Posts by slimboyfat

48

Predictions for the next decade?

by jehovaxx in

as it’s nearly the new year my prediction over the next decade or so will see the sense of urgency dwindle.

then some huge huge changes.

for example by 2034 in a decades time, they will have address the 1914 issue and will come out and say we can’t be dogmatic.

slimboyfat

Why believe JW numbers? Because censuses confirm them and then some. Because academics have studied them and found them to be underestimates of JW numbers. Because I've seen attendances at various KHs and assemblies with my own eyes and they look similar to the 1990s.

They are probably short of elders and making efforts to boost numbers.

Adventists are indeed growing, they are one of the few churches that are growing. Most churches are declining severely. JWs are staying about the same in the UK or growing slightly because of immigrant largely from Africa. In other counties they are still growing. In a few countries they are declining such as Poland. Congregations may be closing in some places, a mixture of fewer numbers but also as a money saving exercise in some cases.

Check out this comparison of JWs, Mormons and Adventists here:

http://www.sdahistorians.org/uploads/1/2/3/6/12365223/lawson_2_reassessing_size.pdf

50

Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT

by Sea Breeze in

here's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.

why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.

zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .

slimboyfat

What AI programme are you using out of interest?

50

Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT

by Sea Breeze in

here's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.

why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.

zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .

slimboyfat

Professor Jason BeDuhn conducted a study of Christologically important texts in the NT and concluded that the NWT offered the fairest treatment of theologically charged texts such as John 1.1, John 8.58, Phil 2.5-11, Col 1:15-18, and so on. The Catholic version The New American Bible was runner up. He especially commended the NWT for acknowledging alternative readings and renderings in footnotes.

It’s noticeable that so many Trinitarian proof texts are dogged by textual and translation issues, including uncertain texts such as Acts 20:28, Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8 you quoted above, each plagued with textual and translation issues. JW teaching on who Jesus is rests on many texts that are free of textual and translation issues, such as

John 14:28 You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

1 Cor 11:3 But I want you to realise that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.

1 Tim 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus

Rev 3:12 The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.

… and many others. The text and translation of these verses are clear, and they are pretty much the same in any Bible you care to consult - Trinitarians just deny they mean what they say.

50

Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT

by Sea Breeze in

here's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.

why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.

zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .

slimboyfat

You are wrong again, or I should say the AI you are relying upon has provided yet another faulty argument in the guise of scholarship. Watchtower does not need to avoid the reading “me” in Zechariah 12:10 “at all costs”. Either reading is perfectly compatible with the Bible as a whole. The Watchtower from the 1950s accepted it as a possible reading and the NWT gives it in a footnote.

50

Zechariah 12:10 Corruption in the NWT

by Sea Breeze in

here's a question for those who still support watchtower on this forum.

why did watchtower leave out the word "me" in zech.

zechariah 12:10 reads like this: .

slimboyfat

I’m not saying that the fact that Catholic Bibles agree with the NWT on Zechariah 12:10 proves that their translation is correct. What I am saying is that it renders your argument that the NWT is an illegitimate translation motivated by Arian bias invalid. Because if that were the case why do so many scholars, including Catholic scholars come to the same conclusion as the NWT? Are they motivated by Arian bias?

My own opinion on Zechariah 12:10 is that either translation seems plausible, and that neither translation offers any support for the later Trinity doctrine anyway.

You seem very attached to the Hebrew of Zechariah 12:10 but my understanding is that the Catholic Church is not so big on inerrancy of the Hebrew over say the LXX, as Protestants may be. Catholics are much more comfortable than Protestants with the idea that the trinity developed in the church after the Bible was completed. They don’t face the same challenge as Protestants in trying to squeeze the trinity into the Bible text to the same extent.

It’s noticeable that it is stridently protestant versions of the Bible that tend to translate Zechariah 12:10 in what they perceive to be a Trinitarian manner. That makes sense because they view the Hebrew as inerrant and they try to rely on scripture alone to uphold their doctrine.

Even if the text of Zechariah 12:10 should read “to me”, I think the Watchtower from the 50s already presented a knock out argument about what that phrase would mean if that is the correct reading.

As far as literal piercing is concerned, this occurred in the case of Christ Jesus, and at John 19:37 the prophecy of Zechariah 12:10 is quoted and applied to Jesus: “They will look upon the one whom they pierced.” (NW) They did not literally pierce God, who was in heaven and to whom Jesus spoke when he was on the torture stake. (Matt. 27:46; Luke 23:46) God could not die, and then resurrect himself. (Ps. 90:2) Yet inasmuch as Jesus Christ was Jehovah’s representative who became “the exact representation of his very being”, in piercing Jesus they could be said to be piercing Jehovah. (Heb. 1:3, NW) When sending out his followers to preach Jesus said: “He that receives you receives me also, and he that receives me receives him also that sent me forth.” (Matt. 10:40, NW) This shows that in receiving Jesus we receive Jehovah who sent him. In like manner, to pierce Jesus is to pierce Jehovah who sent him. It does not prove Jesus and Jehovah are one, any more than it proves Jesus and his followers are literally one. In another case Jehovah showed that to reject his representative is to reject Him. When Samuel was Jehovah’s appointed judge over Israel the people came requesting a king instead of a judge. Samuel was displeased when they said: “Give us a king to judge us.” But Jehovah told Samuel: “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” (1 Sam. 8:4-7, AS) In rejecting Jehovah’s representative they rejected Jehovah, in effect; but this did not make Samuel one with Jehovah in a trinity.

Perhaps there should be an updated graphic where all the brothers are lining up in the new system to get tips from the pirate about his epic beard 💡