No JW's w/ post-graduate degree in Biblical Greek/Hebrew?

InterestedOne

Does anyone here have info regarding the validity/invalidity of the following statement I read while browsing:

"As far as we have been able to determine, no baptized Jehovah’s Witness has ever been awarded a post-graduate academic degree by an accredited institution in the field of Biblical Greek or Hebrew. This is rather startling in a religious sect of approximately six million people who pride themselves on being zealous students of the Bible. One would be hard pressed to find any Christian group of similar size that could not boast of at least a half-dozen or so persons with advanced academic degrees in fields relating to Biblical languages. It is, of course, possible that there are Jehovah’s Witnesses with advanced degrees in Greek and Hebrew that we do not know about. If you know of any such persons please contact us immediately and we will gladly post a correction (as soon as we are able to verify their degrees by contacting the academic institution in question.) " -- I read this at the following page: http://www.spiritwatch.org/jwnwt.htm

I'd like to know if there is any credence to this statement or if it's just hot air.

Palimpsest

As far as we have been able to determine, no baptized Jehovah’s Witness has ever been awarded a post-graduate academic degree by an accredited institution in the field of Biblical Greek or Hebrew.

And how in the hell would they even prove that? That's a BS statement. There's no possible way to research that. Degree conferral data isn't accompanied by religious demographic information. And if there were, I'm pretty sure that good ol' Rev. Rafael Martinez, whose former church tossed him out due to his "ministry," wouldn't have gone over it in detail.

What he's probably clumsily grappling for is the belief that none of the NWT translation team had formal university training in either language. That is widely believed but has never been proven, since the official list of translators has never been released and the only "insider accounts" come from people who would, understandably, be biased against the JWs since they were ex-JW informants. So independent scholars have held off on saying who the translators were and what their credentials were, which is fair and appropriate.

galactical

I think the point he was trying to make was that the orignal translators of the NWT didn't actually have graduate degrees in hebrew/greek (let alone a working knowledge of hebrew and greek) and therefore the translation was suspect to doctrinal changes.

But, i think its more than likely that out of the 7 million JW's on the planet at least one has a Graduate degree in hebrew or greek.

Leolaia

I am pretty sure Rolf Furuli counts WRT to Hebrew.

InterestedOne

I did a search on that statement, and several "ministry" websites have copied it, but there is no original author mentioned. I foolishly thought someone might be out there updating & waiting for the name of just one JW with a post-graduate degree in Biblical languages. Although it's kind of an interesting thought, it just looks like some text that lame "pastors" cut & paste.

Palimpsest

I foolishly thought someone might be out there updating & waiting for the name of just one JW with a post-graduate degree in Biblical languages.

How would you cross-check, though? There's no widely available full list of every JW in the world. It's impossible to do unless you have a list of every single person ever baptized. Anyone making that claim is full of it. I'd say to be very skeptical of this guy and anyone parroting him. Remember, he's a charlatan trying to recruit followers just like the GB.

I think the point he was trying to make was that the orignal translators of the NWT didn't actually have graduate degrees in hebrew/greek (let alone a working knowledge of hebrew and greek) and therefore the translation was suspect to doctrinal changes.

I think so, too, but again, that's another statement that's never been proven. We like to accept it because it fits our narrative, but if we're going to be truly objective, we can't say that it's absolute fact. Sure seems likely, mind you, but unless someone has a verifiable list of every translator combined with a full history of their academic lives, we can't say it as fact, as many ex-JW websites do. At least, I'm personally not willing to do that.

VM44

Let's limit the question to make it more answerable.

Is there anyone at Brooklyn, or Patterson, or at the Gilead school who has any degree in Biblical Hebrew or Greek?

VM44

This may be of interest. The Watchtower's discounting of actually knowing Biblical languages goes back to Charles Russell.

Charles Russell wrote in the Sep 15, 1914 issue of The Watchtower (pages 286-7):

As respects my education in Greek and Hebrew: Not only do I not claim very special knowledge of either language, but I claim that not one minister in a thousand is either a Hebrew or a Greek scholar. To be able to spell out a few Greek words is of no earthly value. Nor is it necessary longer to study these languages, in order to have knowledge of the Bible. Our Presbyterian friends have gotten out at great cost Young's Analytical Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and English Lexicon Concordance, which anyone may procure. And our Methodist friends have issued a similar work-- Strong's Analytical Concordance and Lexicon. And there is a still older one entitled Englishman's Hebrew, Chaldaic, Greek and English Lexicon and Concordance. Additionally, Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon is a standard authority. The prices of these are not beyond the reach of the average man. By these works scholarly information respecting the original text of the Bible is obtainable. I have all four of these works and have used them faithfully. Very few college professors, even, would risk to give a critical translation of any text of Scripture without consulting these very works of reference, which are standard. To merely learn to read the Greek and Hebrew without a six years' course in their grammars is more likely to hinder than to help in Bible study; far better take the acknowledged scholarship to which I have referred.

Additionally I remind you of the many translations of the Bible now extant--all of them very good. I have all of these and find them useful in comparison in the study of any text--one sometimes giving a thought which another may not. The other day, for curiosity's sake, I counted Bibles in different translations, etc., in my study and found that I have thirty-two.

http://www.agsconsulting.com/htdbnon/r5543.htm

Lady Lee

According to Barb Anderson -- NO

But I am sure any ex-Bethelite here could also answer the question

I know an ex-JW who studied Biblical Greek when she went to university. It opened her eyes to how wrong the WTS is. So it would probably twist any honest JW into knots to find out how wriong they are in how they translate interpret the Bible

VM44

"Our Presbyterian friends have gotten out at great cost..."

LOL. Now THAT'S something you will never read in a recent issue of the Watchtower magazine!

No JW's w/ post-graduate degree in Biblical Greek/Hebrew?

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