WT Study for October 18, 2009

[James]

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[SWORDOFJAH]

Well balanced study. No doubt is a hope we all
await... the restoration of the physical earthly Paradise.

It will be Paradise restored earth wide.

[billy2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_sleep

Supporters of "soul sleep"

Famous historical psychopannychites and thnetopsychists have included:

* William Tyndale (1484-1536), English Bible translator
o "And ye, in putting them [the departed souls] in heaven, hell and purgatory, destroy the arguments wherewith Christ and Paul prove the resurrection...And again, if the souls be in heaven, tell me why they be not in as good a case as the angels be? And then what cause is there of the resurrection?"—William Tyndale, An Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue (1530)
* Martin Luther (1493-1546), German reformer and Bible translator
o "Salomon judgeth that the dead are a sleepe, and feele nothing at all. For the dead lye there accompting neyther dayes nor yeares, but when they are awoken, they shall seeme to have slept scarce one minute."—Martin Luther, An Exposition of Salomon's Booke, called Ecclesiastes or the Preacher (translation 1573)
o "It is certain that to this day Abraham is serving God, just as Abel, Noah are serving God. And this we should carefully note; for it is divine truth that Abraham is living, serving God, and ruling with Him. But what sort of life that may be, whether he is asleep or awake, is another question. How the soul is resting we are not to know, but it is certain that it is living."[4]
o "But the soul does not sleep in the same manner (like a person on earth.) It is awake. It experiences visions and the discourses of the angels and of God. Therefore the sleep in the future life is deeper than it is in this life. Nevertheless, the soul lives before God."[5]
* John Milton (1608-1674), English poet and Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell
o "Inasmuch then as the whole man is uniformly said to consist of body, and soul (whatever may be the distinct provinces assigned to these divisions), I will show, that in death, first, the whole man, and secondly, each component part, suffers privation of life...The grave is the common guardian of all till the day of judgment."—John Milton, De Doctrina Christiana (never published)

* Isaac Newton (1642-1727), English polymath

Present-day defenders of these doctrines include the

Seventh-day Adventist Church,
Jehovah's Witnesses,
Christadelphians,
the Church of God (Seventh Day),
the Church of God Abrahamic Faith,
and various other Church of God organizations including most Related Denominations which adhered to the older teachings of the Worldwide Church of God.
Some authorities within Conservative Judaism, notably Neil Gillman, also support the notion that the souls of the dead are unconscious until the Resurrection.[6]

[billy2]

I thought this summry of Newton was interesting also - i was surprised to read of his interest in the egyptian pyramids - as we know Russel had a fascination with them also



Isaac Newton:
Bible Student and Scientist*

Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was born in Lincolnshire on Christmas day nearly two months premature, and posthumous to his father. In the superstition of the day, all three of these circumstances of his birth were *considered to portend a child of exceptional abilities, and so he was to prove. He was born in the last year a witch was publicly burned at the stake in England. When he went to his grave at age 85, he was and still is *remembered as one of the greatest scientists of all time.



But the advocates of rational thought were inventing a fiction, for first and foremost Newton was a man of faith. This community has long ignored or belittled Newton’s strong commitment to Christianity and earnest non-conforming Bible study. Although it is easy to take exception with a number of the details in his interpretations, his keenness of mind permitted him to see truths that we might believe were little-known until the time of the harvest. Nearly one million words, mostly unpublished even today, range over biblical prophecy, the Times of Restitution, translation and manuscript errors, chronology, the measurements of Ezekiel’s temple compared against the New Jerusalem, and the Great Pyramid and its measurements as a witness, to name but a few.



Newton’s public anti-Trinitarian positions and writings continually created difficulties for his patrons. These kept him out of the Royal society and required special royal dispensation for him to hold a post as professor, ironically enough, at Trinity College, Cambridge. Most significantly, he is responsible for the scholarship that challenged the spurious acceptance of 1 John 5:7 into the Greek New Testament.



In Of the World to Come Newton shows a clear grasp of the heavenly salvation, the earthly salvation, and the “little season.” He dismisses eternal torment with this opening salvo: “So then the mystery of this restitution of all things is to be found in all the prophets; which makes me wonder with great admiration that so few Christians of our age can find it there. For they understand not that the final return of the Jews from captivity … and the setting up of a peaceable, righteous, and flourishing kingdom at the Day of Judgment is this mystery … First, the earth shall continue to be inhabited by mortals after the day of Judgment and not only for a 1,000 years, but even forever … And that the citizens of this city are not the saints raised from the dead, but a race of mortal men like the nations over whom they reign … [That after the judgment of Isaiah 66] the saving in these and such like places of Scripture is of mortals at the last day from both misery and death both temporal and eternal. … [for] the rest of his kingdom are the nations that have been saved; and they are mortals remaining on earth.”



Although he published several seminal scientific works within his lifetime, when Newton died unmarried, the executors of his estate largely found his religious writings to be an embarrassment. They kept all but four *sequestered where they remained unread until the twentieth century.

__________________________________________

* This synopsis is based on the highly recommended The Religion of Isaac Newton by Frank E. Manuel, *Oxford (1974). See also H. MacLachlen, Isaac Newton (1950).

[uglyandthin]

Hi All:

Verse 12 (I mean paragraph 12) is interesting. Unfortunately, the time of the end was for a much later time than 1914 and would happen just prior to the establishment of God's Kingdom. Also, the prophecies in Daniel would be unlocked at that time. Take a look at the nonsense that the WT puts forward as to the meaning of Daniel and I think it is easy to conlude that they have not been "unlocked" by the GB or any of thier minions since 1914 or more recently for that matter. When will they learn?

uglyandthin

[TheMdC]

It certainly is bizarre to see how they keep hanging on, refusing to even consider the thought that they might be wrong. It looks as if they plan on holding to the error until the end really comes and then say, "Hey, we told you the end was coming soon; we were just off on a few minor details. 'The light gets brighter.'" Then again, when the Master arrives will he find them in good standing?

[The Way]

I thought this summry of Newton was interesting also - i was surprised to read of his interest in the egyptian pyramids - as we know Russel had a fascination with them also







Hi Billy2:

Thanks for the interesting background info and links! I would like to look into it whenever I have more time.

You can also read some good bits about Newton's religious views and how he arrived at them in the papers of Stephen D. Snobelen on his website http://www.isaac-newton.org (http://www.isaac-newton.org/). Some fascinating excerpts from his essay Isaac Newton: His Science and Religion:


NEWTON AND THE ORIGINAL RELIGION

Heresy and the recovery of Primitive Christianity
One of the requirements of Newton’s fellowship at Trinity College was that he be ordained by 1675. The impending ordination deadline is likely one of the reasons why, in the early 1670s, he began to study theology and church history in earnest. One of the results of this intensive study was his conclusion that the central doctrine of orthodoxy Christian, the Trinity, was a corruption based on a misreading of the Bible and the addition of hypothetical ideas deriving from Greek metaphysics. It is not without irony that his denial of the Triunity of God came while domiciled in the cloisters of the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
. . .
The most important result of his study of the Bible and church history was his conclusion that the doctrine of the Trinity was a corrupt dogma that did not accurately reflect the biblical teaching on the oneness of God. In a 1670s list of twelve statements distinguishing Christ from God, Newton wrote: “Whenever it is said in the scriptures that there is but one God, it is meant of the Father”. Further clarification is provided by another statement from the same list: “It is a proper epithet of the father to be called almighty. For by God almighty we always understand the Father”. For Newton, only the Father is the one true God.
. . .
Newton also came to believe that the immortality of the soul is an unbiblical doctrine, concluding instead that the afterlife is attained only through the bodily resurrection.
. . .
Prophecy and millenarian eschatology
. . .
Newton believed that prophecies in the Old and New Testaments foretold the return of the Jews to Israel, the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the battle of Armageddon, the return of Christ to the earth and the establishment of a global kingdom of peace for one thousand years. He also believed that the 1260 days of Daniel and Revelation pointed to 1260 years of the corruption of the Church. Holding that this likely began when the papacy gained temporal power, he combed the annals of history for a plausible commencement date for this prophetic time period. He considered 607 and 609 A.D. and, later in life, 800 A.D., with the latter date suggesting that the apocalyptic events foretold in the Bible would not begin to come to pass until around the year 2060, long after his death.

At the center of Newton’s prophetic scheme is his animus directed against the Roman Catholic Church, which he charged with corrupting the primitive simplicity of Christianity through ungodly alignments with temporal authorities, the corruption of the text of the Bible and unscriptural doctrines such as the Trinity. This church, Newton believed, was the apocalyptic Babylon that would be destroyed by Christ at his second coming, opening up the way for the restoration of the primitive monotheistic Christian faith.


*********************



A note on Charles Taze Russell's fascination with Egyptian pyramids:

This was not an invention or Russell himself. Where did he get these ideas? From Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900), who was an astronomer, a respected scientist in his days, but who also dabbled in pyramidology. He performed accurate, scientific measurements and astronomical calculations concerning the Great Pyramid of Giza. However he combined this with wild speculation, believing this pyramid was built by the Hebrew people and contained God-given measurements with prophetic significance. The classic work relating his theories is The Great Pyramid: Its Secrets and Mysteries Revealed (4th Ed. 1880). The theories of Smyth and John Taylor, another influential pyramid theorist, gained many eminent supporters as well as detractors in the field of Egyptology during the late 1800s, but by the end of the 19th century it had lost most of its mainstream scientific support.
-- Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Piazzi_Smyth

So it's easy to see how Russell, with his broad interests and curious mind, got fascinated by this work and saw it as a confirmation of biblical prophecies, lending credibility to it. I'm not defending this pyramidology, but one has to view things in their Zeitgeist. Everyone is a child of his time, so it's a bit too easy to completely ridicule Russell's ideas now. Some Bible commentators today are still fascinated by possible connections between the Great Pyramid and the Bible! Don't waste your time exploring this avenue though.

Even very spiritual persons and persons of great faith may be prone to the human tendency to be eager to look for and accept confirmations for what you believe. But sometimes you may be tempted to venture into speculative ideas and to accept what looks like supporting evidences, alas in the wrong places. This only means your understanding is not perfect yet and that you haven't found better evidence yet :)

[shikinah]

Its amazing how they even quote "Millions now living will never die" and that was back in 1918, they should have also mentioned how they all waited for the rapture which never came, and the return of Abraham and the others to Beth Sarim, as usual they leave out the many errors of their past:huh:

[FutureMan]

Its amazing how they even quote "Millions now living will never die" and that was back in 1918, they should have also mentioned how they all waited for the rapture which never came, and the return of Abraham and the others to Beth Sarim, as usual they leave out the many errors of their past:huh:

Hello shikinah, apparently they did mention it at the last district convention, but only briefly apparently, as only a minor misunderstanding.

As far as I understand, they did not however admit that they were right of the mark with this prediction, of the resurrection happening back then around 1925 - 1926.

[panda]

Hello shikinah, apparently they did mention it at the last district convention, but only briefly apparently, as only a minor misunderstanding.

As far as I understand, they did not however admit that they were right of the mark with this prediction, of the resurrection happening back then around 1925 - 1926.yes it was on the Friday afternoon at the Keep on the Watch DC, "Answers to Questions about the last Days" there was not apology about 75, no real accountability really. I think they must have been addressing all the talk on the net especially about 75' they must get heaps of letters about these mistakes. Still no apology, many many b/s suffered because of their over zealousness, then putting the blame on the b/s was just another kick in the teeth.

They know they are loosing the best, not because of immorality like they would have the b/s believe, many leave because they have lost trust, been stumbled or cannot go to meetings anymore because of the lack of love or hypocrisy. There were a few that disassociated recently, they sent b/s letters telling them that they loved them and that they we not doing anything unscriptual, that they loved Jehovah and the brothers, it was because of their conscience they couldn't go any more, pedophilia and the UN, the change to the generation again not believing the appointment of the GB.

Its sad.

[FutureMan]

yes it was on the Friday afternoon at the Keep on the Watch DC, "Answers to Questions about the last Days" there was not apology about 75, no real accountability really. I think they must have been addressing all the talk on the net especially about 75' they must get heaps of letters about these mistakes. Still no apology, many many b/s suffered because of their over zealousness, then putting the blame on the b/s was just another kick in the teeth.



As far as I understand they have not really apologized for any mistakes that the Watchtower Society have made, up and till now.

Apparently it is spirit directed and therefore a perfect organization.

The light is getting brighter and brighter, that's all :confused:

[shikinah]

yes it was on the Friday afternoon at the Keep on the Watch DC, "Answers to Questions about the last Days" there was not apology about 75, no real accountability really. I think they must have been addressing all the talk on the net especially about 75' they must get heaps of letters about these mistakes. Still no apology, many many b/s suffered because of their over zealousness, then putting the blame on the b/s was just another kick in the teeth.

They know they are loosing the best, not because of immorality like they would have the b/s believe, many leave because they have lost trust, been stumbled or cannot go to meetings anymore because of the lack of love or hypocrisy. There were a few that disassociated recently, they sent b/s letters telling them that they loved them and that they we not doing anything unscriptual, that they loved Jehovah and the brothers, it was because of their conscience they couldn't go any more, pedophilia and the UN, the change to the generation again not believing the appointment of the GB.

Its sad.

Thats very sad to hear, but of course the rest of the congregation wont have a clue as to why certain ones leave, and the elders aren't exactly going to pronounce that from the platform. But Jehovah See's and soon the man of lawlssness will be exposed for who he is.

[billy2]

"They know they are loosing the best, not because of immorality like they would have the b/s believe, many leave because they have lost trust, been stumbled or cannot go to meetings anymore because of the lack of love or hypocrisy."

at a recent meeting i attended immorality was said to be the main cause of b&s leaving the org - and i thought to myself - making a statement like that is a bit deceiving because even if its true there must be a large number of people who do question the doctrines and if one does it openly then one is considered apostate - and i doubt the speaker anouncing the disfellowshipping explains to the congregation what issues the dissfellowshipped one had - so the congregation is left in the dark as to what is really going on

[shikinah]

A brother told me yesterday that five Bethelites were disfellowshipped this week for apostasy. He said they caught them trying to correct certain teachings. I said they probably were only trying to point out certain scriptures or dates which seemed incorrect, and he said no definate apostates, as usual there given the push and we dont get to hear the true story:(

[Utuna]

Even very spiritual persons and persons of great faith may be prone to the human tendency to be eager to look for and accept confirmations for what you believe. But sometimes you may be tempted to venture into speculative ideas and to accept what looks like supporting evidences, alas in the wrong places. This only means your understanding is not perfect yet and that you haven't found better evidence yet :)

Dear The Way,

So true! Words of wisdom indeed. Thanks !

« Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum »

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"Le sectarisme des jugements pauvres lui tenait quelquefois lieu de volonté" - Hervé Bazin
"J'ai pétri de la boue et j'en ai fait de l'or" - Charles Baudelaire
"S'il m'a été donné de voir un peu plus loin que les autres, c'est que je me tenais sur les épaules de géants" - Isaac Newton