To whom it may concern,
I was amongst those attending the radio show at KPRZ. I must say that UnclePenn's analysis falls short of reality. Don't get me wrong, Larry, Clay Jones, and the other staffers were all very nice, but it was quite obvious from the outset that Mr. Jones was incapable of handling such a discussion.
It is true that the entire discussion revolved around the meaning of the Greek word "alethinos." Mr. Jones attempted to maintain a certain definition of this word, based on Webster's Dictionary. This was silly considering the discussion involved a Biblical term used in the first century, and to attempt to justify its meaning by a 21st century dictionary is shallow research to say the least. Greg Stafford made several attempts to show Mr. Jones that we are dealing with Koine Greek and its meaning, and NOT english usage. By the time, Mr. Jones finally understood this, and pulled out a Greek-English lexicon, he quoted Vine's Expository Dictionary on the air, of which the defintion stated therein was consistent with the definition given to "alethinos" by Greg! Mr. Jones did say he would pull out other lexicons, but failed to do so on the air (probably because the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich lexicon also provided a definition consistent with what Stafford presented).
Regarding the "only true ___" deal. Greg responded with "the only genuine Mona Lisa." Mr. Jones failed to understand the meaning of such an example. But even requesting such an example is silly since we are dealing with biblical words, and how they are used in the first century. So an example must be provided or requested from the bible or first century usage, but Mr. Jones wanted to as he said "leave the Bible out of it" and simply stick with 21st century English usage. Amazing! Yes, Greg was right when he said "Webster's Dictionary is irrelevent." Basically, Greg was not going to allow Mr. Jones to play the Rhodes/Bowman play on words, ie. everything that is not true, must be false. Mr. Jones failed to understand the biblical example given by Greg regarding Jesus' statement about his flesh being "true bread from heaven." This clearly indicated that "true" in its first century usage does carry a meaning of "genuine." Something, Mr. Clay was unwilling to admit, although the weight of evidence (ie. the lexicons) was against him.
I was surprised that Larry spoke negatively about the presentation. I can only imagine that trinitarians will see light as darkness no matter how bright the light.
Larry said:
<<The discussion started by Greg saying that they believed Jesus was not God in an ontological sense, but rather that he held attributes that made him like God, or as a god. I knew right away that the discussion would be a battle over semantics, since that is all that the JW's are left with to make their teachings fit scripture.>>
Actually this is incorrect. Greg and Mr. Jones were defining terms, and Greg had to correct him when he said "Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Jesus is Jehovah." The theology of Jehovah's Witnesses does allow for Jesus to be viewed as Jehovah in the sense that he represents him, and may speak on his behalf, as the angels did in the hebrew scriptures, and that is the point that Greg was trying to make.
<<Greg pulled a trick that Clinton used during the Monica Lewinsky trials and put emphasis on what the word 'true' really means. Clay quoted the definition from Websters dictionary which states 'Consistent with fact or reality; not false or erroneous'. Greg went on to say that English was irrelevant and we all kind of rolled our eyes after that.>>
Considering that Mr. Jones claims to have taken graduate Greek courses, I was astonished that he maintained English usage for a first century Greek term. He maintained this position throughout, and gives one reason to doubt his ability to understand Biblical Greek.
<<For those who listened I would like to hear your views, and if you didn't hear it, we are going to play clips next week and discuss what went on.>>
Will you allow call-ins? This could be interesting.
Sincerely,
Alf3831