How much did Adam and Eve know about God?

[Vico]

Oh yeah, I’ve read about the serpent not being Satan and that Satan was an agent of God in the old Hebrew traditions. I think Jews still view him as an angel that doesn’t follow his own will but God’s will.

**Rev 12:9 **And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

1 John 3:8 He that commmitteth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

**Rev 20:1 **And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.

 

[iohannes13]

**Rev 12:9 **And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

1 John 3:8 He that commmitteth sin is of the devil: for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God appeared, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

**Rev 20:1 **And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations, till the thousand years be finished. And after that, he must be loosed a little time.

Hi Vico, these are New Testament interpretations. The ancient Hebrews had a different view and I don’t think they meant that the snake was the devil.

That doesn’t mean The New Testament is not right in its interpretation, simply that the authors had other intentions in their writings.

 

[ChosenOne7]

Hey, how do you translate this verse: John 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Based on what other JW’s have answered me, I have an idea how your going to respond. Can you write on here how this is written in the WatchTower Bible? I’m curious.

Some scholars have viewed this expression as an exclamation of astonishment spoken to Jesus but actually directed to God, his Father. However, others claim the original Greek requires that the words be viewed as being directed to Jesus. Even if this is so, the expression “My Lord and my God” would still have to harmonize with the rest of the inspired Scriptures. Since the record shows that Jesus had previously sent his disciples the message, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God,” there is no reason for believing that Thomas thought Jesus was the Almighty God. (John 20:17)

he may have addressed Jesus as “my God” in a way similar to expressions made by his forefathers, recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures, with which Thomas was familiar. On various occasions when individuals were visited or addressed by an angelic messenger of Jehovah, the individuals, or at times the Bible writer setting out the account, responded to or spoke of that angelic messenger as though he were Jehovah God.
Compare Genesis 16:7-11,13 - '7 The angel of the Lord met Hagar at a spring in the desert on the road to Shur… 13 Hagar asked herself, “Have I really seen God and lived to tell about it?” So she called the Lord, who had spoken to her, “A God Who Sees.” it’s obvious that we both know the angel wasn’t Lord or that it wasn’t God speaking to her.
Or this verse in Judges 13:21,22 - “21 While the flames were going up from the altar, Manoah and his wife saw the Lord’s angel go up toward heaven in the flames. Manoah realized then that the man had been the Lord’s angel, and he and his wife threw themselves face downward on the ground. They never saw the angel again. 22 Manoah said to his wife, “We are sure to die, because we have seen God!” why did Manoah think that he has seen God?

Thomas may therefore have spoken to Jesus as “my God” in this sense, acknowledging or confessing Jesus as the representative and spokesman of the true God. Whatever the case, it is certain that Thomas’ words do not contradict the clear statement he himself had heard Jesus make, namely, “The Father is greater than I am.”—John 14:28.

 

[ChosenOne7]

You believe in a soul? When did that change? I was always told by JW evangelists that there is no soul and at death we just cease to exist. This follows the old Hebrews view that the body had no soul.

Tell me about the 144,000 that will be saved? I imagine that you are not part of that since there have been a number of JW greater than 144,000 since Russell started this movement. Or are you part of the 144,000? If so how do you know?
So if JW’s worshipped Jesus prior to the 1960’s what does that mean?

In the Bible, “soul” is translated from the Hebrew neʹphesh and the Greek psy·kheʹ. Bible usage shows the soul to be a person or an animal or the life that a person or an animal enjoys. To many persons, however, “soul” means the immaterial or spirit part of a human being that survives the death of the physical body. We do not share those views. There is a difference between the meaning of the word “soul” and “spirit”.

I’m not part of the 144,000 like I said the majority of us would want to live in earth forever, you will have to ask someone who is how they know. Even though many have claimed to be it doesn’t mean that they are because even someone who is anointed for heavenly life can lose that privilege same like Judas who betrayed Jesus lost his position of going to heaven

 

[Sirach2]

Thomas may therefore have spoken to Jesus as “my God” in this sense, acknowledging or confessing Jesus as the representative and spokesman of the true God. Whatever the case, it is certain that Thomas’ words do not contradict the clear statement he himself had heard Jesus make, namely, “The Father is greater than I am.”—John 14:28.

You’re still at it CO7? You are quick at providing the JW interpretation, but when any Catholic refutes it with more scripture, you simply run away. You have never responded to others’ postings showing the contrary.

How about Col. 2:9? In Christ, all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. You ignored all of the posts in this thread when you could not find a suitable answer from the WT.

As for Jesus being St. Michael, it is explained thoroughly here. I noted that the #1 target for JW’s are Catholics.

 

[iohannes13]

You’re still at it CO7? You are quick at providing the JW interpretation, but when any Catholic refutes it with more scripture, you simply run away. You have never responded to others’ postings showing the contrary.

How about Col. 2:9? In Christ, all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. You ignored all of the posts in this thread when you could not find a suitable answer from the WT.

As for Jesus being St. Michael, it is explained thoroughly here. I noted that the #1 target for JW’s are Catholics.

Problem is their bibles mistranslated all instances that show Jesus is divine and they believe that all Bibles that show that have been corrupted by the Devil so are not reliable. You’ll never convince him with your quotes because the Watchtower Bible reads differently. I just want writings from Russell showing that he said Jesus is St Michael and that he shouldn’t be worshipped.

 

[iohannes13]

Chosen is Jesus a god?

 

[Sirach2]

Problem is their bibles mistranslated all instances that show Jesus is divine and they believe that all Bibles that show that have been corrupted by the Devil so are not reliable. I just want writings from Russell showing that he said Jesus is St Michael and that he shouldn’t be worshipped.

Did you read the link I gave above, saying:
(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New World Translation [NWT] of the Bible, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the parent organization for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.) From this verse the Witnesses conclude that the Lord Jesus Christ is an archangel because he has “an archangel’s voice.”

 

[iohannes13]

Did you read the link I gave above, saying:
(Unless otherwise noted, all quotations are from the New World Translation [NWT] of the Bible, published by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the parent organization for the Jehovah’s Witnesses.) From this verse the Witnesses conclude that the Lord Jesus Christ is an archangel because he has “an archangel’s voice.”

Nope sorry I didn’t click all the links. Let me check them all out.

 

[iohannes13]

I noted that the #1 target for JW’s are Catholics.

Yeah JWs target Catholics because we are easy targets for them as none are trained at the level of JWs to defend their faith. They also target lonely or depressed people or any one that is going through something. It’s predatory I tell you.

 

[ChosenOne7]

You’re still at it CO7? You are quick at providing the JW interpretation, but when any Catholic refutes it with more scripture, you simply run away. You have never responded to others’ postings showing the contrary.

How about Col. 2:9? In Christ, all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form. You ignored all of the posts in this thread when you could not find a suitable answer from the WT.

As for Jesus being St. Michael, it is explained thoroughly here. I noted that the #1 target for JW’s are Catholics.

You are good at making assumptions hey… I havnt ignored any posts I’ve tried replying to all your posts, if I havnt replied to any one of them it’s because I havnt seen them. And as far as I know you have not mentioned anything of what Catholics believe, you mentioned more about what we as Jw’s believe lol. Interesting… Neither have I seen you use any scripture to explain anything only time you use a scripture is when you want to ask something never to eeplain something, your view is coming from your own understanding you not following what the Bible says hence you can’t agree with many of your Catholic brothers that the Adam and Eve account was literal.
Also you jumping between different topics all at once… If you want to know something you can ask me I told you I’ll be more that welcome to explain my beliefs and to hear yours, I’m not here to mock or judge or belittle your religion or beliefs the way you are doing to mine… Remember like I said I have studied this religion , the questions we are discussing is off topic some of them will take more than just one post to reply so if you will open a thread maybe we can discuss it there.

 

[iohannes13]

You are good at making assumptions hey… I havnt ignored any posts I’ve tried replying to all your posts, if I havnt replied to any one of them it’s because I havnt seen them. And as far as I know you have not mentioned anything of what Catholics believe, you mentioned more about what we as Jw’s believe lol. Interesting… Neither have I seen you use any scripture to explain anything only time you use a scripture is when you want to ask something never to eeplain something, your view is coming from your own understanding you not following what the Bible says hence you can’t agree with many of your Catholic brothers that the Adam and Eve account was literal.
Also you jumping between different topics all at once… If you want to know something you can ask me I told you I’ll be more that welcome to explain my beliefs and to hear yours, I’m not here to mock or judge or belittle your religion or beliefs the way you are doing to mine… Remember like I said I have studied this religion , the questions we are discussing is off topic some of them will take more than just one post to reply so if you will open a thread maybe we can discuss it there.

Chosen are you talking to me or Sirach2? Because if you are talking to me, yes you are right, we are not talking about what I believe but about what you believe.

So you never answered, do you deny that the Watchtower teaches that all other Bibles are corrupted by the Devil and only the Watchtower Bible is reliable?

 

[ChosenOne7]

Chosen are you talking to me or Sirach2?

No to you… Me and Sarach2 have had many conversations before… But we have sticked to the topic that was at hand then… To understand each other and come to common ground as to why we belief in what we do we will need to have a discussion about a particular topic an stick to it… We can never make each ther understand in one reply… You want to know about the arch angel that’s a long discussion… But there are threads about it if you go to the search bar and type it in you will see that we have discussed it before

 

[iohannes13]

Chosen,
Sirach2 has a good point, how do you translate Col 2:9?

 

[ChosenOne7]

Chosen,
Sirach2 has a good point, how do you translate Col 2:9?

The fullness of God is In Christ… Does that make him God?

 

[ChosenOne7]

Yeah JWs target Catholics because we are easy targets for them as none are trained at the level of JWs to defend their faith. They also target lonely or depressed people or any one that is going through something. It’s predatory I tell you.

You are highly mistaken… Do you really think I know who I’m going to go preach to when I go preaching door to door? Do you really think I can see who is behind that door that people are depressed? Lol… Little knowledge of what we do… Your claims are just like everyone else’s trying to make us look bad… We have never been partial when it comes to our preaching work because the command is that everyone should hear the message not the poor and sick an depressed only… We preach to people of all religions aswel, we also preach to people of all religions like Muslims, Mormons, all those different protestant religions too… Most of the time we don’t even know what religion the person is in until they tell us… And yes we do come across church leaders, pastor’s, priests, imams, we preach to many people who has studied theology… So I don’t see where you get your claims from… And lastly we are trained to use the Bible we have 5 meetings a week, at each meeting we make use of the Bible and study it… We go in depth with studying the Bible maybe that’s why we can use the Bible so well … Please don’t think we target Catholics we just doing it for everyone

 

[Sirach2]

You are good at making assumptions hey… I havnt ignored any posts I’ve tried replying to all your posts, if I havnt replied to any one of them it’s because I havnt seen them. And as far as I know you have not mentioned anything of what Catholics believe, you mentioned more about what we as Jw’s believe lol. Interesting… Neither have I seen you use any scripture to explain anything only time you use a scripture is when you want to ask something never to eeplain something, your view is coming from your own understanding you not following what the Bible says** hence you can’t agree with many of your Catholic brothers that the Adam and Eve account was literal.**

Whoa! I never said a word about the Adam and Eve account. Let’s set that straight, please. As for not mentioning any scriptures, I left off in this post with the peoples’ evil intention in Exodus 32:1 and the true understanding of whom God justifies in Romans 2:13-16. You never responded to this. I have quoted numerous scriptures to you, so I don’t know where you got this notion. Anyone who is Catholic knows what we believe, and you know this as well, since you strain the gnat and study extensively in order to disprove our beliefs.

For instance, your latest invalidation of the true sense of Col.2:9, is just another example where you have censured every single post that we gave you to inject your own misinterpretation … all in accord with a man-made Founder’s ‘religion’ that has not been demonstrated as approved by Almighty God. As Jesus said, “If you do not believe my words, believe my works!” Where are the miracles showing that this man was sent from God to correct millenniums of error, or that God, in His loving mercy, has left His creation to flounder in abandonment until your founder started his own faith … which is one of over 30,000 denominations. Catholicism has been here for 2015 years.

I’m not here to mock or judge or belittle your religion or beliefs the way you are doing to mine. Remember like I said I have studied** this religion. **

Yours, or ours, or both?
I believe you were asked if you are a ‘cradle JW’ and have not replied. And yes, you have put quite a false rebuttal on every scripture the members have shared with you, but you will need to demonstrate where I have been mocking you.

 

[truetofaith]

Hey, the tree of life would let them live forever? But I was always taught that Adam and Eve were immortal but their fall caused death to enter the world. But knowing that life had existed millions of years before man existed meant that death existed. That Adam could eat any animal in the garden meant that he had to kill them first to eat them. Soo… any idea what the tree of life did?

See now it’s sounding like what kept them immortal was the fruit of the tree of life and that sounds like the fruit the Olympians ate to keep them going forever.

YOU say " life had existed millions of years before man existed ", the Bible doesn’t back you up!

 

[ChosenOne7]

Whoa! I never said a word about the Adam and Eve account. Let’s set that straight, please. As for not mentioning any scriptures, I left off in this post with the peoples’ evil intention in Exodus 32:1 and the true understanding of whom God justifies in Romans 2:13-16. You never responded to this. I have quoted numerous scriptures to you, so I don’t know where you got this notion. Anyone who is Catholic knows what we believe, and you know this as well, since you strain the gnat in order to disprove our beliefs.

For instance, your latest invalidation of the true sense of Col.2:9, is just another example where you have censured every single post that we gave you to inject your own misinterpretation … all in accord with a man-made Founder’s ‘religion’ that has not been demonstrated as approved by Almighty God. As Jesus said, “If you do not believe my words, believe my works!” Where are the miracles showing that this man was sent from God to correct millenniums of error, or that God, in His loving mercy, has left His creation to flounder in abandonment until your founder started his own faith … which is one of over 30,000 denominations. Catholicism has been here for 2015 years.

Yours, or ours, or both?
I believe you were asked if you are a ‘cradle JW’ and have not replied. And yes, you have put quite a false rebuttal on every scripture the members have shared with you, but you will need to demonstrate where I have been mocking you.

That’s message was actually for Johannes somehow I didn’t see you were part of the comments

And I’ve studied my religion and abit of others

 

[Sirach2]

Thomas may therefore have spoken to Jesus as “my God” in this sense, acknowledging or confessing Jesus as the representative and spokesman of the true God. Whatever the case, it is certain that Thomas’ words do not contradict the clear statement he himself had heard Jesus make, namely, “The Father is greater than I am.”—John 14:28.

:banghead: I trust you recognize how frustrating this is, since you revert right back to your own belief, no matter how much others share with you. I addressed this here:

I had not intended to continue this conversation, but it just occurred to me, as I read back through the thread, that you keep trying to focus everyone on John 10:30,. Please note that I never isolated that scripture in our discussion. It was primarily to John 10:38 that I referred, and you have not responded, except to continually challenge others to interpret John 10:30, here and here. That must be the JW standard opening to catch others.

In fact, I gave an entire post of scriptures here, and you have not responded to them, either. In addition, I provided the interpretation for your difficulty in reconciling John 14:20 and 17:21 (below). Again, no response.
There is another sense of oneness, a true oneness in the spirit, not necessarily in the body. It is that sense that Jesus was referring to in Jn. 17:21. Were that not true, how else might one interpret this oneness when Jesus identifies with the very ones Saul was persecuting? It is to misconstrue the truth of Jesus’ Divinity by using Jesus’ identification and oneness with His mystical Body - they have two different meanings.

Acts 9:3. Now as Saul was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?” 5. He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Let me just add one more scripture to substantiate Paul’s experience of “persecuting Jesus”. Mt. 25:40, “Verily I say unto you, whatsoever you have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”

Jesus plainly spoke of His identification with those who do not recognize that He indwells His brethren, as He promised in John 14:23.

I’m not finding any openness to discussion from you, since you revert back only to those scriptures that are part of the JW arsenal, rather than address the truths others provided for your consideration of our faith. And for that reason, I concluded that you are not open.

AND HERE:

On the contrary, I responded here, “In His Divinity, that scripture is true. In His Sacred Humanity, He emptied Himself.” (short form) As for trying to find a particular verse, you will not find one. We have the whole of scripture in its totality of verses to piece together the truth, and the fact that one verse alone does not encapsulate it in its entirety, as you are looking for, does not negate the truth. As you know, the evangelists do not expound in the same depth as St. John did, since he was writing in Greek to the Greek world of his time. It is easy to “create contradictions” when there are none, by violating the context of the passage(s) in question.

Rather than address my post, you went off on another tangent here about “Lord” being merely a social courtesy and denying that the Bible used the words “by nature WAS GOD.” (Read it again here - the very first scripture, “Who, being in very nature GOD”…) You ignored the content of my post completely and implied that I did not read John 10:30 correctly, even though I did not address that scripture.

So who is not sharing scriptures of what Catholics believe, CO7?