Some observations and questions about the NWT

by witnessgirl 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Leolaia

  I'm away from the board at present, but I wanted to pop in to welcome you to JWD.

  (I could write essays on why Solomon almost certainly wasn't the author of Ecclesiastes, nor were any of the Gospels likely written by their namesakes.)

  Not only do we have the same interests, but we also like to write essays on these subjects. Cool!

  If you've got a Hebrew lexicon, it will take you less than five minutes to discover that the word used here, "Lu-Shfr", means "light-bringer, or morning star".

  Surely you mean helel? Lucifer is Latin.
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  Narkissos

  That is a really interesting observation! Only the vowels are different, and the vowels were inserted many centuries after the original texts were written. Without them, as it was written in ancient manuscripts, the word is the same both places--"???". Compare "hebel" meaning "useless" at Ecc 1:2 here:

  The basic masoretic vocalisation is actually the same, only the accentuation in the construct state of Qoheleth 1:2 etc. makes it different. Compare v. 14 where the simple hevel (with double segol) occurs, just as for the proper name in Genesis 4:2.

  Lucifer (meaning "light-bearer") is actually the Latin (Vulgate) translation; the MT of Isaiah 14:12 has hyll bn-shchr, vocalised as hélél ben-shâchar, which can be understood astrally (daystar, son of the dawn) but also mythologically (as Shachar, at least, is widely attested as the proper name of a deity in the texts of Ugarit). There are many analogies between this passage and Canaanite mythology in general.
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  witnessgirl

  The word I was thinking of here was הילל, which would be something like "hélél". I have no idea where I pulled the other thing out of--I was trying to do two things at once and in a rush. Thanks greatly!
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  snowbird

  That is a really interesting observation! Only the vowels are different, and the vowels were inserted many centuries after the original texts were written. Without them, as it was written in ancient manuscripts, the word is the same both places--"???". Compare "hebel" meaning "useless" at Ecc 1:2 here:
  
  http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt3101.htm
  
  With the name of the second son of Adam and Eve at Gen 4:2 here:
  
  http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0104.htm
  
  The vowels are written like accent marks under the letters. Only the consonants appear in ancient manuscripts; the vowels were added much more recently to assist reading and pronunciation.

  Thank you for that link!

  I was able to pick out "???" in both places.

  Sylvia
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  snowbird

  For some reason, my posted was edited.

  I'll try again.

  I was able to pick out ????? (hebel) in both places.

  Sylvia
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  witnessgirl

  Sylvia--you can't copy and paste Hebrew directly onto this board; you have to use Unicode. There is a handy table here:
  
  http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/hebrew.html
  
  Also you type the letters in the order that they come in the word and the board automagically turns it right-to-left when you submit. Took me more than a few edits to get it figured out.
  
  I'm mostly bumping this thread because OTWO's comment about the Nag Hammadi library got me thinking some more about the NWT canon. If you really want to practice Christianity the way that the First Century Christians did, I guess that you would want to be using the same Bible that they were. That would mean (as I recall) twenty gospels, fifteen Apocalypses, and about fifty other documents discussing Jesus and his ministry. If the Society wanted to really be revolutionary and different, putting out such an edition of the Greek Scriptures would have been an excellent opportunity, in addition to providing them with a great chance to point to all the material that Babylon the Great was trying to suppress. Hey, I'll bet that at least one of those books probably even uses the Divine Name somewhere. (If none of them does, that would be interesting, too--anyone know?)
  
  But instead of something really interesting like that, we got to settle for the Society trying to be different by making a normal Protestant Bible green, omitting the word "Bible" from the title, and printing a dinosaur on the flyleaf. But I suppose that creativity was never their strong suit.
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  Eliveleth

  Heather,

  Thank you so much for this post. I would be very interested in what the early Christians considered the Bible canon I am interested to know your research on Ecclesiastes also. Research

  is on of my passions, however, I cannot read Hebrew or Greek, sadly. However, the Kingdom Interlinear was helpful when I did research on the word temple. Naos and hieron - I wish I had done more study on Bible languages when we first left the WT.

  I think that even though the WT knows that Yahweh is closer to the name of God, they are locked into Jehovah because of their name Jehovah's Witnesses. How could they change, it would destroy their whole image.

  This is an interesting post.

  Velta