The Greeks had a word for it, but the Watchtower didn't

by Nathan Natas 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Anony Mous

  @blondie: In the time of the Internet, the WTBTS has been frequently corrected and ridiculed for their archaic interpretation of both Hebrew and Greek text. A lot of what the modern WTBTS uses for 'research' is still the work from Franz-and-co in the 1950s-1970s when they were honestly busy with 'biblical research' and collected source material into large libraries, but time moves on, new things are discovered and they keep going back to the same dated topics and sources, many of which have been corrected.

  Now all those databases are searchable with a few keystrokes and you can't just reference a single article or scientific journal, you are mandated to reference dozens, often contradictory and distill something useful out of them.
  

  It is also a gateway for people 'doing their own research' into topics that are deeply religious and where the WTBTS is simply insufficient in their explanations.
  
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  blondie

  Anony Mous, sounds like a difficult research assignment. I'm not into that and I felt when the WTS used the Greek words and assigning their own definition to it, was raising themselves above the rank and file. In the bible what is written about Jesus (a real person or not) shows he did not use high-sounding words, but made the concepts easier to understand. You are right, I do believe the WTS stopped doing this for 2 reasons 1) encouraged some jws do further research which lead them to eye-opening info 2) even jws now can't grasp it, just accept whatever the WTS says is valid. They do the same with quotes from "experts" outside the WTS, not naming the person and their real credentials and not saying what secular publication it came from. About all you can do is put the quote in quote marks and search on Google for that information.
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  KerryKing

  Philautia definitely wouldn't fit well the WT preaching of 'self-sacrifice', a term not found anywhere in the Bible , though they love it.
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  TD

  Agape = unconditional love

  That definition is more theological than linguistic, I'm afraid.

  The JW claim, (which I heard a gazillion times as a teenager) was that ἀγάπη was a "principled love", as in a higher, more pure form of the emotion.

  The word actually means love as a general principle, which can be used in any number of ways.

  Pederasty, for example, was common in Ancient Greece and ἀγάπη was the word used to describe affection within those relationships.

  So maybe it's better that the JW's no longer frame entire arguments around preferential definitions.
  
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  Nathan Natas

  Maybe the Watchtower writers who were pederasts KNEW of that old Greek use of the word and KNEW that the average JW wouldn't have a clue that the WTB&TS felt that pedophilia was good and acceptable in the sight of their god, because it never (almost never?) resulted in the unclean condition called pregnancy.