JW Insider

A better than usual treatment of the subject. Doesn't sound like a hit piece on Witnesses.

After I retired, I was talked into taking a job in Ohio for a data center. I didn't have to travel but once a month or so, but still had to go to off-site meetings with the other directors, and these could take three or four days. One was in Ohio and one of the other attendees had been Mennonite and still went to some sort of church that seemed to be a cross between Mennonites and some other Evangelical/Fundamentalist. I asked her about the new church and she said that a lot of shunned Mennonites go there. It was started by a shunned Mennonite. I told her that I thought Amish shun but Mennonites were not quite the same. She said that Mennonites shun just as badly but it might take more to get to that point. At any rate, she said that they claim not to shun, but still do. Harshly, sometimes.

32 minutes ago, indagator said:

On the topic of an acrostic divine name in Esther, have you read this?

Yes. I read it soon after GA once asked a question here about that view of Esther and YHWH. I also have the following saved to my drive that I hadn't completed yet, but I have skimmed most of it and read the conclusions. It covers much of the same material as Turner, about the same length, but in slightly more depth, I think. So far, it seemed to answer the question in the same way, not definitively, but as definitive as necessary in a scholarly paper. 

• Accident or Acronymy: The Tetragrammaton in the Masoretic Text of Esther
• John M. Manguno Jr.
• From Bibliotheca Sacra 171 (October - December 2014): 440-451

http://www.academia.edu/10195380/ACCIDENT_OR_ACRONYMY_THE_TETRAGRAMMATON_IN_THE_MASORETIC_TEXT_OF_ESTHER

Unfortunately, there is also Biblical precedent for this. It happens in the United States too, but more and more attention to it has been slowly changing the laws in many U.S. states.

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But the New World Translation better captures the flavor of the Greek word and renders the term ‘theatrical spectacle.’ Is it because its translators are better acquainted with the concept of acting on a stage?

Most probably the others avoid "theatrical" spectacle because it implies acting on a stage. While this could have been the meaning, it is an interpreted one, and not necessary to imply in translating. In the context, it was much more likely that Paul was referring to the procession of those who were taken to theaters to be killed. No acting required!

Contemporary English Version

• It seems to me that God has put us apostles in the worst possible place. We are like prisoners on their way to death. Angels and the people of this world just laugh at us. 

[A pretty bad translation that implies angels are just laughing at people like Paul]

Good News Translation

• For it seems to me that God has given the very last place to us apostles, like people condemned to die in public as a spectacle for the whole world of angels and of human beings. 

[Much better in that it links the condemnation directly with the idea of being a condemned spectacle, a very common sight in Greek/Roman theaters at this time.]

Aramaic Bible in Plain English

• For I suppose that God has appointed us Apostles at last, as for death, that we would be a stage play for the universe, for Angels and for men.

[Same idea as the NWT]

That last reference to Yahoel or Iaoel is not because I think it reflects directly on any NT verse, but it will come up at least as a minor piece of evidence among many other more important pieces of evidence. My first interest in it was not because of this IAO issue, but started when we were discussing the arch-angel "Michael." I have also seen a discussion of it in books about "IAO" however, this is what I found interesting about "Michael," in a Wikipedia quote from the same article on "Apocalypse of Abraham:"

• Yahoel (or Iaoel) in the Apocalypse of Abraham is the mighty angel sent to guide Abraham. Yahoel introduces himself as a being possessed of the power of the Ineffable Name "whose name is like unto that of God Himself". As the angel nearer to God, or perhaps as a manifestation of the power of God himself, Yahoel is said to be also the heavenly choirmaster, the one . . . who has the control over "the threats and attacks of the reptiles" [the dragon, Leviathan is mentioned in the book], with the chief task of protecting and watching over Israel. These functions were traditionally ascribed to Michael and mark the gradual transformation of Michael, originally the guardian angel of Israel. . . .

I left out some of the quote, of course, but this is still intriguing when we remember that Michael means "Who is LIKE God" and this named archangel "IAOel" is spoken of as having the power of the Divine Name and who is also the "angel" nearest to God, the power of God, whose name is LIKE God himself. [Recall, too, that Immanuel means "God with us".] Just as with Michael, Iaoel is the protecting archangel of Israel, who also would be the one who protects Israel from the reptile "dragon/serpent."

Note however that some of the Apocalypse of Abraham has evidently been fused with later gnostic beliefs where the God of Israel is not presented as a good God (he is given a name meaning "evil spirit"), and even "Michael" becomes "intertwined" with the serpent. The Jewish Encyclopedia adds this point http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/361-abraham-apocalypse-of:

• But this very opposition to the Christian dogma shows that at the time the Apocalypse was written Christianity was not far removed from Judaism, at least not in Palestine, where, since he used a Semitic language, the author must have lived. The last decades of the first century appear to be the period in which the Apocalypse was written. This remark, however, applies to the main part of the book, and not to its Christian and Gnostic interpolations. In connection with these must be considered the statement found in the Apocalypse that Azazel, who is described as being endowed with twelve wings (which description coincides exactly with that given in the Haggadah, Pir?e R. El. xiii.), shares with God the power over Israel. This is, no doubt, the Gnostic doctrine of the God of the Jews as Kakodaimon; and in this connection Irenæus may be quoted, who says of the Ophitic Gnostics ("Contra ???????," i. 30, 9), "et projectibilem serpentem duo habere nomina, Michael et Samael, dicunt" (and they called the wretched serpent two names, Michael and Samael). Thus, in the mind of these Gnostics, Samael ( "the entwined serpent") and Michael were fused into one being. Therefore, it is quite probable that certain parts of the heretical Apocalypse of Abraham, which was in circulation among the Gnostics (Epiphanius, ???????? 39, 5), were incorporated in the present text. Subtracting, then, the first part, which does not belong to the Apocalypse, and the Gnostic and Christian interpolations, only about three hundred lines remain, and this number would exactly correspond with the number which, according to the stichometry of Nicephorus, the Apocalypse of Abraham contained.

5 hours ago, Gone Away said:

What interests me more is did/how did Jesus pronounce the name? And what reaction was there at the time?

There is a lot more info related to that topic than I ever imagined possible.

One could argue that he did not pronounce it at all, and this is why there are no reports in the Greek Scriptures of any squabbles surrounding the issue. Just guessing, of course, but I think this is wrong, and that Jesus probably pronounced it just as most all other Galilean Aramaic speakers would have at that time.

The very first words reported about Jesus' public ministry relate to his baptism where John is preaching based on an OT verse containing the Divine Name (and in Matthew Jesus public ministry starts with Jesus preaching the same theme):

• “Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”+ ³  This, in fact, is the one spoken of through Isaiah the prophet+ in these words: “A voice of one calling out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of Jehovah!* Make his roads straight.’”

When Satan tempts Jesus times, all three responses from Jesus quoted a scripture that contained the Divine Name:

• It is written: ‘Man must live, not on bread alone, but on every word that comes from Jehovah’s* mouth.’”
• “Again it is written: ‘You must not put Jehovah* your God to the test.’”
• For it is written: ‘It is Jehovah* your God you must worship,+ and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.’”+

In Luke, he reports that one of the first things Jesus did in his public ministry was to go to a synagogue and begin reading from the scroll of Isaiah. We often assume this had to be a Hebrew scroll, but it very well could have been a Greek scroll (LXX). Either way, the Divine Name would have been addressed somehow. In Hebrew, it's from a place in Isaiah that conspicuously starts and ends with a reference to the Divine Name.

• (Luke 4:18,19) ¹⁸  “Jehovah’s* spirit is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and a recovery of sight to the blind, to send the crushed ones away free,+ ¹⁹  to preach Jehovah’s* acceptable year.”+

Also, the most quoted and most referenced verse from the Hebrew that was used as a theme for Christian writings was Psalm 110:1-3. This is a verse that cannot even be understood well without knowledge that the very first word is the Divine Name ("YHWH") and is obscured into ambiguity if one only heard "KYRIOS said unto David's KYRIOS."

And the Divine Name is surely related to a sub-theme of the Christian Greek Scriptures, perhaps in ways that we are not anxious to address. For example: what is the Name that Jesus is given, a wonderful Name? In what way is Jesus given a name that is above every name? How is that ONLY in the name of Jesus can someone be saved?

It's possible that some of these issues might even be related to Jesus' personal name, "Yahoshua" or "Yehoshua" meaning YAHO is SALVATION. An interesting bit of evidence reflecting some Jewish thinking at the time might be seen in the book "Apocalypse of Abraham" which could have written as early as 70 C.E. Wikipedia mentions this about the "arch-angel" Yahoel mentioned in the book:

• The angel Yahoel is sent to Abraham, terrified of the experience, to guide him and to teach him how to perform the sacrifice. Yahoel introduces himself as a being "whose name is like unto that of God Himself"

The entry under Yahoel [which, in Hebrew, would mean "YAHO is GOD"] contains another version in a footnote/reference:

• Christopher Rowland, Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones The mystery of God: early Jewish mysticism and the New Testament 2009 Page 53 "It speaks of the angel Yaoel who appears to Abraham and takes him to heaven, an angel who has God's name dwelling in him: I am called Yaoel . . .

4 hours ago, Gone Away said:

Interesting. Seems to be a view amongst some I have met, particularly evangelicals, but also a number of clergymen from a variety of denominations.

I don't think we ever really disagreed on this point. I think you are saying that this view is very widespread: that the reason we don't know the correct pronunciation today is due to a lack of written vowels in Hebrew. This same argument would be partly right for every Hebrew name and every Hebrew word, since Hebrew, as spoken today, is a "resurrected" language.

Excuse the double-negative, but I was not saying that this lack of vowels in Hebrew is not one of the reasons. I was saying that no one could argue that this was specifically why the name would have been unpronounceable. Otherwise, the name Jeremiah would have been unpronounceable, too. The other factors surrounding the Divine Name must have been much more important with respect to why the name ultimately became unpronounced, even though still pronounceable.

I would agree that, as of today, one of the difficulties in retrieving a "correct" pronunciation is that Hebrew was not fully voweled during the years when pronouncing the Divine Name began falling into disuse. And when Hebrew was fully voweled, not only had that disuse become widespread, but the vowels chosen for the Hebrew tetragrammaton were evidently purposely misleading, to keep that name unpronounced, or perhaps to discourage any pronunciation even being attempted. If those vowel pointings used by the Masoretes were meant to remind persons to use Elohim or Adonai in place of the Divine Name, this would very likely have been done because the name was still pronounceable in a way that these scribes (and those who would make use of their work) understood to be "correct."

A transliteration into other languages (which are more fully voweled, or with more consistent voweling rules) is helpful in retrieving a "correct" pronunciation, and that is one of the reasons that the early LXX variants are so important.

I don't think I've said anything here that's new or even anything that you likely disagree with. I was only taking issue with a specific way in which the idea about lack of written vowels could result in a misunderstanding. If I can reiterate, I don't think anyone would argue that a lack of written vowels had anything to do with why the Divine Name became unpronounceable, but, yes, it has become a major modern factor in trying to retrieve a likely (or "correct") ancient pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton.

Well, I now have Shaw's book, the whole thing. It is densely packed. It will take a while to wade through completely, and I'd like to complete it by next week, but I'm not sure I'll even start before then. I would like to complete Meyer's work first, now that I read about a third of it. And I'm constantly find intriguing little side-routes along the way, or things that just come to mind:

1. The most recent sidetrack was a dissertation I just read about the "acrostic" divine name, YHWH, in the book of Esther. I have always wondered what the most complete surveys of the evidence would say about it, and I think my suspicions are now confirmed after reading a good scholarly treatment of that subject last night.
2. The night before it was trying to figure out how early that Christian writers were treating the name Jesus as a divine name. Some of Chester Beatty's mss that could potentially be dated to the second century CE (although this is likely too early) even have the name JOSHUA in the OT turned into a "divine name" based, it is assumed, on the proximity to the name JESUS.
3. The night before that it was reading some things Philo said that I had never read before.
4. The night before that it was reading some things I probably read before in Josephus, but didn't remember.
5. etc.

As an amateur, so many of these points are new to me, and I therefore get sidetracked more than most, I'd guess. I'm not a steady reader who can stay on topic. But one of the advantages of being an amateur is the special joy you get when you are about to read someone's treatise on a topic that you know very little about, and you guess the outcome in advance. I'm constantly second-guessing authors with the idea that "I bet I'm going to find . . .  this or that." When you guess them right, it's probably the same kind of joy my grandmother would get when she completed a difficult crossword or jig-saw puzzle.

On 7/21/2018 at 3:05 PM, indagator said:

He mentioned the BA article by Howard in his post above. That was a watered down version of his 1977 classic article in the JBL, the article that began the controversy in academic circles.

Thanks. For those with JSTOR access through a university or library, it's also here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3265328

@indagator  Thanks again. I have not read that much of Shaw directly yet, but I have read all the reviews I could get and sizable portions of other books that quote him, and his own reviews of others (Wilkinson).  (I have access to the complete "Philo of Alexandria: An Annotated Bibliography" book, by the way, Hurtado's "Early Christian Artifacts," articles by Tov, etc.)

But right now I'm in the middle of reading https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/22823/2/meyer_anthony_r_finalsubmission2017october_phd.pdf

It's not even a year old yet (in this final submission).

As I just mentioned under a similar topic, I find it to be a comprehensive review of all the relevant evidence. (Shaw finds relevance in ALL the references to the Greek IAO, of course, meaning that Shaw treats even apparently non-relevant esoteric evidence as relevant.) Meyer only references Shaw's more esoteric evidence, but barely needs it.

I like the way Meyer avoids jumping to any conclusions about the evidence, but as good scholars do, very even-handedly presents it, and presents what others have said about it, and pushes no particular agenda that I can see so far. In fact, he allows the evidence itself to weaken the more direct assumptions that others have made, especially about the timeline from Tetragrammaton to Kyrios. Both of the authors seem to agree that the evidence favors the Greek "IAO" in the earliest LXX examples, before any Hebrew-styled Tetragrammatons were used in the [Greek] LXX.

Found an excellent and very comprehensive review of the evidence on the topic. It's only 357 pages, too:

https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/22823/2/meyer_anthony_r_finalsubmission2017october_phd.pdf

7 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

You must have cried when they told you that those Mark verses are phony.

And again when they told me that Isaiah 11:8 wasn't literal. Grown-ups always trying to take away our fun. Whaaaaaaaah!

2 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Hey, did anyone here borrow my book "Great Meanie Snakes of the World"?

For the record (perhaps even one of Guiness' records) I personally caught about 300 snakes from the time I was about 8 to the time I was about 12. When I was 8 I even brought one to the Kingdom Hall, sort of. I actually had to bring it only to the parking lot to show one of my friends, and then I let it go. (The Hall was on city property, but there was an old abandoned sawmill behind it, and no houses for a couple miles in that direction.) I still got in a lot of trouble.

I was only bitten a very few times unexpectedly, once by a fox snake and once or twice by a northern water snake. In catching snakes I expected to be bitten so that doesn't count. Never even tried to catch a venomous one, although water moccasins and copperheads were fairly common. I never saw a rattlesnake except from a good distance. My goal was to catch and release about one of every major species from my "Golden Nature Book" checklist. A really big snake is grabbed with a special stick, but most snakes could be grabbed by hand just behind the head/neck. Such great memories!

I visited my sister a couple months ago out at my parents' house in California and we found a 9 to 10 foot gopher snake on the property. He was just out getting a tan so we even got a nice picture of him. My sister remembered that I once (in Missouri) brought home a medium sized green snake (called a "rough green") that I caught and wanted to bring up to the roof of our house where I had a little terrarium for small snakes. She remembers our mother calling out "Don't you bring that snake to the roof!!" while we were still quite a ways from the house. There was no way that our mother could hear us or see us, or know that we had a snake. For years, my sister thought that mothers were psychic.

17 minutes ago, Gone Away said:

They might also find the following hard to defend:

[over a dozen examples]

Oh yes . . . that, too.

40 minutes ago, Space Merchant said:

it seems silly for people to just paint such to a single person or group, to justify that the actions of one define all and it is not the first time this was done.

I agree, and I also agree that a few of the poster's other comments have given me the impression that JWs are being selectively chosen as if they are uniquely afflicted with certain problems. But for this particular question, it struck me as one that took a completely different tack:

It was almost like saying, hey we know that all kinds of groups are troubled by such crimes, but there is one group that has claimed a lot of examples of angelic protection, especially while engaged in the ministry to outsiders. So why is it that individuals are almost certainly NOT being protected from a problem that can occur right within the congregation itself.

I don't think anyone is arguing for an Ananias and Sapphira style judgment. (Although I'd like to see at least certain parts of such criminals deadened by the holy spirit.)

To me, the question reminded me of the claims by some snake-handling sects who might be protected from venomous snakes and scorpions (Luke 10:19; Mark 16:18, NWT 1984):

• (Mark 16:18)  ¹⁸  and with their hands they will pick up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly it will not hurt them at all.

Persons from these sects, will often proudly show off their snake-handling skills, but they will not be nearly so likely to show off their ability to digest arsenic. If persons from these sects were loudly proclaiming the protection (from snakes) by angelic forces or holy spirit, then It would be a perfectly legitimate question to point out the number of persons from these sects who might have died by poison or even alcohol abuse.  

The question would have nothing whatsoever to do with how many other sects were afflicted by deaths from poison or alcohol abuse.

17 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

but it would seem you and others are trying it as if it is a JW only thing. What you also fail to realize is ?that this faith adheres to the 1st church

@Jack Ryan might have a lot of issues, or these might not even be his own issues. At any rate, this particular question is a good one, in my opinion.

(And @Gone Away it doesn't really matter if he should expand it to include all persons who get hurt from all types of crimes and injustices. He has started with a specific, narrow example and this should help us to focus on the point of the question.)

Back to what you were saying that I requoted, @Space Merchant: In this case, J.Ryan is not treating pedophilia and child sexual abuse as if it were just a JW-only thing. In fact, the nature of the question very clearly shows that he is questioning why we are quick to imply that angels have often run interference for JWs who are in the midst of the preaching work. He is right that we have shown images of angels in protective mode and guiding mode as they watch over the preaching work. I know of several of the images he is referring to. There have been dozens of examples of experiences printed in yearbooks, Watchtowers, and from the convention platform that thank Jehovah for specific cases of angelic protection in the face of all kinds of dangers.

Most of these more recent articles about angels, with one exception, no longer depict a ghostly angel hovering over the door-to-door work, although one recent one, below, indicates that they are "over" the cart-witnessing work. Most of the more recent articles show several examples of angels in Biblical times then show the preaching work, but without the depiction of the angel in modern times. Still, the wording that goes along with the pictures is telling:

Watchtower, 5/15/2009 p.23 and 24

When viewed alongside the recent pictures that try to give us a sense of the hundreds of millions of such angels standing at the ready it really does, and really should, make us wonder about specific activities that angels are handling in modern times. Did those angels in the Yearbook experiences really make a person miss when they shot bullets at point blank range during times of war and persecution in modern times? Did angels make a person of the right heart condition glance over at a cart? Or was it the receptive heart condition that caused them to glance? Did an angel send a Witness to the door exactly when the householder finished praying for guidance in their search? Other religions have told of the same experiences. What makes our claims different?

These questions will also touch on why Jehovah permits wickedness, and why someone's prayer might be answered when another one's is not. It may also touch on human nature. When almost everyone except an especially photogenic young child is saved from an explosion, a burning building or a crashed train or airplane, we will often hear the media interviewing people who say that God must have had a special purpose for that child. We will hear about how wonderful God is in sending an angel to swoop down and save this one or that one. We will not hear about the injustice and loss to the others who died.

At any rate, not that anyone has a complete answer, but this is still a good question.

Angels help declare the good news throughout the earth

-- Watchtower's caption, https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2017169

24 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

His words are in regular font. Mine in italics.

I suspect you reversed this convention.

POPE FRANCIS TRIES HIS HAND AT TECHNOLOGY PREDICTIONS

A paper from the local Vatican press office, http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino.html , L'OSSERVATORE ROMANO, has reported on a speech that Pope Francis gave last month while looking out from above Vatican Square and addressing a crowd of visitors below. Most of the speech was intended as spiritual encouragement in a changing world. I'll only attempt to quote a very small portion of the article that deals with a specific technical prediction:

• Looking out over a crowd of persons, mostly tourists in Vatican Square, Pope Francis was no doubt responding to the sea of smartphones aimed up at him. To the delight of the crowd, his apparently unscripted speech veered into the arena of technical forecasting, and he made an astounding prediction. He began by saying that it was now hard to imagine that so many past generations lived without ever seeing the many inventions that we now take for granted. He said that the current generation has seen a lot of changes in their lifetimes, too, but that the younger generation has already grown up on iPods, iPads and iPhones, and that they take these things for granted to such an extent that they will not be surprised in the least if they find themselves getting from town to town in self-flying cars long before their own generation passes away. This is where the Pope, evidently paying some homage to the Olivet sermon, added: "But truly I tell you that this generation will not pass away before self-flying cars will be taking us from one town to another, and even from one part of town to another."

The above sermon never happened (as far as I know) which is why I put this in "controversial posts." It's fake news. I know it is fake because I just made it all up myself 2 minutes ago. 

I made it up because we just don't talk enough about the meaning of the term "this generation," as found in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32.

I use the example because it addresses the fact that generations overlap. Even in Jesus' day, let's say that the average person lived to be 65 years old and the average person got married and had a son at age 25.  And if that son grew up the same, and his son grew up the same, etc., then any person hearing Jesus would, on average, be alive for a few years while their grandparents were still alive, and their first 40 years while their own father was still alive, and their last 40 years while their son was still alive, and their last 15 years while their grandson was still alive. For most of their life there would be 3 overlapping generations. The length of time between each new generation was about 25 years, using this example.

Yet, it's also obvious that when Jesus said "this generation" that he didn't need to be addressing only the youngest generation that was just then coming up. He was more likely addressing the entire group of all overlapping generations and treating them as if they were one group of people who would not completely die out before they saw "these things occur." (Remember that the original question was "When will these things occur?" (Referring to the destruction of Jerusalem's temple when not a stone will be left upon a stone.) It occured 37 years later, so that even a 50+ year old grandparent might live to see it, and even a 25+ year old father would very likely live to see it, and his children in the very youngest generation would almost all live to see it.

So we can easily see that Jesus was more likely referring to all these overlapping generations as contemporaries. Meaning, all these people who were then alive at the same time. So the question might come up:

Could Jesus have been addressing people who had not been born yet?

There would be people born over the next 37 years who would also see the destruction of the Temple ("these things") occur. That would be natural. But is that who Jesus was addressing, or was he addressing all the people alive (contemporaries) in the audience?

Scripture becomes very flexible when we need it to mean something that it never meant, but we are less forgiving when it comes to contemporary humans who claim they meant something when they said something else. For example, what would we think if 50 years from now, people still weren't seeing these flying cars, and supporters of the Pope starting claiming that he didn't mean his own generation, or the generation of parents, but he meant only the youngest generation of children, the ones who were just then growing up on their iPads and iPhones? That's clearly not what he meant, but we'll accept the possible interpretation as not too far off. But what if 100 years from the time of the speech, even that younger generation had died off?

Now the only possible way that the Pope could be right is for people to defend him by saying that the Pope meant that these things would be seen by people who had not yet been born at the time of the "speech." He meant that as the people died out and didn't yet see it, that they would overlap with a new group of people, born as many as 80 or 90 years after the speech, whose lives might have just barely overlapped with those who had actually heard the speech in Vatican Square. They would start to claim that this is the real meaning of the term "this generation." 

At this point we would probably think that those defenders of the Pope were just lying.

The video with the Sahidic Coptic text of John 1:1 caught my attention. I've used this in discussions of Trinity as evidence that the NWT has found a fair (but literal) translation of the verse. I wondered what scholars have said about it lately and found a very accessible page about it here:

http://www.equip.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-john-11-new-evidence-advances-discussion/

The overall intent of the write-up is to dismiss the NWT. But it is illuminating in that the writer has so much trouble finding other Coptic evidence that might apply. He twice advances the possibility that this 2nd to 4th century manuscript might actually be from a different perspective than that of the Nicene creed. In other words, non-Trinitarian. But after considering as much relevant evidence as deemed necessary, the writer concludes something which is exactly in line with our own understanding of the verse.

• Likewise, I am aware of this new evidence, and have weighed the various options.
• At the end of the day, I believe the best explanation of all three occurrences of the indefinite article in the Sahidic Coptic version of the New Testament is the qualitative one. Therefore, John 1:1c should read: ‘and the Word [Jesus] possesses the same qualities as God.’ This scholarly supported category contextually fits other, grammatically similar passages and best corresponds with what is attested elsewhere—scripturally and historically.

The writer thinks it is so important to get rid of the very literal translation "a god" that he doesn't seem to realize that he has actually found agreement with our own position about the verse in that it means "a god" (or even "a God") in the sense of having the same divine qualities as God. This of course fits the context, the rest of the book of John, and helps explain what have seemed to be other difficult passages in Trinity discussions.

I was reading up on the Russian Orthodox Church and noticed that they have an unusually high number of books (apparently) which defend the idea that the "Church" must have more mystery. Both these articles you linked tend to want to make the relationship of God to Christ [and the holy spirit] a "mystery." The first guy says it's a mystery so we shouldn't have tried to make up stuff about it. The Trinity defender says it's a mystery and that's why we should keep using the terms as they have developed over the last couple millennia about the Trinity.

For thousands of years, I suppose that priests (including the "academic priesthood") have discovered that even so-called knowledge is power.

15 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Yes he is, and this is absolutely the last time I let this dog on a Bible translation team!

Very funny. Even though I already saw this over on your site.

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

"heavy lifting"

Hey! I wasn't the one doing the "lifting." ?

8 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I could not give it proper attribution ahead of time or it would have ruined the combination of straight news and Onion absurdity !

Yup.

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

With every passing year in our search for extraterrestrial water and life, we are getting closer to finding, if not outright proof, then a resolution to Clark’s assertion.

I must admit my confusion at the two different writing styles. Turns out that almost the entire post was a verbatim copy from the FoxNews article from the start, right up until the sentence just requoted (without attribution, I might add).

[ http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/07/27/water-on-mars-does-sciences-theory-about-origin-life-hold-up.html  ]

Then you threw in a couple paragraphs just before the end from The Onion, of all places, before finishing with Michael Guillen's last sentence again:

• With every passing year in our search for extraterrestrial water and life, we are getting closer to finding, if not outright proof, then a resolution to Clark’s assertion.
• Is intelligence ultimately a blessing or a curse? Surely, the answer will make for the biggest headline of all.