[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]confusion wrote:
mse2us,I am really glad you joined the discussion. Thank you. You are much better versed in the scriptures than me. I sort of hijacked the abortion thread with attempts to prove most professing Christians don’t live what the Bible teaches. I was pretty much told that because I am not a christian,I don’t understand what the bible means and I was taking a very Legallistic approach that is incorrect,even tho I only used the words of the Bible to try and prove my points,and that I had no idea what I was talking about…Regardless,my father taught me that any church that teaches that 1.Jesus is not God and that 2. his shed blood alone is not sufficient for salvation,is a false religion. When I studied the NT,I will say that IMO,there are very few places that indicate Jesus is God,let alone that the Holy Spirit is God. Jesus never said he was god,other than I and my father are one. Or something similar. He always referred to himself as the son of man or something like that. From what I can gather,the scripture doesn’t say we have to believe the trinity,it says.something like this in several places:
Romans 10:9King James Version (KJV)
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. The JW’s are certainly doing that. Confusion[/quote]
I appreciate that confusion. Yeah, the trinity is real frustrating because people who believe it are taught that it basically doesn’t make sense and that it’s illogical by calling it a “mystery” or the concept is beyond our limited human minds to fully grasp so we really shouldn’t try to really understand how the father, son and the holy spirit could be one in the same. The sad thing is that when you’re taught to think and reason like that then it completely ruins ones ability to look at clear, obvious Bible scripture and form a logical conclusion based on scripture. It’s very difficult to think logically if you’re taught to think illogically and thinking that a clearly stated father\son relationship is anything other than two distinct individuals is illogical. That’s because there has never been in the history of humans where a father and son are one and the same. Even in the animal kingdom this has never happened. It’s 100 percent impossible for a son to physically be his father or father be son or either one turn into the other. Even if he acts exactly like his father and the term “splitting image” is used to show how close the son’s physical appearance and personality is to his father, no human in the history of humans would ever think that a father and son are one person. And if anyone tried to convince you that they are the exact same person you’d look at that person like he or she was crazy. I can guarantee that no amount of evidence that a person presented would convince any normal thinking person that a human father and son are the exact same person because a father and son 100 percent of time has always been and will always be two separate distinct individuals.
Now the Bible is written for humans by humans who were inspired by God. Jesus regularly used illustrations to help his listeners grasp what he was saying. His illustrations were told using things that an agricultural, farming society of that era would immediately be familiar with which would help them better grasp what Jesus was saying. It’s a fact that Jesus purposely spoke this way to help his listeners understanding. Since that’s the case, then why would Jesus over and over again refer to himself as son and God as Father if he wanted his listeners to believe anything other than how any human of that time or any other time would understand a father\son relationship? It just wouldn’t make sense, it would be illogical if Jesus who regulary and purposely spoke in a way to help his listeners better understand his teachings would want his listeners to hear father\son and then think that he really meant that they were one in the same.
Jesus referred to himself so much as the son of God that John said at John 20:31 that the purpose of him writing the book of John is so that people may believe that Jesus is God’s son not God.
Like you mentioned there is a verse where Jesus says I and the father are one. This is stated at John 10:30. What Jesus is saying here is that he and his Father are united and in union with each other similar to the old Army slogan “Army of one.” At John 17:11 and 21 Jesus prayed to his Father and asked him that he help his disciples all be one just like he and his father are one. He wants his disciples to be united in mind and thought just like he and his father are. Unfortunately, people use John 10:30 as scriptural proof to prove the trinity and aren’t made aware of John 17:11 and 21 which would explain what Jesus meant when he said I and the father are one. [/quote]
Do you really think your best move here is to accuse us Christians as stupid, brainwashed, and ignorant of the Scriptures and what they say. Not only is that rich, (see the Watch Tower) but ignorant of the history of Christianity and an massive underestimation of the Christians present here. Any numbnut can copy and paste a bunch of scripture. The doctrine of the Trinity existed before the Bible itself did. It was believed and practiced since apostolic times and Taze Russel did not ‘unlock’ some deep mystery of the scriptures that happened to be missed for the 17 centuries prior.
Like I said, the NWT was deliberately altered to fit belief rather than belief conform to what was written. Which is why it is considered highly errant among Biblical Scholars as well as the King James Bible which is known it have well over 800 critical translation errors.
The trinity is well established in the scriptures, especially when unaltered. The Latin Vulgate is the translation that all other are measured by. Great pains have been taken in more recent translations such as the NRSV and ESV to be as faithful to the original texts as possible. Versions which have been verified and studied by multiple biblical Scholars from many backgrounds and are open to verification and study by all scholars for accuracy, both apostolic and evangelical scholars alike. There is no secret society, no anonymousness. [/quote]
Numbnuts?!?! LOL!! that’s the funniest thing I heard all day? Copy and paste? My post are first rough draft quality at best. The only thing I copy and paste are scriptures (I have copied and pasted in past post but not on this thread. I don’t have a problem doing that).
“The Latin Vulgate is the translation that all other are measured by.” Oh Pat, I cringe when I hear statements like that. I’ll try to help your understanding. We can go back and forth quoting so called experts\scholars with opposite views regarding whether the Latin Vulgate is a good translation or not. Let me give you two specific examples of inaccuracies in the Latin Vulgate. This way we won’t have to rely on quotes from experts\scholars reguarding whether a book is good or not. We can look at the examples and see for ourselves the inaccuracies in the translations. In one of my previous post I showed how the Greek verb proskuneo which means to perform a gesture to prostrate or do obeisance to someone was inconsistently translated in at least six of the most popular translations. When used for someone other than Jesus those Bibles translated proskuneo as prostrate, pay homage, do obeisance but when the same word was used with Jesus the word worship was used. This inconsistent use of the word regardless of your belief is undeniably an example of bad translating. You don’t need an expert\scholar to tell you that. You may need an expert\scholar to make you aware of that fact but once made aware most people reading this can come to that conclusion on their own. The Latin Vulgate actually does something worse - it completely changes a verse to support a doctrine. Want to take a guess on what doctrine that is . . . . . .yep you guessed it - the trinity. The passage is at 1 John 5:7, 8. I first read about this in the book Misquoting Jesus.
I’ll quote it below:
[b][i]"This is the account of 1 John 5:7,8, which scholars have called the Johannine Comma, found in the manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate but not in the vast majority of Greek manuscripts, a passage that had long been a favorite among Christian theologians, since it is the only passage in the entire Bible that explicitly delineates the doctrine of the Trinity, that there are three persons in the godhead, but that the three constitute just on God. In the Vulgate, the passage reads: There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit the water; and the blood and these three are one. It is a mysterious passage, but unequivical in its support of the traditional teachings of the church on the “triune God is who is one.” Without this verse, the doctrine of the Trinity must be inferred from a range of passages combined to show that Christ is God, as is the Spirit and the Father and that there is, nonetheless, only one God. This passage, in contrast, states the doctrine directly and succinctly.
But Erasmus did not find it in his Greek manuscripts, which simply read: “There are three that bear witness: the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one” Where did the “Father the Word and the Spirit” go? They were not in Erasmus’s primary manuscript, or in any of the others that he consulted and so naturally he left them out of his first edition of the Greek text.
More than anything else, it was this that outraged the theologians of his day, who accused Erasmus of tampering with the text in an attempt to eliminate the doctrine of the Trinity and to devalue it corolary, the doctrine of the full divinity of Christ. In particular, Stunican, one of the chief editors of the Complutensian Polyglot, went public with his defamation of Erasmus and insisted that in future editions he return the verse to its rightful place.
As the story goes, Erasmus - possibly in an unguarded moment - agreed that he would insert the verse in a future edition of his Greek New Testament on one condition: that his opponents produce a Greeks manuscripts in which the verse could be found (finding it in Latin manuscripts was not enough). And so a Greek manuscript was produced. In fact, it was produced for the occasion. It appears that someone copied out the Greek text of the Epistles, and when he came to the passage in question, he translated the Latin text into Greek, giving the Johannine Comma in its familiar. theologically useful form. The manuscript provided to Erasmus, was a sixteenth-century production, made to order(Misquoting Jesus, pgs 81-82)[/i][/b].
That excerpt is an example of a scholar\expert presenting historical evidence and making the reader aware it. Looking at the evidence presented, I don’t need to look for book reviews that rip the book apart so I can just disregard it. This is where thinking for yourself becomes necessary. Because there’s a pretty simple way to verify what the author of Misquoting Jesus states about 1 John 5:7, 8 as to whether it’s correct - just look at modern translations and see how they word the passage. I did that and none of the modern translations word the passage the way the Latin Vulgate words it. The Father, Word and holy spirit aren’t mentioned. Only the Spirit, water and blood are mentioned which of course has nothing to do with the trinity. Only the KJV which is based closely off of the Latin Vulgate has the Father, Word and Holy Spirit at 1 John 5:7,8. This is a good example of a bad translation.
Another example is at 2 Corinthians 3:14. This verse in the Latin Vulgate and the King James has a sentence that reads “in the reading of the old testament.” Based on the Latin Vulgate and the King James Version which is based off the Latin Vulgate the term “old testament” is used to refer to the Hebrew and Aramaic scriptures. Sad to say, based on the popularity of the KJV over the centuries, most Christians today refer to the Hebrew-Aramaic scriptures as the “old testament” and think that it’s no longer valid and the scriptures aren’t to be used by Christians today or that the Christian-Greek scriptures override anything in the Hebrew-Aramaic scriptures. I’ve talked to people about the Bible stating the earth will never be destroyed (some Christian religions such as Catholics believe that the physical earth will be destroyed) and would quote a scripture such as Ecclesiastes 1:4 where it states that the earth will remain forever or Psalms 104:5 which states that the earth will never toter and the person would reply - “well that’s the old testament which is no longer valid, show me a scripture in the new testament.” All I would do is a mental face palm and show them Matthew 5:5 where Jesus states that the righteous will possess the earth (here he is quoting Psalms 37:11,29).
The Greek word that the Latin Vulgate and KJV translated “testament” is diathekes which means “covenant.” So 2 Corinthians 3:14 should read “at the reading of the old covenant,” which is referring to the Mosaic Law (Mosaic Law is not longer valid). Most modern translations realized this and have correctly translated diathekes as “covenant.” Take a look for yourself at any translation that’s not the KJV. Unfortunately, the damage is well engrained and is done. Even though modern translations removed “testament” and have correctly translated diathekes as “covenant,” most Christians don’t know that. They are taught to not value the Hebrew-Aramaic scriptures like they do the Christian-Greek scriptures and that’s a real shame. Like I said in one of my previous post, this greatly limits ones understanding of the Bible and God’s original purpose for humans, the fact that God’s kingdom is a literal kingdom will remove current kingdoms, will rule over earth and will remove wickedness(Daniel 2:44; 7:13,14,27; Psalms 37:10,11). This is another reason why the Latin Vulgate is a bad translation and not even close to the “The Latin Vulgate is the translation that all other are measured by” statement you made.
Pat, you keep saying how bad the NWT is but you’re not giving me examples. Give me some examples of just how bad the NWT is. I’ve given you multiple, detailed explanations including non-JW\third party info as to why many of the modern translations of the Bible are bad. It’s easy to just say somethings bad without backing it up.
By the way. . . . . I can’t wait to call someone “Numbnuts” today. Earlier today while I was typing this reply someone came into my office without knocking I looked up and said “hey numb…I mean Bob.” He looked at me like I was crazy. 
[/quote]
I didn’t call you a numbnut. I said ‘any numbnut can copy and past reams of scripture’. Meaning that it doesn’t take a well verse Bible theologian to do so. As a matter of fact Atheist do this all the time.
What I took exception to, was the arrogance and demeaning of all other Christians by calling them out as stupid and brainwashed when JW’s make up 0.00000000000000000000001 of the Christian population. And technically, JW is not a Christian sect, if you want to be specific. Christians by definition, believe not only in Jesus but his divinity and his part in the God-head. This dismantlement of the the Trinity makes one not a Christian. It’s not the belief in Jesus, it the belief in who Jesus was that makes on Christian. A doctrine established before the Canon of the Bible even existed. This is important history, before the Bible was the Trinitarian doctrine was. The doctrine extends from Apostolic times and are verified by the writings 1rst century Christian theologians.
There are to many errors to go about and address all of them and scripture quoting contests take up to much time and are usually a stalemate.
I will take one example and discuss it.
This is John 1:1 from the NWT:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.
This is the King James version, originally adhered to by your sect:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
This is the ESV translation (and ever other save for the NWT):
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
(John 1:1 ESV)
As you can see the difference is stark and the theological implications massive. Under NWT, ‘The Word’ is a god separate from God himself. Save for the problem that there are no other Gods. The implication is polytheism. There is no definition of the godlieness of the logos
As you can see from this original Greek to English translational chart, ‘a god’ was never intended.
Translated directly ignoring english structure is reads:
‘In beginning was the word and the word was toward the God and God was the word’
Nowhere is separated God from the word, but the word was God.
God is the logos in every Christian translation. This is an extremely important point that sets up not only John, but ties every thing together from Genesis on, where the NWT merely leaves such a thing as a hanging participle without form or definition, leading the reader to believe in many gods, outside of the one God. A notion that is squashed through out the rest of scripture.
Now the challenge therefore for you is to prove that the NWT translation, got it right, from the original Greek, in evidence contrary to it, from sources outside the Watch Tower? Can you take the original manuscript and assemble it in such a way to support the polytheistic notion of ‘information’ being a god separate from God Himself. Good luck, I think you will find it impossible.[/quote]
Pat, it’s sad to see that you miss a biblical, scriptural fact. According to the Bible the majority do not have the truth and will be destroyed at Armageddon. Unfortunately, most people seem to miss this. I’ll try to show you from the Bible how and why this is the case.
First let’s start with what Jesus said. At Matthew 7:13,14 Jesus said something quite profound. It states “Go in through the narrow gate, because broad is the gate and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are finding it.” Do you get the sense, significance and seriousness of that passage? Two of the definitions of “many” are “the greater part of humankind” or “a large or considerable number of persons or things.” Put either of those two definitions in that passage to get a better sense of what Jesus is saying. What’s even more significant is that Jesus said that not only are few on the road leading off to life but few are even finding it. So that means not only will the road leading to life have relatively few people on but it would have to be found before one could even make the decision to get on it. That path would not be obvious or easily recognizable. If the obvious religions (most or “many” of the Christian religions that have the same core beliefs) put you on the path to life then the path would not have to be found, it would be obvious. And which path would the religions (especially the ones who have the same core beliefs) that has the majority, most, “many” be on - the broad and spacious or the tight and cramped?
Several verses later at Matthew 7:21-23 again Jesus said “many” on that day (Armageddon) will be surprised that they are being rejected by Jesus despite doing good things in his name. Why would the many, most, majority be the ones not on the path and why would the many, most, majority be rejected during Armageddon? Now this is where understanding the wheat and the weeds illustration comes. Again, at Matthew 13 Jesus said there would be a long period of time when the weeds would grow unchecked and would be the dominant type of Christian. The listeners as well as you would immediately understand that the anytime weeds are left unchecked they quickly overtake and outnumber anything that it grows with. They would become the “many,” the most. In the illustration at Matthew 13 Jesus said during the last days or conclusion of a system of things he would separate the wheat from the weeds and put them into two groups. It doesn’t take a lot of reason and discernment to see that once Jesus separated them and put them into two groups, the weeds would far outnumber the wheat. It would be during the last days that the greatly outnumbered wheat that had been suppressed for centuries by the weeds would be able to flourish. Why would Jesus wait until the last days to take action? Daniel 12:4 explains why. The book of Daniel is one of the most important books in the Bible for understanding God’s kingdom and Bible prophecy. For example, the book of Daniel reveals the traits of the dominant world power that will be ruling when Armageddon comes, that God’s kingdom will remove the current governments and will be a physical kingdom with Jesus as king (Daniel 7:13,14) along with former humans that will rule with Jesus in this kingdom (Daniel 7:27). Despite this books importance, Daniel 12:4 states - “As for you, Daniel, keep the words secret, and seal up the book until the time of the end. Many will rove about, and the true knowledge will become abundant.”
Do you see that? This verse states that the book of Daniel wouldn’t be fully understood until - the time of the end. And when would true knowledge become abundant - during the time of the end. Compare this to the signs Jesus said that would identify the conclusion of the system of things at Matthew 24 and 25. At Matthew 24:14 Jesus said one of the signs that would identify the last days or conclusion of the system of things is “the good news of God’s kingdom being preached.” This would be preached during the last days.
Putting this altogether. According to the Bible, after the apostles died there would be a great apostasy where weed like Christians would be planted (it’s a historical fact that Christians especially during first century started to blend pre-Christian pagan beliefs with Christian beliefs). Only during the time of the end would Jesus take action and according to Daniel 12:4 this would be when true knowledge (about the Bible) would be abundant. The number of wheat (true Christians) would be the minority and would stay the minority because the separating work of the wheat from the weeds would only start during the time of the end.
Other scriptures that show the majority of people will not have the truth is 1 John 5:19 which says “the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.” This would exclude the relatively small number of Christians that would be no part of the world like Jesus said they would be (John 15:19; 17:14,15).
Revelation 12:9 is another good scripture to show that the “many” do not have the truth and are being mislead. At Revelation 12:7-12 Satan is being kicked out of heaven and verse 9 reads: “So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth; he was hurled down to the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.” Revelation is a future vision that had not yet taken place when John wrote it. This verse shows that when Satan is kicked out of heaven. Most of the earth would be mislead. Again, this excluded the small number of true Christians mentioned at Revelation 1:11 that this revelation is being written to. They would not be included in the “entire earth.”
When Jesus says “many” and the Bible uses “whole” and “entire” - is this an exaggeration? Is Jesus being dramatic? Is it symbolism? History says no. At Luke 19:41-44 when Jesus wept over the fact that Jerusalem would be destroyed and said that they and their children would be dashed to pieces, he was talking about Jerusalem as a whole. When Rome destroyed the city in 70 C.E. the majority of people died the ones that didn’t were taken into slavery, only a very small number was able to flee the city and survive. The majority of Jews had no clue what was going on. They did not recognize all the signs Jesus told his disciples that would identify when Jerusalem would be destroyed. History shows that only a small number of true servants of God survived the destruction of Jerusalem by remembering Jesus warning and fleeing the city four years before it was destroyed.
You’re making a big mistake thinking that because we’re the 0.00000000000000000000001 we can’t have the truth or that because the majority believes in a doctrine they must be right. You don’t have to believe that JW’s have the truth but you are dead wrong thinking that the Christian religions that make up the majority (the Christian religions that have the same core beliefs) are the one’s that have the truth. Because as Jesus said at Matthew 7:13, 14 - broad and spacious is the road leading off to destruction and “many” are on it. whereas cramped and tight is the road leading of to life and few are finding it." The Bible makes it clear that the majority won’t be on the narrow, cramped road and will be destroyed and only a relatively small number who are on that narrow road will survive Armageddon.
