larry hurtado mentioned on his blog that yet another early manuscript of the septuagint has been found that uses the divine name instead of lord (kurios), this time representing the divine name with ancient hebrew letters (yhwh) in what is the earliest extant copy of the psalms in greek.
hurtado argues that the use of the definite article before the divine name indicates that the manuscript relies on earlier copies that used lord (kurios), but the fact remains that all the earliest copies of the septuagint that have survived use some form of the divine name and none use lord (kurios) as a substitute.
that's about ten out of ten for manuscripts of the septuagint earlier than mid-second century c.e so far.. http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/new-oxyrhynchus-manuscripts/.
SlimBoy, thanks for pointing out this website.
Actually, there are two posts by Prof Larry Hurtato in the last few days:
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/new-oxyrhynchus-manuscripts/
http://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/the-divine-name-and-greek-translation/
The articles and the followup questions and answers are really interesting.
when rutherford published (in defiance of russell's will) a phoney posthumus final volume of russell's studies in the sciptures (the finished mystery) problems began which eventually resulted in criminal prosecution for watchtower society administrators.. certain passages in this book were so anti-government as to represent the society's views as dangerous to national security.
(in a time of war.).
the blowback from this book was unexpectedly severe.
I have long thought that the Society's use of the title 'Birth of a Nation' was borrowed from the famous film of that name. If I remember, the film came out in about 1916 or 17? and for many years (until Gone with the Wind) the film with the most viewers. Surely anyone who saw the name 'Birth of a Nation' in the 1920's would have immediately associated it with the movie, and for Rutherford to use that as the title of a Watchtower article just blows my mind. 'Birth of a Nation', for those who may not have heard of it, is a portrayal of the Ku Klux Klan as heros who were saviors of the South. It is outrageous propaganda that is so blatantly racist that it is shocking. At the same time, the movie was recognized for a number of cinematic effects that were quite ahead of its time.
anyone getting/hearing how baptism numbers are this summer @ conventions?
in previous years, reports showed less baptisms per attendance numbers.
overall, annual 2012 service report showed for u.s. reduction in baptisms..
Dayton Ohio, Saturday, 6/29/2013
I counted 29 baptised out of attendance of 6600.
A whopping 0.44%
http://www.townofwarwick.org/wt_con/_appendix%20j.pdf.
of course i was aware that the new headquarters would be there but according to the above plans it is immense!.
253 acres???
One of my family members recently (about 3 weeks ago) went for a weekend of volunteer work at Tuxedo NY, where on that weekend there were 800! workers in a single weekend. There is an intense activity I can only describe as feverish to get that project done. Tuxedo is about 8-10 miles away from Warwick, and the WT society has purchased what appears to be a midsize office building which they are renovating into residence rooms, which will then be used as residence for workers for the Warwick site when it is started. Also for storage of building supplies, I presume, but all I saw in the photos was the residence areas. All that has been done at Warwick so far has been demolition and clearing. The Tuxedo renovation is feverish... it looks like they will be done in as little as a couple of months. The Tuxedo residence building looks like it has 4 or 5 floors, and I would expect maybe 40 rooms on each floor... just a guess as to the size.
czech government collapses over spying scandal which links prime minister's wife to becoming a jehovah's witness.
prime minister: sex, mistress, gold, espionage and a jehovah's witness wife?.
government cabinet resigns.
The JW connection to this is so tenuous that I have to suspect it is bogus. The prime ministers employee/girlfriend sounds like she's nuts.
i am going to be speaking to the 45-55 years old plus generation here.
i bought my first copy around 1980, it was the thing to do because it proved most of christendom's believes came from nimrod, and by the end of the 1980s the book and the name faded away into oblivion.. .
the watchtower use to print that book or distribute it, am i correct or has my memory gotten bad?
I had the 'Two Babylon' book also, and even quoted it in a high school essay I wrote for history class. My recollection is that the Society distributed it but did not actually print it. There were a number of books like that which were available at the congregation literature counter, but the only two I remember were The Tow Babylons and Strong's Concordance. You had to pay for them of course. When they went to donations these types of things were no longer distributed at the counter.
i thought i would share some of my observations on counting field service time, reports, etc.
and how those reports are viewed, to those that are still so fixated on numbers.. i served as secretary on the service committee for many years, and have seen it all!.
i was really disheartened when wt changed the requirement for aux pioneering to allow for 30 hrs, instead of the 50 it has been for so long.
Around these parts (rural Midwest US) they have what the call the 'pioneer crawl'. Drive 30 minutes, knock at a return visit who is not home, drive another 30 minutes, coffee break, drive again.... wait, go back for the rest room, call again at a not at home... look mom, I'm a pioneer!
comments you will not hear at the 06-09-2013 wt study (april 15, 2013, pages 7-11)(read bible).
4. what does it mean to read the bible in an undertone?.
1:6) how, then, are we to understand jesus words about this generation?
I am thinking there is an opportunity here:
Watchtower Society 'encourages' Bible reading .. see this weeks study article.
Watchtower Society has historically supplied and recommended using the NWT only
Watchtower Society cannot print enough New World Translations in English ... out of print in US the last I heard... reasons for this inability are still unknown
Maybe it is time for the JWs to go to their local Bible store and begin to discover some of the modern English translations which put the NWT to shame. If I had a bible student who wanted to read the Bible for the first time, the LAST thing I would do would be to direct them to the NWT, it is virtually unreadable for continuous Bible reading... a real joke of a translation
how many hours did you put in on average every week in doing wt activities?.
this would include:-.
i) the meetings and travelling time to/from,.
How about ZERO
an 'apostate' inactive jw in america i know on facebook went to the dc and said fully 600 people left between the end of the apostate talk and the lunch break.
have any of you who also went to the dc seen something like this happen?
.
Honestly, this thread is a non-event. It is not unusual at all for an afternoon session to have 600 fewer in attendance. Many times it is due to adverse weather reports, people being hungry and tired of packing their own food, boredom at the inane talks, multitude of other reasons, but not due to the JWs disagreeing with any of the talks.
