by nerofiddle 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Visits from a couple JW Elders? Do you mean Mormons? 2 JW "Elders" very very rarely preach together, they feel their beneficent presence is best shared with "weak" ones.
Anyway try tossing out the scholarly position that the Prologue 1:1-18 was a separate unit, perhaps a Gnostic hymn, that was collected and attatched to the Gospel. Watch them make blanket dismissals of the value of non-JW scholaship. It will be a glimpse into the mind of a JW.
[imagines]
I'm going to politely decline your offer.
[runs screaming from the madman with a pick]
AuldSoul
Hey nero,
Good luck, but don't count on getting any stunned reactions from them. If there's anything they are ready to go to the wall on, it's the trinity. It doesn't matter a whit what the Bible says, they already know what they believe and which scriptures support it. Any scripture you show that contradicts that belief will get spun away.
Of course, the same is true of those that believe in the trinity. It isn't a question of what the Bible says, it's just what do you already believe; which scriptures do you read, and which ones do you "explain".
Have fun!
Dave
which scriptures do you read, and which ones do you "explain".
That was well put. Just to make what I was pointing to in my previous post a little more explicit, I think that the notion of creation (or making, fabricating) is altogether absent from, and foreign to the Johannine Prologue. The Logos is not described as created -- He/it was there with "God" in the beginning, nor is anything which came to be "through" him/it -- that which is described as life and the "light of men". We are in a proto-Gnostic hymn, which is not concerned with "creation" per se but with the becoming of the divine logos/light scattered throughout the world. From this perspective I believe that both the JW and the "orthodox" interpretations (of either a created Logos sharing in the creation of the rest of the world, or an uncreated Logos creating the world) are off-topic.
The elders will point you to Colossians 1:16
COL 1:16 (Heb 1:2) Jesus created all things“…created through (Greek: dia) Him…”
The JW’s claim this is proof that Christ played a “second-hand” role in the creation since God created the world “through” Him.
The problem is that the same Greek word is used of the world coming into being "through" (dia) God.
Rom 11:36
I’m sorry it’s taken me so much time to get back to this post. I’ve been having some internet connection issues. Thank you all so much for your ideas and input. I’m amazed at the level of intellectual and multilingual abilities some of you apparently have at your command. Not that I'm surprised, I'm just impressed by it. The information you’ve provided will no doubt prove invaluable to strategize the ideological confrontation/discussion I hope to engage the JWs in. I’ve heard it said that scriptures bounce off of JWs like bullets bounce off of Superman and my experiences with them have proven no exception. But I can’t help but hope maybe one day I’ll catch the right JW at the right time and have a truly meaningful exchange of ideas. When and if that door ever opens I want to be as prepared as I can be, so again many thanks. Trying to sift through all the controversy over translation, doctrine, interpretation, etc. etc. is a lot like Rain Man (from the movie of the same name) trying to answer the question from the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on first base?”. At the end of the day I’m thankful I don’t have to defend a religion or a book a given religion might be based on.
