???Question for Barryrob???

[Trout]

How accurate is the NWT?

[NSMinistries]

:popcorn:

[barryrob]

As accurate as it is possible for our scholars to get using what is available to us with all the 1,000s of manuscripts that are on hand today and using the relevant information therein to interpret itself (within text e.g. we do not except that the Trinity can be found within Biblical manuscripts), staying within the bounds of manuscript doctrines and ideas with the help from God’s Holy Spirit. The NWT is not inspired as non-are today, it was only the original Manuscript (or 1st by the penman himself) that was inspired which has long since gone from then on we have copies.

Barryrob

[Trout]

As accurate as it is possible for our scholars to get using what is available to us with all the 1,000s of manuscripts that are on hand today and using the relevant information therein to interpret itself (within text e.g. we do not except that the Trinity can be found within Biblical manuscripts), staying within the bounds of manuscript doctrines and ideas with the help from God’s Holy Spirit. The NWT is not inspired as non-are today, it was only the original Manuscript (or 1st by the penman himself) that was inspired which has long since gone from then on we have copies.

Barryrob

Barryrob,

Who are the "scholars" that you mention? And where did they get their Greek training?

[barryrob]

Barryrob,

Who are the "scholars" that you mention? And where did they get their Greek training?
The scholars are the scholars of the scholastic world in general and the Biblical study material they produce which our brothers use in doing the translating and producing of the NWT etc..

Barryrob

[Trout]

The scholars are the scholars of the scholastic world in general and the Biblical study material they produce which our brothers use in doing the translating and producing of the NWT etc..

Barryrob

Perhaps you didn't understand my question.

What are the names of the scholars who produced the NWT?

Where did the scholars who produced the NWT receive their training in Greek?

[barryrob]

I do not know so I judge their abillity by what they have produced, as have many others and agree with what they have produced.
Barryrob

[Trout]

I do not know so I judge their abillity by what they have produced, as have many others and agree with what they have produced.
Barryrob

So when you told me that "The scholars are the scholars of the scholastic world in general" that might not be the case.

Are you saying that you don't know whether or not the people who translated the NWT even studied Greek?

[barryrob]

So when you told me that "The scholars are the scholars of the scholastic world in general" that might not be the case.

Are you saying that you don't know whether or not the people who translated the NWT even studied Greek?

It would strike me that to produce any translation of The Bible is in itself a scolastic attchevment of great worth in anyones view, so logic would demand a Yes answer to your question. To prove my point try to produce a copy of the whole Bible yourself and see how far anyone would get wothout knowing somthing about the languages they have to work with.


Some try a copy of the 21st N.T. ISNB 0 9531877 0 5
Barryrob

[Trout]

It would strike me that to produce any translation of The Bible is in itself a scolastic attchevment of great worth in anyones view, so logic would demand a Yes answer to your question. To prove my point try to produce a copy of the whole Bible yourself and see how far anyone would get wothout knowing somthing about the languages they have to work with.


Some try a copy of the 21st N.T. ISNB 0 9531877 0 5
Barryrob

I think Joseph Smith did exactly that. I think the NWT and the JST have a lot in common.

[barryrob]

I think Joseph Smith did exactly that. I think the NWT and the JST have a lot in common.
JST?
Barryrob

[Trout]

The JST is the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible.

[barryrob]

JST?
Barryrob
Thank you and supply an example?

Barryrob

[Trout]

Thank you and supply an example?

Barryrob

Certainly,

When Joseph Smith came across a text in the Bible that didn't reflect the doctrine he wanted, he simply changed it. Not to bring it into harmony with the manuscript, but to bring the Bible in harmony with his doctrine.

For example since Joseph Smith believed that God was a physical being, John 4:24 posed a problem for him:



God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Shazam. . .all Joseph had to do was change the Bible.



For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.

Problem solved, the Bible now matched Joseph's doctrine.

In the same way the NWT reflects the doctrinal difficulties of the JW's. Since the JW's work under the false assumption that Jesus isn't God in the flesh, but instead Michael the Archangel who becomes flesh. They have a problem with John 1:1:


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Presto. . .all the JW's did was add to the text making it more suitable to their doctrinal stands.

In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.

Problem solved, adding "a" into the verse made it possible for a preconceived notion to more closely fit the text.

[barryrob]

Certainly,

When Joseph Smith came across a text in the Bible that didn't reflect the doctrine he wanted, he simply changed it. Not to bring it into harmony with the manuscript, but to bring the Bible in harmony with his doctrine.

For example since Joseph Smith believed that God was a physical being, John 4:24 posed a problem for him:



God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Shazam. . .all Joseph had to do was change the Bible.



For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.

Problem solved, the Bible now matched Joseph's doctrine.

In the same way the NWT reflects the doctrinal difficulties of the JW's. Since the JW's work under the false assumption that Jesus isn't God in the flesh, but instead Michael the Archangel who becomes flesh. They have a problem with John 1:1:


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Presto. . .all the JW's did was add to the text making it more suitable to their doctrinal stands.

In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.

Problem solved, adding "a" into the verse made it possible for a preconceived notion to more closely fit the text.

1) Thank you for the JST example I was not aware of this.

2) "a god" why? Here is one reason/question, if Jesus is God incarnated why did he call The Father "my God" when on earth* and after he had returned to heaven**:-



*Matthew 27:46 About the ninth hour Jesus called out with a loud voice, saying: "E´li, E´li, la´ma sa·bach·tha´ni?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"







*John 20:17 Stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and YOUR Father and to my God and YOUR God.’"







**Revelation 3:12-13 "‘The one that conquers—I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will by no means go out [from it] anymore, and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem which descends out of heaven from my God, and that new name of mine. 13 Let the one who has an ear hear what the spirit says to the congregations.’





Only Jesus has the right to do as mentioned in the above text, showing it is Jesus speaking:-












**Marginals 1 Peter 2:5 YOU yourselves also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house for the purpose of a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.






So if reffers to The Father as his God how can he -Jesus- be God as the context show he is here talking of the Absolute One?

As Jesus is a divine being himself (a "mighty God" of Isa 9:6 because of the "zeal" of Jehovah vs.7, in other words a porduct of The Father's power) who has a God this would then makes Jesus (The Word) a god as how can God have a God, but a god can have a God. The term "God" is at best a realtive term which the context will explain:-

"god n. 1 a (in many religions) superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature, human fortunes, etc. b image, idol, etc., symbolizing a god. 2 (God) (in Christian and other monotheistic religions) creator and ruler of the universe. 3 adored or greatly admired person. 4 (in pl.) Theatr. gallery. God forbid may it not happen! God knows 1 it is beyond all knowledge. 2 I call God to witness that. God willing if Providence allows. [Old English]."-Oxford Dic.


Also as The Word was with God how can he be the same person of whom he is with? So as the Word is divine and in God's presance but views the person whom he is with in the same way as his followers do, whom he taught to look to that person as "my God" and "my Father," to whom Jesus also prayed (this is an act of worship), e.g. John Ch. 17, shows me that Jesus was not the same person, thus "a god" not The God.

Barryrob

[Trout]

Barryrob,

The NWT writers are guilty of the same thing Joseph Smith is, mangling the word of God to fit their doctrine.

Because you believe in more than one God, it seems to justify changing the Word of God to fit your doctrine.

[barryrob]

Barryrob,

The NWT writers are guilty of the same thing Joseph Smith is, mangling the word of God to fit their doctrine.

Because you believe in more than one God, it seems to justify changing the Word of God to fit your doctrine.



The Bible states that there is more that one God:-

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 For even though there are those who are called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many "gods" and many "lords," 6 there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.
Psalm 136:1-3 Give thanks to Jehovah, O YOU people, for he is good: For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite; 2 Give thanks to the God of the gods: For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite; 3 Give thanks to the Lord of the lords:. . .

Deuteronomy 10:17 For Jehovah YOUR God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the God. . .


so according to the Scriptures our theology is correct.
Barryrob

[Trout]

The Bible states that there is more that one God:-

1 Corinthians 8:5-6 For even though there are those who are called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many "gods" and many "lords," 6 there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.
Psalm 136:1-3 Give thanks to Jehovah, O YOU people, for he is good: For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite; 2 Give thanks to the God of the gods: For his loving-kindness is to time indefinite; 3 Give thanks to the Lord of the lords:. . .

Deuteronomy 10:17 For Jehovah YOUR God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the God. . .


so according to the Scriptures our theology is correct.
Barryrob


Barryrob,

I don't know if you're missing my point or if you are being evasive because you don't want to address the issue.

The issue is, the manuscripts say what they say, apart from any preconceived doctrinal notions that we may have.

If you allow your preconceived notions to influence your translating, you will end up with a fraudulent version of the Bible.

As I pointed out, LDS prophet Joseph Smith translated the Bible to fit his doctrine, not to make a translation that was true to the original. And the NWT translators seem to have done the same thing, bringing into question the accuracy and reliability of their work.

[barryrob]

Barryrob,

I don't know if you're missing my point or if you are being evasive because you don't want to address the issue.

The issue is, the manuscripts say what they say, apart from any preconceived doctrinal notions that we may have.

If you allow your preconceived notions to influence your translating, you will end up with a fraudulent version of the Bible.

As I pointed out, LDS prophet Joseph Smith translated the Bible to fit his doctrine, not to make a translation that was true to the original. And the NWT translators seem to have done the same thing, bringing into question the accuracy and reliability of their work.


The issues is, is Jesus "a god" the Bible TEXTS answer that question as they say that there are many "gods" so Jesus and Jehovah are among that number, so that could both be called "a god" but Jehovah is the Most High* so he becomes The Almighty God whereas Jesus is "a god" relative to Jehovah.

*Psalm 83:18 “until they learn that you alone, Jehovah, are the God above all gods in supreme chargs of all the earth.”-THE WAY, Cathloic Living Bible


Barryrob

[Trout]

The issues is, is Jesus "a god" the Bible TEXTS answer that question as they say that there are many "gods" so Jesus and Jehovah are among that number, so that could both be called "a god" but Jehovah is the Most High* so he becomes The Almighty God whereas Jesus is "a god" relative to Jehovah.

*Psalm 83:18 “until they learn that you alone, Jehovah, are the God above all gods in supreme chargs of all the earth.”-THE WAY, Cathloic Living Bible


Barryrob

No, the issue posed in the original question which started this thread is the accuracy of the NWT.

Do you accept Joseph Smith's version of the Bible as an accurate translation?

Do you accept the NWT as an accurate version of the Bible?

[barryrob]

No, the issue posed in the original question which started this thread is the accuracy of the NWT.

1 Do you accept Joseph Smith's version of the Bible as an accurate translation?

2 Do you accept the NWT as an accurate version of the Bible?


1 I have never read his version as I was not aware that he had produced his own transltion, so I cannot give a reply here.

2 Yes.

Barryrob

[Trout]

Barryrob, you have no training in Biblical languages, but many who do, have condemned the NWT as not accurate.

Dr. J. R. Mantey (who is quoted on pages 1158-1159) of the Witnesses own Kingdom interlinear Translation): "A shocking mistranslation." "Obesolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger of Princeton (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature): "A frightful mistranslation." "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists."

Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski of Zurich, Switzerland: "This anarthrous (used without the article) construction does not mean what the indefinite article 'a' means in English. It is monstrous to translate the phrase 'the Word was a god.'"

Dr. Paul L. Kaufman of Portland, Oregon: "The Jehovah's Witnesses people evidence an abysmal ignorance of the basic tenets of Greek grammar in their mistranslation of John 1:1."

Dr. Charles L. Feinberg of La Mirada, California: "I can assure you that the rendering which the Jehovah's Witnesses give John 1:1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar."

Dr. James L. Boyer of Winona Lake, Indiana: "I have never heard of, or read of any Greek Scholar who would have agreed to the interpretation of this verse insisted upon by the Jehovah's Witnesses...I have never encountered one of them who had any knowledge of the Greek language."

Dr. Walter R. Martin (who does not teach Greek but has studied the language): "The translation...'a god' instead of 'God' is erroneous and unsupported by any good Greek scholarship, ancient or contemporary and is a translation rejected by all recongnized scholars of the Greek language may of whom are not even Christians, and cannot fairly be said to be biased in favor of the orthodox contention."

Dr. William Barclay of the University of Glasgow, Scotland: "The deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in their New testament translations. John 1:1 is translated: '...the Word was a god,' a translation which is grammatically impossible...It is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

Dr. F. F. Bruce of the University of Manchester, England: "Much is made by Arian amateur grammarians of the omission of the definite article with 'God' in the phrase 'And the Word was God.' Such an omission is common with nouns in a predicative construction...'a god' would be totally indefensible."

Dr. Ernest C. Colwell of the University of Chicago: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the berb...this statement cannot be regarded as strange in the prologue of the gospel which reaches its climax in the confession of Thomas. 'My Lord and my God.' - John 20:28"

Dr. J. Johnson of California State University, Long Beach: [b]"No justification whatsoever for translating THEOS EN HO LOGOS as 'the Word was a god.' There is no syntactical parallel to Acts 28:6 where there is a statement in indirect discourse; John 1:1 is direct....I am neither a Christian nor a trinitarian."

Dr. Eugene A. Nida, head of Translations Department, American Bible Society: "With regard to John 1:1, there is of course a complication simply because the New World Translation was apparently done by persons who did not take seriously the syntax of the Greek." [Responsible for the Good News Bible - The committee worked under him.]

Dr. B. F. Wescott (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation): "The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in IV.24. It is necessarily without the article...No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word...in the third clause 'the Word' is declared to be 'God' ans so included in the unity of the Godhead."

Dr. J. J. Griesbach (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Emphatic Diaglott): "So numerous and clear are the arguments and testimonies of Scriptures in favour of the true Deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the Divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrin can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-3, is so clear and so superior to all exception, that by no daring efforts of either commentators or critics can it be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth."

Barryrob, are we to simply ignore these eminent Greek scholars?

[Starkman]

In 1950 the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society produced a revised translation of the Bible called: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (hereafter NWT). The entire work was originally released in six volumes, from 1950 (starting with the New Testament) to 1960. However, the NWT went through a series of revisions: 1961, 1970, 1971, and 1984.

Extraordinarily naive in the area of textual study, the JWs bolster as to the scholarship of the NWT. They point out that in the forward of the NWT, the names of the translators are not mentioned, "due to their humility." Although, the reason being, is that the translators were anything but scholarly.

But, we do know who they were. They included, Nathan H. Knorr (president of the WT at that time) Frederick W. Franz (who was the next president) Albert D. Schroeder, George Gangas, and Milton G. Henschel (current president).

In point of fact, none of these men had a Greek or Hebrew education, except Franz who left school after two years, never completing even an undergraduate degree.1 Besides Franz, their education did not exceed high school!

Incidentally, it would be very, very easy for anyone to put together a "translation" with the tremendous amounts of versions, translations and paraphrases available. One would not have to have any formal education at all, and one could make his "version" say most anything he wanted it to say and then justify it with a statement like, "Well, at least one of the other bibles says what mine says." That just doesn't work, however.

Starkman

[barryrob]

Barryrob, you have no training in Biblical languages, but many who do, have condemned the NWT as not accurate.

Dr. J. R. Mantey (who is quoted on pages 1158-1159) of the Witnesses own Kingdom interlinear Translation): "A shocking mistranslation." "Obesolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger of Princeton (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature): "A frightful mistranslation." "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists."

Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski of Zurich, Switzerland: "This anarthrous (used without the article) construction does not mean what the indefinite article 'a' means in English. It is monstrous to translate the phrase 'the Word was a god.'"

Dr. Paul L. Kaufman of Portland, Oregon: "The Jehovah's Witnesses people evidence an abysmal ignorance of the basic tenets of Greek grammar in their mistranslation of John 1:1."

Dr. Charles L. Feinberg of La Mirada, California: "I can assure you that the rendering which the Jehovah's Witnesses give John 1:1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar."

Dr. James L. Boyer of Winona Lake, Indiana: "I have never heard of, or read of any Greek Scholar who would have agreed to the interpretation of this verse insisted upon by the Jehovah's Witnesses...I have never encountered one of them who had any knowledge of the Greek language."

Dr. Walter R. Martin (who does not teach Greek but has studied the language): "The translation...'a god' instead of 'God' is erroneous and unsupported by any good Greek scholarship, ancient or contemporary and is a translation rejected by all recongnized scholars of the Greek language may of whom are not even Christians, and cannot fairly be said to be biased in favor of the orthodox contention."

Dr. William Barclay of the University of Glasgow, Scotland: "The deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in their New testament translations. John 1:1 is translated: '...the Word was a god,' a translation which is grammatically impossible...It is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

Dr. F. F. Bruce of the University of Manchester, England: "Much is made by Arian amateur grammarians of the omission of the definite article with 'God' in the phrase 'And the Word was God.' Such an omission is common with nouns in a predicative construction...'a god' would be totally indefensible."

Dr. Ernest C. Colwell of the University of Chicago: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the berb...this statement cannot be regarded as strange in the prologue of the gospel which reaches its climax in the confession of Thomas. 'My Lord and my God.' - John 20:28"

Dr. J. Johnson of California State University, Long Beach: [b]"No justification whatsoever for translating THEOS EN HO LOGOS as 'the Word was a god.' There is no syntactical parallel to Acts 28:6 where there is a statement in indirect discourse; John 1:1 is direct....I am neither a Christian nor a trinitarian."

Dr. Eugene A. Nida, head of Translations Department, American Bible Society: "With regard to John 1:1, there is of course a complication simply because the New World Translation was apparently done by persons who did not take seriously the syntax of the Greek." [Responsible for the Good News Bible - The committee worked under him.]

Dr. B. F. Wescott (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation): "The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in IV.24. It is necessarily without the article...No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word...in the third clause 'the Word' is declared to be 'God' ans so included in the unity of the Godhead."

Dr. J. J. Griesbach (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Emphatic Diaglott): "So numerous and clear are the arguments and testimonies of Scriptures in favour of the true Deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the Divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrin can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-3, is so clear and so superior to all exception, that by no daring efforts of either commentators or critics can it be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth."

Barryrob, are we to simply ignore these eminent Greek scholars?


First NOT all do:-

Comments made on the N.W.T. by various scholars



1. What the Hebrew and Greek commentator Alexander Thomson had to say in his review on the N.W.T. of the Greek Scriptures: "The translation is evidently the work of skilled and clever scholars, who have sought to bring out as much of the true sense of the Greek text as the English language is capable of expressing. The version aims to keep to one English meaning for each Greek word, and to be as literal as possible.... The word usually rendered 'justify' is generally translated very correctly as ;declare righteous.' ... The word for cross is rendered 'torture stake' which is another improvement.... Luke 23:43 is well rendered, Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.' This is a big improvement upon the reading of most versions." On the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the same reviewer made this comment: "The New World version is well worth aquiring. It is lively and life like, and makes the reader think and study. It is not the work of Higher Critics, but of scholars who honour God and His Word. -The Differentiator, April 1952, pages 52-57. and June 1954, page 136. [see si p.329]



2. "I am interested in the mission work of your people, and its world wide scope, and much pleased with a the free, frank and vigorous translation. It exhibits a vast array of sound learning, as I can testify."-Letter, December 8, 1950, from Edgar J. Goodspeed, translator of the Greek "New Testament" in An American Translation



3. "The translation of the New Testament is evidence if the presence in the movement of scholars qualified to deal intelligently with the many problems of Biblical translation."-Andover Newton Quarterly January 1963.



4. "The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed - a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek." -Andover Newton Quarterly September 1966.



5. "This is no ordinary interlinear: the integrity of the text is preserved, and the English which appears below it is simply the basic meaning of the Greek word.... After examining a copy, I equipped several interested second-year Greek students with it as an auxiliary text.... The translation by the anonymous committee is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate.... in sum, when a witness comes to the door, the classicist, Greek student, or Bible student alike would do well to bring him in and place an order," -From a review of The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, by Thomas N. Winter of the University of Nebraska, appearing in The Classical Journal April-May 1974. [2-5 g87 3/22 14]



6. "Original rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures into English language are extremely few. It therefore gives us much pleasure to welcome the publication of the first part of the New World Translation [of the Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis to Ruth.... This version has evidently made a special effort to be thoroughly readable. No one could say it is deficient in freshness and originality. Its terminology is by no means based upon that previous versions." -Alexander Thomson, -The Differentiator June 1954, page 131. [si p.326]



7. The Hebrew scholar Professor Dr. Benjamin Kedar of Israel, in a interview with a representative of the Watch Tower Society, evaluated the New World Translation as follows: "In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translation, I often refer to the English edition of what is known as the New World Translation. In so doing, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this work reflects an honest endeavour to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew.... Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain. -June 12, 1989 [si p.326]


I asked my self the same question and came up with the answer (after much research into the texts they quote etc.) that the negative remarks seem to be based more on doctrinal bias rather then linguistic grounds as we teach say that The Bible does not teach the trinity etc..

Barryrob

[barryrob]

In 1950 the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society produced a revised translation of the Bible called: New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (hereafter NWT). The entire work was originally released in six volumes, from 1950 (starting with the New Testament) to 1960. However, the NWT went through a series of revisions: 1961, 1970, 1971, and 1984.

Extraordinarily naive in the area of textual study, the JWs bolster as to the scholarship of the NWT. They point out that in the forward of the NWT, the names of the translators are not mentioned, "due to their humility." Although, the reason being, is that the translators were anything but scholarly.

But, we do know who they were. They included, Nathan H. Knorr (president of the WT at that time) Frederick W. Franz (who was the next president) Albert D. Schroeder, George Gangas, and Milton G. Henschel (current president).

In point of fact, none of these men had a Greek or Hebrew education, except Franz who left school after two years, never completing even an undergraduate degree.1 Besides Franz, their education did not exceed high school!

Incidentally, it would be very, very easy for anyone to put together a "translation" with the tremendous amounts of versions, translations and paraphrases available. One would not have to have any formal education at all, and one could make his "version" say most anything he wanted it to say and then justify it with a statement like, "Well, at least one of the other bibles says what mine says." That just doesn't work, however.

Starkman

What you say might be true but would it follow the teaching of Jesus?

My experance shows me that the people that follow the teachings in the NWT deal with life very well but more important they seem to be able to solve major problems among them/ourselves that the world just cannot solve, to me that speaks volumes that the NWT put to work works as Jesus said his followrs would:-

John 17:17-19 . . .Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth. 18 Just as you sent me forth into the world, I also sent them forth into the world. 19 And I am sanctifying myself in their behalf, that they also may be sanctified by means of truth.

and Paul
Hebrews 4:12 . . .For the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints and [their] marrow, and [is] able to discern thoughts and intentions of [the] heart.


Barryrob

[Trout]

First NOT all do:-

Comments made on the N.W.T. by various scholars



1. What the Hebrew and Greek commentator Alexander Thomson had to say in his review on the N.W.T. of the Greek Scriptures: "The translation is evidently the work of skilled and clever scholars, who have sought to bring out as much of the true sense of the Greek text as the English language is capable of expressing. The version aims to keep to one English meaning for each Greek word, and to be as literal as possible.... The word usually rendered 'justify' is generally translated very correctly as ;declare righteous.' ... The word for cross is rendered 'torture stake' which is another improvement.... Luke 23:43 is well rendered, Truly I tell you today, You will be with me in Paradise.' This is a big improvement upon the reading of most versions." On the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the same reviewer made this comment: "The New World version is well worth aquiring. It is lively and life like, and makes the reader think and study. It is not the work of Higher Critics, but of scholars who honour God and His Word. -The Differentiator, April 1952, pages 52-57. and June 1954, page 136. [see si p.329]




Thomson was co-editor of the magazine called The Differentiator. The magazine is no longer published, but was issued bimonthly, and had a very small circulation. According to his co-editor, Thomson "did not even formally study Greek or Hebrew in any school." He was not a Hebrew and Greek scholar as claimed by Jehovah's Witnesses. "Thomson was employed in a bank in Scotland and did not believe that Jesus was God." 8 He was a Universal Restitutionist, that is to say, he believed that all men would be saved regardless of their belief in, or their commitment to, God.




2. "I am interested in the mission work of your people, and its world wide scope, and much pleased with a the free, frank and vigorous translation. It exhibits a vast array of sound learning, as I can testify."-Letter, December 8, 1950, from Edgar J. Goodspeed, translator of the Greek "New Testament" in An American Translation




It is also interesting to note that no Greek scholar with any credentials will endorse the New World Translation. The late Bill Cetnar, in 1954 (while still a Jehovah's Witness working at Bethel) , was assigned to interview a well known Bible translator, Dr . Edgar J . Goodspeed , asking him for his evaluation and recommendation of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Dr. Goodspeed replied :

No, I'm afraid that I could not do that. The grammar is regrettable . . . .


3. "The translation of the New Testament is evidence if the presence in the movement of scholars qualified to deal intelligently with the many problems of Biblical translation."-Andover Newton Quarterly January 1963.




What Greek scholar made the above claim?


4. "The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed - a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek." -Andover Newton Quarterly September 1966.






4. S. MacLean Gilmour, in the Andover Newton Quarterly, September, 1966.

"The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek."

The full quote in the original reads:

"In 1950 the Jehovah's Witnesses published their New World Translation Of The New Testament, and the preparation of the New World Old Testament translation is now far advanced. The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek and that made the Westcott and Hort Greek text basic to their translation. It is clear that doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase, but the work is no crack-pot or pseudo-historical fraud." 13

Dr. Gilmour's comments are to be found in an article entitled "The Use And Misuse of The Book of Revelation." Lest it should be thought that Dr. Gilmour is sympathetic to the JW religion, his reason for referring to them is made clear in the following quote (the article is the text of a lecture by Dr. Gilmour in 1966):

"Later in the lecture I spoke of the misuse of the Book of Revelation by millennial sects over the centuries, and in particular of its misuse by the Jehovah's Witnesses during the last one hundred years." 14

Dr. Gilmour was Norris Professor of New Testament at Andover Newton Seminary and editor of the Andover Newton Quarterly, and the author of a commentary on the Book of Revelation.

With all due respect for Dr. Gilmour, his statement regarding the New World Translation is incorrect. The Jehovah's Witnesses did not publish, in 1950, or for that matter at any time, a book entitled New World Translation Of The New Testament. Rather, they published a book entitled New World Translation Of The Christian Greek Scriptures. Perhaps Dr. Gilmour simply failed to notice that the name was unusual. A more serious error, however, is his statement that "The New World Old Testament is now far advanced." He wrote that article, as earlier stated, in 1966. In fact, the New World Translation Of The Hebrew Scriptures was published in five volumes over the period 1953 to 1960. It was completed some six years before Dr. Gilmour made his statement, indeed a one volume edition of the whole Bible was published in 1961. Dr. Gilmour could have checked this out easily, simply by picking up a copy of the Bible, which leads one to wonder whether he had actually seen a copy. A footnote to the article shows that the information regarding the New World Translation came from McCoy's earlier article. Gilmour's article does not quote the New World Translation nor does it gain a mention in his Bibliography. The only book which is noted therein relating to the Jehovah's Witnesses is Horton Davies' The Challenge Of The Sects, concerning which Dr. Gilmour comments, "Overmuch concerned with attacking the beliefs of the sect." 15 If Dr. Gilmour has not even seen a copy of the New World Translation then he is surely in no position to make a value judgment on it. The article certainly gives no evidence that he has read it, the only comment about it being the paragraph quoted above. His comments are based on the review done by another man, and there is no suggestion that Dr. Gilmour is bringing his knowledge of the Greek language to bear on his statement. In summary, Dr Gilmour's comment is not worthy of being quoted in support of a book which (a) he does not appear to have read, and (b) he can't get the name of the title correct, and (c) he is not aware that it had been completed some six years earlier. For the Jehovah's Witnesses to use such a comment in this context reveals dishonest scholarship. 5. Thomas N. Winter, in The Classical Journal, April-May, 1974.


5. "This is no ordinary interlinear: the integrity of the text is preserved, and the English which appears below it is simply the basic meaning of the Greek word.... After examining a copy, I equipped several interested second-year Greek students with it as an auxiliary text.... The translation by the anonymous committee is thoroughly up-to-date and consistently accurate.... in sum, when a witness comes to the door, the classicist, Greek student, or Bible student alike would do well to bring him in and place an order," -From a review of The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures, by Thomas N. Winter of the University of Nebraska, appearing in The Classical Journal April-May 1974. [2-5 g87 3/22 14]




Robert M. McCoy and Dr. S MacLean Gilmour from the Andover Newton Quarterly are quoted with what sounds like enthusiastic reviews until the context and entirety of their words are read.6 Similarly, Thomas N. Winter from the University of Nebraska gave a glowing endorsement in 1974,7 but on 3 October 1980 he wrote, "I am not happy with the use now being made of the review," and he went on to note a few problems, such as Jesus' words in John 8:58 (which NWT translates as "I have been"). Winter commented, "No way to go here but `I am.'"


6. "Original rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures into English language are extremely few. It therefore gives us much pleasure to welcome the publication of the first part of the New World Translation [of the Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis to Ruth.... This version has evidently made a special effort to be thoroughly readable. No one could say it is deficient in freshness and originality. Its terminology is by no means based upon that previous versions." -Alexander Thomson, -The Differentiator June 1954, page 131. [si p.326]




Thomson was co-editor of the magazine called The Differentiator. The magazine is no longer published, but was issued bimonthly, and had a very small circulation. According to his co-editor, Thomson "did not even formally study Greek or Hebrew in any school." He was not a Hebrew and Greek scholar as claimed by Jehovah's Witnesses. "Thomson was employed in a bank in Scotland and did not believe that Jesus was God." 8 He was a Universal Restitutionist, that is to say, he believed that all men would be saved regardless of their belief in, or their commitment to, God.



I asked my self the same question and came up with the answer (after much research into the texts they quote etc.) that the negative remarks seem to be based more on doctrinal bias rather then linguistic grounds as we teach say that The Bible does not teach the trinity etc..

Barryrob
[/size]

You're "scholars" didn't seem to pan out.

And your last statement isn't an accurate one.

It is starting to appear that you believe that the NWT is accurate with no sound reasons to think so.

[barryrob]

Thomson was co-editor of the magazine called The Differentiator. The magazine is no longer published, but was issued bimonthly, and had a very small circulation. According to his co-editor, Thomson "did not even formally study Greek or Hebrew in any school." He was not a Hebrew and Greek scholar as claimed by Jehovah's Witnesses. "Thomson was employed in a bank in Scotland and did not believe that Jesus was God." 8 He was a Universal Restitutionist, that is to say, he believed that all men would be saved regardless of their belief in, or their commitment to, God.




So we have some common ground and in other ways we do not, I think that can be that case with most schalors, is that not so?






It is also interesting to note that no Greek scholar with any credentials will endorse the New World Translation. The late Bill Cetnar, in 1954 (while still a Jehovah's Witness working at Bethel) , was assigned to interview a well known Bible translator, Dr . Edgar J . Goodspeed , asking him for his evaluation and recommendation of the New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Dr. Goodspeed replied :

No, I'm afraid that I could not do that. The grammar is regrettable . . . .



The same could be said with the NIV and KJV and/or any transltion one does not totaly agree with.

Then again does his work totaly condem the NWT:-


1935 "and the Word was divine" The Bible—An American Translation, by J. M. P.Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, Chicago.







At Acts 17:29, Paul, when in Athens, showed that it is illogical for humans to imagine that "the Divine Being [to thei´on, form of thei´os] is like gold or silver or stone." Many translators here use terms such as "the Godhead," "the Deity," or "the divinity" (KJ, AS, Dy, ED, JB, RS), while E. J. Goodspeed’s translation says "the divine nature."








Hence, in both their translations Dr. Edgar J. Goodspeed and Dr. James Moffatt render the phrase as, "the Word [or Logos] was divine." This reflects the fine distinction in wording that the apostle John used, a distinction that accords with the fact that Jesus was not equal in power and eternity with the Father but was the created Son of the Father. (1 Cor. 11:3) The New World Translation accurately renders the verse: "In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god."







*** w75 11/15 p. 703 Questions from Readers ***





Certain scholars have pointed out that anarthrous predicate nouns that precede the verb in Greek may have a qualitative significance. That is, they may describe the nature or status of the subject. Thus some translators render John 1:1: "The Logos was divine," (Moffatt); "the Word was divine," (Goodspeed); "the nature of the Word was the same as the nature of God," (Barclay); "the Word was with God and shared his nature," (The Translator’s New Testament).





*** w74 12/1 p. 736 Questions from Readers ***


The rendering "over" at Revelation 5:10 thus accurately conveys the apparent meaning of the Greek word epi. Other scholars who have translated epi as "over" in this text include Edgar Goodspeed (An American Translation), Ferrar Fenton (The Holy Bible in Modern English), Richard F. Weymouth (The New Testament in Modern Speech) and Msgr. Ronald Knox (The New Testament in English). See also the Catholic Confraternity’s translation of The New Testament (1941), The Amplified New Testament, The ‘Holy Scriptures’ by J. N. Darby and The New Testament by Charles B. Williams.




*** w64 11/1 p. 671 Questions from Readers ***





The King James reading of Matthew 28:9 appears on the face of it to look like a flat contradiction of what Jehovah’s witnesses teach, but, of course, the King James Bible translators would naturally want to support their trinitarian view by rendering the Greek word here into English as "worshipped." However, it is interesting to note how The Complete Bible, An American Translation by Smith and Goodspeed renders Matthew 28:9. It reads: "And Jesus himself met them, and said, ‘Good morning!’ And they went up to him and clasped his feet, and bowed to the ground before him." The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures says: "They approached and caught him by his feet and did obeisance to him." This bowing to the ground or doing obeisance to the resurrected Jesus does not mean worshiping him. If it did, then men of God in ancient times could be found guilty of worshiping human creatures, because they bowed before them; whereas the angel that was used to transmit the Revelation to the apostle John stopped him when he wanted to worship the angel, and told him to worship only God.—Rev. 19:10; 22:8.



*** w62 2/1 p. 91 Why Is It Missing from the New World Translation? ***





The text of Westcott and Hort was acclaimed by critics world-wide and, although produced eighty years ago, is still the standard. Well has it been termed "epoch-making in the literal sense of the word," and "the most important contribution to the scientific criticism of the New Testament text which has yet been made," excelling all others "in regard to method and extraordinary accuracy." Of it Goodspeed, in his preface to An American Translation, states: "I have closely followed the Greek text of Westcott and Hort, now generally accepted. Every scholar knows its superiority to the late and faulty texts from which the early English translations from Tyndale to the AV were made."

If works speak louder than words what do we see?









What Greek scholar made the above claim?
I do not know.





4. S. MacLean Gilmour, in the Andover Newton Quarterly, September, 1966.

"The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek."

The full quote in the original reads:

"In 1950 the Jehovah's Witnesses published their New World Translation Of The New Testament, and the preparation of the New World Old Testament translation is now far advanced. The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek and that made the Westcott and Hort Greek text basic to their translation. It is clear that doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase, but the work is no crack-pot or pseudo-historical fraud." 13




If you are saying, "doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase" this can apply to anyone translating any Bible version produced, is that not so?

A Trinitarian will be influence by his thinking and so with a non-Trinitarian, is that right?

We are hold that the trinity is not found in scripture, which is reflected in our work much as the translators of the NIV believe in the Trinity and this is reflected in their version.






Dr. Gilmour's comments are to be found in an article entitled "The Use And Misuse of The Book of Revelation." Lest it should be thought that Dr. Gilmour is sympathetic to the JW religion, his reason for referring to them is made clear in the following quote (the article is the text of a lecture by Dr. Gilmour in 1966):

"Later in the lecture I spoke of the misuse of the Book of Revelation by millennial sects over the centuries, and in particular of its misuse by the Jehovah's Witnesses during the last one hundred years." 14


So because he does not seem to like "millennial sects" does this make them automaticly worng, because the early Christians were, so they are atomaticaly wrong also?




Dr. Gilmour was Norris Professor of New Testament at Andover Newton Seminary and editor of the Andover Newton Quarterly, and the author of a commentary on the Book of Revelation.

With all due respect for Dr. Gilmour, his statement regarding the New World Translation is incorrect. The Jehovah's Witnesses did not publish, in 1950, or for that matter at any time, a book entitled New World Translation Of The New Testament. Rather, they published a book entitled New World Translation Of The Christian Greek Scriptures. Perhaps Dr. Gilmour simply failed to notice that the name was unusual. A more serious error, however, is his statement that "The New World Old Testament is now far advanced." He wrote that article, as earlier stated, in 1966. In fact, the New World Translation Of The Hebrew Scriptures was published in five volumes over the period 1953 to 1960. It was completed some six years before Dr. Gilmour made his statement, indeed a one volume edition of the whole Bible was published in 1961. Dr. Gilmour could have checked this out easily, simply by picking up a copy of the Bible, which leads one to wonder whether he had actually seen a copy. A footnote to the article shows that the information regarding the New World Translation came from McCoy's earlier article. Gilmour's article does not quote the New World Translation nor does it gain a mention in his Bibliography. The only book which is noted therein relating to the Jehovah's Witnesses is Horton Davies' The Challenge Of The Sects, concerning which Dr. Gilmour comments, "Overmuch concerned with attacking the beliefs of the sect." 15 If Dr. Gilmour has not even seen a copy of the New World Translation then he is surely in no position to make a value judgment on it. The article certainly gives no evidence that he has read it, the only comment about it being the paragraph quoted above. His comments are based on the review done by another man, and there is no suggestion that Dr. Gilmour is bringing his knowledge of the Greek language to bear on his statement. In summary, Dr Gilmour's comment is not worthy of being quoted in support of a book which (a) he does not appear to have read, and (b) he can't get the name of the title correct, and (c) he is not aware that it had been completed some six years earlier. For the Jehovah's Witnesses to use such a comment in this context reveals dishonest scholarship. 5. Thomas N. Winter, in The Classical Journal, April-May, 1974.


TO MANY ASSUMPTIONS!





Robert M. McCoy and Dr. S MacLean Gilmour from the Andover Newton Quarterly are quoted with what sounds like enthusiastic reviews until the context and entirety of their words are read.6 Similarly, Thomas N. Winter from the University of Nebraska gave a glowing endorsement in 1974,7 but on 3 October 1980 he wrote, "I am not happy with the use now being made of the review," and he went on to note a few problems, such as Jesus' words in John 8:58 (which NWT translates as "I have been"). Winter commented, "No way to go here but `I am.'"



IT IS NOT A CASE OF BEING HAPPY IT A CASE OF BEING RIGHT.

He may not agree with our John 8:58 but he does not say why, perhaps he is a Trinitarian, many others do not agree with him:-



"prin 'Abraam genesqai egw eimi 'before Abraham came into existence, I existed."-Louw & Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains Volume 1 United Bible Societies p.158















"I am from before Abraham was born."-The New Testament by Richmond Lattimore















"I have existed before Abraham was born"-James Moffatt 1948 (Impression)















"I tell you for a positive fact, I existed before Abraham was born."-The Original N. T. by Hugh J. Schonfield 1985















"Truly truly I tell you, I am from before Abraham was born."-The N. T. by Richmond Lattimore















"I tell you, I existed before Abraham was born!"-Edger J. Goodspeed 1935 copyright















"Then Jesus said to them, ‘I most solemnly say to you, I existed before Abraham was born.’"-Chas. Williams’ The New Testament.















"He said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I have been." -A. S. Lewis’ "The Four Gospels" According to the Sinaitic Palimpsest.















"‘Believe me,’ Jesus replied, ‘before Abraham was born I was already what I am.’"-The Twentieth Century New Testament.















"Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Before Abraham was born, I was."-G. M. Lamsa’s The Modern New Testament.















"Jesus said to them: Verily, verily, I say to you, That before Abraham existed, I was."-Jas. Murdock’s The Syriac New Testament.















"Jesus: ‘Before there was an Abraham, I was already there [war ich schon da]!’"-F. Pfaefflin’s Das Neue Testament (German).















"Jesus said to them: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you: Before Abraham was born, I was [war ich].’"-C. Stage’s Das Neue Testament (German).















"Jesus answered: ‘In truth, in truth, I say to you: Before Abraham was born, I was [era yo].’"-Nácar Colunga’s Nuevo Testamento (Spanish).













"I have been" (haiithi) instead of in the imperfect form."-F. Delitzsch’s Hebrew New Testament and that by Salkinson-Ginsburg both have the verb in the perfect form.

"The absloute truth is that I was in existance before Abraham was ever born!"-The Living Bible.











"Jesus answered, "The truth is, I existed before Abraham was even born!"-New Living Translation 1997















"Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly I tell you: before Abraham was born, I have already been."-The Unvarnished N.T. translated by Andy Gaus 1991















"Jesus said to them, "Mark my words and make no mistake: before Abraham himself was born, I already have being.""-'The Four Gospels' by Norman Marrow p.171















"O IhsouV touV eipe: Alhqina alhqina saV lew: Prin o Abraam erqei se uparxh egw uparcw"-New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in Modern Greek.















'The Companion Bible' has the following marginal note about the phrase "I am" on page 1540 as found in John 8:58, " 58 was = came into existence : i. e. was born. 1 am."











Thomson was co-editor of the magazine called The Differentiator. The magazine is no longer published, but was issued bimonthly, and had a very small circulation. According to his co-editor, Thomson "did not even formally study Greek or Hebrew in any school." He was not a Hebrew and Greek scholar as claimed by Jehovah's Witnesses. "Thomson was employed in a bank in Scotland and did not believe that Jesus was God." 8 He was a Universal Restitutionist, that is to say, he believed that all men would be saved regardless of their belief in, or their commitment to, God.

Covered



You're "scholars" didn't seem to pan out.

Not in my view! They have much support!



And your last statement isn't an accurate one.





It is starting to appear that you believe that the NWT is accurate with no sound reasons to think so.

As seen yours in not the only view that has to be considered.
Barryrob

[barryrob]

And your last statement isn't an accurate one.QUOTE]





I do not think so and many other do not think so apparently:-



I asked my self the same question and came up with the answer (after much research into the texts they quote etc.) that the negative remarks seem to be based more on doctrinal bias rather then linguistic grounds as we teach say that The Bible does not teach the trinity etc..

Barryrob



"And your last statement isn't an accurate one."



. What false concept of the Trinity or Godhead are the Jehovah's Witnesses taught to believe that Christians have? What other reasons do their members have for rejecting the concept of the Godhead or Trinity?

Answer:
a. Jehovah's Witnesses have been conditioned to think of the Trinity as a three-headed gargoyle [a statue of a grotesque figure], as depicted on the front of The Watchtower , February 1, 1984. To them it is pagan, illogical and unscriptural. So immediately when the word Trinity is mentioned, this is the concept that appears on the video screen of their minds and they want to vehemently oppose it. But this a false concept of the Trinity as taught in the Bible. Other reasons for rejecting the concept of the Trinity follow:
b. The New World Bible Translation produced by the Watchtower Society has not dealt honestly with many of the Scriptures that deal with the Deity of Christ, as shown above.
c. They Demand to explain the Infinite, which is impossible for finite minds to do. The Witnesses feel comfortable in having just one Person, the Father as God. Jesus Christ is a lesser god, and the Holy Spirit is just an active force. Many Witnesses are not prepared to sit down and study the subject out, even as fully as presented in these studies! The only way the truth can be found on the subject of the Godhead, is to accept all the Bible says, and leave it at that. Over and over we are told that God is past finding out.. The Society places itself in a very serious position when it denies the Deity of Christ and the Personality of the Holy Spirit.
d. The Watchtower Society has prepared a series of arguments and proof texts to deny Christ's Deity, and the Personality of the Holy Spirit. The major problem texts will be discussed in the following questions. http://www.geocities.com/shelleysenner/lesson5.html

There are many people today who believe that Jesus was just a good man, but was not God. This belief contradicts Scripture's witness that Jesus was fully God and that Jesus knew that He Himself was God. Further, this belief by the early church and Scripture opposes the current Jehovah's Witness belief that Jesus was merely "a god"--the orthodox belief is that Jesus was part of the Trinity, and was Yahweh God, the "one true and mighty God", not a minor god among several. While the term Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is not a term that is explicity used in Scripture, there is abundant Scriptural witness to the theology of the Trinity and church history strongly attests to the apostolic belief that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit are two of the three parts of the God-Head, together with the Father. http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/jesus.html (http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/jesus.html)





Does the NT teach that Christ is God?

I’m not going to go in any “set” order so please forgive me if I tend to jump around a bit. We will however, incorporate various parts of the OT as they apply in the Septuagint (LXX).

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) The NWT renders the same verse as, “In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God.”

For starters, let us assume that their translation is correct. The first commandment prohibits us from joining any “other gods” to YHWH. If Jesus is “a god” but not “God” then we have a big God and a small god. The Witnesses could point to Scriptures such as 2 Corinthians 4:4 where Satan is called “the god of this world” to derail your point, but you can just as easily point out the CONTEXT of the passage. Satan is a “false god,” are the Witnesses now going to declare that Jesus to is a “false god?” The Witnesses have put themselves in a polytheistic jam. If their rendering is correct, either Jesus is a “false god” or He is “THEE GOD.” There is only one God, and on this point the Witnesses would concur with Christians. Even suggesting that Jesus is “a god” but not “THEE GOD” (because there is only ONE GOD) would be blasphemous. There are only two kinds of “Gods,” the one true God and false gods. Jeremiah 10:11 states, “Thus shall ye say unto them, ‘The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.’” But the Witnesses are quick to affirm that Jesus is NOT the creator, therefore he will perish from the earth and from under the heavens. http://www.reachingforchrist.org/falsedoctrines/cults/truthjw.php (http://www.reachingforchrist.org/falsedoctrines/cults/truthjw.php)



A DISCUSSION ON JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

by

Shandon L. Guthrie

Introduction

If you happen to be one of the loyal members of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, I ask that you please consider the material in this essay before putting it down. The following material is simply a gentle response to some of the most sought-out questions Jehovah's Witnesses have concerning important theological information. As a side note the research I had done has been exhaustive and extensive. The position taken by the Jehovah's Witnesses will be documented and in some cases reproduced in this paper in order to maintain fairness. I am not interested in "bashing" or "deceiving." Instead, the subject matter of this paper is presented as to fulfill the commandments given in the New Testament. That is, in order to "Make sure of all things" and to "hold fast to what is fine" (1 Thessalonians 5:21; NWT), it is imperative that both sides review the evidence in order to draw a conclusion. Lastly, I am only interested in the truth as revealed in Jesus Christ (John 14:6). The debate here is over the nature of God and His Son Jesus. It is generally acknowledged that the nature of God and the nature of Christ are the paramount issues involved in comparative religions. It must be mentioned at the outset that the organization of the Jehovah's Witnesses itself is highly suspect in its presentation of true biblical theology. Therefore, I will provide a simple review of the prophetic history of the Watchtower in order to invalidate its credibility. The reason why such an approach is central is due to the nature of the Watchtower organization itself. It is a self-proclaiming prophetic structure designed to supposedly speak for God. This important stand then will require an analysis of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society http://www.sguthrie.net/jwitness.htm



Barryrob

[Trout]

The Watchtower and Jehovah's Witness apologists have often cited scholars in support of the New World Translation in general, and particularly its rendering of John 1:1c ("and the Word was a god"). Scholarly citation is a form of an "argument from authority." Such an argument cannot establish the truth or falsity of a given assertion; it can merely lend credence or cast doubt. Sound arguments from authority will consist of an accurate quotation from the scholar in question, which entails insuring that the context of the authority's statements are consistent with the argument being presented, and that contrary statements in the same passage are not removed with creative use of ellipses ("..."). Further, the scholar must be a recognized authority in a field that pertains directly to the assertion being made.

When Jehovah's Witnesses produce scholars that support the NWT, we must first establish that the scholar is, indeed, a recognized expert in the field of Biblical Languages, and that he or she has been quoted accurately. When given careful consideration, many of the scholars used by Jehovah's Witnesses do not actually constitute a sound argument from authority. I'm not suggesting that no scholars may be found in support of the NWT or its translation of John 1:1, but these are in the minority and often are not as qualified in their field as the scores of scholars who advocate the traditional translation.

below, we will examine how some scholars have been used in defense of the NWT and whether they actually support the Watchtower translation as claimed. It is not my intent to be exhaustive; however I've tried to cover the scholars most often cited; I think you'll find that any omissions will be obscure scholars that are not generally recognized as authoritative in the scholarly community. If you know of a prominent scholar that I've missed, please let me know so that I may include him/her in a future revision of this article.


William Barclay "theos [in John 1:1c] becomes a description, and more of an adjective than a noun...[John] does not say that Jesus was God" (Barclay, Many Witnesses, One Lord, p. 23 - 24).

- The Watchtower, May 15, 1977, p. 320

When Barclay says that John didn't write that "Jesus was God," he merely means that Jesus was not God the Father. That Barclay sees an ontological unity between ho theos and ho logos is apparent in the following passage omitted from the Watchtower article:

"The only modern translator who fairly and squarely faced this problem is Kenneth Wuest, who said: 'The Word was as to his essence, essential deity.' But it is here that the NEB has brilliantly solved the problem with the absolutely correct rendering: 'What God was the Word was'" (Barclay, p. 23).

Barclay also makes his position clear in a response to the Watchtower's citation:

"The Watchtower article has, by judicious cutting, made me say the opposite of what I meant to say. What I was meaning to say, as you well know, is that Jesus is not the same as God, to put it more crudely, that is of the same stuff as God, that is of the same being as God, but the way the Watchtower has printed my stuff has simply left the conclusion that Jesus is not God in a way that suits themselves. If they missed from their answer the translation of Kenneth Wuest and the N.E.B., they missed the whole point" (A letter to Donald P. Shoemaker, 8/26/1977. A photocopy of this letter can be found in Watters, Thus saith ... the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 74).



“a God” - Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156).

- from Greg Stafford's second reply to me on the Julius Mantey letter to the WTB&TS. I had asked Mr. Stafford for a list of scholars who unequivocally support the NWT rendering of John 1:1.

Carpenter is not regarded as authoritative by modern Biblical scholars. They do not cite the work quoted by Mr. Stafford, nor any other work by Carpenter.

William D. Chamberlain

The meaning of John 1:1

d. A qualitative force is often expressed by the absence of the article: en tois propsetais (Heb. 1:1), 'in the prophets,' calls attention to a particular group, while en uio (Heb. 1:2), 'in son,' calls attention to the rank of the Son as a 'spokesman' for God. The ARV in trying to bring out the force of this phrase translates it, 'in his Son,' italicizing 'his.'



The predicate of a sentence may be recognized by the absence of the article: theos en ho logos(Jn. 1:1), the Word was God; kai ho logos sarx egento (Jn. 1:14), 'And the Word became flesh'; esontai oi eschatoi protoi (Mt. 20 :16), 'the last shall be first.' The article with each of these predicate nouns would equate them and make them interchangeable, e. g., ho theos en ho logos would make God and the Word identical. The effect of this can be seen in ho theos agape estin (1 Jn. 4 :8), 'God is love.' As the sentence now stands 'love' describes a primary quality of God; the article he with agape would make God and love equivalents, e. g., God would possess no qualities not subsumed under love.



Summary

The primary function of the article is to make something definite. It may point out something new to the discussion, or something already mentioned.



"Theos en ho logos" is describing the quality of the Logos-Word in that he possessed divine or divinity as the only begotten son of God who was a spirit being like God but not identical to Jehovah God (An Exegetical Grammar Of The Greek New Testament, p. 57).

The following endorsements appear on the dust jacket of Chamberlain's Grammar:

BRUCE M. METZGER "as a comprehensive and helpful grammar written to enable the average minister to feel at home in the Greek New Testament."

NED B. STONEHOUSE "a convenient handbook for the student who is seeking to apply his knowledge of the fundamentals of Greek grammar in the exegetical study of the New Testament."

WILLIAM F. ARNDT "To all pastors and theological students who would like to review the chief grammatical facts pertaining to the Greek of the New Testament and who are looking for a somewhat new approach, we cordially recommend this book."

William D. Chamberlain, professor of New Testament language and literature at the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.

___________

It would seem odd that a professor at a Presbyterian Seminary would understand John 1:1 in the same manner as the Watchtower, let alone have such a view endorsed by the likes of Metzger, Stonehouse, and Arndt.

In point of fact, Chamberlain is strictly orthodox in his theology, and so is his grammar. Chamberlain is not using "divine" or "spirit being" in the same sense Jehovah's Witnesses do. And, like Harris and others, he understands "Jehovah God" as equivalent to "God the Father" (see Harris, p. 47, n. 112). Thus, he is saying that the Word possessed divinity (the nature of the True God), but was not identical to God the Father.

Witnesses, then, may use Chamberlain's words to support their view, if they choose to pour their own meanings into them. However, Chamberlain's words as he intended them do not support the NWT, but rather uphold the traditional understanding of John 1:1.


C. H. Dodd Professor C. H. Dodd, director of the New English Bible project, comments on this approach: "A possible translation. . . would be, ‘The Word was a god’. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted." However, The New English Bible does not render the verse that way. Rather, John 1:1 in that version reads: "When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was." Why did the translation committee not choose the simpler rendering? Professor Dodd answers: "The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole."— Technical Papers for the Bible Translator, Volume 28, January 1977

"If the translation were a matter of substituting words, a possible translation would be, ‘The Word was a god.’ As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted, and to pagan Greeks who heard early Christian language, Theos en o Logos, might have seemed a perfectly sensible statement. The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole" (The Bible Translator, Vol. 28, No. 1, Jan. 1977).

Dodd doesn't say "a god" is an "acceptable" translation. He says it can't be faulted as a "literal" translation, but there's a big difference. Notice how Dodd qualifies the quote I provided: "If translation..." His point is that translation is not merely a wooden substitution of one English word for one Greek word. If it were, "a god" could not be "faulted." However, "only grammatical considerations" do not a proper translation make!

Dodd cites several examples where theos has the meaning of the "essence" of God (p. 104). He then concludes that the NEB translation "What God was the Word also was" is "an attempt" to get at the idea that John was expressing - namely, that in every sense that the Father is God, the Logos is also God (p. 104).

In this view, Dodd is in agreement with the overwhelming number of commentators and grammarians who've written on this subject.

If the WT and Witness apologists use Dodd to defend the NWT translation in the face of accusations that it is ungrammatical, I cannot find fault with such a citation. However, that's not what this Jehovah's Witness was saying. He was advocating the NWT as a translation supported by scholars like Dodd. His selective quotation gives the impression that Dodd believes such a translation might be proper or acceptable, when this is not the case at all.


MacLean Gilmour "The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed - a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek" ("The Use and Abuse of the Book of Revelation," Andover Newton Quarterly, September 1966).

"In 1950 the Jehovah's Witnesses published their New World Translation Of The New Testament, and the preparation of the New World Old Testament translation is now far advanced. The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek and that made the Westcott and Hort Greek text basic to their translation. It is clear that doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase, but the work is no crack-pot or pseudo-historical fraud" ("The Use and Abuse of the Book of Revelation," Andover Newton Quarterly, September 1966).

Aside from the negative portrayal of "doctrinal considerations," Mr. Gilmour made several factual errors in his comments about the NWT, indicating that he may not have been particularly familiar with the work he was reviewing (for more information, see Ian Croft's "The New World Translation and its Critics").


Edgar J. Goodspeed "I am interested in the mission work of your people, and in its world wide scope, and much pleased with the free, frank, and vigorous translation. It exhibits a vast array of sound serious learning, as I can testify."

Bill Cetnar, who worked at Watchtower Headquarters in New York during the period when the New World Translation was being prepared, was sent to interview Dr. Goodspeed in March, 1954 to seek his comments on the first volume of the New World Translation Of The Hebrew Scriptures. Cetnar writes:

"During the two-hour long visit with him it was obvious that he knew the volume well, because he could cite the pages where the readings he objected to were found. One reading he pointed out as especially awkward and grammatically poor was in Judges 14:3 where Samson is made to say: `Her get for me....' As I left, Dr. Goodspeed was asked if he would recommend the translation for the general public He answered, `No, I'm afraid I could not do that. The grammar is regrettable. Be careful on the grammar. Be sure you have that right" (Cetnar, W.I. & J., Questions For Jehovah's Witnesses Who Love The Truth [Kunkletown, Pennsylvania: W.I. Cetnar, 1983], p. 64).

Dr. Goodspeed was, of course, not speaking here about the Greek (New Testament) Scriptures, but about the Hebrew (Old Testament) Scriptures, while his earlier, favorable comments related to the Greek Scriptures. However, as Robert Bowman notes in his book, Understanding Jehovah's Witnesses (Baker Books, 1991), there is some doubt as to the authenticity of Goodspeed's letter. The letter does not bear a written signature and appears to be a copy of the original, if such ever existed (to date, the Society has not produced a signed original). Second, though the letter was dated 1950, it was not used by the Society as an endorsement of the NWT until 1982. Third, the letter contains several very minor criticisms of the NWT, but none relating to the more controversial translations - which would seem odd, in that Goodspeed's own translation differed dramatically with the NWT in several key texts. Finally, Dr. Walter Martin, whom Bowman knew, reported that Goodspeed forthrightly criticized the NWT rendering of John 1:1 in a personal conversation in 1958. Thus, there is no sure evidence that Goodspeed actually endorsed the NWT; there is solid evidence that he refused to endorse the NWT Hebrews Scriptures, and suggestive circumstantial evidence that he did not approve of the NWT Christian Greek Scriptures, either.


S. G. Green "Then this Handbook adds some sentences to illustrate this general rule regarding an anarthrous predicate, such as, "thy word is truth," "the Word was God," "God is love": and next the Handbook says: "Had the article been employed with the predicate in the above case, the sentences would have read thus:..Thy Word is the Truth, and nothing else can be so described; the Word was the entire Godhead, and God and Love are identical, so that in fact Love is God." Such an explanation is, in itself, an unintended admission that "the Word" of John 1:1 is not the same god as the God with whom the Word is said to be. Hence, the omitting of the article in the predicate of the simple sentence is shown to be only a general rule, and not one that holds in every case. One such case where that general rule does not hold true is John 1:1. The definite article "the" was there omitted, but not according to that general rule; it was not omitted with the idea that it should be understood by the reader."

It is true that in all likelihood, John did not omit the article solely or even primarily to indicate that theos in John 1:1c was the predicate nominative, as opposed to the subject (so Harris, p. 61). Few scholars have ever argued that such was the case (click here for a grammatical analysis and summary of scholarship on John 1:1c).

The question, then, is what did John mean by the anarthrous theos? The overwhelming majority of scholars who've addressed the subject understand John to be emphasizing the qualities or character of the Logos, particularly given that the noun is not only anarthrous, but preverbal as well. The Watchtower, too, recognizes the qualitative aspects of theos in John 1:1c, though it differs from what most scholars mean by the term.

A larger issue, however, is the accusation that Green's analysis is "an unintended admission that 'the Word' is not the same god as the God." Such a statement indicates that the Watchtower really doesn't understand Green's comments at all. Green is demonstrating a rather elementary point of Greek grammar - that when two nouns are joined by a form of the verb 'to be,' if they both have the article, the clause may be termed a "convertible proposition." In a convertible proposition, the two nouns are equivalent. For example, "Jesus is the Son of God" is convertible - Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of God is Jesus. The two terms are exactly equivalent.

Green's point is that John 1:1c is not convertible - if it were (that is, if theos were articular), John would have been asserting an exact equivalence between the God and the Word. As Green puts it would mean that "the Word was the entire Godhead." All of God would have been the Word, and the Word would have been the totality of God (to the exclusion of the Father and the Spirit). To argue that this statement is a tacit admission that the Word is "not the same god as the God" is both a strawman (because it fails to address the Trinitarian view of the Word's relationship to the Godhead) and a circular argument. For only by assuming that the "Godhead" is one Person can one conclude that the Word cannot be the God He is with.

The Watchtower's confusion about what constitutes a convertible proposition may be seen in this same appendix, where we find on the one hand, "We agree with Dr. A. T. Robertson when he says: 'God and love are not convertible terms any more than God and Logos" (NWT, 1971, p. 1362); and on the other, "The proposition 'And the Word was a god' is a convertible one" (IBID, p. 1363). Theos ên ho logos either is or is not a convertible proposition; it cannot be both.


Murray J. Harris "From the point of view of grammar alone, qeoV hn`o logoV could be rendered 'the Word was a god'...But the theological context, viz., John's monotheism, makes this rendering of 1:1c impossible" (Harris, Jesus as God, p. 60). Harris's objection to the NWT rendering is not based on grammar, but on his theology.[/quote]

The "..." in the previous quote reads: "just as, for example, if only grammatical considerations were taken into account, umeiV ek tou patroV tou diabolou este (John 8:44) could mean 'you belong to the father of the devil'" (Harris, p. 60). Thus, Harris demonstrates that grammatical possibilities do not yield accurate translations. He goes on to say, "it would not be impossible, from the point of view of grammar alone, to translate 1:1c as 'God was the Word'" (Harris, p. 61). Anyone reading Harris' chapter on John 1:1 will see that he favors the traditional translation ("The Word was God") not merely on theological grounds (John's monotheism, by the way; not Harris'), but on strong grammatical and contextual grounds as well.

[box]
Herman Heinfetter “a God” - Herman Heinfetter, author of Rules for Ascertaining the Sense Conveyed in Ancient Greek Manuscripts, Objections to Bishop Middleton’s Doctrine of the Greek Article, and An Enquiry Respecting the Punctuation of Ancient Greek (in A Literal Translation of the Gospel According to St. John on Definite Rules of Translation, and an English Version of the Same, 6th ed. [London: Evan Evans, 1864]).

I have been unable to locate a copy of the cited work by Herman Heinfetter, nor any other work by this author. I have searched the library catalogs of Harvard Divinity School, Yale, St. Andrews, Dallas Theological Seminary, Talbot School of Theology, The Masters Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate Theological Union (which contains large holdings of non-orthodox scholarship), and the Claremont School of Theology. The only references I have been able to uncover on the Internet are from Jehovah's Witness websites (with one exception, which was merely a list of several hundred Bible translations). Thus, it does not appear that Heinfetter is anything like a recognized scholar in the field of Biblical Languages.

Regardless of Heinfetter's view of John 1:1c, he did not have the benefit of Colwell or Harner's studies, nor the subsequent scholarship that bears on the proper translation of John 1:1c. His opinion is interesting from an historical perspective, but is of little value in determining the proper translation of John 1:1c, beyond perhaps demonstrating that "a god" is not impossible grammatically.


A. N. Jannaris “a god” - A. N. Jannaris, Ph.D, author of An Historical Greek Grammar and Lecturer on Post-Classical and other Greek dialects at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (in ZNW 2 [1901], 24-25).

Jannaris does, indeed, suggest "a god" as the proper translation of theos in John 1:1c, but in doing so, he does not provide support for the NWT rendering. Jannaris argued that ho logos did not refer to the pre-incarnate Son, but rather "that well known oracular utterance which God made unto (pros) Himself and which having been instrumental (di' autou) in the creation, is naturally represented as a creative power, a creator, that is a god, - god and creator being two synonymous terms" (Jannaris, "Logos," pp. 20-21).


Benjamin Kedar

"In my linguistic research in connection with the Hebrew Bible and translation, I often refer to the English edition as what is known as the New World Translation. In doing so, I find my feeling repeatedly confirmed that this kind of work reflects an honest endeavor to achieve an understanding of the text that is as accurate as possible. Giving evidence of a broad command of the original language, it renders the original words into a second language understandably without deviating unnecessarily from the specific structure of the Hebrew....Every statement of language allows for a certain latitude in interpreting or translating. So the linguistic solution in any given case may be open to debate. But I have never discovered in the New World Translation any biased intent to read something into the text that it does not contain."

Benjamin Kedar received his PhD from Yale in 1969, but not in Hebrew. He is professor of Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. No doubt, Professor Kedar is knowledgeable about Hebrew, but he is not a recognized scholar in Biblical Languages.

In a form letter written to those asking for clarification of his apparent endorsement of the NWT, Professor Kedar writes:

"A translation is bound to be a compromise, and as such it's details are open to criticism; this applies to the NWT too. In the portion corresponding to the Hebrew Bible, however, I have never come upon an obviously erroneous rendition which would find it's explanation in a dogmatic bias."

It will be noted that Professor Kedar limits his comments to the Hebrew Bible. Few Trinitarians have complained about the Watchtower inserting its dogma into the Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, since none of the core orthodox doctrines that the Watchtower denies - Christ's deity; the existence of the soul; and hellfire - are explicitly discussed in the OT, it is not surprising that the NWT Hebrew Scriptures are relatively bias-free.

Professor Kedar, of course, says nothing of the relative merits of the NWT Christian Greek Scriptures.

Professor Kedar's preference for the NWT Hebrew Scriptures is not shared by other scholars. H. H. Rowley, an eminent Old Testament scholar from England, wrote regarding the first volume of the New World Translation Of The Hebrew Scriptures:

"The translation is marked by a wooden literalism which will only exasperate any intelligent reader - if such it finds - and instead of showing reverence for the Bible which the translators profess, it is an insult to the Word of God" (Rowley, H.H., "Jehovah's Witnesses' Translation of the Bible" The Expository Times 67:107, Jan. 1956).




The above information taken from HERE: (http://digilander.libero.it/domingo7/protestanti.htm)

There is no reason to believe that the NWT is an accurate translation of the manuscripts.

Barryrob, tell me why you believe the NWT is accurate

[barryrob]

Hi troutk13

It will take a little time to get my head around this lot, so please give me some time to deal with it please?

But if you have any comment in the mean time, not quite as long, I will deal with them to the best of my ability.

Thank you for your intrest.
Barryrob

[barryrob]

William Barclay:-
Ontological unity? NO!

Jehovah's Christian Witnesses are not the only Bible students who believe the early Church Fathers based their teaching on, and where considerably effected and guided by pagan Greek (and others) philosophical, ontological (Metaphysics) thinking as the following comment by the noted Biblical scholar William Barclay, who was a Trinitarian, shows:-

The Bible scholar William Barclay gives the following explanation of the ideas of the pagan Greek philosopher Plato that were used to interpret the gospels (mostly of John):-

"The Greeks had two great concepts.

(a) They had the concepts of the Logos. In Greek logos means two things-it means word and it means reason. The Jew was entirely familiar with the all-powerful word of God. "God said, 'Let there be light;' and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). The Greek was entirely familiar with the thought of reason. He looked at this world; he saw a magnificent and dependable order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity; the year kept its seasons in unvarying course; the stars and planets moved in their unfaltering path; nature had her unvarying laws. What produced this order? The Greeks answered unhesitatingly, The Logos, the mind of God, is responsible for the majestic order of the world. He went on, What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know? Again he answered unhesitatingly, the Logos, the mind of God. dwelling within man makes him a thinking rational being.

John seized on this. It was in this way that he thought of Jesus. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great guiding, controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like." John had discovered a new category in which the Greek might think of Jesus, a category in which Jesus was presented as nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.

(b) The had the conception of two worlds. The Greek always conceived of two worlds. The one was the world in which we live. It was a wonderful world in its way but a world of shadows and copies and unrealities. The other was the real world, in which the great realities, of which our earthly things are only poor, pale copies, stand for ever. To the Greek the unseen world was the real one; the seen world was only shadowy unreality.

Plato systematised this way of thinking in his doctrine of forms of ideas. He held that in the unseen world there was the shadowy copies of these eternal patterns. To put it simply, Plato held that somewhere there was a perfect pattern of a table of which all earthly tables are inadequate copies; somewhere there was a perfect pattern of the good and the beautiful of which all earthly goodness and earthly beauty are imperfect copies. And the great reality, the supreme ides, the pattern of all patterns and the form of all forms was God. The great problem was how to get into this world of reality, how to get out of our shadows into eternal truths."-William Barclay The Daily Study Bible Revised Edition The Gospel of John Vol. 1 pp.7-9


Please note above in the bold type, which starts "John seized" and ends "a man", as contained in thiscomment by William Barclay, he being a Trinitarian theologian, in which he clearly states that the idea of Jesus being the incarnate mind of God or "God acting in the form of a man" on earth is a parallel to the Greek thinking of Plato etc., but in saying that the Apostle John was influenced by that kind of thought is incorrect as John did not teach the trinity anywhere in his writings, as John was a Hebrew disciple of Jesus Christ and not of Plato, unlike Philo which is confirmed by the following by John Marsh form 'Saint John' The Penguin New Testament Commentaries page 100:-



"But it seems likely, John's is the last of the four gospels to be written, and if its date is somewhere towards the end of the first century A.D., the author could also draw upon an already developing tradition of Christian usage of the term 'logos'. . . . But we must not suppose that this analytical method is a bare reversal of John's synthetic labours. We must not imagine him as taking a Jewish idea here, a Rabbinic idea there, a Hellenistic and Stoic idea elsewhere, and then mixing them with some parts of a Christian tradition, and so arriving at his concept of the Logos. That would only be like supposing that Shakespeare wrote his plays simply by mixing medieval chronicle, classical story or historical incidents with a few contemporary ingredients and so produce his masterpieces.



As in the above Jehovah's Christian Witnesses do not agree with the idea that the Apostle John exploited Greek philosophical thinking when he was penning the Gospel named after him, he only use the Koine Greek language, the vernacular in his day, his theology was purely Hebrew and Monotheistic, it is the interpreting of his writing by and into Greek philosophical terms and ideas which is the theological mismatching of some of the so-called 'Church Fathers' and their followers that practised religious syncretism using Egypto-Greek triadic ideas. Also along the very same lines is the following comment of a further statement by E. Gibbon's from his 'THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE' by the Rev. H. H. Milman Vol. 2 page 221 where we can note a distinct contrast between the Greek philosophical or "the theology of Plato" with its triadic notion, including the Logos, which is in contrast to that which is in the Jewish mind as found in the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures (O.T.):-



"The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycaeum, if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of the Evangelists.20*"



*ftn. 20 "The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril. advers. Julian. l. viii. p.283.

But in the third and fourth centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology. A short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the word logos by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: "I came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a cloud; . . . I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep . . . The Creator created me from the beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail." (Eccles. xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. The latter book is clearly Alexandrian. - M.



We see from this that the Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which they did not make a real particular being separate from the Deity. . Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John's sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it wereinfused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it is used in his writings. - M." -'THE HISTORY OFTHE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE' EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ, with notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman Vol. 2 pages 621-2


THE TRINITY AS A PHILOSOPHY INSTEAD OF A THEOLOGY!


It has been said to others and myself regarding the trinity "that it is a mystery and not to be fully understood by humans." Is this a fact; that God wants to remain a "mystery" (in the modern sense) to his worshipers? In this work I hope to remove the so-called 'mystery' and show the reader what the Trinity is and is not. We can do no better than start with several intriguing quotes from various theologians and scholars which read thus:-


a) "Was the idea of the Trinity - that One God exists in three Persons and One Substance - influenced by pre-Christian traditions? It is well known that the New testament offers no such doctrine, and there is no evidence the Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as a member of the Trinity. The doctrine was developed during the first four Christian centuries, culminating in the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. . . . In Egypt the concept of trinity was of ancient origin, but it flourished especially in the second century AD and afterwards, when the mystery cult of Isis reached its acme of popularity in a Graeco-Egyptian framework which found adherents in many countries of the Roman empire. This religious amalgam exercised a potent influence on early Christian thinkers, particularly in Alexandria"


b) "There is no clear evidence that the apostles of Jesus entertained that doctrine. Nor does he give his claim to be "Christ" or his participation in the godhead any such prominence as on feels would have been done had he considered it a matter of prime significance."

c) "Professor Studer shows how early apocalyptic vision developed into sophisticated, philosophically orientated theology concerning the mystery of God, the world and humankind."

d) "Christian thought, working with data of the N EW T ESTAMENT AND USING Greek PHILOSOPHY AS ITS INSTRUMENT, CONSTRUCTED THE DOCTRINE OF Trinity IN UNITY."

e) "The Platonism and Stoic of the pagan philosophers of the Hellenistic Age was used by the early church Fathers of the Church as a welcome aid to the formulation of Christian doctrine ... "

f) "Those wishing to see Jesus as god rather than man could rely on the Gospel according to St John. For this, despite its Hellenism, had concentrated in mystical and allegorical fashion on the divine nature of Jesus, seeing him not as a man but as a personified idea pp.206, 207)."

g) "Now if, when it emerged, the Nicene dogma was inevitable, it was nonetheless new. . . . Equally, it marks a transition from things related to us as they are in themselves, from the relational concepts of God as supreme agent, Creator, Omnipotent Lord of all, to an ontological concept of the divine substance itself."

h) "It may be that the Platonic contribution in this field [Plaestinian-bred Christian religion] has already been absorbed, and digested by the Christian Fathers, but Plato is perenninial."

i) "Plato's Influence "Although Plato did not hold a dominant place in the philosophy of the Hellenistic Age, he came to the that position in the early centres of the Christian era. Patristic theology took shape largely in the framework of platonic philosophy. Not only Christian thought but also some Jewish (notably Philo) and later Islamic philosophy owed much to him. Plato's emphasis on nonmaterial reality, a deathless soul distinct from the body, the idea of a cosmic religion (beauty of the celestial order), and a just society has been enormously influential."


j) "The Apologists were in the direct line of decent of Christian tradition. With them began a process of accommodation, inevitable in the progress of the Church, between Christianity and the dominant philosophy, a process carried on with greater skill and knowledge by Alexandrian doctors of the third century and issuing finally in the fourth century in the comprehensive Faith of Nicaea and the Christianization of Hellenism rather that the "Hellenization of Christianity.""


One could well assume that these quotations came from the pages of the Watchtower magazine or the lips of one of Jehovah's Witness, but this would be a mistake as these quotes are from the following:-


a) From the dust cover of the book 'Triads and Trinity' by John Gwyn Griffiths BA, DD (Wales), MA (Liverpool), D.Phil., D.Litt. (Oxon,) is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Egyptology at the University of Wales, Swansea;
b) H.G. Wells' book 'The Outline of History' p.52, 6l;
c) The back cover of Basil Studer's book 'Trinity and Incarnation'
d) 'Christian Doctrine' by J.S. Whale p.41;
e) 'Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle' by Jason L. Saunders Ed p.12;
f) 'The Climax of Rome' by Michael Grant p.21l;
g) 'The Way to Nicea' by Bernard Lonergan p.136.
h) 'PLATO and the Christians' by Adam Fox Archdeacon of Westminster (1757) p.27
i) 'Background if Early Christianity' 2nd Ed. by Everett Ferguson p.315
j) 'The Greek Fathers' by James M. Campbell associate professor of Greek & Latin in the Catholic University America pp.23-24 and all being eminent scholars and or orthodox theologians.


In the last quote (j), it raises the question which we will consider herein, which is did Christianity Christianise Hellenism or was Christianity was Hellenized by Greek pagan thought rather then Christianity cleaning pagan Greek philosophy and making it expectable to God! The idea that ended as the 'Trinity' via the pagan philosophical notion of the "Logos" as a Pagan Greek philosophy is also expounded on by the 'Church Father' Tertullian in Apologeticus xxi, 10:-


"We have already said* that God devised the whole universe by Word. by Reason, by Might. Among your own philosophers, too, it is argued that Logos, that is Word and Reason, would seem to be the Artificer of the universe. This Logos Zeno defines as the maker who formed and ordered all ; he will have it that this Logos is called fate and God, and mind of Jove, and universal law. All this Cleanthes gathers up into Spirit and affirms it to pervade the universe.** We, too, to that Word, Reason and Power (by which we said God devised all things) would ascribe Spirit as its proper nature ; and in Spirit, giving utterance, we should find Word ; with Spirit, ordering and disposing all things, Reason ; and over Spirit, achieving all things, Power. This we have been taught, proceeds from God begotten in this proceeding from God, and therefore called "Son of God" and "God", because of unity of nature. ftns. *Ch. 17. **Compare Seneca, Natur. Quaest. ii, 45 ... also Virgil, Georgic, iv, 122-224."-Loeb Classical library p.106-7



In connection with this subject we must also consider Paul's words at 1 Corinthians 5:6

"Do YOU not know that a little leaven ferments the whole lump?"



The leaven in this instance is the use of Pagan Greek ideas -philosophy- used to interpretation of The Holy Scriptures.



What PHILOSOPHY meant to the ancient Greek WORLD


The following is a definition of what philosophy meant to the ancient Greek world and thus will give us an insight to on how the pagan theological and magical influences effected theological ideas and doctrines of today as today's theology was developed from and framed in those by gone times as "The philosophers of the ancient world were the spiritual masters of the [pagan] Inner Mysteries."-'The Jesus Mysteries' by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy p.3,4


"Although people in the Western World have philosophised for more 2500 years, the exact nature of philosophy is still of dispute. Philosophy began originally as a curious mixture of scientific, theological, magical, and ethical 'explanation' of the common and uncommon features of the world. The early Greek thinkers, such as Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and others, thought of philosophy as we now think of contemporary science. They assumed that through philosophical reflection the nature of the world would be revealed to them."-'PHILOSOPHY' by R.H. Popkin & A. Stroll pp.335-336

and

"We usually refer to the work of Greece's theologians with their own name for it, "philosophy." We have thereupon been lead to think this must be a different kind of intellectual activity than theology, to which theology perhaps may appeal for foundational purpose or against which theology must perhaps defend itself. But this is a historical illusion; Greek philosophy was the theology of the historically particular Olympian-Parmenidean religion, later with the wider Mediterranean cultic world."-'Systematic Theology' Vol.1 The Triune God by Robert W. Jenson p.9-10



further to the above



"Greek philosophy, which began as an attempt to understand the world without recourse to religious myth ended up as a rational theology which attempted to define in detail the relationship between God the soul, and the world. . . . . Greek philosophy was in no way indebted to Greek polytheism. it was rather the case that the religious consciousness of Greece was enhanced by her philosophers. This process is particularly clear in Plato and Aristotle. Plato wanted to refine religion, not reject it, and so he combined stringent criticism of the traditional stories about the gods with a reasoned presentation of the divine nature as totally honest and benevolent in word and deed. Aristotle's extraordinary achievement in theology was to deduce an elevated and monotheistic view of the deity from the nature of the physical world."-'An introduction to Greek philosophy' by J.V. Luce pp.12 and 13


To be brief and to the point, Greek philosophy is in fact the Hellenistic method of explaining their gods and theology which is demonstrated well in the following comment on Platonic thinking by Alcinous:-

"After a brief characterization of three Platonist principles, the material, the paradigmatic (or formal), and the efficient, A[lcinous] turns to a description of the formal cause, here named by him (as often in the doxographers, e.g. Aet. 1. 10. 308 Diels DG; Plut. QC 8. 2. 720b; Calc. in Tim. 307) in the singular, Idea. The adoption of this curious collective noun is presumably influenced by the presentation on the world of forms as a coherent whole, the 'Essential Living Being', in the Timaeus, but also by the Stoic concept of Logos, of which 'Idea' in the singular thus becomes a re-platonization-if we can take the Stoic doctrine to be itself influenced to some extent by an interpretation of Plato's doctrine in the Timaeus. This can be seen most clearly, I think, in the reported allegorization by M. Terentius Varro (who was in philosophy a disciple of Antiochus of Ascalon) of God, Idea, and Matter as Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno (ap. Aug. CD 7. 8.)."

The system of three principles is, of course, not the only such system traditional in Platonism. In fact, it is arguable that the system really favoured by Plato himself, and by Old Academy, was a two-principle system of monad and indefinite dyad derived from pythagoreanism, such as is attested for Plato by Aristotle, and even hinted at obscurely in the Timaeus at 48c . . .."-'ALCINOUS' The Handbook of Platonism p.93

So to apply Greek ideas as a carriage for Christian teachings is to mix Light with Darkness (Isaiah 5:20). For instance in the above if we add the pagan "monad" and "dyad" we arrive at the Triad (three principles together)! A concept central in the Trinity.




Ontologal Philosophy has NO place anywhere near the Bible as a tool to explain the Hebrew theology of Jesus Christ!
Sorry room did not permit much more so perhaps I may need to get back to you on some points?
Barryrob

[Trout]

Barryrob, you have no training in Biblical languages, but many who do, have condemned the NWT as not accurate.

Dr. J. R. Mantey (who is quoted on pages 1158-1159) of the Witnesses own Kingdom interlinear Translation): "A shocking mistranslation." "Obesolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger of Princeton (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature): "A frightful mistranslation." "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists."

Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski of Zurich, Switzerland: "This anarthrous (used without the article) construction does not mean what the indefinite article 'a' means in English. It is monstrous to translate the phrase 'the Word was a god.'"

Dr. Paul L. Kaufman of Portland, Oregon: "The Jehovah's Witnesses people evidence an abysmal ignorance of the basic tenets of Greek grammar in their mistranslation of John 1:1."

Dr. Charles L. Feinberg of La Mirada, California: "I can assure you that the rendering which the Jehovah's Witnesses give John 1:1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar."

Dr. James L. Boyer of Winona Lake, Indiana: "I have never heard of, or read of any Greek Scholar who would have agreed to the interpretation of this verse insisted upon by the Jehovah's Witnesses...I have never encountered one of them who had any knowledge of the Greek language."

Dr. Walter R. Martin (who does not teach Greek but has studied the language): "The translation...'a god' instead of 'God' is erroneous and unsupported by any good Greek scholarship, ancient or contemporary and is a translation rejected by all recongnized scholars of the Greek language may of whom are not even Christians, and cannot fairly be said to be biased in favor of the orthodox contention."

Dr. William Barclay of the University of Glasgow, Scotland: "The deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in their New testament translations. John 1:1 is translated: '...the Word was a god,' a translation which is grammatically impossible...It is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

Dr. F. F. Bruce of the University of Manchester, England: "Much is made by Arian amateur grammarians of the omission of the definite article with 'God' in the phrase 'And the Word was God.' Such an omission is common with nouns in a predicative construction...'a god' would be totally indefensible."

Dr. Ernest C. Colwell of the University of Chicago: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the berb...this statement cannot be regarded as strange in the prologue of the gospel which reaches its climax in the confession of Thomas. 'My Lord and my God.' - John 20:28"

Dr. J. Johnson of California State University, Long Beach: [b]"No justification whatsoever for translating THEOS EN HO LOGOS as 'the Word was a god.' There is no syntactical parallel to Acts 28:6 where there is a statement in indirect discourse; John 1:1 is direct....I am neither a Christian nor a trinitarian."

Dr. Eugene A. Nida, head of Translations Department, American Bible Society: "With regard to John 1:1, there is of course a complication simply because the New World Translation was apparently done by persons who did not take seriously the syntax of the Greek." [Responsible for the Good News Bible - The committee worked under him.]

Dr. B. F. Wescott (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation): "The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in IV.24. It is necessarily without the article...No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word...in the third clause 'the Word' is declared to be 'God' ans so included in the unity of the Godhead."

Dr. J. J. Griesbach (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Emphatic Diaglott): "So numerous and clear are the arguments and testimonies of Scriptures in favour of the true Deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the Divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrin can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-3, is so clear and so superior to all exception, that by no daring efforts of either commentators or critics can it be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth."

Barryrob, are we to simply ignore these eminent Greek scholars?

Barryrob, you have yet to deal with this information I posted.

Please tell me why you are ignoring the opinion of these Greek scholars.

[Trout]

William Barclay:-
Ontological unity? NO!

Jehovah's Christian Witnesses are not the only Bible students who believe the early Church Fathers based their teaching on, and where considerably effected and guided by pagan Greek (and others) philosophical, ontological (Metaphysics) thinking as the following comment by the noted Biblical scholar William Barclay, who was a Trinitarian, shows:-

The Bible scholar William Barclay gives the following explanation of the ideas of the pagan Greek philosopher Plato that were used to interpret the gospels (mostly of John):-

"The Greeks had two great concepts.

(a) They had the concepts of the Logos. In Greek logos means two things-it means word and it means reason. The Jew was entirely familiar with the all-powerful word of God. "God said, 'Let there be light;' and there was light" (Genesis 1:3). The Greek was entirely familiar with the thought of reason. He looked at this world; he saw a magnificent and dependable order. Night and day came with unfailing regularity; the year kept its seasons in unvarying course; the stars and planets moved in their unfaltering path; nature had her unvarying laws. What produced this order? The Greeks answered unhesitatingly, The Logos, the mind of God, is responsible for the majestic order of the world. He went on, What is it that gives man power to think, to reason and to know? Again he answered unhesitatingly, the Logos, the mind of God. dwelling within man makes him a thinking rational being.

John seized on this. It was in this way that he thought of Jesus. He said to the Greeks, "All your lives you have been fascinated by this great guiding, controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you see what the mind and thought of God are like." John had discovered a new category in which the Greek might think of Jesus, a category in which Jesus was presented as nothing less than God acting in the form of a man.

(b) The had the conception of two worlds. The Greek always conceived of two worlds. The one was the world in which we live. It was a wonderful world in its way but a world of shadows and copies and unrealities. The other was the real world, in which the great realities, of which our earthly things are only poor, pale copies, stand for ever. To the Greek the unseen world was the real one; the seen world was only shadowy unreality.

Plato systematised this way of thinking in his doctrine of forms of ideas. He held that in the unseen world there was the shadowy copies of these eternal patterns. To put it simply, Plato held that somewhere there was a perfect pattern of a table of which all earthly tables are inadequate copies; somewhere there was a perfect pattern of the good and the beautiful of which all earthly goodness and earthly beauty are imperfect copies. And the great reality, the supreme ides, the pattern of all patterns and the form of all forms was God. The great problem was how to get into this world of reality, how to get out of our shadows into eternal truths."-William Barclay The Daily Study Bible Revised Edition The Gospel of John Vol. 1 pp.7-9


Please note above in the bold type, which starts "John seized" and ends "a man", as contained in thiscomment by William Barclay, he being a Trinitarian theologian, in which he clearly states that the idea of Jesus being the incarnate mind of God or "God acting in the form of a man" on earth is a parallel to the Greek thinking of Plato etc., but in saying that the Apostle John was influenced by that kind of thought is incorrect as John did not teach the trinity anywhere in his writings, as John was a Hebrew disciple of Jesus Christ and not of Plato, unlike Philo which is confirmed by the following by John Marsh form 'Saint John' The Penguin New Testament Commentaries page 100:-



"But it seems likely, John's is the last of the four gospels to be written, and if its date is somewhere towards the end of the first century A.D., the author could also draw upon an already developing tradition of Christian usage of the term 'logos'. . . . But we must not suppose that this analytical method is a bare reversal of John's synthetic labours. We must not imagine him as taking a Jewish idea here, a Rabbinic idea there, a Hellenistic and Stoic idea elsewhere, and then mixing them with some parts of a Christian tradition, and so arriving at his concept of the Logos. That would only be like supposing that Shakespeare wrote his plays simply by mixing medieval chronicle, classical story or historical incidents with a few contemporary ingredients and so produce his masterpieces.



As in the above Jehovah's Christian Witnesses do not agree with the idea that the Apostle John exploited Greek philosophical thinking when he was penning the Gospel named after him, he only use the Koine Greek language, the vernacular in his day, his theology was purely Hebrew and Monotheistic, it is the interpreting of his writing by and into Greek philosophical terms and ideas which is the theological mismatching of some of the so-called 'Church Fathers' and their followers that practised religious syncretism using Egypto-Greek triadic ideas. Also along the very same lines is the following comment of a further statement by E. Gibbon's from his 'THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE' by the Rev. H. H. Milman Vol. 2 page 221 where we can note a distinct contrast between the Greek philosophical or "the theology of Plato" with its triadic notion, including the Logos, which is in contrast to that which is in the Jewish mind as found in the texts of the Hebrew Scriptures (O.T.):-



"The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycaeum, if the name and divine attributes of the Logos had not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of the Evangelists.20*"



*ftn. 20 "The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril. advers. Julian. l. viii. p.283.

But in the third and fourth centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology. A short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the word logos by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: "I came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a cloud; . . . I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep . . . The Creator created me from the beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail." (Eccles. xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. The latter book is clearly Alexandrian. - M.



We see from this that the Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which they did not make a real particular being separate from the Deity. . Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John's sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it wereinfused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it is used in his writings. - M." -'THE HISTORY OFTHE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE' EDWARD GIBBON, ESQ, with notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman Vol. 2 pages 621-2


THE TRINITY AS A PHILOSOPHY INSTEAD OF A THEOLOGY!


It has been said to others and myself regarding the trinity "that it is a mystery and not to be fully understood by humans." Is this a fact; that God wants to remain a "mystery" (in the modern sense) to his worshipers? In this work I hope to remove the so-called 'mystery' and show the reader what the Trinity is and is not. We can do no better than start with several intriguing quotes from various theologians and scholars which read thus:-


a) "Was the idea of the Trinity - that One God exists in three Persons and One Substance - influenced by pre-Christian traditions? It is well known that the New testament offers no such doctrine, and there is no evidence the Jesus of Nazareth regarded himself as a member of the Trinity. The doctrine was developed during the first four Christian centuries, culminating in the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. . . . In Egypt the concept of trinity was of ancient origin, but it flourished especially in the second century AD and afterwards, when the mystery cult of Isis reached its acme of popularity in a Graeco-Egyptian framework which found adherents in many countries of the Roman empire. This religious amalgam exercised a potent influence on early Christian thinkers, particularly in Alexandria"


b) "There is no clear evidence that the apostles of Jesus entertained that doctrine. Nor does he give his claim to be "Christ" or his participation in the godhead any such prominence as on feels would have been done had he considered it a matter of prime significance."

c) "Professor Studer shows how early apocalyptic vision developed into sophisticated, philosophically orientated theology concerning the mystery of God, the world and humankind."

d) "Christian thought, working with data of the N EW T ESTAMENT AND USING Greek PHILOSOPHY AS ITS INSTRUMENT, CONSTRUCTED THE DOCTRINE OF Trinity IN UNITY."

e) "The Platonism and Stoic of the pagan philosophers of the Hellenistic Age was used by the early church Fathers of the Church as a welcome aid to the formulation of Christian doctrine ... "

f) "Those wishing to see Jesus as god rather than man could rely on the Gospel according to St John. For this, despite its Hellenism, had concentrated in mystical and allegorical fashion on the divine nature of Jesus, seeing him not as a man but as a personified idea pp.206, 207)."

g) "Now if, when it emerged, the Nicene dogma was inevitable, it was nonetheless new. . . . Equally, it marks a transition from things related to us as they are in themselves, from the relational concepts of God as supreme agent, Creator, Omnipotent Lord of all, to an ontological concept of the divine substance itself."

h) "It may be that the Platonic contribution in this field [Plaestinian-bred Christian religion] has already been absorbed, and digested by the Christian Fathers, but Plato is perenninial."

i) "Plato's Influence "Although Plato did not hold a dominant place in the philosophy of the Hellenistic Age, he came to the that position in the early centres of the Christian era. Patristic theology took shape largely in the framework of platonic philosophy. Not only Christian thought but also some Jewish (notably Philo) and later Islamic philosophy owed much to him. Plato's emphasis on nonmaterial reality, a deathless soul distinct from the body, the idea of a cosmic religion (beauty of the celestial order), and a just society has been enormously influential."


j) "The Apologists were in the direct line of decent of Christian tradition. With them began a process of accommodation, inevitable in the progress of the Church, between Christianity and the dominant philosophy, a process carried on with greater skill and knowledge by Alexandrian doctors of the third century and issuing finally in the fourth century in the comprehensive Faith of Nicaea and the Christianization of Hellenism rather that the "Hellenization of Christianity.""


One could well assume that these quotations came from the pages of the Watchtower magazine or the lips of one of Jehovah's Witness, but this would be a mistake as these quotes are from the following:-


a) From the dust cover of the book 'Triads and Trinity' by John Gwyn Griffiths BA, DD (Wales), MA (Liverpool), D.Phil., D.Litt. (Oxon,) is Professor Emeritus of Classics and Egyptology at the University of Wales, Swansea;
b) H.G. Wells' book 'The Outline of History' p.52, 6l;
c) The back cover of Basil Studer's book 'Trinity and Incarnation'
d) 'Christian Doctrine' by J.S. Whale p.41;
e) 'Greek and Roman Philosophy after Aristotle' by Jason L. Saunders Ed p.12;
f) 'The Climax of Rome' by Michael Grant p.21l;
g) 'The Way to Nicea' by Bernard Lonergan p.136.
h) 'PLATO and the Christians' by Adam Fox Archdeacon of Westminster (1757) p.27
i) 'Background if Early Christianity' 2nd Ed. by Everett Ferguson p.315
j) 'The Greek Fathers' by James M. Campbell associate professor of Greek & Latin in the Catholic University America pp.23-24 and all being eminent scholars and or orthodox theologians.


In the last quote (j), it raises the question which we will consider herein, which is did Christianity Christianise Hellenism or was Christianity was Hellenized by Greek pagan thought rather then Christianity cleaning pagan Greek philosophy and making it expectable to God! The idea that ended as the 'Trinity' via the pagan philosophical notion of the "Logos" as a Pagan Greek philosophy is also expounded on by the 'Church Father' Tertullian in Apologeticus xxi, 10:-


"We have already said* that God devised the whole universe by Word. by Reason, by Might. Among your own philosophers, too, it is argued that Logos, that is Word and Reason, would seem to be the Artificer of the universe. This Logos Zeno defines as the maker who formed and ordered all ; he will have it that this Logos is called fate and God, and mind of Jove, and universal law. All this Cleanthes gathers up into Spirit and affirms it to pervade the universe.** We, too, to that Word, Reason and Power (by which we said God devised all things) would ascribe Spirit as its proper nature ; and in Spirit, giving utterance, we should find Word ; with Spirit, ordering and disposing all things, Reason ; and over Spirit, achieving all things, Power. This we have been taught, proceeds from God begotten in this proceeding from God, and therefore called "Son of God" and "God", because of unity of nature. ftns. *Ch. 17. **Compare Seneca, Natur. Quaest. ii, 45 ... also Virgil, Georgic, iv, 122-224."-Loeb Classical library p.106-7



In connection with this subject we must also consider Paul's words at 1 Corinthians 5:6

"Do YOU not know that a little leaven ferments the whole lump?"



The leaven in this instance is the use of Pagan Greek ideas -philosophy- used to interpretation of The Holy Scriptures.



What PHILOSOPHY meant to the ancient Greek WORLD


The following is a definition of what philosophy meant to the ancient Greek world and thus will give us an insight to on how the pagan theological and magical influences effected theological ideas and doctrines of today as today's theology was developed from and framed in those by gone times as "The philosophers of the ancient world were the spiritual masters of the [pagan] Inner Mysteries."-'The Jesus Mysteries' by Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy p.3,4


"Although people in the Western World have philosophised for more 2500 years, the exact nature of philosophy is still of dispute. Philosophy began originally as a curious mixture of scientific, theological, magical, and ethical 'explanation' of the common and uncommon features of the world. The early Greek thinkers, such as Thales, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, and others, thought of philosophy as we now think of contemporary science. They assumed that through philosophical reflection the nature of the world would be revealed to them."-'PHILOSOPHY' by R.H. Popkin & A. Stroll pp.335-336

and

"We usually refer to the work of Greece's theologians with their own name for it, "philosophy." We have thereupon been lead to think this must be a different kind of intellectual activity than theology, to which theology perhaps may appeal for foundational purpose or against which theology must perhaps defend itself. But this is a historical illusion; Greek philosophy was the theology of the historically particular Olympian-Parmenidean religion, later with the wider Mediterranean cultic world."-'Systematic Theology' Vol.1 The Triune God by Robert W. Jenson p.9-10



further to the above



"Greek philosophy, which began as an attempt to understand the world without recourse to religious myth ended up as a rational theology which attempted to define in detail the relationship between God the soul, and the world. . . . . Greek philosophy was in no way indebted to Greek polytheism. it was rather the case that the religious consciousness of Greece was enhanced by her philosophers. This process is particularly clear in Plato and Aristotle. Plato wanted to refine religion, not reject it, and so he combined stringent criticism of the traditional stories about the gods with a reasoned presentation of the divine nature as totally honest and benevolent in word and deed. Aristotle's extraordinary achievement in theology was to deduce an elevated and monotheistic view of the deity from the nature of the physical world."-'An introduction to Greek philosophy' by J.V. Luce pp.12 and 13


To be brief and to the point, Greek philosophy is in fact the Hellenistic method of explaining their gods and theology which is demonstrated well in the following comment on Platonic thinking by Alcinous:-

"After a brief characterization of three Platonist principles, the material, the paradigmatic (or formal), and the efficient, A[lcinous] turns to a description of the formal cause, here named by him (as often in the doxographers, e.g. Aet. 1. 10. 308 Diels DG; Plut. QC 8. 2. 720b; Calc. in Tim. 307) in the singular, Idea. The adoption of this curious collective noun is presumably influenced by the presentation on the world of forms as a coherent whole, the 'Essential Living Being', in the Timaeus, but also by the Stoic concept of Logos, of which 'Idea' in the singular thus becomes a re-platonization-if we can take the Stoic doctrine to be itself influenced to some extent by an interpretation of Plato's doctrine in the Timaeus. This can be seen most clearly, I think, in the reported allegorization by M. Terentius Varro (who was in philosophy a disciple of Antiochus of Ascalon) of God, Idea, and Matter as Jupiter, Minerva, and Juno (ap. Aug. CD 7. 8.)."

The system of three principles is, of course, not the only such system traditional in Platonism. In fact, it is arguable that the system really favoured by Plato himself, and by Old Academy, was a two-principle system of monad and indefinite dyad derived from pythagoreanism, such as is attested for Plato by Aristotle, and even hinted at obscurely in the Timaeus at 48c . . .."-'ALCINOUS' The Handbook of Platonism p.93

So to apply Greek ideas as a carriage for Christian teachings is to mix Light with Darkness (Isaiah 5:20). For instance in the above if we add the pagan "monad" and "dyad" we arrive at the Triad (three principles together)! A concept central in the Trinity.




Ontologal Philosophy has NO place anywhere near the Bible as a tool to explain the Hebrew theology of Jesus Christ!
Sorry room did not permit much more so perhaps I may need to get back to you on some points?
Barryrob


Barryrob, you aren't even reading my posts, William Barclay is a heretic, he is a universalist.

And we are talking about the accuracy of the NWT, we can't discuss doctrinal
issues until we can level the playing field regarding proper usage of scripture, please try to stay on topic.

[barryrob]

“a God” - Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156).

- from Greg Stafford's second reply to me on the Julius Mantey letter to the WTB&TS. I had asked Mr. Stafford for a list of scholars who unequivocally support the NWT rendering of John 1:1.





Carpenter is not regarded as authoritative by modern Biblical scholars. They do not cite the work quoted by Mr. Stafford, nor any other work by Carpenter.



Sorry what is the point of the above?

Barryrob

[barryrob]

The accuracy of any Bible version suerly depends upon the consecpts & ideas etc. of those doing the work that propduce the end product.
I do not see how the two can be seperated as they run side by side??
Barryrob

[barryrob]

[QUOTE=troutk13]Barryrob, you aren't even reading my posts, William Barclay is a heretic, he is a universalist.



That is as maybe, but the point is, the point he makes in vary valid as its the basic premise for the Trinity Philosophy and Logos Theology instead of messianic theology.


Barryrob

[Trout]

“a God” - Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156).

- from Greg Stafford's second reply to me on the Julius Mantey letter to the WTB&TS. I had asked Mr. Stafford for a list of scholars who unequivocally support the NWT rendering of John 1:1.





Carpenter is not regarded as authoritative by modern Biblical scholars. They do not cite the work quoted by Mr. Stafford, nor any other work by Carpenter.



Sorry what is the point of the above?

Barryrob


You cited Carpenter as a scholar in favor of the NWT being accurate, upon doing a little research I found that Carpenter doesn't seem to be a reliable witness to the accuracy of any translated text.


barryrob:
The accuracy of any Bible version suerly depends upon the consecpts & ideas etc. of those doing the work that propduce the end product.
I do not see how the two can be seperated as they run side by side??
Barryrob

In order to produce a work true to the original manuscripts, it is not necessary to bring theological bias to the translation.


barryrob:
That is as maybe, but the point is, the point he makes in vary valid as its the basic premise for the Trinity Philosophy and Logos Theology instead of messianic theology.

We are not yet talking about doctrine. I believe I've made a pretty good case that the NWT isn't a trustworthy translation of the bible, you have yet to address the points I've made or the scholars I've quoted.

Please do so.

[barryrob]

In order to produce a work true to the original manuscripts, it is not necessary to bring theological bias to the translation.



I do not see in all seriousness how some form of "bias" can be avoided:-

"All those who belong to a certain religious group will follow these tenets and the interpretations derived from or leading to them, whilst those who do not share the belief in the inspiration of these expounders will reject the tradition based on them. For this reason different religious communities, while revering the same sacred texts, follower their own different translations: the Roman Catholic version of the Bible must, of necessity, differ from that of other Christian communities in all those parts in which there are doctrinal disagreements between the different Churches.
Religious belief is therefore the corner-stone of biblical interpretation. ..."-'Principles and Problems of Biblical Translating' by W. Schwarz p.8


"Translators come to the biblical texts with their own theological beliefs, which inevitably influence how the choose to translate some words. There is no such thing as total objectivity here, …"-'The Word of God in English Criteria for Excellence in Bible Translation' by Leland Ryken p.125




e.g. The New World Translation is fully justified in rendering Colossians 2:9 to show that Christ has in him all the fullness, not of God himself, the Deity, the Godhead, but of the divine quality dwelling bodily, and this in behalf of the spiritual body of Christ, so that this body of Christ’s followers is possessed of a fullness by means of him: "It is in [Christ] that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily. And so you [Christians] are possessed of a fullness by means of him, who is the head of all government and authority."—Col. 2:9, 10.



It is also of interest to note that both Weymouth and An American Translation render the passage, "the fullness of God’s nature."



To get an objective view of the matter, in exploring questions such as these it is best to use the nonsectarian and nonreligious Hebrew-English and Greek-English dictionaries, instead of those that have been produced by some religious denomination.



Here in the Greek text the word is qeothtoV, Theotes in the Textus Receptus which is the Greek text used for the K.J.V.* and it is the same word in the B. F. Westcott and F. J. Hort's (1881) which is the text used for the N.W.T. Christian Greek Scriptures (N.T.). *K.J.V. renders it "Godhead."

Godhead The Greek word is theotes (only here in NT). It come from theos, "God." The preferable translation is "deity" (RSV, NASB, NIV). That is a simpler and more commonly used term than "Godhead." It means the essence of the divine nature."-Word Meanings in the New Testament by Ralph Earle p.355

Strong's "2320 qeothV theotes, theh-ot'-ace; from 2316; divinity (abstr.*):-godhead."

*Abstract adj. general, as opposed to particular or individual (the opposite of abstract is concrete - a red colour is an abstract notion, a red rose is a concrete notion; an abstract noun is the name of a quality apart from the thing, as redness). -n, summary : abridgement : essence. [L. abstractus, as if a quality common to a number of things were drawn from away from them and considered by itself.]-Chamber Twentieth Century Dictionary 1933 Ed. p.5



"Theotes (->Theiótes). This word, meaning "divinity," . . ."-Theological Dictionary of the N.T. p.330







Various Greek Lexicons render this Greek word 'Theotes' as "divinity" or "deity" or "godhead" so as this word is in the abstract , then it can be rendered correctly as any of the above; the rendering will be determined by the translators personal theology, whether non Trinitarian or Trinitarian.











If there is no theological bias in biblical translation why do we have Literal, Idiomatic, Dynamic, Paraphrased, Liberal, Free, Eclectic, renderings?

No I am sorry what you have said does not agree with the facts and the abundance of versions and translations available today, otherwise we would not be even having this interchange, is that not so?



So we need to see if we are on the same field?
Barryrob

[barryrob]

You cited Carpenter as a scholar in favor of the NWT being accurate, upon doing a little research I found that Carpenter doesn't seem to be a reliable witness to the accuracy of any translated text.


Would you please give me the Watchtower etc. reference so that I may see what he had to say for myself please?

Thank You
Barryrob

[barryrob]

William D. Chamberlain

The meaning of John 1:1

d. A qualitative force is often expressed by the absence of the article: en tois propsetais (Heb. 1:1), 'in the prophets,' calls attention to a particular group, while en uio (Heb. 1:2), 'in son,' calls attention to the rank of the Son as a 'spokesman' for God. The ARV in trying to bring out the force of this phrase translates it, 'in his Son,' italicizing 'his.'



The predicate of a sentence may be recognized by the absence of the article: theos en ho logos(Jn. 1:1), the Word was God; kai ho logos sarx egento (Jn. 1:14), 'And the Word became flesh'; esontai oi eschatoi protoi (Mt. 20 :16), 'the last shall be first.' The article with each of these predicate nouns would equate them and make them interchangeable, e. g., ho theos en ho logos would make God and the Word identical. The effect of this can be seen in ho theos agape estin (1 Jn. 4 :8), 'God is love.' As the sentence now stands 'love' describes a primary quality of God; the article he with agape would make God and love equivalents, e. g., God would possess no qualities not subsumed under love.

Summary
The primary function of the article is to make something definite. It may point out something new to the discussion, or something already mentioned.


"Theos en ho logos" is describing the quality of the Logos-Word in that he possessed divine or divinity as the only begotten son of God who was a spirit being like God but not identical to Jehovah God (An Exegetical Grammar Of The Greek New Testament, p. 57).





The following endorsements appear on the dust jacket of Chamberlain's Grammar:

BRUCE M. METZGER "as a comprehensive and helpful grammar written to enable the average minister to feel at home in the Greek New Testament."

NED B. STONEHOUSE "a convenient handbook for the student who is seeking to apply his knowledge of the fundamentals of Greek grammar in the exegetical study of the New Testament."

WILLIAM F. ARNDT "To all pastors and theological students who would like to review the chief grammatical facts pertaining to the Greek of the New Testament and who are looking for a somewhat new approach, we cordially recommend this book."

William D. Chamberlain, professor of New Testament language and literature at the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary.

___________

It would seem odd that a professor at a Presbyterian Seminary would understand John 1:1 in the same manner as the Watchtower, let alone have such a view endorsed by the likes of Metzger, Stonehouse, and Arndt.

In point of fact, Chamberlain is strictly orthodox in his theology, and so is his grammar. Chamberlain is not using "divine" or "spirit being" in the same sense Jehovah's Witnesses do. And, like Harris and others, he understands "Jehovah God" as equivalent to "God the Father" (see Harris, p. 47, n. 112). Thus, he is saying that the Word possessed divinity (the nature of the True God), but was not identical to God the Father.

Witnesses, then, may use Chamberlain's words to support their view, if they choose to pour their own meanings into them. However, Chamberlain's words as he intended them do not support the NWT, but rather uphold the traditional understanding of John 1:1.



So you are saying that what he says is not what he really means but he means something that is not what he says, so why then did he say it?

You understand that he says what he says means “Thus, he is saying that the Word possessed divinity (the nature of the True God), but was not identical to God the Father” well this is just what we believe, but then you say he does not really mean that which he says?

So now you are telling him what to say, as it does not agree with what you say, after even mentioning that he is accredited to say as he says with authority, they you deny what he says, thus denying his credentials you say he has, because he says not as you like!

Not acceptable reasoning to me!

Would it not be a lot easer for you just to tell him what to say?

Barryrob

[Trout]

Would you please give me the Watchtower etc. reference so that I may see what he had to say for myself please?

Thank You
Barryrob

You are the one who cited, in your post, this man as a character witness to the NWT, just go back through what you posted and find it.


Not acceptable reasoning to me!

Would it not be a lot easer for you just to tell him what to say?

Barryrob

Barryrob,

I'm re-posting these scholars regarding the NWT, you have cited scholars favoring the NWT, I found them to be less than trustworthy citations, and have posted reasons why, pleasse extend me the same courtesy and look at the scholars I am using to back up my point.


Dr. J. R. Mantey (who is quoted on pages 1158-1159) of the Witnesses own Kingdom interlinear Translation): "A shocking mistranslation." "Obesolete and incorrect." "It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 'The Word was a god.'"

Dr. Bruce M. Metzger of Princeton (Professor of New Testament Language and Literature): "A frightful mistranslation." "Erroneous" and "pernicious" "reprehensible" "If the Jehovah's Witnesses take this translation seriously, they are polytheists."

Dr. Samuel J. Mikolaski of Zurich, Switzerland: "This anarthrous (used without the article) construction does not mean what the indefinite article 'a' means in English. It is monstrous to translate the phrase 'the Word was a god.'"

Dr. Paul L. Kaufman of Portland, Oregon: "The Jehovah's Witnesses people evidence an abysmal ignorance of the basic tenets of Greek grammar in their mistranslation of John 1:1."

Dr. Charles L. Feinberg of La Mirada, California: "I can assure you that the rendering which the Jehovah's Witnesses give John 1:1 is not held by any reputable Greek scholar."

Dr. James L. Boyer of Winona Lake, Indiana: "I have never heard of, or read of any Greek Scholar who would have agreed to the interpretation of this verse insisted upon by the Jehovah's Witnesses...I have never encountered one of them who had any knowledge of the Greek language."

Dr. Walter R. Martin (who does not teach Greek but has studied the language): "The translation...'a god' instead of 'God' is erroneous and unsupported by any good Greek scholarship, ancient or contemporary and is a translation rejected by all recongnized scholars of the Greek language may of whom are not even Christians, and cannot fairly be said to be biased in favor of the orthodox contention."

Dr. William Barclay of the University of Glasgow, Scotland: "The deliberate distortion of truth by this sect is seen in their New testament translations. John 1:1 is translated: '...the Word was a god,' a translation which is grammatically impossible...It is abundantly clear that a sect which can translate the New Testament like that is intellectually dishonest."

Dr. F. F. Bruce of the University of Manchester, England: "Much is made by Arian amateur grammarians of the omission of the definite article with 'God' in the phrase 'And the Word was God.' Such an omission is common with nouns in a predicative construction...'a god' would be totally indefensible."

Dr. Ernest C. Colwell of the University of Chicago: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the berb...this statement cannot be regarded as strange in the prologue of the gospel which reaches its climax in the confession of Thomas. 'My Lord and my God.' - John 20:28"

Dr. J. Johnson of California State University, Long Beach: "No justification whatsoever for translating THEOS EN HO LOGOS as 'the Word was a god.' There is no syntactical parallel to Acts 28:6 where there is a statement in indirect discourse; John 1:1 is direct....I am neither a Christian nor a trinitarian."

Dr. Eugene A. Nida, head of Translations Department, American Bible Society: "With regard to John 1:1, there is of course a complication simply because the New World Translation was apparently done by persons who did not take seriously the syntax of the Greek." [Responsible for the Good News Bible - The committee worked under him.]

Dr. B. F. Wescott (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation): "The predicate (God) stands emphatically first, as in IV.24. It is necessarily without the article...No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word...in the third clause 'the Word' is declared to be 'God' ans so included in the unity of the Godhead."

Dr. J. J. Griesbach (whose Greek text - not the English part - is used in the Emphatic Diaglott): "So numerous and clear are the arguments and testimonies of Scriptures in favour of the true Deity of Christ, that I can hardly imagine how, upon the admission of the Divine authority of Scripture, and with regard to fair rules of interpretation, this doctrin can by any man be called in doubt. Especially the passage, John 1:1-3, is so clear and so superior to all exception, that by no daring efforts of either commentators or critics can it be snatched out of the hands of the defenders of the truth."

[b]Barryrob, are we to simply ignore these eminent Greek scholars?

I'm having a difficult time communicating with you barryrob, the original issue of this thread is whether or not the NWT is an accurate translation, thus far you have only varified my suspicions, there are no reasons to think that the NWT should be trusted, unless you can come up with some reasons as to why.

[barryrob]

That is no shock as all you are looking at is what others have to say about the NWT instead of looking at The NWT itself, so until that happens all we will do is swop other peoples ideas which is not the way to go to make any head way.

It the Word that needs consideration.


Barryrob

[Trout]

That is no shock as all you are looking at is what others have to say about the NWT instead of looking at The NWT itself, so until that happens all we will do is swop other peoples ideas which is not the way to go to make any head way.

It the Word that needs consideration.


Barryrob

Barryrob,

I, like you, am not a Biblical language scholar, therefore in order to make an informed decision as to the trustworthiness of the NWT we'll have to look to others who are skilled in translating Biblical languages.

I have supplied a list of trustworthy scholars who have condemned the NWT as not accurate.

You supplied a list of scholars who have affirmed the trustworthiness of the NWT.

Upon reviewing the quotes and people you used to bolster your claim, I have found them, and their quotes to be unreliable sources in affirming the truthfulness of your claim.

The scholars and quotes I have used have gone unchallenged by you, leading me to believe that they are in fact trustworthy in their assessment of the NWT. Declaring that it is not an accurate translation of the manuscripts.

Please explain to me, since the references you used don't seem to be trustworthy, why you believe the NWT to be accurate.

[barryrob]

I can say the same thing to you but from my viewpoint, that is why it is the NWT that needs to be examined. As I told you I do not deligate that to anyone, but you seem to. That is somthing I will not do!

[Trout]

I can say the same thing to you but from my viewpoint,

No you can't say that, I have shown that the scholars and quotes you used aren't trustworthy.

You have not shown my references to be untrustworthy.


that is why it is the NWT that needs to be examined.

Are you a Biblical language scholar?


Barryrob
As I told you I do not deligate that to anyone, but you seem to. That is somthing I will not do!

I delegate my dental work, my medical work, my veterinary work, most of my auto mechanical work and my electrical work, mainly because I don't have the tools and skills to perform those trades.

I am not a Biblical language scholar, therefore after much study and sound scholarship, I have demonstrated that the NWT isn't trustworthy and I've done it, not simply by my own un-educated opinion, but rather I've quoted sound scholars who have issued declarations that the NWT isn't trustworthy.

[barryrob]

No you can't say that, I have shown that the scholars and quotes you used aren't trustworthy.

You have not shown my references to be untrustworthy.



Are you a Biblical language scholar?



I delegate my dental work, my medical work, my veterinary work, most of my auto mechanical work and my electrical work, mainly because I don't have the tools and skills to perform those trades.

I am not a Biblical language scholar, therefore after much study and sound scholarship, I have demonstrated that the NWT isn't trustworthy and I've done it, not simply by my own un-educated opinion, but rather I've quoted sound scholars who have issued declarations that the NWT isn't trustworthy.


You have "demonstrated" nothing, all you have done is shown me quotes from others, that is not "demonstrated," that is in the ranks letting other make up ones mind for you or by connection me, to me that is NOT expectable as evidence for proving The Text of The WNT is wrong. Is that not just parroting what others say? You have used on textual example etc., as one scholar said there in a lot of talk about the Bible without actually going to the Bible itself. This is what I do and I believe that God has the power to help anyone see what is true and what is not in his Word and not just by what others say about it. As Paul said:-



Romans 12:2 … that YOU may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.



Barryrob

[Trout]

You have "demonstrated" nothing, all you have done is shown me quotes from others, that is not "demonstrated," that is in the ranks letting other make up ones mind for you or by connection me, to me that is NOT expectable as evidence for proving The Text of The WNT is wrong.

OK, what evidence would you accept in proving the NWT to be untrustworthy?


barryrob:
Is that not just parroting what others say? You have used on textual example etc., as one scholar said there in a lot of talk about the Bible without actually going to the Bible itself.

So quoting the Bible is "Parroting what others say" ?


barryrob:
This is what I do and I believe that God has the power to help anyone see what is true and what is not in his Word and not just by what others say about it. As Paul said:-

God expects us to use all the available tools, including the scholarly opinion of other Christians.

Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is God's word?

[barryrob]

OK, what evidence would you accept in proving the NWT to be untrustworthy?



AA So quoting the Bible is "Parroting what others say" ?


1 God expects us to use all the available tools, including the scholarly opinion of other Christians.

2 Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is God's word?



AA Yes if not totely examined in depth the whys and why nots of what they say against what the others scholors say in favor of the NWT, alopng with ones own research!


1 I can agree with that, but ourselves!

e.g. JESUS IS FORETOLD AS THE COMING ONE, AS GOD'S SPOKESMAN,
AS MOSES WAS, fulfilled in John 1:1-2



Deuteronomy 18:15-19 "A prophet from your own midst, from your brothers, like me, is what Jehovah* your God will raise up for you—to him YOU people should listen— in response to all that you asked of Jehovah* your God in Ho'reb on the day of the congregation, saying, ‘Do not let me hear again the voice of Jehovah* my God, and this great fire do not let me see anymore, that I may not die.’ At that Jehovah* said to me, ‘They have done well in speaking what they did. A prophet *I shall raise up for them from the midst of their brothers, like you; and *I shall indeed put my words** in his mouth**, and he will certainly speak to them all that I shall command him. And it must occur that the man who will not listen to my words** that he will speak in my *name, *I shall myself require an account from him."

**Hence Jesus called "the Word"

"God" or "a god"?



The following are various comments from theologians and scholars on the Greek grammar pertaining to the above verse from the Gospel of John.



1) The LINGUISTIC KEY TO THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT by Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers on page 217 published by Zondervan States the following on the Greek grammar of John 1:1:-

"qeoV God. The word is with out the article and is the predicate emphasising quality, "the word had the same nature as God" (s. Philip B, Harner, "Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns," J[ournal of] B L[iterature], 92 [March 1973], 75-78."



2) 'A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek N.T.' by Max Zerwick S.J. - Mary Grosvenor, Editrice Pontifico Istituto Biblico Roma 1996 on page 285 states:-

"qeoV, "the Word was divine", pred. wt art., insisting on the nature of the Word § 175."



3) 'Those Incredible Christians' by Hugh J. Schonfield on page 247, and in his 'The Original New Testament on page 479 he reproduces John 1:1 as follows:-

"In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. So the Word was Divine."



4)Earnest William Barnes Sc.D. Camb., Hon. D.D. Aber. and Edin., Hon. LL.D. Glas, F.R.S. Bishop of Birmingham in his book 'The Rise of Christianity' page 94-95:-

"The gospel opens with sentences familiar to, and beloved by every Christian. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. More accurately, as the definite article is absent from the Greek, the last phrase should read "and the Word was divine." The Word was with God and partook of His nature [i]without being identical with Him."



5) Corresponding with the theology of the foregoing comments of various theologians is this comment of Origin's understanding of Jesus Christ in relationship to Jehovah form the book 'Christian Fathers' by Maurice Wiles page 36:-

"The divine unity is preserved by firmly subordinating the Son to the Father; he is "god" and not "the god", as Origen puts it; "god" and not "God", as we may more freely translate him. The declaration of Jesus that "my Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) is true, say Origen, in every respect of the Son's being in relation to the Father."




Now many said/say here -John 1:1- that JW's are totaly wrong, then I find the above (just a few examples) which seems to show that they are Not. So I must then make up my own mind in WHAT OTHER THINGS THE REST OF THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT JESUS. Not just on one verse, as you would agree, is that not so?



2 NO.

Barryrob

[Trout]

trout:
God expects us to use all the available tools, including the scholarly opinion of other Christians.

barryrob:
1 I can agree with that, but ourselves!

How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?


barryrob:
Now many said/say here -John 1:1- that JW's are totaly wrong, then I find the above (just a few examples) which seems to show that they are Not.

Have you checked their credentials?

Have you looked into their background?

And not one person in your last grouping of quotes said that the translation should read the way the NWT does.


barryrob:
So I must then make up my own mind in WHAT OTHER THINGS THE REST OF THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT JESUS.

First you need to determine if the translation you are reading is accurate.


barryrob:
Not just on one verse, as you would agree, is that not so?

We are trying to establish the validity of the NWT, we can't go into any of these other issues until we have come to grips with that.


trout:
Do you believe that the Book of Mormon is God's word?
barryrob:
2 NO.


Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

[barryrob]

C. H. Dodd Professor C. H. Dodd, director of the New English Bible project, comments on this approach: "A possible translation. . . would be, ‘The Word was a god’. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted."* However, The New English Bible does not render the verse that way. Rather, John 1:1 in that version reads: "When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was."** Why did the translation committee not choose the simpler rendering? Professor Dodd answers: "The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought***, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole."****— Technical Papers for the Bible Translator, Volume 28, January 1977




*“A possible translation. . . would be, ‘The Word was a god’. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted."”


Interesting comment as the NWT say of itself:-





Rbi8 p. 7 Introduction

Paraphrases of the Scriptures are not offered. Rather, an effort has been made to give as literal a translation as possible where the modern-English idiom allows and where a literal rendition does not, by any awkwardness, hide the thought. In that way the desire of those who are scrupulous for getting an almost word-for-word statement of the original is met. It is realized that even such a seemingly insignificant matter as the use or omission of a comma or of a definite or an indefinite article may at times alter the correct sense of the original passage.



WT 1998 2/1 p. 32 “It Is the Best Interlinear New Testament Available”

The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures is published by Jehovah’s Witnesses to help lovers of God’s Word get acquainted with the original Greek text of the Bible. It contains The New Testament in the Original Greek on the left-hand side of the page (compiled by B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort). A literal word-for-word English translation is found under the lines of Greek text. In the narrow right-hand column is the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, which allows you to compare the interlinear translation with a modern English translation of the Bible.



**”However, The New English Bible does not render the verse that way. Rather, John 1:1 in that version reads: "When all things began, the Word already was. The Word dwelt with God, and what God was, the Word was."”



it-2 pp. 1202-1203 Word, The

These renderings would support the fact that Jesus, being the Son of God and the one used by God in creating all other things (Col 1:15-20), is indeed a “god,” a mighty one, and has the quality of mightiness, but is not the Almighty God. Other translations reflect this view. The New English Bible says: “And what God was, the Word was.” The Greek word translated “Word” is Lo´gos; and so Moffatt’s translation reads: “The Logos was divine.” The American Translation reads: “The Word was divine.” Other readings, by German translators, follow. By Böhmer: “It was tightly bound up with God, yes, itself of divine being.” By Stage: “The Word was itself of divine being.” By Menge: “And God (= of divine being) the Word was.” And by Thimme: “And God of a sort the Word was.” All these renderings highlight the quality of the Word, not his identity with his Father, the Almighty God. Being the Son of Jehovah God, he would have the divine quality, for divine means “godlike.”—Col 2:9; compare 2Pe 1:4, where “divine nature” is promised to Christ’s joint heirs.



WT 1988 7/15 p. 6 Jesus—Who Is He?

In fact, this is what the Bible teaches. In his prehuman existence, Jesus was “a god,” or divine one, but not the God, the almighty God Jehovah.—John 1:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16.



WT 1986 12/1 p. 6 Religious Liberty Under Attack in Greece

In fact, no one can become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses without accepting Jesus as the divine Son of God, who came down from heaven, was impaled and resurrected, and who returned to heaven.



Jehovah is “divine,” Jesus is “divine” just a the NEB says an we teach! So it seems that to this point the NWT has some support.



THAN!

***”"The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole."”



NOW HERE IS THE REAL PROBLEM:-

“current of Johannine thought” IS TRINATERIAN WE ARE NOT!

It would seem that the real reason is that we render John 1:1 in a way that gives no support for the Pagan Egyptian/Greek Religo-Philosphal dogma that "The Word" (Logos (Jesus/Son)) and God (Father/Jehovah) are the same person or substsnce etc. etc..

So once again it is the Trinity that is the REAL issue here which we reject on Scriptual grounds.


****"indeed of Christian thought as a whole" we are not part of and do not want to be part of that "whole" as it is prepaired to except non scriptual teachings of which the Trinity is just one! We are followers of Christ not the Church.


Barryrob

[Trout]

How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

The scholar in your last post, C. H. Dodd, rejected the NWT translation of John 1:1, you are using his statement out of context.

Here's his entire statement:

"If the translation were a matter of substituting words, a possible translation would be, ‘The Word was a god.’ As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted, and to pagan Greeks who heard early Christian language, Theos en o Logos, might have seemed a perfectly sensible statement. The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole" (The Bible Translator, Vol. 28, No. 1, Jan. 1977).


Dodd doesn't say "a god" is an "acceptable" translation. He says it can't be faulted as a "literal" translation, big difference. Translating a manuscript isn't simply trading one word for another.

[barryrob]

How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

The scholar in your last post, C. H. Dodd, rejected the NWT translation of John 1:1, you are using his statement out of context.

Here's his entire statement:




"If the translation were a matter of substituting words, a possible translation would be, ‘The Word was a god.’ As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted, and to pagan Greeks who heard early Christian language, Theos en o Logos, might have seemed a perfectly sensible statement. The reason why it is unacceptable is that it runs counter to the current of Johannine thought, and indeed of Christian thought as a whole" (The Bible Translator, Vol. 28, No. 1, Jan. 1977).


Dodd doesn't say "a god" is an "acceptable" translation. He says it can't be faulted as a "literal" translation, big difference. Translating a manuscript isn't simply trading one word for another.The NWT is a literial translation:-

Rbi8 p. 7 NWT Introduction

Paraphrases of the Scriptures are not offered. Rather, an effort has been made to give as literal a translation as possible where the modern-English idiom allows and where a literal rendition does not, by any awkwardness, hide the thought. In that way the desire of those who are scrupulous for getting an almost word-for-word statement of the original is met. It is realized that even such a seemingly insignificant matter as the use or omission of a comma or of a definite or an indefinite article may at times alter the correct sense of the original passage.





So we Literally do as what he says, "cannot be faulted" and we are still wrong!?



It does not strike me that our position is not wrong if it literary "cannot be faulted."




Or are you saying the now that when we do what is right it is wrong?


As I said it is not a translation issue here it is a trinity issue here, i.e. if you think the trinity in true you will render it "was God" if you do not beleive in the trinity or the like you will render it " was a god/divine" or the like as many others have done:-





VARIOUS OTHER RENDERINGS OF JOHN 1:1 TAKEN OF THE W.W.W.








See http://hector3000.future.easyspace.com/wisdom.htm









Interlineary Word for Word English Translation-Emphatic Diaglott, "In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word."

Edward Harwood, H KAINH DIAQHKH. The New Testament, collated with the most approved manuscripts; with select notes in English, critical and explanatory, and references to those authors who have best illustrated the sacred writings. To which are added, a Catalogue of the principal Editions of the Greek Testament; and a List of the most esteemed Commentators and critics. London, 1776, 2 vols; 2nd ed. 1784, 2 vols. 1768, "and was himself a divine person"

Newcome, 1808, "and the word was a god"

Crellius,as quoted in The New Testament in an Improved Version "the Word was God's"

La Bible du Centenaire, L’Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel,1928: "and the Word was a divine being."

John Samuel Thompson, The Montessoran; or The Gospel History According to the Four Evangelists, Baltimore; published by the translator, 1829, "the Logos was a god

Goodspeed's An American Translation, 1939, "the Word was divine

Revised Version-Improved and Corrected, "the word was a god."

Prof. Felix Just, S.J. - Loyola Marymount University, "and god[-ly/-like] was the Word."

C.C. Torrey, The Four Gospels, Second Edition, 1947, "the Word was god

New English Bible, 1961, "what God was,the Word was"

Moffatt's The Bible, 1972, "the Logos was divine"

International English Bible-Extreme New Testament, 2001, "the Word was God*[ftn. or Deity, Divine, which is a better translation, because the Greek definite article is not present before this Greek word]

Reijnier Rooleeuw, M.D. -The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, translated from the Greek, 1694, "and the Word was a god"

Simple English Bible, "and the Message was Deity"

Hermann Heinfetter, A Literal Translation of the New Testament,1863, [A]s a god the Command was"

Abner Kneeland-The New Testament in Greek and English, 1822, "The Word was a God"

Robert Young, LL.D. (Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.], 54). 1885, "[A]nd a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word"

Belsham N.T. 1809 "the Word was a god"

Leicester Ambrose, The Final Theology, Volume 1, New York, New York; M.B. Sawyer and Company, 1879, "And the logos was a god"

Charles A.L. Totten, The Gospel of History, 1900, "the Word was Deistic [=The Word was Godly]

J.N. Jannaris, Zeitschrift fur die Newtestameutlich Wissencraft, (German periodical) 1901, [A]nd was a god"

International Bible Translators N.T. 1981 "In the beginning there was the Message. The Message was with God. The Message was deity."

Samuel Clarke, M.A., D.D., rector of St. James, Westminster, A Paraphrase on the Gospel of John, London "[A] Divine Person."

Joseph Priestley, LL.D., F.R.S. (in A Familiar Illustration of Certain Passages of Scripture Relating to The Power of Man to do the Will of God, Original Sin, Election and Reprobation, The Divinity of Christ; And, Atonement for Sin by the Death of Christ [Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1794], 37). "a God"

Lant Carpenter, LL.D (in Unitarianism in the Gospels [London: C. Stower, 1809], 156). "a God"

Andrews Norton, D.D. (in A Statement of Reasons For Not Believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians [Cambridge: Brown, Shattuck, and Company, 1833], 74). "a god"

Paul Wernle, Professor Extraordinary of Modern Church History at the University of Basil (in The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 1, The Rise of Religion [1903], 16). "a God" "At the beginning of Creation, there dwelt with God a mighty spirit, the Marshal, who produced all things in their order."

21st Century NT Free "and the [Marshal] [Word] was a god." 21st Century Literal

George William Horner, The Coptic Version of the New Testament, 1911, [A]nd (a) God was the word"

Ernest Findlay Scott, The Literature of the New Testament, New York, Columbia University Press, 1932, "[A]nd the Word was of divine nature"

James L. Tomanec, The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed, 1958, [T]he Word was a God"

Philip Harner, JBL, Vol. 92, 1974, "The Word had the same nature as God"

Maximilian Zerwich S.J./Mary Grosvenor, 1974, "The Word was divine"

Siegfried Schulz, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1975, "And a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word"

Translator's NT, 1973, "The Word was with God and shared his nature ...with footnote, "There is a distinction in the Greek here between 'with God' and 'God.' In the forst instance, the article is used and this makes the reference specific. In the second instance there is not article, and it is difficult to believe that the omission is not significant. In effect it gives an adjectival quality to the second use of Theos (God) so that the phrae means 'The Word was divine'."

William Barclay's The New Testament, 1976, "the nature of the Word was the same as the nature of God"

Johannes Schneider, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1978, "and godlike sort was the Logos

Schonfield's The Original New Testament, 1985, "the Word was divine

Revised English Bible, 1989, "what God was, the Word was

Scholar's Version-The Five Gospels, 1993, "The Divine word and wisdom was there with God, and it was what God was

J. Madsen, New Testament A Rendering , 1994, "the Word was a divine Being"

Jurgen Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1979, "a God/god was the Logos/logos"

Curt Stage, The New Testament, 1907, "The Word/word was itself a divine Being/being."

Bohmer, 1910, "It was strongly linked to God, yes itself divine Being/being"

Das Neue Testament, by Ludwig Thimme, 1919, "God of Kind/kind was the Word/word"

Baumgarten et al, 1920, "God (of Kind/kind) was the Logos/logos"

Holzmann, 1926, "ein Gott war der Gedanke" [a God/god was the Thought/thought]

Friedriche Rittelmeyer, 1938, "itself a God/god was the Word/word"

Lyder Brun (Norw. professor of NT theology), 1945, "the Word was of divine kind"

Fredrich Pfaefflin, The New Testament, 1949, "was of divine Kind/kind"

Albrecht, 1957, "godlike Being/being had the Word/word"

Smit, 1960, "the word of the world was a divine being"

Menge, 1961, "God(=godlike Being/being) was the Word/word"

Haenchen, 1980, "God (of Kind/kind) was the Logos/logos" [as mentioned in William Loader's The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, p. 155 cf. p.260]

Die Bibel in heutigem Deutsch, 1982, "He was with God and in all like God"

Haenchen (tr. By R. Funk), 1984, "divine (of the category divinity)was the Logos"

Johannes Schulz, 1987, "a God/god (or: God/god of Kind/kind) was the Word/word." [As mentioned in William Loader's The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, p. 155 cf. p.260]

William Temple, Archbishop of York, Readings in St. John's Gospel, London, Macmillan & Co.,1933, "And the Word was divine."

John Crellius, Latin form of German, The 2 Books of John Crellius Fancus, Touching One God the Father, 1631, "The Word of Speech was a God"

Greek Orthodox /Arabic Calendar, incorporating portions of the 4 Gospels, Greek Orthodox Patriarchy or Beirut, May, 1983, "the word was with Allah[God] and the word was a god"

Ervin Edward Stringfellow (Prof. of NT Language and Literature/Drake University, 1943, "And the Word was Divine"

Robert Harvey, D.D., Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Westminster College, Cambridge, in The Historic Jesus in the New Testament, London, Student Movement Christian Press1931 "and the Logos was divine (a divine being)"

Jesuit John L. McKenzie, 1965, wrote in his Dictionary of the Bible: "Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated . . . 'the word was a divine being.'

Dymond, E.C. New Testament, 1962 (original manuscript) "In the beginning was the creative purpose of God. It was with God and was fully expressive of God [just as wisdom was with God before creation]."

Buzzard/Hunting "In the beginning of God’s creative effort, even before he created the heavenly bodies and the earth, the mental power to reason logically already existed, and the Wisdom produced by it was known only to God, for the Wisdom was God’s Wisdom" (Pro. 8:22-30)

Barclay, W. The Daily Study Bible- The Gospel of John vol.1 "III. [Revised Edition ISBN 0-664-21304-9: Finally John says that "The Word was God". There is no doubt that this is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which english speaks. When the greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The greek for God is ‘theos’, and the definite article is ‘ho’. When greek speaks about God it does not simply say ‘theos’; it says ‘ho theos’. Now, when greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective; it describes the character, the quality of the person. John did not say that the Word was ‘ho theos’; that would have been to say that the Word was identical with God; he says that the Word was ‘theos’- without the definite article- which means that the Word was, as we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said ‘The Word was God’ he was not saying that Jesus is identical with God, he was saying that Jesus is so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in Jesus we perfectly see what God is like"


Then you go to see how this fit in with what Jesus said about himself and what others said about him in the Bible and see which fits Biblical Theology NOT Church Paganised Theology.



I will get to the other points later.


Once again Thanks for you time


Barryrob

[barryrob]

A MacLean Gilmour "The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed - a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek" ("The Use and Abuse of the Book of Revelation," Andover Newton Quarterly, September 1966).

B "In 1950 the Jehovah's Witnesses published their New World Translation Of The New Testament, and the preparation of the New World Old Testament translation is now far advanced. The New Testament translation was made by a committee whose membership has never been revealed -a committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek and that made the Westcott and Hort Greek text basic to their translation. It is clear that doctrinal considerations influenced many turns of phrase, but the work is no crack-pot or pseudo-historical fraud" ("The Use and Abuse of the Book of Revelation," Andover Newton Quarterly, September 1966).

C Aside from the negative portrayal of "doctrinal considerations," Mr. Gilmour made several factual errors in his comments about the NWT, indicating that he may not have been particularly familiar with the work he was reviewing (for more information, see Ian Croft's "The New World Translation and its Critics").




B & C are just comments by somebody that obviously does just does not like our non Trinitarian theology about A who says they he can see skill involved in the production of the NWT. So the comments about the “turns of phrase” is to be totally expected, but the phrase committee that possessed an unusual competence in Greek” undermines your comment that the NWT is not a scholarly rendering of the Holy Texts.



Also C contains asumptions that can be disregarded as this is just what they are!



Barryrob

Edgar J. Goodspeed "I am interested in the mission work of your people, and in its world wide scope, and much pleased with the free, frank, and vigorous translation. It exhibits a vast array of sound serious learning, as I can testify."

Covered in a past pots.
Best Regards
Barryrob

[barryrob]

As per campus decorum, please do not make posts back-to-back. If you must make additional comments, use the edit feature

[Trout]

Barryrob,

I know you'd like to direct this discussion somewhere else, but will you please answer my questions.

1) How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

2) What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

3) Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

Please answer in your own words.

[barryrob]

Barryrob,

I know you'd like to direct this discussion somewhere else, but will you please answer my questions.

1) How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

2) What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

3) Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

Please answer in your own words.


1 I first look to the Bible if anyone makes a point about this or that. I examine what they have to say (using varioue Bibles and study tools etc.) then see if what is said squares or not with the teachings of Jesus.


2 The teachings of Jesus.


3 The following from the BOM and other things they teach which is not in harmony with Jesus' tecahing etc.:-


The Mormon Family of Gods










God: Father of all Gods, he has a flesh-and-bone body.—Doctrine and Covenants 130:22.









Elohim: Sometimes referred to as an individual. Also described as a council of Gods who organized the earth.—Doctrine and Covenants 121:32; The Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 4:1; Journal of Discourses, Volume I, page 51.









Jesus: God and Creator of the whole earth, the Savior.—3 Nephi 9:15; 11:14.









Jehovah: The Old Testament name for Jesus.—Compare Mormon 3:22; Moroni 10:34; and Book of Mormon index.







Adam: Jesus’ helper in the creation. Brigham Young stated: "Our father Adam came into the garden of Eden . . . and brought Eve, one of his wives. . . . He is our Father and our God." (Journal of Discourses, Volume I, page 50, 1854 Edition) After his sin, Adam became earth’s first Christian. (The Pearl of Great Price, Moses 6:64-66; Ensign, January 1994, page 11) He is "the Ancient of days" (Doctrine and Covenants 116) and is the literal physical Father of Jesus.—Journal of Discourses, Volume I, page 51.

Michael: Another name for Adam, the archangel.—Doctrine and Covenants 107:54.







The Bible and Mormon Writings—A Study in Contrasts















Bible: Although the exact site is unknown, the garden of Eden was probably in the Mesopotamian region by the Euphrates River.—Genesis 2:11-14.







Doctrine and Covenants: Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri, U.S.A.—Doctrine and Covenants 57, as explained by President J. F. Smith.









Bible: The soul dies.—Ezekiel 18:4; Acts 3:23.







The Book of Mormon: "The soul could never die."—Alma 42:9.









Bible: Jesus was born in Bethlehem.—Matthew 2:1-6.







The Book of Mormon: Jesus was to be born in Jerusalem.—Alma 7:10.









Bible: Jesus was begotten by holy spirit.—Matthew 1:20.







Journal of Discourses: Jesus was not begotten by holy spirit. He was begotten in the flesh by Adam’s having intercourse with Mary.—Journal of Discourses, Volume I, pages 50-1.









Bible: New Jerusalem to be in heaven.—Revelation 21:2.







The Book of Mormon: New Jerusalem, earthly, to be built by men in Missouri, U.S.A.—3 Nephi 21:23, 24; Doctrine and Covenants 84:3, 4.









Bible: Writers of the Bible were inspired to write God’s thoughts.—2 Peter 1:20, 21.







The Book of Mormon: Its prophets are said to have written according to their own knowledge.—1 Nephi 1:2, 3; Jacob 7:26.









Bible: Mosaic Law, including tithing, terminated by the death of Jesus. Contributions are to be voluntary, not under compulsion.—2 Corinthians 9:7; Galatians 3:10-13, 24, 25; Ephesians 2:15.







Doctrine and Covenants: "Verily it is . . . a day for the tithing of my people; for he that is tithed shall not be burned (at his [the Lord’s] coming)."—Doctrine and Covenants 64:23.



Barryrob

[Trout]

Trout:
1) How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

Barryrob:
1 I first look to the Bible if anyone makes a point about this or that. I examine what they have to say (using varioue Bibles and study tools etc.) then see if what is said squares or not with the teachings of Jesus.

How do you know the Bible you are looking at is translated correctly? Afetr all, it could have been put together by unscrupulous non-scholars.



trout:
2) What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

Barryrob:
2 The teachings of Jesus.

How would the teachings of Jesus tell you that the NWT wasn't an accurate version of the Bible?



trout:
3) Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

Barryrob:
3 The following from the BOM and other things they teach which is not in harmony with Jesus' tecahing etc.:-



Maybe you are wrong, maybe the Book of Mormon is God's word, after all, it passes all the tests that you used to test the NWT?

PLEASE. . . answer in your own words.

[barryrob]

1 How do you know the Bible you are looking at is translated correctly? Afetr all, it could have been put together by unscrupulous non-scholars.

2 How would the teachings of Jesus tell you that the NWT wasn't an accurate version of the Bible?

3 Maybe you are wrong, maybe the Book of Mormon is God's word, after all, it passes all the tests that you used to test the NWT?

PLEASE. . . answer in your own words.


1 1 John 4:2-3 YOU gain the knowledge of the inspired expression from God by this: Every inspired expression that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God, 3 but every inspired expression that does not confess Jesus does not originate with God. Furthermore, this is the antichrist’s which YOU have heard was coming, and now it is already in the world.

It is what it says that is more important then who put pen to paper as it is that that has to pass the test which the NWT does:-
Acts 4:13 Now when they beheld the outspokenness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were men [i]unlettered and ordinary, they got to wondering. And they began to recognize about them that they used to be with Jesus;


2 John 8:31-32 And so Jesus went on to say to the Jews that had believed him: "If YOU remain in my word, YOU are really my disciples, 32 and YOU will know the truth, and the truth will set YOU free."

"Free" from Sin, Death, Religious Error.


3 You Jest. Revelation 22:18-19 "I am bearing witness to everyone that hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll; 19 and if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life and out of the holy city, things which are written about in this scroll.


What the Bible says is more important then what I personally think.

Barryrob

P.S.
Goodspeed Replyed to in a previuous post.

[Trout]

Trout:
1) How do you choose which scholars to pay attention to?

Barryrob:
1 I first look to the Bible if anyone makes a point about this or that. I examine what they have to say (using varioue Bibles and study tools etc.) then see if what is said squares or not with the teachings of Jesus.

trout:
How do you know the Bible you are looking at is translated correctly? Afetr all, it could have been put together by unscrupulous non-scholars.

barryrob:
1 1 John 4:2-3 YOU gain the knowledge of the inspired expression from God by this: Every inspired expression that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God, 3 but every inspired expression that does not confess Jesus does not originate with God. Furthermore, this is the antichrist’s [inspired expression] which YOU have heard was coming, and now it is already in the world.

Tha Book of Mormon testifies that Christ is come in the flesh, therefore by your own logic it must be true also.

Barry, how do you choose the scholars that you pay attention to, it seems that you choose them simply because they agree with you, which seems rather ridiculous seeing that you aren't trained in Biblical languages.


barryrob:
It is what it says that is more important then who put pen to paper as it is that that has to pass the test which the NWT does:-

How do you know that the people who translated it did so correctly?


Trout:
2) What would convince you that the NWT is not a good translation?

Barryrob:
2 The teachings of Jesus.

trout:
How would the teachings of Jesus tell you that the NWT wasn't an accurate version of the Bible?

barryrob:
2 John 8:31-32 And so Jesus went on to say to the Jews that had believed him: "If YOU remain in my word, YOU are really my disciples, 32 and YOU will know the truth, and the truth will set YOU free."

"Free" from Sin, Death, Religious Error.

You are having a tough time answering this question barryrob, let me try again; What evidence would convince you that the NWT is not an accurate translation of the Bible?


trout:
3) Many people believe the Book of Mormon is the Word of God, how do you know they are wrong?

Barryrob:
3 The following from the BOM and other things they teach which is not in harmony with Jesus' tecahing etc.:-

trout:
Maybe you are wrong, maybe the Book of Mormon is God's word, after all, it passes all the tests that you used to test the NWT?

barryrob:
3 You Jest. Revelation 22:18-19 "I am bearing witness to everyone that hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll; 19 and if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life and out of the holy city, things which are written about in this scroll.

Barryrob, you said this, "YOU gain the knowledge of the inspired expression from God by this: Every inspired expression that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God" Therefore the Book of Mormon passes your test for God's word.


barryrob:
[font=Arial]What the Bible says is more important then what I personally think.



That's not what you said above, you said that you were the test of truth, not scripture.

PLEASE. . . answer in your own words, your cutting and pasting makes your answers nearly unreadable.

[barryrob]

Barry, how do you choose the scholars that you pay attention to, it seems that you choose them simply because they agree with you, which seems rather ridiculous seeing that you aren't trained in Biblical languages.

---
You seem to be more intrested in what scholers say than I do, true, I use them as and when its needed but as I said before It is the Bible that the starting point not the scholors.

E.g. Some scholors say that Jesus is God, but Jesus says he has a God himself:-







John 20:17 ‘I am ascending to my Father and YOUR Father and to my God and YOUR God.’"





so when scholors try to make certain texts say that Jesus is the same person as The Father or God incarnated then there is somthing is wrong with what he says here, just as one example.






How do you know that the people who translated it did so correctly?

Re: the above, same test.



You are having a tough time answering this question barryrob, let me try again; What evidence would convince you that the NWT is not an accurate translation of the Bible?


I do not really think so as you do not seem to want to except what I say.




Barryrob, you said this, "YOU gain the knowledge of the inspired expression from God by this: Every inspired expression that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh originates with God" Therefore the Book of Mormon passes your test for God's word.



That may be, but then you have to ask if that is what they believe why is it that they reject his teachings about for example not going to War (and the others I pointed out to you):-


Matthew 5:44 However, I say to YOU: Continue to love YOUR enemies. . .

The also say the deny Jesus has come in the fleash because they make him into Jehovah much like Trinitarians do:-






Jehovah: The Old Testament name for Jesus.—Compare Mormon 3:22; Moroni 10:34; and Book of Mormon index.


So they deny Jesus coming to teach the truth about God by making him into God The Father etc. which make them antichrists.









That's not what you said above, you said that you were the test of truth, not scripture.

Not so - John 17:17 Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth.



PLEASE. . . answer in your own words, your cutting and pasting makes your answers nearly unreadable.Sorry I am trying to improve my Cut & Paste but it does not seem to come out to well at times, I will get the hang soon.

Barryrob

PS
S. G. Green "Then this Handbook adds some sentences to illustrate this general rule regarding an anarthrous predicate, such as, "thy word is truth," "the Word was God," "God is love": and next the Handbook says: "Had the article been employed with the predicate in the above case, the sentences would have read thus:..Thy Word is the Truth, and nothing else can be so described; the Word was the entire Godhead, and God and Love are identical, so that in fact Love is God." Such an explanation is, in itself, an unintended admission that "the Word" of John 1:1 is not the same god as the God with whom the Word is said to be. Hence, the omitting of the article in the predicate of the simple sentence is shown to be only a general rule, and not one that holds in every case. One such case where that general rule does not hold true is John 1:1. The definite article "the" was there omitted, but not according to that general rule; it was not omitted with the idea that it should be understood by the reader."







Can Jesus be qualitatively God?


Can others be qualitatively God?

Can the answer be yes to both of the above questions?



What does the word qualitatively mean?



"qualitative adj. of quality as opposed to quantity. qualitatively adv. [Latin: related to quality]".-'Oxford Dictionary'



"adjective n. word used to describe or modify a noun or pronoun. adjectival adj. [Latin jaceo lie]".-'Oxford Dictionary'



"adverb n. word indicating manner, degree, circumstance, etc., used to modify an adjective, verb, or other adverb (e.g. gently, quite, then). adverbial adj. [Latin: related to ad-, verbum word, verb]".-'Oxford Dictionary'



"quality n. (pl. -ies)

1 degree of excellence.

2 a general excellence (has quality).

b (attrib.) of high quality (a quality product).

3 attribute, faculty (has many good qualities).

4 relative nature or character.

5 timbre of a voice or sound.

6 archaic high social standing (people of quality). [Latin qualis such as, of what kind]".-'Oxford Dictionary'



To qualitatively be something is to have the same "nature or character" of the thing or person under discussion, in this case God. So to be qualitatively God is to reflect his persona* (be God like). This being the case then it is possible for humans to be qualitatively like God as he is the Ultimate role model.



*"persona n. (pl. -nae) aspect of the personality as shown to or perceived by others. [Latin, = actor's mask]".-'Oxford Dictionary'





The following Biblical texts show that Jehovah is the Ultimate Person to imitate and in this Jesus set the perfect (as he was/is Sin free) model that all humans should follow as recorded at 1 Peter 2:21; "In fact, to this [course] YOU were called, because even Christ suffered for YOU, leaving YOU a model for YOU to follow his steps closely."



Matthew 5:48 YOU must accordingly be perfect, as YOUR heavenly Father is perfect.



Colossians 2:8-9 Look out: perhaps there may be someone who will carry YOU off as his prey through the philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary things of the world and not according to Christ; because it is in him that all the fullness of the divine quality dwells bodily.



Ephesians 5:1 Therefore, become imitators (mimic) of God, as beloved children,

"The image of God in man seems to include personality, rationality, morality and spirituality--all giving a basis for dominion over the earth (Gen 1:27-28)."-Compton's Interactive Bible NIV




Leviticus 19:2 Speak to the entire assembly of the sons of Israel, and you must say to them, ‘YOU should prove yourselves holy, because I Jehovah YOUR God am holy.



1 Peter 1:16 because it is written: “YOU must be holy, because I am holy.”



Deuteronomy 18:13 You should prove yourself faultless with Jehovah your God.



So in a word the answer is Yes as we -humans- are made in God's "Image" like Jesus Christ.

[Trout]

So, what you're getting at is you decide what's true apart from what the facts say, apart from scholarly input.

In fact, if a scholar disagrees with you, he is automatically wrong, no ifs and or buts, all you do is find a scholar that agrees with you and go with his opinion.

Reminds me of a verse:

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

That's a very dangerous place to be barryrob, and my heart is heavy for you, I'm going to pray that the Lord will somehow find a way to get through to you.

Thanks for answering my questions.

[barryrob]

Thanks for giving me your time. If you would like to acctualy get to The Word itself as aganist just what this or that scholor says it should or should not be as we have not even scratched the surface yet.

At the end of the day it is this that counts:-



2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.





as the Bible or Bibles say!



Christian Love
Barryrob

PS
Would you like me to reply to the rest of the quotes you sent to me?