John 1:1 in the KIT, how blind a JW must be to actually believe the WT

by A-Team 22 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Thanks moggy lover,

    I still feel that it's a bit of formalism getting wild.

    Limiting the scope of study to a given corpus (the NT, or "Revelation" -- but you'd have a hard time extending it to the OT) does not, in principle, suspend the general rules of logic (by which any element of a set of x's has to be a x) or semantics as inferred from word usage outside the corpus. Otherwise that would make the NT unreadable and useless. For instance, if the texts happen to only mention Christians being "children of God" in the plural you could never infer that any of them is a "child of God", singular.

    I think that the weight you deny to "human" logic you easily grant to equally "human" assumption, e.g. the exact definition of "monotheism" (not a biblical word, btw) as held by the NT writers, and especially the author of the Fourth Gospel...

  • Justahuman24
    Justahuman24

    There was already a thread about John 1:1.

    I really don't think John1:1 was added later. It would've created such controversy among Christians if such thing had happened and it would've been talked about for centuries to come.

    As I have mentioned in another thread, I took New Testament Greek when I was in college and we read portions of the Bible in Greek. We read John 1:1 and there was this non-denominational Christian kid who argued with me - I was a JW then - abuot John 1:1 and he decided to bring the argument to the class, maybe bcz he thought the professor would agree with him. Well, my professor who is a Buddhist and therefore I can say she's partial and non-bias when talking about John 1:1, pretty much disagreed with this kid and said that the second "theon" was to be trasnlated as a qualitative adj. and not a noun because it didn't have the definite article the first theon had. She didn't say it should be translated "a god" like the WTS translates it because the construction of the sentence would've been different but that it could be translated as "godlike", "divene", "godly" etc. thus giving Jesus divine quality NOT divinity. I really don't believe in the trinity at all. The WT may have a wrong way of explaining its monotheism but I think they're right in saying that Jesus is not the same as God.

    Also, the Greek language is a hard language to translate from, as is also Latin and Heb., because based on the construction of the sentences, it is hard to accurately and fully understand the thought that it's being conveyed. Greek and Latin don't have a specific order/structure like English does. And because of that, these two languages are easily used and misused by translators of the Bible. They can use their biased thinking and translate a sentence or paragraph however they want just to suit their bias. And arguments can be made for the many different translations. So, as a whole, in order to understand the Bible, the whole Bible has to be read and what it teaches about God, Jesus, etc. to actually know what it really teaches about Jesus and God. I personally don't think it teaches the trinity at all.

    Sure, some names and titles are applied to Jesus and to God but the same goes with Jesus and other humans and no one says Nebucchadnezzar is Jesus just bcz he's called "king of kings". Jesus deserves the many titles and position God has given him bcz of his role in salvation.

    justahuman - but super nonetheless

  • Justahuman24
    Justahuman24

    There was already a thread about John 1:1.

    I really don't think John1:1 was added later. It would've created such controversy among Christians if such thing had happened and it would've been talked about for centuries to come.

    As I have mentioned in another thread, I took New Testament Greek when I was in college and we read portions of the Bible in Greek. We read John 1:1 and there was this non-denominational Christian kid who argued with me - I was a JW then - abuot John 1:1 and he decided to bring the argument to the class, maybe bcz he thought the professor would agree with him. Well, my professor who is a Buddhist and therefore I can say she's partial and non-bias when talking about John 1:1, pretty much disagreed with this kid and said that the second "theon" was to be trasnlated as a qualitative adj. and not a noun because it didn't have the definite article the first theon had. She didn't say it should be translated "a god" like the WTS translates it because the construction of the sentence would've been different but that it could be translated as "godlike", "divene", "godly" etc. thus giving Jesus divine quality NOT divinity. I really don't believe in the trinity at all. The WT may have a wrong way of explaining its monotheism but I think they're right in saying that Jesus is not the same as God.

    Also, the Greek language is a hard language to translate from, as is also Latin and Heb., because based on the construction of the sentences, it is hard to accurately and fully understand the thought that it's being conveyed. Greek and Latin don't have a specific order/structure like English does. And because of that, these two languages are easily used and misused by translators of the Bible. They can use their biased thinking and translate a sentence or paragraph however they want just to suit their bias. And arguments can be made for the many different translations. So, as a whole, in order to understand the Bible, the whole Bible has to be read and what it teaches about God, Jesus, etc. to actually know what it really teaches about Jesus and God. I personally don't think it teaches the trinity at all.

    Sure, some names and titles are applied to Jesus and to God but the same goes with Jesus and other humans and no one says Nebucchadnezzar is Jesus just bcz he's called "king of kings". Jesus deserves the many titles and position God has given him bcz of his role in salvation.

    justahuman - but super nonetheless

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