Posts by kepler

15

Why does anyone EVER use the "J" sound when translating YHWH?

by sabastious in

if you look up the tetragrammaton in strong's concordance you will see that they use the phonetic spelling of "yeh-ho-vaw" but if you scroll down to the bottom of that link you will see this:.

jehovah, the lord.

from hayah; (the) self-existent or eternal; jehovah, jewish national name of god -- jehovah, the lord.

kepler

Phizzy,

Thumbs up here too.

29

Even after reading Crisis of Conscience, one thing (at least) still puzzled me

by kepler in

it was several years back and from time to time i will look something up in the index.

all manner of things about jw life are revealed - as well as discussions within the leadership, plus historical and contemporary controversies - but there is still something i missed.. please excuse me if this is not a detailed summary.

when the drum roll starts for the purge, it appears that the friends and associates of ray franz are targeted first.

kepler

Entirely Possible,

I hope some of the posts by others between this one and yours made my question a little more plain. As some have recounted, Ray Franz was DFed on - for lack of better term - a technicality. For associating with someone who had been disciplined for associating with him. It's an Orwellian trip all right, but it never really exposes the reasons why the GB majority went after him.

When I read CoC and is sequel, I read a writer whose convictions are still very close to the world within which he grew up and labored with devotion all his life. Much of what he was saying seems like a call for reform. But I can't get the full picture. It was pointed out above that Ray Franz resigned as a matter of conscience, And as the book describes, Ray Franz was in the minority on a number of votes on issues. Now had he have been more persuasive and won those votes, then would he have stayed? Would there have been an alternate history for WTBTS like that we would suppose for Soviet Russia under Trotskij or Bukharin? Or was it already clear to Ray Franz that the system could not be reformed? Since Ray Franz's arguments are very scripturally based, he has raised some big unanswered questions.

29

Even after reading Crisis of Conscience, one thing (at least) still puzzled me

by kepler in

it was several years back and from time to time i will look something up in the index.

all manner of things about jw life are revealed - as well as discussions within the leadership, plus historical and contemporary controversies - but there is still something i missed.. please excuse me if this is not a detailed summary.

when the drum roll starts for the purge, it appears that the friends and associates of ray franz are targeted first.

kepler

It was several years back and from time to time I will look something up in the index. All manner of things about JW life are revealed - as well as discussions within the leadership, plus historical and contemporary controversies - but there is still something I missed.

Please excuse me if this is not a detailed summary.

When the drum roll starts for the purge, it appears that the friends and associates of Ray Franz are targeted first. There are inquiries about who said what, or have you heard this from a friend or from other people in the department - and then the ax falls all over the place. Ray was one of the last to go - and he goes down for associating with someone who is disfellowshipped for associating with him. Is that close enough?

Now in the course of writing the book, all manner of background issues are examined - but Ray Franz was dismissed before writing the book. The book is an account with a number of updates and revisions, all I presume, written after the fact. Interspersed in the narrative are accounts of things like the difficulty of constructing a case for 607 BC, meeting with Olaf Johnsson, votes sometimes in minority on doctrinal issues - but I don't recall seeing anywhere where the author says "that's why the majority came after me".

Now after being on this forum for a while, I have begun to realize that some participants have actually witnessed all this first hand - pardon the expression. And I myself am quite far removed from that. But I do see parallels in dissidence movements elsewhere. I am tempted to ramble on about that, but I fear that I am obscuring the focus on the matter at hand.

Any comments?

15

Why does anyone EVER use the "J" sound when translating YHWH?

by sabastious in

if you look up the tetragrammaton in strong's concordance you will see that they use the phonetic spelling of "yeh-ho-vaw" but if you scroll down to the bottom of that link you will see this:.

jehovah, the lord.

from hayah; (the) self-existent or eternal; jehovah, jewish national name of god -- jehovah, the lord.

kepler

Bobcat, Hamsterbait, Sabastious..

My pronunciation or discussion was hindered by having my tongue in my cheek. Growing up within the Yahweh tradition, I am sceptical of arguments to the contrary. Or at least willing to drag my feet in behalf of the Y pronunciation.

I am inclined to think that Jehovah and JHVH are the "anglicizations" of the YHWH and Yahweh. Following some of your arguments above, I've seen enough Latin script employing a V instead of a U for words or expressions such as DEVS EX MACHINA. And auf deutsch a Volkswagen is pronounced more like "Folkzvagon". I suspect that those Germanic conventions have been around for at least as long as Luther's Bible, correct me if I am wrong. While it was mentioned that English has transformed greatly over a 1000 years, in western Europe Bible translations into vernaculars occurred rather late; more toward the mid-millenium. But I would be interested to hear of accounts of earlier works. We have Luther and Tyndale working independently in Germany and England. Erasmus, prior to Luther did not so much translate as critique the Latin Bible.

Quoting from the Wikipedia on Tyndale Bible

"The chain of events that led to the creation of Tyndale’s New Testament possibly began in 1522, the year Tyndale acquired a copy of Martin Luther’s German New Testament. Inspired by Luther’s work, Tyndale began a translation into English using a Greek text "compiled by Erasmus from several manuscripts older and more authoritative than the Latin Vulgate" of St. Jerome (A.D. c.340-420), the only translation authorized by the Roman Cathlic Church."

My point here? While it is acknowledged that the Tyndale Bible is not highlighted the same way as the KJV in the English speaking public's mind, it is a significant point in bringing the Bible into the English language. But like many intellectual concepts in English, there is a transformation from a foreign source. I believe that there is something of the same going on here.

Even within the last 100 years, how did Americans spell composer Pyotr Chajkovskij's name generations ago? The way they learned from German or French sources. And as a result - until corrected - one would try to anglicize the German based phonetic spelling. In the 1950s, you would probably look his name up under T.

Another example. When I had a US map to examine in fourth grade, if anyone asked me the name of that California city nearby San Francisco, I would pronounce it "San Jossie".

Some other problems.

"Chaikovskiy" etc. is a recent example of changes in text conventions. But centuries ago the idiosyncracies of spelling were remarkable too. We know when early Bibles were printed, but when were the dictionaries compiled that governed their conventions?

Claims for the antiquity of the text and the events described in the OT where the name is introduced far exceed the age of the medium in which it is written. Whether we assign a presumed date for the Exodus around 1200 BC or 1500 BC ( like the WTS), were someone to write this story they would be limited to Egyptian hieroglyphics or Akkadian cuneiform. I doubt that either were employed; we certainly have no record of it. But if there were a delay in commiting to script a story based on oral tradition, then even at best we would be nailing down an intermediate form.

15

Why does anyone EVER use the "J" sound when translating YHWH?

by sabastious in

if you look up the tetragrammaton in strong's concordance you will see that they use the phonetic spelling of "yeh-ho-vaw" but if you scroll down to the bottom of that link you will see this:.

jehovah, the lord.

from hayah; (the) self-existent or eternal; jehovah, jewish national name of god -- jehovah, the lord.

kepler

Well, how about this: Is YHWH pronounced with an English J as in Jerome or Jersey City?

A number of names in the Bible, whether described in Hebrew or Greek, transliterated into English we have come to assume started with a J:

Joshua, Jesus, Jeremiah, Jerusalem....

Yet if I look at the rendering in contemporary Hebrew or Greek, these names are phonetically transliterated as starting with Y. Germanic languages use a J as Y: Ja, Jawohl, Johannes, Jaroslavl,... If I look up among proper names in the Pocket Oxford Greek Dictionary, one finds the English Jehovah under the Iota - Iota epsilon chi omega beta alpha. Among the names starting with iota are Jacob, James, Jehovah, Jeremiah, Jerome, Jesus, Job, Joseph and Judas. Ditto for Hebrew Jeremiah and Job begin with the Yod.

There's nothing magical about the sound of J. Evidently, if there is anything at all to this, including at Watchtower printing offices, which appears to take this into account in other languages, it's simply the way people who speak English are supposed to pronounce the name.

The prophets when they come back before or after Armageddon will be instructed to speak in accordance with this convention, of course.

Here's another way to look at it: When was the earliest organizational adoption of this idea? Did Russell speak of it at all in his books? How long was Rutherford around before he noticed the significance (?) of it at all?

78

HOW TO IDENTIFY THE TRUE RELIGION

by Fifth Column in

jesus said that the true religion would be evident in the lives of the people who practice it.

by their fruits you will recognize them, he said.

every good tree produces fine fruit.

kepler

Fifth Column,

What an irony! You are quoting the exact same passages from the pamphlet "What the Bible Really Teaches" that alerted me to the fact that the people who had come to my house represented a FALSE, manipulative and deceitful religion.

I had no focus on Babylon's or Jerusalem's destruction. But I sensed a disconnect from what history actually told. And the more I looked at what these parties of Elders were saying, the more I knew how deceitful it was.

First of all, even in your rote recitation, it is clear that Cyrus did not destroy Babylon. It simply changed management like it had before and continued MORE prosperously than it had. Alexander liked it so much he made it his capital. Herodotus certainly wasn't mourning it either. And Xenophone's mercenaries were headed for conflict there with a later Darius in a Persian civil war.

Sennacherib was the one who actually destroyed it. Not 200 years after Isaiah, but in his lifetime. The quotes from the verses stop short of how Isaiah actually tells how. Sennacherib flooded the city and carried off its people into slavery in 689 BC. He wrote about in stone.

Even the notion of a 70-year desolation is borrowed from the Assyrians. That is what Sennacherib had condemned Babylon too, but Esarhaddon his son rescinded it and that too is described in stone. He restored it because he thought it a religious desecration. True religion: Yours or his?

There is another problem with this prognostication. Jeremiah 25:12 claims that Babylon's desolation in punishment for Jerusalem's destruction (acting as an instrument of God's justice - go figure?) would be immediate and forever. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah contradict this. E.g., Ezra 8:1. The prophecy did not come to pass just as those against the King of Tyre and Egypt did not. They make me wonder about a great deal. In the case of Ezekiel, does prophet mean a spokesperson for God before power or a propagandist for Nebuchadnezzar in his war-making efforts against other mid east powers? At any rate, the Elders visiting my house have alerted me to what I had not known about before: OT roosters claiming that they were about to cause the sun to rise with their crowing and they often seemed to select completely overcast days.

I'll save some of my other fact checking expeditions for another day. Or you can just dig around here on the forum. But beside being wrong, that pamphlet is DELIBERATE in its approach. At some level in the editing and writing process, the authors know that Cyrus didn't do what was claimed and that the inclusion of Isaiah's full quote would blow the cover. They also know that Isaiah from chapter 40 on is a fully different author. If Isaiah predicted all of what was to happen to Babylon, then why didn't Daniel cite him when questioned by Babylonian kings instead of concocting still another story?

As I read more and more of this pamphlet and studied the claims, watched the coercion and experienced some myself, I began to see a multi-level marketing operation dressed in a very peculiar garb, more like the Emperor's clothes. There a pathological fascination with senseless slaughters past and an avid anticipation of them in the future could get you far.

78

HOW TO IDENTIFY THE TRUE RELIGION

by Fifth Column in

jesus said that the true religion would be evident in the lives of the people who practice it.

by their fruits you will recognize them, he said.

every good tree produces fine fruit.

kepler

Somewhere on a previous page, it was mentioned...

"You do know that this is an ex-JW forum, don't you?"...

Well, as some probably know already, I am neither current or former, but found JW issues had effected my life. And if you read some of my posts, I would happily work to dismantle the organization doctrine by doctrine.

But you can't do that by preaching to the already converted choir. And the JWs that are of concern in my life have closed so many lines of communication, that there is about a snowball's chance in a place they do not acknowledge that they would even read, hear or listen.

All I can do at this point is hone my thinking on this; speak with the people who want to defend an idea or belief and report back that that is exactly what was done. The more such encounters the merrier.

My two cents on this issue would be to welcome anyone from the other side of the barbed wire and be patient. But don't allow the trolling effect to cause you to go ballistic. Having read some topics where an actual debate has gone on, I think a number of eloquent and serious writers have done well in anwering legitimate concerns of people who are restles in the Paradise Earth holding tank.

Including this thread - I would add...

32

Not Religon...not Belief....Not Inerrancy: INTERPRETATION is christianity

by Terry in

what the bible "says" isn't religion or doctrine or belief.. interpretation is.. proved how?.

there is not just one christian church.. ask yourself "why?".

here is a logic puzzle easily solved!.

kepler

Scientology...

Sometimes the n degree of separation issue becomes fascinating. Scientology is not one of the things I ever tracked very closely, but I did notice that Elijah Muhammad was inspired as much by Joseph Rutherford's radio show as any conversation he might have had one day on a plane flight...

I tried to find a similar connection between Rutherford and H. Ron, but so far to no effect.

I did read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid, but I always heard of H. Ron's works, but never read them. Later, had a sneaking suspicion that Hubbard got an awful lot more prolific ( a so-called dekalogy) after he passed on to whatever scientology's award might be.

But in the course of other enterprises, I discovered that one of my friends had worked in one of the publishing houses that published H Ron Hubbards' books. At the New York office H. Ron just simply let it be known one day... "I think I'd like to start a religion and make some money..."

In that respect, whether subliminal or not, there might have been suggestion from someone just mentioned who made a similar observation.

32

Not Religon...not Belief....Not Inerrancy: INTERPRETATION is christianity

by Terry in

what the bible "says" isn't religion or doctrine or belief.. interpretation is.. proved how?.

there is not just one christian church.. ask yourself "why?".

here is a logic puzzle easily solved!.

kepler

Terry,

Good to see evidence of you punching away at the keyboards - here and on that other related topic. If I knew which topics would make you feel more like yourself, I'd come up with another one whether it means acting as straight man or not.

When you made this entry, it brought back memories. Back about five years ago, when I first saw a home crisis brewing, someone close to me, seemingly out of the blue asked:

"Don't you think you need to have someone explain to you the Bible, someone who is expert to teach you what it is all about?" In other words, someone to drop by with the booklet "What the Bible Really Teaches".

But I didn't even know that. At that point it was "How odd!" Here she is with her presumed Protestant background telling me with my Catholic background that I need someone like a priest to explain doctrines derived from the Bible. Whose line was whose?

And by coincidence, I happened to see a newly published book (by Alister McGrath) titled, "Chistianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution - A History from the 16th Century to the 21st". And after I read all 500 pages of it, I had to conclude that I wasn't hot on the trail of what she was talking about. Only colder. I could only conclude that Protestantism now had so many branches that many of them had turned 180 degrees from their point of departure.

On page 221 there was brief mention of a group called Jehovah's Witnesses- Starting on 220:

[Despite efforts for unity of belief]...

"...Indeed the Reformation itself, by insisting on the right of all believers to read and interpret the Bible for themselves can be seen as a revolt against the quasi-papal centralization of authority.

"One strategy of particular interest emerged during the 1980s, when some conservative Protestants, particularly in the US, began to characterize the Bible as 'infallible' or 'inerrant'. In doing so they were picking up on some themes from the 19th century writings of Benjamin Warfield, while giving them a new and significant emphasis. Yet this claim did not, as some had hoped, solve the problem of multiple interpretations. It is perfectly possible for an inerrant text to be interpreted incorrectly [ e.g., students with the math text]. Asserting the infallibility of the text merely accentuates the importance of the interpreter of that text. Unless the interpreter of the text is also thought to be infallible - a view that Protestantism has rejected, associating it with Catholic views of the church or the papacy- the issue of determining the right meaning of the Bible is not settled, or even addressed, by declaring the sacred text is infallible. The Jehovah Witnesses, for example, regard the Bible as infallible, yet interpret core passages in a way that most Protestants find unacceptable, especially in relation to the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.

"...What distinguishes Protestantism at this point [in debate] is not allowing any authority above scripture, such as a pope or council. This principle is often affirmed using the Latin slogan Scriptura ipsius interpres (Scripture is its own interpreter). Whereas Catholicism resolves such tensions through magisterial pronouncements on the part of the teaching authority of the church, Protestantism recognizes no such authority above scripture. Such tensions must be resolved by means that will command support within Protestantism on account of the intrinsic merits, including their intellectual plausibility and their consonance with biblical witness as a whole."

All right. Easier said than done. The author had another 300 pages to go.

I discovered that my dearest had always assumed that Martin Luther was a family name of the King family. Nothing to do with anybody else. Back in the 160s BC, the orthodox Maccabean revolt started when Hellenized Jews started buying off the Seleucid Greek rulers to obtain their own high priesthood. Within a generation the Hasmonean heirs to the revolt were engaging in the same practice.

But still, I would say that there are additional complications to right scriptural interpretation. For as shown by no more than translation and compilation, how can the Bible be inerrant if it contradicts itself? Or, as shown in some comparisons in another topic, if the original intent of the Hebrew or Greek words is unclear?

In that regard I do sympathize with the Protestant plausibility argument. The alternative is much like throwing out all case law because some decisions seem clearly in error. If we throw it all out we have nothing to guide us and nothing to learn from.

"Interpretation is Christianity"...?

9

Actions against the Bible: Galileo - Citations and Anatomy of an Old Case

by kepler in

frequently in discussions on this forum or off, one is faced with confronting an assertion of a biblical text.

in many recent topics, this has been a matter of a prophet or writer of the old testament asserting that an ancient city or even a nation met its demise or had been desolated for 70 or 40 years.

since such assertions appeared in holy writ, it is argued by some, "then that settles it.

kepler

Bobcat,

Making some headway on the Strong number definitions. I pulled up some verses in Hebrew, transliterated and Strong number word texts. Then I sought the number definitions. I am not a Hebrew linguist but I just didn't fall off a cabbage truck on the subject of languages either. And to me some of the NWT versions still look very loopy: either paint by numbers or missed by the editor.

For the case of time "indefinite or forever", showing up in Psalms 104:5, consider the choices if the vowels are not determined:

5769 `owlam o-lawm' or lolam {o-lawm'}; from 5956; properly, concealed, i.e. the vanishing point; generally, time out of mind (past or future), i.e. (practically) eternity; frequentatively, adverbial (especially with prepositional prefix) always:--alway(-s), ancient (time), any more, continuance, eternal, (for, (n-))ever(-lasting, -more, of old), lasting, long (time), (of) old (time), perpetual, at any time, (beginning of the) world (+ without end). Compare 5331, 5703.

5865 `eylowm ay-lome' for 5769:--ever.

5957 `alam aw-lam' (Aramaic) corresponding to 5769 ; remote time, i.e. the future or past indefinitely; often adverb, forever:--for ((n-))ever (lasting), old.

Well, maybe that was a wise choice if the Psalms in David's time were written in Aramaic...The transliterated on line text selected "forever and ever" 5769 and 5703. There were two words there - but the NWT selected 5957 and 5769 in their divine wisdom for an either-or proposition that makes no sense.

As for Ecclesiastes 1:5 and "the sun flashes forth" instead of "the sun also rises" and then " it comes panting to its place where it is going to flash forth".

7602 sha'aph shaw-af' a primitive root; to inhale eagerly; figuratively, to cover; by implication, to be angry; also to hasten:--desire (earnestly), devour, haste, pant, snuff up, swallow up.

2224 zarach zaw-rakh' a primitive root; properly, to irradiate (or shoot forth beams), i.e. to rise (as the sun); specifically, to appear (as a symptom of leprosy):--arise, rise (up), as soon as it is up.

The sun at sunRISE needed a verb identified as 2224; then the translators confronted with 7602 could have selected "hasten", but they selected "pant" - perhaps at random.

Not much to add to your discussion of "productive land", save that if that translation had been presented as evidence in Galileo's trial, he would have walked.