The Emphatic Diaglott and John 1:1

by lilyflor 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  fjtoth

  lilyflor,
  
  So, then, if I understand you correctly, a science textbook may say the earth is round, but we can believe that it's flat if we want to. It all depends upon our "experiences/worldviews," as you put it. And you ask, "How can one argue another person's experience or views?" Of course, we can think that way if we don't care that he's misled. We can also take that attitude if we believe there is no such thing as absolute truth, and that attitude would of course mean that the Bible is worthless to us.

  Sorry, but I can't approach the Bible the way you seem to suggest. Jesus was not a trinitarian, and I can't be either, not if I want to believe what he believed and taught. He was a Jew, and I believe he would say to trinitarians what he told a Samaritan woman: "You don't know what you're worshiping. We Jews know what we're worshiping, because salvation comes from the Jews." (John 4:22) He didn't tell her that her "worldviews" were just as good as anybody else's, including his own.

  There is absolutely no evidence that Abraham, Moses, the prophets or Jesus believed in a Trinity. Since the Bible was completed, what they wrote or said has been discarded for something that you describe as "fascinating." But fascination is merely a human emotion, not necessarily God's truth as he sees it.

  Isn't your most recent post a contradiction of your first one in this thread? You asked, "Do you think that this would be proof enough for JWs that the WT has changed the bible?" Why would you want to change the so-called "experiences/worldviews" of JWs if in your opinion we should not "argue another person's experience or views"?

  As for verses that you claim "can easily be interpreted as supporting the trinity," again I ask, Which ones? Yes, there are verses that can with difficulty be so interpreted, but there are none that can easily be so interpreted. One has to have a fascinatingly great imagination to read into any Bible verse a doctrine that just isn't there, no matter how one twists and turns it. There is some truth in the quote you cited: "To the believer no evidence is necessary." Sadly, lack of evidence is what trinitarians generally accept for the basis of what they believe.

  Frank
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  lilyflor

  why can't i reply???
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  lilyflor

  of course it works now!!!!!
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  Farkel

  lily,

  :English translation: "In the Beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God"

  In the JW New World Translation it says the Word was "a god", not just "god." As I've stated before, we can use this unique JW translation against the WT teachings.

  The Bible clearly states that there is only ONE TRUE God. If Jesus was "a god" as stated in their own Bible, then Jesus would have to be a false god, since only one god is true according to the Bible.

  But even if that problem was ignored, JWs could not truthfully claim to be monotheists as they do, since they would have to believe in multiple gods which are not false.

  While trying to show the trinity false with their unique translation of John 1:1, the WTS opened two different can of worms for themselves.

  Farkel
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  Terry

  The Trinity is not an argument to waste time thrashing out with "what" and "who" and "why".

  The Trinity is a Strawman argument.

  Language is the fundamental.

  Language can represent through symbols (letters and words) actually existing things or it can represent metaphor, imaginative constructs and the fanciful.

  The Bible mixes the concrete and the metaphor willy-nilly!

  Even the bible writers were unclear on their own thoughts because of the use/abuse/misuse of language.

  Take the word LOGOS, for example.

  To say simply that LOGOS means WORD is so literal minded as to overlook how LOGOS was used by Greek speaking people in a Platonic society.

  The way all things come together as a conception on a blueprint is a LOGOS. The way a poem evokes emotion is a LOGOS. The way Rome ruled the world as a government is a LOGOS.

  The writer of John (whoever he or they might be) steps outside of merely reporting incidents, conversations and histories in the everyday sense.

  The writer of John is spiritualizing language the way mystics often do to create a landscape numinous and evocative. It does not contain data about anybody or anything in the way Mark, for example, does in his Gospel.

  John one one is, in effect, saying: There was a PLAN from the beginning and the working out of that PLAN is the originator of it.

  To parse poetic or metaphorical language as though it were an algebraic equation is just plain silly, fruitless and unnecessarily wrong-headed!

  You can't budge poetic INTERPRETATION!

  Why?

  This is SUBJECTIVE LANGUAGE and not Scientific formula! Every person who reads it responds to it differently, personally and imaginatively!

  You may as well argue over how a meal tastes!

  You reveal your own personality by how you respond to John 1:1.
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  Meeting Junkie No More

  Frank and lilyflor:

  This may be coming out of left field, but I have trouble with the whole God's Son thing vis-a-vis the trinity argument. In what way is Jesus God's Son? He was God's only-begotten, or what I believe an 'emanation' from God - so part God obviously, the way we all are part of our parents. Jesus had no 'Mother' so he was not a 'son' in the normal course of the Word. If he is a 'son of God' the way all the sons of Isreal were 'sons of God', then there would be nothing special about him then in that sense...

  I grew up with the Witness scriptures that supposedly prove Jesus was God's Son, but since reading the Bible with an open mind, I have found there to be many, many more instances of the possibility of Jesus being part God. For instance, and I can't put my finger on the scripture, but it says 'in him dwells the full Godhead bodily" - I think that's the NWT translation...I'll look that up and confirm when I get to a Bible...Also, the book of Matthew teaches that new believers are to be baptized in the 'name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit'. Not 3 names, one name. Now I find out that there is increasing evidence that the earliest Christians did worship Jesus as God. Also, Thomas exclamation - my Lord and my God. There are SO MANY scriptures, and the more one reads without the Witness MINDSET, the more scriptures do seem to support the idea that God has different ASPECTS - just my 2cents

  Interesting discussion!