Hellenism and all christians

[Pyrrho]

The New Testament is heavily influenced by Hellenism.  The miracle stories of Jesus, for example.  Read Hellenistic miracle stories and you will see the same sorts of things going on.

Anything written in Greek is written in the language of Hellenism, so you need to get rid of all originally Greek texts.  That means you pretty much have to throw out the entire New Testament if you don't want Hellenistic influences in your religion.

Now, if you reject the New Testament, then you might be able to get rid of Hellenistic influences.

[Pyrrho]

For examples of miracle stories that are similar, you can search online.  You can also look here for a few:

http://pocm.info/pagan_ideas_miracles.html

See also:

Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels

[Simon Moon]

So me and rhythms who I have a love/hate relationship with got into about amalgamation of pagan festivities into christian doctrines. I said that Jehovah's witnesses have gotten rid of the pagan customs in their modern day beliefs but he said that we're full of them. I would like to know what they are. And if it goes back to hellenism and how the jews started it around 2 B.C.E. then thats fine too.

Seems to me, that any religion that has a dying and rising god-man, has pagan beliefs, since pagan dying and rising god-men predated Jesus.

[abaris]

The New Testament is heavily influenced by Hellenism.  The miracle stories of Jesus, for example.  Read Hellenistic miracle stories and you will see the same sorts of things going on.

But Dyonisos pulled a much better trick of changing water into wine. He took care of a whole well instead of just a few barrels.

[Won2blv]

The JW's didn't remove Hellenistic influences; they did take action to make their religion less Hellenistic but in practice they just pulled their religion out of Christianity entirely.

The "pagan" influences are things like celebrating Easter, they don't do it because they believe the date chosen by the west was picked to coincide with previous pagan holy days. They're absolutely correct, they were. However, it doesn't really matter what day is chosen for them according to the very oldest branches of Christianity, the Russian Orthodox for instance celebrate Christmas during mid January. All that matters is that the occasion is observed at some point during the year which the JW's of course don't do.

The other thing they did was "purge Gods words", a.k.a they made their own "translation" of the Old and New Testament that JW's are told are the only version of the Bible they can read since it has been "purified" of Hellenism. What actually happened was they rewrote pretty much the entire damn thing, and a JW bible says Book of Mormon level crazy shit you won't see in any other version. For instance Jesus apparently didn't die on the cross, and he's also the Archangel Michael not just the son of God (so reincarnation is also a thing in JW theology, which is odd since they also teach there is no afterlife for all but the 144,000). Jehova and Yahweh are also two different people go figure. I don't know what's funnier, the fact they believe it or the fact JEHOVA is actually a bastardization of Jove (Jupiter/Zeus).

So yeah, they're actually Zeus' Witnesses not Jesus'. Also the Wachtowers concept of the "invisible return" of Jesus smacks very strongly of the Classical deities descending from Olympus to walk amongst mortals as they did in Homers Odyssey and Illiad.

The fact they're claiming not to be Hellenised is nothing short of hilarious, of all the Christian denominations they're one of the worst for it! Even the Catholics and Greek Orthodox don't claim fucking Zeus is an aspect (not trinity, JW's don't believe in a trinity but they do accept a partnership of Archangel Michael, Jehovah/Zeus and Yahweh) of the one God.

Interesting points but I would like to correct you in a few areas.

1. The NWT is not just a rewriting of the whole bible and a joke. Look up the wikipedia page. There are criticisms but the overall view is that the work is "excellent."

2. Jesus being Michael is a doctrinal issue not a textual issue.

3. Jesus dying on a stake not a cross does have some compelling evidence. The word often translated into cross is styros, meaning stake or tree

4. Do you have references for Jehovah being Zues? Or even that Jehovah and Yahweh are two separate entities?

[Metis]

1. The NWT is not just a rewriting of the whole bible and a joke. Look up the wikipedia page. There are criticisms but the overall view is that the work is "excellent."

http://biblicalworldviewacademy.org/majo...anslation/

I literally just picked this off the first result off google and it tackles the basic problems well enough. The JW's replace words that don't suit their theology with their own as I mention below.

2. Jesus being Michael is a doctrinal issue not a textual issue.

No other Christian denomination claims Jesus is the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael. We have literally no trace of such a dogma before Charles Taze Russel announced it nor any evidence in scripture to support it.

3. Jesus dying on a stake not a cross does have some compelling evidence. The word often translated into cross is styros, meaning stake or tree

The New World Translation renders the Greek term word staurós ("cross") as "torture stake" because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus was crucified on a cross

This isn't a word with multiple meanings, it literally can only mean cross. Torture Stake would have to be Vasanistí̱ria Pontárisma

4. Do you have references for Jehovah being Zues? Or even that Jehovah and Yahweh are two separate entities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_%28mythology%29

http://www.factsbehindfaith.com/Jehovah.html

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1602123.htm

Jehova is a derivative of Jove, which is the English word for Jupiter. Jupiter is the Latin word for Zeus. St Augustine (as you'll find one of his works in the last links) actually had this problem in his own time with people mistaking the OT god for Zeus due to the similar language Jews and Greeks used to describe both Adonai and Zeus.

[Won2blv]

It's about the contention that by doing away with christmas, JW's have somehow managed to avoid the influence of one of the most dominating and long lasting cultural influences in all of history.  Also known as: a desperate need to be different.

If I take a selfie does that mean that as a JW I am swept up in the Kardashian culture and it means me and my religion are forever tainted by her oily ass? I don't think so. So yes, there are obvious cultural influences throughout history but that doesn't mean it transform your entire identity.

[FatAndFaithless]

Last time I checked 'selfies' weren't a part of any faith, so your comparison is rather useless. If the JW somehow incorporated selfies into their rituals while removing references to the Kardashians in specific, then yes that belief would've been influenced by American culture of that time.

[Won2blv]

1. The NWT is not just a rewriting of the whole bible and a joke. Look up the wikipedia page. There are criticisms but the overall view is that the work is "excellent."

http://biblicalworldviewacademy.org/majo...anslation/

I literally just picked this off the first result off google and it tackles the basic problems well enough. The JW's replace words that don't suit their theology with their own as I mention below.

2. Jesus being Michael is a doctrinal issue not a textual issue.

No other Christian denomination claims Jesus is the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael. We have literally no trace of such a dogma before Charles Taze Russel announced it nor any evidence in scripture to support it.

3. Jesus dying on a stake not a cross does have some compelling evidence. The word often translated into cross is styros, meaning stake or tree

The New World Translation renders the Greek term word staurós ("cross") as "torture stake" because Jehovah’s Witnesses do not believe that Jesus was crucified on a cross

This isn't a word with multiple meanings, it literally can only mean cross. Torture Stake would have to be Vasanistí̱ria Pontárisma

4. Do you have references for Jehovah being Zues? Or even that Jehovah and Yahweh are two separate entities

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_%28mythology%29

http://www.factsbehindfaith.com/Jehovah.html

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1602123.htm

Jehova is a derivative of Jove, which is the English word for Jupiter. Jupiter is the Latin word for Zeus. St Augustine (as you'll find one of his works in the last links) actually had this problem in his own time with people mistaking the OT god for Zeus due to the similar language Jews and Greeks used to describe both Adonai and Zeus.

1. Read the wikipedia page. The most critical are religious figures that have biases of their own. Less biased scholars do criticize for certain aspects but give it an overall good rating for being literal and conservative. The main word that gets added is Jehovah for Kyrios. At some points it makes perfect sense because it'll be in a reference to an OT scripture that used YHWH but sometimes it might have been a bit of a stretch. I will give you that. But it only serves the purpose of the noun or proper noun not the actual context of the scripture. Oh and something being the first result on google is not exactly a proof of its validity

2. No where in the NWT is a scripture stated that Michael is Jesus. Its a doctrinal issue only. JW's believe that they are the same person. So that is bunk to claim that we changed the scriptures to suit that belief

3. Again look up the wiki for stauros. In classical greek it wasn't never used for 2 pieces of wood at a cross. It did later have that identity but there is debate on whether or not it was the method for execution when Jesus was on earth. And what the writers were even referring to. Regardless though, even if Jesus died on a cross it would never be condoned to worship that image. Especially when many scholars have acknowledge that the religious symbol is an amalgamation of the pagan ankh. So it wouldn't make a difference to JW's ultimately whether or not he died on a cross but it seems like some would have a biased reason to make it a biblical "truth"

4. Yeah sorry but those were all pretty useless. Jehovah is the most common know rendition of the tetragrammaton. That is why JW's use it. It isn't exactly the most important thing as to whether or not it is the correct one. We don't know the original pronunciation of his name. Those references didn't address the point you're making which I believe is that Jehovah a syncretism of Zues or Jupiter or Jove. Or that Jehovah and Yahweh are 2 separate entities. Hint, if they sound the same doesn't mean they are the same

[Won2blv]

Last time I checked 'selfies' weren't a part of any faith, so your comparison is rather useless.  If the JW somehow incorporated selfies into their rituals while removing references to the Kardashians in specific, then yes that belief would've been influenced by American culture of that time.

I'm differentiating that a cultural influences doesn't equate an entire personality makeover into a new religion. So observing how much the Greek culture transformed the world doesn't mean that all humans have pagan beliefs in their thoughts and beliefs. You could say that in our day the internet culture is transforming peoples and cultures.