2011 Watchtower publisher statistics with analysis

by jwfacts 220 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  jwfacts

  David, you are great at strawman arguments in order to avoid the point, but I guess that is because you don't and can't have the answers. I will summarise the main point to make it as simple as possible, and hope you don't answer if it is just more of the same.

  You try to make out that since the number of publishers is understated, that addressses my question. So lets go with an overstated figure - memorial attendance. Let's say that all memorial attendees believe current Watchtower doctrine and will be saved at Armageddon. That is 18,000,000/7,000,000,000, which is an insignificant, almost meaninglessly small number. It is most definitely not "many". When you teach that 7 billion people are about to be murdered by God, then 18 million is tiny.

  Of course you will come back with, "the road is narrow" etc etc. But then every religion can say that, as every religion is in the minority. Your continual response that "many" believe Watchtower doctrine so it must be true is equally meaningless, as every religion can say that too, and it proves nothing.

  Regaring YHWH, again you have sidestepped the question. There is not one known fragment of the New Testament, not a single one, with YHWH or its equivalent. If Jehovah really cared about his name, and really wanted people to believe Jesus used it, he could have protected it. You must have known that was the meaning of my question, but did not address it, as it cannot be addressed in any meaningful manner. Without wanting to sidetrack the issue, I don't believe there to be any weight in the arguement that since some copies of the OT Septuagint retained YHWH, then it must be in the NT; in fact the opposite. It shows that there was no global conspiracy 100 years after Christ, as you like to suggest, to remove every single instance of YHWH and destroy it just so that no one in our day would know it was ever in the New Testament.

  Finally, since this is a core doctrine of the Bible, have you found anyone yet that believed Jesus was not their mediator prior to being indoctrinated by the Watchtower, and concluded such on the basis that he is mediator of only 144,000?
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  slimboyfat

  It shows there was no global conspiracy 100 years after Christ, as you like to suggest, to remove every single instance of YHWH

  The theory that the NT originally contained the divine name does not require a conspiracy to remove it as such. The suggestion is that it was substituted by nomina sacra in new manuscrupts produced by scribes from some time during the second century on, and that no manuscripts survive from before the time that nomina sacra became standard Christian practice for dealing with the divine name. The divine name was superceded in the text rather than physically removed.

  Then again if it is conspiracy to remove the divine name you are looking for then hints of that can be found in contemporary Christian authors:

  For just as far as man is inferior to God in power, so much feebler is man's speech than Him; although he do not declare God, but only speak about God and the divine word. For human speech is by nature feeble, and incapable of uttering God. I do not say His name.

  And was it not this which the prophet meant, when he ordered unleavened cakes to be made, intimating that the truly sacred mystic word, respecting the unbegotten and His powers, ought to be concealed?

  Clement of Alexandria, 2nd century AD.
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  jwfacts

  Hi Slimboyfat - the divine name really is a substantial topic that deserves its own thread. The reason that the whole issue was raised on this thread is to debunk Davids idea that people reading the Bible will come to the Watchtower understanding of it. By far the majority of Bibles read by non-witnesses do not contain Jehovah in the NT, which has a significant impact on how people will understand the role of Jesus. That is just one of many areas that a person could not possibly ever come up with Watchtower doctrine without prior knowledge of Watchtower doctrine.

  I don't see those quotes as an indication they were in the original texts. There are continuing with the normal practice of the time not to utter YHWH out loud. As far as I'm aware, the majority of Septuagint versions did not contain YHWH, so it seems more likely that when quoting from the Old Testament that the New Testament writers did not include it either. Considering much of the New Testament was written at the end of the first century, and there are fragments going back to within one hundred years, it is a tall ask to say that within that short period such a dramatic change regarding YHWH occurred as to have people all over AsiaMinor in agreement to destroying the older copies, or replacing YHWH in newer copies. Since there was already so many different Christians sects and Christian concepts by 150AD, it is also hard to envisage any one group had the power to convince all other sects that they must comply with destroying older copies, or replacing the name in newer copies they made. Further, YHWH is not contained in the Nicene Fathers quotes of the New Testament, or their discussions. Nor is there anything written explaining that the name must be destoryed or replaced. To conclude that the name was there and removed so dramatically in such a short space of time does seem like a conspiracy theory to me.
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  slimboyfat

  As far as I'm aware, the majority of Septuagint versions did not contain YHWH, so it seems more likely that when quoting from the Old Testament that the New Testament writers did not include it either.

  In the third century Origen said that the earliest and most reliable copies of the Septuagint contained the tetragram, and that is what discoveries during the past century have bourne out. It is true that many surviving copies of the Septuagint do not contain YHWH, but crucially the earliest copies do. In fact all the copies dating earlier than c. 150 AD contain some form of the divine name, none replace it with kyrios (Lord).

  All copies of the NT we have contain nomina sacra when no one supposes they were originally used by the authors of the texts. So you see the issue is not whether treatment of divine names was altered between the composition of the NT and the earliest surviving copies, that much is clear, the issue merely surrounds what the nomina sacra was devised to replace, kyrios or YHWH.
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  jwfacts

  I see your point SBF. http://www.irr.org/wit/pdfs/tetra-appenK.pdf shows the nomina sacra for the word Lord is (KS) in passages where it referred to Jesus and passages the NWT uses for Jehovah, indicating that Lord was originally in all instances, and hence YHWH did not exist in the New Testament. The important point indicated in the article is that this is highly technical subject, and very few people are even aware of it. From a JW point of view, I cannot reconcile how Jehovah would have allowed it to become all but impossible to prove his name was in the New Testament, if use of his name is essential for salvation.
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  Azazel

  Well made points all round! Im with jwfacts in that i believe that God inspired the writing of the Bible and that he would have made sure his name was used if it was essential in the NT.For God that would have been a simple task.

  I really enjoy ready the posts made on this thread and its real spiritual food for thought

  Az
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  slimboyfat

  You make a theological argument there Paul, that I am not really equipped to engage with because I don't believe in God or the Bible. I simply think that there is an interesting historical case for the possibility that the NT originally used the divine name. I have got Lundquist's book and I am not overly impressed with it. There are much better discussions of the nomina sacra out there. For example:

  www.sht.ut.ee/index.php/sht/article/view/8.A.2/barker1

  I think Jehovah's Witnesses could make a lot more of the story surrounding the divine name than they do. The history is fascinating. They promoted the divine name at a time when it was becoming less popular. Their missionaries in Cairo got the first pictures of a key piece of evidence for the divine name in the Septuagint. They were really the first to make the argument that the divine name was in the original NT. Howard and Trobisch later came to similar conclusions. Who can say whether new discoveries may shed more light on the use of divine names in the early NT, but I really think the tide is on their side on the issue. I would not be at all surprised if their theory find further support in the future. And part of me would be amused to see the response of Evangelicals were that ever to happen.
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  Hoffnung

  To come to a correct translation concerning this issue, actually it does not matter what your personal opinion on the issue is. If you want to make a TRANSLATION of the NT, you can only translate what was written in the Greek text. As there is not a single Greek NT text with the name Jehovah or the Tetragrammaton, you cannot use it in a translation either.

  If you want to use the name Jehovah, your bible should be called an interpretation and not a translation. That is the case until the 1st Greek text with the name Jehovah is found, which did not happen in the last 1500 years.

  Hoffnung
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  slimboyfat

  Have you never heard of conjectural emendation? It is a standard tool in the arsenal of textual critics and Bible translators when attempting to make sense of the text. Most translations include at least some passages that have been reconstructed in a form that is not represented in any surviving manuscripts.
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  Hoffnung

  Can you give an example?