Posts by Wonderment

33

The Creation of Jesus

by berrygerry in

seeing a trinity thread.. can a jw apologist explain what (not who) is jesus?.

prior to the creation of everything 13.7 billion years ago (draw close book), jehovah created jesus as his firstborn, his only-begotten.. there was nothing else - no stars, no dust, no matter - just jehovah - and then, just jehovah and jesus.

so, what was jesus?.

Wonderment

freeman: "That said, I happen to know that there are literally legions of true scholars in this field that do not share your particular view [i.e. David_Jay’s], but rather lean more in my direction and present understanding."

Lots of scholars make weird assumptions because they too get emotionally tangled with the traditional religious standpoint where they do not want to give in to another viewpoint. Dr. James White is an example of one trinitarian apologist willing to argue publicly to prove others wrong. White’s assumption on the the Greek en is flawed. All one needs to do to verify whether his claim that en means eternity or not is by using a Greek-English Concordance in order to compare how the verb form was used throughout the NT.

The Greek ēn appears 315 times in the Greek text (Englishman’s Concordance), so right away we can observe that the majority of such ocurrences have nothing to do with Jesus‘ eternity claim. The verb eimí the source word for en is so common that for anyone to claim it means ‘eternity’ it would require that everyone else linked to the en be also eternal. Preposterous is such claim!

En is linked to a lot of individuals and things known not to be eternal. I pointed out that in Matt. 1:18 the verb form en was connected to the origin or birth of Jesus. No eternity there.

I also mentioned John 15:27, where according to Jesus his disciples were with him from the beginning (obviously the start of his ministry) = literally, "that from beginning with me you are." Both esté in John 15:27 and en of John 1:1 have their root in eimí. So does the "I am" of John 8:58 (I am) where it is used simply to express existence. The concept of eternity is not required in any of these texts. The concept of eternity is read into those verses by trinitarian believers.

In Revelation 17:8, it is said that "the wild beast that you saw was, and yet is about to ascend out of the abyss, and it is to go off into destruction." Should we claim the beast was eternal?

A.T. Robertson, a trinitarian, said under Doubtful Imperfects: "Hence we need not insist that ἦν [en] Jo. 1:1 is strictly durative always (imperfect). It may be sometimes actually aorist [which views the whole of the verbal action as a single, unitary event] also." (A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research) (Page 883)

23

NWT from Greek/Hebrew into other languages?

by Counter-Watchtower in

does jw org claim to have translated the nwt into other languages from greek/hebrew?

because if they did claim that they would have to have biblical scholars in biblical greek/hebrew from every language, that would be a ton of ppl!

and take a lot of time!.

Wonderment

David_Jay,

Thanks for the insight on Jewish culture.

You said: "The Watchtower would not get permission, to begin with, to connect a copy of the New Testament to an already existing published Hebrew version of the Tanakh. Why?
While Jews are not forbidden from reading or owning the New Testament, putting the books together like that would not be allowed by Jewish law. The combination creates the Christian canon, which was created by Christian church authority which Jews are not subject, nor is Jewish scripture."

Do you know of any instance of someone combining the New Testament together with the Old Testament for Jewish Christians?

Also, I noticed there are a few New Testaments done by Jewish scholars. Would they object to combining the NT with the Hebrew cannon in one book outside of Israel?

33

The Creation of Jesus

by berrygerry in

seeing a trinity thread.. can a jw apologist explain what (not who) is jesus?.

prior to the creation of everything 13.7 billion years ago (draw close book), jehovah created jesus as his firstborn, his only-begotten.. there was nothing else - no stars, no dust, no matter - just jehovah - and then, just jehovah and jesus.

so, what was jesus?.

Wonderment

freeman: "En archē ēn ho Lógos (the first part of John1:1) means that the word existed before all time." ... The Greek language is very precise, no ambiguity, no interpretation. It literately says the Word was already existing (Past tense ) before all time, no creation of the word or Jesus is even remotely possible, he always existed ... It doesn't matter what your belief system is, if your an Atheist, Agnostic a Baptist or Buddhist. They believe John 1:1 and the Greek is the Greek, En archē ēn ho Lógos means that the word always existed, period."

That´s a bold assertion. Can you provide any evidence that En archē ēn ho Lógos can only mean grammatically that the Logos was eternal? I ask because in Matt. 1:18 the Greek says: "Of the but Jesus Christ the origin thus was [Greek: en]." In this text "was" is associated with the birth of Jesus, not eternity. And the way archē is used in John 15:27 is obviously of limited duration meaning, as in Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint, where ´the heaven and earth were made in the beginning.´

23

NWT from Greek/Hebrew into other languages?

by Counter-Watchtower in

does jw org claim to have translated the nwt into other languages from greek/hebrew?

because if they did claim that they would have to have biblical scholars in biblical greek/hebrew from every language, that would be a ton of ppl!

and take a lot of time!.

Wonderment

David Jay,

I appreciate your response. You make some valid points.

When I said: "Also, the NWT has a Hebrew edition of the New Testament, first published in S e l t e r s / T a u n u s (Germany) in 2012. They are presumably working on the Old Testament counterpart."

The first part of the statement is a fact, no question about it. The second statement is not a fact, just speculation. I based my speculation on past WT trends of targeting completion of the Bible to include both the Hebrew and the Greek Scripture portions whenever feasible.

Now, you mention some provocative points. First of all, Israel does not have many JW publishers in the country, so the WT would have to count on a larger target -- the diaspora of Jews worldwide. Still, it would be costly and time-consuming to engage in such a project (Biblical Hebrew to NWT OT Hebrew edition).

To that, we would have to consider whether it makes sense to do so as you pointed out. If they were to engage in doing an adaptation from Biblical Hebrew to NWT OT Hebrew edition, it would pose many a challenge for any translator. You are so right about that. It may not make sense at all.

A better guess, perhaps, for what the WT would or could do is to include their NWT NT Hebrew edition with the Hebrew Bible (OT) now extant within the pages of one volume, like they have done in the past with some languages, as someone here mentioned with the Tagalog language. Considering the WT is obviously going through some financial crisis, that would be a better option for them. What do you think?

23

NWT from Greek/Hebrew into other languages?

by Counter-Watchtower in

does jw org claim to have translated the nwt into other languages from greek/hebrew?

because if they did claim that they would have to have biblical scholars in biblical greek/hebrew from every language, that would be a ton of ppl!

and take a lot of time!.

Wonderment

BluesBrother: I heard this from the Freeminds site many years ago. Cris Sanchez, one of the people purged from Brooklyn in the 1980's said this about the original Spanish translation NWT. He said the foreward comments about being translated from original languages in that Spanish Bible were untrue , nobody knew Greek.

That may have been true of those working with Chris Sánchez. However, the Spanish translation reveals someone had command of the Spanish language and correspondingly enough knowledge of some critical differences between both languages. We may not be getting the full story.

I suspect, there was an editor somewhere who made those occasional critical decisions needed to overcome the translations difficulties. Fred Franz knew Spanish very well, and Greek George Gangas had a working knowledge of Spanish as well, because he also translated between those languages for the WT. Who knows if Fred Franz added his input to the Spanish edition without Chris Sánchez´ determinations.

23

NWT from Greek/Hebrew into other languages?

by Counter-Watchtower in

does jw org claim to have translated the nwt into other languages from greek/hebrew?

because if they did claim that they would have to have biblical scholars in biblical greek/hebrew from every language, that would be a ton of ppl!

and take a lot of time!.

Wonderment

Do most of you get your panties wet from debasing the NWT? Oh, boy! I don´t know who has more hate toward the Watchtower Society between the Evangelicals and ex-JWs.

For those interested: As someone mentioned before, the NWT does have a modern Greek edition. The modern Greek New Testament appeared in 1993 printed in Italy, while the complete Bible came out in 1997 (I have both the NT and the complete edition εκτύπωση 2008 - Printing made in USA) .

Also, the NWT has a Hebrew edition of the New Testament, first published in S e l t e r s / T a u n u s (Germany) in 2012. They are presumably working on the Old Testament counterpart.

17

1 John 5:13-20 Jesus is the true God?

by NikL in

one of the main things i am trying to wrap my head around after waking up to the nonsense of jw.org is the deity of christ.. jws go out of their way to ignore him, it seems to me.

they make him out to be an angel or something.

yet, if one simply reads the scriptures, you get an entirely different picture.. doing some bible reading this morning i accidentally (long story) read the latter part of 1 john 5 and it's good stuff.. after reading it in the niv i read it in nwt and it is still pretty amazing even in that abomination of a translation.. it says.... 13 i write you these things so that you may know that you have life everlasting, you who put your faith in the name of the son of god.

Wonderment

Summer Angel: "Once you move away from the ridiculous knotts the WT ties you in you will be struck by the simplicity of the true gospel if you want to go down that path."

"Ridiculous knotts" ?

Like ‘the overlapping of generations’; ‘the faithful and discreet slave’ being Russell, and then later not; the timing application of the separation of the sheep and the goats, the length of a ‘generation’, the Scriptures as we have them are inspired, but have been tampered with, the changing policies of shunning practices, 1914 being the beginning of the end, and so on.

Christendomś "ridiculous knots": the trinity; the immortality of the soul; hell fire; John 1:1, which scholars say should not to be understood the way most religious people do, but still insisting that it has to be rendered ‘the Word was God’; scholar´s admitting that 1 Timothy 3:16 and 1 John 5:7 are interpolations, but somehow still showing up in Bibles (either in the main text or in their footnotes, etc.

Take your pick!

17

1 John 5:13-20 Jesus is the true God?

by NikL in

one of the main things i am trying to wrap my head around after waking up to the nonsense of jw.org is the deity of christ.. jws go out of their way to ignore him, it seems to me.

they make him out to be an angel or something.

yet, if one simply reads the scriptures, you get an entirely different picture.. doing some bible reading this morning i accidentally (long story) read the latter part of 1 john 5 and it's good stuff.. after reading it in the niv i read it in nwt and it is still pretty amazing even in that abomination of a translation.. it says.... 13 i write you these things so that you may know that you have life everlasting, you who put your faith in the name of the son of god.

Wonderment

"As far as the grammatical construction of the sentence is concerned [in 1 John 5:20] the pronoun [houtos] may refer either to ‘Him that is true’ or to ‘Jesus Christ.’ The most natural reference however is to the subject not locally nearest but dominant in the mind of the apostle (com. c. ii. 22; 2 John 7; Acts iv.11; vii.19) This is obviously ‘He that is true’ further described by the addition of ‘His Son.’
Thus the pronoun gathers up the revelation indicated in the words which precede (comp. John i. 2 note): This Being--this One who is true, who is revealed through and in His Son, with whom we are united by His Son--is the true God and life eternal. In other words, the revelation of God as Father in Christ (comp. ii. 22f.) satisfies, and can alone satisfy, the need of man. To know God as Father is eternal life (John xvii. 3) and so Christ has revealed Him (c. i. 2)." (The Epistles of St. John, B. F. Westcott)

332

The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name

by slimboyfat in

jehovah's witnesses have had to revise their chronology and various doctrinal interpretations due to events and scholarly corrections.

but the one teaching where they have been consistently ahead of the curve is the importance of jehovah's name.. .

i'm going to run through a (necessarily selective) timeline of jw events and scholarly publications that demonstrate the phenomenal success of this teaching in the last days.

Wonderment

OrphanCrow: This is one place [Heb. 1:10?] where it is painfully obvious that the motivations, and the WT's process, is flawed at its core...The WT perverts the text just enough to support their version of god. And that, for sure, is NOT Jesus. Go up a few verses [where a list of dozens of translations are called on for support of Jesus being God]. Check out what the WT "translators" did to Hebrews 1:8.

Are you sure that Hebrews 1:8 calls Jesus God? It seems obvious you are not presenting the other side of the coin to posters here. Others have exposed the fallacy of, "My interpretation is the only correct one":

http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/verses/Heb1_8.html

https://www.scribd.com/document/252268649/Does-Hebrews-1-6-8-prove-Jesus-is-God

An interesting quote appearing toward the end of the second link goes to the point:

William Barclay: “This [Heb. 1:8] is a passage in which no one would wish to be dogmatic.

In both cases both translations are perfectly possible … But, whatever translation we accept,

we once again see that the matter stands in such doubt that it would be very unsafe to base

any firm argument upon it.” (Jesus as They Saw Him, pp. 25-26.)

Also, the link you provided with a list of 53 Bible versions against only ONE in the corner is slanted to say the least. Is the presentation of the NWT as the ONLY version "in existence" (as G. Jackson puts it) with a different rendering at Heb. 1:8 an honest description? Not according to Barclay.

332

The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name

by slimboyfat in

jehovah's witnesses have had to revise their chronology and various doctrinal interpretations due to events and scholarly corrections.

but the one teaching where they have been consistently ahead of the curve is the importance of jehovah's name.. .

i'm going to run through a (necessarily selective) timeline of jw events and scholarly publications that demonstrate the phenomenal success of this teaching in the last days.

Wonderment

I previously said: "Posters like jwfacts and some others want JWs to wither and die. I too believe the JW movement poses enough danger to its followers."
jwfacts´ response: "That's a bit insulting, an ad hominem dismissal of my opinions."

I offer my apology if I came across as insulting. In contrast with some posters who like to offer a lot of rant with no substance, you offer a lot of information as a background for your viewpoints. I agree with a lot of your conclusions, sometimes not.

You mention that JWs strangely use modern dates to show somehow that Jehovah supports their organization (Not quoting verbatim). I agree that such spectacle is weird.

On the name of Jehovah, I agree that a contradiction is made evident when the WT sustains the complete inerrancy of the Word at the same time they claim the Divine Name has been tampered with. Not to mention the conflicting actions of the WT on various issues ranging from Child-abuse to the United Nations debacle.

I may disagree however with the message often communicated (not verbatim) in this forum by various posters - in that the WT has to be wrong on the sole basis they lack scholarship and for holding a minority view against popular doctrines. As Frederick Danker once said after making a favorable comment on the Hebrew portion of the NWT : "We do well to test the spirits."