New Find

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Hmm, I will just say one thing : Jehovah and Jesus use the Slave to give us spiritual food.

So, if (and only if) the Slave tells us this little book is good for us, the Bible, and Jehovah's glory, OK !

For now, we do not know enough about it... we do not have any valuable information... so "wait and see".

Exactly my point David! I do know that nothing can stop Jehovah from revealing things later if He purposes to do so. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the Society DOES look into findings like this. New light is always being revealed to us. However, to me many of this doesn't mean much of anything UNTIL the Society does publish something about it and finds that it IS genuine, and Holy Spirit will help them do that if this is genuine stuff. It probably wouldn't be too wise to sit here now though and say "new scrolls!!" and get all hyped up unless something like this is made official. So to go along with David's comment, it's best to just wait and see! If something is published by the Society about it, then good! If not, then all of our fascination about it is a waste of time for the most part.

[jeremy]

None of these versions came through a "recognised arrangement" they came to us through Christendom and not the Society, the only thing about the Bible that comes to us through the Society is the translation of the Bible which we use and the interpretation, all else to do with the physical text of the Bible has been passed down through Christendom.

Stuart, This is a response in tandem to your comment here and your address in My position on things. You are very evidently a deep thinking person, and perhaps your thinking goes deeper than the common garden variety like myself, in certain areas. I agree with you on most of what you say here respecting the bible and the words therein. However, I would like to point out that you may be very wrong in your thinking that Christendom has been the protector of Gods Words over the last 2000 years. (That is in essence what you imply by

None of these versions came through a "recognised arrangement" they came to us through Christendom and not the Society, the only thing about the Bible that comes to us through the Society is the translation of the Bible which we use and the interpretation, all else to do with the physical text of the Bible has been passed down through Christendom.

Nothing could be further from the truth in that statement. May I remind you that despite the so called Dark Ages, The Faithful and Discreet Slave has been active throughout that period. We may not know exact details of who, but we do have a pretty good idea. And we also know that Jesus was with them throughout that period. I'm not going to go into an explainantion here as it is covered in the Society's publications, and you may do well to refresh yourself by some research into these.

Does that make your suggestion wrong that new findings could change the way the Society views things? Absolutely not. Why would they stop seeking for truths? So I agree, the NWT may not be the be all and end all of translations, after all, much adjustment has been made in the past on the basis of findings in little caves. I for one enjoy comparing other translations and obtaining different language flavours, and even the Society takes frequent quotations from other translations.

As far as your political stance goes on things, I have no doubt in my mind that you side with Jehovah's Kingdom. It is just that your political observations may appear to some to be overly indepth. I realise it is just your personal interest and to be honest, and I've said similar before, you lose me in the first few words. It really doesn't worry me, however it can be confusing to others. I don't know how you can do it, but try to simplify your commentaries, and at least bring back some way of showing glory to God's Kingdom.

What worries me is the attitude that if something doesn't come from the Society then it is worthless, even if it is Biblical. This I find somewhat blind and narrow and the kind of thing that is seen in the more extreme parts of Christendom, the KJV only crowd has exactly the same attitude and it amounts to a virtual worship of the words of the Bible and pushing the message into the background.

I do think this is a bit harsh. You must remember that for the vast majority of us, we benefit from and enjoy a unique area of protection in this world by being one of Jehovah's Witnesses. It is not blind and narrowminded, it is a matter of trusting the Slave, whom Jesus has appointed. Certainly we can have an enquiring mind, but not all want to or need to.

I hope that others on this board can see your posts for what the really are, that you are sincere, and you are offering some deep thoughts on various issues. Maybe just tone them down a little and find a way that points back to Jehovah's Kingdom so that the friends here are reminded why you say certain things.

Your brother

Jeremy

[Shawnster]

If this is a genuine collection of documents and not a forgery and is from the first century as they believe we may have to rethink what we believe about the form of the stauros:

If this proves true. The mixed up backstory/recent history surrounding this find is enough to make me skeptical. Additionally, what evidence do we have that this has anything to do with Christianity? Just the images? Plus, if they haven't dated the find yet, it may well be from any time period and not the first century.

In regards the understanding of the word stauros, we've got way too many sources already available to us give us the definition of being an upright stake or pole. These independent sources aren't going to be easily undone by one simple find like this. Time definitely will tell what this find makes on our understanding, but the mountain of evidence we already have will be difficult to overcome.

In regards what others have said here regarding Jehovah and his word. Jehovah being as powerful as he is definitely has the ability (and exercised that ability) to ensure that the written word we have today is the written word he wanted us to have. It's kinda late in the day, so to speak, to have an archeological find show up now that will radically alter what we already know and understand about the Bible translation wise.

[Brother_Bliss]

Good comment Shawn about it being "late in the day".

I was also thinking about the shape of the stauros and whether or not it had a crossbeam. The bottom line is.... Does it really matter? The shape of the instrument of Christ's death really means nothing at all. Of course, to Christendom it means everything, and thus it is so obviously idolatry in their case.

Isn't it already a determined fact that "torture stakes" of ancient times took on a variety of shapes?

In the end though, stauros = stake or pole.

[sweetwillow58]

I feel like a dork, I don't see any picture, or anything that looks like a face. It must be like one of those trick posters with the dots you have to stare at to see the picture in it. I never do lol.

[bookworm]

What I gather from my reading of the Bible and the Slave's writings is that there will be new "scrolls" given us after we have entered the new system, but the Bible is complete for us now, it holds everything we need to get us there.

[tekmantwo]

but the Bible is complete for us now' date=' it holds everything we need to get us there.[/quote']

B.I.B.L.E.

B asic

I nstruction

B efore

L ife

E verlasting

saw this somewhere, thought it was cool.....

love you guys....

[stuagu]

thats nice tim, and even i might be able to remember it!)'>

[Lady Tee]

but the Bible is complete for us now' date=' it holds everything we need to get us there.[/quote']

B.I.B.L.E.

B asic

I nstruction

B efore

L ife

E verlasting

saw this somewhere, thought it was cool.....

love you guys....

this is nice, l like it! I wish this could stay in my memory.

[retroHelen]

I was very sceptical when I saw the news reports about these lead codices. Newspapers varied in the story of how the codices came to public view, varied as to the material they were made of; varied as to how many pages were in the codices and as to what was written on them - suspicious. The news photographs showed pages from the codices and as coin collectors we recognised some and had this confirmed by Robert Deutch, who we had bought ancient coins from in Jaffa/Joppa a few years ago. One page is a copy of the BarKochba coin inscription and picture. Other pages are copying coins of different eras too:

http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/a-follow-up-by-robert-deutsch-on-the-lead-codices/

Other pages were shown up to be poorly copied inscriptions of tombstones of various ages in cemeteries or museums in Isreal/Amman:

http://danielomcclellan.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/peter-thonemann-on-the-lead-codices/

Archeological scholars then questioned the validity of the 'scholar' who brought the codices to the attention of the media, only to find that his only expertise seemed to be in parapsychology and he had written a book on interpreting dreams. This all reminds me of the arrest and trial in Isreal of Oded Golan and the discovery of his sophisticated chemist laboratory. He, and others not found, had been presenting Biblical archeological finds to museums and wealthy collectors around the world for millions of dollars. Then he tried to sell the James Ossuarry - purporting to have been found in a tomb at Jerusalem and having Jesus' family names on. It broke in transit and revealed that its patination was a clever chemical forgery. Linguists then read the inscription and found modern Hebrew amongst the old. Museums throughout the world had to relook at all the Biblical Finds they were displaying that they bought from him to find they were displaying many forgeries. It's as if Satan has muddied the waters of Biblical archeology nicely, playing on: people's greed to own something famous; politics to prove Isreal's claims to their land; and others who would dearly like more proof that the Bible is true - we have to be so careful. http://jamesossuarytrial.blogspot.com/

[Rosalie4u]

I know that the faithful slave examine all these things for validity and if they are important for us. I remember so many years ago that at a District Convention one of the speakers from Bethel told us they were looking into the claims of a group that created a computer program that was counting letters (like every 50th, or something like that) of the Bible and that they were getting important information, etc. This was very interesting to hear and told me that the faithful slave do pay careful attention to these claims in order to decide if they are important or not. By the way, later, it was revealed that this letter counting computer program was all rubbish.