indagator
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JTR: that depends on the dialect of English—there are many. Do you care to specify (UK with several sub-categories; Canadian; Aussie; American with several sub-categories; South African, etc.)? JWI: Your latest words remind me of Eccl. 12:12... Surls' book is nice on his main thesis, that the name's meaning in Exodus, the context in which Jah revealed the meaning of his name, is best understood by pondering how he revealed himself as the book goes along, esp. in the later chapters.
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JWI, That dissertation has been revised as a book now with improvements made and more refs. to Shaw's work: Probably best to stick with the updated edition. I've read it. It's good on certain points but does not have the scope or time frame of Shaw's book. The latter is far more on-topic for Jehovah's servants today.
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Member “Witness” at this forum has taken exception to the NWT’s rendering of 2 Cor. 5:20 as “substitutes for Christ”: She states, “There is only one translation that I have found for 2 Cor 5:20, that throws in the word “substitute” – not just once, but twice – the NWT.” What's the real story here? Is there any justification for the idea of substitution for Christ in this verse? A short one-page essay is attached. 2 Cor 5.20.pdf
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JWI, such tangents are common and expected in forums like this one. It's all part of the forum experience. Your humor is appreciated. Yes, plenty of people have historically been sidetracked by numbers, gematria, etc. GA, "The Shaw book sounds interesting but I can't access it anywhere." It's available from the publisher for $81 US: or cheaper from Amazon, $57.55: ,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch It's money well spent. Happy reading.
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Is it really so important that God's name be or not be a certain biblical book so that one must go ahunting for its supposed presence in acrostics? It's nowhere in Ecclesiastes. Or Philippians, 1 Timothy, or the epistles of John. In the end isn't its presence or absence in any book all part of Jehovah's will? All sorts of unexpected things occur when it comes to the divine name. For example, its only supposed appearance in the Song of Sol. is Jah (8:6), and that is textually problematic. It's common in the prologue or introductory material of Job and then relatively common at the end, but extremely skimpy in the bulk of the book, the middle section, the poetic dialogue among the book's major players. In Daniel it's limited to chapter 9, save one place in the book's beginning, which again is textually problematic. On the other hand, many OT books contain the name quite commonly throughout. When Fred Franz had to decide which passages in the NT likely had the name originally in them, he wound up being quite conservative, with only 237 places, far less than any "average number" in a comparable size of material that one could obtain by looking at its occurrence in the Hebrew Bible. We find NT writers like Luke using one of several established surrogates for the name, "Heaven," at Luke 15:18 and 21. Most likely the written source he employed for the prodigal son parable had that use of the surrogate, and Luke had no qualms about reproducing what he found in his source. Elsewhere in his gospel Luke uses heaven as a place, not as a divine name surrogate like the writers of 1 and 2 Maccabees, for example, did, and as we see in the prodigal son parable. I am reminded of a video that has appeared several times in organizational "history segments" since the Society has switched over so heavily to the video format. I'm not sure, but I think it is Bro. George Couch. In it he continually speaks of "the Lord" doing this and wanting that. Obviously he is referring to Jehovah, yet he does not use his name often, preferring "the Lord," not all that dissimilar to Christendom’s usage. Just as obvious is the fact that Bro. Couch (if my ID is correct) was a faithful servant of the almighty Jehovah in modern times. He simply had a preference for one particular title when referring to him. Since that can be the case in modern times, why not in antiquity? If we take the, again, relatively conservative usage of Jehovah in the NT books as represented by the NWT, we would have to admit that use of the name had gone down in frequency when compared to how, for example, David, Ezekiel, or Isaiah used it. Given all this, I ask again, is it really necessary to enter into acrostics or "encoding" or "decoding" supposed instances of the name? Wouldn't it be wiser to gain a full knowledge of the sources that are definite and available, like Shaw's book relates? I realize that mastery of that volume requires real effort, but the reward is far greater than—no offense to anyone—dabbling in the dubious question of divine name acrostics. If you want something substantial to think about, try this:
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JWI, yes, Shaw's book is, as you say, "densely packed." It requires concentration, and likely a rereading of portions as you plow through certain sections the first time. It is all worth it. I think many of us can relate to getting distracted with our various interests in diverse things having to do with Jehovah's word. On the topic of an acrostic divine name in Esther, have you read this? _ If not, it's the best thing I've found on the subject. Looking forward to hearing your impressions of Shaw's book.
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Early Christians, the New Testament and the Divine Name.
indagator replied to JW Insider's topic in Bible Discussions
GA said: "What interests me more is did/how did Jesus pronounce the name? And what reaction was there at the time?" Then JWI said: "There is a lot more info related to that topic than I ever imagined possible. " Yes, this is overall point of Shaw's book. As I posted elsewhere here, "Yaho" in Aramaic (יהו), the language of Jesus and the apostles, was the active pronunciation of the divine name in their day. Since the good news was spread via Greek, this shows up as Ιαω in that language. Hence the finding of this form of the name in the LXX Qumran manuscript of Lev. and its much more common appearance among the biblical onomastica (name lists), the world's first Bible commentaries or dictionaries (though they are primitive by later standards). Then the church fathers, when they quote these name lists, continued to use Ιαω occasionally. This shows how the name had an active pronunciation that long outdated however יהוה was pronounced in Hebrew. I'm not saying that how it was pronounced in Heb is unimportant. Rather if one is interested in how Jesus and the apostles pronounced the name, the evidence for that is known, clear, and irrefutable. That is Shaw's important contribution. As for Iaoel in the Apoc. of Abraham and other Pseudepigrapha, Shaw discusses that as well. As for GA's wondering what the reaction was to that pronunciation, that is also in Shaw. He states that the reaction we see in Philo, Josephus, rabbinic literature, etc. is a reaction to some Jews who used Iao. -
I've read Meyer's diss as well. There are several problems with it, but they aren't major ones. He seems to be, in effect, backing off one point in his review where he disagrees with Shaw, namely that the use of Iao among Jews in the Second Temple Period was more a socio-economic class thing. In his diss. he seems more amenable to the idea, though he never comes out and states that. Again, it is what the evidence suggests. Interestingly, he never discusses in either work the implications for all this in the NT (Shaw's chapters 7 and 10). It's probably too much of a hot potato for him. He comes from an Evangelical background and plenty of those folks feel threatened by the implications of the use of the divine name by NT Christians because it would endanger their unscriptural high Christology. It sort of puts people like Meyer in a quandary: embrace the evidence or stick with his tradition.
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OK, I scanned and am attaching the words of Hart referred to above on his take on what the first Christians were like, pp. xxiv-xxv of his Introduction. If go down to "What perhaps did impress itself..." on p. xxiv, that part begins. DBH intro. pp..pdf
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I see there has not been much discussion at this forum of the NT translation that appeared in 2017 by David Bentley Hart (Yale University Press). Bro. Rando mentioned Hart's translation last year when he quoted his rendering of John 1:1c, "the Logos was god" here: There is much more of value to be learned from Hart's work. First, just who is is important. He is a research scholar (= no teaching, just research and publication, what all good scholars dream of) at Notre Dame. He has several books out on theism, believing in God, and defending the faith before critics and philosophers. Although he himself is Eastern Orthodox, his books are highly valued by Evangelicals because Hart is quite intelligent and is well-read in the more difficult aspects of philosophy. Thus he can dialogue with the best from the latter group and hold his own against them. He is famous for doing so. Hart's translation contains multiple insights. Gehenna is "Hinnom's Vale of fire." He transliterates Hades, and his taking κόλασις at Matt. 25:46 as "chastening" is noteworthy. He sometimes has substantial footnotes that are informative, as he does in this passage. They cut through the controversies and get to the point, but interestingly, without citing scholarship by anyone's name. His take on the ἐφ᾽ ᾧ at Rom. 5:12 is fascinating. Instead of understanding this as "because" he takes it more literally, as "upon the basis of which fact," though I wish he'd been more literal in his rendering in this instance. His notes, pp. 533ff., are also loaded with interesting info, including the admission that the oft-hated "a" at John 1:1c is legit. One of the things I found fascinating is Hart's description of what the earliest Christians were like. This is on pp. xxiv-xxv of his introduction. It sounds very much like the brothers! That alone is worth a read, so when I can get to a scanner, I'll included a scan later in this thread for readers' pleasure. Here too are some online reviews and comments, including an interview/note from Hart himself on his work. First, some D. B. Hart NT reviews: Conservative (?) reaction to Hart: the translation: the man: #! bio & interviews: Hart's own account Enjoy!
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Thank you, JWI! I don't think you need the "I mean that as an exaggeration, of course" but realize that you may have included that for the benefit of some of the tenderer members at this forum.
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JWI, thanks for the note. So are you in a position to find out about this death? I'd appreciate knowing how it happened, whether he had a place outside of Bethel among friends or died in the infirmary, and so on.
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I saw on another forum that Dean Songer, long-time NY Bethel heavy, just passed away and was in his 90s. Does anyone have further info on this? Everyone saw hm as a truly spiritual, loving brother, approachable and sincere, something sometimes lacking at HQ.
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Restorationism, imitating the first Christians, and org today
indagator replied to indagator's topic in Jehovah's Witnesses
GA asks, "Isn't this an exceptional case? Apart from obvious censuring of [apostates] within the Christian congregation at that time, am I overlooking another similar example in Scripture?" Well, if so, then it's quite an “exception,” don't you think? If we want to look at "Scripture" in an overall sense, we have the prophets openly chastising the Israelite and Judean kings repeatedly, even a faithful one like David, right? Elihu castigating the “righteous man” Job, eh? Then there are those letters in Rev. 2-3. Only two congs there come up looking well, and again the accounts are public condemnations since they were written in Revelation and circulated widely. But I think the book of Acts itself may be the greatest example. Before entering into that matter, a bit of background is necessary. I partake of biblical scholarship in the wide meaning of the term. By that I mean not just stale 19th-century commentaries that predate critical scholarship but real, current biblical scholarship, not foolishly accepting whatever such ones say (impossible to do anyway since such scholars are in frequent disagreement) but finding what is useful and true, separating the wheat from the chaff—all from the perspective of a faithful believer but also a genuinely critical thinker. That said, there is much truth to the common contention among critical NT scholars about the book of Acts having a candy-coated bias that glosses over the tension between Paul and the Jerusalem heavies who preceded him in Christianity. In fact, for a faithful person this view has huge implications for why Jehovah did not have Jesus in contact with Paul while Jesus walked the earth—but then that is a separate matter. Do you find it odd that nowhere in Acts is the Antioch incident ever mentioned? Or even Peter’s trip to Antioch? And then further “reinforcements” from James arriving there? Do you find it odd that Luke has a record at Acts 21:25 of James and the older men in Jerusalem telling Paul: “As for the believers among the nations, we have sent out, rendering our decision that they should keep themselves from what is sacrificed to idols as well as from blood and what is strangled and from fornication” when according to Acts Paul not only knew all this but was an active participant in forming such a decision? Wouldn’t that be like Fred Franz telling JFR in 1939 that not all had the heavenly hope but that there was a great crowd who would live on earth? (Sorry the parallel is not exact but it’s off the cuff.) My point here is that the book of Acts is quite odd in multiple ways, and one of them is that the work really is an attempt to gloss over the heavy disagreements that existed within early Christianity among its leaders. Luke was a peacemaker who reduced the real tensions that existed to a spat between Paul and Barnabas over Mark—though even here we see the Jerusalem group (Barnabas and Mark) vs. Paul—and presented the early Christian leadership in an idealized manner. In reality it was regularly contentious, like BOE meetings frequently are today and like Ray Franz reports GB meetings often were in his day. That’s all I have time for, but hopefully there are some things for you to think about here in response to your query. -
Thanks, JWI, for the reply. Yes, this forum may be better than others I've visited. It has a number of haters and Jesus freaks but they have nothing to offer, truly the spiritually dead. What I like about it is the apparently small number of real thinkers who still have faith in scripture and a healthy, balanced view of the bros/org without slipping into the fantasyland that most Witnesses must live in. The org today has reached a real nadir in its existence. The bros at the top are extremely limited, evidently more so than at any time of its past. Being such an authoritarian group, this manifests itself in the real lack of thought-provoking anything. I surely do not know what Jehovah has in mind for his people at this time, but the small element of faithful thinkers here seems like a real refreshment. In a sense, perhaps, a sort of "remnant"—ha! JWI: "the work he was doing was blessed sometimes in spite of his efforts, rather than just because of his efforts. It's an expression you will still hear among the brothers in modern times, too, referring to how things still often work out for the best in spite of us apparently getting in the way of ourselves." Along the lines of the overall moral lesson to be gleaned from the Josephus saga (Gen. 45:5-8)? Other passages could be cited too. So I guess I'll hang around for a while and give and take what I can, as I have the time from my other pressures in life.