Posts by hereticult

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

Narkissos your argument is taken from the scholarly/scientific/historic point of view and surely is correct!

Nonetheless it is interesting to see, how the Watchtower Society, that claims that the Bible is the pure error free Word of God and that the New World Translation is the most accurate bible translation ever made, makes use of "artistic freedom" when translating bible passages that have dogmatic implications.

The word myriads for example is well known by all Jehovahs Witnesses. There exists even a song in the song-book that makes use of this term "myriads myriads of ...". So there is no reason to translate myriads with thousands because every Jehovahs Witness understand what myriads mean. In addition in other parts of the NWT they do not translate myriads with thousands but leave it there.

So why do they handle this topic inconsequently. From my experience I can say that nothing is happening by chance at the org but they have strong motives for their choices.

11

Meeting JWs in other regions or countries

by greendawn in

when you were a jw what sort of experiences did you have with other non local jws that you met for the first time perhaps in other regions or countries?

was there a real sense of brotherhood?

when we went to brussels in 1980 jws there put us up in their houses, they picked us up at the bus station and during free time they showed us around their city.

hereticult

I was in London some years ago to attend a specific course that was offered by a college there and I attend the meeting in the local conregation and took part in the Watchtower study by commenting.

When the meeting was over the elder who conducted the Wachttower study approached me and invited me for dinner. Some unmarried local sisters were also invited, so the elder obviously thaught that I was unmarried and he could solve some unsolveable problems in his congregation. : ) We spent a wonderful evening. Really nice people. And really nice food for british circumstances.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

Yes, I have read some agnostic literatue like the gospel of Thomas and it is really strange and distinguishable of the regular scripture.

To return to the topic ... it is interesting that the New World translation uses the word myriads at other occasions when no dogmatic implications exist like in Hebrew 12:22 " But YOU have approached a Mount Zion and a city of [the] living God, heavenly Jerusalem, and myriads of angels ".

But apart from Acts 21:20 there is another verse where myriads is rendered thousands instead of "tens of thousand" in the NWT Luke 12:1 " In the meantime, when the crowd had gathered together in so many thousands that they were stepping upon one another, he started out by saying first to his disciples: "Watch out for the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.""

But I am not so sure about the reason why they made this choice of translation here! Maybe it is again the same reason like above and they do not want the people to know how strong the impact of Jesus teachings was and how many Jews he attracted to him.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

I am wondering if "anointed" is written with double n (annointed) or single n (anointed)

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

@gumby Do you have any example of a prominent jewish christ that had a gnostic "weltanschauung" (world view). Without being an expert, I would assume that more greek/roman christians would be affected by gnostic philosophy.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

Yes, I can remember that "Question of Readers" about the persucation of the early christians. I have read about that somewhere in the web. But it is very intresting that Acts 21:20 is nowhere analyzed in the JW publications. You cannot found even one comment to this verse and its relation to the number of faithful christians in the first century. Another argument that I have heard of my spirtiual siblings is, that the statement "how many myriads..." is a typrical oriental overstatement. It should not be taken verbatim.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

@greendawn Do you know of any secular/scholastic source that confirms that two million jews lived in Palestine in the first century? Because one argument my JW friend used was, that he cannot imagine that so much jews (several ten thousands) converted into christians. I can only remember that Josephus mentioned that during the roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD one million of jews stayed in the city because it was the time of passover and many people of the jewish diaspora and proselytes were present.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

I discussed that topic with a JW friend of mine and he told me that translating the greek word myriads with thousands is not false at all, because "tens of thousands" are also thousands. So for him this rendering is just a minor inaccuracy without any significance. He mentioned also same other non JW bible translations that use the term thousands instead of "ten of thousands" too. He also expressed the assumption that maybe not all of that myriads of jews were "real" christians because they retain the old jewish traditions, that is not necessary and in some cases even inappropriate for "true" christians. However I am conviced that every time the New World Translation get inaccurate in translation, there is a strong reason that motivated the "translation comittee" in doing that.

31

Acts 21:20 myriads of anointed christians

by hereticult in

have you ever encountered this text in acts 21:20 ?

the "new king james version" rendering is as follows: "and when they heard it, they glorified the lord.

and they said to him, you see, brother, how many myriads of jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law"

hereticult

Have you ever encountered this text in Acts 21:20 ? The "New King James Version" rendering is as follows: "And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many myriads of Jews there are who have believed, and they are all zealous for the law" The New Word Translation uses "thousands" instead of the word "myriads" that is clearly used in the greek original text which means "ten thousands" and not just thousands, allthough "myriads" is mentioned in the footnote. So when apostle Paul arrived at Jerusalem at the end of his missionary travel, the elders told him that there were myriads (ten thousands) of Jews in Judah that became Christians but still were zealous for the mosaic law. Because of the fact that the word myriads is used in plural, at least 20.000 Jews have to be counted as anointed Christians. Taking into account the emphasis that is used in the above verse namley "how many myriads of Jews there are..." from my point of view it is quite possible that 30.000, 50.000 or even 100.000 judaic christians existed at that time. In addition in this figure the christians from gentile origin are not included. So I think that this sole verse shows sufficiently that the number of 144.000 anointed christians had been already collected in the first century!