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Pepband_Mom
Guest
Was it 2 years ago the Catholic Church forbad us to say “Yahweh” in liturgies or music? This reflects the attitude of the Jewish people. Besides the name is not pronounceable. No one actually knows how to say it.
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johnnyjones
Guest
How do you feel about a scant few Greek scholars supporting your version (New World Translation) of John 1:1? Also- if Jesus isn’t God, it’s not Christianity.Certainly. A child will believe what his parents say. It’s not till they get older they start thinking for themselves, examining the evidence and deciding what is right and wrong.
That is one of the reasons JW’s don’t baptize at infancy. As one grows up, he may well decide he does not want to be a JW. (I would estimate about half of young ones in my area decide that)
But what I love about the JW’s is that you are encouraged to test it out. If we have a question we are never told: “Just believe it”.
We are encouraged to research the answer. At our recent assembly there was a talk directed at young ones. The speaker specifically told them: “Don’t believe it because your parents say so. Prove it to yourselves!”
And that leads on to why JW’s can go out preaching! They have a strong faith (because they have proved it to themselves) – and in finding this proof they now have evidence to show others!
(Imagine a JW at your door and you ask: “Why do you believe this bit?” - and he says: “Cause the WT said” or “Because my parents told me” Ha ha.)
It is a very unique organisation.
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David
Guest
Mormons actually teach two contradictory beliefs concerning God.
ewtn.com/library/answers/camorm3.htm
Peace
David
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david_ruiz
Guest
thanks .Agree.I shared for years with a co worker jw ,showed copies of old Watchtower articles and excerpts -he finally tore them up.As far as our discussed scripture the rebuttal is he who made the world was in the world-a direct reference to Christ, not the "Father…I guess you have to show em Christ is Jehovah…
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Regardless
Guest
The best study Ihave read on it is Jason Beduhns “Truth in Translation”. He compares 9 major translations and compares them to the original koine greek.
Each verse he considers he takes apart and explains for Laymen like me to comprehend. Well worth a read (and easy to understand) if you seriously want to examine the subject. He is not a JW.
Below is a quote direct from Wikipedia on the NWT. (I have underlined some bits.)
A 2003 study by Jason BeDuhn, associate professor of religious studies at Northern Arizona University in the United States, of nine of “the Bibles most widely in use in the English-speaking world,” including the New American Bible, The King James Bible and The New International Version, examined several New Testament passages in which “bias is most likely to interfere with translation.” For each passage, he compared the Greek text with the renderings of each English translation, and looked for biased attempts to change the meaning. BeDuhn reported that theNew World Translation was “not bias free”, but emerged “as the most accurate of the translations compared”, and thus a “remarkably good translation”, adding that “most of the differences are due to the greater accuracy of the NW as a literal, conservative translation”.
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Regardless
Guest
That fascinates me.
How do you feel about being forbidden to use God’s name? It is in the Bible nearly seven thousand times! Sometimes in Psalms which were sung aloud by crowds.
If the reason is “We aren’t sure of the pronouciation” - Why do they not do the same with “Jesus”. His name was pronounced: “Yeshua” or perhaps “Yehoshua”
The Catholic Church teaches the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all equal. Why do they only hide the name of the Father?
Imagine if the JW’s decided to replace every Bible occurance of “Jesus” with “Teacher” or “Lord”.
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Regardless
Guest
Please do show me where the Bible says Christ is Jehovah.
I will start the ball rolling with some scriptures that say he is not:
1 Cor. 11:3. “The head of every man is the Christ, the head of the woman is the man, the head of Christ is God,”
John 14:28. “The Father is greater than I am.”
1 Cor. 15:28 “When all things have been subjected to him, the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone.”
Acts 7:54 “But he, being full of holy spirit, gazed into heaven and caught sight of God’s glory and of Jesus standing at God’s right hand.”
Matt 24:36, “…nobody knows, neither the angels, nor the son, but only the Father.”
How can I believe Jesus is Jehovah and believe those scriptures?
At least you must acknowledge where we get our wild idea from?
I put 5 scriptures so as not to make my post too long. Your turn.
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PumpkinSeed
Guest
All I know is that they don’t celebrate Christian holidays.
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adf417
Guest
Greetings Regardless, May the lord be with you…
There are many topics on this thread that you have pointed out that I would love to discuss but it would be completely fruitless until the primary issue has been resolved. The primary issue of Holy Scripture.
You use the example above of Jason BeDuhn’s study of the most accurate translation of the NT (Greek Text) and use his findings in a misleading way, not to mention not answering the question posed in the prior post about John 1:1.
Sense one of the most used arguments from Jehovah Witness’s is the use and pronunciation of God’s name being “Jehovah”, the below quote from BeDuhn should be noted to your readers and of great interest to some.
BeDuhn: Having concluded that the NWT is one of the most accurate English translations of the New Testament currently available, I would be remiss if I did not mention one peculiarity of this translation that by most conventions of translation would be considered an inaccuracy, however little this inaccuracy changes the meaning of most of the verses where it appears. I am referring to the use of “Jehovah” in the NWT New Testament. “Jehovah” (or “Yahweh” or some other reconstruction of the divine name consisting of the four consonants YHWH) is the personal name of God used more than six thousand times in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament. But the name never appears in any Greek manuscript of any book of the New Testament. So, to introduce the name “Jehovah” into the New Testament, as the NWT does two-hundred-thirty-seven times, is not accurate translation by the most basic principle of accuracy: adherence to the original Greek text. (p. 169)
Having said this above, I am not sure it really is of much interest…I would not be too quick to take anything from Jason BeDuhn as un-biased. If you read his bio and see his affiliations you may understand. It is beyond me why the JW’s continue to use BeDuhn’s findings to spout their translation. I say as it would be the point of further discussion when/if we get to the canonization of scripture and what the early church fathers taught.
Pease to you!!!
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Kc906
Guest
Peace to you Regardless, there are references to the Divinity of Christ all throughout the Bible. You must interpret the verses you posted in light of the others showing his Divinity; and the verses showing his Divinity must also be understood in the light of verses comparing Jesus and the Father.
Isaiah 45:22-24 "Turn to me and be saved, all YOU [at the] ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no one else. By my own self I have sworn-out of my own mouth in righteousness the word has gone forth, so that it will not return-that to me every knee will bend down, every tongue will swear, saying, 'Surely in Jehovah there are full righteousness and strength.” (NWT)
Romans 14:11 "For it is written: As I live,’ says Jehovah, 'to me every knee shall bend down, and every tongue will make open acknowledgment to God.” (NWT)
Philippians 2:9-11 “For this very reason also God exalted him to a superior position and kindly gave him the name that is above every [other] name, 10 so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground, 11 and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (NWT)
In Isaiah, God Almighty is stating that "every knee will bend to ME and confess with their mouth the name Jehovah. In Romans 14:11, we see this is one of the 237 or so false insertions of Jehovah for Kyrios (which always means Lord) into the New Testament of infallible scripture. The Watchtower believes that the Romans verse is referring to the OT verse in Isaiah, which of course it is. This is not a reason to replace Lord with Jehovah, but let’s go with it and just “assume” this is correct.
In Philippians 2:9-11 we see a few things that are of great importance. We see that Jesus has the Greatest name in the entire universe; we know this because the word OTHER is not in any confirmed Greek Manuscript, but nonetheless the Watchtower falsely inserts the word in this verse to attempt to show that Jesus has the Second greatest name in the universe, thus showing there is no equality with the father. We also see new context for the Isaiah and Romans verses which are referring to the exact same event, an event that is still to come. In Isaiah God Almighty (YHWH) was talking in first person about himself; he says every knee will bow to ME. The Watchtower agrees with this, and they also agree that Romans that every knee will bend to God Almighty. But in Philippians, we see that every knee will bend to Jesus Christ, not the Father. Notice that the Watchtower doesn’t falsely insert the word Jehovah for Kyrios in this verse. By doing so, they would be openly admitting that Jesus Christ is God Almighty (YHWH,) which of course all 3 of these verses prove whether they insert the word or not.
So, did God Almighty tell a lie in Isaiah 45:22-24? If in the end every knee will bend to Jesus, then why didn’t YHWH state that every knee would bend to the Messiah, his Son that was to come, etc…I personally believe that God Almighty was stating the truth in Isaiah, what say you?
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T_More
Guest
Please note that this word [other] in the verse above does not exist in the Greek text. It has been inserted by the Watchtower.
edit: Sorry KC, I just caught what you cited about this earlier.
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Kc906
Guest
Philippians 2:5-7 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8
The pre-incarnate Word was not a servant/slave to the Father UNTIL he took on the form of a servant. This became his status/position the moment he humbled himself and took on the form of Humanity for his people, but was not his status before which was the form of God, or simply God.
Referencing the Philippians verse above, we see that the Father was not Greater than the Son until the Word was born of the flesh. The reason the Father is Greater than the Son is that Jesus went from being in eternity, to being born a man who is under the law - Galatians 4:4 However, his Divinity which is the same of the Fathers, never went away.
John 2:19-22 19 Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days? 21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them;[c] and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
When Jesus rose from the dead his physical body rose from the dead. Once he was born a man he would have his human nature for the rest of eternity, and his human nature would still make him subject to the Father.
This is a vision Stephen see’s Jesus at the right hand of the Father who is called by the title God. Surely, explicity calling the Father or Son “God” would not be all that one needs to prove they are the One True God?
Revelation 19:11-13 11 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had[e] a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
Using the same logic, God Almighty who is the Father only in JW theology, does not know this name of the Son/Word. I suppose you have no opposition to this, since this is using the same baseline of thinking?
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Regardless
Guest
Thanks for your post.
I mentioned Beduhn in answer to a claim in post 41 that there are “scant few Greek scholars supporting” the NWT. I’m not trying to be misleading, but I can’t post the whole book. (Please read the whole book if you can though!)
Your quote further supports what I was trying too make clear:
Having declared the NWT “one of the best English translations of the New Testament currently available” I was pleased to see Beduhn had some criticism. (It shows he is not a JW in disguise.) In his opinion, the reasons for including “Jehovah” in the New Testament are not good enough. He does not agree.
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I’m not especially interested what the early Church fathers taught. Only what Jesus and his inspired apostles taught. I want an accurate translation for that since I can’t read Greek.
But just a point. JW’s don’t need the New World translation to teach the Bible. It didn’t exist until the 1960’s. (And then only in a few languages until recently) They happily used the King James Version and the American Standard Version for the 80 years prior, and what ever translation is available in the hundreds of other languages they teach in.
Don’t get it in your heads we made up some stuff and changed the Bible to suit. We just want an accurate translation that takes advantage of all the current findings.
I’m sure we all want to know what Jesus taught as accurately as possible.
I will dig up what Beduhn said about John 1:1 for you in a later post if you wish
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Regardless
Guest
I Haven’t found it yet, but look what I did find: (I have done the underlining)
Quote…
*Translating John 1:1: The Coptic Evidence
(Solomon Landers, September 2006)
It is becoming well-known that the primary Coptic translations of John 1:1c – the
Sahidic, the proto-Bohairic, and the Bohairic – do not render it “the Word was
God,” as is common in many English versions, but “the Word was a god,” found
notably in the New World Translation.
The significance of this is remarkable. First, the Coptic versions precede the New
World Translation by some 1,700 years, and are part of the corpus of ancient textual
witnesses to the Gospel of John. Second, the Coptic versions were produced at a
time when the Koine Greek of the Christian Greek Scriptures was still a living
language whose finer nuances could be understood by the Coptic translators, so
much so that many Greek words are left untranslated in the Coptic texts. Third,
the Coptic versions do not show the influence of later interpretations of Christology
fostered by the church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries CE.*
End of quote…
Interesting?
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Regardless
Guest
Ah. Here you go. (Beduhn has a whole chapter on John 1:1. Weel worth reading to understand it)
Below is part of Beduhns conclusion on John 1:1…
(Quote…)
John says on the one hand that the Word was “with” ho theos, “God,” but on the other hand that the Word “was” theos, “a god.” It is striking, therefore, that most of the translations we are comparing take no notice of this careful distinction, and translate the different words as if they were exactly the same.
(Truth in Translation pg 115.)
(end of quote.)
It’s simple translation. Elsewhere all translations add the “a” in the same instances.
For example: John 4:19: “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet”.
The NIV, KJV, RSV and more all add “a”. None say: “Sir, you are Prophet.”
Mark 6:49. : " a ghost", John 8:44 : “a murderer”
John 10:1: “a thief”… I could go on…
But for some reason when John 1:1 says “the word was with theos” they ignore this grammer rule.
I strongly suspect the reason is it errodes the translators scant trinity evidence."
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Regardless
Guest
Read post 49 for the long complicate version, but basically Kc906 says:
“All knees bend to Jehovah in Isaiah 45, and Romans 14 quotes that.
All knees should bend to Jesus in Philippians. Therefore since they bend to Jesus and Jehovah: Jesus is Jehovah!”
Huh? That proves Jehovah is Jesus?
So by your arguement; if I said: “Everyone saluted the General”, and later I said: “Everyone saluted the President” - I would be saying the General and the president are the same person.
Just because ever knee bends to Jehovah in Isaiah, and every knee bends to Jesus in Philipians doesn;’t prove they are the same person.
Everyone could laugh at me, then everyone could laugh at you… but we aren’t the same person!
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mwok
Guest
Christ was crucified, died and rose from the dead by His own authority. nuff said.
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Regardless
Guest
I will quote my favourite Greek scholar Beduhn again to answer this:
quote:
“All” is commonly used in Greek as hyperbole. An exageration. The “other” is assumed. In one case, Paul takes the trouble to make this perfectly clear. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul catches himself saying that God will make all things subject to Christ. He stops and clarifies that “of course” when we say “all things” he doesn’t mean that God himself will be subject to Christ, but all other things will be, with Christ himself subject to God.
(end of quote)
Beduhn was here answering why the NWT adds “other” to Colossians 1. But the same principle must apply.
Note however, even thought the NWT have good reason to add “other” they draw everyones attention to it by putting it in closed brackets. [other] . Showing that specific word does not appear in any manuscript, but is added so the sentance makes sence in English. Many translations don’t draw the readers attention to added words at all!
What an acccurate and carefull translation you have access to!
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Regardless
Guest
No, the point is, Jesus was standing beside God. They are different people.
And “at his right hand” is a supporting role. Not even equal.
And if you believe the Trinity, you will need an excuse why the co-equal, co-everything Holy Ghost wasn’t seen in the heavenly vision. Probably because this was before a Catholic Council in 381 AD.
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Regardless
Guest
At Acts 3:15 Peter said: “God raised him (Jesus) up from the dead.”
(No mention of Jesus doing it on his own authority.)
What scripture were you quoting?
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