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teachccd
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If Michael the Archangel is not dogmatically taught then what is dogmatically taught as the pre-existence of Jesus? Prove to me that this is not taught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses since I have Watchtower magazines that say otherwise. Is not the Watchtower to be taken as the organization’s final word? If you say no then I would have to question a letter received by a Jehovah’s witness reprimanding him for questioning the content of an article printed in the Watchtower.
I am not at my resources at this moment but I have early writings that speak of God as tinity. the term “Tinitas” was used as early as the first century. I will get to my resources and cite them for you. I am positive of this since I showed them to my friend who mirrors all of your questions. The amazing thing is that he could never show me where the early Christians taught that only 144,000 anointed ones go to heaven and the rest remain on paradise earth. In fact, the book of Revelation was disputed as part of the inspired canon until the council of Carthage where it was finally accepted by the Catholic Church and no where does the Church speak of this teaching.
So, if Jesus was not God and He was not Michael the Archangel then who exactly did Christians believe that He was in John 8:58 when Jesus states that before Abraham was “I Am” ?
I am not at my resources at this moment but I have early writings that speak of God as tinity. the term “Tinitas” was used as early as the first century. I will get to my resources and cite them for you. I am positive of this since I showed them to my friend who mirrors all of your questions. The amazing thing is that he could never show me where the early Christians taught that only 144,000 anointed ones go to heaven and the rest remain on paradise earth. In fact, the book of Revelation was disputed as part of the inspired canon until the council of Carthage where it was finally accepted by the Catholic Church and no where does the Church speak of this teaching.
So, if Jesus was not God and He was not Michael the Archangel then who exactly did Christians believe that He was in John 8:58 when Jesus states that before Abraham was “I Am” ?
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teachccd
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. * *Selected Ante-Nicene Patristic witnesses to Christ’s Divinity
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teachccd
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scribd.com/doc/19133314/Jehovahs-Witnesses-the-Early-Church-Fathers
Dan, Here are the ECF’s references to the Trinity and how the Jehovah’s Witnesses take their writings out of context. Read the above article and then comment if you will…
Dan, Here are the ECF’s references to the Trinity and how the Jehovah’s Witnesses take their writings out of context. Read the above article and then comment if you will…
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Dan_Parker
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Sorry, I don’t debate links. If you would like to take one of his examples and discuss it in your own words I will be glad to do so. However also bear in mind that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not claim that the Fathers agree with our theology. What I see is that the further one goes back the closer they get to both the theology of the bible writers (see the link in my signature on monotheism) and to the theology of JWs.
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Dan_Parker
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If Michael the Archangel is not dogmatically taught then what is dogmatically taught as the pre-existence of Jesus?
Dan:
We do teach that Jesus was created. We do not use his identification as Michael as proof of this. However since Catholics identify Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-30 as the Son and since both the LXX and some catholic bibles use the word create in that verse it becomes not a question of whether or not the Son was created but when and in what sense.
teachccd
Prove to me that this is not taught by the Jehovah’s Witnesses since I have Watchtower magazines that say otherwise. Is not the Watchtower to be taken as the organization’s final word? If you say no then I would have to question a letter received by a Jehovah’s witness reprimanding him for questioning the content of an article printed in the Watchtower.
Dan:
What, Michael or the creation of the Son? In an article in Reasoning from the Scriptures which is used to train JWs for their ministry one can clearly see we are not dogmatic:
***** rs p. 218 Jesus Christ *****
Is Jesus Christ the same person as Michael the archangel?
The name of this Michael appears only five times in the Bible. The glorious spirit person who bears the name is referred to as “one of the chief princes,” “the great prince who has charge of your [Daniel’s] people,” and as “the archangel.” (Dan. 10:13; 12:1; Jude 9, RS) Michael means “Who Is Like God?” The name **evidently **designates Michael as the one who takes the lead in upholding Jehovah’s sovereignty and destroying God’s enemies.
At 1*Thessalonians 4:16 (RS), the command of Jesus Christ for the resurrection to begin is described as “the archangel’s call,” and Jude 9 says that the archangel is Michael. Would it be appropriate to liken Jesus’ commanding call to that of someone lesser in authority? Reasonably, then, the archangel Michael is Jesus Christ. (Interestingly, the expression “archangel” is never found in the plural in the Scriptures, thus implying that there is only one.)
Revelation 12:7-12 says that Michael and his angels would war against Satan and hurl him and his wicked angels out of heaven in connection with the conferring of kingly authority on Christ. Jesus is later depicted as leading the armies of heaven in war against the nations of the world. (Rev. 19:11-16) Is it not **reasonable **that Jesus would also be the one to take action against the one he described as “ruler of this world,” Satan the Devil? (John 12:31) Daniel 12:1 (RS) associates the ‘standing up of Michael’ to act with authority with “a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time.” That would certainly fit the experience of the nations when Christ as heavenly executioner takes action against them. So the evidence indicates that the Son of God was known as Michael before he came to earth and is known also by that name since his return to heaven where he resides as the glorified spirit Son of God.
Notice that we consider this reasonable and that the evidence indicates the Son is Michael. I can assure you that we are more dogmatic on essential basic doctrine than this.
teachccd
I am not at my resources at this moment but I have early writings that speak of God as tinity. the term “Tinitas” was used as early as the first century. I will get to my resources and cite them for you. I am positive of this since I showed them to my friend who mirrors all of your questions.
Dan:
If you research this you will see the word is not used the same way you use it today. I also do not believe it was in the 1st century. I believe it was perhaps second century, and for some reason Tertullian rings a bell, but I am not going to do your research for you
teachccd
The amazing thing is that he could never show me where the early Christians taught that only 144,000 anointed ones go to heaven and the rest remain on paradise earth. In fact, the book of Revelation was disputed as part of the inspired canon until the council of Carthage where it was finally accepted by the Catholic Church and no where does the Church speak of this teaching.
Dan:
You still seem to be under the impression that that JWs claim that theologians after the apostles had the entire truth. We do not teach that and so I would not expect to see what you ask. In addition I have the feeling that the true Christians were not among those who started to appeal to Greek philosophy and integrate their teachings into Christianity. In addition it is well known that the writings of those who disagreed with the majority did not get preserved. For example, most of what we know about Arius is from Athanasius’ arguments against him. Athanasius got preserved, Arius writings for the most part did not.
teachccd
So, if Jesus was not God and He was not Michael the Archangel then who exactly did Christians believe that He was in John 8:58 when Jesus states that before Abraham was “I Am” ?
Dan:
John wrote at the end of that book why he wrote it and what they believed:
DRA John 20:31 But these are written, that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God: and that believing, you may have life in his name. So we don’t need to speculate as John tells us.
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teachccd
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Sorry, I don’t debate links…
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teachccd
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Dan, What is the origin of the 27 books of the New Testament? How do we know that there were to be 27 books? How do you know that these books are the inspired Word of God? Before we debate the ECF let’s go to Scripture since this thread deals with John 1:1. How do we know that John is an inspired text and that we should have it in the Bible at all?
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peregrinus_sg
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To judge whether a translation is accurate, we must go beyond grammatical possibility. NWT’s choice of “the Word was a god” was chosen to lead people to interpret that the divine nature of the Word was separate from the divine nature of God (= the Father). But the original text does not have that meaning intended.
You seem to suggest that the focus of the NWT translation is meant to emphasise on god (i.e. divinity) rather than the article “a”; but are JWs comfortable with calling the Father, whom you call Jehovah, a god too?
Regardless of whether the English phrase has that simple meaning you think it has, I’m glad you realise that McKenzie denies that the phrase “the Word was a divine being” leads irrefutably to the implication you have been trying to draw! He might have done it correctly/incorrectly, well/poorly, and that is open for scholars to debate.
I would say however that the meaning of the term “being” is not so simple, otherwise, we wouldn’t have had centuries of philosophical and theological debate over how best to describe the truth of the Blessed Trinity. There are many shades of meaning to the word “being”, including that of “essence” or “nature”; thus it would be logical for McKenzie to say that God the Father is a divine being, God the Son is a divine being, and both the Father and the Son are of one substance/essence/being (if you so prefer the last term).
Finally, McKenzie wrote in English, not Greek. It is not wise to try correspond what McKenzie wrote to Greek philosophical terms, since the term “being” is not a one-to-one correspondence with the Greek term ousia. The argument that McKenzie makes must be understood within the English context, trying to do so in another language runs the risk of falsely attributing some meaning that McKenzie’s original expression does not contain.
I’m not sure why you brought in the term homoi, since that was specifically rejected by the Council Fathers and the Church. If I’m not wrong, the “being” implied in the term ousia (Greek participle) is closer to substance/essence; thus, the term is usually translated as substantia, and the Greek and Latin Churches have preferred to translate the term homoousian as “of the same substance” or “consubstantial”. The Church teaches that the one God has 3 distinct Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the 3 Persons are of one substance.
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Dan_Parker
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Then feel free to answer the post on this board where I posted it. You never addressed it, otherwise you would not be asking about the same subjectSorry, I don’t debate links…
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Dan_Parker
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LionHeart777
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teachccd
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No problem. But, hey, how about addressing my questions in post #67? That is really foundational to the rest of these inquiries…teachccdThen feel free to answer the post on this board where I posted it. You never addressed it, otherwise you would not be asking about the same subject
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Dan_Parker
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The short answer is that even though Christians were divided over many different issues, God made sure that all professed Christians accepted the 66 books. There may have been councils and individuals who acknowledged the canon but by no means established it.
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LionHeart777
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Dan,
My $0.02 again;
a) such a thing is not written in Scripture. Is this a tradition from somewhere?
b) Most if not all of those professed Christians are considered enemies of the JW’s Jehovah by the Watchtower Organization, no? (Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox.)
c) you recognize the authority of the Jerusalem Council in Acts don’t you? Do you personally believe it possible that the Church Christ founded is also one that holds Ecumenical Councils that are authoritative?
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Dan_Parker
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"Dan:
Dan,
My $0.02 again;
a) such a thing is not written in Scripture. Is this a tradition from somewhere?
Dan:
I said it was the “short” answer
NJB Romans 3:1 Is there any benefit, then, in being a Jew? Is there any advantage in being circumcised? 2 A great deal, in every way. First of all, it was to the Jews that the message of God was entrusted.
He may have caused the Jews to safeguard his word, but that does not mean he relinquished control of his own word, even though by that time the Jews had not accepted Christ. There was agreement before then as to what was canon and what was not. Note what Josephus had to say:
“From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets. We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own Scriptures. For, although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable; and it is an instinct with every Jew, from the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to die for them.”—Against Apion, I, 41-43 (8).
I assume the same is true for the Greek scriptures. There may have been disagreements in some camps for some of the books, but they were never good reasons and the canon prevailed.
I am not aware of any council that established that any of the 66 were inspired for the first time by any Christian. Certainly not the book of John, which is the book mentioned by the original poster.
b) Most if not all of those professed Christians are considered enemies of the JW’s Jehovah by the Watchtower Organization, no? (Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox.)
Dan:
Even though we love our enemies, I have never heard us use that term of other persons who are part of different religions.
c) you recognize the authority of the Jerusalem Council in Acts don’t you? Do you personally believe it possible that the Church Christ founded is also one that holds Ecumenical Councils that are authoritative?
Dan:
I recognize that the 66 books are inspired and everything in them including including the fact that in those books the apostles were identified. I did a search on wiki to see how many of these you might have in mind.
When I did this I found the following very interesting statement:
The first seven councils were called by the Emperor. Most historians agree that the emperors called the councils to force the Christian bishops to resolve divisive issues and reach consensus.
I knew about Constantine and that he was not a baptized Christian at the time. So Christ did not call the councils after all! It was Emperors like Constantine.
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teachccd
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You have lots of fancy rhetoric and references that point to nothing since I still have no idea how you know that the Book of John is truly inspired text. To say that no Christian is responsible for its inclusion along with the other 27 New Testament books is avoiding the question since ultimately someone had to decide which writings were apostolic and to be included in the canon. Can you tell me who these people were? Scripture did not fall out of the sky, bound in hardcover. You can continue saying that canonicity was known before this and that but who ultimately acknowledged the New Testament canon? The Mormons believe that the Book of Mormon is inspired text as well as the Muslems see the Koran. How do you know that John 1:1 really is inspired?
If the first seven councils are irrelevant then at what point did the Christian community have an acknowledged inspired text? Please give me detailed answers and not vague quotes that just try to prove that it was not the Catholic Church. Please map out a detailed evolved process for the New Testament and tell me why such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, Shephard of Hermas, Gospel of Peter and so on were rejected.
How can I be positive that the Book of Revelation is inspired when so many early Christians rejected it?
If the first seven councils are irrelevant then at what point did the Christian community have an acknowledged inspired text? Please give me detailed answers and not vague quotes that just try to prove that it was not the Catholic Church. Please map out a detailed evolved process for the New Testament and tell me why such writings as the Gospel of Thomas, Shephard of Hermas, Gospel of Peter and so on were rejected.
How can I be positive that the Book of Revelation is inspired when so many early Christians rejected it?
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Dan_Parker
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You asked about the book of John and you now agree that the council merely acknowledge and did not establish its canonicity. That was my point. Thanks for confirming it.
As for Revelation, it had been accepted more widely until some like Caius and Dionysius
denied its authenticity in order to argue against Millenniaism. Since there are catalogs which include Revelation before the Council of Carthage (397*C.E.) that council could at best only acknowledge the canon, not establish it.
As for the Apocrypha, the internal evidence disqualifies them. See below how some scholars express this.
*]“There is no question of any one’s having excluded them from the New Testament: they have done that for themselves.”—M.*R.*James, The Apocryphal New Testament, pages xi, xii.
*]“We have only to compare our New Testament books as a whole with other literature of the kind to realize how wide is the gulf which separates them from it. The uncanonical gospels, it is often said, are in reality the best evidence for the canonical.”—G.Milligan, The New Testament Documents, page228.
*]“It cannot be said of a single writing preserved to us from the early period of the Church outside the New Testament that it could properly be added to-day to the Canon.”—K.Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon, page24.
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LionHeart777
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Dan:
I said it was the “short” answer fair enough
It appears as though you allow for the sovereignty of God in your position but you would not allow the same for mine (assuming that “most historians” are correct.)
*all my comments are in blue
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Dan_Parker
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I don’t see much here that remains an issue except your point about a Pharisee Canon and a Sadducee canon. While that interests me and I would like to see the lists to see how they differ, I don’t believe Paul was speaking specifically about the wicked religious leaders who persecuted Jesus. In addition, the Hebrew canon was closed some 400 years earlier. Once I see the substance of your reference I can proceed to dismantle your argument
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