JW Insight on the Scriptures

[Logically]

actually what you’ve said is a lot of horse hockey. this hang up with holidays and stuff is really silly. hate to tell you but many things in everyday use came from pagans. if you are concerned with all those pagan things than get rid of the days of the week, (gosh all those pagan god names) and start calling them and months of the year…you can maybe start naming them after Russel, rutherford, miller etc. you get the idea. then the obsession with blood- that’s very pagan. the Jews were not the only culture to associate blood with life, power ,sanctity. it was quite common the importance of blood in worship within pagan society.Israelites, knowing no other way,adopted and adapted. it became something much better and more profound than the rites of polytheism.it was the only way they knew how to honor God. But they knew YHWH did not eat, or had to be fed by that sacrifice. they knew HaShem has no face or form. Same with Passover… Passover was adopted and adapted from pagan feast dealing with bringing in the lambs, a feast for the shepherds. along with thanksgiving festival for thw wheat - the farmers feast;. again it became much greater and more important. even the places of worship were modeled closely after the Canaanite shrine .the horns on the altar,in canaan look remarkably like the Israelite version…
Xmas is also one of those big bugaboos you all like to push. but it is just that.
those same theories about Christian holidays you espoused are the same things atheists quote! the problem is most of it is outdated propaganda from secularists in 19th and 20th century,who were trying to discredit Christianity. Archaeolgists say they calculated the feast of the annunciation counted nine months and got December. Xmas was not celebrated early in the church but Easter was…Again a garbage can of rubbish that says that Easter was from some goddess named Estrea or ostrea or something like that. the problem is that no such 'goddess exists- just in the fevered mind of protestant , who pushed this as a mode of anti- Catholicism.(it’s good you want to keep those old traditions!) Anyway , what is commonly called Easter is known in the church as the Paschal feast.in many non English speaking countries they keep that -therefore you have “Pasch”, “Pasqua” etc. why we got stuck with Easter is beyond me and I never found a suitable answer. but it shows how much baloney some people believe because it suits their agenda. I’ve said it many times , that sometimes you got stop being a turtle and stick your head out. the world is more than just one group.

Thanks for your well explained and coherent reply to my post.

 

[Michael68]

Michael68;14003939:

Ok then.

Please sir, how can you deny Jesus Christ and what He did for you? Why are you replacing Him with an Angel? Michael is a seperate being. Scripture validates this. Sir, this system has mistranslated what the “Shout of an Archangel” is. Please remove yourself from this erroneous system that denies Jesus

 

[ShanPO]

…the claim that brother (adelphos) here means cousins is a theoretical contention, the invention of which is credited to Jerome(who I gather to mean St. Jerome), and dates back to no earlier to 383 C.E. Not only does Jerome fail to cite any support for his newborn hypothesis but in later writings he wavers in his opinions and even expresses misgivings about his cousin theory."

If I say something like “The life of Shan dates back no earlier than 1979” that would mean that before 1979, there was no Shan. In the quote above, I bolded where it says that piece of teaching is “no earlier than 383” that means before 383, this wasn’t taught, which leads one to believe that Jerome “made it up.”

I have browsed through the posts on this subject.

The conversation seems to have degraded from:

1.“Where did the JW’s book get:Jerome was the fist one to teach Jesus brothers were actually cousins?”

• to

1. A general tirade of assuring each other: “JW’s just make things up all the time and have to swallow it without thinking!”

A brief google search of: “Jerome Mary Jesus brothers” came up first with Wikipedia on “brothers of Jesus” which in part says:

“By the 3rd century the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary had become well established; important early Christian theologians such as Hippolytus (170-235), Eusebius (260/265-339/340) and Epiphanius (c. 310/320-403) defended it. … Eusebius and Epiphanius held that these men were Joseph’s sons from (an unrecorded) former marriage.[7][12] … James and his siblings were not children of Mary but were children from a previous marriage. Joseph’s first wife died; many years later, at the age of eighty, “he took Mary (mother of Jesus)”. … Origen (184-254) also wrote that “according to the Gospel of Peter the brethren of Jesus were sons of Joseph by a former wife, whom he married before Mary”.[37]
Jerome (c.347-420), another important early theologian, also held the perpetual virginity doctrine, but argued that these adelphoi were sons of Mary’s sister, whom Jerome identified as Mary of Cleopas.[7][38] …”

Wikipedia has all the references if you want to research them. But basically it sounds like what the JWs said. = Jerome is the first one (that we know of) to argue the brothers of Jesus were his cousins.
(except the JWs left out that earlier Church theologians tried the rather ridiculous excuse that “Joseph was married before and Jesus brothers were his children to someone else, plus he was 80 when he married Mary” )

It strikes me as amazing that you all immediately dismiss the JW’s evidence as fake and biased, and accuse JW’s of just believing whatever the WT says without question

• yet you all seem to automatically believe without question what the church later says! (ie. Mary was always a virgin and Jesus was her only child)

This is despite the evidence: The Bible says Jesus had brothers and sisters!
Various, contradicting ideas had to be floated to explain this with the later (always virgin) church teaching.

Logically these fellows (Origen, Jerome, Hippolytus, Epiphanus etc…) were just proposing their own ideas! That’s why they contradict!
I have no idea which ones of these or their peers first also added the ‘certainty’ that Mary stayed a Virgin all here life, (not until hundreds of years after Jesusat any rate) but I would be surprised if it was based on any better evidence than opinion and tradition.

The thing I like about the JW’s is they don’t let the opinion and tradition of later philosophers supersede God’s word.
Even if their own heros (like Tyndale, Newton, C.T. Russel, and J. F. Rutherford) said something, if it is later found that evidence from the Bible contradicts what they thought, God’s word, the Bible takes presedence.

Here’s where I question the JW scholarship. You do your research, find that before Jerome, people taught perpetual virginity of Mary. If you believe what you typed above, you are in direct disagreement with what your governing body teaches. They teach Jerome “invented” the perpetual virginity teaching.

You can’t have it both ways here. Either Jerome created that theory, or he is expanding on an existing theory that has been around for some time. If you say like your Insight book that it “existed no earlier than 383” you’re wrong (and you know it) but if you say that “yeah, it was around before then” you’re saying your organization is wrong.

Now, since you did the work, and have shown your organization to be wrong (because you cited sources pre-383 that taught perpetual virginity), how do you justify your organization either not doing their homework (which took you all of 45 seconds on Google) or being outright deceptive.

 

[ShanPO]

With respect, You are making a huge differentiation here:

On one hand you say* the regular everyday JW is honest and faith filled*,
but on the other hand you announce the “leaders” are intentionally deceiving and lying!

These “leaders” (as you call them) are just as honest and faith filled as the average JW (more so infact).
They have done the hard yards as volunteer preachers, missionaries and small congregation elders. Having sacrificed decades of their lives for what they genuinely belive to be true, (average JW characterics on steroids) they have gradually been given more and more (unpaid) responsibility until they are now in the group that oversees the entire organisation. (and now work more than full time, still unpaid, in caring for the hugh Bible teaching organisation)

At what point in this process did they transform from being genuine, honest, faith filled and generous - to being wicked, liars and selfish deceivers?

(Imagine this ridiculous scene:* “Come in and sit down Brother Smith. Well, you quit your high paying career and have spent 35 years full time teaching the Bible and helping congregations in the third world becuase you are so convinced what the JW’s teach is the truth.
Its time we told you the men in this room made it all up and it is an elaborate hoax to mislead the sort of people you have dedicated your life to help. Would you like to become a part of the hyrarchy that justifies all our falsehoods? We have a vacancy.!” *)

How is it that all these average JW’s are honest and faith filled (who expell wrongdoers from their congregations) when their leaders are evil liars and decievers?
Wouldn’t those wicked traits of their leaders filter down to the congregations?

Please explain how this all works.

Are you allowed to change doctrine?

 

[Waynec]

You sound far better read on these early Theologians than me!

But a question that might make your above question irrelevant is:

"Which Church Theologians first proposed that Mary was always a virgin?"

If it wasn’t believed until long after Jesus, what does it matter when Jeromes solution to the Jesus siblings problem came along?

The original question was from which of Jerome’s writing they got the idea that after Jerome changed his mind about jesus having brothers and sisters. this leaves the Witness to think that after all that Jerome decided that jesus had brothers and sisters after all.

The Catholic Church is the only church that has apostolic succession. That means that Jesus taught the apostles and they taught their flowers and down the line. First there was Tradition then the written word. The apostles thought that Jesus’ return was imminent but when they saw that it was not they started to write things down to preserve the teaching.
The Catholic Church wrote the bible, preserved the bible and decided what books would be the cannon of the bible.

Yes we beleive the Magisterium as you beleive the Governing Body but our teaching goes back to Jesus Himself whereas yours goes back to Russell. Whatever writings that your “theologians” studied from in the beginning came from the Catholic Church until they decided that they knew better. We have not changed our dogma but enriched it with better understanding whereas you have completely changed your (do you use the word) dogma
I am sure that in the beginning that you leaders, they weren’t called the Governing Body back then, read the Church Fathers. One wonders why at that point they didn’t beleive the truth but thought they needed to make their won religion.

 

[Waynec]

Actually I have done some brief research and answered my own question. Wikipedia again (i know it isn’t infallible, but usually pretty accurate) has anarticle on “perpetual virginity of Mary.”
I quote in part (emphasis mine):

"*A second-century document *that paid special attention to Mary’s virginity … this text does not explicitly assert Mary’s perpetual virginity after the birth of Jesus.

There was no full consensus on the doctrine of perpetual virginity within the early Church by the end of the second century, e.g. Tertullian (c.160 – c.225) did not teach the doctrine (although he taught virgin birth), but Irenaeus (c.130 – c.202) taught perpetual virginity, along with other Marian themes.[35] Origen (185-254) was emphatic on the issue of the brothers of Jesus, and stated that he believed them to have been the children of Joseph from a previous marriage.[43] However, wider support for the doctrine began to appear within the next century.[35]

Some writers from 4th century, Helvidius and Eunomius of Cyzicus… after Jesus’ birth, and that James, Joses, Jude, and Simon were the biological sons of Mary and Joseph, …

By the 4th century, the doctrine of perpetual virginity had been well attested.[46] For example, references can be found in the 3rd century writings of Hippolytus of Rome,…4th century works of Athanasius,[48] Epiphanius,[49] Hilary,[50] Didymus,[51] Ambrose,[52] Jerome,[53] and Siricius[54] continued the attestations to perpetual virginity – a trend that gathered pace in the next century.[4][5]"

So:
It seems to me that the doctrine has a similar history to the Trinity.
It isn’t taught in the Bible, but it slowly evolved over hundreds of years and through many controversies and debates until it was eventually adopted into the Church.
(and afterwards, anyone who questioned it was labelled a heretic no doubt)

With this “truth” decided, and the Bible saying Jesus had siblings, Jerome taught that these siblings are infact cousins and not Mary’s other children at all! (a better explaination than the idea that Mary was Josephs second wife)

1700 years later JW’s correctly mention Jerome (without satisfactory quotes according to some) as being the first one to teach the cousin theory. (several posters on a discussion website decry JW’s as just swallowing whatever they are told without doing any research! )

Maybe someone else had the idea before Jerome and he just published it, but regardless, the belief Mary stayed a virgn through her married life hadn’t become doctrine yet, so when the explainations of how that worked came along seems kind of irrelevant to me.

The JW insight book quoted at the begining of this article by Wayntec looks accurate and stands up to research. Good.
Thanks for building my faith in that.

Let me try again.

It has always been Tradition that Mary was a virgin UNTIL some questioned it. At that time Catholic scholars, fathers read the Scriptures , studied them and came up with why they know that Mary was ever Virgin. Just as in you own Governing Body there were dissenting opinions but finally the truth was realized and proclaimed.

 

[ajcstr]

With respect, You are making a huge differentiation here:

On one hand you say* the regular everyday JW is honest and faith filled*,
but on the other hand you announce the “leaders” are intentionally deceiving and lying!

If the leadership is honest why do they not give references to their quotes and why do they only include the segment of the quote that appears support their position while ignoring the parts of the quote that does not?

How would you as a Witness express your opinion of (1) the leaders of the Catholic Church and (2) the followers of the Catholic Church?

Given your answer please explain the significance of the image of the priest in the pamphlet “Who Controls the World ?”

jw.org/en/publications/books/control-world-tract/who-controls-the-world/

(Hint) Please give us honest answers if you expect an honest conversation.

LOL - this sounds like an exam

 

[Waynec]

Well they used to believe just that!

JW’s celebrated Christmas and birthdays until the 1920’s! The cross was on the WT until about then.
(The Trinity was clearly not a Bible teaching from the start however and wasn’t taught by the church until hundreds of years after Jesus - The burden of proof lies with those who teach it, not with those who don’t.)

The Trinity was always in the bible but was not given a name until a word for it came along. It was always beleived by the early Christians but as always there is always someone who questions the truth. So again the Fathers scoured the bible to find the proof that some people needed to try to explaing the unexplainable Trinity to non-believers.

Example. They published articles and explained in great detail the evidence that December 25 wasn’t the birthday of Jesus and the customs and celebrations that go with it were of pagan origin.

What does it matter what day Jesus’ birthday is celebrated . He was after all born. I think it was smart of the Catholics to use a pagan holiday for a Christian celebration. The holiday would have been celebrated after all so why not turn it around to a Christian one instead of a pagan one? No one knows what day Jesus was really born and does it really matter? So the Witness can prove all the nonsense they want to.

.

JW’s are never afraid to change their beliefs if they realise they are wrong. That’s a mark of honesty, not deception.

Why would you want to belong to a religion that is always admitting mistakes? I thought they were the direct conduit from God to man?

 

[ajcstr]

So:
It seems to me that the doctrine has a similar history to the Trinity.
It isn’t taught in the Bible, but it slowly evolved over hundreds of years and through many controversies and debates until it was eventually adopted into the Church.
(and afterwards, anyone who questioned it was labelled a heretic no doubt)

The NT teaches

1. There is One God
2. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are different persons.
3. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each described as God

That’s it, that is what scripture says on the matter. Either its true or its false. If it’s false we are wasting our times here. If its true then the three statements need to be reconciled or perhaps we can change the words of scripture to eliminate the statements that “can’t be true”. Just because it can’t be fully understand by finite beings doesn’t make it untrue. This is what God has revealed to us about his nature in scripture.

As Waynec mentioned it was never challenged until Arius came along who denied the Trinity, gained a following, and the subject was debated by the Bishops at the Council of Nicea. Arianism was the later invention, not the Trinity. Please reference the controversies and debates prior to Arius that you speak of.

Russell, coming from the Adventist tradition held this Arian position. At the time of this council, the New Testament had not even been settled yet. So you reject the decision of Council of Nicea, yet you rely on the decision of the later Councils of Hippo and Carthage to give you the correct 27 books of the NT.

 

[adamhovey1988]

So with regards to 25 December not really being the time Christ was born. I could point to evidence that he was in fact born that time, but that is not what the Church is saying. The Church is saying that his birth is worth celebrating. Why does it matter if it is 25 December or 6 January (as the Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates) (both of which are celebrated as Christmas)? I don’t see why it’s not enough to just celebrate the birth of our Saviour that died for our sake.

 

[ajcstr]

The JW insight book quoted at the begining of this article by Wayntec looks accurate and stands up to research. Good.
Thanks for building my faith in that.

Thanks for all the citations in your post, which on is the one that shows Jerome changing his mind? I read your post a couple of times and didn’t see it.

Also, Your own research shows the idea of Mary not having other children dates back well before Jerome. But because Jerome used the word “cousin” now he becomes the focal point. I guess if you can’t see this floating a red herring you never will.

To suggest Jesus had brothers also must imply that they all died before he did because Jesus entrusted the care of Mary to the apostle John which would not have happened if she had other sons.

 

[ajcstr]

How is it that all these average JW’s are honest and faith filled (who expell wrongdoers from their congregations) when their leaders are evil liars and decievers?
Wouldn’t those wicked traits of their leaders filter down to the congregations?

Please explain how this all works.

See post # 65 regarding your “Who Controls the World?” brochure.

 

[ajcstr]

So:
It seems to me that the doctrine has a similar history to the Trinity.
It isn’t taught in the Bible, but it slowly evolved over hundreds of years and through many controversies and debates until it was eventually adopted into the Church.
(and afterwards, anyone who questioned it was labelled a heretic no doubt)

With this “truth” decided, and the Bible saying Jesus had siblings, Jerome taught that these siblings are infact cousins and not Mary’s other children at all! (a better explaination than the idea that Mary was Josephs second wife)

1700 years later JW’s correctly mention Jerome (without satisfactory quotes according to some) as being the first one to teach the cousin theory. (several posters on a discussion website decry JW’s as just swallowing whatever they are told without doing any research! )

Maybe someone else had the idea before Jerome and he just published it, but regardless, the belief Mary stayed a virgn through her married life hadn’t become doctrine yet, so when the explainations of how that worked came along seems kind of irrelevant to me.

The JW insight book quoted at the begining of this article by Wayntec looks accurate and stands up to research. Good.
Thanks for building my faith in that.

OK,

Not so fast, lets go back to the OP question …

My question is :an excerpt from the article says:" the claim that brother (adelphos) here means cousins is a theoretical contention, the invention of which is credited to Jerome(who I gather to mean St. Jerome), and dates back to no earlier to 383 C.E. Not only does Jerome fail to cite any support for his newborn hypothesis but in later writings he wavers in his opinions and even expresses misgivings about his cousin theory."

First of all we cited several who discussed the “brothers of Jesus” prior to St Jerome so he was not the first. i.e. staycatholic.com/ecf_mary_ever-virgin.htm

Second of all the article in insight mentions that Jerome later “expresses misgivings” is in no way referenced so that it can be read in context.

SO I don’t know what you believe to have proven here. All the misleading statements seem to still be on the JW side. The point is Jerome could have been wrong about the so called brothers of Jesus being Jesus cousins but the reality of Mary not having other children still be true (if they were Joseph’s children but not Mary’s)

You are actually proving the point that you look at an argument in a one dimensional manner. I don’t think Jerome ever doubted that Mary remained a virgin EVEN if he did abandon the idea that they were not cousins. One thing does not disprove the other.

Now, back to the Trinity. The NWT differs in 10 or so verses that non-JW would say point to the Trinity. Now, if the JW translations are correct, if trinitarian scribes did add/change Bible verses, then how can we trust the Bible? Why didn’t they just change the “brothers” to “cousins” while they were at it? See when you start going down the path that apostasy set in before the books of the Bible were even decided, then the truth is lost.

Finally, you do realize that at the time the early discussions regarding Mary (and the Trinity for that matter) were going on, there was no New Testament yet.