NAILING DOWN the fraud of John 1:1 by demonstration

by TerryWalstrom 62 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Wonderment
    Wonderment

    jwfacts: " [JW's] Admitting the Word is a God still makes their religion polytheistic, which is the issue that the Trinity sets out to solve."

    This is the same line that Trinitiarians keep spewing out. And the JW's keep repeating that the "a god" rendition is not polytheistic, but that it is used in the sense of "divineness."

    Somehow these two groups never come to an agreement, and bystanders faith are being weakened, or even loose their faith in the process of seeing this spectable of bickering. That's what Satan wants.

  • cofty
    cofty
    bystanders faith are being weakened, or even loose their faith in the process of seeing this spectable of bickering. That's what Satan wants.

    Faith is what people do instead of thinking. Losing faith is a victory for reason.

    There is no "satan".

  • Wasanelder Once
    Wasanelder Once
    Some people get all excited about their football team. Others know the schematics of the original Star Trek ship Enterprise. Some drool over this form of Biblical mental masturbation. Its all so silly. "In the beginning was a tribe, and the tribe created God, and the tribe was God." Now we have to worship the tribe to die fulfilled. Wrong. lol.
  • TD
    TD

    Just curious. Do you have any use for interlinears? Do you see a common Bible reader obtaining any benefit from them?

    Yes and yes. (And sorry for my tone previously -- Was not having a good day.)

    Interlinears have value and a common Bible reader can benefit from them as long as they understand a few things first. (Not saying that you don't understand these things. --Lots of other people don't though..)

    Highly inflected languages do not follow the same rigid, linear word order that English does, especially in written composition. (e.g. In English, "The boy bit the dog" and "The dog bit the boy" mean two entirely different things.) It's very common in discussions like this for someone to turn to an interlinear and say, "Look! It clearly says God was the word."

    Phrases sometimes don't mean precisely what the literal words say and this is lost in the one-to-one word correspondence implied by an interlinear. A simple, everyday example in Greek is the repetition of words to convey intensiveness, (e.g. Truly, truly and Not, not) that don't normally repeat in English. --Sounds simple, but it tripped up Joseph Smith.

    A third pitfall is attributing the awkward, incomplete English of an interlinear to the Greek itself. For example, the meaning of απεχεσθαι...και αιματος is clear in Ancient Greek. -Not so much because of the words themselves, but because of the structure of the surrounding sentence. The meaning of abstain...from blood is not so clear and the JW's have hung a very harmful teaching on those three words.

  • jhine
    jhine

    Wonderment ,I am curious as to what bystanders you mean . I do not think that the average person in the street is aware of or cares about this .Most people only know that JWs don't, celebrate Christmas or birthdays and don't, take blood ,after that the WT is a mystery .

    Jan

  • TerryWalstrom
    TerryWalstrom

    James White (adjunct professor of Greek, Hebrew, systematic theology) discourages his students from using Interlinears by saying, "If you can't read Greek, an Interlinear won't do anything to help you, but if you do read Greek, you'll never need one."

    With arguably sound insight, teachers who teach NT Greek view Interlinears as a do-it-yourself-kit for crackpots eager to invent their own theology. I must say, the history of the Watchtower Organization seems to prove the rule on that one!

  • TD
    TD

    I must say, the history of the Watchtower Organization seems to prove the rule on that one!

    A good example is the doctrine of Christ's invisible presence. It was born as direct result of B.W. Keith reading the Emphatic Diaglott and drawing an inference in English that doesn't follow in Greek.

  • Wonderment
    Wonderment

    jhine:

    My reference of "bystanders" was related to anyone "looking in" at the commotion created by "Christians" who spend countless energy and time at issues (like Jn 1.1, and many other controversial Scriptures), who at the end have their faith weakened or lose faith altogether in the religious system, or even in the Bible. This website is a testimony to that, where we see many here pronouncing attacks at the Bible itself, and to any or all religious groups who don't wear the same brand of interpretation as theirs.

    I say this as an observation only, because I myself participate in these forums at times, so I am not condemning everyone for it. Our faith in God and his Word is being tested from all angles.

  • Wonderment
    Wonderment

    If I understand TerryWalstrom and TD correctly about their conveying that Interlinears carry some unforeseen dangers to the untrained Bible student, I kind of agree with them.

    Interlinears can be a useful tool to people conscious of their limitations, but see a potential in advancing their Greek knowledge with some further help. I heard of someone who learned Greek just from using the Kingdom Interlinear constantly. This person used an index card below the Greek lines, and in time, began to grasp the sense of what he was reading, until he felt comfortable without the translation underneath. I imagine he used other reference sources to aid him in his quest as well. I know someone close to me who is using the Greek text directly to advance his language skills. He also owns the Kingdom Interlinear Translation in his collection of books.

    Plenty of people condemn their usage, but some others use them to their advantage. As the saying goes, each to his own.

  • TD
    TD

    Wonderment,

    I heard of someone who learned Greek just from using the Kingdom Interlinear constantly.

    Most of us are very, very familiar with the NT. This person probably was too. When you combine that familiarity with the fact that the vocabulary in the NT is surprisingly small, I can kinda, sorta, believe it..

    I would bet a week's pay though that I could hand this person a copy of Wilson's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in Classical Greek and they would be utterly lost...

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit