by defd 215 Replies latest watchtower bible
Well the Trinity is something that most Christian Churches believe.
here are a few links on the trinity if they help.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Trinity.asp
http://www.catholic.com/library/God_in_Three_Persons.asp
There are also several discussions on this in Catholic Answers forums. I can't link them to you though so just have a little look through there if your interested.
Evanescence
OK, it's late here and it's difficult for me to type but I want to add just a bit of reply:
Firstly, Bigdog, regarding the holy spirit, the Bible may be using what in literary terms is known as personification and so the spirit speaking or whatever does not automatically make it a person in and of itself.
Secondly, Hellrider, comparing "ego eimi" in John 8:58 to "ego eimi HO ON" in Ex. 3:14 in the LXX and concluding that Jesus is calling himself Jehovah ("I AM") is a ridiculous argument. It supposes that, speaking in Aramaic, Jesus' Aramaic words were instantly translated in the minds of the Jews and so understood in Greek by the Jews, who jumped back to Exodus 3:14, but, then, instead of thinking of Exodus in Hebrew, thought of it in Greek (i.e. the LXX), and entirely forgot about the HO ON part, which roughly means "The Being." Jesus didn't declare to be "ego eimi HO ON." None of your posted argument holds water unless you want to say the later Johaninne community put those words into Jesus' mouth and manufactured the Jews' vehement response. Which renders it entirely meaningless since you'd have to make an admission the conversation never actually took place.
Thirdly, there are no extant MSS of the NT that have existed. All we have are copies, and some bad ones at that, and very many that disagree with each other. None of these copies contain the Tetragram - so the WT asserts the original autographs did contain it, some 237 times, and it was removed. It's too late and I don't feel like finding my WTCDROM but in the Appendix of the big brown study version of the NWT the WTS quotes George Howard's hypothesis that it could have been there and removed. Howard thinks the WT has gone too far with his theory. All ya gotta do is read it to find the WTS' explanation as to why they used "Jehovah" instead of "Lord" in the Christian Greek Scriptures (as well as a few Hebrew-to-German translations that decided to "restore" the divine name, designated J with a corresponding #, in the footnotes).
Hellrider:
It's ok - Stilla and I have gone a few rounds on this before, and both got sickened of it. We're having fun with each other
Ozzie:It was my crunch point, too. It was at that point that I realised that remaining a JW just wasn't viable.
Cygnus:You're aware that the "J" documents are actually translations from the Greek into the Hebrew, with the "name" interpolated around the 14th century by Jewish Christians, right?
The WTS decided to go against it's previous position of using the oldest available documents, and use some which were fully 1000 years newer (and clearly translations, at that), to support it's decision in rendering the title "Lord" with the Divine name in the New Testament!!!
LT, that's what I get for neglecting sleep. I meant to say the J documents are German-Greek-Hebrew. I have to quit this staying up for 48 hours straight nonsense.
Why do I think the Krauts had something to do with it? I'm sorry, maybe I should read up a little more here http://www.irr.org/English-JW/tetra6.pdf#search='j%20documents%20new%20world%20translation'
Cygnus: The basis of Christianity isn`t what Jesus said or didn`t say, or whether it would have been logical for him to say it, but what the texts say! The texts are the only written sources we have about Jesus` life, and the basics of christian beliefs are that these texts are written with divine inspiration, and that God has "protected these texts", so that the Bible can be trusted. If we were to argue what Jesus could or couldn`t have said (although the Bible says otherwise),or could or couldn`t have meant, there would be no lengths to how far we could go. Secondly, ok, let`s follow this type of argument, then: ego eimi and ego eimi ho on ...well, what could Jesus have meant by this statement, then? What other meaning could these words contain? And correct me if I`m wrong, because I`m no greek-expert, but I have understood the meaning of Yhwh as "I am" or "I exist" or simply "existence". So saying "I am" is no less a claim of deity, than saying "I am the Being". I would think...but correct me if I`m wrong, I`m no expert.
This is one of the reasons I cannot beleive the bible is God's written word to guide mankind to understand who and what he is. How many christains can agree on whether he is one god or three, or three in one? Did he roam the earth as Christ or not? Was Mary really the mother of God or not? How could he be a decendent of David if God got Mary pregnant? If he was a decendent of David, how could he be God?
If God wanted his name known and hallowed why didn't he reveal it's pronunciation? What is our destiny, new heaven, new earth, dirt, torment?
If he plans to do anything different to his earth, why have we been here millions of years,( Yea, I know, only 6000)
I know the answer, just have FAITH. Or, in other words, use your imagination.(Or someone elses)
Ken P.
No i am not interested in talking with littletoe.
Well, at least I've got it straight who the almighty chicken is.
defd has gon quiet - hope he is ok
I really don't care if God is a trinity; I don't think he cares if I care. Really. I can't imagine putting any energy into this discussion. It can't be known one way or another, right?
As a witness, I thought trinitarians were fools; after seeing what the NWT did to some texts, I see why some people believe in a trinity. I don't; I just see why some do.
It all smacks of some conspiracy. "here is what god really is..........you can read it between the lines."
How about this: if trinitarians and their opposites would put more energy into feeding the poor and healing the sick FIRST? I think that might be what Father and Son had in mind, rather than arguing the unknowable.
P
