Posts by aqwsed12345

4

One criticism of the NWT

by Wonderment in

it's no secret that forum members on this site are well aware that i tend to defend the nwt as a product in more than a few places.

i, unlike some others here, do not view the version as unprofessional.

i feel the translation is quite good.

aqwsed12345

Journeyman

"that certain additions had been made for clarification (such as "other" at Colossians 1:16, etc)"

"Clarification"... muhaha, rotflmao, whatever... you mean writing their own interpretation into the text itself, or to say a better term, Bible distortion. What about "in their relative positions" in Romans 13:1? And all these? https://www.bible.ca/Jw-NWT.htm

"I'm not debating here whether any addition/clarification should be there or not."

According to the Reasoning From the Scriptures:

What kind of translation is this? For one thing, it is an accurate, largely literal translation from the original languages. It is not a loose paraphrase, in which the translators leave out details that they consider unimportant and add ideas that they believe will be helpful.

So, according to them, this should not be done, and according to the promise, they did not do it, as we can see: they lied.

136

Colossian 1:16 - "all OTHER things"

by aqwsed12345 in

due to their apparent theological bias, the watchtower shamelessly inserts the word "other" in order to "make room" for their own idea that jesus is also a created being.

it is clear that jehovah's witnesses try to avoid having to admit that christ created everything because "the one who constructed all things is god" (hebrews 3:4).

instead, the society teaches that "christ was the only one created by god," and that then he "created everything else with jehovah.

aqwsed12345

That "Philo didn't read Hebrew" is definitely not true. It is certain that Greek was his first language, but that "didn't read Hebrew" is certainly not true. Even if it were true, it only weakens your position, since it just shows that the translation of 'qanah' as 'ktáomai' was a well-known and established Jewish reading back then, since all Jewish translators and interpreters after the LXX rendered it this way. And Jerome did not invent it himself, but while learning Hebrew from the Jews in Bethlehem took this reading from them, which was unknown before among the Greek and Latin speaking Christians, who had to defend the "begotten, not made" principle of the Son based on translation using the verb "ktizo" from the LXX. Check this: http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_crebegot.html

"As it is, “acquired” is arguably closer in meaning to “created” than Jerome’s “possessed”"

Wrong, these these ancient Jewish translators and interpreters did not translate קנני (qānānî) with the English word "acquired", but with the Greek word ἐκτήσατο, which is third-person singular aorist middle indicative of κτάομαι (ktáomai), which has the following meanings:

κτᾰ́ομαι • (ktáomai)
(transitive) to get, obtain, acquire, gain, win
(transitive, of consequences) to bring on oneself, incur
(transitive, perfect and pluperfect) to have acquired, have, own, possess

" in the crucial sense that an acquisition is a point in time, whereas possession is a state of affairs."

Here we are not talking about any kind of "temporal" happening in specific "a point in time", but rather a poetic speech, from which it is hardly possible to derive a doctrinal principle.

"The accompanying “first of his works” and “founded me” also point toward God creating wisdom before anything else."

There is no such thing as "first of his works" or "founded me" in the text. Instead, "at/as the beginning of his ways" and in thext verse "I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." is in the text. The meaning of נָסַך (nasak) is not "founded me," but "anointed" (compare Psalm 2:6), "to pour forth" (as of molten metal), then "to put down," "to appoint or establish." In the Septuagint, "he established (ἐθεμελίωσε) me;" Vulgate, ordinate sum; Aquila, κατεστάθην; Symmachus, προεχείρισμαι; Venetian, κέχυμαι. There is no "timeliness" involved. So what is said here is that Wisdom was from everlasting exalted as ruler and disposer of all things. To express eternal relationship, three synonymous terms are used. From eternal; πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος, Septuagint, as Delitzsch notes, points back to infinite distance. Especially since the next phrase marks this "nasak" as "from the beginning". Compare 'rosh' in Exodus 12:2, Numbers 10:10, 28:11, Judges 7:19.

"JWs agree that the creation of Jesus was different than the rest of creation because Jehovah created Jesus directly whereas he created everything else through his Son."

However, that is not a significant difference, especially since, as it cannot be emphasized enough, the New Testament emphatically describes the Son's orign from the Father exclusively with the verb "begotten" (gennao) or "born" (tikto), which the New Testament never uses for the created world. So why can't the one used by the New Testament be accepted?

"The point of the quote from Origen was to show that he held a similar view about God first creating his Son"

Wrong: even if he used the term "ktizo", you cannot use it in the Arian/JW sense (which is practically: poio), because it turns out that Oirgen did not interpret it that way, so his citation is out of context, also disregarding nuances lost in translation, so it is unfair to the author. Dionysius of Rome pointed out that "there is more than one meaning of the word created" (ktizo), and "this created is not to be understood in the same manner as made". You would have the burden of proving that Origen did not mean it that way. Check: De Principiis IV.27, I.6, II.2.2, II.4.3, etc., also:

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

The addition of "Jehovah" into the New Testament has a manuscript basis just as much as this insertion in Romans 13:1: "in their relative positions". Nothing. Here are some other good examples: https://www.bible.ca/Jw-NWT.htm

As a JW apologist article say: "This is eisegesis, rather than exegesis - reading one's own ideas into the text, instead of letting the Bible speak, allowing it to be precise where it is precise and vague, where it is vague."

But in fact the interest of the WTS decides in the translation, they just attach something from their own skull, which is not found in the text.

I have already argued with quite a few of your comrades along these lines, they presented funnier than funnier conspiracy theories, that the alleged New Testament manuscripts containing Jehovah are "kept in their secret cellars in the Vatican, so that the Truth does not come out" and the like. Of course they can exist, just as UFOs, perpetual motion machines or secret masonic world governments can exist. In principle, at least in the skulls of their inventors. It's just that the characteristic of reality is that it comes to light sooner or later. Woe to the one who is forced to live his life relying on such conspiracy theories, snarling at the facts of experience every day as if they ate his breakfast. I understand that you have good reason to assume this, because they chew on their paranoia like a shipwreck on the sole of a six-times-boiled, three-week-old boot, and draw a significant part of their Antheusian vitality from it.

You call this recent stumbling "evidence?" So what can "probability" mean then? Indeed, I'm more and more rooting for the WTS to prepare that Greek "miracle text", which cannot be based on any manuscript, yet it will be forged in 237 places on the tetragrammaton - if you are is so sure about it. And then you will be able to see for yourself. The existing manuscripts are the only sure basis that entitles you to make any kind of dogmatic statement! You are furiously cutting the rope on which their religious system depends.

Stafford, for instance, wants to justify the insertion of "Jehovah" into the New Testament Watchtower by suggesting that it was probably not the apostles who began to abbreviate holy names, but the generation that followed them, while the apostles followed the practice of the Old Testament copyists who inserted Hebrew into the Greek text. In this demonstration, he relies on the hypothesis of a Hebrew original Matthew derived from Papias and Jerome as a fact. However, research has already refuted this insofar as it has shown that the Matthew we have is not a translation, but was originally written in Greek. The hypothesis of a Hebrew Matthew might have originated from those early Syriac translations which, as later works, corrected the tangled Hebraisms in Matthew. The author is also mistaken in suggesting that Matthew consistently quoted from the Hebrew text, because there are many places where he follows the Septuagint (e.g., 1:23, 3:3, 4:4, or 15:8-9).

Then he argues for the insertion of Jehovah in 1 Cor 2:16 ("For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ"), asserting that there are data for the reading of "Lord" instead of Christ, and in this case the name Jehovah would naturally have stood first. The problem with this argument is that an undeniably later textual tradition attests to the "Lord" standing second (Vaticanus etc.) rather than "Christ" (p46, Alef etc.). The latter are much more numerous, so it is more likely that some copyists standardized the usage, rather than that it was originally there and the copyists replaced it with Christ (fearing the strange coincidence) when the Lord allegedly replaced Jehovah in the first place. Because this coincidence was by no means strange if one bears in mind that the authors often applied to Jesus Old Testament verses that spoke of Yahweh. (Such as Hebrews 1:10.)

Stafford's work doesn't really answer the main question, namely, why doesn't the New World Translation translate verbatim, even though it puffs itself up in the preface with all sorts of self-praise, promising to do just that, and even promises concordance where possible. (Some of its defenders boastfully mention this in relation to the gnosis-epignosis.)

Your translation is not verbatim, but contains a lot of interpretative insertions and changes in wording. Many of these are also significant theologically. Your defensive writings focus all their energy on these, but are unable to remove the main accusation: namely, that your comrades are trying to force their various interpretations into the genre of translation rather than commentary. Such tactics will be taken very strictly by readers of a translation that does not wish to be verbatim but prides itself in the preface. That is, those who look into the matter; those who take the promises of the preface at face value will draw false conclusions from this usage.

Therefore, the NWT preface should not have suggested that they will translate every Greek word with the same English word if possible. It seems that in many places they didn't even strive for this. The New World Translation is a theologically influenced, affected translation, which combines some principles of dynamic equivalence with the method of interpretive insertions built on the principle of "it can also be translated this way, you can't refute it". Neither is characteristic of verbatim translations.

For example, let's look at Romans 4:3. You often seem to take pride in the idea that you have corrected the "error" of "apostate copyists" who allegedly removed the tetragrammaton from the Greek texts. Well, in the Hebrew text, the name Yahweh indeed appears, but Paul does not quote the verse according to this, but according to the Septuagint. This change and reversion now backfires on you strongly, because it turns out that the apostle gave his seal of approval to the translation of the tetragrammaton with the word "God". I assume he did this because he realized that the appearance of the name YHWH in this context, although common in the Hebrew text, is strictly speaking an anachronism (i.e., a mode of expression reflecting the subsequent knowledge and vocabulary of Moses, who wrote down the events), since we know that God had not yet revealed the name YHWH to the patriarchs.

Therefore, Paul's inspired word, following the Septuagint (and sanctifying it even against the Hebrew text at this point), returned to the contextual reading of the verse, taking into account the above statement, while you rip the word out of his mouth and drop the name Jehovah in its place, which is simply an anachronism in the Hebrew text at the said place. Who do you think you are?

Daniel already associates the name of God with the word "heaven" and substitutes it twice. Following this, Matthew says "kingdom of heaven" instead of "kingdom of God". Since the Jews started vocalizing their manuscripts, they have been supplying the tetragrammaton with the vowels of the word "Lord" (Adonai), indicating what should be read there. The Septuagint did not leave it in (in some manuscripts) for it to be pronounced: one camp pronounced it, another did not. But even those who pronounced it could not be sure that they were saying it correctly.

That the apostles, when quoting the Septuagint, did not write Jehovah is clear from the large mass of manuscripts. The p46 (one of the Ryland papyri from around 200 AD; one of the earliest papyri containing longer text) writes Kyrios in Rom 9:29, just like the great codices. ("Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us offspring" etc.) Interestingly, Paul did not want to translate the "sabaoth", which is translated as "hosts", into Greek, from which we can deduce that he had before him or in his memory a Greek Old Testament text in which, out of respect for the name of Yahweh, the tetragrammaton was replaced with Kyrios, but the Sabaoth was just transcribed in Greek letters.

What can be said about such a work but to quote Revelation 22:18? How much can a denomination claim to really respect and stand on the Scriptures if it forces such shameless mistranslations?

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

scholar

"Raymundus Martscholarini in 1270 into Latin"

So, for the first time, anyone wrote down this reading exactly 1,200 years after the destruction of the Second Temple. In the intertestamental era, the pronunciation of YHWH was completely pushed out of public use, it could only be pronounced by the Jewish high priest in the Temple during the Yom Kippur. If anyone else, anytime else, had uttered it, they would have been executed. In addition, by the time of Christ, even the high priest only uttered it softly. Consequently, Raymundus Martini's reading cannot be an authentic witness to the original pronunciation of YHWH much earlier. According to the scholarly consensus, these medieval authors did not know that the Masoretes marked the consonants of YHWH with the vowels of Adonai, not to indicate that it should be pronounced that way, but so that the Jewish reader in the synagogue would know that when came here, then should pronounce Adonai or Elohim. That's why in the Masoretic tex we read "YeHoWah" and "YeHoWiH" also. For a Jew, it was clear, but Christians don't know about this Jewish ruling, so Raymundus Martini didn't know that, that's how IEHOVA was born: out of a misunderstaning. However, this is completely wrong. The Watchtower doesn't even try to defend this reading, just assering "we don't know for sure, but Jehovah is established and traditional." Well, we don't know for sure what was that, but we can surely know that it was never "Jehovah".

"The NWT Committee from the 1950's has provided clear and compelling evidence that the Divine Name should be properly rendered in the NT even though at this stage there remains only circumstantial evidence for its insertion"

"Clear and compelling" evidence would be an early authentic manuscript that contains this. Everything else is just speculation, hypothesis and most of all conspiracy theory. There is no circumstantial, let alone direct evidence for this. Such "reasonable to assume" and the like is not evidence, but wishful thinking.

"but the very fact that the Tetragram is the most common word in the OT for a Deity"

The fact that this was the "most common word for a Deity" in the Old Testament does not prove that it had to be the same in the New Testament. What did Jesus say? "My Father!" Not Jehovah. But because of the two-class salvation invented in 1935 as a "new light" by Rutherford, God cannot be the Father of the rank and file (not "anointed", outer party, Jonadabite) JWs, but only their "friend", so that's why they don't encourage this address, so "Jehovah" remains.

"and if the NT writers quoted extensively from the OT by means of direct quotations provides a solid basis for inserting the Divine Name into the NT. "

Unless, of course, if there is no evidence that when the New Testament writer quoted Old Testament in such a way that by actually writing the name YHWH! Furthermore, according to Howard's theory, even if it was written down, it was not spelled out in Greek (e.g. Γιαχβέ), but YHWH in Hebrew letters. Now, that's not what the NWT does.

"NWT has elevated the once-shrouded Name from obscurity"

Why do you lie that no one before the Watchtower Society knew that the Tetragrammaton existed at all? In the two-thousand-year history of Christianity, it was never "obsured", even in your publications there are many references to the fact that it is painted in churches, it was also included in some church hymns, and it is also included in the theological books published centuries before the creation of the Watchtower Society. Church Fathers wrote about this, etc. It was not "obsured".

Of course, is was not "used" along the way like the JWs do since 1931, but where did Jesus ever say "Jehovah" ever according to the Gospels? Nowhere... How does the Lord's Prayer begin? "Our Father...", not "Jehovah". "Hallowed be your name" does not mean the "use" of the "name" "Jehovah" at all, the "name" here refers to God himself, not to the YHWH. Somehow Jesus - while he specifically indicated what principles and teachings he objected to - never scolded the Jews for not saying Jehovah, Jehovah. If it suited Jesus, why should we be offended by it?

By the way, did you read what I wrote? And what Raymond Franz wrote on the subject?

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

Somehow he just wrote: "My research does not support their denial of the deity of Christ." and unproven theories "should not be used as a surety for belief", JWs still do this. So this was not a "restoration" of the "Divine Name", but an arbitrary solution with the lack of evidence. Have you read Raymond Franz argumenst about the "use" of the name?

136

Colossian 1:16 - "all OTHER things"

by aqwsed12345 in

due to their apparent theological bias, the watchtower shamelessly inserts the word "other" in order to "make room" for their own idea that jesus is also a created being.

it is clear that jehovah's witnesses try to avoid having to admit that christ created everything because "the one who constructed all things is god" (hebrews 3:4).

instead, the society teaches that "christ was the only one created by god," and that then he "created everything else with jehovah.

aqwsed12345

Philo of Alexandria used Prov 8:22–23 in De ebrietate 31 in the wording different from that in the Septuagint:

‘God acquired me as the first of all of his works, and before the age he founded me’ (ὁ θεὸς ἐκτήσατό με πρωτίστην τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἔργων, καὶ πρὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος ἐθεμελίωσέ με).

Here you can check it in original Greek.

Why would Aquila, Theodotion, Symmachus want to favor the Christians? And again: "create" does not means "poio" in Arian sense. Neither 'qanah', nor 'nacak' means 'poio'. As for Dionysius of Rome:

"But neither are they less to be blamed who think that the Son was a creation, and decided that the Lord was made just as one of those things which really were made; whereas the divine declarations testify that He was begotten, as is fitting and proper, but not that He was created or made. It is therefore not a trifling, but a very great impiety, to say that the Lord was in any wise made with hands. For if the Son was made, there was a time when He was not; but He always was, if, as He Himself declares, He is undoubtedly in the Father. And if Christ is the Word, the Wisdom, and the Power — for the divine writings tell us that Christ is these, as you yourselves know — assuredly these are powers of God. Wherefore, if the Son was made, there was a time when these were not in existence; and thus there was a time when God was without these things, which is utterly absurd. But why should I discourse at greater length to you about these matters, since you are men filled with the Spirit, and especially understanding what absurd results follow from the opinion which asserts that the Son was made? The leaders of this view seem to me to have given very little heed to these things, and for that reason to have strayed absolutely, by explaining the passage otherwise than as the divine and prophetic Scripture demands. The Lord created me the beginning of His ways. For, as you know, there is more than one signification of the word created; and in this place created is the same as set over the works made by Himself — made, I say, by the Son Himself. But this created is not to be understood in the same manner as made. For to make and to create are different from one another. Is not He Himself your Father, that has possessed you and created you? says Moses in the great song of Deuteronomy. And thus might any one reasonably convict these men. Oh reckless and rash men! Was then the first-born of every creature something made?— He who was begotten from the womb before the morning star? — He who in the person of Wisdom says, Before all the hills He begot me? Proverbs 8:25 Finally, any one may read in many parts of the divine utterances that the Son is said to have been begotten, but never that He was made. From which considerations, they who dare to say that His divine and inexplicable generation was a creation, are openly convicted of thinking that which is false concerning the generation of the Lord."

As for Origen, are you like a stuck record player? Eh... I can't belive it. Or do you just not want to understand? Do you only function as an output, no input? How many times do I have to warn you? His writings at most show Subordinationism (rather than Arianism), which is a form of Trinitarianism that was not yet formally condemned, this is still so far from WTS Christology, and still much closer to the Catholic one.

Your sources may keep coming up with quoting out of context from Origen, it is true that he was an exotic theologian, he often used confusing formulations, but you can only understand what he really taught if you read his entire writings, not by abusing some one-liners. It is no coincidence that the Arians did not refer to the authority of Origen to justify their position, since Origen clearly taught that the Son is begotten of the Father in the sense of eternal generation, within the being of God. Check: De Principiis IV.27, I.6, II.2.2, II.4.3, etc.

Origen was a highly influential, but controversial and heresy-suspected teacher, who his contemporaries also had a hard time judging clearly. In hindsight, we cannot ignore his speculative thinking (allegorizing Bible interpretation), his gnostic origin belief in the existence of the human soul before physical birth (pre-existence), but especially that he considered the Son and the Holy Spirit inferior to the Father, and denied that it would be permissible to pray to the Son (cf. Acts 7:55-60). So, the Society wanted to build on the authority of Origen, someone they would reject due to his majority of false teachings, and whose theology the church neither considered nor considers authoritative at that time or today.

I have drawn your attention many times to the fact that Origen was a diverse theologian, if he had lived later, he would have become likely a Jesuit, they often used speculations, thought experiments and thought processes that are even confusing. But you can't abuse Origen's theology as an authority to support for your own position by just picking out one quote, without evaluating his work as a whole. The later church also considered his Christology to be orthodox as a whole, and consequently it cannot be said that he professed WTS-like Christology, otherwise he would have been declared a heretic for his Christology. Quoting an author out of context and falsely portraying him to support a position that the author did not actually support, is disrespectful to the author, and it is incompatible with scientific methodology and elementary decency.
The literature of the ancient church is abundant and diverse, but it does not at all support the conspiracy theory propagated by the Watchtower Society, according to which the Christians of the first centuries believed in what they teach according to their current "light": the "use" of the name Jehovah, Jesus as Michael, the Holy Spirit as "active force," two-group salvation, endtime speculations, 1914, true worship disappearing for 1800 years, "preaching" "house to house" "preaching", only yearly Eucharist without "partaking", etc ec..

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

slimboyfat

"In fact the majority of the 237 times the NWT uses the divine name are accounted for by quotations and OT “stock phrases”."

Wrong: The name Jehovah appears 237 times in the "Christian Greek Scriptures" of the NWT, of which 82 are quotes from the Old Testament that contain YHWH, but the other 155 cases were chosen completely arbitrarily. It's not "the majority", but only about a third.

"George Howard says he “does not believe that Jesus Christ is Jehovah”"

Since there is no God named "Jehovah", this is a medieval misreading, a serious Hebraist will not argue with it, and the WTS does not assert that this could have been the original pronunciation, only that it is "established" and "traditional". There is no /dʒ/ sound in Hebrew. It is ironic how much they can scold "traditions" in other cases.

I note that the position of the WTS is not very strong according to this, if without the New Testament being filled with "Jehovah", that is, in the absence of an unproven conspiracy of the "apostate copyists", based on the established text by existing Greek manuscripts, Jesus is just as much Lord (thus God) as the Father.

Here, the burden of proof would be on the Watchtower, which it obviously did not fulfill. The gathering "a people for his name", which simply means "people for him" (check: Raymond Franz - In Search of the Christian Freedom, chapter 14), did not begin in 1931 according to the New Testament (when the WTS adopted the name "Jehovah's witnesses"), but on the Pentecost of 33 AD, when the church was established. According to theim, God had no people for almost 1900 years then. The followers of Chirst were simply called Christians in the NT (Acts 11:26), and according to Ignatius of Antioch the Church was called καθολικός since the Apostolic Age.

Only a few marginal authors came up with such a theory (apparently every researcher wants to stand out with some revolutionary idea), and that too only as a definite hypothesis.

And yes, if the conspiracy assumed by WTS or Howard is true, then God's word has certainly been damaged, since to this day no authentic manuscript has been found that contains the New Testament message intact.

136

Colossian 1:16 - "all OTHER things"

by aqwsed12345 in

due to their apparent theological bias, the watchtower shamelessly inserts the word "other" in order to "make room" for their own idea that jesus is also a created being.

it is clear that jehovah's witnesses try to avoid having to admit that christ created everything because "the one who constructed all things is god" (hebrews 3:4).

instead, the society teaches that "christ was the only one created by god," and that then he "created everything else with jehovah.

aqwsed12345

I can believe, that translation also has its own camp, but it would not hurt you to accept that the authorities I have cited are have also at least, if not of the higher weight, like Philo of Alexandria, Aquila, Theodotion, Symmachus, Jerome. You may translated it as "created" but still cannot interpret in the sense of 'poio', or "creatio ex nihilo". Even the NWT doesn't render it as "created", but "produced".

Neither the Book of Wisdom nor the Ben Sirach is recognized as canonical by the JWs, the Catholics and the Orthodox do, but somehow it didn't bother them in their theology. By the way, the relevant parts of those books are not available in Hebrew. The details of the book of the Ben Sirach have been found in Hebrew, but the ones you mentioned have not.

"Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, 'I have gotten [qanah] a man child with the help of the LORD.' (Genesis 4:1)

It doesn't suggest that Eve 'created’ anything. No, rather, it says that she had received, gotten, or acquired a child with the [help of the LORD]. Thus saying, it was through the LORD which she had acquired a child.

"But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought [qanah] and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." (2 Samuel 12:3).

If 'qanah' = 'create,' then did the poor man "create" his little lamb? The poor man did not "create" the little lamb, rather he owned it. So overall the verb 'qanah' used in reference of 'creating.' It is always used in terms of receiving, getting, acquiring, possessing. Words translated from the Hebrew term 'qanah' are words such as, acquire, acquired, acquires, bought, buy, buyer, buying, buys, formed, gain acquisition, gained, get, gets, gotten, owner, possessed, possessor, purchased, purchaser, recover, redeemed, sold, and surely buy.

"Submit yourselves to every ordinance ['ktisis'] of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;..." (1 Peter 2:13).

In addition, the verb "created" also has a meaning that is not used much in English, but was fully used back then, and this is referring it not to the actual existence, but to to appoint to a position, place. For example, some church writer quoted Revelation 1:6 by heart, saying "creavit" instead of "fecit" (made, ie. here: appoint), thus "has also CREATED us kings and priests", this also shows what the verbs "to create" meant for the ancients.

In modern English, this use of the verb "create" is very rare, but surely known. The English word 'create' can also potentially mean 'ordain,' though its more familiar use is to bring into existence: "create...To originate or cause; to bring into being; to cause to exist; to make or form, by investing with a new character; to constitute; to appoint ( to create a peer)..." (Webster's International, 1965). Also used when the Pope "creates" cardinals. So I can still say that yes, let's say for the sake of theory that he "created", but the word "created" here actually does not mean "not ex nihilo bringing into existence", but "set up", "appointed", "installed".

The concept of personified wisdom (in Proverbs 14:1, personification is merely a literary device) developed in Israel after the Babylonian captivity, when polytheism no longer posed a serious threat to monotheism. While in Job 29 and Baruch 3:9-4:4, wisdom appears as a thing, a desirable value, in the newer parts of Proverbs, in the first part (1:20-33; 3:16-19; chapters 8-9), it already appears as a person. Here (8:22-31), she herself recounts her own origin (verses 22-26) and her active participation in the work of creation (verses 27-30), as well as her role among people, that is, to lead them to God (verses 31.35-36). Ben Sirach will further develop this teaching: Sirach 1:1-10 still reminds us of Job (Job 28), but Sirach 4:11-19; 14:20-15:10 and especially 24:1-9 go beyond Proverbs 8. - But in all these texts, where Wisdom - in other places the Word or the Spirit - takes on a personal character, it is difficult to determine what is a poetic device, what is the product of religious imagination, and what should be considered a new revelation. - Finally, Wisdom 7:22-8:1 gives the impression that Wisdom (the pure emanation of the Almighty's glory - 7:25) is part of the divine nature, but the abstract expressions used to describe it can equally apply to the attributes of God or to a separate person. - The teachings laid down in this way in the Old Testament are significantly further developed in the New Testament by applying them to the person of Christ. Jesus is called the wisdom of God (Matthew 11:19, cf.: Luke 11:49; cf.: Matthew 23:34-36; 1Corinthians 1:24-30). Like Wisdom, Christ also participates in the creation and maintenance of the world (Colossians 1:16-17). - Finally, the prologue of the Gospel of John endows the Word with the characteristics of the creative Wisdom, and Christ is presented throughout the Gospel of John as the wisdom of God (John 6:35). From this, it is understandable that the Christian tradition has seen Christ in the Old Testament Wisdom since Justin.

Overall I don't think it's theologically that relevant, because the wisdom here is not literally the Son, but at most a type for the Son, which means this poetic image, this allegory of the Wisdom can be applied to the Son, but not identified / equated with the Son, especially doctrinal truths cannot be deduced from this. Interestingly, the entire book of Proverbs is about the wisdom, but only verses 8:22-36 of it are understood as referring to Jesus, and we can indeed find similarities. However, this does not entitle you to direct and straightforward correspondence.

Do you believe that Christ is a woman who cries in the streets? (Proverbs 1:20,21) Was there a time when God had no wisdom? No. Wisdom is eternal as God. Messianic references in the Old Testament are either completely clear (e.g. Isaiah 53), or even if they are not completely clear, the New Testament clearly refers them to Christ (e.g. in Acts 2 in Peter's speech, etc.). However, nowhere in the New Testament did anyone apply Proverbs 8 to Jesus, nor does Solomon suggest that we should see more in the chapter than the description of wisdom. That is why, although the identification with Jesus seems like a nice parallel, it definitely lacks strict a biblical basis.

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away." (Matthew 24:35)

"The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1Peter 1:25)

"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book" (Revelation 22:18)

If we trust in the Lord's promise, then his word cannot be falsified without a trace, and consequently we must start from the fact that the surviving version is the revealed New Testament scripture itself without distortion. And nothing should be added to this based on all kinds of conspiracy theories, unproven speculation.

https://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/tetra-appenD.pdf

https://www.bible.ca/jw-YHWH.htm

George Howard's theory has been rejected by most - if not all - modern Biblical and Textual scholars. In any case, his theory is that the New Testament authors retained the Tetragrammaton whenever they quoted verses from the Old Testament that contained it. His theory thus has no relevance to most of the 237 instances where the NWT translators inserted "Jehovah" into their "Christian Greek Scriptures."

Professor Howard wrote these letters that have been made public which clarify his position:

The University of Georgia
College of Arts & Sciences

June 5, 1989

Bob Hathaway
Capistrano Beach, CA 92624

Dear Mr. Hathaway:

My conclusions regarding the Tatragrammaton and the New Testament are:

1) the N.T. writers might have used the Tetragrammaton in their Old Testament quotations, and 2) it is possible (though less likely) that the Tetragrammaton was used in a few stereotype phrases such as "the angel of the Lord." Otherwise it probably was not used at all. I disagree with the Jehovah Witness translation that uses Jehovah many times. This goes beyond the evidence. I do not believe Jesus Christ is Jehovah. If the Jehovah Witnesses teach this (I’m not aware of most of their theology) they are off the mark.

Sincerely,

George Howard
Professor

The University of Georgia
January 9, 1990

Steven Butt
P.O. _____
Portland, ME 04104

Dear Mr. Butt:

Thank you for your letter of 3 January 1990. I have been distressed for sometime about the use the Jehovah’s Witnesses are making of my publications. My research does not support their denial of the deity of Christ. What I tried to show was that there is evidence that the Septuagint Bibles used by the writers of the New Testament contained the Hebrew Tetragrammaton. I argued that it is reasonable to assume that the NT writers, when quoting from the Septuagint, retained the Tetragrammaton in the quotations. This does not support the JW’s insertion of "Jehovah" in every place they want. To do this is to remove the NT from its original "theological climate." My opinion of the New World Translation (based on limited exposure) is that it is odd. I suspect that it is a Translation designed to support JW theology. Finally, my theory about the Tetragrammaton is just that, a theory. Some of my colleagues disagree with me (for example Albert Pietersma). Theories like mine are important to be set forth so that others can investigate their probability and implications. Until they are proven (and mine has not been proven) they should not be used as a surety for belief.

Sincerely,

George Howard

72

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

The writings of the Watchtower consistently muddle the legitimate demand to indicate in the translations at the appropriate places in the Old Testament that it is Yahweh or Jehovah - and your demand, plucked from thin air, to attempt this also in the New Testament, at the two hundred or so places they determined, despite the fact that here, the faintest semblance of manuscript and historical evidence is entirely lacking.

These insertions are labeled as "easier to understand" only by the Watchtower. In reality, it's a sectarian stamp: the branding iron, fired up by the "discreet slave" and pressed on the body of their congregation, of the desire to be different at all costs. The brazen disregard of the Greek text we have at hand. Double standards. Because they do the same thing as the "great harlot" they condemn, while they, in principle, are willing to renounce their custom and issue many translations abundant in the name Jehovah / Yahweh, the Watchtower is not willing to do the opposite.

The fact that the New Testament refers to the Old Testament at certain places does not turn into a fact, a text, a data, their underlying assumption that in the original, apostolic-evangelistic text YHWH stood there. And yet, they say in their writings (although they can no longer defend it in a factual debate), that the apostate copyists left out the Name etc. But they cannot produce a single New Testament manuscript that would support them here. The hypothesis of the "apostate copyists" is good for everything and good for nothing. With this method, they could even prove that reincarnation was in the Bible, only those pesky apostate copyists left it out.

Don't forget: the New Testament writers often quote the Septuagint, not the Masoretic Hebrew text. And despite the few manuscripts they have unearthed, the Septuagint contains a tendency (and not just on the side, but as a mainstream, and well before the writing of the New Testament), to represent the name YHWH with the word Lord. JWs can argue with this tendency, and qualify its cause as superstitious - but it seems, the New Testament authors did not consider it superstitious or offensive to God, because whenever they quote the Old Testament, they do not transcribe the tetragrammaton with Greek letters, but call it Lord. In this regard, therefore, they approved the Jewish custom they call superstitious. And at least in this, they testify against them that the name YHWH would be so important and indispensable in the New Testament that without its proclamation, the church itself would collapse.

In response to the question that if it is allowed to rewrite the name YHWH in our translations of the Old Testament, then why aren't you allowed to "rewrite" it in the New Testament, I answer this: JWs are ignoring a very important aspect. We are free to consistently write out the name YHYH as Yahweh or Jehovah in our translations (like J. N. Darby), and the mainstream churches don't bite the head off of anyone who might circumlocute the Name out of excessive fear due to the "do not take in vain" commandment or for some other reason (e.g. because they don't want to pronounce it incorrectly). Therefore, we have freedom: the (non)pronunciation, the (non)translation of the name YHWH is not a matter of faith for us. Moreover, newer translations also distinguish between Lord (Adonai) and LORD (YHWH), so anyone who wishes can reconstruct the original for themselves by looking through the usual substitution. This is what many Bible translations do.

You cannot use our freedom to justify how they falsify the New Testament Greek manuscripts, which deal with the Tetragrammaton in a similarly cool manner and translate it as freely into Lord as we do. Moreover, JWs blaspheme as apostate everyone who removed the name YHWH from both covenant documents. But it has become certain that this accusation of them first hits the apostles. For if they had taken it as a matter of faith, as they do, they would have avoided the Septuagint like the plague.

No one said "YHWH is not the name of God." Just that it is not the only name of God, and not an indispensable name for him. Learn to understand their opponents' statements in the sense they represent, and do not project onto their place some concocted, albeit obviously easier to attack, nonsense. And do not expect me to defend this nonsense on behalf of everyone. No: here their schizoid, either-or logic has misled them, which shouts into their ear that God can only have one true and indispensable name (YHWH), and whoever denies this also denies that YHWH is the name of God.

Has God changed? The answer is a definite no. God did not change either when he said that his name YHWH was not yet known to the patriarchs. Nor did he start to change when he declared himself in Jesus as the Father (as the Father of Jesus Christ and our Father). This would lead to another thread of argument, so I will not elaborate further here.

The ancient Israelites lived in a polytheistic, pagan environment and were, in some respects, a rather undeveloped civilization. In such an environment, monotheism was a revolutionary idea on the one hand, and on the other hand, they were constantly exposed to the constant temptation from paganism. In fact, as we know, the common Israelites often fell into the sin of idolatry. (This also shows that the common man was never a high-level theologian in any era, and it would be pointless to ever expect this.) The role, meaning, purpose, and significance of the name "I AM" (Yahweh) can only be understood in this environment. But why?

For an ancient common man, for whom the existence of multiple gods was as evident as the cellphone is for us today, if you had been living in the Near East during the Egyptian captivity, it would have been evident to you that every nation has its own god, with its temples and priests. People talk about it, sacrifice animals to it, etc. No one questioned its existence. The various nations didn't say that our "gods" exist and yours are the products of religious fantasy and mythology, but rather said things like our gods are stronger than yours. In such an environment, saying that these so-called gods do not exist at all would have caused considerable confusion. "What, Osiris doesn't exist? But there is his temple, my neighbor regularly sacrifices to him, how could he not exist?". And God chose a brilliant way in the cultural environment to communicate the basic religious truth about Himself to His chosen people.

Because whenever a Jew pronounced the word God as YAHWEH, they thereby professed that He alone is "The One Who IS" (therefore, other "gods" do not exist). The name YAHWEH clearly refers to God as the absolute being, whose real characteristic and essence is that He IS, He exists: He is the Eternal. Compared to Him, other deities are nothing, non-existent, see Is. 42,8. When God in the Bible emphatically declared several times, "I am Yahweh", He essentially said, "understand that I alone am the existing God, no other god exists besides me". Therefore, this Name had a pedagogical aim and role, somewhat like telling a small child that the "name" of the plug is "Don'tStickYourFingerInIt". It is perfectly clear that this "name" is not a name in the sense of, say, Carl, but serves the purpose of reminding the person, when recalling this "name", of the most important thing they should think of first in relation to this matter. So the purpose of the name Yahweh was to remind Jews in a fundamentally polytheistic environment that their God is the only true God, they can only believe in Him, only worship Him, etc. - while the many "gods" of other peoples do not actually exist.

The Holy Tetragrammaton is both a revelation and a rejection of the Name. The essence of God, His existence, is fundamentally different from this world, so we cannot "essentially" know God - we can only say, "what is not He".

From this it follows that the name YAHWEH fulfilled its role when monotheism was still on weak legs - even among Jews! - , when the religious development of the Israelite people was not high. God, therefore, in this matter as well, gradually led the people carrying the revelation to a higher religious standpoint. He did not anticipate the normal intellectual development as a Deus ex machina, but involved his revelations in its individual phases. Therefore, the naming of God as Yahweh is an early stage of the development of monotheism.

From this it follows clearly that later, when monotheism was strong, the oneness of God had largely become evident to the Jews, there was no longer a need for this "crutch" for God. Just as the side wheels are only needed on a bicycle until the child is too small to balance on two wheels, after which there is no longer a need for them. We will not perceive the removal of the side wheels as a negative or a lack, on the contrary. The same was true here.

This is confirmed by the fact that the name Yahweh fell out of common use. We all know that God punished the Jewish people by sending them into Babylonian captivity. Well, this punishment was quite effective, as we all know how effective a religious reform Ezra carried out among the Israelites who returned to their land. His basic act was regular Torah study, so the "theological" knowledge of the average people also increased a lot. Monotheism was no longer questionable, other kinds of "dangers" (such as those later condemned by Jesus among the hair-splitting, Pharisaic interpretations of the Torah) were of course threatening, but that is another story.

There was no longer a need for the name Yahweh to maintain monotheism, so when God providentially led his people to a new level, there was not only no longer a need for any nominator, but it was specifically a hindrance - just as the side wheels used to learn to ride a child's bike can later function as a hindrance. God's Providence is ultimately behind the Name's exclusion from common use.

The ancient gods could be invoked at any time by their names. Hence, the knowledge of a god's name in some sense encompassed the belief that a human could possess its power, or in some sense rule over it. In this sense, the Name became a kind of speakable magic spell. Traces of this can be found in certain Semitic, Arab legends, where to use the power of the djinn, one must know its name. Although in the Bible the use of the Name YHWH is free from such misuse, nevertheless – if we tie God to a specific "Name" this in some sense carries the danger of the emergence of this phenomenon (even if it is not consciously functioning).

What are we talking about? The Name becomes objectified, which is treated as a kind of property. Like the medieval mystical Jewish rabbis who used the Tetragrammaton as a kind of magic spell. They wrote it on the golem, and it came to life. They can essentially misuse it as magical automatism and as a guarantee of salvation. Indeed, the use, the utterance of the word "Jehovah" does not guide anyone, and it does not cause any additional salvation, because the Bible does not aim for us to "use" the Tetragrammaton, a Hebrew word, zealously for salvation, like some magic key, but to know the person of God, to love him, and to become His children.

The Old Testament Jews gradually understood that there is no name, word, or phrase in human language that could describe the essence of God. "The divine is unnameable", says Theologian St. Gregory. "Not only does reason show this, but so do the oldest and wisest Jews. Those who respected the Divine by writing His name with special signs, and did not allow God's name and creatures to be written with the same letters... could they ever have dared to pronounce the Name of the indestructible and unique nature in a fleeting voice? Just as no one could ever take in all the air, so reason could not fully embrace, and words could not encompass the essence of God."

By not pronouncing the name of God, the old Jews showed that contact with God is possible not so much through words and expressions, but rather through devotion and humble silence. So the real reason is that this is a mystery, not because it's taboo. The reality of God surpasses the world. Compared to Him, we do not even exist. The pure linguistic version of the Holy Tetragrammaton was also used by other Semitic peoples, and by the Jews before Moses. However, this embodiment into a purely human word was a prefiguration of the embodiment into Jesus, just as the burning bush was a prefiguration of the transfiguration on Mount Tabor. If we deny the incarnation of Christ, this leads to the denial of the Holy Tetragrammaton. The "namers" just pronounce a generally used Semitic designation of divinity, moreover in the Latin reading (Jehovah => Latin reading of the Holy Tetragrammaton), so they just do what someone would do if they were scrutinizing the human nature of Jesus, which is possible, as he was truly human. However, they do not reach the essence of the Holy Tetragrammaton, only its "garment", and never pronounce it as heretics, because they cannot "possess" the knowledge of the Name, they can only defile it.

Since it is undeniable that the name YHWH does not appear in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, except for the four Hallelujahs, only the transcription of Kyrios (Lord), what prevents us from keeping these in the New Testament translations? Precisely this entitles us to do so, if the New Testament writers (following the Septuagint) mentioned the names of Jeremiah and Jesus in Greek, why shouldn't we accept from their mouths the Greekization of the name YHWH to "Kyrios"? And it cannot be an argument against this that "apostate copyists left out the name YHWH from the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament," because 1. there is no evidence for this, 2. why couldn't anyone say about this that "then let's re-Hebraize the names of Jeremiah and Jesus in the New Testament!"?

I see the storm with which Jehovah's Witnesses force the name YHWH on the New Testament as quite novel and contrived. How the Septuagint and today's translations were handled, I do not consider a matter of salvation in any way, and I read Darby as gladly as King James. I don't know if this is laid down as a program for them, but I feel that they were the first to make this a matter of salvation. And if the debate has reached this point (that one party is accusing the other of heresy and apostasy on the basis (also) that it wants to translate the name YHWH as Kyrios, LORD, Eternal), then he who has so far considered his practice to be free and innocent is quite helpless if he wants to maintain it as a custom. Because we admit that among us this is not a law, not a question of salvation, and in principle can be changed at any time (of course, rewriting translations does not happen overnight, especially if there is no compelling reason) - but they are pressing us, and they blame us for everything because of this.

The question is how this writing of YHWH in the LXX (which was not universal among Jews either, as we know from various sources) could have made its way into the New Testament in such a way that not a single copy of it has survived. One of the Bodmer papyri (p66) contains the section Johnn 1:1-6:11, in its entirety, including for example Jn 1:23. According to WTS, the tetragram should be here. Well, this papyrus is from the 2nd century, and we hardly have longer New Testament sources from before that time. I haven't looked into what kind of textual witnesses are available for the places in question, but you already have to place the action of the "apostate copyists" team without gaps at a very early time.

Jesus declared: "I came in my Father's name." He also emphasized that what he does, he does "in his Father's name." - Indeed, and he did not say that he came in the name of Yahweh or Jehovah. This proves that the Father is not just a title, but also a name. (As is, I might add, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for in this triune name is baptism.)

"In the Greek Scriptures, God's name appears in abbreviated form. In Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6, God's name is part of the expressions "alleluia" or "hallelujah"." - According to this, those "apostate copyists" were not vigilant enough to root this out as well. These four examples rather weaken JW's case, because in a fixed liturgical formula it preserves the name Yah in the New Testament. Therefore, the copyists could not have been led by superstition or pagan prejudice, as JWs are prone to assume as a reason.

"Is the New World Translation the only translation in which God's name has been restored to its place in the Greek Scriptures? No" - In fact, it is not even "the only one," because there is no such translation. The ones they mention did not "restore" but, on a speculative basis, contrary to the evidence of the manuscripts, inserted the name Yahweh (Jehovah) into their translations. But this does not make JW's position more secure, but theirs more shaky. I am only reacting to one of the missing sources, but it is enough to prove their bad faith.

The Watchtower is sitting on the horns of a dilemma here. Because if that mass of Greek manuscripts, on which he is forced to base the authenticity of God's word in other respects, fell victim to the tendentious "apostate copyists" at this point, then what prevented them from forging whole doctrines into the Scripture elsewhere so that they uniformly appear in all surviving copies? And then WTS is forced to make itself the measure of authenticity not only in terms of the occurrence of the JHWH name in the New Testament, but also in many other textual and theological questions.