Posts by PetrW

14

"Outside the realms" of the words meaning?

by Blotty in

i was recently doing some research and came across this curious quite from dr beduhn - i can't say how valid it is or if he actually said it (source linked).

but this got me thinking i don't think there is anything in any bible where it is a "deliberate" distortion or the words go against the "possible range of meanings the greek" could have.

i know beduhn is not considered an authority however he does have a point - if its in the range of meanings it is by no means a mistranslation & cannot be pointed out as such.

PetrW

@Vidqun

I agree with you, Vidqun. But I was concerned about two things: JWs claim to be the one true religion, and the textual passages chosen are constitutive of their theology.

The translations you cite that resemble the NWT do not explicitly seek to do so.

JWs do not think in alternatives. They don't give a chance to the fact that e.g. Ma 27:53 can have a fairly simple interpretation that fits the text: that there was a resurrection of some of the dead. And why don't they allow for alternatives? Because they are the only and true...

This system then manifests itself in all areas of their theology. They do not falsify the meaning of the Greek words (see the original question in the discussion), but project their theological interpretations onto the Greek text. No alternative.

But this phenomenon is common in other denominations as well. Adventists with their Sabbath, Catholics with their celibacy, or Pentecostals with their faith healing... they all "overload" the text in their favor...

***

Not to be critical of others. How about me? 🙈😁 Am I not doing the same? I may have an opinion on the identity of Babylon the Great (no, it's not the UN or any country or institution past or future in my opinion), but from time to time I have my doubts, sometimes literally dread lest I end up like Russell 😁 Okay, okay,

my views don't have nearly the reach that Russell's had. My verbal 😁 "Watchtower" that I occasionally put out, well that's just for my wife for now. And from her, it is always very quickly censored, abridged and rewritten... Because of warm dinners and laundered clothes, the potential for conflict on my part is almost nil. Discussion here, is one of the allowed activities 🙈😁😁😁

66

"outside of time" argument

by Blotty in

this is going to be very brief but a user recently tried to argue an argument that has already been refuted many times - the logic is somewhat sound but falls apart when the definition to the word used it looked and its usages in the bible.the word in question is "aionas" found in the scripture in question hebrews 1:2 .

(https://biblehub.com/hebrews/1-2.htm#lexicon)for starters look at the biblehub translations - do any of them state "outside of time" or that time was "created" in this moment - no because this seems to be heavily inspired by greek philosophy rather than the bible itself.note: i am not saying this word does not mean eternity or anything of the sort, i am saying this scripture some of the claims i dispute and can easily disprove, hence the argument is laughable.. bill mounce defines the word as:pr.

a period of time of significant character; life; an era; an age: hence, a state of things marking an age or era; the present order of nature; the natural condition of man, the world; ὁ αἰών, illimitable duration, eternity; as also, οἱ αἰῶνες, ὁ αἰῶν τῶν αἰώνων, οἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων; by an aramaism οἱ αἰῶνες, the material universe, heb.

PetrW

There are many references to patristic texts in your text. However, you conspicuously omit/do not include a single quote from Irenaeus of Lyons and his extensive works. In his writings (Against All Heresies) the term πρωτοτοκος/primogenitus appears several times but it does nothing to support Trinitarian views. Are you familiar with those passages?

14

"Outside the realms" of the words meaning?

by Blotty in

i was recently doing some research and came across this curious quite from dr beduhn - i can't say how valid it is or if he actually said it (source linked).

but this got me thinking i don't think there is anything in any bible where it is a "deliberate" distortion or the words go against the "possible range of meanings the greek" could have.

i know beduhn is not considered an authority however he does have a point - if its in the range of meanings it is by no means a mistranslation & cannot be pointed out as such.

PetrW

@Blotty

Interesting thought. I don't think JWs intentionally change the meaning of words - although, I have found at least three examples where the NWT translation changes the meaning of sentences in favor of JW-theology. In hindsight, I would assess this as a deliberate attempt to manipulate the text. The motivation was either a misunderstanding of the meaning (example number 2) or an attempt to subjugate the text to the translation in favor of JW-theology, even though these texts (examples number 1 and 3) for relatively simple. I submit for discussion...

Example 1: the well-known passage from Matt 27:52-53, which the NWT translation - incomprehensibly - puts verse 53 even in parentheses. Yet the translation is quite clear, unproblematic in the sense that the "bodies" of the saints - after the resurrection of Jesus - so these saints entered the Holy City.

In the discussion with JWs, the counter-argument was repeated to me several times that even if they were resurrected, then what would they have been doing among the tombs for 3 days? My argument is that we don't know exactly what was going on with the resurrected "bodies"(!) for 3 days, what exactly were these people (were they naked, hungry and thirsty ? did the angels care to tell them they were only temporarily alive?), were doing, surely cannot be a reason to rewrite the text, change the meaning and try to reconcile the fact that this verse supposedly contradicts the claim that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead... he is, but Matt 27:52-53 does not dispute that he was the firstborn from the dead. In my opinion, Matt 27:52-53 was a small fulfillment of John 5:25 when the dead (some) heard Christ's final voice on the cross - that cry of his, and therefore came back to life. Again the same thing occurs later...

Example 2: In John 11:26, the translators were not clear about Jesus' statement about the dead and αιων, so they used the unfortunate and completely wrong translation that "he will never die," which is nonsense. Jesus was talking about the fact that the person who dies will not be dead (almost) indefinitely (that is the meaning of αιων), but that one day, after a very long time, the αιων will end and be resurrected. This is, after all, what Martha was telling Jesus, that her brother Lazarus would be resurrected on the last day, that is, at the end of the αιων.

Example 3: Rev. 20:5 and again the round brackets, as if the text were a sort of insertion. The text of Rev. 20:5 makes it perfectly clear that the first resurrection will occur before the 1000-year kingdom. Thus, all the pictures and texts in JW-literature about happy people being reunited after the resurrection during the 1000 year kingdom are false prophecy and a promise that will not be fulfilled.

Rev. 20:5 clearly and indisputably states: the rest of the dead will not be resurrected until after the end of the 1000 years of Christ's reign. The first resurrection concerns only those - in my opinion, and measured by the vast New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:15-17), where the gates are nearly 2,200 kilometers long - rulers and priests with Christ, and there will indeed be millions and millions of them, men and women, including the last 144,000 who, like the others, the millions, are among the 12 new tribes of the new Israel. Every living Christian ("...he hath an ear, hear...he that overcometh shall not suffer the second death" Rev. 2:11) has the chance and the right, to seek to be with Christ in heaven. And over the 2000 years - I believe - millions of people have succeeded.

Armageddon will be survived by the billions of people who will be on this planet. Survival is not just for some exclusive group of people in some church, but for all who will show basic humanity, or are they the ones who will ask, when have we seen you naked, in prison, sick, hungry or thirsty?

Conclusion: here's my interpretation of the twisted, incomplete Word of God: when Jesus hung on the cross, many began to mock Him. He was mocked by the people who stood around, the soldiers, and in the beginning, even the two criminals. We know from the Gospels that they mocked him for coming down from the cross, for saving himself, for saving others and not himself. They, in effect, repeated the entire gospel. They had plenty of time for that. Jesus had been dying for about six hours - and sometime in the afternoon, after those miracles with the darkness, one of the criminals, based on what he had heard and what he had seen, began to realize that he was indeed the King of the Jews. So he said, "Remember me when you are in your kingdom...

Thus even the corrupt, incomplete, weak word of God is stronger than the word of man (1 Cor. 1:25).

11

Greek and antecedents (draft)

by Blotty in

natural antecedents (essay) + meanings to certain words.

i posted about 5 months ago a study done by daniel wallace called “greek grammar and the holy spirit” (see: source), which i have cited numerous times since – which focuses heavily on greek antecedents.

ending), and she (fem.

PetrW

@Blotty

Still on Rev 12:5: I agree with you that ος refers to υιος (son). I have taken Rev 12:5 as evidence of typical incongruence in the strict grammatical sense as given by BDR.

But this grammatical phenomenon - also in Rev 12:5 - reaffirms the idea that the relational pronoun is defined by the governing word (υιος => ος // son => which) and not, conversely.

***

I look forward to stimulating studies/questions/searches ✌️😎 there are a lot of interesting topics here, but I'm short on time...

***

p.s. I wanted to contribute to the discussion regarding the "End Times" i.e. my take on the last days, last hour, time approaching etc.

p.p.s and for my part, an unfinished discussion, also on the Revelation and the identity of Babylon the Great... I would be interested in your opinion or that of others...

11

Greek and antecedents (draft)

by Blotty in

natural antecedents (essay) + meanings to certain words.

i posted about 5 months ago a study done by daniel wallace called “greek grammar and the holy spirit” (see: source), which i have cited numerous times since – which focuses heavily on greek antecedents.

ending), and she (fem.

PetrW

Just briefly on the dilemma...

***

A typical example is Filomen 10, where the word "child" in the middle gender is followed by a masculine reference pronoun, which often leads translators to change the meaning of "child" to "son"...

I've looked at the three main "Johannine" texts that Wallace discusses: 14:26; 15:26; and 16:13-14. In the standard NT grammar (BDR, 17th edition), little space is devoted to this phenomenon §296 and point 3) where, it says that the relational pronoun, need not correspond to the gender of the relational word (Gal. 4:19).

In the NT-grammar by Hoffmann/Siebenthal, §265 (general information only) and further reference is made to §289e/f where the "attraction of the relational pronoun" is described as follows: "The relational pronoun is often governed not only by the number and gender of the relational word, but also by the casus. One could say that the relational pronoun is "attracted" to the linguistic casus, or here: "straightened"/"assimilated", hence the talk of relational pronoun assimilation".

According to Hoffmann/Siebenthal,the reference pronoun is GOVERNED by the reference word. My understanding is that while the immediate context suggests "disagreement" (incongruence), it is inherently a misunderstanding of the written text. There is no factual incongruence (see BDR §136) - if I can find a matching number, casus or genus. The commentators on these passages seem to be trying to explain the opposite: that the relational pronoun DIRECTS the genus of the relational word (see Philomen 1:10 above), that it therefore determines, e.g., what genus the relational word is to have. But I'll come back to that. First, the three most cited texts in John.

In John 14:26 the reference word "παρακλητος" is masculine, so "εκεινος" is also masculine. As for the spirit, the following statement, "ο πεμψει," is a reference pronoun in the middle gender because it refers to the spirit (in the middle gender). The congruence is preserved.

If John 15:26 speaks of the coming of παρακλητος, then "ον" is masculine because it again refers to the masculine παρακλητος. And then, again, congruence is maintained: the spirit of truth has the subsequent ο (nominative neuter) because it refers to the spirit in the middle gender. Again, the congruence in gender is maintained.

The more complex text is then 16:13-14, but the immediate context of v.7 clarifies the use of the masculine: παρακλητος appears there again in the masculine, so the whole speech from v.8 onwards must be in the masculine. Vv. 13-14 is a repetition of the promise of παρακλητος's arrival in vv. 7 and 8. Again the consistency in gender is maintained.

This solves the problem for me: there is no incongruence in John, that is, the masculine being ascribed to the middle gender. In my view, the masculine gender ascribed to the masculine παρακλητος and the middle gender of πνευμα is retained.

But, if I go back to Philomen 1:10 (or to the example of John 6:9 or Luke 17:31 see BDR §296(3)), then it can be seen that there can be a sort of change of gender: the "child" in the middle gender becomes "son" by means of the masculine relative pronoun. The explanation, however, is very simple: whether Paul describes Onesimus as a child or a son, he is still Onesimus. I don't think anything changes.

I don't want to make light of it, though: the glaring disagreement, e.g. Rev 12:5 "she gave birth to a son (masculinum), (became) male (neutrum) who (masculinum)..." is deliberately written, and I think it has very serious implications theologically. The writer in the vision saw a symbolic "birth" where a "child" is born as it were, but almost immediately the child is a "man" i.e. there will be no repeat of the situation with the birth of Jesus in his bodily form, where 30 years have passed since the birth of the child, into Christ.

A little conclusion: Incongruences of gender in the NT do occur and are significant, but the most cited texts in John 14:26; 15:26; 16:13-14 in support of the Trinity, however, contain a gender correspondence, so the only thing that can be said about these texts is that πνευμα is here identified as παρακλητος, and since παρακλητος, is masculine, then the following clauses that refer to παρακλητος are also masculine, but there is no personification of it grammatically. If πνευμα is spoken of, then, in agreement with this referent, the middle gender is also used (John 14:26).

p.s. As to Foster's question concerning Eph 2:8, I think no problem arises with the disagreement (incongruence) between the genders: the Greek τουτο refers to το δωρον and not to the feminine of "grace" and "faith". Translated, it means "and this is not of us (i.e. grace through faith), but this is the gift of God". Paul emphasizes "gift" of God versus "from us" (see also Rogers and Rogers, New Linquistic and Exegetical Key...).

p.p.s.: Wallace's study is excellent, but it is such a "discussion killer". Personally, I think the center of gravity of explaining that the Holy Spirit is not a person lies in the meaning of the word πνευμα and how it is used for such disparate phenomena as demons, spirit in man, Holy Spirit, or being transported by spirit somewhere that it simply suggests that the word has a common semantic meaning...

11

Greek and antecedents (draft)

by Blotty in

natural antecedents (essay) + meanings to certain words.

i posted about 5 months ago a study done by daniel wallace called “greek grammar and the holy spirit” (see: source), which i have cited numerous times since – which focuses heavily on greek antecedents.

ending), and she (fem.

PetrW

...I'm on vacation... but I looked at all your links. I'll look at it again when I get home😎

33

Revelation stuff per request for PetrW

by EasyPrompt in

per request from petrw🙂, some revelation stuff.... .

the four horsemen didn't start in 1914 or earlier- the timing is once jesus is enthroned in heaven.. .

the winds of destruction are on the religious institutions.. .

PetrW

If I were to evaluate your opinion, I think that the concept of the Great Babylon being represented by churches or even religions is, shall we say, a move in the right direction. It is certainly a better interpretation than saying that only the Catholic Church or the institution of the papacy within the Catholic Church represents Babylon the Great. But despite these positives, the Great Babel is still just a theological "stick" in the hand with which to beat "competitors." It is still a term used in inter-religious warfare.

Biblically, I think the biggest weakness of this concept is that Rev 18:24b claims that "the blood of...ALL the slain of the earth was found in him". I guess blaming all the murders on religion or churches is impossible? Or, how do you explain this???

24

What would you change?

by ExBethelitenowPIMA in

i’m agnostic so maybe the universe started by chance or by design.. if it was by design (hypothetically) and the bible is the designers word, and jws seem to be the closest to it, then what would be the largest things you would change?.

here are a few ideas.

-do away with the governing body thinking they are gods only channel.

PetrW

To paraphrase Paul's words in Athens: God does not dwell in churches made by human hands.

Yes, this may seem like a radical criticism of churches, but I simply see attempts to fix churches as a continuation of social utopia. Let's go and make our church work... let's go and build a tower so that if there's another flood, we can save ourselves...

The hypothetical idea is possible, but the realisation is practically impossible according to the laws of sociology and psychology...

33

Revelation stuff per request for PetrW

by EasyPrompt in

per request from petrw🙂, some revelation stuff.... .

the four horsemen didn't start in 1914 or earlier- the timing is once jesus is enthroned in heaven.. .

the winds of destruction are on the religious institutions.. .

PetrW

Interesting explanation of 666. I think it is possible to include your interpretation in the group of interpretations of 666 that are generally called "the symbolic meaning of the number 6". There are several variations on the theme of the number 6, with one of the earliest attested in Irenaeus of Lyons, who considered the 600 years of Noah, connecting it to the 60x6 cubits of the statue in Daniel. The basis of symbolic interpretations of 666 is always the number 6, and the more or less negative significance of the number 6 is emphasized...

And of course, Irenaeus also popularized gematria. Little is known anymore, and therefore none of the reputable commentators cite other passages from Irenaeus where he writes about the gematria speculations of the Gnostics on the name of Jesus and his numerical 888 as being nonsense...

I have about 20 or 30 commentaries on Revelation (in book or electronic form - see archive.org or the Zlib app 😎😎😎) and other literature on and about Revelation...

What I mean to say: from this position it is easy to come up with criticisms of your solution - others have done it for me. The greatest weakness of symbolic interpretations of the number 666 is that, first, it does not quite meet the requirement for the imperative form of the verb "to count" and, most importantly, in Rev 15:2 when it speaks of those who conquered the beast and its image, that the number 666 mentioned in this text must also be non-literal in nature, it must be something material. It is difficult to "beat" an arithmetic equation... (anything goes, of course, but you can probably guess that Rev 15:2 is not exactly on this topic...). JW as far as I know oscillate around the symbolic meaning of 666 and not knowing anything 😁

I have my explanation, I am writing it - but it has to be published in a journal first. All I can say is that the solution to 666 can be found in the Bible (no, it is not again the symbolic meaning of 666 talents of gold or number of sons...) and there is a wide base of literary and non-literary extra-biblical monuments from antiquity to early Byzantium to support this explanation (no, it is not gematria, in any language - see above by Irenaeus of Lyons).

But let's try another topic ✌️😎

The identity of Babylon the Great? What do you make of it???????????😎

11

Greek and antecedents (draft)

by Blotty in

natural antecedents (essay) + meanings to certain words.

i posted about 5 months ago a study done by daniel wallace called “greek grammar and the holy spirit” (see: source), which i have cited numerous times since – which focuses heavily on greek antecedents.

ending), and she (fem.

PetrW

...although on the issue of "parakletos" the non-Trinitarians have a very weak hand: if John 14:26 refers to the Holy Spirit as "parakletos", then 1 John 2:1 is the same - parakletos - applied to Christ. As a "theological DIYer" I would even make some doctrine of the Holy Trinity out of this...✌️😁😎😁

More seriously: given the Greek πνευμα, I was most interested in the modern equivalent ... i.e., what does "invisible, moving force" or πνευμα mean in the human body? I could only find https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

This is going to sound a bit brutal, but since the death of Jesus, is well documented in the NT, it is possible, I think, to see how "energy collapse" at the cellular level in the body, means that πνευμα is not in the body ... maybe someone has a better solution?