The most successful teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses and an amazing new book on the divine name

by slimboyfat 332 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Vanderhoven7

  The quote in Hebrews is from Psalm 108 which is entirely about Jehovah/Yahweh as indicated by the LORD being in caps and the reference to God as Creator.

  Psa 102:18 This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people which shall be created shall praise the LORD.

  Psa 102:19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; from heaven did the LORD behold the earth;

  Psa 102:20 To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;

  Psa 102:21 To declare the name of the LORD in Zion, and his praise in Jerusalem;

  Psa 102:22 When the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the LORD.

  Psa 102:23 He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.

  Psa 102:24 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations.

  Psa 102:25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.

  Psa 102:26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:

  Psa 102:27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

  
  
• 

  Wonderment

  OrphanCrow: This is one place [Heb. 1:10?] where it is painfully obvious that the motivations, and the WT's process, is flawed at its core...The WT perverts the text just enough to support their version of god. And that, for sure, is NOT Jesus. Go up a few verses [where a list of dozens of translations are called on for support of Jesus being God]. Check out what the WT "translators" did to Hebrews 1:8.

  Are you sure that Hebrews 1:8 calls Jesus God? It seems obvious you are not presenting the other side of the coin to posters here. Others have exposed the fallacy of, "My interpretation is the only correct one":
  

  http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/verses/Heb1_8.html

  https://www.scribd.com/document/252268649/Does-Hebrews-1-6-8-prove-Jesus-is-God

  An interesting quote appearing toward the end of the second link goes to the point:

  
  

  William Barclay: “This [Heb. 1:8] is a passage in which no one would wish to be dogmatic.

  In both cases both translations are perfectly possible … But, whatever translation we accept,

  we once again see that the matter stands in such doubt that it would be very unsafe to base

  any firm argument upon it.” (Jesus as They Saw Him, pp. 25-26.)

  Also, the link you provided with a list of 53 Bible versions against only ONE in the corner is slanted to say the least. Is the presentation of the NWT as the ONLY version "in existence" (as G. Jackson puts it) with a different rendering at Heb. 1:8 an honest description? Not according to Barclay.
  

  
  

  
  
• 

  cellomould

  "Call him louder"

  Mendelssohn's "Elijah" uses the name "Jehovah"

  1846

  It's a very good piece of music, and I highly recommend it. I just don't take it literally.
• 

  Ruby456

  i don't think either side can use the new testament to give themselves a foundation as both sides - making Jesus part of a trinity or denying him status as part of an almighty godhead run into problems. orphancrow you would have to say the same about trinitarians too - that. LXX's before 150 AD would have been clear that this verse was not talking about YHWH as they never used Lord for YHWH some scholars argue while words like theos and despotes (without the later bad connotations) were sometimes used for the tetragrammaton in later texts, hence the confusion. after all YHWH was a Jewish God and Jesus became a Christian God and good for them but if they are seeking to use the NT as a foundation text then they are doing what Orphancrow claims Jehovah's witnesses are doing.

  This is one place where it is painfully obvious that the motivations, and the WT's trinitarian's process, is flawed at its core. You can wave all sorts of scholarly books around that claim to speculatively support the WT's trinitarian's additions into the NT text, but when they use it inconsistently, it is clear that they have no interest in real evidence or academic validation - they are only interested in making sure that Jesus doesn't get divine status (actually Jesus does get divine status in WT thought). The WT trinitarian's perverts the text just enough to support their version of god. And that, for sure, is NOT Jesus.
  Go up a few verses. Check out what the WT "translators" did to Hebrews 1:8
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  slimboyfat

  I think JWs have agreed that Jesus may be called God in Heb 1:8 and they have no problem with Jesus being called God. They point out that the original recipient of the Psalm (Solomon?) was also called God, in that case, as a representative of Jehovah. On the other hand, as Wonderment points out, there are many Bible versions and commentators who translate and understand theos in the verse as nominative, as the NWT does, and not vocative.

  I think JWs are right about the divine name in the NT, but that doesn't mean they are right about every single case where the name is either used or not used. These are judgements. It should probably be used in Heb 1:10, however the specific text that is quoted doesn't contain the name in the extant Hebrew, so an argument can be made. In any case the NT is consistent in distinguishing Jesus from God and saying that Jesus is God's representative. Hebrews 1 is consistent with that.
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  Ruby456

  In the eastern Roman empire things were different - here humans were made gods quite often - even during the first century AD - the emperors for example and Alexandrian texts may have wanted to reflect this practice for Jesus in their later second century and later texts. So the idea that Jesus was God would not have been frowned upon but this would have been a departure from Jesus' Jewish id (Jews have other ways of ennobling people).

  there are lots of things about Jesus that are good for thinking about him as God imo. Just as we make our children adults when we talk to them as babies (Chappell, 2014, Knowing What to do, Imagination, Virtue, and Platonism in Ethics, p. 138) so we can aim to make ourselves gods and goddesses when we think about our future - I guess the anointed do this all the time!!!!
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  Half banana

  It really is important to understand how the Bible was foisted on the Roman subjects and how the ideas of God and his son came direct from pagan belief, and this I suggest is the basis for the strange and permanent ambiguity of Jesus (or the Christ figure) with his father or the conflation of Jesus with God.

  Both the father and his son were the Sun gods in antiquity, that was according to the universal rustic myths on which the Bible drew strength and popularity. After sanctifying a specific selection of manuscripts by imperial order, (making the Bible) the new Catholic church proscribed all former texts. This event explains the absence of manuscripts which would have exposed their devious methods. In the main we do not have the source material available because it was deliberately destroyed and made a subject of heavy penalty to be found possessing them. The tangible link between pagan tales and the Bible was severed and censured by the Catholic Church in the interests of empire and raising the sacred status of their new Bible canon.

  There is no ultimate arbiter for any religious doctrine. The reason being that they are not about reality, only partisan interpretations of text. That is why the discussion of conflicting Biblical meanings grind on through the centuries getting absolutely nowhere. No growth, no development! It truly is a distraction from the more important and solvable problems of being human.
  

  God and Jesus are primitive fictions for people snagged in a childhood mentality of subservient obedience.

  Personally, apart from deconstructing the reasons for their inclusion, I am completely tired of the utter folly of trying to find meaningful information from unprovable words of unprovable spirits. The Bible is not the answer to human problems, it creates them.
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  slimboyfat

  Has anyone else read this book and got any thoughts on it? Personally I think it’s the best book this century! I’m glad Earnest pointed it out to me.
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  Alf3831

  Slimboyfat,

  Not sure if someone mentioned this before...Dr. Frank Shaw is an inactive Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course that -shouldn't take away from his otherwise excellent scholarship. He prefers to maintain a low profile.

  -Alf3831
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  smiddy3

  Getting back to topic ,I don`t think this fact has been brought out in Previous posts on this thread.

  The "kingdom Interlinear Of The Christian Greek Scriptures " published by the WTB&TS a word for word translation of the Greek Text into English that was a basis for there NWT of the Christian Greek Scriptures does not contain the Hebrew Tetragrammaton or even a corresponding Greek equivalent of those four letters representing Gods name.

  The simple fact is the Divine name Jehovah/Yahweh is not there in their own publication KI. ( the New Testament )