Hey
@LightBearer!
Well, I’m not sure we can remain honest to the material and reply
never mind those other translations. They’re a very serious objection. If I reproduce nearly 30 Bible translations online, and they’re
all geared towards my understanding of the verse, and you return with a single translation of the verse that favours your reading, that’s not good enough. Right?
If you and I aren’t native speakers or we aren’t confident interpreters in terms of Ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, we’d do well to respect and pay attention to the larger preponderance of Bible translation committees who can understand the languages. Now you’re insisting my understanding of the verse is wrong not because of the language used or the immediate context involved in Hebrews 1, rather you believe I’m mistaken because.....
Afterwards you quoted Matthew 28:18-19. That’s enlisting one section of scripture to do the heavy lifting on another portion of scripture which doesn’t appear to read the way you’d prefer.
“Context is king,” but adventuring off into Matthew to help protect a misreading of Hebrews isn’t King context, it’s avoiding the strong principles for interpretation in favour of the weak principles.
Immediate context bests wider context, deriving context from the
same author or the
exact same book beats going off into the gospels because Hebrews doesn’t support your reading of the material. Respecting context means you and I should appreciate and admire the structure of Hebrews chapter one, where first angels are mentioned in one sense, and after the Son is mentioned in a greater sense.
Switching up the structure so that first the angels are mentioned, then God the Father is glorified as the throne and source of Christ’s authority
(instead of the usual glorifying of the Son) is to betray the immediate context and spoil the obvious flow of the chapter. Switching up the structure midway through to distort the context and then moving on to Matthew isn’t proper interpretation in action.
So far as the
“king” objection from the book of Psalms goes that’s not an incredibly strong argument.
@Dale shared a reasonable reply already, still I’ll help out too. The scripture referencing God or Solomon or King David wouldn’t alter how the author of Hebrews wanted to use the phrase, that’s something we see throughout scripture. In the same way that the Old Testament law of not yoking together certain animals couldn’t be used to attempt to upend Paul’s use of the language in his teaching on marital advice.
That’s very good of you.
While I will ignore your sensitive soul and put it down to the fact that you’re using an outdated source like the NW, I too would be on the defensive if I was bogged down by such an awful piece of work as the New World translation.
Although, ignoring my earlier question, you haven’t specified what the
“NW” actually is. Would you care to share the full title of your incredible source material?
Of course if you’re an honest to goodness member of the Watchtower, and you’re seriously trying to use a copy of the
New World translation to argue for beliefs
already promoted by the publishers of the New World translation, you can just imagine the fun I’d have with that.
If that were the case none of these arguments from principles of interpretation, immediate context, plain scripture or God Himself could convince you otherwise
(not if you’re a proper witness,) sure they’re fun debate tactics and means of understanding Gods word, but outside of the Watchtowers authority to interpret the Bible for you and settle matters you couldn’t come to any other conclusions.
There’s no testing words against the scripture and being a good Berean because without the Watchtower and it’s publications you would be
“in darkness,” according to the organisation anyway. The Bible cannot do the things for which God intended it, witnesses can’t be good Bereans because the Watchtower define for you who Bereans are in the first place.
Meaning the entire pretence of having an independent methodology based on the Bible is one big con job to help induct the unwary into the witnesses one true authority, their organisation.
The same organisation that’s
“neither inspired nor infallible,” according to their website. Just imagine the pickle people can get themselves into, quoting scholars in their publications
(or their messages online) while denouncing
“worldly scholarship,” wanting to teach and convert via the Bible just so the new witness can abandon its teaching authority in favour of a group of men’s uninspired interpretation. Still you might not be a witness in the first place.
I haven’t assumed anything concrete to do with your beliefs, hence my unanswered question about your use of the mysterious
“NW” translation.