rocketman....That is a good point about the blurring between Christ and the Holy Spirit as well (e.g. pneumatic christology), and I touch on this subject in my thread on the Holy Spirit: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/69107/1.ashx
What we find is that ante-Nicene trinitarian thought, Monarchianistic thought, Arian thought, etc. synthesize the various conflicting christologies and (naive) theologies of the NT in different ways, privileging some ideas over others and glossing over what may have been the original conceptions in the individual NT books. These elements include (1) a basic monotheistic impulse, derived from certain portions of the OT, requiring there to be only ONE God, (2) a binitarian conception of "Two Powers in Heaven", derived from post-exilic dualism, rabbinical exegesis of some texts (such as how Yahweh could be portrayed in Exodus as both a young "warrior" as well as an aged, wise lawgiver), the distinction between the "Ancient of Days" and the "one like a son of man" in Daniel, the Memra/Logos theology of Philo of Alexandria, first-century rabbis, etc., possibily ultimately derived from the indigenous Canaanite/Israelite distinction between the Father-god El, the creator, and Baal, his adopted son who rules as king, (3) the active agency of the Holy Spirit (=Wisdom), as believed to have been working actively in the Christian community, which was personified in the OT and in intercanonical texts and which derives ultimately from a personal deity (Asherah) abstractized as a hypostasis (facet) of Yahweh, as his divine presence and face, (4) the tendency to blur the distinction between Christ and the Holy Spirit, so that Christ is either speaking with the voice of feminine divine Wisdom (as in the synoptic gospels) or is characterized in pneumatic terms (e.g. the "Spirit of Christ"), (5) the confession of Jesus as "Lord" (kurios), which provided an avenue for applying OT scriptures referring to Yahweh (kurios in the LXX) to Christ, (6) the belief in Christ's deity, as seen in NT statements applying theos "God", theotétos "godship, deity", pléroma "fullness", morphé theou "form of God", isa theou "equal to God", kharaktér tés hupostaseós theou "impression of God's substance", etc. to Christ, the application of divine epithets to Christ, the application of OT texts referring to God to Christ, etc., (7) triadic formulae in the NT, which set forth the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (in various wordings) as a group mentioned together, but without any explicit trinitarian theology, and so forth.
Trinitarian thought was aimed at preserving a distinction between the "Two Powers in Heaven" (Father and Son), as well as ascribing full deity to the Son, while equally preserving the monotheistic impulse and the triadic frame provided by liturgy. One main solution involved recognizing a distinction of personhood (persona) within one God, with each person united with the other. Monarchianism or Modalism, on the other hand, privileged monotheism over binitarianism, by positing the Son and the Holy Spirit as different hypostases (aspects) of the same one God. Arianism (and the doctrine of the WTS) pushed the distinction in the "Two Powers in Heaven" concept into a ditheism, at the expense of monotheism, so that Jesus is a lesser or inferior god. To harmonize with monotheism, the actual deity of Christ may be denied in this view. This gives only a very rough idea of how theological debates can potentially go on forever, because there are many different ways in which the data from the OT and NT can be combined, recombined, reinterpreted, emphasized or deemphasized, producing new systematic theologies reducing the diversity of the original texts into a synthetic system that that is nowhere found in the Bible (what is right for the goose is right for the gander, if the systematic doctrine of the Trinity is not in the Bible, neither is Arianism per se).
Hellrider....The explicit reference to Jesus is in v. 16. I'm not sure what the Society says, but I suspect they say that there is a change in speaker in this verse. This is possible, as there are frequent shifts in speakers in the chapter. However, it is equally possible that there is a shift in speaker in v. 12, so that the angel speaks from v. 10-11, Jesus speaks from v. 12-16, and so forth. If you look at various translations, you will see the passage punctuated differently:
Jerusalem Bible: v. 10-15, punctuated as spoken entirely by the angel, v. 16 unpunctuated (but spoken by Jesus)
New International Version: v. 10-11, punctuated as spoken by the angel, v. 12-16, punctuated as spoken by Jesus
New American Standard, New King James Version: v. 10-11, punctuated as spoken by the angel, v. 12-13, puctuated as spoken by a new speaker, the Alpha and the Omega, v. 14-15 unpunctuated (presumably written by John), v. 16, punctuated as spoken by Jesus
New World Translation: v. 10-15, punctuated with double quotes as spoken entirely by the angel, within it v. 12-15 punctuated with single quotes as spoken by the Alpha and the Omega and v. 16 punctuated separately with single quotes as spoken by Jesus.
There is actually no textual authority for any of this punctuation, it is all conjectural. A switch in speaker at v. 12 is assumed by all these versions except the Jerusalem Bible, whereas a switch in speaker at v. 16 (necessary for denying that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega) is assumed by the New World Translation and the Jerusalem Bible. Textually, we know that the angel is speaking in v. 10 and the thought expressed in this verse is concluded in v. 11. At this point, the voice is no longer that of the angel who is "just a servant like you" but that of "the Alpha and the Omega" the "First and the Last" who "very soon shall be with you again". So whether expressed by punctuation or not, there is some implicit shift here. Since the angel is delivering the revelation of Jesus (v. 16), it could still be the angel still speaking but now speaking with the voice of Jesus, delivering his message. Then there is a beatitude and curse in v. 14-15, which could be a continuation of what the Alpha and Omega was saying, or even a comment by the author himself. Then in v. 16, we have an explicit referece to Jesus, but we don't know for sure whether this continues the same voice in v. 13, is a new voice, or is part of the angel's message continuing from v. 10. The important thing about v. 12-13 however is that the Alpha and Omega says that he "is coming quickly" (erkhomai takhu), and this promise is again repeated in v. 20, and the author identifies the voice as Jesus: "Amen, come Lord Jesus".
