by BoogerMan 24 Replies latest watchtower bible
Just a question: anyone got any idea why the Watchtower alternates between "His organization" and "his organization" (capital 'H' and lower case 'h' when referring to God) in the November 2022 Study Watchtower?
Good question, maybe off topic for this OP, but I have always found this irksome. Conventional English grammar alows for capitalization of pronouns referring to the deity, but the WT is remarkably inconsistent in doing so. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
Please stop doing this, the counting of the words in the magazines as if that is an indicator of anything.
The extensive list of quotations from early Church fathers which apparently support the belief that Jesus is God is impressive even though it is just a cut and paste from this article. For such a high christology to emerge so early in the writings of the Church fathers does require us to ask how reliable these citations are and whether there is evidence of later interpolation after the creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Polycarp's Letter to the Phillipians, 12:2
J. B. Lightfoot writes in the Apostolic Fathers (2.1.546-551; 2.3.316-318) that chapters 10-14 are in no Greek manuscripts but are dependent on a Latin translation which is very loose at times, and paraphrastic. There are also some scattered Syriac quotations, none earlier than the fifth century.
As far as the quotation ("our Lord and God Jesus Christ") is concerned, many manuscripts omit the words "and God" in the phrase.
For such a high christology to emerge so early in the writings of the Church fathers does require us to ask how reliable these citations are and whether there is evidence of For later interpolation after the creeds of the fourth and fifth centuries.
Heads I win, tails you lose scenario?
It we had such testimony starting centuries later than we do, heretics would claim that as evidence that the ideas crept into the congregation over time. On the other hand, If such evidence appears too early, then heretics are astonished at the early evidence and wonder if hundreds of pages of historical documents were carefully and dishonestly redacted.
There would have been some outcry at such large-scale dishonesty. But, there is nothing to support such a wide-scale deception. It is an imaginative "just-so" story.
Nothing new here, It is an old trick. But, notice how the premise never changes for heretics, regardless of the evidence: Jesus wasn't "God manifest in the Flesh" (1 Tim. 3: 16) ; and Christian historians and leaders must be liars.
Wild fanciful stuff..... but some will always believe what they want.
The council of Nicea in 325AD denounced the Arian heresy with all but 2 votes out of over three hundred pastors and deacons. (Arius and his assistant were the two?) Most people would call that a landslide, maybe unanimous.
The bottom line is that Jesus’ divinity was not the result of a close decision in the fourth century. Its roots go back to Jesus himself, which is what explains why the church, originally made up of Jews, held to this new view on the deity of Christ ...as unlikely as that could be for a Jew. It is powerful testimony to his miracles, claims and Resurrection.
True, Jesus did not go around stating the exact words, " I am God". He would not have been able to complete his ministry if he did. But he said that he was God in many other ways, that are perhaps stronger evidence.
He claimed to be the great "I AM". The Jewish leaders went berserk over that claim. He claimed that he would lay down his life and he would resurrect himself, which he did. He claimed that he could forgive sins (something only God can do), He healed lepers, blindness from birth, raised the dead, accepted worship, could read peoples' minds, and claimed equality with the father. His statements in total indicate that he both considered himself fully man and fully God. Man in flesh, God in Spirit. And Christians accepted his claims from the get go.
It is hard to ignore a man who walked out of a tomb after a very public and messy death just 3 days prior, even if you are an orthodox Jew who is going to lose everything if you believe him.
1 Tim. 3: 16 says "He who was manifested in the flesh" according to translations made from older manuscripts than those used by the translators of the KJV. The RV, ASV, RSV, and NRSV all say "He who was manifested in the flesh".
@ SeaBreeze: the verse you cited - 2 Timothy 3:16 - appears to have various Bible translators giving very different interpretations of it. Take your pick of which 'expert' to trust.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/1ti/3/1/t_bibles_1122016
Many millions of Christians reject Vaticanus and Sinaiticus as do I. Modern bible versions rely on them to one extent or another. Early church teachers quote 2 Timothy 3: 16 as written in the Textus Receptus as I quoted.
TR bible versions include:
1. King James Version - KJV
2. King James Version ER (Easy Reader) - KJV - ER
3. New King James Version - NKJV
4. Modern English Version - MEV
5. Green's Literal Translation - GLT
6. Third Millennium Bible - TMB
7. New Cambridge Paragraph Bible - 2005 edition of the KJV (paragraph format with modernized spelling)
8. 21st Century King James Bible
I have little hesitancy using critical text modern versions for reference purposes. I know where most of the problem deletions and interpolations are. But, when it comes to distilling sound doctrine, I recommend a textus receptus (TR) based bible.
Ignatius's Letters to the Ephesians, the Romans, the Smyrnaeans, and Polycarp
Although Ignatius lived in the early second century, whether he wrote the letters attributed to him has been in doubt for many years.
There are three revisions of the letters attributed to Ignatius: the long recension, the middle recension and the short recension. The long recension was created in the fourth century and consists of thirteen letters, six of which are spurious. The short recension is a Syriac abridgment of the letters to the Ephesians, the Romans and Polycarp, but only a few fragments are preserved. The middle recension consists of seven letters generally recognised as authentic, but the only extant copy of the middle recension (codex Mediceo-Laurentianus) is dated to the eleventh century, 900 years after Ignatius wrote his letters, and was subject to interpolation and omission.
It is hardly surprising with so much evidence of changing the text that some verses would reflect the theology of the fourth century and beyond.
Sea Breeze : On the other hand, If such evidence appears too early, then heretics are astonished at the early evidence and wonder if hundreds of pages of historical documents were carefully and dishonestly redacted.
Maybe you misunderstood what I said about Polycarp's Letter to the Phillipians. There is no early evidence. In fact, chapters 10-14 don't appear in any Greek manuscripts. Likewise, there is no early evidence of Ignatius's letters with the only Greek manuscript being dated to the eleventh century.
