My strongest reason not to take anything especially in the new testament serious is found in JW grey bible

by Consciousguy 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Consciousguy

  Guys I need a rebuttal in this. Cos this is what I plan to tell the elders when they come to me which I find inevitable. Due to general concession and confirmation from jw bible on page 1736. All the available christian greek scriptures manuscript today doesn't contain YHWH. The Borg argued that we don't have the originals manuscript and the available ones are written at least two centuries after the event, and that they have been manipulated. So all the subsequent manuscript are copied from this manipulated manuscript. Therefore they gave kinda valid arguments why they should insert the tetraga bla bla bla back into the new testament. I don't have any problem with their argument for reinserting the name. My argument is simple and straight forward if the org accepted that YHWH was indeed deleted from all the available manuscript by some crook.

  1. How on earth can I know that whatever Paul ,John Matthew said was not inserted by this same crook who deleted God's OWN NAME from the only available manuscripts? 2. If God allowed his name to be deleted from the entire Christian greek scripture how can I know what else he can allow to be deleted from it especially when that name is so important?

  Brothers i seek your comments. Also anyone who is good in rebuttal should please provide sensible and logical answer to these questions.
  
• 

  Half banana

  This is a head banging exercise...saying absolutely anything which disagrees with the official Borg doctrine will make you an apostate and get you disfellowshipped. Do you mind being d/f'd?

  If you would rather leave without the label and curse they offer; why not try the fade route?

  If you must argue with them get a list of at least one hundred errors of the JWorg.
• 

  NCC-1701

  It's a perfectly acceptable objection to say that if something as important as the Tetragrammaton was removed from subsequent copies of the NT without any hint of any written objections to this heresy in any ancient documents, then it is impossible to know what else may have been omitted from or added to these extant manuscripts.

  If they can argue that the Tetragrammaton was in the original writings of the NT and was removed without documented evidence, then we could argue that the spurious trinitarian text of 1 John 5:7b in the KJV, which they say was not included in the earliest manuscript copies and added much later (which is true), was indeed included in the original NT, removed at some point from copies and reinstated later without documented evidence of its inclusion in the originals. If they apply a consistent standard to both premises, they can't object to the inclusion of 1 John in the original text.
• 

  Splash

  The Borg argued that we don't have the originals manuscript and the available ones are written at least two centuries after the event, and that they have been manipulated.
  

  If we do not have the original manuscripts, how do we know that later ones were manipulated?
  This is a baseless claim with no evidence. It simply suits them to believe this.
  If God's name is so important, why did God have it disappear both in print and audibly - it was never spoken.

  
  

  *** si p. 305 par. 26 Study Number 4—The Bible and Its Canon ***
  Faith in the almighty God, who is the Inspirer and Preserver of his Word, makes us confident that he is the one who has guided the gathering together of its various parts.

  *** si p. 11 par. 28 “All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial” ***
  That which has been recorded and preserved as the Holy Scriptures is not to be tampered with. (Deut. 4:1, 2; Rev. 22:18, 19)

  *** si pp. 316-317 par. 11 Study Number 6—The Christian Greek Text of the Holy Scriptures ***
  A Reservoir of Over 13,000 Manuscripts.
  A tremendous fund of manuscript copies of all 27 [NT] canonical books is available today. ... According to one calculation, there are over 5,000 manuscripts in the original Greek. In addition, there are over 8,000 manuscripts in various other languages—a total exceeding 13,000 manuscripts all together. Dating from the 2nd century C.E. to the 16th century C.E., they all help in determining the true, original text. The oldest of these many manuscripts is the papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, known by the number P52, which is dated to the first half of the second century, possibly about 125 C.E. Thus, this copy was written only a quarter of a century or so after the original.

  
  
• 

  Half banana

  It is imagined that miraculously Jesus and the Bible arrived in the first century.

  Jesus, the wonder working, virgin-born, saviour son of God with twelve disciples... under different guises had already existed as a literary trope for a thousand years or so.

  The early Christians had no Bible. The texts which were collected to form the 'approved' versions of christian teaching was not made until the fourth century and continued to be modified for centuries after.

  Sorry Splash but your emphasis on the number of manuscripts is very misleading.

  The proliferation of Bible texts began about the ninth century. There are only a handful of manuscripts in existence from each of the second to the eighth centuries. The Ryland fragment, which I saw recently, is a sorry scrap of paper and gives little evidence of the supposed vigour of early Christianity.

  The key to understanding Christianity is the recognition that there were many messianic cults vying for supremacy and patronage in the early years of the common calendar. There were many christian manuscripts circulating among the cults at their temples but never mentioning Jesus nor for that matter Jehovah.The label Jesus was a late inclusion to appeal to messianic minded Jewish punters who had a precedent for using this name. The Jews by custom as already discussed, were never to voice the 'sacred' name of God.

  There was no original Bible. Manuscripts i.e. handwritten documents are notoriously susceptible to alteration by copying, forging and editing. It was only through the agency of the Roman Catholic Church that certain texts in circulation were authorised, forming what we now know as the Bible... and an orthodox interpretation was established at the demand of Constantine, hence the word Catholic meaning universal.

  From these two factors of the fourth century; the book and the doctrine, all further Christian sects have arisen including the Adventist and subsequently the Russellites, Bible Students, and JWs.
• 

  Splash

  Sorry Splash but your emphasis on the number of manuscripts is very misleading.
  

  It's not my emphasis and not my belief.

  To debate a JW you have only one choice - use their own literature.
• 

  sir82

  The Borg argued that we don't have the originals manuscript and the available ones are written at least two centuries after the event, and that they have been manipulated. So all the subsequent manuscript are copied from this manipulated manuscript.

  This is a silly argument.

  So, if the single most important word in the universe, per JW theology, has been so thoroughly "manipulated" out of EVERY SINGLE EXTANT MANUSCRIPT......

  What else has been changed? What else has been "manipulated"?

  If Jehovah allowed the copyists to "manipulate out" his name, what else did he allow them to alter?

  If that argument is valid, how can we rely on ANYTHING we find written in the text?
  
• 

  Consciousguy

  I really dont see any reason to think peter or paul said "dont say hello to your brother". It could have been added to the script. ANYTHING we read there in could have been added by the copier who systematically edited all important name out. The book simply has no credibility as long as their argument is valid
• 

  Half banana

  Sorry Splash, I should have said the WT emphasis on numbers of manuscripts is misleading.

  Agreed Sir82 and Consciousguy, if Big J allowed corruption of the text and that is what the WT org has been working from...everyone including JWs are all at sea. By this JW reasoning, there is no absolute divine edict.

  Perhaps the GB want this bit of slack to claim it to be their job to determine what truth is? The Watchtower "truth" nowadays is that the Bible is all about the JW governing body.
• 

  redvip2000

  I don't have any problem with their argument for reinserting the name. My argument is simple and straight forward if the org accepted that YHWH was indeed deleted from all the available manuscript by some crook.

  This is the key argument. As you said, we can't know for sure if the original manuscript had this name, since there is some tangible evidence to support both sides.

  The real issue is" Why did jevoovaa allow his bible to corrupted? And since it's obvious he is not bothering to protect it, they should it be trusted? Obviously anything could have been added and removed. Also the decision of which books are part of today's bible was done by people centuries after it was written and in a fairly arbitrary way.

  Btw, making this claim will pretty much put you on a fast track to be dfed. Hope you don't mind