Eph 6:4 "Mental Regulating"

Phizzy

Blues ! your post is not showing up, I wonder what point you wish to make ?

The word "Nouthesia" that the NWT clumsily renders "Mental regulating" actually carries the thought of "Training by word" as compared with training by example.

Of course the WT's grasp of how to use propaganda techniques and therefore exert mind-control is a real piece of work to behold !

Their "Mental regulating" of the R&F JW's consists of making certain no JW's think for themselves and analyse what they are being taught in any way.

This is not what the scripture at Eph 6v4 is talking about, it is there referring to getting the teaching of Jesus in ones mind, the "word of the Lord" , not the word of some faceless Writing Committee .

BluesBrother

Wha' happened ? I went to move into the text of my post and it submitted it. with nothing but the title - and now it will not let me edit it ! Jeesh ! after 7000 posts you might have thought that I had got the hang of it by now ...

Anyway, I was going to say that one of the Theocratic phrases that I always disliked was this one. Mental regulating, it has the connotations of brain washing and mind control that are abhorrent to free people..

The J W will say "but it is in the bible" , and so it is, in the NWT at Eph 6.4, on the subject of parenting children.

"And YOU, fathers, do not be irritating YOUR children, but go on bringing them up in the discipline and mental-regulating of Jehovah."

Hmm. I am no scholar, but in the traditions of C T Russell , I only have to read what the scholars have written . Other translations render it as:

King James Bible,

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord

The word nurture says to me that something is valued and cared for and helped along, not controlled and regulated

N I V

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

The Message

Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.

Isn't that more the way of a loving parent? but what does the WT say?

WT 2005 4/1 p15

(Ephesians 6:4) What does that mean? “Mental-regulating,” in the original Greek, conveys the idea of “putting mind in.” So fathers are, in effect, urged to put the mind of Jehovah in their children. What a protection that will be for the young ones! If children have God’s thoughts, his way of thinking, inculcated in their mind, they are safeguarded against wrongdoing.

"Putting mind in"? ...Vines comments as follows:

Vines "nurture" paideia

1) the whole training and education of children (which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment) It also includes the training and care of the body

Vines "admonition" nouthesia

1) admonition, exhortation

I am not convinced that the NWT have chosen the best words to translate Paul's writing in this verse..(layman that I am) and the trouble is that the dubs these days have trouble differentiating between the words of Jehovah and the words of the WTS. To many, it is all the same. I have seen the suggestion to make the study of the history of the WTS a suitable feature of the "Family Bible Study Night" ... Is that really teaching the ways of God, or the history of a publishing company?

Blues.. Glad to be of the "No longer mentally regulated " class ..........

Leolaia

This wasn't even the original NWT rendering. The verse used to have the expression translated as "authoritative advice". I guess that was deemed too weak. The explanation you quoted seems to depend on etymology than usage; this might be another example of the etymological fallacy (I don't know what the usage is...I haven't done a word study). The word "regulate" carries a sense of control that goes beyond exhortations, advice, and admonitions; "control by means of rules and regulations". In other words, mind control.

minimus

Mental regulating and cults get along just fine.

Think About It

NWT translates it "mental regulating"......because, "brainwashing" would just be too obvious.

Emery

The mental regulating or training mentioned in that scripture invoked the truths as taught by inspired apostles handpicked by Jesus... not by uninspired speculative interpretations of false prophets 2,000 years later :)

moggy lover

As Leolaia has mentioned above, the Watchtower "translators" of the NW"T" [which is another way of saying Freddy Franz] can stoop to blurring the distinction between "etymology" and "application" or "meaning" when it suits their purpose. The way words are used by the speakers of a language determines the meaning of words. In this regard most speakers then, as now, would be unaware of the etymology of the words they used but whose meaning would be accepatble with common practice.

A good example of this blurring comes with the word "Apo-luthrosis" which had a simple meaning in NT times, which even Franz acknowledged. The etymology of the word is "apo" - "away from" - and "luthrosis" - "ransom" which I suppose can literally be rendered as " a getting away [from someone] on the payment of a ransom". Because "ransom" is one of the Watchtower's favourite buzz words, they render this word as "release by ransom" six times, with "release by the ransom [paid]" once, [at Ro 3:24].

However, by NT times, the idea of an actual payment seems to have completely disappeared and the meaning simply came to be "deliverance" [as Franz acknowledged at Luke 21:28]

We see the same tactic here with "nouthesia". The etymology derives from "nous" mind, and "thesia" which Vine suggests could mean "put into". But that is not the way the word was used by the speakers who applied the word in the first century. The emphasis was not on the mind of the person so much, as the action that created an atmosphere of training. As Phizzy mentioned above, the word simply meant to "admonish" or "to train by word" which is contrasted with "training by act". "Training by word" could take the form of an "instruction" or in the face of danger, "a warning".

The word occurs three times in the NT, and Freddy used three separate "translations" to convey the meaning of this word:

1Cor 10:11 - "Warning"

Eph 6:4 - "mental regulating"

Titus 3:10 - "admonition"

Which gives him no excuse. He was aware that the word really meant "admonition".

Leolaia

The most noticeable example of the etymological fallacy I can think of is the rendering of kolasin as "cutting off" instead of "punishment", flatly against the usual use of the word, particularly in parallel eschatological passages, such as this one:

"Even when the martyrs were so torn by whips that the internal structure of their flesh was visible as far as the inner veins and arteries, they endured so patiently that even the bystanders had pity and wept. But they themselves reached such a level of bravery that not one of them uttered a cry or a groan, thus showing to us all that at the very hour when they were being tortured (basanizomenoi) the martyrs of Christ were absent from the flesh, or that the Lord was conversing with them. And turning their thoughts to the grace of Christ they despised the tortures (basanón) of this world, purchasing at the cost of one hour an exemption from eternal punishment (tén aiónion kolasin)....But Polycarp said: 'You threaten with a fire that burns only briefly and after just a little while is extinguished, for you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment (to tés mellouses kriseós kai aióniou kolaseós pur), which is reserved for the ungodly' " (Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:2-3, 11:2; written c. AD 155-160).

moggy lover

Excellent point, Leolaia.

If you have not already written your doctoral thesis, what about considering doing it now? Hmmm?

You can write on "The Etymalogical Fallacies of the NWT and the Consequent Distortion in Biblical Semantics - An inquiry into how NOT to translate Holy Scripture". I think there is a compelling need for such literature to make a true evaluation of the NWT. From "torture stake" to "mentally diseased" there are so many words that have been theologically disembowelled of any meaning in Watchtower speak.

Most analyses of the NW"T" fixate on the "a" here, or a comma there, or the word [other] in brackets over somewhere else and so on.

Eph 6:4 "Mental Regulating"

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