Gman2001 and Slimboyfat and other Christian, the Christians who wrote the four Gospels of the NT, and much of the rest of the NT, misunderstood parts of the OT (whether of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Greek Septuagint, or both). If Jesus existed and said all that the Gospels say he said, then he also misunderstood parts of the OT. Believers in Judaism have good reason for rejecting the New Testament as the word of the God of the OT - but even the OT is not the word of God.
Disillusioned JW
JoinedPosts by Disillusioned JW
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Slimboyfat I am not sure if your most recent post about Psalm 110:1 is directed to me or not. I did not say the first Christians (such as those who died prior to the year 100 CE) attempted to confuse the identities of YHWH and Jesus. I meant that the attempt began in the 2nd century CE, and in agreement with you I said it seems that the Name "YHWH" began being replaced with the word "Lord" in the Septuagint and in the NT during the 2nd century CE.
However, I now think that if Jesus interpreted Psalm 110:1 the way the gospels said he did, for example in saying that David wrote that verse and that the phrase "my Lord" refers to the Messiah (instead of to King David or any of the Kings of Judah who after him and were also anointed), then Jesus was in error and thus not the divine Christ and not the divine Son of Man and not the divine Son of God.
In reading commentaries (primarily study notes of some study Bibles) about Psalm 110:1 I learned that the verse was part of a coronation song written by someone (or some people) in the court of David and that the expression "my Lord" referred primarily to David, but also to other humans who were said to have sat "on the throne of David" on Earth. This makes sense, instead of the way the Gospels and many Christians apply it, for consider the following.
The kings of Judah (and the united kingdom of Israel), including David, literally ruled among their enemies. Opposed kingdoms existed around the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The ones who 'sat on the throne David' in Judah thus literally ruled among their enemies. The ancient Jews probably thought that the foretold future Messiah would rule on Earth initially among his human enemies also, but that the Messiah would later conqueror those rival kings. But despite what the WT teaches Jesus has never ruled in that way.
Jesus is not the ruler in a literal sense of any people of Earth (though among believers of Christ he can be thought of as spiritually ruling Christians in their figurative hearts since Pentecost of the year 33 CE, or so). No part of the world has been conquered by Jesus Christ. Every part of the Earth inhabited by humans has a human government or some other human authority over it, instead of being run by a government of Jesus Christ. Even if hypothetically Jesus Christ is alive and in heaven, he is not ruling over any part of the Earth in a literal sense.
Though the governing body of the JW religion (the religion created by the WT) teaches that the WT organization is Jehovah's earthly organization and that Jesus is ruling through the JW governing body, the governing body is still subject to human governments (including the USA federal government, the government of the state of NY, city governments in the USA, and human governments outside of the USA). None of those human governments (except maybe the Vatican) recognize Jesus Christ as king ruling over planet Earth or any part of it. None of them (except maybe the Vatican in the minds of its officials) submit to Jesus Christ as their governmental authority.
Jesus Christ does not communicate to any human rulers. Jesus Christ does not governmental orders or governmental instructions to any human rulers, nor any other way exercising authority over the Earth (such as by supernaturally going to war against any human government or executing people for defying his alleged laws). As a result Jesus Christ can not be correctly said to be the ruler of planet Earth, nor any part of Earth.
No kingdom of Jesus Christ became established in the year 1914 CE in oversight of planet Earth. The WT is very wrong in teaching that Jesus Christ began ruling over the Earth in the year 1914 CE (or any other year, such as in 1874 CE).
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Correction: In my post to Gman2001 there are many typos, consisting mostly of missing words (words which I should have typed but didn't). I didn't discover such until it was too late to make corrections within that post, but I hope readers know what I meant.
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Gman2001 I agree that an appropriate Bible based name for Christians would be "Jesus' Witnesses" (or "Witnesses of Jesus), but I also think an appropriate name would be "Witnesses of Jehovah and Jesus" (or more accurately "Witnesses of Jahveh and Jesus" or "Witnesses of Yahweh and Yeshua'). Regarding Genesis 19:24 I am well aware aware it and that it seems to say there are two divine beings who are named Jehovah (and I know that trinitarians use in support of their ideas). When I was an independent Christian (after I had ceased to think of myself as a JW) I asked a JW elder (one who looked up to) about it. The explanation he gave me was not satisfactory to me. But I see that scripture as being an anomaly in the OT Bible. I see the vast majority of the Bible as portraying God (despite using a plural form of word "El") primarily as a singular being - in that respect interpret as do the Jews in their study of their Hebrew Scriptures. I have read the entire Holy Bible and the Apocrypha (all of the scripture books of the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, and Jewish - in English of course). I have also some other books (and parts of some other books) which some Christians accept as scripture, such as the Gospel of Thomas, Jubilees, and the Book of Enoch.
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Regarding Acts 12:21-23, the Jewish historian named Josephus gives a considerably different account of what happened than what the book of Acts says. The account by Josephus is quoted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herod_Agrippa under the heading of "Reign and death". The account by Josephus is far more in harmony with scientific naturalism than the Christian account in Acts. As a result, the account by Josephus is far more believable and worthy of trust by rational minded people who wish to avoid being superstitious.
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Vanderhoven7 (on page 15 of this topic thread) you made the following interesting comment. "If the New Testament is not reliable, and the name Jehovah was completely removed from all ancient manuscripts, God did not preserve His word." My conclusion is that the NT and the OT have indeed been revised and that they (even the best critical texts scholars have of them) are not entirely reliable, and thus that God did not preserve the original texts (the original wording) of the Bible as his word. I further conclude that means the God of the Bible does not exist and that he never existed.
Sanchy (on page 16 of this topic thread) you made the following interesting comment. "If as WT suggests, shadow groups have been able to alter Bible manuscripts by, for example, removing God's name from the NT, then what else might have they altered?" I conclude that the Bible has indeed been altered (at least by by making copies which include revised wording of earlier copies), including in specific ways that scholars have not yet discovered. The manuscripts of the NT available to scholars show that over time the NT did undergo many revisions, and furthermore that the Alexandrian text type of the NT is one of the best representatives the wording of the 3rd century CE text of the NT. But most likely even the 3rd century CE text of the NT is significantly revised from the original texts of the books of the NT.Hopefully, to me, the above quoted comments of the two of you indicate that the minds (the figurative eyes) of the two of you are beginning to be opened to the following three truths. The original wording (and hence the original meaning) of much of the Bible was not accurately preserved by God. The Bible is not the word of God. The biblical God does not exist.
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Correction: I my prior post where I said "Yes the Bible teaches against that" I meant to say "Yet the Bible teaches against that".
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Sea Breeze, even if the Bible consistently teaches that humans and Jesus are a Tri-Partite being (including containing a part of God, such as his 'breath" or his 'spirit'), I don't think that makes your case of Jesus being God in the sense you say and for the reasons you in your recent post. For consider this, if hypothetically such is the case then it would also be proper for humans to worship each other as God and to worship themselves as God. Yes the Bible teaches against that.
Paul in at least one letter (Romans 1:22-25) teaches that the created beings (including humans) must not be worshiped. The book of Acts teaches that Herod was killed by an "angel of the Lord" for accepting worship by other humans. Acts 12:22 says the people said Herod had "a god's voice, and not a man's". Verse 23 says Herod was killed "because he did not give the glory to God". If the Bible teaches that Herod really is part God as you say all humans are, then according to your argument it would have been fine for Herod to accept being proclaimed as having a god's voice and for him to accept being worshiped.
Sea Breeze, since you claim that all humans have the spirit of God and and since you claim they are all thus a part of God or are all God, should I worship you and should you worship me? To me, your logic is clearly hugely flawed.
I noticed you used John 8:27 to make the claim that Jesus claimed to be the Father and thus Jehovah, but John 8:27 does not mean that. The statement of "he spoke to them of the Father" refers to what was said in verse 26. There the verse says that Jesus says he was sent by the Father (not that Jesus is the Father), for Jesus says he was sent by by one who is true and that Jesus spoke the very things he heard from that one. Furthermore verse 28 (1984 NWT) says that Jesus said "... I do nothing of my own initiative, but just as the Father taught me I speak these things." The NKJV translation of the verse has the same meaning as that of the 1984 NWT.
Repeatedly in the gospels Jesus is portrayed as carefully avoiding claiming to be God (he never proclaims of himself "I am God"), though he also is said to frequently claim to be God's son, to be from above, to be sent by God, and to be sent from the Father (namely God the Father). Furthermore, there is manuscript evidence that the NT was revised over time to make stronger claims about Jesus being divine. There is good reason to believe that the original copies of the books of the NT were even more clear of showing a distinction of Jesus from Jehovah (such as by using a form of the name YHWH in the texts, and possibly by explicitly including the word "he" after the phrase "I am" in the sayings attributed to Jesus).
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Furthermore, the Christian scribes of the 2nd century CE might have thought it was fine to use the word "Lord" since Jews at the time avoided pronouncing the name "YHWH" (Yahweh), and often substituted the word meaning "my Lord" instead when reading the scriptures out loud where the Divine Name appears in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Regarding the erroneous transliteration of YHWH into Greek as PIPI note the following from https://www.jerusalemperspective.com/4373/ . "When reading scrolls that contained the Paleo-Hebrew script, a Greek reader had little opportunity to blunder, because the script looked like indecipherable scribble; however, when a Greek reader encountered YHVH written in the more modern square script, the chance for error increased substantially. According to Jerome, those who were unfamiliar with Jewish customs tried to pronounce the Hebrew letters as if they were Greek letters. The result was quite a howler: they pronounced YHVH as PIPI![3] "
Correction: The first three sentences of the last paragraph of my prior post should have said the following. "In our time period (1800 to the present year) it is common for authors to revise their books and for publishers to produce those revised editions. It is also common for publishers to revise books after copyrights have expired and after the authors have died. It thus shouldn't be surprising that some early Christians in making copies of the NT made some revisions to the NT, to suit their purposes."
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263
What Name Does the New Testament Emphasize - Jehovah or Jesus?
by Vanderhoven7 init seems to me scripturally speaking, that jehovah's witnesses are emphasizing the wrong name.. it should be jesus, not jehovah.
who is the way, the truth and the life?
(john 14:6).
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Disillusioned JW
Regarding the idea that YHWH was present in some copies of the Greek Septuagint (and/or other Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures OT) in time of the influential theologian named Origen, the WT correctly said that Origin said he had seen the name in some copies of the Septuagint and the best (most accurate) copies of the Septuagint contained the name. Note that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton confirms this by saying the following.
'Origen (Commentary on Psalms 2.2) said that in the most accurate manuscripts the name was written in an older form of the Hebrew characters, the paleo-Hebrew letters, not the square: "In the more accurate exemplars the (divine) name is written in Hebrew characters; not, however, in the current script, but in the most ancient." While Pietersma interprets this statement as referring to the Septuagint,[79] Wilkinson says one might assume that Origen refers specifically to the version of Aquila of Sinope, which follows the Hebrew text very closely, but he may perhaps refer to Greek versions in general.[94] [95] '
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origen says Origen of Alexandria was a Christian scholar who lived from c. 185 – c. 253. It also says the following. "... Origen was a subordinationist,[207][206][208][209] meaning he believed that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son was superior to the Holy Spirit .... At one point Origen suggests that the Son was created by the Father .... At the time when Origen was alive, orthodox views on the Trinity had not yet been formulated[216][219] and subordinationism was not yet considered heretical.[216][219] In fact, virtually all orthodox theologians prior to the Arian controversy in the latter half of the fourth century were subordinationists to some extent.[219] ... Origen is often seen as the first major Christian theologian.[221] ... Origen deeply influenced Arius of Alexandria and later followers of Arianism.[234][220][235][236] Although the extent of the relationship between the two is debated,[237] in antiquity, many orthodox Christians believed that Origen was the true and ultimate source of the Arian heresy.[237][238] "
Note that at a time, during the later 2nd century CE to the early (and possibly the mid) 3rd century CE, when some copies of the Greek Septuagint were known to have the Name (YHWH) in Hebrew script, it was not yet considered heretical for a Christian to believe that God the Father was superior to Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ was created by God the Father. When Origen wrote, perhaps some copies of the NT then in still existence had the name YHWH in it and perhaps Origen knew of such. Also note that Origen's writings influenced Arius and that Arius' writings for a period time influenced a great many Christians to believing in Arianism. The WT, in regards to the idea of whether or not Christ is God (or a god), believes in Arianism. Though Arianism is now often considered a heresy, for period of time it was widely believed in Christianity. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism . It says the following.
'Arianism (Koinē Greek: Ἀρειανισμός, Areianismós)[1] is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius (c. AD 256–336),[1][2][3] a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt.[1] Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,[4][a][5][b] who was begotten by God the Father[2] with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten within time by God the Father, therefore Jesus was not co-eternal with God the Father.[2]
Arius' trinitarian theology, later given an extreme form by Aetius and his disciple Eunomius and called anomoean ("dissimilar"), asserts a total dissimilarity between the Son and the Father.[6] Arianism holds that the Son is distinct from the Father and therefore subordinate to him.[3] 'Regarding how widespread that teaching was for a period of time, note that the same article says the following.
" Controversy over Arianism arose in the late 3rd century and persisted throughout most of the 4th century. It involved most church members—from simple believers, priests, and monks to bishops, emperors, and members of Rome's imperial family. Two Roman emperors, Constantius II and Valens, became Arians or Semi-Arians, as did prominent Gothic, Vandal, and Lombard warlords both before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Such a deep controversy within the early Church during this period of its development could not have materialized without significant historical influences providing a basis for the Arian doctrines.[13] "
In our time period (1800 to the present year) it is common for authors to revised their books and publishers to produce those revised editions. It is also common for publishers to revise books after copyrights have expired and after the authors have died. it thus shouldn't be surprising that some early Christians in many copies of the NT made some revisions to it, to suit their purposes. They might have felt they were justified to use the word Kyrios in place of the the Hebrew characters of "YHWH" to avoid confusion to Greek records and out of reverence they might have been afraid to attempt to transliterate the Hebrew letters of "YHWH" into Greek letters. Furthermore since some erroneous (due to copyist errors) of Greek transliterations of YHWH in the Septuagint into Greek as PIPI (something which does not mean YHWH, but which looks a lot like the Hebrew letters of "YHWH"), they might have decided it was best to translate it as "Lord" instead. There also existed variant transliterations of YHWH into Greek letters and the Christian copyists of the NT might have thus decided to standardize on the word "Lord" to avoid confusion and to provide consistency.