Posts by yaddayadda

33

Fred and Ray on Door-to-Door: the Truth

by compound complex in

dear friends,.

the following is from notes derived from in search of christian freedom, by ray franz.

the chapter is "from house to house.

yaddayadda

You're very welcome Coco. Glad you found it helpful.

33

Fred and Ray on Door-to-Door: the Truth

by compound complex in

dear friends,.

the following is from notes derived from in search of christian freedom, by ray franz.

the chapter is "from house to house.

The Society is wrong to make it mandatory for JW's to preach in a door-to-door, house over house style (only the very elderly and sick aren't expected to do this). It is especially lamentable that some JW's have been imprisoned and worse for refusing to perform this activity, believing that it was literally what the first century Christians did.

That said, Ray Franz's research in ISOCF doesn't prove that the first century Christians DIDN'T actually preach in some kind of house over house style. They may have or they may not have. The point is that JW's should have more freedom of choice in the matter.

I think Ray Franz does well to highlight that the Society have abused the 'house to house' concept, but there are weaknesses in his argument against the Society on this point. His claim on page 214 of ISOCF about the 'distributive' sense of the preposition kata not being the same as 'consecutive' is not sufficiently elaborated on. He fails to provide any examples or authority that demonstrates that for 'katoikon' to be rendered 'house to house' it must necessarily have a 'consecutive' sense. In fact, Franz does not give one example from the bible of a 'consecutive' sense meaning of kata and how this can be contrasted with the 'distributive' sense in an ancient context. Instead Franz has to resort to a modern-day analogy about a doctor making 'house calls'. Not very scholarly.

When you research things a bit more you will find that a 'distributive' sense has a more defined meaning than "going from a home in one area to a home in another area, just as a doctor making 'house calls' might go from home to home" as Franz portrays (p.214). For examle, R. C. H. Lenski, in his work 'The Interpretation of The Acts of the Apostles', Minneapolis (1961), makes the following comment on Acts 5:42: ‘Never for a moment did the apostles cease their blessed work. "Every day" they continued, and this openly "in the Temple" where the Sanhedrin and the Temple police could see and hear them, and, of course, also [katoikon], which is distributive, "from house to house," and not merely adverbial, "at home." This quote from Lenski is found in a footnote to the NWT reference bible but Franz doesn't address the point.

Franz fails to deal with the fact that when the distributive KATA is used, the idea of repetition is involved, usually with reference to people, times, or places. The word "every" is a good word to use in reference to this preposition. In the case of Acts 5:42 and 20:20, this was not necessarily in the methodical, 'house-over-house' style that JW's perform today when walking down a street, but it seems clear that the disciples tried to distribute their message to EVERY household in whatever town or village they went to. Given this clear point, it would seem illogical that the disciples would waste energy and resources by making doctor-like 'house calls' going from one area to another in the way Ray Franz proposes. I think they must have had a more systematic approach than that, but not necessarily as systematic as the JW method.

Here is some research on 'kata' from a relevant website:

Distributive KATA

Greek prepositions usually merit their own major section of discussion in the syntax of most Greek grammars. They merit such discussion due to their multifaceted nature. The Greek preposition is one of the Swiss army knives in the Greek language; one preposition may have multiple uses. The Greek reader must carefully consider the context in which the preposition is used and correctly apply the proper usage if he is to get all there is out of reading the text. In our discussion this week, we will look at one particularly special nuance of the Greek preposition KATA.

KATA may take two cases depending upon how it is used. With the genitive case, KATA can mean "against," "down," or it can intensify the meaning of something as to it's depth (such as in 2 Corinthians 8:2). With the accusative case, KATA may represent ownership, authorship, or repetition (distribution). It is sometimes translated "according to" with this case. It is the last use of KATA, the distributive use, which we will focus upon here.

When the distributive KATA is used, the idea of repetition is involved, usually with reference to people, times, or places. The word "every" is a good word to use in reference to this preposition. For example, in Matthew 27:15 (and in the parallel in Mark 15:6) we have the distributive use of KATA. The ASV text says, "Now at the feast the governor was wont to release unto the multitude one prisoner, whom they would." The word KATA occurs early in the sentence. It is translated here by the word "at." However, when taking the distributive use of the preposition KATA into account here, we would more accurately translate the sentence, "Now at every feast…." The idea is that this was a repeated event. That it wasn't just at this feast, but was customary at all of the feasts to release a prisoner.

Another rather obvious example is in Mark 14:19 where the disciples question Jesus "one by one." The word translated "by" in this verse is KATA. The distributive sense can be seen clearly in this passage.

Romans 12:5 is also another good example. "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." Each individual member is part of the body of Christ.

Perhaps one of the most significant uses of the distributive KATA is found in 1 Corinthians 16:2: "Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come." You may think that the word "each" in this verse is KATA, but it isn't. The word KATA is translated "upon" in this verse. The idea is upon every first day of the week, the church was to take up this collection. The implication is obvious. The church met every first day of the week and this was the time at which Paul instructed them to take up their contribution.

Other examples of the distributive use of KATA can be found in Luke 8:1, 4, 9:6, 13:22, Acts 8:3, 13:27, 15:21, 15:36, 17:17, 20:23, 22:19, 24:5, 24:12, 26:11, Titus 1:5, Hebrews 9:5, and Revelation 22:2. A good exercise would be to see if you can spot the distributive KATA in these verses.

2

Is the 2006 annual worldwide report out yet?

by yaddayadda in

jw
friends

i would've thought the 1st feb watchtower was out by now, with the 2006 annual jw stats in it.

.

ps - i have a feeling they bounced back a bit from 2005.

yaddayadda

Thank you Blondie

30

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 12-24-06 WT Study (Keep in God's Love)

by blondie in

start of article.

q1, 2) how can you remain in god's love?.

1) jehovah loves the world of mankind so much that he gave his only-begotten son in order that those exercising faith in him might have everlasting life.

yaddayadda

Blondie, taken in isolation, paragraph 3 does suggest your point (that active JW membership is the only way to 'remain' in God's love - something JW's clearly believe), but the majority of the paragraphs in themselves are simply standard Christian teaching and exhortation, ie, to obey God, to not sin, to pray regularly, to obeying Jesus' commandments, to avoid immorality, to pray for the holy spirit, avoiding harming others through adultery, respecting the sanctity of marriage, to fear God, avoiding greed, seeking forgiveness if we have sinned. All basic Christian fare.

If you deleted paragraphs 3, 15 and 17, this article could be found in a journal put out by nearly any Christian denomination (if 'Jehovah' was replaced with 'God or 'Lord').

Of course if one is thoroughly predisposed to demonizing everything coming from the Society's mouth then the article will be seen as nothing more than cynical WT propaganda.

2

Is the 2006 annual worldwide report out yet?

by yaddayadda in

jw
friends

i would've thought the 1st feb watchtower was out by now, with the 2006 annual jw stats in it.

.

ps - i have a feeling they bounced back a bit from 2005.

yaddayadda

I would've thought the 1st Feb Watchtower was out by now, with the 2006 annual JW stats in it.

ps - I have a feeling they bounced back a bit from 2005.

Discussion on Amazon Christianity forum re reliablity of New Testament docs

by yaddayadda in

http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/ref=cm_cd_fp_tft_tp/104-4921953-6266350?ie=utf8&cdforum=fx77wqhu8ys50z&asin=0195112407&cdthread=txhhkyac07wbh0 .

p45: portions of matthew and acts as well as nearly all of mark, luke, and john .

p64: portions of matthew and luke .

yaddayadda

http://www.amazon.com/gp/discussionboard/discussion.html/ref=cm_cd_fp_tft_tp/104-4921953-6266350?ie=UTF8&cdForum=Fx77WQHU8YS50Z&asin=0195112407&cdThread=TxHHKYAC07WBH0

QUESTION
In _Misquoting Jesus_, Bart D. Ehrman implies that the New Testament documents may not have been copied accurately---that we do not have the original authors' words. Is he right or not? If he's wrong, how do you know that he's wrong?

REPLY
Do we have any way to gauge this that isn't pure speculation? It seems to me that the only way you can KNOW beyond guessing is to find, at least, one New Testament document that is original. Why weren't the originals kept, given how much they were valued? One would think that, if the first-century churches intended to pass the documents along with great care, they would have made master copies and then sealed the originals in dry jars. A couple hundred years later we know they were transcribed with great care, but the church was officially established by the government by then. It makes one wonder if the Catholic church or Orthodox church is hiding some original manuscripts. How could they have lost every single one of them?

REPLY
Is there some guesswork involved in the task of textual criticism? Sure, but there's a process in it that involves a lot more than guesswork. Here's what textual criticism assumes: It's impossible for all the copyists to have made the same mistake at the same time. In other words, since changes creep into the manuscripts one at a time in different times and places, it is possible to compare several manuscripts to discover when and where the error occurred. The textual critic can then, in most cases, figure out the original wording of the text.

Look at a simple example of this process. In most Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of John, chapter one, verse six, reads something like this: "There was a man, having been sent from God, whose name was John." But, in a manuscript known as Codex Bezae or simply as D, the text reads, "There was a man, having been sent from the Lord, whose name was John."

Like most differences between manuscripts, this variant doesn't affect the meaning of the text. Still, it's important for scholars and translators to determine which words appeared in the original text of the Gospel of John. So, how do they know which reading is closest to the original?

Codex Bezae is a vellum codex that includes not only Greek text but also Latin. Together, the style of writing, the use of vellum instead of papyrus, and the presence of Greek and Latin in the text suggest that Codex Bezae-the manuscript that reads "sent from the Lord"-was copied around A.D. 500 Codex Bezae also seems to have originated in the region of Europe now known as France.

The two primary manuscripts that agree on the other reading-"sent from God" instead of "sent from the Lord"-are a vellum codex known as "Codex Sinaiticus" and a papyrus codex that scholars have dubbed P66. Codex Sinaiticus was copied around A.D. 330. P66 probably dates from the late second century A.D., a century or less from the time when most scholars believe the Gospel of John was originally written! Codex Sinaiticus and P66 also seem to have been copied in two different areas of Egypt.

Given the agreement between Codex Sinaiticus and P66-manuscripts that were copied in two different places, more than a century apart-and the fact that these two codices are centuries older than Codex Bezae, nearly every textual critic has concluded that John 1:6 originally read "sent from God." At some point, probably somewhere in Europe in the fifth century, a tired or careless scribe wrote "Lord" (Greek, kyriou) when the word should have been copied was "God" (Greek, theou).

Now, I must admit to you that most textual issues are far more complicated than the scenario I've presented here. Still, there are certain principles that, with rare exceptions, allow textual critics to determine the original form of the text. Bart Ehrman is well aware of these principles. (In fact, one of Ehrman's former professors-Bruce M. Metzger-is responsible for refining many of the most important principles of textual criticism.) At one point in Misquoting Jesus, Ehrman even acknowledges, "I continue to think that even if we cannot be 100 percent certain about what we can attain to ... , that it is at least possible to get back to the oldest and earliest stage of the manuscript tradition for each of the books of the New Testament." In another place, he admits:
"The more manuscripts one discovers, the more the variant readings; but also the more the likelihood that somewhere among those variant readings one will be able to uncover the original text. Therefore, the thirty thousand variants uncovered by [eighteenth-century textual critic John] Mill do not detract from the integrity of the New Testament; they simply provide the data scholars need to work on to establish the text, a text that is more amply documented than any other in the ancient world."

And yet it seems that Bart Ehrman wants-in the words of one reviewer-"to have his text-critical cake and eat it, too." Only a few pages after affirming that it is possible to recover the most ancient form of the manuscripts, Ehrman refers to Christianity as "a textually oriented religion whose texts have been changed." Despite admitting that it is possible to recover the "oldest and earliest" manuscript traditions, Ehrman finds space before the closing paragraphs of Misquoting Jesus to repeat his charge that, "given the circumstance that [God] didn't preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn't gone to the trouble of inspiring them." Yet Ehrman remains well aware that textual critics can, in his words, "reconstruct the oldest form of the words of the New Testament with reasonable (though not 100 percent) accuracy."

It is important, finally, to remember that the copyists were more concerned with preserving the words of Scripture than with promoting their own theological agendas. Despite his reservations about the earliest Christian scribes, even Dr. Ehrman acknowledges this fact in Misquoting Jesus: "It is probably safe to say that the copying of early Christian texts was by and large a 'conservative' process. The scribes ... were intent on 'conserving' the textual tradition they were passing on. Their ultimate concern was not to modify the tradition, but to preserve it for themselves and for those who would follow them. Most scribes, no doubt, tried to do a faithful job in making sure that the text they reproduced was the same text they inherited."

In other words, early Christians wanted future generations to find the same truth in the New Testament documents that the first generations of believers had experienced. So, their intent was to hand on to their successors the same text that they received.

This is evident in a complaint from Origen of Alexandria. Even though significant differences between manuscripts accounted for no more than one percent of the variants, Origen of Alexandria considered the differences he saw in his own copies of the Gospels to be "great"! Why? He earnestly desired to see the oldest readings preserved. As a result, even small changes in the text troubled him.

Most copyists seem to have regarded the text with the same reverence as Origen. When one copyist changed the wording of a text in a fourth-century manuscript known as Codex Vaticanus, a later copyist rewrote the original word and added this marginal note: "Fool and knave! Leave the old reading, don't change it!" Certainly, copyists did alter the text from time to time-but the consistency of the available manuscripts of the New Testament demonstrates that these alterations were exceptions, not the rule.

As for the original documents: Around A.D. 200, Tertullian of Carthage stated that the churches of Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Rome still possessed originals of certain New Testament texts. There's every reason to accept this as true---Tertullian basically says to his detractor, "If you don't believe me, go check it out yourself." In time, the autographs became worn; so, they were replaced and discarded. Ancient Romans (unlike Jews) didn't have the same concept of preserving the original document as we do. Once a writing was worn out, it was replaced with a good copy. If you want to do some reading on this, I suggest (in addition to my own upcoming book, _MISQUOTING TRUTH_, InterVarsity Press, 2007) taking a look at _READING AND WRITING IN THE TIME OF JESUS_ by Alan Millard.

And, by the way, the church wasn't established by the government until A.D. 381, under Emperor Theodosius. And there are hundreds of New Testament documents that predate Theodosius. In fact, the most important ones even predate Constantine's legalization of Christianity in the early fourth century.

Could churches be hiding documents? Of course, anything's possible, but the real question is, "Are they hiding anything that represents testimony from the first century A.D.?" The answer to this one would, from my perspective, have to be, no. Hidden documents would need to be hidden after the church had sufficient power to keep them hidden---and this sort of power doesn't even begin to emerge until the fourth century.

REPLY
I think there is no question that the manuscripts have been handed down with accuracy from the time of Constantine on. While there may be hundreds of documents that predate Theodosius, because the church was institutionalized prior to Theodosius under Constantine, there are very few documents that predate Constantine.

Unfortunately textual criticism only works to the extent that you have multiple manuscripts to compare, so it will not do anything to take us back much earlier than Constantine. That's where my question lay. We can know that the institutionalized church did a very good job of trying to stay true to the text, but we cannot know whether the early church did as good a job because we have almost nothing to work with.

As you've said in your own argument, the more pieces of manuscript we have with data, the better textual criticism works to extrapolate which version is original. Take things down to just a few manuscript fragments from a few books of the New Testament, however, and you really don't have enough data to draw any conclusions. The best you can do is say, "Well, since the church did a very commendable job from about 330A.D. on, it's likely they treated the texts with the same regard prior to that." Then you can find a few fragments and maybe one book prior that support that hypothesis.

It still strikes me as very odd that the original books have all been lost. If the early church was doing such a faithful job of trying to preserve their exact wording, why didn't they do an equally faithful job of preserving the original texts in dry jars for posterity? It doesn't seem those texts even lasted to the time of Constantine. I can understand how they might have been lost by our time, but I'm not aware of any references to their existence beyond the third century. Given that the church by Constantine's time was highly prone to save any first-century relic they could find in order to build a church on top of it, one would think they would have saved those books. Given how concerned they were about forming a canon of books to be included and books to be banned, one would think they would have preserved the originals if they had them. So, it's highly strange that NONE of the originals seems to have made it to the time of Constantine.

We also know that there must have been some problem with people in the days of the early church trying to change the wording of New Testament books because the book of Revelation (arguably the last book written) ends with a severe warning intended to scare off those who would change the words. "If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book." Such a strong curse upon anyone who would change a single word, indicates the author had reason to fear someone might try to do exactly that.

REPLY
What the curse in Revelation tells us is primarily the degree to which early Christians took seriously the texts that they were passing on.

Might I know where you're coming up with your evidence that pre-Constantinian New Testament manuscripts are not extant or available? Truth be told, many are available. Here's a partial list of pre-Constantinian papyri ...

P1: First chapter of Matthew
P5: Fragments of John
P9: 1 John 4
P13: Portions of Hebrews
P15: 1 Corinthians 7
P16: Philippians 3-4
P17: Hebrews 9
P18: Revelation 1
P20: James 2-3
P22: John 15-16
P23: James 1
P24: Revelation 5-6
P27: Romans 8
P28: John 6
P29: Acts 26
P30: 1 Thessalonians 4
P32: Titus 1-2
P37: Matthew 26
P38: Acts 18-19
P39: John 8
P40: Fragments from Romans
P45: Portions of Matthew and Acts as well as nearly all of Mark, Luke, and John
P46: Portions of Paul's letters and Hebrews
P47: Revelation 9-17
P48: Acts 23
P49: Ephesians 4
P52: Fragment of John 18 that dates from the late first century or early second century ... very likely a first or seocnd copy of the original
P53: Portions of Matthew and Acts
P64: Portions of Matthew and Luke
P65: 1 Thessalonians 1
P66: Most of John's Gospel, late 100s A.D.
P69: Latter portion of Luke
P70: Portions of Matthew
P75: Most of Luke and John, also from the late 100s
P77: Matthew 23, late 100s
P87: Philemon
P90: John 18
P91: Acts 2-3
P98: Revelation 1-2
P106: John 1
P107: John 17
P108: John 17-18
P109: John 21
P111: Luke 17
P113: Romans 2
P118: Romans 15-16

Whew ... Okay, I got tired of typing these---but these are just some of the pre-Constantinian manuscripts that I have scanned and so have available to me at this moment. There are a lot more. As you can see, a high percentage of the New Testament is available here.

Here's what's most important, though: When I compare the text of these documents to the codices of the fourth and fifth centuries---say, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus---there are no significant differences between pre-Constantinian and post-Constantinian manuscripts. With few exceptions, the differences have to do with spelling and word order. There are about a dozen added or deleted passages, but none of these relate to any essential issues of Christian faith or practice. What's more, every one of the passages that I've checked so far was added or deleted before the fourth century. So, the cause of the change still had nothing to do with the lamentable emergence of political power in the post-Constantinian church.

In answer to the thought that it's strange that the autographs were lost, it simply isn't strange at all. In the Greco-Roman world, documents were destroyed once they were worn out. This is well-attested, especially in Egypt.

30

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 12-24-06 WT Study (Keep in God's Love)

by blondie in

start of article.

q1, 2) how can you remain in god's love?.

1) jehovah loves the world of mankind so much that he gave his only-begotten son in order that those exercising faith in him might have everlasting life.

yaddayadda

I actually thought this was a pretty good study article, for once, except for paragraph 17 re apostasy.

10

just my take on wbts what's your's

by bobld in

until 1879 no one understood the bible properly,until god apponted a fds/ibs.who would feed the domestics the proper food at the proper time.

(this food got rotten at times)then in 1918 jesus christ came for an inspection and found that the food was rotten and put the leaders in jail for 9 months(somehow this fits in with bible prophecy per fds/gb,i just don't know how)than in 1931 they changed their name to jw and in 1935 they began feeding the jonadab's i guess these jonadab's were getting very hungry.after they fed the jonadab's, they started to feed the worldly's.they said the time remaning for this system was short and would end before the generation that saw the world events of 1914 would be alive to see the new system and god's new kingdom ruling on the earth.that generation passed on,so in the wise wisdom of the gb/fds/wts in 1995 defined the length and meaning of the generation.they may have missed some scriptures where god defines the length of days for man.

(maybe the light wasn't shining or was blurry).in 2000 the gb/fds/wts said the end was very near,deep.deep,deep into this system.in fact "we,are no longer just around the corner,we are around the corner,in fact we are in the last hour".they mentioned 6 signs why the end was near(see 2000 wt&km).one on those signs were the gb/fds was getting very old and would not be around much longer.so they are training the jonadab's,well only special one to take over the feeding chores once all 144k are sealed in heaven.however,if the end doesn't come they the 144k will materialize and help with the sherphering work.

yaddayadda

"Isn't it interesting that the witnesses don't believe any of the things that Russel taught in 1879?"

That's patently false. Russell didn't believe in the trinity, immortal soul, hellfire. Neither do JW's today.

10

just my take on wbts what's your's

by bobld in

until 1879 no one understood the bible properly,until god apponted a fds/ibs.who would feed the domestics the proper food at the proper time.

(this food got rotten at times)then in 1918 jesus christ came for an inspection and found that the food was rotten and put the leaders in jail for 9 months(somehow this fits in with bible prophecy per fds/gb,i just don't know how)than in 1931 they changed their name to jw and in 1935 they began feeding the jonadab's i guess these jonadab's were getting very hungry.after they fed the jonadab's, they started to feed the worldly's.they said the time remaning for this system was short and would end before the generation that saw the world events of 1914 would be alive to see the new system and god's new kingdom ruling on the earth.that generation passed on,so in the wise wisdom of the gb/fds/wts in 1995 defined the length and meaning of the generation.they may have missed some scriptures where god defines the length of days for man.

(maybe the light wasn't shining or was blurry).in 2000 the gb/fds/wts said the end was very near,deep.deep,deep into this system.in fact "we,are no longer just around the corner,we are around the corner,in fact we are in the last hour".they mentioned 6 signs why the end was near(see 2000 wt&km).one on those signs were the gb/fds was getting very old and would not be around much longer.so they are training the jonadab's,well only special one to take over the feeding chores once all 144k are sealed in heaven.however,if the end doesn't come they the 144k will materialize and help with the sherphering work.

yaddayadda

Your 'take' seems pretty much orthodox Watchtower-speak, except for the 144k materialising idea.

Best go away and do a bit more research sonny.

16

JW's - How many Masters are you serving?

by Honesty in

do jw's agree with romans 6:16 that if one obeys someone they are slaves of the one they are obeying?.

romans 6:16 says, "do you not know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

the watchtower society's daily text for monday december 18, 2006 says, "similarly, we will be blessed if we recognize and obey the prophet greater than moses, jesus, as well as "the faithful and discreet slave" appointed by him.".

yaddayadda

I agree with your thoughts there Confession. If that is the original point that was being got at then you have put it much better and reasonably than Honesty did.