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Greetings All,

Here is another of what I suspect, may be yet another urban legend.

But, who knows?

As I was tooling around on the Topix forum, I saw a thread where someone was asking if anyone had ever heard of the Moody Bible Institute challenging the WTBTS to a debate.


The way it went was that MBI challenged the WTBTS to a debate.

The WT said it would be happy to debate, IF, the good folks at MBI could answer a few preliminary questions.

Those questions were sent but, supposedly a reply was never received from MBI.


Many, many moons ago (30+ years) I had received as a gift from an old Congregation Servant, the self-same questions that our apologist friend on Topix was asking about.

I am amazed that I still had them; they were up in the attic, tucked away with all the "elder" stuff I keep up there.
(Gotta get another shredder!)

As I typed the questions ever so ...s l o w l y... into Word, I thought that I might share said questions here, before I post them over there.

Anybody here, ever heard of them?

So, here they are in all of their unexpurgated glory...



"two lepta"

LTA,
John


The following questions were prepared by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in reply to a request for debate from the Moody Bible Institute. The Society proposed that if they could satisfactorily give them Bible answers to these questions, then they would be willing to debate. An answer was never received.


1. Was Eden on earth or in heaven?

2. Was Adam created mortal or immortal?

3. If Adam had not sinned, would he have died?

4. On account of sin Adam died, so does that prove he was mortal?

5. Is there a difference between eternal life and immortality?

6. If Adam had lived forever, would you call that immortality?

7. Can a person live eternally, and yet, not be immortal?

8. If Adam could not go to heaven without dying, and could not die without sinning, does that not prove sin was a blessing to the human family?

9. Did Adam lose an earthly or heavenly home?

10 If Jesus came to restore what Adam lost (Luke 19:10), what will be restored?

11. Was Adam a single individual, or two individuals in one?

12. If composed of two parts, soul and body; which one was Adam?

13. What was the responsible part that could think, feel, and act?

14. Which part was it that sinned, soul or body?

15. If it was the soul, then why does the body have to suffer?

16. If it was the body, then why does the soul need to be saved?

17. In Genesis 3:11 (“Who told thee thou wast naked?”), which part of Adam did God talk to, soul or body?

18. What is the “thou” referred to in Genesis 3:17 (“Thou hast eaten”)?

19. If you say it refers to the soul, then to what does the word “thou” refer to in Genesis 3:19, 20 (“Dust thou art, and to dust, thou shalt return.”)?

20. How many different penalties were passed on Adam for sinning?

21. Was one penalty pronounced against the soul, and a different one against the body?

22. Then, explain Ezekiel 18:20 and Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6, 10?

23. Is the penalty mentioned at Genesis 2:17, different from Genesis 3:19?

24. If there was only one penalty, what was it?

25. Does the Bible say the penalty against Adam, was death, a returning to the dust?

26. Or, an endless life of misery in a burning hell?

27. Suppose that all that happened in Eden, no Savior had come; where would the human race spend eternity (righteous David, for example.)?

28. Did Jesus really die when he was impaled at Golgotha?

29. Or, was it only his body that died (implying that Jesus soul is immortal)?

30. If Jesus had an immortal soul that did not die, and that immortal was Jesus himself; have we not been misinformed that Jesus died for sinners?

31. Why not just say that the body Jesus lived in died for the body Adam lived in, and that the real Jesus did not die at all, and the real Adam (and the rest of humanity) simply was not (were not) saved?

I wonder why they felt the need for the preliminary 31(a few? lol - a few is 3 or 4!) questions before debating? I mean... those questions sound like bait... what are they called? ah yes - "conversation stoppers". Looks like it worked! :dueling:

Hi Willa,

I'm not sure about "bait", or "conversation stoppers".

Maybe, they were "debate stoppers", considering MBI never responded.

And, maybe that was a bit of wisdom on our former masters' part; why get involved in a useless debate?

Don't know.


Anyway, the questions were intentionally designed to lead those who answered them, step by step, to a place where they, perhaps, did not want to go.


"two" more.

LTA,
John

P.S.

Re: "few", as in answering a "few" questions...

Don't get the wrong impression or attribute "few" to what the WT said in response to MBI's request.

I said "few" in my editorial, not the WT.

Urban legend. Definately. I've read this a few times in different plaaces.

None of those questions pose any difficulty for orthodox theology, but they are designed to highlight the core differences between traditional theology and WT theology.


You'd have to define terms before you even began.

In traditional Christian theology, for example, every time the word "death" is used it means "seperation, either of body/soul man/god etc." In WTBTS theology it has the more aithistic/materialistic meaning of "ahihalation. Ceasing to exist."

You can't have a debate about death if both sides have different understandings of the word.

Ditto lots of other terms.

In traditional theology, "Life" and "eternal life" is not the same as "existing" whereas in WTBTS theology mere "existence" is put on the same level as "life." So therefore, have a debate about life and death and the starting points are just too different. To the WTBTS adherant, what the traditional theologeon says becomes foolishness, even idiocy. But, to the Christian theologeon, what the WTBTS adherant says also spounds like complete foolishness.

There are loads of words that have taken on radically new definitions under the WTBTS. "Spirit" is a good one. To a WTBTS believer, there is such a thing as a "spirit body." This has had to be developed to make the bible fit with their theological ideas about "death."

(NT in koine greek, such a thing doesn't exist, there's no such thing as a "body made out of spirit" a body is always physical, a spirit is always a spirit and never the twain shall meet, but the WTBTS definition of death has altered the whole death/ressurection of Jesus to such an extent that such a thing had to be written into their theology to make it work. Again, a re-defined "spirit" alters the meaning of "being made alive in the spirit.")

These are just a few examples that pop to mind when I look at those questions. You can't debate sensibly if people have different understandings of different words. So manmy times on different sites a traditional theologeon will shake their heads and wonder how blind a WTBTS theologeon must be to adhere to their beliefs, and, at the same time, the WTBTS theologeon is thinking exactly the same thing.

In a WTBTS theological framework, their beliefs fit and work perfectly, being locical and reasonable.

In a traditional theological framework adopting WTBTS theology would mean re-defining so many common words it'd be easier to learn a new language (that's be "pure language" right?:funnyface:)

I think that's why the WTBTS have adopted so many terms unique to them over the years. It means that there is an enormous gulf between the two which can only be crossed with thought and compromise on both sides.


I think that's what I hate most, the gulf. The seperation between dear. dear friends here and the theological foundations to the faith of the churches I visit and speak with and worship with.

In trying to seperate themselves from Christendom and sort of "start again" I think the WTBTS (and the thousands of denominations that have done the same) have actually deliberately seperated themselves from so much of the things God is doing.

(1Co 15:35-45, LITV)
35 But someone will say, How are the dead raised? And with what body do they come?
36 Foolish one! What you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
37 And what you sow, you do not sow the body that is going to be, but a bare grain, (it may be of wheat, or of some of the rest),
38 and God gives it a body according as He willed, and to each of the seeds its own body.
39 Not every flesh is the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another of fish, and another of birds.
40 And there are heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies. But the glory of the heavenly is truly different, and that of the earthly different;
41 one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body; there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45 So also it has been written, "The" first "man", Adam, "became a living soul;" the last Adam a life-giving Spirit. Gen. 2:7

"spiritual body" : GR sōma pneumatikon

PS: I'm not here to defend WT theology as a whole, only to exchange some thoughts which may lead to a better understanding of Scripture. Critical, unbiased thinking would require we are as critical and severe for traditional theology as for the WT framework. Which is extremely difficult for most people to do, because we're only human, thus very subjective after all.

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“To accept an unorthodoxy is always to inherit unresolved contradictions” -- George Orwell