I wonder if JW's ever study what the heretics said.

dgp

I was just wondering if Jehovah's witnesses have heard about the Dead Sea Scrolls, or whether they could ever get to read, say, the Gnostic Gospels. Some Catholics would read those, to be sure, while some others wouldn't. I wonder if Jehovah's witnesses ever get to study what the heretics held as true, like, for example, Marcion's belief that the God of the Old Testament couldn't possibly be the God of the New Testament.

serenitynow!

Do you mean the Apochrapha? If so than most probably have not. I was scared to personally.

not a captive

They mentioned only writings that tended to concur or reinforce doctrines they taught --even if they were somewhat different. But never did I see writings that would have been debatable or controversial in the publications.

Am I remembering this right?

StAnn

Serenitynow, not the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books are still in the Bible. The Protestants took them out of their Bibles but they are still in the Catholic Bibles.

The NWT is loosely based upon the Protestant Bible.

There are many other writings out there from the early years of the Church, some from heretical groups like the Arians, the Gnostics, etc. Those are what dgp is referring too.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were made around the 2nd century BC by a sect of Jews called the Essenes who lived in a community called Qumran(sp.?). These are a collection of some Old Testament books and some works of apocalyptic literature. These predate Jesus. I believe there is an Isaiah scroll in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

To answer the original question, I don't remember if the WTS ever referenced heretical writings, such as the Gnostic writings, which is kinda funny since the JW beliefs are essentially a big old group of heresies bundled into one.

StAnn

serenitynow!

Thanks for explaining that st ann.

steve2

JWs find it hard to keep up with reading all the articles in the Watchtower and Awake magazines, let alone feeling the need to go delving into dusty old historical accounts. You are obviously crediting JWs with way too much spare time and motivation t find out more. It is very rare for the JW to even be interested in reading more widely than Watchtower literature and it's well known in congregations that they struggle to get through even pre-reading the Watchtower study articles.

Chalam

I wonder if JW's ever study what the heretics said.

For sure, they read the WT magazine and the NWT all the time.

Blessings,

Stephen

not a captive

Chalam, !

designs

The Dead Sea Scrolls were always popular as a museum event to visit among Witnesses, mainly because they contained the Tetragrammaton.

My family and Greg Stafford's family went together several years ago to see the DSS when he was on the cusp of breaking his ties to the Witnesses.

dgp

My reason for asking is that the so-called heretics were actually more numerous than those Ehrman calls the proto-orthodox, and their "heretical" Christianity was actually the original Christianity in many areas. I believe that all Christians have trouble here. Some have chosen to deal with the thing, and are studying the Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, or the Gospel of Judas, or the Coptic writings. I am afraid that you can't really call yourself a Bible scholar if you ignore the study of the Bible from a historical perspective. My interest was knowing whether the WT does take the bull by the horns. It doesn't.

I wonder if they ever study the parchments and papyri. I'm afraid they don't. This is a very serious shortcoming, I'm afraid.

I wonder if JW's ever study what the heretics said.

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