Chat over coffee with an elder from JWs

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I had a chat with an elder from the local Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's witnesses on Saturday; we'd met before and chatted a little, I'd asked him if the JWs had any books on the major and minor prophets because I was leading a bible study in my Parish on Justice & Peace and I was curious what JWs had to say about God's call to the prophets (and by extension to us) to bear witness to and testify about God's purposes.

Being a nice chap, as he is, and being an elder among JWs he had access to quite a lot of books and to my surprise he came along to the coffee shop with five JW books in hand, a total of around one thousand five hundred pages. There's a book on
  1. Isaiah (it is volume II, so I wonder where volume I is?)
  2. Jeremiah
  3. Daniel
  4. The twelve minor prophets
  5. and one called KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO EVERLASTING LIFE.

One must give credit to him for keenness to satisfy my question!

Anyway, we had quite a pleasant chat over coffee and I've had a bit of a look through the book on Jeremiah, but, alas, it is much more of a HOW TO witness about Jehovah book than it is a book about the specifics of the book of Jeremiah. The last of the books in the list I gave above is one of their basic doctrine books, no doubt intended for studying with a potential convert (or 'interested person' as they say).

I thought I'd share this little story with you all. As I look through the books if I find anything interesting I'll try to remember to report it back to you all.

:)
 

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I forgot to mention that when he gave me the five books towards the end of our chat over coffee he said, "What other group has such detailed books on the scriptures?", I think he was of the view that only Jehovah's witnesses are so scrupulous about offering written interpretations of scripture. I replied, "Catholics do, we have commentaries on every book of the bible. Some of which are very detailed with an analysis of every verse and many of the unusual words or expressions found in each verse." He looked surprised.
 
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JimR-OCDS

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You could also ask him when the JW's will get a trained scholar in Scripture, who has had Hebrew and Greek training.

Every time they sent some one over to Hebrew University in the Holy Land, their student ends up dropping out of the JW's, as they see the misinterpretation of the JW's.

It got to the point where the JW's don't bother sending anyone over there anymore.


Jim
 
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um, the Catholic church compiled and cannonized the Bible. Without the Catholic church there would be no Bible!! Tell him about that
I did mention to him that the bible he uses (the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures - 1984 edition) is the product of his religion's history; specifically, that it has sixty six books in it rather than seventy three, because it is a protestant bible with the 'extra books', as he called them, removed while my bible just didn't remove them because they had always been in there. He acknowledged that was historically correct. I didn't push the point that every book in his bible is also in mine and that all of them were chosen by Catholics for inclusion in the canon of sacred scripture.

I'll have to wait and see what comes along in any further discussions I have with him. Being an elder in their religion will make some matters harder for him but it may make some easier too. God willing he will check the internet on some of the issues we discuss.
 
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JimR-OCDS

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I did mention to him that the bible he uses (the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures - 1984 edition) is the product of his religion's history; specifically, that it has sixty six books in it rather than seventy three, because it is a protestant bible with the 'extra books', as he called them, removed while my bible just didn't remove them because they had always been in there. He acknowledged that was historically correct. I didn't push the point that every book in his bible is also in mine and that all of them were chosen by Catholics for inclusion in the canon of sacred scripture.

I'll have to wait and see what comes along in any further discussions I have with him. Being an elder in their religion will make some matters harder for him but it may make some easier too. God willing he will check the internet on some of the issues we discuss.

Well a point of clarification here.

The so-called Protestant Bible, uses the Hebrew version of the old testament, which has 7 less books than the Septuagint version which Catholics use.

The Septuagint is the Greek version which was used by Greek speaking Jews, during the time of Jesus Christ and continued by the Christians.

The Jewish Hierarchy, after the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation, rejected the Septuagint, because 80% of what Christians citations to the Old Testament, came from the Septuagint. They wanted to distance themselves from Christianity as much as possible.

It wasn't until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that they agreed that the Septuagint was indeed accepted by Jews as legit.

The Christian Church, up until the reformation, used the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

JW's use a version of the Hebrew Old Testament, which of course was translated from the English version.

Jim
 
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JW's use a version of the Hebrew Old Testament, which of course was translated from the English version.
The New World Translation (NWT) is a translation from Hebrew and Greek source texts, it is largely based upon the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901, but it is not merely a modernisation of the ASV without reference to the underlying Hebrew text.

The NWT used the Masoretic text for the old testament and the Westcott & Hort Greek text for the new testament.
 
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Chrystal-J

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I've studied with the JWs before and they use a bible that has blatantly false material in it. They claim that Jesus is Michael the Archangel. They say that heaven is "closed" and all faithful JWs will live on earth in "perfect (human) bodies" forever. When I asked what happens when people with these "perfect bodies" get into car accidents and are decapitated, they looked at me with a blank look on their faces and said they'd have to get back to me on that.

This video shows a Greek scholar that the JWs misquote in their literature. This scholar says the JWs' bible is "false and misleading".


The Jehovah's Witnesses False Bible - YouTube
 
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JimR-OCDS

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The New World Translation (NWT) is a translation from Hebrew and Greek source texts, it is largely based upon the American Standard Version (ASV) of 1901, but it is not merely a modernisation of the ASV without reference to the underlying Hebrew text.

The NWT used the Masoretic text for the old testament and the Westcott & Hort Greek text for the new testament.


But the Old Testament is based on the Hebrew version, not the Septuagint, the Greek version.

Also, their translation is from the English which is was translated from Hebrew and Greek, but being JW's don't have Scripture Scholars with expertise in the Hebrew and Greek versions of Scripture, their translation is flawed.

Jim
 
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JimR-OCDS

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We say they are wrong and we can prove it

They say we are wrong and they can prove it .

I can't see the sense in trying to get them to see our point of view


Actually they can't say we are wrong because one;

They don't have the history that goes back to when Christ founded the Church as we have. We were given the Gospel from the Apostles, and we have Apostolic succession, they don't.

They don't have the Scholars versed in Scripture which includes the languages and history, we do.

They're arguments are based on their own translation of Scripture from English, not from actual Hebrew and Greek. We do.


Jim
 
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No - not at all - they sincerely believe in what they have been taught .

The snag is that here we have an instance of two widely separated beliefs where each side believes that the other is in serious error .

You can talk all you want with them - but they hold very very firmly to their beliefs . So do we of course :)
 
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