Posts by slimboyfat

51

Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya

by aqwsed12345 in

the concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.

in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.

both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".

slimboyfat

While Shaw’s work highlights that ΙΑΩ was known and used in certain Jewish contexts, this evidence does not prove it was the original or predominant rendering of YHWH in the LXX.

Neither did I claim that it does. You are not reading what I wrote. Shaw’s work shows that use of the divine name Yaho was widespread among ordinary Jews. This refutes the idea that use of the divine name would not have been familiar for first century Jews when the early Christians used it. On the subject of what was written in the LXX, as I understand it, Shaw’s view is that there was diversity of forms from early in the LXX.

If the NT authors did not consider the possibility that readers might “confuse” YHWH with Jesus, they wrote with a level of carelessness that fundamentally undermines the inspiration and sacredness of their writings.

The NT authors went out of their way to show that Jesus is Lord in a completely different sense than God. For example, Psalm 110.1 is the most quoted OT text in the NT, precisely because it makes the distinction between Jehovah God and Jesus as messianic Lord crystal clear. It says:

Jehovah declared to my Lord:“Sit at my right handUntil I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.”

Notice here that “Jehovah” (YHWH) is speaking to the messiah as “Lord” (adonai) and that the messianic Lord is clearly subordinate to God. That is how the early Christians distinguished between God and Jesus and is why this text fitted their purpose so well. This careful distinction is also maintained in Phil 2 where Jesus is given the title Lord “to the glory of God the Father.” God himself is not Lord “to the glory of another”. God is almighty in his own glory. Again this text clearly distinguishes Jesus from God and subordinates him to God.

In what sense is Jesus Lord? The NT itself says that Jesus is our Lord because he died and bought us with his blood. That makes Jesus our “owner” which is what his Lordship means in this context. This is spelled out in 2 Peter 2.1 and Jude 4. It is also the basis for the distinction between the honour due to God in Revelation 4 and the honour due to Jesus in Revelation 5. In Revelation 4 God is worthy of honour and glory because he is the one who lives forever, who created all things and because of his will they exist and were created. In chapter 5 Jesus, the lamb of God, is worthy of honour and glory because he died and gave his life that he might buy back humans from sin and death. So again, clearly, Jesus as the owner and Lord of saved humans is Lord in a very different sense from Jehovah who is the ever living God of creation.

51

Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya

by aqwsed12345 in

the concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.

in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.

both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".

slimboyfat

Who made the decision on this? Where is the “smoking gun?”

The people who are responsible for introducing nomina sacra into the text are likely the same ones who discontinued using the divine name.

When I mentioned the quality of the Leviticus fragment with Yaho, what I had in mind was Peitersma’s comment that “the Septuagintal credentials of [the manuscript] are well nigh impeccable”. I quote that from memory and I think that’s the exact phrase he used.

More importantly, if Christians were using the Tetragrammaton to call upon the God of Israel, it would have caused massive controversy.

There is a lot of evidence that ordinary use of the divine name in the form Yaho was widespread among ordinary Jews in the first century. See the many sources that indicate this in Frank Shaw’s book The Earliest Non-Mystical Jewish Use of IAW (2014).

Was It the Christians? If Christians systematically removed the Tetragrammaton, why did they replace it with Kyrios—a term already used for Jesus throughout the NT? This substitution only reinforces the NT’s high Christology, where Jesus is identified with the Lord of the OT (e.g., Romans 10:13 citing Joel 2:32).

Yes, because their theology had moved on from the monotheism of the NT toward a Trinitarian reading that incorporated Jesus in a triune God. Howard and Trobisch both explain this factor as important in the disappearance of the divine name from Christian texts. Here is Howard’s explanation:

Is there any way for us, at this late date, to calculate the effect which this change in the Bible had on the second century church? It is of course impossible to know with certainty, but the effect must have been significant. First, a number of passages must have taken on an ambiguity which the original lacked. For example, the second century church read, “The Lord said to my Lord” (Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:42), a reading which is as ambiguous as it is imprecise. The first century church probably read, “YHWH said to my Lord.”
To the second century church, “Prepare the way of the Lord” (Mark 1:3) must have meant one thing, since it immediately followed the words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” But to the First Century Church it must have meant something else since they read, “Prepare the way of YHWH.”
The second century church read 1 Corinthians 1:31, “The one who boasts, let him boast in the Lord,” which was probably considered a reference to Christ mentioned in verse 30. But to the first century church, it probably referred to God mentioned in verse 29 since they read, “The one who boasts let him boast in YHWH.”
These examples are sufficient to suggest that the removal of the Tetragrammaton from the New Testament and its replacement with the surrogates kyrios and theos blurred the original distinction between the Lord God and the Lord Christ, and in many passages made it impossible to tell which one was meant. This is supported by the fact that in a number of places where Old Testament quotations are cited, there is a confusion in the manuscript tradition whether to read God or Christ in the discussion surrounding the quotation. Once the Tetragrammaton was removed and replaced by the surrogate “Lord”, scribes were unsure whether “Lord” meant God or Christ. As time went on, these two figures were brought into even closer unity until it was often impossible to distinguish between them. Thus it may be that the removal of the Tetragrammaton contributed significantly to the later Christological and Trinitarian debates which plagued the church of the early Christian centuries.

See the rest of his article here.

https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/the-name-of-god-in-the-new-testament/

Trobisch argues similarly in his book, focussing on 2 Cor 3.14–18 as his example, and Luise Schottroff focuses on 1 Cor 2.16 to make a similar point.

51

Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya

by aqwsed12345 in

the concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.

in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.

both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".

slimboyfat

While scholars like Tov and Skehan argue for the originality of the Tetragrammaton their views are far from universally accepted. Their conclusions rely heavily on the limited evidence of fragments like P. Fouad 266.

Emanuel Tov and Patrick Skehan argued that Yaho was the original form of the divine name in the LXX, not YHWH or kyrios. They argued this on the basis of the good Septuagintal quality of the fragment containing Yaho in Leviticus (not P. Fouad 266) and the widespread use of Yaho in onomastica. To this can be added references to the normative use of Yaho among Jews and Christians by early Christian and Roman authors. You are correct there is evidence of diversity in the early LXX as argued by Frank Shaw and now also Anthony Meyer and others. Nevertheless, Tov and Skehan argued that Yaho was original and kyrios was a later form and Larry Hurtado latterly supported the view that kyrios only appeared in the LXX from the second century CE onwards.

Philo does refer to the divine name on the forehead of the high priest, knowledge of which some have argued he derived from copies of the LXX text.

There is evidence in the NT text of disruption around the use of the divine name in the high number of textual variants for kyrios and theos where the divine name originally appeared. This formed a key part of George Howard’s argument for the divine name in the NT, which other scholars such as Lloyd Gaston, David Trobisch, Frank Shaw, Luise Schottroff, and John McRay have supported. If the divine name did not appear in the original NT then is there an alternative explanation for the number of variants? The removal of the divine name also introduced ambiguity around the meaning of kyrios in texts such as Acts 1.24, 1 Cor 2.16 and Jude 5. Thus the original use of the divine name in the NT text resolves a number of problems including the persistent references to Yaho in various sources, textual variants in the NT text, and extraneous ambiguity surrounding the use of kyrios in various passages.

51

Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya

by aqwsed12345 in

the concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.

in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.

both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".

slimboyfat

aqwsed123456

You used a lot of words but you failed to answer Earnest’s question. The answer is that there are no pre-Christian LXX manuscripts that replace the Tetragrammaton with kyrios. This is significant because all the pre-Christian manuscripts that do survive in passages with the divine name use forms of the divine name and none replace it with kyrios.

When Pietersma wrote his article, he was already swimming against the tide of the material evidence because there were three pre-Christian LXX fragments that used the divine name and no fragments that used kyrios. Since Pietersma wrote his article another two fragments have been discovered that used the divine name and none that used kyrios.

On the basis of this evidence, as well as evidence from onomastica, two of the most senior LXX scholars, Patrick Skehan and Emanuel Tov, argued that the divine name in the Greek form Yaho was original in the LXX and that kyrios was secondary.

This evidence and weight of scholarship, bolstered by Anthony Meyer’s recent thesis on the topic, is no doubt why Larry Hurtado also concluded that the LXX only began using kyrios in the second century CE.

34

Why Did God Create Us?

by Sea Breeze in

jesus is the creator god, but why did he create us?

what say you?.

slimboyfat

Jesus is the Creator God, but why did he create us? What say you?

Interesting – and inaccurate – way to pose the question.

But interestingly, the answer to the question why we were created is, at the same time, also a demonstration that Jesus is distinct from and subordinate to God - because it is Jesus’s purpose in life, alongside the rest of creation, to worship God.

Hebrews 2.11, 12 and for this reason he is not ashamed to call them brothers, as he says: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you with song.”

51

Theocratic Warfare and Taqiyya

by aqwsed12345 in

the concept of strategic deception exists in several religious and ideological contexts.

in this article, we will explore and compare the theocratic warfare doctrine of the watchtower society and taqiyya in islam.

both concepts have parallels in their mechanisms of permitting deception for religious purposes but differ significantly in their application and historical roots.. 1. theocratic warfare: the "rahab method".

slimboyfat

Larry Hurtado, the use of "Kyrios" in the LXX was likely an original feature of many texts

Actually, that’s wrong. One of the last blog posts Larry Hurtado wrote was to state his view that kyrios only replaced the Tetragrammaton in the LXX from the second century C.E. onwards. He wrote

Our manuscripts of the Septuagint (LXX) routinely have kyrios where the Hebrew has YHWH, but that is a scribal practice that seems to have developed sometime in the second century or so.

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2019/05/07/yhwh-texts-and-jesus-a-follow-up/

22

Memory hole, international conspiracy, and the JW international network

by slimboyfat in

can anyone else who was around 15 to 20 years ago remember an odd story about jw missionaries being stopped at the swiss/italian border with american bonds worth billions of dollars in their possession?

because i can find little to no information about it anywhere online, yet at the time i am sure i recall it being reported by different mainstream news sources, including the bbc.

why do some news stories seem to disappear from the internet altogether?

slimboyfat

In most cases, not billions of dollars in bonds, though, I’d imagine. 😮

I wonder about the JWs being described as missionaries because to an outsider that word describes a preacher in another country. For JWs it most often refers to Witnesses who have attended Gilead and been assigned by Watchtower to a country. If the couple were missionaries in the latter sense then I wonder if there was a couple who attended Gilead in the preceding years who fit the bill and could have been the couple referred to.

7

Conversion Therapy for Gay Bethelites in Poland (?)

by Jensus in

recently, there was a rather accurate report on jw on german tv station "sat1".

you find it on their streaming service joyn.. https://www.joyn.de/serien/jenseits-des-glaubens-zwischen-religion-und-verblendung/1-2-die-zeugen-jehovas.

there was one piece of information that was new for me: a former bethelite explained that he realized that he was gay.

slimboyfat

Poland is a particularly a reactionary European country. But then our country is so progressive it mutilates children and now is considering killing the old and ill instead of helping them, so maybe reactionary ain’t so bad. I’ve had to reevaluate lot of views I had, oh yes.

22

Memory hole, international conspiracy, and the JW international network

by slimboyfat in

can anyone else who was around 15 to 20 years ago remember an odd story about jw missionaries being stopped at the swiss/italian border with american bonds worth billions of dollars in their possession?

because i can find little to no information about it anywhere online, yet at the time i am sure i recall it being reported by different mainstream news sources, including the bbc.

why do some news stories seem to disappear from the internet altogether?

slimboyfat

I was just about to ask the same question – has slimboyfat lost his mind – but you beat me to it! 🤔 Then I remembered he’s me! 😮

When you talk about focussing on more tangible subjects what can you be referring to. 🤓

408

Is Jesus the Creator?

by Sea Breeze in

that's what the word says.

.

colossians 1:16. for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him..

slimboyfat

There’s certainly a sense in which JWs would agree with Philo that the Word is not uncreated like God or created like us because he was the only direct creation of God and everything else was created through him. Saying Jesus is not uncreated but is unlike the rest of creation doesn’t need to be viewed as a contradiction, in fact it neatly matches the JWs understanding of Jesus’s unique status.