Winstein--6b
Translation concerns
The identity intended by the Bible for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Various issues are covered, the most notable one being that the JWs leaders
change "Lord" to "Jehovah"
in a lot of cases mainly to prevent the reader
from thinking Jesus was prayed to as Lord.
Get a couple of Bibles for reference
Yahweh, not your way or his way or their way
Honoring
a god by falling forward in obesity
Presence
Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material:
the issue of the identity of Jesus and the holy spirit
Context requires it be the context I require
In
other words
Deliberations of translations
God is thy throne
"A god"--Jesus
as archangel Michael the Messiah god who was called "Lord"
too much and not called "Michael" at all
How many gods got a good God bod
if a good God could bod gods?
Human judges as gods part one:
John 10; Psalms 82:1-8
Human judges as gods part two
Angelic gods part one
Angelic gods part
two
Where did gods of nations go?
Sons of a God
God in earliest Christianity
Translation concerns
The identity intended by the Bible for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Various issues are covered, the most notable one being that the JWs leaders
change "Lord" to "Jehovah" in a lot of cases
mainly to prevent the reader from
thinking Jesus was prayed to as Lord.
The mainstream
view has a much better case than the JWs leaders for the iden-
tities meant for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by a belief
in the Bible.
What I have on it is on pp.6b-10, which give the JWs leaders' stances and man-
glings of the mainstream
views and manglings of history, and the actual main-
stream views and actual history.
Get a couple of Bibles for reference
While you don't have to commit to any one group's tenets to go over this is-
sue, it would be very helpful
(and save me time) for you to have a copy of the
book the JWs leaders' claim to make their rules about--the Bible.
In the
U.S.A., at least, if your local public library doesn't have the translation you
want, you might ask the librarian
to send for it as an inter-library loan, which
is a free service.
At the next links are the online versions of most free Bibles--the Revised
Standard Version, the Douay-Rheims
Bible, etc. Bible Gateway offers a variety of
other Bibles including the New International Version, the New American
Standard
Bible, the New Revised Standard Bible, Good News Translation, Orthodox Jewish Bi-
ble, etc., and translations
into various languages.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/browse.html http://www.drbo.org/ http://www.biblegateway.com/
As of 2013 there's a revised New World Translation (a grey covered version
called
the "Silver Sword")--a new version of the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible.
While it's complimented for reducing the word count and using more modern
words the typical
criticism is that it's not a good translation when it comes to
the theological bias of the JWs leaders. Fortunately
for making my job easy
those issues are about the same as before. For example, there are still the
extra "other"s
of the 1984 translation but now the brackets around them have
been removed.
I'll compare such cases this way. There's sometimes some wiggle room in
translation.
Imagine how some phrases in English can be paraphrased and mean
the same thing. A translator may prefer phrases and
be thought to show bias or
persuasion. But the examples given above are like a Bible translator stuck the
phrase
"Buy Coca Cola" in there just because they sell it.
Other such issues are covered below.
The description below refers to the 1984 NWT.
The JWs leaders' own New
World Translation often uses one English word for one
Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek word. This approach has pluses and
minuses.
A paraphrased translation may substitute simplified meanings, even explana-
tions, for the original verses.
Given the way words change meanings in different contexts, cultures, and over
time, or that a literal translation
from one language to another may convey a
different meaning, some prefer a translation with English words or phrases that
try
to capture what are best contextually and historically indicated to be the
original ideas.
Some like a translation that's more directly word for word, which can make it
easier to cross-reference but
may be more reliant on the quality of the related
explanation the reader finds to convey what context and history best
indicate
were the original ideas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical-grammatical_method
The NWT is more like the latter except as the guiding outlooks for transla-
tion, such as claims about what
the force of context or history requires for
translation, are narrowed or revised as required by the JWs leaders' rules
of
interpretation. (Because some rules reflect that the JWs leaders claim to come
from an exclusive 144,000, p.1a,
this includes the forced points JWs leaders
have used to teach their distinctive rules, including that Jesus is archangel
Michael
and not to be worshipped, etc., pp.7-10, that Jesus' invisible "pres-
ence" began affecting people on Earth in 1914, that
cross should be "stake," p.
1a, etc.). The reader is meant to use the JWs leaders' literature for their on-
ly
related commentary and explanations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming
****
Yahweh, not your way or his way or their way
They'd ask him: "Am I talking to the Son of God?" and he'd say, "Yeshua."
See? That's how you know.
(I came up with that one. Sorry.)
The JWs leaders teach that "Jehovah," taken literally, refers only to the Fa-
ther, and that Jesus is archangel
Michael, isn't to be worshipped, and isn't
God (pp.7-10). In a lot of NT verses "Lord" appears in all the earliest
Greek
NT manuscripts and could be, and usually is, taken by mainstream Christianity to
refer to Jesus as God, but the
JWs leaders' stance has it that "Lord" in those
verses refers to the Father and not the Son. So the word "Lord" in
those verses
is replaced in the JWs leaders' NWT by "Jehovah" to bolster the JWs leaders'
case that Jesus isn't referred
to in those verses or to be give the mainstream
identification.
In 400 other verses where the JWs leaders teach that "kurios" refers only to
Jesus, the JWs leaders' NWT has
"kurios" translated as "Lord."
Jesus, as taught by the JWs leaders, is archangel Michael, a god in the figur-
ative sense, who was called
"Lord" too much.
In comparing the mainstream and JWs leaders' vews of Jesus on pp.6b-10,
there's no reason to feel obliged
to the JWs leaders' extra "Jehovah"s meant as
about the Father. The easy way to correct the JWs leaders forced translation
for
that is to remember that whenever the NWT has "Jehovah" it's supposed to be
"Lord" and carry the interpretation possibility
for it to mean Jesus.
Paul uses OT verses about God and applies them to Jesus as the Lord:
Rom.10:13/Joel 2:32,
1 Cor.1:31/Jer.9:23,24,
1 Cor.10:26/Psalms 24:1, and
2 Cor.10:17/Jer.9:23,24.
He takes a number of OT verses that give YHWH as the Lord and applies them to
Jesus:
1 Cor.10:21/Mal.1:7,12,
1 Cor.10:22/Deut.32:21,
2 Cor.3:16/Ex.34:34,
1 Thes.3:13/Zech.14:5,
1 Thes.4:6 9/Psalm 94:2,
and
Philippians 2:10,11/Isaiah 45:23-25.
Paul indicated that Jesus was to be called the Lord as the OT title for God.
"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as in-
deed there are many 'gods' and
many 'lords'), yet for us there is but one God,
the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is
but one
Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
(NASB)
The JWs leaders' case about it notes that Jesus said, "I have made your name
manifest to the men you gave
me out of the world...." to the Father (John 17:6).
"Name" is used to mean both proper names and reputation in the Bible. Since
all Jesus needs to have meant
by "name" at John 17:6 (see above) is "reputa-
tion," the verse doesn't require he meant he'd added to his controversy
by
speaking the name "YHWH" a lot to make it well known (Ex.3:13-15). Encouraging
belief in the God of the OT
would be enough to help popularize God's reputation.
The mainstream case notes that Apostle Peter said, "...be it known to you all,
and to all the people of
Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man
is standing
before you well. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but
which has become the head
of the corner. And there is salvation in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given among men by
which we must be
saved." (Acts 4:10-12; also see Eph.1:21; Philip.2:5-11)
Peter doesn't give Jesus' salvation and name as second ones to be used in con-
junction with YHWH, though at
Isaiah 43:3 and 11, the only savior is God.
At Philippians 2:9, for helping people by suffering the crucifixion, Jesus has
a name above every name, which
is a quote about God: "the name that is above
every name" is from Isaiah 45:23.
One possibility is that God meant "YHWH," given during Mosaic law, to be used
forever onward--the JWs leaders'
view. Another is that the usage of it could be
like various other things that are given in Mosaic law so taken as
meant for all
time onward that ended with the Christian covenant (from the crucifixion on-
ward)--for all time onward
until God creates another covenant that establishes
its own rules (Isaiah 43:3 and 11). This would still honor the
older rule in
that "YHWH" would continue to be remembered by Christians as a Mosaic law name
for God.
Even in the NWT with hundreds of extra "Jehovah"s, Jesus the Son was more in-
tent to encourage the title "Father"
for the Father than anything else to empha-
size the Father--Son relationship and as part of his intention to bring God
and
mankind closer together (as with the meaning of the crucifixion). This is often
compared to "Father" being
more personal than calling your father by his first
name, reflective of the closer relationship with God meant by Christianity,
and
that God would be accessible anywhere in the world. Instead of a prophet of Is-
rael having the close relationship
and teaching the others as was true previous-
ly with the Mosaic law name "Yahweh" for God, every follower would live in
God.
According to Peter Lewis in "The Glory of Christ," p.194: "Fifty-one times in
the first three Gospels, and
more than a hundred times in John, Jesus speaks of
God as 'Father.' This in itself is remarkable, and we should not
lose sight of
that through our own familiarity with the term. For instance, only twice in the
Old Testament is
God directly addressed as Father, and only fifteen times is the
word Father used of Him at all--and then only of His relationship
to the nation
and the king rather than to individuals as such. In corporate worship Jews
sometimes spoke of God
as 'our Father,' but the general reluctance to call God
'Father,' much more 'my Father,' is reflected in the Palestinian
literature
around Jesus' time. Indeed, O. Hofius writes, 'We have yet to find an example
of an individual addressing
God as "my Father"' even if the phrase 'Father in
heaven' was occasionally used later."
According to Leon Morris in "Jesus is the Christ," p.134: "That God is Father
means, for John, in the first
instance that he is the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. It is in this relationship that we see what divine fatherhood
means.
But it is also important for John that believers enter the heavenly family and
may call God 'Father.' As
we have noted elsewhere, John does not call them
'sons of God.' As it relates to the heavenly family he reserves
'son' for
Christ; when he is speaking of believers, he calls them 'children' rather than
'sons.' This is a Johanine
usage; Paul, for example, does not hesitate to speak
of human members of the heavenly family as 'sons.' But John's
usage distin-
guishes between Christ's sonship and that of anyone else. Jesus is God's Son;
believers become God's
sons. He belongs to God's family because of what he is;
we may be adopted into the family despite what we are."
For all the lengthy studies you could find on Google about the possibility of
the missing earliest NT manuscripts
having "YHWH" in them, one thing we know is
that none of the early manuscripts we have of the NT has it. The added
motive
none of those theories have is that the JWs leaders have gone for 144,000 ex-
clusiveness (p.1a) again by forcing
what otherwise are debatable theories, nar-
rowed the exclusiveness by using their distinctive rules about Jesus as Michael,
etc.,
to guide them in picking which "Lord"s to replace, to come up with another
exclusive rule to teach with forced points.
This is in keeping with the way the JWs leaders strain to inject the JWs lead-
ers' views into early Christian
history as shown on pp.8 and 9 (compare to
p.1a). As is done there, with no need greater than the reasons of forced
points
and revisionist history about their 144,000 exclusive views, the JWs leaders
discount the stronger mainstream
historical case as created by a widespread
great apostasy that they allege occurred early on. The JWs leaders claim
they
restore the original church/Kingdom Hall, which allegedly believed that Jesus is
archangel Michael the Messiah
god who was shortly thereafter called "Lord" too
much, and the alleged apostates re-wrote the NT to substitute all the
"YHWH"s
with "Lord"s.
(Allegedly, this was controversially covered up in early Christian history be-
cause the followers were poisoned
by evil philosophy; God would wait till Jesus
invisibly affected the JWs leaders to clear this up, and till 1954 to have
them
tell the followers to stop worshipping him.) (See p.1a.)
As on pp.7-10, the JWs leaders' view of Jesus isn't completely unimaginable as
much as it's a matter of forcing
a weak case for the original view as the only
one imaginable, ironically falsifying a case meant to establish an exclusive
144,000
righteous honesty.
The early use of "YHWH" in the Septuagint was only spoken by the Jewish
priests for generations, and they weren't
saying it after the fall of Jerusalem
in 70 AD. Early Christians weren't in Jewish temples persuading for their view
of
Christ's nature after that, but Christianity continued to be taught as not
obliged to Mosaic law and became popular among
the Greeks.
If the early Christians were writing and saying YHWH with the importance the
JWs leaders attach to it, Christians
would have continued to despite anything
any theory I've read comes up with. And they would have weighed anything
that
came up later against what an increasing number of the early ones, considered
the original authorities, did.
Some early Christian writers thought they knew
how to say it, and some of them may have been right, but it wasn't passed
along.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
I have a couple of thoughts about the idea of "YHWH" being replaced by "Lord"
between the time of the original
writings and the earliest manuscripts we have.
Both questions deal with the same thing--when?--in this way:
Even at the earliest, the writings were written and copied by a variety of
people in a variety of places.
(It would be a few hundred years before what we
know as a New Testament collection was standard.) It's kind of hard
to imagine
all the students of apostle John would say, "What did he know? I'll rewrite
it," let alone all the
students of all of them, and Paul circulated.
The later you wait to avoid that problem, the farther the scriptures were
spread, so harder to imagine were
all changed in even more places with even more
earlier authorities over-ruled. And the New Testament was written
in various
places over a perod of decades to begin with. If you believe God guided the
transmission of these ideas,
and consider the JWs leaders' allegation that some
movement was removing "YHWH"s to the earliest writings in one place,
why
wouldn't God have other writers complain and make specific warnings about "YHWH"
in their epistles in another place
or at least leave some evidence of creating a
movement that debated the issue? The easiest way to figure it is it
didn't hap-
pen, but what do I know?
There's an irony here: the JWs leaders' "Should You Believe in the Trinity?"
brochure seems intended to have
the average person, not up on it, think the
Ante-Nicene fathers had the JWs leaders' views of the Son and holy spirit (pp.8,
9).
But on this issue, the JWs leaders imply that the same Ante-Nicene fathers
were commonly such strong believers in the mainstream
historical views (except
about faithfully transmitting the scriptures) that they removed lots of "YHWH"s
from the manuscripts
to suit their allegedly apostate view of Jesus uncontested-
ly.
And for all those of other views (Ebionites, Adoptionists, etc.) who debated
competitively with the Ante-Nicene
fathers, no record survives of them making
the predicted complaints you'd predict if the JWs leaders' contention about
"YHWH"
were true, faulting the Ante-Nicene fathers as causing a major rewriting
of the scriptures to suit themselves. A
more typical reaction to expect is
shown in the many complaints currently in books and on the Internet in reaction
to
the JWs leaders doing that with the NWT.
****
Honoring a god by falling forward in obesity
The Greek wprd "proskuneo" means to worship or do obeisance to. "Obeisance"
means to prostrate oneself
before someone in honor of them. It's not uncommon
in the OT to find men who do obeisance to men (1 Sam.24:8; 2 Sam.1:2).
Basically, an easy way to think of the difference is that it means to honor,
it's just that God should get
the most honor. (It's like "glory" in that re-
gard--only God has the most glory.)
But at Ex.34:14--"You shall not worship any other god, for the LORD is 'the
Jealous One'; a jealous God is
he." (Matt.4:10, sacred service--see p.8) You
might have a person just do obeisance to some regular person in the
OT, but
either way you translate it there or in the verses where it's done to Jesus
(Matt.2:2,11; 14:33; 28:9,16,17;
John 9:38; Luke 24:52; Heb.1:6; Rev.5:11-14;
for Rev.22:3, see the section on "Latreuo" on p.8), you're not supposed to
wor-
ship or do obeisance to any god except the one God of the Bible (Luke 4:8).
The JWs leaders' Jesus is archangel Michael. An archangel is an angel (see
the section on "Archangel
Michael" on p.8). At Col.2:18, Christians aren't sup-
posed to worship or do obeisance to angels.
In the NT, aside from verses that everyone agrees are about worship of God and
except for the example Jesus
gives of a slave desperately begging his owner not
to sell him (Matt.18:26), anyone who does it to anyone but Jesus is
rebuked for
it (Acts 10:25,26; Rev.19:10; 22:8,9) except at Matt.18:26, where Jesus tells of
a slave who did it desperately
begging his lord not to sell him.
See the section on "Prayer and worship" on p.8.
****
Presence
Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words gives the Greek word "pa-
rousia" as meaning "a presence,"
"arrival," "the arrival and subsequent presence
of." This comes up in regard to the Second Coming of Jesus and the
JWs leaders'
stance about it and Jesus turning his attention to the Earth from heaven since
1914.
http://www2.mf.no/bibelprog/vines?word=%AFt0000500
The NWT translates "parousia," Greek for "appearance and subsequent presence
with" or "an arrival," used to
refer to the second coming of Jesus, as "pres-
ence" and restricts the meaning to an idea of the results on Earth of Jesus'
ac-
tions about it in heaven being understood on Earth.
The reason Nelson Barbour persuaded Charles Russell to that translation and
interpretation was to suit his
idea that Jesus' 2nd coming was a matter of Jesus
taking his throne in heaven in 1874 and invisibly ruling the Earth.
Rutherford
bumped the invisible Jesus up to 1914, which is where subsequent JWs leaders
had left him except that Jesus
has recently been taught as having turned his at-
tention to Earth without taking the throne in 1914 (see 1995 on p.1a),
pending
any future updates about his invisible activities.
The JWs leaders have rationalized that "every eye will see" is to be under-
stood in the sense of it being
commonly understood worldwide:
"With regard to Christ's coming, the Bible says, 'Look! He is coming with the
clouds and every eye will
see him.' Rev.1:7 People will not see him with their
literal eyes. Since his ascension is to heaven, Jesus
is a 'spirit person who
dwells in unapproachable light, whom not one of men has seen or can see.' 1 Tim
6:16."
("The Watchtower," March 15, 2007, p.5)
This is connected with the events described at Matt.24:29, along with "fea-
tures at the sign of his presence
and of the conclusion of the system of
things":
"This 'coming' is described also also by the apostle John at Revelation 1:7,
where he says: 'Look! He is coming
with the clouds.' Oh, those enemies will not
actually see Jesus with literal eyes, for 'the clouds' signifies that
he comes
invisibly to execute judgment. If mere humans were to behold his heavenly glory
with the naked eye, they
would be blinded, just as Saul, on the road to Damas-
cus, was struck blind when the glorified Jesus appeared to him in
a great flash-
ing light.—Acts 9:3-8; 22:6-11." ("The Watchtower," May 1, 1993, p.22)
The verse says even his enemies will see Jesus, so it wouldn't bank on an in-
terpretation possible with belief
in him.
I say if he wants to be seen by eyes, he'd be seen by eyes, which is what it
says. These guys are bossing
God around now--they're out of control.
It's something that didn't happen either way, and has been watered down since
then to a JWs leaders' required
view with an arbitrary origin, so why bother
with the idea anymore? As of this writing, the JWs leaders deny salvation
to
anyone who persists in disagreeing with the idea, although it's only a preten-
tious, scripturally unnecessary way
to claim to be exclusive authorities (the
JWs leaders' view of a literal 144,000, etc.) (see p.1a). Worse, this,
in turn,
has led to cynical methods to establish the exclusive authority despite it hav-
ing led to followers coming
to harm and death in Germany and Malawi (p.6) and
due to restricted medical care (pp.12-42).
http://www.towerwatch.com/Witnesses/statistics/partakers.htm
In 1914, Russell's Bible Students were still years away from changing their
minds about Russell's claim that
Jesus' invisible presence began in 1874 (p.1a).
"Parousia" as in "presence" is one thing, but I'll hazard the opinion that
"all
eyes," of 1914, including of those against him (Rev.1:7), as in "nobody" isn't
the originally intended idea.
While the number of followers has grown, the JWs leaders' related claims, such
as that some alive in 1914 would
be alive when Jesus established his kingdom on
Earth, have been watered down since then as circumstances (predictably)
required
(p.1a).
As the JWs leaders' claims about Jesus appearing invisibly are meant to estab-
lish their claim of 144,000
exclusive authority, and as the JWs leaders' claim
of 144,000 exclusive authority bears on the JWs leaders' exclusive rules
about
the medical use of blood, and as it relates to fatalities of JWs because they
followed the JWs leaders' rules
about the medical use of blood, I'll put it sim-
ply like this:
A guy tells another guy: "Don't use that medical treatment even though it
means your kid will die. God
wants you to do it--it's God's prerogative. As
proof I know that, Jesus will appear in two seconds. Did you
see him? Well, He
was invisible." I wouldn't do it, and I'd recommend that you shouldn't do it,
either.
(The issue of the JWs leaders' rules that ban the medical use of blood
are covered on pp.12-42.)
****
Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material:
the issue of the identity
of Jesus and the holy spirit
Also see:
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material: the issue of in-
telligent design" on p.1a cont.
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material under the heading
'We must preserve the sanctity of our stance
on blood--truth and other's lives,
we're not crazy about'" on p.1a cont.
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material: the issue of de-
termining when Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed Jerusalem" on p.1c.
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material: the issue of
pedophilia" on p.5.
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material: the issue of
early Christian history and related
research material" on p.9.
"Complaints about the JWs leaders' use of reference material: the issue of the
medical use of blood and major
blood fractions" on p.14.
****
Context requires it be the context I require
The JWs leaders' literature may explain that the force of the context requires
the JWs leaders' translation
and the mainstream possible translation would give
the wrong idea. For verses about Jesus, the JWs leaders' view
usually relies on
their forced points explained in the section on Prov.8:22-31 on p.8 and on the
bottom of p.7 (also
see p.1a, the rest of p.8, and p.9)--forced points about
only being able to see verses as JWs leaders' rules require, and
the added "Je-
hovah"s.
The ways JWs leaders' distinctive rules are taught in English are sometimes
the same ways the JWs leaders require
that distinctive translations be made from
Greek, except about something even more obscure to most people.
I've read that the NT uses pretty plain Greek, with the book of Hebrews using
the fanciest. And the early
Greeks had the mainstream historical views about
Jesus, etc., and not the recent 144,000 distinctive JWs leaders' doctrine
views
(p.9). The JWs leaders' forced points aside, the JWs leaders' and mainstream
cases seem pretty easy to imagine,
but the JWs leaders' stance has a bad case
for having the original intention of a conservative interpretation of the NT
(pp.7-10),
if a good case for exclusiveness. It would help, but I don't see
the urgency of knowing Greek to decide that there
isn't a good case for the
narrow JWs leaders' contentions of being unable to imagine the mainstream view
of Jesus from
the Greek NT or that justifies JWs leaders' use of forced points
and omission of pertinent evidence in making a pretension
of comparing their
views with mainstream ones. I don't need to know Greek to know an especially
honest and righteous
144,000 wouldn't show a dishonest misuse of research mate-
rial, either (pp.1a,1d,9,14,and others).
****
In other words
In the NWT, since JWs leaders teach a created Jesus, living "in" (Greek: "en")
Christ is paraphrased as living
"in union with" Christ (Col.2:6-12; also see
Matt.5:19; 1 John 5:20 and others) to jibe with the JWs leaders' view that
it's
only a matter of followers being in agreement with Christ, and that God is of
one location, and preclude how many
of the mainstream view may see the speaker
living "in" omnipresent God (p.8) in more than just agreement.
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/Greek_Index.htm
The JWs leaders' stance is weaker in having God expect followers to imagine
the added word "other" to make
an important distinction about Jesus' identity,
especially since they didn't and an alleged great apostasy was threatening
to
take over. It's also weak in that God could be said to have created all other
things (other than Himself).
The JWs leaders' stance would be easy to make
clear in simple plain language with a phrase like "God created everything
through
archangel Michael," but it wasn't used in the Bible.
****
Deliberations of translations
The 1st is a good representation of a JWs "Should You Believe in the Trinity?"
brochure-type site. It's
by JWs but not an official Watchtower site. It starts
from the Watchtower stances, including the required outlook
that they're the
only ones imaginable by scripture, and works outward to show how this leads to
JWs leaders' ways to
imagine words and phrases for NWT choices.
As compared with the first point I give on p.10, it utilizes the JWs leaders'
forced points that context requires
JWs leaders' interpretations as better for
translations (that primarily are concerned to jibe with the context of other
verses
seen in JWs leaders' interpretations), or imply the forced point ex-
plained on the bottom of p.7, or imply the JWs leaders'
view restores the orig-
inal church from a great apostasy, etc., that come with that set of forced
points.
Within that purview, it elaborates on the linguistic possibilities of those
JWs leaders' views, but doesn't
provide something that actually requires them
and not the others in the final tally. Overlooking the forced points,
it just
makes me take a longer way to get around to the first two points I have on p.10.
No verses are shown for which
the historic view has no interpretation that works
for it, beyond the assertion of the forced point that it doesn't, etc.,
or that
make for a difference in favor of Jesus as "archangel Michael the god who would
be invisibly seen by everyone
from 1914 on and called 'Lord' too much" in the
balance of what's best indicated, let alone as the originally intended
views by
related history.
A JW may be allege that the JWs leaders' views of Jesus and holy spirit are
shown by scripture alone without
related historical context. But when teaching
about an exclusive stance, the JWs leaders cynically create a revised
history
for it (see various listings for the JWs leaders' views 1914, "Signs of The End"
and various claims about Armageddon,
"Jesus was nailed to a tree," etc., on p.
1a, and pp.1d,6,9, and several pages of related history brought up in the cover-
age
on pp.12-42 of the JWs leaders' blood transfusion ban).
Early Christian history (p.9) doesn't help the JWs leaders' exclusive conclu-
sions, though not looking at
the views of the Ante-Nicene fathers, etc., doesn't
lead to the JWs leaders' conclusions. I just get points one to
three on p.10,
or the non-JWs leaders' views on p.1a, with that. And forced points that avoid
what the other view
actually says (the "Should You Believe in the Trinity?" bro-
chure version of the historical mainstream view), and a requirement
to not look
at related evidence damaging to your case (p.3), are generally indicative of a
weak case or even dishonesty
in a court case.
The JWs leaders have ruled that Jesus was executed on a stake and not a cross.
To see evidence that indicates "stauros" took on the meaning of "cross" well be-
fore Jesus' day, see "Jesus was
nailed to a tree" on p.1a and some Ante-Nicene
fathers who wrote that Jesus was crucified on a cross on p.9.
Again, the NWT and other Bibles can be found on the Internet at links given
near the top of this page.
****
God is thy throne
Heb.1:8a "But with reference to the Son: 'God is your throne forever and
ever....'" (NWT)
Heb.1:8a "But of the Son He says, 'YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND
EVER....'" (NASB)
If the JWs leaders' choice of translation at Heb.1:8 is imaginable, I don't
remember that symbolism used anywhere
else--that Jesus' power is on God's lap.
The JWs leaders' choice is a forced one made to avoid calling Jesus "God" (pp.7-
10).
Jesus sits on the throne of God at Rev.22:3: "There will no longer be any
curse; and the throne of God and
of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-ser-
vants will serve Him." (NASB) (See the section on "Latreuo" on p.8.)
Luke 1:32-33 "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give
to him the throne of his father David."
****
"A god"--Jesus as archangel Michael the Messiah god who was called "Lord"
too much and
not called "Michael" at all
The JWs leaders' stance on John 1:1 is that "God" and "Logos" (the Word--Je-
sus) have to refer to two separate
beings, with Logos referring to created arch-
angel Michael, and the last phrase being "And the Word was a god."
While this is imaginable if context actually required it, it's a forced point
(actually, a barrel of forced
points) to call it a requirement or even nearly as
well indicated.
- The mainstream view uses the phrasing possible for God and Wisdom at Prov.8:
22-31 and The Book of Wisdom
7:22-28 for God and Jesus phrases, in this case God
and Logos. It involves God's wisdom, used by God in creating
everything, given
symbolically as a person with "God and Wisdom"-type phrasing--not God with a
separate created being
who had and used that wisdom (see the section on Prov.8:
22-31 on p.8).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_literature
- John used the word Logos. The Greek understanding of Demiurge and Logos was
similar to the Jewish idea
of God and Wisdom. The Christian Greeks didn't ac-
cept the Platonic idea that the physical world is evil so consider
the Logos as
needing to be a separate created being. John defined Logos his way at John 1:1
(see the section on
John 1:1 on p.8).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_%28Christianity%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos
- Is.9:6 is taken as a Messiah prophecy by both views of Jesus, and in it the
Messiah will be called God.
Mighty God is one of four names which Isaiah uses
in later passages to refer to God. In chapters 24-34, Isaiah hopes
for a day
when the Messiah will come and people will live for God. Otherwise in Isaiah,
God says there is no god.
- The Bible doesn't call Jesus archangel Michael. A notable related case is
the martyrdom of Stephen,
who doesn't save his life by calling Jesus archangel
Michael through a trial of the Sanhedrin, harassment across town,
a speech he
makes about his beliefs, and being stoned to death for blasphemy (Acts 6:8-7:
60) (see the section on archangel
Michael on p.8).
- For issues about Jesus' identity being better indicated as the mainstream
view sees him than as archangel
Michael, see pp.7-10.
- For Jewish and Christian rejection of gods beyond the one true God, see be-
low.
****
How many gods got a good God bod
if a good God could bod gods? (Sorry.)
The JWs leaders ignore that history to force the point for some rules about OT
language and gods, and those
rules are there because of their rule that Jesus
is a god and archangel Michael. The JWs leaders go beyond suggesting
possibili-
ties to explain OT references to gods to claim it was commonly understood and
accepted in Jesus' culture,
first century Jewish monotheism, that Jesus was an
angel who would be a considered a deity--an acceptable "god."
The concept in
that context has problems.
This leads to their rules about how to redefine the obvious intention of
verses in which Jesus was prayed to
(Acts 7:59, 1 Cor.1:1-3; others, p.8), wor-
shipped (Matt.28:17; Heb.1:6, others, p.8), even called God's Logos (John 1:1,
p.8)
and "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28, p.8) and written of as the Lord in
other "God and Lord" Shema phrases, etc.,
so that it was allegedly an indica-
tion of nothing worse than a figurative use of the word "god" to write about
such
a god in those ways in first century Jewish monotheism. One of the main
verses these efforts to revive the pre-monotheism
view about "gods" is meant to
help the JWs leaders with is John 1:1 (p.8).
According to it:
"Surely the most wide-ranging analysis of second-Temple Jewish monotheistic
rhetoric, however, is in the recent
dissertation by Paul Rainbow.<42> Working
from a database of 200 passages where he finds monotheistic expressions
(includ-
ing about twenty-five passages from the NT), Rainbow offers some sophisticated
linguistic analysis of the "ten
forms of explicit monotheistic speech" charac-
teristic of Greco-Roman Jewish texts.<43> These are:
(1) phrases linking a divine title with adjectives such as "one," "only,"
"sole," "alone," etc.;
(2) God pictured as monarch over all;
(3) a divine title linked with "living" and/or "true";
(4) positive
confessional formula, "Yahweh is God" etc.;
(5) explicit denials of other gods;
(6) the glory of God not
transferable;
(7) God described as without rival;
(8) God referred to as incomparable;
(9) scriptural
passages used as expressions of monotheism, e.g., the Shema;
(10) restrictions of worship to the one God.
"God was distinguished from other beings most clearly in this: It is required
to offer God worship; it is inappropriate
to offer worship to any other.
"Also, as the evidence of Jewish prayer and cultic practice surveyed above
shows, Jews characteristically expected,
indeed felt obliged, to address their
high God directly in prayer and worship.
"Jewish-Christian reverence of the exalted Jesus in terms and actions charac-
teristically reserved for God,
as described in One God, One Lord,<75> though it
was initially a 'mutation' within Jewish monotheistic tradition,
was a suffici-
ently distinctive variant form to have been seen by many non-Christian Jews as
compromising the uniqueness
of God in the important sphere of cultic action."
http://www.forananswer.org/Top_JW/Hurtado_Monotheism.htm
A summary of some ideas from his book "How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?":
Prayer and worship of Jesus provoked Jewish people who didn't believe in his
claim of identity over an alleged
offense to their sense of monotheism in a
way another reverence for an angelic hero or version of Wisdom literature
wouldn't
have, and long before whatever outside influences of later centuries to
the style of Christian worship:
Paul, not long after the ascension of Jesus in the early 30's AD, was a Phari-
see, Saul of Tarsus, who was
motivated to put Christians to death (Gal.1:13,14).
This was long before he could have been offended by Christian Jews
mingling with
Gentiles (Acts 10:34-11:1-18). What prompted Paul's conversion was a strong
revelation of Jesus
as being God's exalted unique Son (Gal.1:15).
Philip.2:6-11 is now thought to preserve the earliest hymn to Jesus. Refer-
ence is made to such hymns
being part of Christian worship at 1 Cor.14:26, Col.
3:16, and Eph.5:28,29.
The book of John records a number of other instances of Pharisees having their
sense of monotheism offended
by Jesus to the point of wanting to execute him.
(See p.8)
See "Honoring a god by falling forward in obesity" above and the section on
"Prayer and worship" on p.8.
The 1st thing the JWs leaders' stance favoring one main God among gods re-
minded me of was a pre-King Hosiah
strand of verses in the OT which indicate
that a variety of believer believed in multiple gods such as angels or humans
or
supernatural beings approved by, and subordinate to, God. This may have been a
Canaanite culture, which had
a similar word for God (Israel used the singular
form of Elohim and Canaanites used Elim).
Eventually, it went from a belief in their God as the most powerful to a be-
lief in just one God--monotheism--which
was the belief in Jesus' culture during
the first century AD.
It took a while for monotheism to dominate. The outlooks of these believers
were incorporated into some
earlier OT verses where God recognizes and disap-
proves of, and disapproves of belief in, those angels or humans or supernatural
beings
as gods and to affirm commitment to monotheism--belief in one true God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan
"Elohim" is usually translated God (singular) or "judges" or "gods" (plural).
Some Jewish scholars think the
root source of the word is "powers." Otherwise,
it's thought it was most likely derived from the name El, the main
god of the
Canaanites, and the oldest form thought to be the plural form for multiple gods
or multiple gods acting as
one. A good article about it is at the next link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim
This explains the presence of lesser gods in Deut.32; Psalm 58; 82; 86; 96,
in which God is given as assigning
to rule, one per nation beyond God's nation
of people, in the early first temple period or earlier. They do a lousy
job of
it--not "gods" for perfectly representing God--and God condemns them. After-
ward, God, in the second part
of Isaiah, chapter 40 on, in the post exile per-
iod, says there are no other gods.
Those gods, in turn, remind me of the Devil given in the NT as god of the
world (2 Cor.4:4)--the god of non-believing,
worldly people (p.6), a god who
stinks at it, and whom God has condemned. There are no other gods for believers
except
the one true valid God, the only one that's God by nature.
The mainstream conservative view can see the God of the Bible allow the view
of one main God with lesser gods
long enough to show the fallacy of considering
the lesser "gods" as a believer in monolatrism would contend--as a word
for an
especially good representative of God. The case having been shown, God disap-
proved of the followers thinking
of any lesser gods as real or approved of--
we're only to believe in one true God.
The JWs leaders view instead goes back to the monolatrism view (ironically, an
ancient pagan view, which is
what it accuses the Trinity view of being) to in-
terpret scripture to have God approve of followers in considering those
human
judges and angels as gods.
"Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature
are not gods. But now that
you know God—-or rather are known by God—-how is it
that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles?
Do you wish
to be enslaved by them all over again?" (Gal.4:8)
According to this Wikipedia article on monotheism:
"In Genesis chapter one, God is put in the singular context. He is unambig-
uously singular, and therefore
Genesis chapter one could be said to be a Mono-
theistic. (Gen 1:1) However, if we look at God’s interaction
with Abraham, the
evidence is less compelling. According to the book of Judith, the Patriarchs
(starting with
Abraham), left the gods of their fathers. (Jdt 5:7) God is later
to reveal Himself not as the only God, but rather
as the god whom Abraham knows.
(Gen 15:17) In such a respect, God is not God alone, but the god who was wor-
shipped
by Abraham’s clan. In such a context, it is a type of tribal deity,
that although was worshipped alone, did
not explicitly exclude the existence of
other gods, who were not relevant to them.
"In the early Mosaic era, the possibility of other gods is left an open ques-
tion, although by this stage
Israel claims that their God is greater. (Ex 18:11)
This same subtle shift is shown in 2 Chr 2:5, and could indicate that
Israel un-
derstood that the God they recognized was God alone, and other gods were there-
fore false. This would
be Monotheism in the proper sense of the word. By the
time of the prophet Isaiah, Monotheism is solidly and explicitly
accepted.
'Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: "I
am the first and I am the
last; besides me there is no god.' (Is 44:6) Thus,
the development of the people of Israel to a true Monotheism,
appears to be a
gradual process, with the exception of Gen 1:1. It is therefore likely that
Gen 1:1 was redacted
later than the other examples supplied, and so, the devel-
opment of Monotheism comes firstly on a tribal level, and gradually
advances to
recognition that the God of Israel is the only God. It is into this context
that Christianity emerges,
and thus Christianity was from the outset Monotheis-
tic. (John 1:1)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kevinkor2/LORD http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monotheism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism#In_Ancient_Israel
At the next link is an article called "The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Is-
rael's Polytheistic Background
and the Ugaritic Texts" by Mark S. Smith, Skir-
ball Professor of Bible and Near Eastern Studies, New York University.
https://books.google.com/books?id=6YWEAR1lNEwC
A number of NT verses refer to Isaiah, notably the book of John:
Matt.12:17–21 (Is.42:1–4); Matt.3:3 and Luke 3:4 (Is.40:3); Rom.10:16,20 (Is.
53:1; 65:1);
and John 12:38–41 (Is.53:1; 6:10).
John 12:38-40: "This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: 'Lord, who
has believed our message and
to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?'
For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere:
'He
has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with
their eyes, nor understand with their
hearts, nor turn-—and I would heal them."
The JWs leaders have claimed that Jesus is called "the Lord of Lords" but not
"the God of gods."
The phrase "God of gods" doesn't show up in the NT because the concept comes
from the old Canaanite idea of
a God and gods, the one main God being the most
powerful, an idea abolished by the time of Isaiah.
Deut.10:16 "For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords,
the great, the mighty, and
the awesome God who does not show partiality nor take
a bribe." Also see Josh.22:22; Ps.136:2; Dan.2:47; 1 Tim.6:15;
Rev.19:16.
The denial of any but one true God for Christians comes up in the NT in this
passage that simultaneously incorporates
Jesus as the Lord of the "One God and
one Lord" Shema:
1 Cor.8:5,6 "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or
in earth, (as there be gods
many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one
God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord
Jesus
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him." 1 Corinthians 8:5-6
****
So they had El and YHWH. They'd ask the loyal devoted if they believed in
God, and they'd say, "El, yeah."
The more enthusiastic would say, "El, yeah--
woah!" Sorry.
****
Human judges as gods part one: John 10; Psalms 82:1-8
One of the main JWs leaders' efforts to establish a commonly approved use of
the word "gods" to refer to beings
who were figurative gods in being representa-
tive of the one true God of the Bible, notably in the time of John 1:1, is
in
seeing the Elohim (plural--usually translated "judges" or "gods") of early Mosa-
ic law as "gods," but the verses
indicate the same concerns given above about
polytheism and monolatrism being given as being held by a subculture and disap-
proved
of.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim
At John 10:33, Jesus was threatened with being stoned to death for blasphemy
(offense to God) by calling himself
God.
The NWT translates this "a god," which wouldn't have carried a death penalty,
especially if approval of calling
others "gods" was the common cultural under-
standing as the JWs leaders' view asserts.
If the Canaanite idea of someone called "a god" were an accepted idea in first
century Jewish monotheism, not
an obsolete one condemned in Psalm 82, etc. Je-
sus' critics shouldn't have reacted in offense at someone calling themself
"a
god" at John 10. If it were a minority view they hadn't thought of, Jesus
should have explained it and called
himself archangel Michael so the discussion
would continue without rocks.
Their reaction is to Jesus saying he and the Father were one, which Jesus knew
they took to be a reference
to the Shema (see "I and the father are one" about
John 10:30 on p.8) and by calling himself "the" Son of God, which he
knew they
took to be a claim of deity. Jesus has claimed things for himself that God
would claim (not just as
a man considered "a god" for speaking perfectly accur-
ately when he spoke about God) (see the section on "I am" regarding
John 8:58 on
p.8). Jesus referred to Psalms 82:1-8.
Psalms 82:1-8 shows the same form shown in other old OT examples on this page
of bringing up the earlier Canaanite
acceptance of gods to denounce it.
Psalms 82:1-8 is a Psalm of Asaph. God, which is what Elohim in singular form
refers to, made a case
in his court about the Elohim, usually translated "human
judges" or "rulers" or "gods." God judged them.
God accused them of actually doing a lousy job: "How long will you judge un-
justly And show partiality to
the wicked?"
"As in Psalm 58, the pagan gods are seen as subordinate divine beings to whom
Israel's God had delegated oversight
of the foreign countries in the beginning
(Deut 32:8-9). Now God arises in the heavenly assembly (Psalm 82:1) to
rebuke
the unjust "gods" (Psalm 82:2-4), who are stripped of divine status and reduced
in rank to mortals (Psalm 82:5-7).
They are accused of misruling the earth by
not upholding the poor. A short prayer for universal justice concludes
the
psalm (Psalm 82:8).
"The gods are blind and unable to declare what is right. Their misrule shakes
earth's foundations (cf Psalm
11:3; 75:4), which God made firm in creation
(Psalm 96:10).
"Judge the earth: according to Deut 32:8-9, Israel's God had originally as-
signed jurisdiction over the foreign
nations to the subordinate deities, keeping
Israel as a personal possession. Now God will directly take over the
rulership
of the whole world."
The JWs leaders' choice of interpretation is that God judged the idea of them
being called "gods--Sons of the
Most High"" in the sense of "mighty representa-
tives of God." The JWs leaders don't explain the obsolete Canaanite
"gods" and
related obsolete "sons of God" history because they want to use the idea of
"gods" being acceptable in first
century Jewish monotheism for their stance
about Jesus. The rest of the passage shows God to consider the "gods"
as un-
worthy of the honor of even being considered fair in the way humans can be,
though.
God was being sarcastic and ironic calling them "gods--Sons of the Most High"
in reference to the fact that
others gave them these titles. God was polite
enough to address them by these names then made it clear somebody made
these
appointments without running it past the main office. It's inappropriate to
figure he was confessing low
self-esteem about what a perfect representation of
Himself is by calling them "gods." It's like a Christian calling
the Devil the
god of the world--a creep that wrong-headed people make too much of and consider
a god, someone others
have as a god that God condemns as false and unworthy.
The Christian doesn't consider them true gods but refers to them
as "gods" as if
it's in qotes--so-called gods. (Compare Is.14:13-22)
If God gave the elohim a shot at the job before, now they were being fired.
Asaph, or God quoted by Asaph, said those gods are condemned. They will die
like anyone--like princes
who fall from power. Rulership was returned to God in
the view of the followers.
Jesus was equally ironic with his reference. He told his judges that they
acted superior but they misunderstood
in judging against him, too. If Asaph or
God can call those judges of Psalms 82:1-8 "gods--Sons of the Most High"
sarcas-
tically and say they're condemned, how much more does Jesus deserve to say he's
the Son of God when the Father
sent him sinlessly to be understood as that? Je-
sus chose a verse that did the double duty of defending his claim
of identity
while telling his critics they were condemned for judging someone good as evil
without understanding.
Jesus said his accusers would have a case if they could produce an example of
him sinning, but they'd see him
do the works of the Father because the Father
was in him and he was in the Father. Since Jesus agreed about what
he was call-
ing himself but accused them of misunderstanding to think it was blasphemy, they
tried to kill him for
blasphemy but he got away. He went across the Jordan,
where many believed him.
Likewise, at John 8:42-44, Jesus rebuked his critics by saying they weren't
being sons of God in criticizing
him for calling himself the Son of God--their
father was the Devil.
It's also ironic given the charge of the JWs leaders' brochure that the Trin-
itarian view of Jesus comes from
earlier pagan views to form a view that ap-
pears in history several centuries later than the apostolic age as a variation
of
philosophy of the time. Here, the JWs leaders' monolatrism connects with an
earlier condemned pagan view and, within
early Christian history, with the Arian
view that showed up several centuries after the apostolic age, which may have
been
partly concerned with neo-Platonic outlooks of the time--p.9, and which is
part of the JWs leaders' case about Jesus being
a "god" at John 1:1.
The further irony is that Jesus' double reference to bad elitist judges also
applies to the JWs leaders'
methods to affect their pretension of being the only
12 or so, of an especially righteous 144,000, competent to judge what
God's
rules should be (such as in damning all other non-JWs leaders' Bible teachers as
"Babylon") despite the harm the
JWs leaders' pretension has caused, beyond un-
necessary divisions between people (disfellowshipping, p.3), in encouraging
fa-
talities and their bereaved in Germany and Malawi (worldliness, etc., p.6) and
hospitals (bans on the medical uses
of blood, pp.12-42; you might throw in some
of their other medical quackery on p.1 and the poor handling of sex offenders
on
p.6).
Using the JWs leaders' definition of figurative "god," the only 12, out of the
144,000 most righteous Christians
in history, competent to judge what God's
rules should be would be "gods." The JWs leaders might deny it to avoid
incon-
venient criticism and the predictable rude jokes, such as in denying that they
play prophet (p.1) to avoid the
false prophet charges, but, by their definition,
they're "gods."
****
Human judges as gods part two
At Ex.21:6 and 22:8, a judgment is to be arrived at by someone going before
the elohim. Elohim could
be translated God, and some have translated it judges.
See the verse shown below:
Deut 19:17 "then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD,
before the priests and the
judges who are in office in those days;"
Some of the phrasing and meanings of Psalms 82:1-8 can be found in earlier
verses in Deuteronomy, shown below.
An earlier subculture of people, not mono-
theistic, believed in God (elohim, singular) ruling over lesser gods (elohim,
plural)--polytheism.
The belief was that the gods, sons of God, were assigned
subordinate control over the nations--a nation per god.
Some of the verses that refer to those other gods or sons of God: Ex. 15:11;
18:11; Deut.10:17; 1 Chr.16:25;
2 Chr.2:5. Psalm 86:8-10; 89:6; 95:3; 96:4-5;
135:5; 136:2; and 138:1.
But God gave them Israel and rules over it himself--monotheism. People should
neither worship nor serve
gods as demons would prefer them to do:
Deut.4:19,20 "And beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when you
see the sun and the moon
and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn
away and worship them and serve them, things which the LORD your God
has al-
lotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. But the LORD has taken you,
and brought you forth out
of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of
his own possession, as at this day."
Deut.10:17,18 "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the
great, the mighty, and the
terrible God, who is not partial and takes no bribe.
He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the
sojourner,
giving him food and clothing."
Deut.32:7,8 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many genera-
tions; ask your father, and
he will show you; your elders, and they will tell
you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separ-
ated the sons of men, he fixed the bounds of the peoples according to the number
of the sons of God."
Deut. 32:16-17 "They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abomin-
ations they provoked Him
to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not God; to gods
they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals that your fathers
did not fear."
Deut.32:39 "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I
kill and I make alive; I
wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver
out of my hand."
Eventually, it went from a belief in their God as the most powerful to a be-
lief in just one God--monotheism--which
was the belief in Jesus' culture during
the first century AD.
****
Angelic gods part one
Psalm 97:7 and Heb.1:6; Psalm 8:5 and Heb.2:7
One JWs leaders' view has had it (I'm not sure if they still use it) that a
couple of verses from Psalms, seen
in the Masoretic text (9th century AD) and
Septuagint (3rd to 1st century BC), show the Masoretic texts as referring to
gods
and the Septuagint to angels, and that it must be a matter of the Masoretic
text defining the angels as gods, with the
NT book of Hebrews (1st century AD)
thought to quote the Septuagint version of the Psalms to show the Masoretic ver-
sion
was a definition that was the understanding in Jesus' time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistle_to_the_Hebrews
As the article points out, the Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd century BC to 1st cen-
tury AD), known by some Essenes-like
people of around Jesus' time, agree with
the Septuagint over a similar "gods"/"angels" difference with the Masoretic text
at
Deut.32:39.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls
(It's also ironic given the charge of the JWs leaders' brochure that the Trin-
itarian view of Jesus comes
from earlier pagan views to form a view that appears
in history later than the apostlic age. Here, the JWs leaders'
monolatrism and
the use of the Masoretic text is a case of JW leaders doing that as part of
their case about Jesus being
a "god" at John 1:1.)
The JWs leaders' claim that the Bible intends to define angels as gods with a
parallel of the gods of Psalm
97:6-9 with the angels of Hebrews 1:6.
Psalm 97:6-9
"The heavens declare His righteousness,
And all the peoples have seen His glory.
Let
all those be ashamed who serve graven images,
Who boast themselves of idols;
Worship Him, all you gods.
Zion heard this and was glad,
And the daughters of Judah have rejoiced
Because of Your judgments,
O LORD.
For You are the LORD Most High over all the earth;
You are exalted far above all gods.." (NASB)
Hebrews 1:6 "And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,
'AND LET ALL THE ANGELS
OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.'" (NASB)
The gods of Psalm 97:6-9 are the gods of the polytheism belief condemned by
God at Psalm 82:1-8, described
above--lesser gods that worship the main god.
The gods mentioned in Psalm 138:1--"I will give You thanks with all my heart;
I
will sing praises to You before the gods"--are from the same group.
The reference to angels in Hebrews 1:6, or anywhere else in the NT, isn't
meant to imply a revival of acceptance
of the condemned belief in gods of Psalms
97:6. Since the idea of acceptable lesser "gods" had been condemned for
centur-
ies, a good way to make the JWs leaders' stance clear wouldn't be to alter such
an old verse to replace the
"gods" with "angels" but would be for Hebrews 1:6 to
add a phrase like "the greatest God of our gods" or such, but it wasn't
done.
The angels of Hebrews 1:6 worship Jesus. The NWT translates it "obeisance."
As explained above, Ex.34:14--"You
shall not worship any other god, for the LORD
is 'the Jealous One'" indicates God is offended by someone doing either one
to a
"god." And Col.2:18 indicates Christians shouldn't worship angels. (See "Hon-
oring a god by falling
forward in obesity" above and the section on "Prayer and
worship" on p.8.)
****
Angelic gods part two
Psalm 8:4,5
"What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!" (NASB)
Hebrews 2:6,7a "But one has testified somewhere, saying, "WHAT IS MAN, THAT
YOU REMEMBER HIM? OR THE
SON OF MAN, THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT HIM? YOU
HAVE MADE HIM FOR A LITTLE WHILE LOWER THAN THE ANGELS, YOU HAVE
CROWNED HIM
WITH GLORY AND HONOR." (NASB)
The "elohim" of Psalm 8:5 is translated "godlike ones" by the JWs leaders'
NWT. This is again due to
the JWs leaders' concern to have "gods," notably Je-
sus as a "god," be thought of as acceptable in first century Jewish
monotheism.
Again, the Canaanite idea of "gods" was condemned long before that, so it would
be preferable to think of
Jesus being reduced to human form as made a little
lower than God (at Gen.2:7, "God created man in His own image," taken
here to
refer to Jesus taking the form of a sinless man as Adam was originally) and an-
gels and not lower than condemned
false gods (which would be too low).
Other "gods" or "sons of the gods" of the same group:
Psalm 86:8-10; 89:6; 95:3; 96:4-5; 135:5; 136:2; 138:1; Ex. 15:11; 18:11; Deut.
10:17; 1 Chr.16:25; 2 Chr.2:5.
****
Where did gods of nations go?
long time passing (Sorry.)
Ex.20:2,3 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before Me."
Deut.32:39 "See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me."
Psalm 96:4,5 "For great is the LORD and greatly to be praised;
He is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
But the LORD made the heavens." (NASB)
Isaiah 14:13-15 (The devil, v.12, condemned for trying to make himself like
a judge like the Most High):
"But you
said in your heart,
'I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.'
Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol,
To the recesses of the pit." (NASB)
Isaiah 42:17 "They shall be turned back and be utterly put to shame who trust
in idols, who say to molten
images, 'you are our gods.'"
Isaiah 43:10-13 "'You are My witnesses,' declares the LORD, 'And My servant
whom I have chosen, So that
you may know and believe Me And understand that I am
He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none
after Me. I,
even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me. It is I who have de-
clared and saved
and proclaimed, And there was no strange god among you; So you
are My witnesses,' declares the LORD, 'And I am God.
Even from eternity I am
He, And there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse
it?'"
Isaiah 44:6-8 "Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the
LORD of hosts: 'I am the
first and I am the last, And there is no God besides
Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; Yes,
let him recount it
to Me in order, From the time that I established the ancient nation. And let
them declare to
them the things that are coming And the events that are going to
take place. Do not tremble and do not be afraid;
Have I not long since an-
nounced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God
besides
Me, Or is there any other Rock? I know of none.'"
Isaiah 44:24 "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you
from the womb, 'I, the LORD,
am the maker of all things, Stretching out the
heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone.'"
Isaiah 45:5-7 "I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no
God. I will gird you,
though you have not known Me; That men may know from the
rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides
Me. I am the
LORD, and there is no other, The One forming light and creating darkness, Caus-
ing well-being and
creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these."
Isaiah 45:14 "They will make supplication to you: 'Surely, God is with you,
and there is none else, No
other God.'"
Isaiah 45:18 "For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God
who formed the earth and
made it, He established it and did not create it a
waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), 'I am the LORD, and there
is none
else.'"
Isaiah 45:21-22 "Declare and set forth your case; Indeed, let them consult
together. Who has announced
this from of old? Who has long since declared it?
Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides
Me, A righteous God
and a Savior; There is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of
the earth;
For I am God, and there is no other."
Isaiah 46:8-10 "Remember this, and be assured; Recall it to mind, you trans-
gressors. Remember
the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no
other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the
end from the begin-
ning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My pur-
pose will be established,
And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.'"
Isaiah 47:10,11 "Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you; For
you have said in your heart,
'I am, and there is no one besides me.' But evil
will come on you Which you will not know how to charm away; And
disaster will
fall on you For which you cannot atone; And destruction about which you do not
know Will come on you suddenly."
Isaiah 48:12,13 "Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I
am the first, I am also
the last. Surely My hand founded the earth And My right
hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand
together."
Isaiah teaches that things or beings beyond the one true God that some call
gods aren't really things or
beings that followers are to look up to as gods.
Whatever kind it is other than the one true God, a follower shouldn't
believe in
it. They should refer to the Devil or gods believed in by others as false gods.
The JWs leaders' view is that Isaiah doesn't indicate monotheism because God
would be denying that the angels
and humans referred to above are gods (as with
the JWs leaders' monolatrism or soft polytheism/inclusive monotheism), but
that's
exactly what God in Isaiah was doing--cleaning house of the old Canaanite
acceptance of gods that the JWs leaders want
to reach back for some support
from.
The various "no god" verses seem to cover any type of "god," which would rule
out the JWs leaders' idea of
God creating through a "god" at Prov.8:22-31 and
John 1:1-14. It would be like God healing through an apostle to
indicate to
others that the apostle was sent by God as a messenger. But God repeatedly de-
nied that anyone was
used for that. (See the sections on Prov.8:22-31 and John
1:1 on p.8)
Gal.4:8 To worship whatever other than God is to commit to beings which by
nature are not God.
(Only God is of the nature of God, diety, and to be wor-
shipped.)
1 Cor.8:5,6 Paul writes that no other gods or lords in heaven or Earth have
any real existence.
(Don't call any one or thing else a god or lord in the
sense of a "god" you accept and believe in as good. Christians
call the Devil
the god of the world, those who don't believe in God, not one of their own.)
1 Cor 10:20 Worship at an idol temple (to gods that don't exist) is to devote
yourself to demons (who
would be pleased to see followers stray from God) and
not God.
2 Cor.4:4 "...the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving,
that they might not see
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is
the image of God."
****
Sons of a God
Another way the JWs leaders try to get "god" into John 1:1 is to say that
"sons of God" refers to "gods," angels
are called "sons of God" so are "gods,"
this view was accepted in the apostolic age, Jesus is archangel Micheael, so Je-
sus
is "a god."
For the early Mosaic law repudiation of the Canaanite belief in celestial be-
ings as "gods" or "sons of God"
beyond the one God, see above.
For Jesus not being called archangel Michael, see p.8.
I see an algebra problem coming up. In algebra, if A = B and B = C, then A =
C. But with this
one, A was repudiated a long time ago and nobody said B = C.
In the OT, "son of" and "sons of" can refer to someone or a group having an
allegiance to or something in common
with whatever they're a son or sons of.
At Nehemiah 12:28, "the sons of the singers" are people who have in common
that they like to sing.
To customize it to fit their stance about Jesus as archangel Michael the god,
with "god" meant as a figurative
god, representative of God, the JWs leaders de-
fine "Son of" and "Sons of" more narrowly as "of the class of" or "of the
nature
of" when it comes to angels as sons of God and leave out the history explained
in the sections above. The
"sons" in this case could then be called "gods" as
figurative representations of what they're sons of. (This JWs
leaders' idea
probably originated with efforts in Charles Russell's day, p.1a, to interpret
those early verses about
acceptable "gods" beyond the one true God, which Rus-
sell incorporated into his elitism.)
The JWs leaders than apply this definition to angels, which are called "sons
of God," which in turn is interpreted
to mean that the Bible accepts the use of
the word "god" to refer to an angel as a figurative representative of God.
The "sons of singers" mentioned above could be said to be of the class of
singers and were called singers.
They weren't figurative representations of
singers, though, just a group that liked to sing.
At Judges 20:13, wicked or worthless men are called sons of "Belial," a word
with an uncertain origin but which
is generally taken to mean wickedness or
worthlessness. "Sons of Belial" show those traits. Those "sons"
could be said
to be of the nature of Belial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belial
Those "sons" could be said to be of the nature of Belial. "Belial" appears in
the Dead Sea Scrolls as
an evil angel, and comes up in the NT: "Or what harmony
has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an
unbeliever?"
(2 Cor.6:15)
The main "sons of" to look at are "sons of God," since the JWs leaders build
a rule on it that it was acceptable
in first century Jewish monotheism to call
acceptable (not fallen) angels "gods," therefore call the JWs leaders' Jesus,
archangel
Michael, "a god."
Angels are called Sons of God at Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Psalms 29:1; 82:6; 89:7;
and Dan.3:25.
Job 1:6; 2:1 Satan appears with the sons of God who present themselves to
God. Satan isn't a follower
of God, he's a harsh critic contesting God's right
to rule, so isn't a son of God.
In the apostolic age, the Devil was called the god or ruler of the world
(John 12:31; Eph.2:2; 2 Cor.4:4) (see
the section on worldliness on p.6). The
Devil wasn't representative of God, or a god to Christians, but said to be
the
god or ruler of people without faith. To Christians, the Devil is a false god,
someone wrong to look up to
for guidance, a liar (John 8:44), and wouldn't qual-
ify as a son of God or "a god" that's any competition to monotheism.
Angels are followers of God and are called sons of God.
Job 38:7 "On what were its bases set, or who laid its cornerstone when the
morning stars sang in chorus,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"
Angels aren't called gods in the monotheism Mosaic law established (see the
"god" and "angel" verses described
above).
Theophanies--the speaker talked to an angel then realized they were talking to
God. Either God spoke
through an angel using the angel as the mechanism, and
for the appearance, to do it with, or it was an early appearance
by the main-
stream version of Jesus. There are examples with Hagar, Abraham, and Moses in
the Wikipedia article
at the next link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophany
Gen 6:2-4 Sons of God mated with the daughters of men and produced giants.
Whether these sons of God were angels or men, they betrayed God so wouldn't
qualify as Sons of God anymore,
and they did this before anyone could get on
record if they were called "gods" or not, at least at first. These Sons
of God
may be the angels referred to by Jude 1:6.
Jude 1:6 "And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their
proper dwelling have been
kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom un-
til the judgment of the great day."
Ex.4:22; Deut,14:1; Hosea 11:1 The people of Israel, like angels, are called
"sons of God" but aren't
called "gods," just those of a close relationship
with, and allegiance to, God.
Psalm 29:1,2 "Ascribe to the LORD, O sons of the mighty, Ascribe to the LORD
glory and strength.
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the
LORD in holy array." (NASB)
Ex.4:16 Moses was to be as God, meaning to speak on God's behalf to the flock
(also 7:1,2, where Moses
is to do this in speaking to the Pharoah of Egypt) but
Moses isn't decribed as a figurative "god." It's similar to
a theophany if in-
terpreted as an angel used as the mechanism God used to speak to another
through--it didn't make
for any different consideration of the mechanism.
At Num.22:28-30, God spoke to Balaam through a donkey. Whether you take that
part literally or as Balaam's
interpretation of the donkey's mood, Balaam didn't
become an a** worshipper, though, because that would be indiscreet.
(Sorry.)
Oh, he could be fond of them, but worship was right out. (Sorry.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balaam#Balaam_and_Balak
Maybe this is a better example. At Zechariah 12:8: "In that day the LORD will
defend the inhabitants
of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in
that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like
God, like the
angel of the LORD before them." The whole house of David wasn't made up of
"gods."
Angels and Israelites were lesser beings than God. They could be considered
God's children and sinless
(angels except for ones that went astray) or rela-
tively so (Israelites), and "sons of God" in having commitment to God
in common.
But they hadn't been called "gods" since centuries before the apostolic age. As
far as being perfectly
representative of God goes:
Psalms 89:6 "For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the
heavenly beings is
like the LORD"
2 Sam.7:8,14-16 David is called a son by God, and it's applied to his de-
scendants who carry on
his dynasty.
God is distinguished from the sinless angel or relatively sinless Israelite
"sons of" God in that God is the
supreme being with unique abilities. This
uniqueness would be preserved and kept clear by referring to good obedience
as
such without calling an obedient angel or Israelite a "god." Just calling an-
other "a god" suggests being
perfectly representative of something unattainable
by any being other than God, and could create questions of recognition
of there
being just one true God which would be avoided by not having "a god" as a com-
monly accepted phrase for someone
representative of God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koine_Greek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Hebrew
Psalm 2:7 is considered a Psalm about the future Messiah as the most special
Son of God: "I will surely
tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, 'You
are My Son, Today I have begotten You." (NASB)
Jesus is distinguished from general "Sons" of "Sons of God" phrases in being
"the" Son of God. In Jesus'
case, "the" Son of God means he has a uniquely
close relationship with the Father. See "Only-begotten" and "The Son
of God"
on p.8.
****
God in earliest Christianity
The parenthesized page numbers I give refer to pages in his book.
As reflected in the earliest writings of Paul, early on Jesus was considered
Lord in the Jewish sense, and
of a divine Sonship, not the pagan religion sense
of sons of gods considered divine. (p.21) The chief characteristic
of the
Judaism this Christianity originated in was that it was monotheistic. (p.29)
"Although the Hebrew Scriptures present Israel as summoned from the first to
an exclusive worship of Yahweh,
and as condemned for worshipping other dieties,
the earliest and clearest expressions of a genuinely monotheistic belief
(that
is, a denial of the efficacy or reality of any other diety) are found in Isai-
ah 43-48, in a section of the book
tht is widely seen among scholars as coming
from the period of the Babylonian exile (sixth century B.C.E.)." (p.30)
By the 2nd century B.C.E., acceptance of many dieties and cultic devotion to
human rulers was seen as stupid
and corrupt by devout Jews. (p.30)
Two major themes are shown "in the monotheistic rhetoric of ancient Jews: (1)
God's universal sovereignty as
creator and ruler over all, even over the evil
forces that oppose God; and (2) God's uniqueness, expressed by contrasting
God
with the other dieties of the religious environment, but also expressed in con-
trasts or distinctions between God
and God's own heavenly retinue, the angels."
(p.36) (Hurtado, "First-Century Jewish Monotheism," 12-14)
This is shown most clearly in their religious/cultic practice--that worship
was for the one true God.
"It is possible to misinterpret the honorific des-
criptions of principal angels and other exalted figures in ancient Jewish
texts
(a possibility exhibited in some scholar's readings of those texts!),
particularly if we treat those references out of
the context of the religious
practice of those who wrote the texts."
"Jews were quite willing to imagine beings who bear the divine name within
them and can be referred to by one
or more of God's titles...beings so endowed
with divine attributes as to make it difficult to distinguish them descriptively
from
God, beings who are the very direct personal extensions of God's power and
sovereignty. About this, there is clear
evidence. This clothing of servants of
God with God's attributes and even name will perhaps seem to us 'theologically
confusing'
if we go looking for a...." (p.36)
The earliest writings about the earliest Christians are by apostle Paul.
The term Paul uses the most is "Christ"--Messiah. It also serves to distin-
guish Jesus from Joshua (both
"Iesuos" in Greek). "In Christ" conveys "a more
'mystical' participation of believers somehow in Jesus." (pp.98,99)
Paul's earlier offense about Christianity seems to have been a rejection of
claims that Jesus was the Messiah
and that reverence for Jesus compromised the
uniqueness of God. Paul refers to Jesus' divine Sonship, God's Son, fifteen
times
in the indisputed Pauline seven letters and two more times in the remain-
ing ones. (p.101)
Worship of Jesus was considered the distinguishing feature of Christianity by
Christians and outsiders from
the earliest stages of the movement. (p.606)
See "Aspects of Early Christian and Jewish Worship: Pliny and the Kerygma
Petrou,"
Graham N. Stanton, in "Worship, Theology, and Ministry in the Early
Church: Essays in Honor of Ralph P. Martin, edited
by M.A. Wilkins and T. Paige,
1992, pp.84-98.
