Huh?
Jonah 2;2? If I was swallowed by a giant fish and prayed to God, I would probably say something like: âI called to God from my graveâ (sheol in Hebrew as the footnote says)
âhellâ in the King James translation I see.
Anyway, what is your point? What âfloodgateâ has been opened?
Was Jonah dead at this time? If so who wrote his book later?
Just teasing friend.
But seriously, how does this: again?
You need to compare your older version of the NWT with the new one and read it VERY closely. Here, I will show you something you obviously havenât seen yetâŚ
Grave the Place of No Conscious ActivityâŚExcept for Prayer?
The official teaching of Jehovahâs Witnesses, as you should know since you are one, is that the common Grave of humankind is void of any activity.
Where in the past the Governing Body has taught Witnesses that Jonah was not in Sheol itself but in what could have been an individual grave, the new 2013 NWT has reversed this past teaching. Now, as the footnote and the glossary of the NWT explain, the purposeful use of the capital âGâ by the NWT revision now shows that Jonah was NOT in an individual grave. He was in the common Grave of humankind.
He also was not unconscious while in Sheol. He could pray.
For the first time ever, the Jehovahâs Witnesses now have an official Bible that agrees with the long-held Catholic belief that Sheol/Hades/the Grave is not a place devoid of activity. Like Jonah, people are conscious in the Grave and can pray.
Are those who go down to the Grave really unconscious? If so, how was this be possible?
Jesus said his experience in the Grave would be like Jonahâs:
Just as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.
And what was it like for Jonah in the belly of the whale? Jonah was not unconscious. Jesus was likewise not unconscious. and he âwent to preach to the spirits in prisonâ at stated at 1 Peter 3:19.
Wages Vs. Reward and the Reward of Eternal Life
How does this fit in with the view Witnesses have of Ecclesiastes 9;5 and 10? It gives support to the Catholic teaching that these verses arenât speaking of the literal condition of the dead in the grave. It is speaking of the way life seems like âvanityâ in the face of eventual death.
The revision of the NWT also now agrees, because the revision committee changed an important word in 2013 edition.
The previous version read:
For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wagesâŚ
The new version reads:
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more rewardâŚ
This change is now in line with the way everyone else renders the verse. The Hebrew word, âsakarâ that used to be rendered âwagesâ in the previous NWT is now updated to the more precise ârewardâ as used in Catholic and Protestant Bibles.
Why the change? Previously the translators of the NWT decided to use âwagesâ because the other rendering of ârewardâ gives the verse a reading that wonât support the JW idea of no conscious activity after death. âSakarâ can mean âwagesâ but only in the context of ârecompense,â or âdueâ such as something one
merits for doing good, not so much in the form of money.
It is so used in Ecclesiastes 4:9, which reads the same way in both the previous and current 2013 revision:
Two are better than one, because they have a good
reward (âsakarâ) for their hard work.
So just a little adjustment, right? Change âsakarâ to mean reward again in Ecclesiastes 9:5, whatâs the big deal?
Ah, but now it reads (with verse 6 added for context):
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more** reward**, because all memory of them is forgotten. Also, their love and their hate and their jealousy have already perished, and they
no longer have any share in what is done under the sun.
This verse canât be taken literally anymore in the way it is newly rendered in your 2013 edition. Why not? It says that those who are dead now donât have any hope of ârewardâ in the future. No ârewardâ and âno longer have any share in what is done under the sun.â
This would mean the righteous who are dead in the grave have no reward or, as the Catholic New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) renders verse 6:
Never again will they have part in anything that is done under the sun.
If verse 5 is to be taken literally as a definition for the state of the dead, then there is no hope of a resurrection to life. That would be a âreward,â right? But if the âdead know nothing at all, nor do that have any more reward,â then according to this Scripture the dead wonât be resurrected either. âNever again will they have part in anything that is done under the sun.â
Do you see this? Tell me if I am wrong.
Verse 10 (NWT 2013 revision) ends with saying:
Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave, where you are going.
This has to be taken figuratively as well because now in Jonah 2:2 we have a prophet of God praying in the Grave, right?
So Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 can no longer be used to prove a literal unconscious definition of death (otherwise it also teaches that there can be no reward for those who are in the Grave). In line with Jonah 2:2, your Bible now teaches that the Grave is a place of activity.
How can your current understanding of death stand in the face of these changes in the revised NWT?
Most of us here are also. We rely on basic reason to drive these discussions.