Coolhand

Thank you for sharing.......and shall we take our next call please........WELCOME...to open forum.

Welcome back!!

They do not claim that all JWs are the 144,000. They claim that only part of them are the 144,000 and they will live with Jehovah in the new heaven, but most of them will live on the new earth and will not see Jehovah or go to the new heaven. A question I had one year was, "How to you know which group you belong to?" They said that you just know. They throw out stats every year at this event. Last year they clamed that over 9 million world wide went to these memorial services, and out of them around 12,000 took the communion. So they teach and believe that there is a group within their group that is the 144,000 but not all are. JW's have been around since the early 1900 yet they claim that Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, and others were JW.

So.....we went to the Jehovah's Witness memorial last night. Many of them remembered us from last year: the bikers in the midst of suits; of course, right? We took communion and they seemed to frown upon that since that is only for the 144,000 that are going to go to the new heaven to live with Jehovah, and that we couldn't possibly be a part of that group because we have not been "educated" by the Watchtower society. Anyway, afterword we had the same rush of people that wanted to talk to us. Surprisingly, none of them were interested in coming to our Bible study tonight. Never hurts to ask. The most interesting conversation I had was with a guy named Jonathan. I was talking to another guy about Jehovah Witness ministry, my questions was: "Do you guys have ordained ministers, or does it work some other way?" That's when Jonathan got involved. See, I go to these things and I bring a New World Translation with me, and my Biblia Sacra (BHS Hebrew OT and NA27 Greek NT in one volume) because I know they like to appeal to the Greek and Hebrew sometimes. Jonathan takes me to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and we read that together the list of qualifications of a deacon. I told him that I get that, but I was asking about the Jehovah Witnesses structure, do THEY have ordained ministers. He said to me, "Ok, let's read something else together in your Bible. What to you have, a King James?" I opened my Bible and said "no, it's not a King James." I turned to 1 Timothy and he said, "Whoa, is that Hebrew?" and then turned to Isaiah and said, "no, THIS is Hebrew" I turned back to Timothy and said "This is Greek. Do you understand Greek? Because if not, let's just use your Bible, eh?" He agreed. We never got back to my question, but talked a little about translations instead, and he seemed to have a beef with the NIV. I told him that they are all translations, and even his revered New World Translation is good in some places and poor in others. Then he said, "I have a question for you. Why is it that the New World Translation is the only one that "correctly” has the word "Jehovah" in the New Testament? I told him that was an excellent question and that I think I know why that is. He then said, "Ok, why do YOU think that is?" I told him that the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) has numerous names for God. The Greek New Testament has only three names for God: 1) "pater", which translates the Hebrew word "av" and means father; 2) "kurios" which translates the Hebrew word "adoni" and means lord or master; and 3) "theos" which translates the Hebrew word "elohim" which means God. I told him that there is no Greek translation for YAHWEH, of which Jehovah is the presumed transliteration. I told him this is relevant because the English translations (including the New World Translations) all say that they are translated from either the majority Greek text, or the UBS Greek text. The point is, that they are translations of one the Greek texts, and if they have the word Jehovah in there, it is not based on the Greek text but on someone's preference or speculation. I told him that if they used the New Testament Aramaic text they could use MARWAH which is the Aramaic version of YAHWEH and they could find Jehovah in the New Testament that way, but that has two problems that come with it: 1) none of the English translations he named are translated from the Aramaic texts, they are translated from Greek texts; and 2) the Aramaic texts today are actually Syriac, which is a 3rd century (or later) language based on Aramaic. These Syriac texts are a translation of the Greeks texts into Syriac, and are a translation themselves. My opinion is that you might as well use an accurate English translation and have a text and a translation; instead of a text, a translation, and a translation of that translation. Unfortunately, they started shutting off the lights to get us out of the building and we couldn't discuss it further. But, it was fun. I'll be back next year with another question.

BOOK REVIEW Spong, John Shelby. 1999. Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. New York: Harper Collins. 257 pages. The author is a retired Bishop that is now a lecturer. He says he was educated by Paul Tillich and seems to hold to a lot of the same theological views that Tillich held. He rejects that there is anything literal in the Bible and that the New Testament is a retelling of the miracles and magic in the Old Testament through the personhood of Jesus. He believes that Jesus existed and was a a full manifestation of humanity, and that this is was people should seek: to be a full manifestation of humanity. He claims to believe in God but in a non-theistic way. He almost dares you to call him an atheist. He argues that Christianity needs to shed all of the imperialistic and royal baggage that is has picked up over the years and by the different cultures. He seeks to redefine Christianity in a way that will appeal to the postmodern culture of today. It was an interesting read and I agree with a lot of his historical and exegetical points. However, I disagree with almost all of his conclusions that he draws. I’m not sure why he stuck with the Anglican denomination and continued in the tradition if he truly feels the way he claimed to feel about the distinctives of the Anglican tradition. This would be a good book for fundamentalist and evangelical Christians to read to gain the understanding of the liberal Christian view and why liberal Christians hold the positions that they do.

BOOK REVIEW Carson, D. A. 2008. Exegetical Fallacies. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. 148 pages. D.A. Carson is the research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He argues that the church of God is damaged by the “blatant nonsense” that is uttered by many preachers and teacher because of a lack of exegesis and critical thinking when it comes to the text of the Bible. He argues that one of the good things a seminary education does is that is forces “distanciation” between the text and the interpreter, whereby the proper distance is achieved between the interpreter and the text to ensure the text is approached objectively. The four main types of fallacies he addresses are: 1) word study fallacies; 2) grammatical fallacies; 3) logical fallacies; and 4) presupposition/historical fallacies. He is careful to state that this is not an exhaustive list, but rather it is a list of common errors in handling Scripture. In an attempt to be even handed he even addressed some of his own prior published errors. This book is most definitely written for the seminary student or graduate. It would benefit anybody who preaches or teaches the Bible however if one is not familiar with Greek vocabulary, grammar, morphology and such it will be extremely difficult to get what it being said. Either way, keep a dictionary close by and don’t get discouraged of the work you are looking up is not is the dictionary. This is an excellent reference to have nearby while doing Scriptural exegesis.

..based on what? The Old and New Testaments in the Bible would agree with you.

Any luck with that?

But that is not the point, nor am I saying that it is the point. I tried to explain the grammar above with adding any theology at all, and do not feeling just describing the literary features I am bringing theology into it. As I stated above, this is antithetical parallelism, the two lines are used contrast a point. It appears like the contrast is the level of commitment between two types of friends.

How is that a Christian perspective?

Here is a application suggestion: A man (person) may have many acquaintances, and may see them doing things (or see things coming) that are going to cause them total destruction, but he does nothing about it because he is not really that close and may not really care a whole lot about these "friends." BUT, there are friends out there that are really close, that really love and care that will not stand by and just was their friends be destroyed, but will fight and preserve with thier friends (brothers) as one unit, to the death if necessary. Your thoughts?

If you could arrange that, that would be awesome.

Hey...what does proverbs 18:24 mean? NIV = A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. NKJV = A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. NASB = Some friends play at friendship but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin. YLT = A man with friends is to show himself friendly, And there is a lover adhering more than a brother! Yeah, it looks to me like the "A man with friends is to show himself friendly" is an example of how the Latin translation influenced some of the older English translations "vir amicalis ad societatem magis amicus erit quam frater" -- Latin Vulgate. By looking at a Hebrew English interlinear a person would almost immediately dismiss the YLT, KJV, NKJV, and NASB. The NIV is the closest to the Hebrew text. But, this is a tricky one. The first part of the verse is 3 words in the Hebrew, roughly translated: "man friends ruin", There is no "of" in the Hebrew language, so the first two word are a "noun construct" which means the first word is the construct, the second word... is the noun, the noun is plural and the construct is singular. The noun would actually be the word the sentance would start with in an English translation, so its "The friends of a man" to start with. The "come to ruin" part is interesting because it is a hithpael middle verb. Hithpael expresses and action that is intensive but with a reflexive voice. The intensive would contrast to just simply coming to ruin, it expresses and complete... and total destruction: smashed into pieces, ripped into shreds, etc. The reflexive would express that the ruin of the friends of a man are a boomerang effect of the friends of the man, that the friends are somehow the cause of their destruction. The middle voice can be tricky on a hithpael but generally described it would be that the object of the action is also remotely the subject of the action. In other words "they do it to themselves. Which would agree with the hithpael stem. So, a good translation of the first part of 18:24 would be "The friends of a man will cause themselves to be completely ruined;"......now for the second part, which is 4 words in the Hebrew text....lol. Side note, these two occurances of "friends" are two different words in the Hebrew text. There are 3 main different words for "love" in the Old testament: "Ryah" which is brotherly love, friendship love; "Ahavah" which is deep committed love... as in that of marriage love, and "Dohd" which can be sexual in nature, similar to "eros" in the Greek. So keep this in mind also. The friends of a man are "Ryah" are not real close or deeply loved. in the second part the friend that sticks closer th an a brother is "Ahav" indicating that this friendship is really deep, caring, loving, and committed. BUT......this "freind" in the second part is actually a verb.....lol. A plain old simple completed action in the active voice verb; nothing spectacular in grammar, but in statement this is friend is right there for his friend, no drama no questions asked, he is the real deal. So, I would humbly offer this as a translation suggestion: "The not-so-close-friends of a man cause thier own destruction, but the close-brother-friends are as one." Now...what does that mean? In the chapter context (and I haven’t looked at the whole chapter closely to see if there is a chiastic structure) there is parallelism; two lines some synthetic (comparing), and antithetic (contrasting) of various loosely related topics. This verse here is antithetic parallelism; it is contrasting the first line with the second line for the reason of illustrating something. lol....I guess you can see my frustration from listening to a old preacher using this text from the KJV and using this verse to preach on how friends are supposed to be friendly to one another....lol. By the way, the winners in this round were the NIV and the NASB.

I dont take offence at that. I have left the AG two times in the past, this is my third go around with the AG. It is NOT perfect, I don't claim them to be, and they don't claim to be. As with any pentecostal type group there is a lot of freak show kind of stuff that goes on. But there is a also plenty of genuine spiritual stuff that goes on too. The reason I seem to keep coming back to the AG, and the reason that I have continued to stay, is because of the freedom of the Spirit to move in the church. The AG does not put God is a box and say that that God will only do x,y, and z; and your ministry is not x, y, or z so you do not fit. Still, it ain't for everybody......

New years day http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3reF1gfkTAc&feature=related

I fail to see ANY relevance. Being spirit filled has nothing to do with textual studies or exegesis. What we call "illumination" is how being filled with the spirit will show us the significance the scripture has. I would argue that if a person can desconstruct the text the way the Jesus seminar people try to, they may not see the significance of the narrative they are deconstructing. Really? If that were the case, I would have presented it with the other parts in effort to show my objectivity.

Didn't like this part? ..wonder why? This is the NEW FUNDAMENTALISM.....you gotta love that....lol.

I already answered this here: However, you either missed or are dodging this: So Hex, do you agree with Pete in regard Spong's argument conserning Paul's writings not being the Word of God?

No, I asked you specifically, more than once: "What about Spong's argument that Paul's words are not the Words of God do you agree with?" I have Spong's book and I know what he has written. I don't need or want you to tell me what it says, I know what it says. I'm asking you what you think about what it says. ...and here we go again. Is this the argument that made by Spong that convinced you that Paul's writings are not the Word of God? Well what about this: Are you suggesting that there was no argument and you may have just grabbed that line off of page 104 because it resonates with your thinking? I guess Hex is right; I should express agreement or disagreement with every statement and/or argument in the entire book, otherwise no one but me will know what is in the book. How lame is that?

If there is a point you want to discuss bring it up. I was asking Pete about a specific claim that he made. If you read the first post in this topic you will see that I have begun doing what you are now demanding. And instead of discussing the points I made that topic went off topic. I will continue to address ideas tht Spong presents in this book, but not because of your ALL CAPS DEMANDS. How about you Hex: Do you agree with Pete inregard Spong's argument conserning Paul's writings not being the Word of God?

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=177053858974681&set=a.101444153202319.3292.100000102043621 Please pray for those in the hospital and the other survivors. Thanks.

You act like Pete is your kid brother or something and I am picking on him or something. I know you just kind of chime in and out but here is what has been going on, as I see it: I say something or ask something; Pete goes on talking about Liberal Christianity or some other unrelated point. I have now come to think that he is not at all familiar with Spong's work and has (the same way you have incidentally) made up his mind about the book by the title and author. This “heavy lifting” you are talking about is nothing more the surfing the web. So far in this topic in regard to Spong’s book and Ehrman’s book I seem to be the only one that can quote and site the page number form the book so we can discuss it; you certainly haven’t. Let Pete answer his own questions.

lol......you really are not getting this....... EXAMPLE: "Spong claims X,Y, and Z in regard to Paul's writings not being the Word of God. I agree with Spong about this because of A, B, and C." Pete, are you familiar with any arguments that Spong makes in regard to Paul's writings being or not being the Word of God?

I was trying to see where the division is between Pete's thoughts and Spong's thoughts. I was trying to get you to articulate the strengths of Spong's argument apart from what you think, but you keep repeating what you think; which I suppose answers my question.

I do not always agree with his conclusions. As I had suggested, we should discuss a bunch of examples so we can check them out for ourselves amongst us here so we can discuss them. What about Spong's argument that Paul's words are not the Words of God do you agree with? What do you think is Spong's strongest point regarding this?