Yes, I read The Blind Watchmaker in 1999 on the banks of the river Ness and it convinced me evolution is likely true. The book even mentions JWs a couple of times and their misunderstanding or misrepresentation of evolution. I still think evolution is probably true but it’s not as slam dunk as I thought it was then. If evolution is true then it doesn’t necessarily point to a purely materialist reality in any case (see Mind and Cosmos by Thomas Nagel) and might actually be a good argument in favour of God’s existence. (See the argument from evolution by Alvin Plantinga)
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
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Ten reasons Jehovah’s Witnesses have the true religion (plus a bonus one)
by slimboyfat inthinking back when i was a true believer these are probably the top ten reasons why i believed jws are the true religion.
1. they show love among themselves by not going to war.
not killing your fellow believers in any circumstances, including war, would seem to be a very basic requirement for true christianity.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
Maybe, although most critical scholars don’t think Paul wrote Colossians.
In terms of Paul’s view of Jesus’s prehuman existence, by far the best indication is Phil 2.5-11, while 1 Cor 8.4-6, 2 Cor 8.9, and a few other passages offer some insight.
In Philippians 2, if we accept that Paul is here referring to Jesus’s prehuman existence, as most scholars do, I think the JW reading of the passage makes the best sense by far. In this passage, Jesus is clearly a heavenly being who is distinct from and subject to God. Instead of trying to usurp God’s position, with an implied contrast with either Adam or Satan, or both, he chose to come to earth as a human, and then he humbled himself even to the point of death. For that reason, God rewarded him and exalted him to a higher position than he originally had and, reflecting Jesus’s humility, this is all still to the glory of God, not himself. This passage so clearly shows that Jesus is a spirit being who is subordinate to God that trinitarians tie themselves in all sorts of knots trying to get it to say something else. It doesn’t flat out say that Jesus is an angel, but what is the name for a heavenly being that is subject to God and does his will? It seems pretty clear. One of the best treatments of the passage I’ve come across is this article by Jack Sanders. I can send a pdf if anyone wants to access it, it let me know.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
That’s a great quote from Moloney, and the point appears to be spot on. Whatever the author of the gospel of John intended us to think about the Word, the one thing that is clear is that he is distinguished from God. Not merely distinguished from “God the Father”, but from “God”. In any case, when Bible writers use the phrase “God the Father” they appear to use the phrase synonymously and interchangeably with “God”. Later, when the Trinity doctrine was formulated, trinitarians retrospectively imposed a new definition on the “God the Father” to mean one person of the tri-personal deity. On top of that, in many verses that say simply “God”, they say it must mean “God the Father” under their trinitarian definition of that phrase. Needless to say, none of this is ever stated in the Bible because the Bible writers knew nothing about it. When they wrote “God” they meant God, and when John said “the Word was with God”, by every normal use of language he was clearly stating that the Word was distinguished from God.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
Even a busted clock is right twice a day.
Are you saying JWs just randomly stumbled upon a Christology that is closer to what many recent scholars have determined was the early Christian view? It has nothing to do with their particular history or approach to the texts, as Jason BeDuhn argued? I suppose it could be completely random, but when there are explanations for something, why resort to randomness instead? Like if somebody got a good result in their exams, you could say it was a multiple choice exam therefore their answers could have been randomly correct. I suppose so, could be, we can’t rule it out, but why? Other explanations are inherently more likely, and more relevant, such as indications the person studied, or they cheated, or whatever. What’s the point of resorting to randomness as an explanation?
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
There has been debate over whether the purported earliest NT papyrus fragment P52 used nomina sacra or not. The scant remains don’t include any locations where it might be used, but it hasn’t stopped scholars speculating based on the length of the lines and reconstructions of the text, each quite adamant about the case for their position, but for others appearing somewhat inconclusive.
While it might sound plausible to say we don’t know for a fact that nomina sacra notation began later than the NT originals, when you actually think about it, and read Colin Roberts and David Trobisch and others on the topic, in connection with the use of the codex, letter collections, the canon, and so on, it really is apparent that the use of nomina sacra was an editorial decision made at some point subsequent to the circulation of the NT documents as individual pieces of writing. Otherwise you need to imagine, somehow, all the NT authors spontaneously deciding to use this notation without consulting one another. I don’t think there is a plausible scenario for that, which is why scholars seem to be in universal agreement that nomina sacra were introduced at some later stage. Even Tomas Bokedal (very conservative, and draws upon nomina sacra as support for Trinitarian theology) wouldn’t suggest, I don’t think, that nomina sacra were not introduced to the texts some time after they were first written and at some stage during the process of their collection.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
Thanks for the explanation, it makes a lot of sense. I would point out a few things. It’s legitimate for you to adopt the position that the church doesn’t need to justify its position and that others must prove it wrong. At the same time you shouldn’t be surprised that others don’t share that perspective, so there may be an impasse on that point.
To explain why I quote scholars rather than my own inferences from grammar and so on: I am no expert on grammar, syntax, text criticism and so on, so I think it would be presumptuous for me to make definite statements of my own. Very few experts have earned that right in my opinion, not everybody who knows some of the language or text history. When I quote a scholar who agrees with JWs I am not arguing that this proves JWs are correct because scholars agree with them. What I am saying is that, since there are senior scholars in the field who agree with JWs, it is at least a legitimate way of reading the text and should be respected. Because opponents of JWs sometimes give the impression that there is no support for their rendering of John 1.1, for example, when in reality there is quite a lot of support from a variety of competent scholars who approach the text from different perspectives. This is certainly lost in the rhetoric of some anti-JW literature that talks about “monstrous translation”, “polytheists”, “breaking all rules of grammar”, and so on. Such commentators reveal their hand by their rhetoric; serious scholars don’t often talk in such terms.
JWs don’t enjoy much support for all their positions: such as on chronology, or in the past on the frequency of earthquakes, or further back, on the nature of the pyramids. JWs have never enjoyed support from experts on those topics and could rightly be held up for that. On the other hand, mainstream scholarly opinion agrees with JWs that the Trinity is not taught in the Bible, and many scholars agree that Jesus was viewed as an angel, God’s first creation, separate and distinct from God by the early Christians. That doesn’t prove JWs are correct but it is worth pointing out that senior scholars do support them on these issues.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
You didn’t say if that was you in the bookshop. How many people are there wandering around looking for Garrigou-Lagrange in Latin?
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
On Robert Kraft and Larry Hurtado you are trying to make a round peg fit in a square hole. You were correct the first time when you wrote that Kraft argued that Jews were perhaps the first to use nomina sacra (he was open about the possibility and awaited further MS evidence) and Hurtado argued that ‘Jesus’ was the first nomen sacrum. Those two propositions cannot be reconciled. You are trying to blur the issue by saying that ‘Jewish Christians’ might have originated the practice. Another word for Jewish Christians in this period is simply ‘Christians’, and that’s not what Robert Kraft had in mind. He meant Jews, not Christians, or even ‘Jewish Christians’. If Hurtado is correct that ‘Jesus’ was the first nomen sacrum (based on numerology from Genesis and a comment in Barnabas which Colin Roberts had already identified) then the practice originated with Christians, not Jews. The fact that Jewish scribal practice around the divine name in some way influenced nomina sacra notation is recognised by everyone and is beside the point.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
I think the greatest theologian of the 20th century is Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, I think you haven't even heard of him because you're only looking for Dan Brown-style authors.
I met a Catholic in a large secondhand bookshop in England a few months ago who asked me if I knew where to find a book by Garrigou-Lagrange. He was in his 20s and had a girlfriend waiting around for him. He reminded me a bit of Jacob Rees-Mogg. I was able to find a book by this author in English but he said he preferred one in Latin. Was that you? Why was anyone writing in Latin in the 20th century anyway? I asked the young man that question but didn’t really get a response. He also made a derogatory comment about Han Küng as a heretic too. I didn’t pursue further conversation.
In an earlier post you agreed that EP Sanders was a respected scholar but that you disagree with his view. Now you're calling scholars you don’t agree with quacks. This is a deterioration.
The page you posted of scholars on the NWT is a tremendous resource and I think quite useful. If you read the entries carefully, among the Trinitarian scholars who disagree with the NWT, there is also a significant amount of respect and support for the NWT - more than one would be led to expect by theological opponents of JWs in any case.
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How did JWs arrive at a clearer understanding of what the Bible teaches than other Christian denominations?
by slimboyfat infor jws who believe that jehovah had a hand in reviving the truth in the nineteenth century this is enough explanation for how jws managed to achieve a closer approximation to early christian beliefs and practices than other groups.
but is there an explanation for this phenomenon that doesn’t rely on supernatural intervention?
new testament scholar james dunn explains the difficulty of interpreting the biblical texts in this way:.
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slimboyfat
Your assertion that the NWT rendering of John 1:1 as "the Word was a god" is grammatically correct is not supported by most reputable Greek scholars.
Yes the rendering “a god” is supported by some of the most reputable scholars such as Adela Yarbro Collins, one of the most respected biblical scholars around. Even Trinitarian scholars who do not support the translation have admitted it is grammatically correct but do not support it on theological grounds.
Scholars who argue for a qualitative understanding of "theos" in John 1:1c emphasize that John was identifying the Logos as fully divine, not as one among many lesser gods.
Jesus himself indicated that he is a lesser God than his Father because he stated that his Father is the only true God in John 17.3, and in John chapter 10 he justified his own limited divinity by pointing out that creatures are called gods in Psalm 82. That’s an odd argument to make unless Jesus was clearly indicating that his divinity is on a level with other creatures and less than God almighty.
You argue with Robert Kraft that nomina sacra, “originated among Jews and was taken over and elaborated by Christians”. You also argue with Larry Hurtado that nomina sacra, “likely began with the abbreviation of the name of Jesus and then expanded to include other key titles, such as ‘Lord’ and ‘God.’” You do realise that those propositions contradict each other? Because, obviously, if Jews originated the practice of nomina sacra they would not have started with the name ‘Jesus’, and conversely, if the first nomina sacra was ‘ Jesus’, then obviously the practice originated with Christians, not Jews. So which are you actually arguing for?