by Sea Breeze 90 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
So their statement of not seeking "glory and honor" in their Version seems genuine, and not out of place.
You don't think the fact that none on the "translating committee" had any degrees in the original biblical languages had anything to do with it? Only one had a 2 hr. survey course in Koine Greek.
Faith never means gullibility. The man who believes everything is as far from God as the man who refuses to believe anything. - Tozer
You don't think the fact that none on the "translating committee" had any degrees in the original biblical languages had anything to do with it? Only one had a 2 hr. survey course in Koine Greek.
Whoa!
Fred Franz was a Rhodes Scholar!
Or was it Road Scholar?
Does it matter? He was a really smart guy!
Ted Jaracz - “We do not go beyond what is written.”
I wrote this about the Lie that Franz was a Rhodes Scholar some years ago:
Macmillan wrote of Franz in his 1957 book - "Faith On The March": “he carried away the honors at the University of Cincinnati and was offered the privilege of going to Oxford or Cambridge in England under the Rhodes plan” (pg. 181). “Besides Spanish, Franz has a fluent knowledge of Portuguese and German and is conversant with French. He is also a scholar of Hebrew and Greek as well as Syriac and Latin, all of which contribute to making him a thoroughly reliable mainstay on Knorr’s editorial staff” (pg. 182).
So, here apparently was one source of the rumors regarding Mr. Franz’s intellectual and linguistic prowess that I had heard so much about as a young boy. However, the facts about his education prove problematic for the support of such claims. Scanned copies of the scholastic transcripts of Mr. Franz’s work as a student at the University of Cincinnati show that Mr. Fredrick William Franz quit his university education well before completing his bachelors’ degree (first tier 4 year degree).
So, how could it be true that Franz “carried away the honors of the University of Cincinnati” when he didn’t even graduate?
Franz seemed to try to run a little interference for himself when he wrote in his autobiography (in the article “Looking Back Over 93 Years of Living” for the May 1, 1987, Watchtower magazine):
“I had been chosen to go to Ohio State University to take competitive examinations with others to win the prize of the Cecil Rhodes Scholarship.”
Simply being told what a student must accomplish in order to be invited to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, is certainly not the same as “being offered the privilege of going to Oxford or Cambridge in England under the Rhodes plan”. This started me to thinking that there might be more to this story than met the eye. I wondered if there was anything else here that was different than what I’d been led to believe?
First, let’s consider the other linguistic claims about Mr. Franz that was distributed in all the Kingdom Halls in the late 1950’s. Macmillan wrote: “Franz has a fluent knowledge of Portuguese and German and is conversant with French. He is also a scholar of Hebrew and Greek as well as Syriac and Latin.”
However, according to Mr. Franz’s college transcript, his major language studies were in classical Greek (21 semester hours), not Koine Greek in which the New Testament was written. The Greek Franz studied has different grammar and syntax from that of biblical Greek.
At that time, there was only one course in biblical Greek even offered at the University of Cincinnati.
According to the 1911 university catalog, page 119, that course was titled: “The New Testament – A course in grammar and translation.” Although Franz did take this class, this was not a full 3-hour college credit course. This was simply a survey course of New Testament Greek. Therefore it could legitimately be said that Franz never completed not even one typical college course in New Testament Greek. The one short course he did take was in a sense, well….anti-typical; if I may use a favorite phrase of his.
Hands down
”lying for the ‘truth’ “
ttwsyf
Yes. That's a good one !!
Theocratic warfare. That's a good one.
Householder: 'Are you telling me that if I don't become a JW I will be destroyed by God?
JW: 'No, of course not!'
Ron,,,LoL.
🤣
Thank you Sea Breeze. That is very informative. I have not seen anything that extensive in refuting the claim. I suspect no one else ever bothered to invest the time & effort into the matter.
(Of course, my post was NOT in any way suggesting that the "Rhodes" claim had ANY real merit.)
Doc
Sea Breeze : Simply being told what a student must accomplish in order to be invited to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, is certainly not the same as “being offered the privilege of going to Oxford or Cambridge in England under the Rhodes plan”
Since you (Sea Breeze) quoted from Franz's autobiography ((in the article “Looking Back Over 93 Years of Living” for the May 1, 1987, Watchtower magazine), I'm surprised at what you missed out. Franz went on to say :
I have never regretted that, shortly before the announcements by the educational authorities regarding the outcome of the examinations for the Cecil Rhodes Scholarship, I wrote a letter to the authorities and advised them that I had lost interest in the Oxford University scholarship and that they should drop me from the list of contestants. This I did even though my professor in Greek at the university, Dr. Joseph Harry, informed me that I had been chosen to receive it. [My italics]
As regards Franz's study of Greek at the University of Cincinnati, Franz writes in his autobiography :
To the continued study of Latin, I now added the study of Greek. What a blessing it was to study Bible Greek under Professor Arthur Kinsella! Under Dr. Joseph Harry, an author of some Greek works, I also studied the classical Greek. I knew that if I wanted to become a Presbyterian clergyman, I had to have a command of Bible Greek. So I furiously applied myself and got passing grades.
