Mr. Herbert Armstrong and World Wide Church of God?Sheshbazzar wrote:I understand all to well where you are coming from John in your interpretation of Acts 15:19-21, as having spent over two decades as a member of a very legalistic messianic cult that held this same view of this text.
Of course we both know, or should know, that this is by far not all that 'Paul' or the Scriptures have to say on this matter.
I lived thus. All The Sabbaths, the Feasts, the keeping of kosher, to the limits of what extent that any foreign born gentile possibly could.
Yearly, I observed an all night vigil in the sanctuary of the Assembly on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moth of Abib,(Deut 16:1) marking off the hours from the beginning of that month, studying both Tanakh and 'NT' texts till the rising of the sun.
In so 'observing' and in the 'doing' I learned a great many things. Both about time and measure (Ecc 8:5) and about myself and those around me. Not that I was 'justified' or 'righteous' by this, but that there are lessons to learned through humility.
Sheshbazzar
The Myth of Jewish Christianity
Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Sheshbazzar
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Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity
By no means. And no time ever affiliated with.John T wrote:
Mr. Herbert Armstrong and World Wide Church of God?
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Sheshbazzar
- Posts: 391
- Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:21 am
Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity
A long post bcedaifu,
and far too many preconceptions and leaps for me to address here. I am not ignoring you, but if you are sincere in inquiring anything of me do feel free to pose simple and straight forward questions that you wish to have answered.
Your extended and elaborate post appears to be more of a rhetorical construct intended to present your own views and arguments, rather than being any genuine seeking of my views.
respectfully, Sheshbazzar
and far too many preconceptions and leaps for me to address here. I am not ignoring you, but if you are sincere in inquiring anything of me do feel free to pose simple and straight forward questions that you wish to have answered.
Your extended and elaborate post appears to be more of a rhetorical construct intended to present your own views and arguments, rather than being any genuine seeking of my views.
respectfully, Sheshbazzar
Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity
If you care to share, I have the Encyclopedia of American Religions that lists/breaks down hundreds of different denominations.Sheshbazzar wrote:By no means. And no time ever affiliated with.John T wrote:
Mr. Herbert Armstrong and World Wide Church of God?
If not, that is fine with me as well.
Sincerely,
John T
"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."...Jonathan Swift
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Sheshbazzar
- Posts: 391
- Joined: Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:21 am
Re: The Myth of Jewish Christianity
No way, neither I nor the congregation(s) make any claim to being 'Jews', 'Jewish', or a 'Jewish' organization, although we do have a few Jews among the membership.
To be clear, because of the excess legalism, textual abuses, and tolerated disrespectful crudity towards 'outsiders' that I encountered, I departed, and subsequently became an atheist. I have not had any further involvement, nor contacts with this organization in well over a decade, howbeit I am aware that they are still going strong, gaining members, and expanding.
What I experienced there was more a matter of personal awareness, and of being in the right frame of mind, in the right place, at exactly the right time,
a once in an incalculable billions occurrence.
Perhaps the point that I should emphasize here is this;
'Yearly, I observed an all night vigil ('layil Shemorim' cf Ex 12:42) in the sanctuary of the Assembly on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moth of Abib,(Deut 16:1) marking off the hours from the beginning of that month, studying both Tanakh and 'NT' texts till the rising of the sun.
In the course of so personally and earnestly engaging year after year after year, as that midnight hour of the fourteenth day of the first month approached, year by year I became more and more conscious of the time, not only that of my own local Time Zone, but also in Jerusalem and in other locations of the world.
Quite naturally then, as midnight of the fourteenth day of the first month (which comes only at one set point in each year) I would remain in the Sanctuary in prayer and in study counting down the hours ...and the minutes, and then the seconds.
During this same period I had been devoting much study to the Hebrew language, and specifically to the ancient Hebrew system of standard lineal measures, even to the extent of constructing precision 'measuring reeds'.
Then came a year, and day, when the equinox, and the first (visible) new moon of the year, fell upon the first day of the week, on the first day of the year.
And from that day in that year, I no longer counted days and hours only till midnight of the fourteenth, and then to Pentecost, but from that day in that year, by six different calendars, Accounting along parallel timelines, the passage of both solar and lunar years, and in every 'calendar', was able to track time to the second over 1260 days, and over 2520 days, multiple, invariable and to the second (217,722,000 seconds) 360 full week cycles.
15 full days =360 hours. 90 full days = 2160 hours (number of degrees in the included angles of any perfect rectilinear figure. ...look for such being described within the texts. as Eze 40 + )
105 days = 15 full weeks =2520 hours, the 24th part of 2520 days or 360 weeks.
With acquired practice and skill the math computations can be performed upon the ten digits of your hands;
Successively multiplying the 10 'digits/'fingers' of your hand = 3,628,800, no mere coincidence, the exact number of minutes contained in 360 full weeks.
Performed often enough even the large numbers become ingrained in memory, and recallable at an instant.
And thus I did, and have done years and decades on on end, observing and becoming aware of many and more arcane and esoteric matters.
Most often, whenever I venture to share and to explain these matters, the hearers jump to a conclusion that by means of this math or calendar system I am attempting to find, or to determine the date for "'The Second Coming", "The End of The World", or "Armageddon".
Nothing could be further from the truth. As I most certainly do not believe that there ever was a living Jesus of Nazareth, or ever any 'first coming', I could hardly be engaged in looking for a second one.
And as my discovered 'calendar' stretches from the first instant of time into infinity, there is no 'End of The World', other than that all events small and great occur at precise points along that invariable and impartial timeline.
I do not accept nor anticipate that there will ever be any 'Armageddon' waged, other than on an entirely 'spiritual' level, where at long last mankind's ancient religious ignorance and superstitions will finally be overcame and defeated by accumulated accurate mathematical/geometrical knowledge and advancing science.
So my efforts and struggle is not in the promotion of any 'religion', unless you consider the exacting and invariable principals and disciplines of precision 'measurements' and of applied mathematics, and the invariable rules of of geometry to be a 'religion', and not a science, and the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Atheism did not and does not in any way diminish the significance of this exacting knowledge, but with my estrangement and alienation from members of the faith, and that incredulity, unbelief, disrespect, mockery, or ignoring I have encountered at every attempt to reveal or to share this store of accumulated experience and knowledge in this venue, I am constrained to remaining the 'odd' man out' upon all fronts.
What I have found, no organized religion (not even that one I was a member of) wants, as knowledge of it interferes with and overthrows their present held traditions and preconceptions, upsetting their carefully constructed apple carts.
Atheism is turned off to any serious investigation of these "religious" findings, through an inherent animosity towards anything that might tend to lend the least bit of legitimacy to the contents of the Bible.
So I go along, ever offering so little, as too much always chokes the unprepared and the unbelieving. Perhaps my gift will go down to the grave with me, I do not know, but it seems such a waste.
Not without hope though, I wait for the day that Archaeology brings forth that perfect calendar that I know once had to have existed, which although I can reconstruct, I have never laid eyes on an original.
As it needs for a clear conscience sake, to be both reported and recorded. This is that place that I have selected to deposit it for posterity.
I post nothing of this knowledge in any other location, nor under any other name.
Excuse my rambling and reminiscing if you will.
What would you do?
Sheshbazzar
To be clear, because of the excess legalism, textual abuses, and tolerated disrespectful crudity towards 'outsiders' that I encountered, I departed, and subsequently became an atheist. I have not had any further involvement, nor contacts with this organization in well over a decade, howbeit I am aware that they are still going strong, gaining members, and expanding.
Giving you a name, you certainly could find them listed in such a reference, But as my beliefs were even then quite divergent from the positions and teachings officially promulgated in their literature and media, it would provide very little in the way of representing my understanding of the same texts, or personal observances or practices while I engaged in the observing of the same 'set times' >(moedim) while living amongst these.I have the Encyclopedia of American Religions that lists/breaks down hundreds of different denominations.
What I experienced there was more a matter of personal awareness, and of being in the right frame of mind, in the right place, at exactly the right time,
a once in an incalculable billions occurrence.
Perhaps the point that I should emphasize here is this;
'Yearly, I observed an all night vigil ('layil Shemorim' cf Ex 12:42) in the sanctuary of the Assembly on the evening of the fourteenth day of the moth of Abib,(Deut 16:1) marking off the hours from the beginning of that month, studying both Tanakh and 'NT' texts till the rising of the sun.
In the course of so personally and earnestly engaging year after year after year, as that midnight hour of the fourteenth day of the first month approached, year by year I became more and more conscious of the time, not only that of my own local Time Zone, but also in Jerusalem and in other locations of the world.
Quite naturally then, as midnight of the fourteenth day of the first month (which comes only at one set point in each year) I would remain in the Sanctuary in prayer and in study counting down the hours ...and the minutes, and then the seconds.
During this same period I had been devoting much study to the Hebrew language, and specifically to the ancient Hebrew system of standard lineal measures, even to the extent of constructing precision 'measuring reeds'.
Then came a year, and day, when the equinox, and the first (visible) new moon of the year, fell upon the first day of the week, on the first day of the year.
And from that day in that year, I no longer counted days and hours only till midnight of the fourteenth, and then to Pentecost, but from that day in that year, by six different calendars, Accounting along parallel timelines, the passage of both solar and lunar years, and in every 'calendar', was able to track time to the second over 1260 days, and over 2520 days, multiple, invariable and to the second (217,722,000 seconds) 360 full week cycles.
15 full days =360 hours. 90 full days = 2160 hours (number of degrees in the included angles of any perfect rectilinear figure. ...look for such being described within the texts. as Eze 40 + )
105 days = 15 full weeks =2520 hours, the 24th part of 2520 days or 360 weeks.
With acquired practice and skill the math computations can be performed upon the ten digits of your hands;
Successively multiplying the 10 'digits/'fingers' of your hand = 3,628,800, no mere coincidence, the exact number of minutes contained in 360 full weeks.
Performed often enough even the large numbers become ingrained in memory, and recallable at an instant.
And thus I did, and have done years and decades on on end, observing and becoming aware of many and more arcane and esoteric matters.
Most often, whenever I venture to share and to explain these matters, the hearers jump to a conclusion that by means of this math or calendar system I am attempting to find, or to determine the date for "'The Second Coming", "The End of The World", or "Armageddon".
Nothing could be further from the truth. As I most certainly do not believe that there ever was a living Jesus of Nazareth, or ever any 'first coming', I could hardly be engaged in looking for a second one.
And as my discovered 'calendar' stretches from the first instant of time into infinity, there is no 'End of The World', other than that all events small and great occur at precise points along that invariable and impartial timeline.
I do not accept nor anticipate that there will ever be any 'Armageddon' waged, other than on an entirely 'spiritual' level, where at long last mankind's ancient religious ignorance and superstitions will finally be overcame and defeated by accumulated accurate mathematical/geometrical knowledge and advancing science.
So my efforts and struggle is not in the promotion of any 'religion', unless you consider the exacting and invariable principals and disciplines of precision 'measurements' and of applied mathematics, and the invariable rules of of geometry to be a 'religion', and not a science, and the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe.
Atheism did not and does not in any way diminish the significance of this exacting knowledge, but with my estrangement and alienation from members of the faith, and that incredulity, unbelief, disrespect, mockery, or ignoring I have encountered at every attempt to reveal or to share this store of accumulated experience and knowledge in this venue, I am constrained to remaining the 'odd' man out' upon all fronts.
What I have found, no organized religion (not even that one I was a member of) wants, as knowledge of it interferes with and overthrows their present held traditions and preconceptions, upsetting their carefully constructed apple carts.
Atheism is turned off to any serious investigation of these "religious" findings, through an inherent animosity towards anything that might tend to lend the least bit of legitimacy to the contents of the Bible.
So I go along, ever offering so little, as too much always chokes the unprepared and the unbelieving. Perhaps my gift will go down to the grave with me, I do not know, but it seems such a waste.
Not without hope though, I wait for the day that Archaeology brings forth that perfect calendar that I know once had to have existed, which although I can reconstruct, I have never laid eyes on an original.
As it needs for a clear conscience sake, to be both reported and recorded. This is that place that I have selected to deposit it for posterity.
I post nothing of this knowledge in any other location, nor under any other name.
Excuse my rambling and reminiscing if you will.
What would you do?
Sheshbazzar