It is interesting how the Golden Age praised technological inventions as wonderful signs of the impending paradise and yet ridiculed higher education, medicine, and other areas of science.
Golden Age Goodies
by Leolaia 279 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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under_believer
Nicholas Delucca Vaccinated Nicholas Delucca, 6, of Coatesville, Pa., was vaccinated, so that he could go to school and learn, and grow up and be a big man. But he won't grow up; not now, anyway. Reason: He died of lockjaw, a victim of one of the most vicious superstitions ever practiced upon the people.
Nice! A menagerie of fallacy, logical and otherwise.
- The general thrust is an appeal to emotion. Using a six-year-old and specifically citing his future possibilities--learn, grow up, be a big man (and including "big man" in childlike language)--constitutes a general appeal to emotion. This poor trusting kid with so much hope and promise was KILLED!
- The literary device of irony is used. Nicholas was being vaccinated against tetanus, but the treatment supposedly caused him to die of tetanus. Throwing this in heightens the repeatability of the anecdote.
- No evidence that the vaccination caused Nicholas' death is offered, which makes this a good example of post hoc ergo propter hoc--Nicholas was vaccinated against tetanus, Nicholas later died of tetanus, therefore Nicholas was killed by his vaccination. As a matter of fact it's highly unlikely that this is the case, though unsterile conditions during the prick (such as a dirty needle) could concievably have caused it.
- Even if Nicholas' vaccination caused his death, implicit in the anecdote is a hasty generalization. The argument goes: Nicholas Delucca was killed by his vaccination. Therefore, all tetanus vaccinations are fatal.
- This causes the whole anecdote to take on the character of an appeal to fear.
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Leolaia
Today the Society does not claim that "Jehovah" is the only correct pronunciation of the tetragrammaton and they have said this for many years. The following are some examples from the literature:
***w50 12/1 p. 472 An Open Letter to the Catholic Monsignor***
We do not say that "Jehovah" is the correct pronunciation of God’s name. For that matter, neither is "Jesus" the correct pronunciation of Christ’s name. But according to the Aramaic language which Christ and his apostles spoke, his name was pronounced "Yeshu´a" (the a representing a gutteral ending). But "Jesus" is only our colloquial way of pronouncing his name, and we do not find fault with you for using it instead of Yeshu´a.
*** w64 7/15 p. 423 What Is The Name? ***
What pronunciation do Jehovah’s witnesses view as more correct? On page 25 of the foreword of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, published by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society in 1950, the translators stated that they inclined "to view the pronunciation ‘Yah.weh,’ as the more correct way."
If the publishing agency for Jehovah’s witnesses recognizes that "Yahweh" is more correct, why do they use "Jehovah" in their translation, writing and worship instead? Because the form "Jehovah" has been familiar to people for many centuries...
*** w99 2/1 p. 31 "Jehovah" or "Yahweh"? ***
No doubt the scholarly debate will continue. Jews stopped pronouncing the name of the true God before the Masoretes developed the system of vowel pointing. Thus, there is no definitive way to prove which vowels accompanied the consonants YHWH.
Yet, this is not what the Society claimed in Rutherford's day. The following article written by M. M. Freschel dogmatically claims that "Jehovah" is the only correct pronunciation, and the name of Yahweh is Devil-inspired and just as wrong as the theory of evolution:
GAG #14: YAHWEH IS A SATANIC CORRUPTION OF GOD'S NAME
Text:
***g28 10/3 pp. 28-29 The Sacred Name***
Not only is YEH-HO-VAH the pronunciation that by reverent tradition was preserved to the present generation of the Jews, and which is the correct pronunciation the orthodox Jews in an erroneous conception of Exodus 20:7 avoid uttering (Isaiah 29:13), but there are also other and even stronger corroborative arguments:
The pronunciation "Jahweh" is a "discovery" of the "Higher Critics". Their arguments to support their claim are undisputably false. Some explain that Jahweh was the name of one of the idols of heathen aborigines of Canaan, and that the Hebrews later adopted this name for their national god. This argument betrays the inspirer of the High Text Criminals. The Devil no doubt is the father of this lie. It is obviously another attempt of the enemy to defame the holy name of Jehovah.
The Jahwists claim that the later added vowel signs to the sacred name do not belong to it, but to the word ADONAI (Lord). Yet the vowel points of adonai are a-o-a, or the spoken a-o-ai, and the vowel points of Jehovah are e-o-a. This slight similarity proves nothing, but this so-called "scientific proof" looks rather as similar to other so-called "proofs" of a sham science as one egg does to another (for instance, the fallacy of the evolution theory that certain similarities between creatures prove that their species have the same primeval ancestors).
There is no doubt concerning the correct pronunciation of the Hebrew or real name of Jesus, namely Jehoschuah (yeh-ho-shoo'-ah = Jehovah's salvation). This shows clearly how the sacred name of God is to be pronounced. There are many other Biblical proper names with indubitable pronunciation where Jehovah's name appears in abbreviated form; for instance, Jehojada, Jehoadah, Jehoaddin, Jehoadaz, Jehoash, Jehohanan, Jehoiachin, Jehoiarib, Jehonadab, Jehonathan, Jehoram, Jehoshabeath, Jehoshaphat, Jehozabad, Jehozadak, etc.
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Narkissos
Interesting how the last argument (which betrays ignorance of Hebrew, where the w is either mater lectionis or full consonant, but not both) still lingers in the WT fringe (e.g. Gertoux, and some posters here if I remember correctly).
Thanks Leolaia for a very informative and entertaining thread.
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under_believer
Ummm.... Isn't "Jahwist" just "J", one of the hypothesized literary sources of the Torah?
The word is used in that citation to refer to people who support the pronunciation "Jahweh." WTF? -
Leolaia
under_believer....Yup, the author's use of "Jahwist" to refer to "those who pronounce YHWH as Jahweh" is of course erroneous. Apparently he noticed that the "High Text Criminals" use this term (i.e. to refer to one of the sources to the Pentateuch) and thus uses it to refer to them!
And yes I was hoping that Narkissos would point out that flaw in the author's argument. In a name like yhwrm "Jehoram" the [w] functions as a mater lectionis indicating the vowel "o". But in yhwh, the [w] is consonantal and indicates the "w" of Yahweh or the "v" of Jehovah. It does not correspond to the "o" of Jehovah, which is marked instead by a holem vowel pointing.
Also noteworthy is the appeal to "tradition" -- which is quite unusual, the denial that the vowel pointing has anything to do with Adonay (later the Society would claim the opposite), and the curious argument that since higher critics, er make that "High Text Criminals", believe that the name should be pronounced "Jahweh", that automatically proves that the name Jahweh is Devil-inspired just like the theory of evolution.
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Mysterious
Hey I went to college a believer and came home an infidel it can happen.
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Leolaia
The above article by M. M. Freschel was followed by this following piece by, who else, Fred Franz! The funny thing about this article is that it tries to connect the use of the name Jehovah to the year 1918. Leave it to Franz to find 1918 or 1919 in anything!
GAG #15: 1918 AND THE NAME OF JEHOVAH
Text:
***g28 10/3 pp. 28-29 "By My Name Jehovah Was I Not Known" ***
By Fred Franz
Having read Mr. Freschel's foregoing article on Jehovah's name, I should like to append thereto the following observations:
It no doubt causes wonderment that God's name, viz., JEHOVAH, does not occur in the New Testament, and neither Jesus nor His apostles are recorded as taking the name in their lips. In writing the New Testament in Greek, the writers of the gospels and epistles evidently followed the Greek Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, which also does not use the name Jehovah but uses the word "Kurios", Lord, in translating the name Jehovah from the Hebrew text.
The translators of the King James Version followed this practice, so that in the entire Authorized Version the name "Jehovah" occurs only seven times, viz., four times by itself and three times in combinations such as Jehovah-nissi, Jehovah-shalom, and Jehovah-jireh; and the name "Jah" occurs only once.
The Catholic version and Luther's translation followed the same method of translating.
In view of the above the name Jehovah became a rare and practically unnamed word amongst the Christian churches.
The Lord unquestionably arranged the omission of His name "Jehovah" from the New Testament, and has permitted the Christian churches throughout this era to overlook God's outstanding name.
Prior to 1918 A.D. even those in "present truth" used the name meagrely, and its full significance and glory was not understood by them.
Thus of a truth it has been with Christians as well as with all Christendom and heathendom that "by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them".
But now that the day is at hand to make a name for Himself, He has overruled that some modern translations, like the American Revised Version, the German "Miniaturbibel" and "Parallelbibel", etc., do not translate "Jehovah" by the word "Lord", but take the name bodily over into their translation or text; and now that the antitypical Moses is present for the deliverance of God's people and the common people, He is making Himself known to them by His "great and terrible name" Jehovah.
This is an interesting and yet unmistakable parallel, and also helps us to understand how Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, and others of their day knew and used the name "Jehovah"; as for instance when "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh" (Genesis 22:14); and yet God says in Exodus 6:3: "Unto Abraham, and Isaac, and unto Jacob . . . by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." So, too, Christians knew the name, at least the sound of it, before 1918, and yet they did not know it, i.e., the significance, the might and glory of it.
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under_believer
That's Franz's M.O. in a nutshell, always has been:
you proles would never have found out about <insert unoriginal belief that many other Christian cults have adopted over the centuries here> if it wasn't for US! The antitypical <insert Biblical servant of Jehovah here> class!
In this case, it's the usage and understanding of the name Jehovah (not unique) and the "Moses" class.Other vintage Franz:
- speaking authoritatively on subjects which he is not authoritative on, like Bible translation
- Use of assumptive language, like "no doubt", "evidently", and "unquestionably"
- The automatic assumption that whatever is going on RIGHT NOW, THIS SECOND among Witnesses is a fulfillment of THIS EXACT SPECIFIC SCRIPTURE
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peacefulpete
In writing the New Testament in Greek, the writers of the gospels and epistles evidently followed the Greek Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, which also does not use the name Jehovah but uses the word "Kurios", Lord, in translating the name Jehovah from the Hebrew text. .......The Lord unquestionably arranged the omission of His name "Jehovah" from the New Testament, and has permitted the Christian churches throughout this era to overlook God's outstanding name.
That's an incredible quote. Franz (lead translator of the NWT) is here saying that the name did not appear in the originals! and this by Jehovah's design to conceal his name until two obscure German translations baselessly inserted it.
