penworks

GSC for me is a place to learn from other people and, as a result, clarify my thinking a bit more about my twi experience. Sometimes, it's a place to share some of my twi experience when I feel it'll help. It's a place where I can offer info that'll throw light on some topics of interest. It's also a place where, in doing these things, I believe I can extend some compassion and understanding to others sometimes...hey what can I say? I once was a girl scout I think they brainwashed me It's a tall order, for sure...but hey, shoot for the stars and you might hit the fence. I confess - I often have trouble with the "respect authority" item... Here's what I found on the web: The Girl Scout Promise On my honor, I will try: To serve God* and my country, To help people at all times, And to live by the Girl Scout Law. The Girl Scout Law I will do my best to be honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring, courageous and strong, and responsible for what I say and do, and to respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout. * The word "God" can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one's spiritual beliefs. When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word "God" with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate.

Indeed, patience is sorely lacking nowadays when it comes to Bible topics, I've found. In response to this thread's title, Wierwille's *research* I can add a few comments, which I've posted elsewhere on gsc, but they may shed some light for readers of this thread, also. A common sentiment of many former twi followers seems to be "too bad twi turned sour, it could've been so great," or similar wishes. I felt that myself for a little while [very little] back in 84-86 when I was struggling. It was not easy to face my dream's disintegration. The assumptions on which vpw built his ministry were not clear or understandable to me when I first took PFAL as a teenager. And I wasn't aware of what questions to ask, etc. Years later, I came to understand the system was a closed one from the beginning. He based his ministry on the "truth" that the Bible was perfect and it was God's Word from Genesis to Revelation. He said he threw out all his textbooks (probably including textual criticism, etc.) and decided Rosalind Rinker had the truth: that The Bible was the Word of God, and the Word of God was the Will of God. Info on her is available on the Internet. IMO the religious context of a group like twi is part Fundamentalism and part Evangelicalism, neither of which leaves much wiggle room for questions like we've been asking over in the post, "what does 'scripture' refer to." In general, the questions there are in the catagory of what's known as textual and historical criticism which is NOT encouraged in twi or similar groups. Why? Those questions seem to undercut the assumptions that the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, has to be perfect, without contradictions, historically accurate, etc. etc. and be the only truth in the universe in order to make life worth living. Seems to me people found life worth living for YEARS before the Bible was around, but that's just me. When I got involved (during the dinosaur era of 1970 ) this ministry promoted itself as one devoted to biblical research. The people who witnessed to me claimed that if "we" learned more, we would teach it, that if "we" discovered that "we" were wrong in something we already had taught, we could change as "we" learned new things in research. Sounded good to me. I think vp tried this approach back in Van Wert when he first left the organized church but after the PFAL class was recorded, changing anything in it would have been pretty hard. Even now, although the current twi group no longer runs this original class, I've heard that the teachings are very similar, and the same is pretty much true for some of the twi "offshoot ministries" as they are called. I could be wrong, but that's what I've seen so far on their web sites. Anyway, some folks seem to like the framework of Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism, but some of us eventually realized that wasn't for us. The sad part for me was that in the end, it became clear that twi had an agenda different than those words I initially heard long ago [not to mention that I discovered how some of the teachings were copied from other people, etc. even though they were claimed to be original twi teachings.] The Word over the World was the goal, and to my understanding that came to be defined as letting everyone in the world say yes or no to The Word that twi taught. The "accuracy of the Word" was for the most part defined in the PFAL class and other twi teachings. Perhaps this sheds some light on the topic of this thread... Life is short. Follow your bliss, as Joseph Campbell would say. I'm going to do some more gardening while the weather is lovely.

A bit on this topic from Karen Armstrong's The Bible, a Biography pg 41: "[Daniel] was particularly preoccupied by Jeremiah's prediction of the number of years that must pass 'before the successive devastations of Jerusalem would come to an end, namely seventy years.' [refer to Jeremiah 25:11-12 and Daniel 9:3]. The second-century [bCE] author [Daniel] was clearly not interested in the original meaning of the text: Jeremiah had obviously prophesied, in a round figure, the length of the Babylonian exile. He [Daniel] wanted to find an entirely new significance in the ancient oracle that would bring comfort to the Jews who were anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Maccabean wars. This would become typical of Jewish exegesis. Instead of looking back to uncover its historical meaning, the interpreter would make the text speak to the present and the future." ex-twi folks: Does that last line sound familiar? ~ Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. ~ George Santayana ~ Those who are not curious about the past are never enlightened by it ~ penworks :unsure:

Mmm...this thread has taken several interesting turns! It's fun to see the thinking going on. Yesterday I attended a graduation at which the commencement speaker encouraged the graduates to continue...are you ready?...READING. It seems to be a lost art. I do feel it is an art....an art of the inquisitive mind. A friend of mine sent me the link below to a site with textual info and stuff on topics we've been discussing here. For the past 20 years, he's conducted group discussions at his "sunday school" about these topics and found these tapes helpful. Granted, they cost something, but then, doesn't everything? For free, you read the summaries of the tapes' contents and see what scholar or author is on the tape. Some of them have books you can check out in the library. Visit www.Teach12.com. On the left, click "Religion" and you'll see a list of topics pertinent to this thread. See you 'round the forums!

Welcome to the gsc, Ghost, where there's lots of people with lots of ideas, jokes, and well...just plain common sense. Enjoy!

Yes, Happy Mothers' Day to all moms everywhere. Enjoy it! I am already... :D

Wonderful, insightful post, T-Bone. Thank you very much! This sentence of yours is one I hope to keep in mind a long time and remember in times of complacency: "...in my humble opinion, learning and growth come to those who have the courage to step outside their comfort zone…it makes for a more interesting experience, anyway." Thanks and cheers!

Good morning. Reply to DontWorryBeHappy: Your depiction of what it was like to do research at twi is very fair [and lively!]. I was in very similar meetings with vic and others and saw the same patterns of methodology. Sometimes it was very tense. Sometimes he picked a Greek word over a Syriac word or vice versa to fit with what he called his "scope of the Word" or what he'd say "had to be the original." In the end, vic was the authority. Given the paramenters [straight-jackets for some of us] vp had declared, i.e. the PFAL keys to research and the fundamentalist claim that the bible had to have no "errors," only a certain kind of debate was acceptable before he made up his mind. And I saw no free debates to change anything after he decided what THE WORD was. To be fair, some of us let his status intimidate us into not challenging him. But I know of some who did challenge him. They either walked away or were kicked out and the details of those situations mostly were relegated to the "lockbox," much like some women's stories we know of now... Reply to InvisibleDan: Yeah, the unknown can be a disorienting place, but like you, I think it's worth the adventure of keeping a curious mind alive. My "faith" or "spiritual life" doesn't need written sources like it used to. Reply to Socks: Mmm...gotta think about this last post of yours for awhile. Meanwhile, for those interested, here are a few sites that give some info on where the heck II Peter came from: Second Epistle of Peter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Commentaries and reference books have placed 2 Peter in almost every decade from 60 to ... Although 2 Peter internally purports to be a work of the apostle, ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Epistle_of_Peter - 73k - Cached - Similar pages More results from en.wikipedia.org » 2 Peter Kummel presents the arguments that make all critical scholars recognize that II Peter is a pseudepigraph (Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 430-4): ... www.earlychristianwritings.com/2peter.html - 47k - Cached - Similar pages Bible Basics - II Peter This letter, like I Peter, bears the name of the apostle. But most scholars (even from early times) believe that it was written in the name of Peter, ... netministries.org/Bbasics/BB2Peter.htm - 4k - Cached - Similar pages CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Epistles of Saint Peter Eusebius of Caesarea (340), while personally accepting II Peter as authentic and canonical, nevertheless classes it among the disputed works (antilegomena), ... www.newadvent.org/cathen/11752a.htm - 51k - Cached - Similar pages USCCB - NAB - 2 Peter 1 1 [1] Symeon Peter: on the authorship of 2 Peter, see Introduction; on the spelling here of the Hebrew name Simon, cf Acts 15:14. The greeting is especially ... www.usccb.org/nab/bible/2peter/2peter1.htm - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Lindy... and Invisible..., Your input is very intriguing and makes me feel as if I'm not the only one with these sorts of questions. Thanks! I've been thinking along these lines for some time now and have read in other sources some of what you outline here. While it may not be important to some, to me it's very important to understand what these documents are before I go around quoting them and saying "Thus said the Lord," or claiming these documents are The Word of God. That was what I felt when I brought up this issue to the founder of the first twi offshoot, which I mentioned in the beginning of this post. I understood he did not want to address my question. It's scary. It had been frightening for me at first to consider what I'd learned in twi might not be the whole story. If you start thinking about these things, you begin to doubt what you know. One question leads to another. Then you don't have a nice doctrine to promote. I also am concerned when I hear people saying "I believe the Bible." What exactly does that phrase mean? It seems it could mean anything. Sure I believe it exists. Sure I believe there are some true sayings in it and much good advice for moral and compassionate living (if I ignore the violence in the O.T. and the ostracizing etc. in the N.T.). But that's not what people usually mean. I just don't know what people mean unless I pin them down and ask them to clarify. I ask, "You believe WHAT about the Bible?" I honestly want to know. But often people get defensive so then I quit. Sometimes they say, "It's God's Word whether you believe it or not." That just does not help me. When I left twi, they said, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." But they didn't explain what the BABY is. God? At this point, I'm inclinded to go with something the religion historian, Karen Armstrong points out, "The major religions all insist that the practice of daily, hourly compassion will introduce us to God, Nirvana, and the Dao. An exegesis based on the 'principle of charity' would be a spiritual discipline that is deeply needed in our torn and fragmented world." The Bible - a Biography. pg. 229. Guess that's my 2 cents for today. Cheers!

Oh, Dan the great biblical researcher, thank you over and over for recovering this lost text. Truly you have set us free! Haven't laughed this hard over good satire for while. Were you around when we used to say "GMIR a minute." ? Thanks for the info in the II Peter 1:20 thread. penworks

Hello again, I've found all the responses on this topic very interesting and thought-provoking. It's been said that one's ideas need to be challenged to become clear to oneself. Thus, the need for debate. Thus, democracy (or at least a republic ). So thanks everyone at gsc. Socks, I like the way you pointed out that there are various ways "God" can communicate with us. Indeed! (Here I'll put in a plug for William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. Real quick before I need to cook dinner - ya'll might find these helpful: 1. IMO this is a good source regarding N.T.: http://www.ntcanon.org/index.shtml 2. There are sites with the chronology of NT writings. One I like includes other events going on in the world at the time of the writings (but watch out, it's compiled by "atheists" http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/chri...ron_xian_nt.htm happy studying...

Thanks, socks. You've given me much to ponder. Gotta go now and take care of family matters, but will check back later. Again, I appreciate your thought-out post. enjoy your day!

To brideofjc: No need to take my comments personally. And no big deal about the Ehrman, Pagels, etc. opinions. We're mature enough here to agree to disagree, right? ...cheers!

Just to clarify, the emphasis of my sentence should have started with the fact the translation is from 1611 and may or may not reflect what the writer meant when he wrote it. It may not necessarily have the exact same definition of the 1611 English word ... I did not mean to be unfair to John, only to say that sometimes a word's definition in one language doesn't carry the original meaning from another language, especially when that original language you're translating from is such a different culture from so long ago. peace, penworks No need to take that personally. peace, penworks

p.s. I agree some people get too caught up with the Book, what books make up the book, and what each Greek, Hebrew, etc. word might mean and forget about their "spiritual life" whatever they want to call that experience. These issues are of historical and literary interest, as far as I am concerned. Some people call preoccupation with the Bible "bibliolatry." We used to scoff in twi when critics accused us of that. Now I suspect they were right about some people but not all... peace, penworks

Weigh everything with caution, I say. In particular, watch out for people who are trying to control what you read and find out what is motivating them. For me the old phrase "line up with The Word of God" (I remember vp using that phrase) is subjective, and depends on who is defining what it means and describing how to do it. In my experience, the actual doing of that is what has raised all my questions to begin with. And "line it up" seems an odd expression to apply to language. Language IMO is a way of expressing ideas and is not an exact scientific endeavor, like math or physics. Not to mention how translating from one language to another includes interpretation, etc. This is not like solving equations. Anyhow, I suspect this discussion encompasses far too much for an Internet forum. BTW - Ehrman raises intellectually honest questions, IMO. They are not flippant questions. And, I don't see any trite or vague phrases to explain anything. He does not insult my intelligence or assume I can't think for myself. As you can readily see from all my posts, I think it's important to read as widely as one can on any topic, not in search of THE ANSWER, but to keep one's mind alive and well and curious. Cheers! penworks

George, you asked: Is it intellectually honest to approach your search for the "Truth" with the a-priori assumption that The Bible is "The Word of God"? I sure wouldn't think so. Why should The Bible be given such authority, right out of the box, when there's so many other works with claims of Divine authorship available? My comments: I think these are good and honest questions, and are ones I've asked for years, too. For me, the awareness of how this idea originated has helped. The Fundamentals, published in the 1920s, helped establish this a-priori assumption in this country, but looking back to John Wycliffe's time in England also sheds some light. Check out Wide as the Waters by Benson Bobrick. It is a great lesson in the history of how the English Bible came to be, the Catholic and Protestant views that challenged (many times drew blood) each other, etc. and brought us up to this time of labeling the Bible as The Word of God. Protestants threw out the authority of the Catholics who held church dogma (passed along for centuries) and scripture as two sources for directing conduct. Luther's protests against the Church came later and only made the idea stronger IMO. Again, this is a huge topic which encompasses inerrancy, translations, versions, history, politics, etc. And, indeed, other works like the Koran etc. claim divine authorship. A good source for gaining a scope of world religions and myths is Joseph Campbell's work. Now we're getting into a really huge topic. Since I'm no scholar, only a person asking pesky questions, I'll stop here. Gotta go do some gardening now... peace, penworks

Well, I do think Elaine Pagels has done some excellent work, but I'm a "liberal" so that's okay with me... :) And I view Ehrman as one of the few willing to stick his neck out on topics such as this and not hold back. peace, penworks

Indeed, Estrangelo is the name of a script used to write the Syriac or "Aramaic" language. There are other scripts, too, like the Jacobite or Nestorian used in writing/printing the New Testament.

Regarding this : "In 1611, it is very important that you understand that at that time study did not mean read. It meant to understudy and make a diligent effort when you understudy the person." What John S. left out of this explanation is that this verse wasn't WRITTEN in 1611, it was TRANSLATED in 1611. He's giving you an interpretation of what the TRANSLATORS meant by "study." The translators were not the WRITERS of the verse. They had to pick which English word to use that they thought would carry the meaning of the Greek word in that verse. They were the pros at that time, and my hat is off to them for the monumental task they undertook and finished. But they, too, had their agendas, and we'll never know how those affected their work. Translating, inherently, involves interpretation, in my view. An interesting book on the history of the English Bible is Wide as the Waters, the Story of the English Bible and the Revolution It Inspired." Just some food for thought for those interested. Sometimes I'm curious about what the original writer meant in this verse. Most likely he referred to the OT scrolls, as was mentioned earlier in this thread. But since we DO NOT HAVE any originals of any document included in the cannon, we have our best "guess" from looking at all the copies in existence. But that takes access to those texts. Since I'm not a textual scholar, I shy away from speculating on what the original writer meant (in Greek, which most scholars believe the N.T. was written in.) I've gotten used to the idea that I have to accept that the author lived in a completely different kind of world than I live in today and held cultural assumptions I may not understand since he was an Oriental living about 18 centuries ago and I'm a 21st century American. (twi tried to cover that base by offering classes on Orientalisms, but to me that was a very biased class). Well, this is a huge topic and perhaps I should just let it rest...I am only an amatuer asking a bunch questions that my life does not depend on...

To my knowledge, VP did not publically question the cannon as it was in the KJV. During my Corps training were we did not question it. VP used the terms "scripture," "God's Word," "The Word of God," and "The Bible" interchangeably in my experience with twi. I think we have to be careful about saying: "I suppose one could say "all scripture" just meant all scripture, whether it had been written yet or not." At the time the writer of this verse wrote this verse, it seems to me that he referred to certain documents that the readers of the verse were familiar with, which actually existed. If it would refer to anything "not written yet" who is to say which ones those would be? What would be the criteria for determining which ones they were? Also, remember, the deciders of the cannon were people with their own assumptions, opinions, politics, etc. Most Christians have accepted the ancient decisions of Iranaeus, bishop of Lyons, and Origen, (an Egyptian teacher from the 3rd century) seemingly without question. There are lots of books on this topic which are easy to read and readily available, such as Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels, professor at Princeton and others like Bart Ehrman's who wrote The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament. A good source containg many other documents left out of the OT and NT is The Other Bible, by Willis Barnstone. Question for brideofjc's following comment: There are many writiings that didn't make the grade as far as being of apostolic authorship etc., dates were wrong, such as letters claiming to have been written by an apostle, but they were penned after the apostle had been martyred. Many such letters or writings are called pseudepigrapha or "false writings"not that they are "false" in every sense of the word, but that the authorship that they are ascribed to is not accurate. The content could be very accurate. " penworks: What is your criteria for determining "content" that is "accurate"?

I can help with a few of timeline items mentioned in this post, since I was at HQ: April 23, 1986 - PoP read at Corps night (about 2 and 1/2 hrs.) in WOW Auditorium at HQ and off-site Corps on the field via dial-in phone-hook-ups Oct. 23, 1986 - John S. fired at HQ Nov 1986 - Clergy meeting at HQ

How do we get this topic moved to the Doctrinal forum? (good idea, AnotherDan). Although I really did not intend it as a doctrinal issue, more like a textual history issue, but some may interpret it as doctrinal...

Yeah, I considered "reworking everything" in 1986 when I resigned from the research team. But that thought drove me nuts; I realized that could go on forever. Then I thought "why spend all my life trying to correct VP? Besides, I didn't have the academic background for doing it anyway, I simply had just seen enough problems, flaws in his work, theology, etc. to sink a battleship and was sick of the fanatical fundamentalism twi promoted. Then I thought, VP's biblical research methods and desire for world-domination had already taken 16 years of my life and I didn't think his work or his "cause" was worth a minute more. Nor were any offshoots. Then I thought, I could instead invest my time and energy in my own education, develop my own talents, get a decent job, straighten out my life, etc. So that last thought won out.