Reasons why the Jehovah’s Witness religion is false (Despite my love for them as human beings)

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Berean

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“Theos” in Greek is “god” (they have no capital letters) so again it’s up to the interpreter to see the “ho” before a word and add “the” as it does in John 1:1 when speaking about Yahweh….but when “theos” has no definite article, it can describe “a god”…..or “a god-like one”…or “one authorized by the Father to act as his representative”, which is why God could call human judges on earth “gods” (theos without the definite article) in John 10:31-36. They acted on his behalf.
Correct, but in the case of John 1:1, Jehovah is theon, which is basically the same word. So let me ask you Jane, how do you explain 2 Corinthians 4:4

"whose minds the god [ho theos] of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God [theos], should shine on them."
Here Satan is ho theos and Jehovah is theos

2cor4.jpg
 
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RLT63

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Correct, but in the case of John 1:1, Jehovah is theon, which is basically the same word. So let me ask you Jane, how do you explain 2 Corinthians 4:4

"whose minds the god [ho theos] of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God [theos], should shine on them."
Here Satan is ho theos and Jehovah is theos

View attachment 45869
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_1:1#:~:text=1956%3A%20%22And%20the%20Word%20was,%2C%20'God%20was%20the%20word.
The text of John 1:1 has a sordid past and a myriad of interpretations. With the Greek alone, we can create empathic, orthodox, creed-like statements, or we can commit pure and unadulterated heresy. From the point of view of early church history, heresy develops when a misunderstanding arises concerning Greek articles, the predicate nominative, and grammatical word order. The early church heresy of Sabellianismunderstood John 1:1c to read, "and the Word was the God." The early church heresy of Arianism understood it to read, "and the word was a God."

— David A. Reed[22]
 

Berean

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Out of all the translations The New World is the only one that translates it that way
There are other translations that render it so, some predate the NWT, others have a similiar thought .

  • 1808: “and the word was a god.” The New Testament in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text.
  • 1864: “and a god was the word.” The Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear reading, by Benjamin Wilson.
  • 1928: “and the Word was a divine being.” La Bible du Centenaire, L’Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel.
  • 1935: “and the Word was divine.” The Bible—An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed.
  • 1946: “and of a divine kind was the Word.” Das Neue Testament, by Ludwig Thimme.
  • 1958: “and the Word was a God.” The New Testament, by James L. Tomanek.
  • 1975: “and a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word.” Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz.
  • 1976: “and he was the same as God.” Today’s English Version
  • 1978: “and godlike kind was the Logos.” Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Johannes Schneider.
  • 1989: “and what God was, the Word was.” The Revised English Bible
Now one could make an argument against all these translation and label them heretical, but that's your choice to make. All of these translators were scholars.
 

RLT63

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There are other translations that render it so, some predate the NWT, others have a similiar thought .

  • 1808: “and the word was a god.” The New Testament in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text.
  • 1864: “and a god was the word.” The Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear reading, by Benjamin Wilson.
  • 1928: “and the Word was a divine being.” La Bible du Centenaire, L’Evangile selon Jean, by Maurice Goguel.
  • 1935: “and the Word was divine.” The Bible—An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed.
  • 1946: “and of a divine kind was the Word.” Das Neue Testament, by Ludwig Thimme.
  • 1958: “and the Word was a God.” The New Testament, by James L. Tomanek.
  • 1975: “and a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word.” Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz.
  • 1976: “and he was the same as God.” Today’s English Version
  • 1978: “and godlike kind was the Logos.” Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Johannes Schneider.
  • 1989: “and what God was, the Word was.” The Revised English Bible
Now one could make an argument against all these translation and label them heretical, but that's your choice to make. All of these translators were scholars.
I know. You replied before I deleted that post and posted a link to the same information you have here
 
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Keiw

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Glad you added that last clause. The Church class is given IMMORTALITY, not Everlasting life, there's a difference.
Only the little flock are going to heaven. The great crowd( Rev 7:9) of other sheep( John 10:16) who are not of that fold aren't promised heaven anywhere in the bible. Prov 2:21-22 assures they remain on earth.
 

Berean

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Only the little flock are going to heaven. The great crowd( Rev 7:9) of other sheep( John 10:16) who are not of that fold aren't promised heaven anywhere in the bible. Prov 2:21-22 assures they remain on earth.
The great crowd of Rev. 7 AND the other sheep of John 10 are heavenly classes. Read the context of John 10, and see that Jesus was not referring to an earthly class, but he was addressing the Jews in that he had other sheep, not of the Jewish fold, but of the gentiles.
 
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Aunty Jane

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Glad you added that last clause. The Church class is given IMMORTALITY, not Everlasting life, there's a difference.
LOL…and of course we didn’t know that there is a difference…..you are talking to real Bible students here not those who are stuck in a time warp and have not progressed in their understanding since Russell passed away……what did Russell think would happen after he died? No new light? No one to carry on the work?
He would be appalled that some made a prophet out of him and that his early musings could not possibly need tweaking in the years to come, as light on the path increased. You guys have missed so much.
Correct, but in the case of John 1:1, Jehovah is theon, which is basically the same word. So let me ask you Jane, how do you explain 2 Corinthians 4:4

"whose minds the god [ho theos] of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God [theos], should shine on them."
Here Satan is ho theos and Jehovah is theos

View attachment 45869
Look at the scripture you quoted….here it is from the Mounce Interlinear…it explains itself….

“4 in en whose hos case the ho god theos of ho this houtos world aiōn has blinded typhloō the ho minds noēma of the ho unbelievers apistos, so eis that they cannot mē see augazō the ho light phōtismos of theho gospel euangelion of the ho glory doxa of ho Christ Christos, who hos is eimi the image eikōn of ho God theos.

Do you see the missing word at the end of the sentence in your quote? A tiny dash is all that it takes to change the meaning of a word. Two “gods” are mentioned as “ho theos” in this verse….one is clearly satan, and the other is clearly Jehovah….”ho theos”….as if calling satan “ho theos“ could mean that he is Jehovah….but you didn’t seriously mean that did you? It’s a translation issue, not a scriptural one.
 

RLT63

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LOL…and of course we didn’t know that there is a difference…..you are talking to real Bible students here not those who are stuck in a time warp and have not progressed in their understanding since Russell passed away……what did Russell think would happen after he died? No new light? No one to carry on the work?
He would be appalled that some made a prophet out of him and that his early musings could not possibly need tweaking in the years to come, as light on the path increased. You guys have missed so much.

Look at the scripture you quoted….here it is from the Mounce Interlinear…it explains itself….

“4 in en whose hos case the ho god theos of ho this houtos world aiōn has blinded typhloō the ho minds noēma of the ho unbelievers apistos, so eis that they cannot mē see augazō the ho light phōtismos of theho gospel euangelion of the ho glory doxa of ho Christ Christos, who hos is eimi the image eikōn of ho God theos.

Do you see the missing word at the end of the sentence in your quote? A tiny dash is all that it takes to change the meaning of a word. Two “gods” are mentioned as “ho theos” in this verse….one is clearly satan, and the other is clearly Jehovah….”ho theos”….as if calling satan “ho theos“ could mean that he is Jehovah….but you didn’t seriously mean that did you? It’s a translation issue, not a scriptural one.
“It’s a translation issue, not a scriptural one.”
Seems everything is
 

Aunty Jane

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“It’s a translation issue, not a scriptural one.”
Seems everything is
You’d be amazed to discover how many there are.....a study in the Greek is very revealing....the meaning of ”theos” especially.
 

rebuilder 454

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The Greek lexicons call him god small g at John 1:1
The Greek word proskenaue carries 5 different meanings from Greek to English-1) worship to God-2) obeisance to a king-3) honor to a judge, plus 2 others.
Every bible writer knew 100% the Messiah has a God( Psalm 45:7), they know 100% God does not have a God, thus in reality used obeisance to Gods appointed king, not worship as Catholicism translated in to fit false council teachings.
Hebrew's 1
God.
Jehovah call His Son God
Jehovah commands creation to worship the Son.
Ask your watchtower workbook how to smear and pervert that one.
No matter what you do to torture the bible, watchtower has JEHOVAH himself ,erroneously commanding all in heaven to worship a created being.
You and your cult will answer for it.
 

rebuilder 454

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The Greek lexicons does. There have been at least 20 translations in history with a god at John 1:1. Translated by Greek scholars.
Lets let facts expose these watchtower bible butchers

From;
John 1:1 ᾿Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος.

"""I am not one given to commenting on trending issues. However, there is this teaching that has been going around for some months now, attempting to deny the deity of Jesus Christ based on a claim that, in the Koine Greek text of John 1:1, the word, Θεὸς (Theos) was used for “the Word” is different in meaning from Θεόν (Theon) used for God. This person has tried to build his theology on the divinity of Christ based on this premise. This claim has continued to persist and progressively transmuting to a disturbing level, and at this point, I am compelled to comment."""
 

rebuilder 454

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Continued
"""Considering the claim, the following question becomes germane. Is this claim that Θεὸς (Theos) and Θεόν (Theon) have different meanings and as such not the same, true? This is the premise, the basis of the assertion on the person of Jesus Christ, and as such needs to be scrutinize to either establish or debunk the assertion of that fellow.

It is common knowledge that the New Testament writings of the Bible from where the text under consideration is drawn from was originally written in Ελληνιστική Κοινή (Koine Greek). This implies that a knowledge of the grammar of that Koine Greek is necessary for anyone who appeals to the original language of the Bible (Septuagint and New Testament Koine Greek) to exegete the text.

Anyone that truly understands Koine Greek will know that in studying the language, the first thing you learn (after learning the basic building blocks of the grammar such as Greek alphabet, vowels, diphthongs, diaeresis, consonants clusters, accent, breathing marks, punctuation, and syllabification) is the Case system of Greek nouns."""
 

rebuilder 454

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""""Greek is a highly inflected language, and the morphology of most words change depending on their grammatical category or syntactic function. When this type of change occurs in the verbal system to indicate a change in tense, aspect, person, voice, mood, and number of the word, it is called conjugation"""
 

Keiw

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The great crowd of Rev. 7 AND the other sheep of John 10 are heavenly classes. Read the context of John 10, and see that Jesus was not referring to an earthly class, but he was addressing the Jews in that he had other sheep, not of the Jewish fold, but of the gentiles.
My post is correct.
 

rebuilder 454

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Cont;
"""
Conversely, when such a change in morphology occurs in words within the noun system (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, participles, and the definite article) as result of change in their case, number, and gender, it is known as declension.

Koine Greek has 5 Cases,
Nominative – used when the word is the subject of a sentence;
Genitive – when the noun is showing possession or source;
Dative when functioning as an indirect object;
Accusative when functioning as a direct object in the sentence; and
Vocative which is the addressing or calling case.

These functions of the cases stated here are basics since it will be out of scope to go into every detail of the complexity and application of the case system.
 

rebuilder 454

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"""The change in the noun in John 1:1, from Θεόν (Theon) to Θεὸς (Theos) for God in Greek is not because of any difference in meaning, but simply because the word was playing two different functions in the sentence.

In the text under consideration, the word for God was spelt differently in the two instances because in the first instance, Θεόν (Theon), the word was functioning in the accusative case whereas in the second occurrence, Θεὸς (Theos), it was in the predicate nominative.
 

Keiw

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Cont;
"""
Conversely, when such a change in morphology occurs in words within the noun system (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, participles, and the definite article) as result of change in their case, number, and gender, it is known as declension.

Koine Greek has 5 Cases,
Nominative – used when the word is the subject of a sentence;
Genitive – when the noun is showing possession or source;
Dative when functioning as an indirect object;
Accusative when functioning as a direct object in the sentence; and
Vocative which is the addressing or calling case.

These functions of the cases stated here are basics since it will be out of scope to go into every detail of the complexity and application of the case system.
The same occurs at 2 Cor 4:4--so either satan is God if the word is, or satan is god and the word is as well. We all know satan is not God, but god-meaning has godlike qualities just as the word does.
 

rebuilder 454

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"""There are many other places in the New Testament where either form of the word is used for God without impinging on the force and reality of his divinity in any of those contexts. Therefore, to say that Theon is the Supreme God and Theos is the Son, and thus less than Theon, is crass ignorance!

In fact, in the Greek construction of the grammar of that text, the Word (ὁ Λόγος) was carefully placed in the statement to emphatically stress the essence and quality of the Word (Jesus) as the same with the person of God (the Father) – that the Word has all the divine attributes of the Father and as such is God.

Since the premise upon which the theology that seeks to impinge on the divinity of Christ is false, there is no point trying to further argue for or against the conclusion so reached, because the foundation of the supposition is faulty, or should I say, nonexistent.

It is shocking that someone can claim to be an expert in the biblical languages, and yet does not understand the elementary case system of the language he claims he knows. This does not even qualify to be categorized as an exegetical fallacy. The sad thing is that some, for whatever reasons, are falling for such half-baked exegesis, while urging the fellow on, in his linguistic nonsense and exegetical folly.