would not have us FIGHT WARS over interpretations of NUANCES of his supposed word based on translations of translations and falsifications of falsifications and alterations of alterations to suit the agendas of liars after liars and murderers after murderers and all based LOST manuscripts that nobody can read even if they could find them and guarantee that they are not YET ONE MORE forgery made by some HUCKSTER after money and with a more insidious political agenda of cementing the lies with more lies.

I challenge this supposed God….. I challenge him to a duel….. if he is truly a god….. come down in a pillar of fire and WRITE the book of Isaiah in whatever language he desires (if he knows any other than extinct Hebrew) on the face of the sun.

If he wanted to convince the world of his veracity as he was so darned concerned about it with barbaric brigands 3000 years ago, he would do something that is not possible to mistake.

Better still….. why does he not Make every amputee grow back their lost limbs….. if every Jewish amputee in the world suddenly gets back his limbs…we know YHWH is the real god….if every Christian or Muslim or whatever then we know that that is the TRUE and only religion.

If he wants to send a message of love and end all the hatred and strife in this world he can make amputees of all religions and creeds grow back their limbs and then we can conclude that he is the universal god of all and that he approves of all religions….or at least the ones who grew their limbs back.

How about that….after all I am not asking for personal anything…. I am not asking him to help me win a war or pass an exam or avoid a ticket or get more money…. I am asking him to help out all those people who lost limbs in whatever religion(s) he thinks is/are VALID.

I think after a miracle like that we won’t need any more Bibles or priests or anything….we would all be convinced of his veracity and can rest assured of his continued existence and the fact that he cares about US and not some retarded fiends from 3000 years ago and he has stopped caring or actively participating in anything since.

Let the fellow bring out a new edition of his book to settle the matter once and for all.

I have a website with The Dhammapada, Four Noble Truths, Bhagavad Gita, Chuang Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Nihongi, Kojiki, Quran, Analects of Confucius, Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, Pirqe Aboth.

Link please.....I would like to see it.

dissected by idiot archaeologists with an agenda and penchant for wild interpretation.

Yeah....they are called Biblical Archeologists funded by the Albright Institute or the Vatican or l’École Biblique

A recent study compared a 1,000 year difference in copies of a chapter in Isaiah. There were three letters comprising one word; "light" which was a copyist marking error. The addition of this didn't change the meaning of the text.

So what does that prove..... the same was done for the Iliad and Odyssey and 1001 Nights and Aesop's Fables....are they YHWH ISPIRED too?

Not to be disrespectful but you don't know what you are talking about. What scares me is if 1,000 years from now all they have is the opinions of some very verbose but uninformed "skeptics."

Yeah that might be scary....but it definitely is less scary than today where we have gone through 1500 years of HAVING TO take the Bible as DIVINE INSPIRATION under torture, murder, extirpation and violation.

I think after 1500 years of having to swallow the FABRICATION of the Church as truth it has become very hard for most people to discern facts from fiction.