Jehovas Witness Bible, any exclusive contradictions?

First off, my sister is JW, so I’ve looked into all of this quite a bit. I’ve read a lot of JW literature too, as well as many outside, critical sources.There is only one official JW bible currently as far as I know. It’s called “The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures”. (there may be earlier JW ones, more influenced by the Spiritists as Anastasia mentioned, but those aren’t the official bible today). The translation is not bad. From my understanding (not speaking Greek nor Hebrew myself), it’s about as accurate as most current translations except for two things.1. It always translates any name addressing God as “Jehovah”.
2. It blatantly mistranslates John 1 as has been discussed already.Because these don’t really affect contradictions, the JW bible should have all the contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and logical problems of the Protestant Bibles (the JW bibles cut out the books that differ between the Catholic and Protestant Bibles). Of course, one could argue that change #2 up there affects the contradictions around the trinity - OK, well, maybe, but the trinity is a mess of contradictions anyway, so I don’t see a big effect by changing John 1.Neutral mind wrote:

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Could you tell me where in the bible it is said that there is the Trinity? Or is it just something about reading the text in context and comparing stuff to see that there has to be the Trinity for it to make sense?

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Um, no. As others have mentioned, the trinity isn’t mentioned in the Bible. Reading more doesn’t help. 1=3 never makes sense. It has, however, been a historically effective way to tire people out and get them to stop asking those pesky questions. It’s “a divine mystery beyond human comprehension”, just like saying 2=3, or 1=5 or 4=1 . . Anastasia wrote:

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The heretics did not however stoop to actually changing the Bible that I am aware of. The JW's have.

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and Neutralmind wrote:

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I'm very close to start studying the JW's version of the bible seriously, but I wouldn't want to waste my time if there actually are some obvious mistranslations and purposeful editing to suit their views in the bible.

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OK, someone isn’t aware of early Christian/new testament history. The different competing groups of Christians in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd centuries all regularly changed their bibles to fit their theological views. This was done by all of the different kinds of Christianities, at least as far as we have their scriptures to compare. In fact, this was done on an individual level at least as much as on a group level. The Gnostics changed their texts, or wrote new ones, the early Catholics wrote theirs (that’s why there are so many books in our new testament that aren’t by disciples), Marcion outright cut out sections of the Gospel of Luke, and on and on. The easiest way to see this is to simply compare the stories of the same event in the Gospels - Mt and Lk are well known to have had and copied from Mk. However, Mt and Lk often change the story to reflect their own bias. This is also obvious when comparing Jn to the others, since Jn is later and much more Gnostic. This is well known among biblical scholars. If you are interested, there is a book that goes into great detail on dozens of cases where the early church changed the Bible: http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed...Intentional changes are part of the reason why, out of the 5,000 early manuscripts we have of the Bible, no two of them agree word for word (except for the ones that are little fragments). Copying errors are a bigger reason, of course. So if you want a Christianity that hasn't altered it's Bible, you're out of luck no matter where you go.Anastasia wrote:

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I am not sure if your intentions are in possibly joining the JW sect. I strongly would advise you against it.

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I agree with Anastasia - I would advise against it.I constantly see JW’s get attacked by Christians for having altered their Bible, for being a cult, for making up new views about God, for believing fantastic things, for being less involved in society, for believing in superstition, etc. However, all of those charges are true of all Christian groups, not just JWs - especially the early Christians that so many Christians seem to want to emulate. While I don’t see much in JW doctrine that I’d consider correct, I don’t see them as much different from many other Christianities.It is true that the Catholic doctrine has an older, unbroken line from the 4rd century to today. But the JW doctrine is very similar to the Arian doctrine, which is of similar age. It’s true that the JW’s doctrine was mostly extinct for 1500 years, but I’m not sure that that is relevant. It’s also true that bigger churches, like the hundreds of millions of Catholics, have advantages over small ones like the JW’s, who have about 7 million members, but that also has disadvantages. After all, we saw in the recent Catholic sexual abuse scandals that any church (big or small) can harbor and protect predators. The political advantages of a large church are clearly superior to a minority, but I’m hard pressed to think of other reasons to favor a big church over a minority. At least for me, both their doctrines are equally out of touch with the real world.Hey, I know one. The mainstream Christianities at least don’t ban blood transfusions, which the JW’s do, and that can be life-threatening if you need one.Have a fun day, wherever you go.Edited by AdminAsgara, : shortened url to fix page width

Ansastasia wrote:

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There is a point where scripture can point in two or more directions, and the rest is up to logic and reasoning.

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Amen!Even after the orthodox chose only those scriptures which can support their view, there still is a lot of places where the non-orthodox influences and origins of the books in the Bible is evident. This shows up in the many places where, as Anastasia points out, we have to read an orthodox meaning into the text.Understanding this makes the Bible make a lot more sense. The many contradictions disappear, and it becomes much richer in meaning. By realizing that the books each have their own views, own authors, and often, own religions, requires a lot less mental gymnastics than trying to cram the meaning from other biblical books into each book of the Bible. In other words, let each book speak for itself. The Jesus of Mark is a very differnt Jesus as compared to the Jesus of John (in both concrete and general ways), and the religion of Mt is a different religion than that which Paul preaches. Letting each book speak for itself reveals why Luther wanted to cut out the book of James, and why Hell suddenly pops up with Jesus, after not being around in the previous 80+ % of the bible.Take care-

Anastasia wrote:

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Hm, again. How do the contradictions disappear? They don't, really, they are just ignored if the Bible is looked at book by book.

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It depends on the contradiction. From a Christian perspective, looking at the books separately can show that apparent contradictions are due to human thoughts on the part of the writers, thus avoiding the conclusion that God is confused. For instance, Mark has Jesus clear the temple near the end of his life, just before being crucifies, while for John, it’s the first thing Jesus does. So which was it?Fundamentalists mash the whole bible together, and insist that because the bible is inerrant, either Jesus cleared the temple twice, or more often they ignore stuff like that all together. Instead, a Christian can look at that and say that Mk and Jn were written by different people who heard different stories about Jesus - thus the important part, (that Jesus cleared the temple and what that meant) is sorted from petty details about who said what. So the “contradiction” ceases to be some indictment, but instead shows some history. This can be applied to most of the contradictions that can be found in those big long lists of bible contradictions, making the contradictions show historical data, instead of being big theological problems.

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Luther picked over things he didn't like.

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Sure, and so did Luke when he creatively copied Mark. We can each choose whether or not that will be a theological problem or not. I think the strongest Christian view is one where these changes and differences are not hidden from, but instead are understood. After all, they do shine some light on the honest attempts by the early church in bringing the Christianity we know into existence.

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If you put all the pieces together, you can actually solve some contradictions, like the Trinity.

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You know that the trinity is not a contradiction that can be solved. I’m surprised someone with an orthodox understanding would say that it is. The trinity is, as you know, is a “divine mystery” - it is beyond human understanding, according to the Catholic Church, as well as most Protestant churches. A divine mystery can’t be solved - that’s half the point of it.Also, it may be true or it may not, but I hope we all agree that is isn’t explicitly in the Bible. As I wrote in the other thread:

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In the of a million words that make up the Bible, you’d think that if any of the dozens of writers of the Bible thought the trinity existed, then some phrase like “God is composed of three beings, the father, son, and holy ghost - these three are one god.” wouldn’t be too much trouble to write. That was only 17 words . . . ..
But no. instead we get entire stories copied word for word twice that go on for pages, or pages and pages of geneologies of people who are never again mentioned, or stories about ancient beauty pageants.

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From http://EvC Forum: Bible Interpretation and History -->EvC Forum: Bible Interpretation and HistoryThe key is that those things were all more important than the trinity to the writers of the Bible at the time each book was written - again, solved by looking at it in a way that shows historical development, instead of framing it in a way that makes one doubt Christianity. The fact that Christianity has a history doesn’t mean it’s not valid - in fact ignoring that history only makes Christians look nave, which in turn makes Christianity look nave. That’s why I don’t think that ignoring vestiges of it’s history is a good thing for Christians to do.Christian doesn’t = Trinitarian. There are millions of Christians today who aren’t Trinitarian, and those are the Christianities that are growing the fastest. I personally don’t favor one side or the other, but feel that clarification is needed when the Bible is said to contain a doctrine that only developed much later than the books in the bible were written.Have a fun day- Equinox

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Equinox writes: It depends on the contradiction.

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True, and the example you gave of the clearing of the Temple is one of those contradctions where it is beyond me that people would insist that this must have happened twice. I had almost had some temporary amnesia and forgotten that there are those types out there.

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Yeah. The funniest one that comes to mind is the “cock crows” one. John has Peter deny Jesus 3 times before the cock crows, while Mark has Peter deny Jesus 3 times before the cock crows twice. Fundamentalists sometimes claim that Peter must therefore have denied Jesus 6 times - 3 times before the cock crowed, then again 3 more times before the cock crowed again.

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But then you get into other contradictions; Jesus as man, as God, as the son of man, the allusions in the OT, and there are obvious reasons why some clear picture of exactly who He was would need to be developed. Reading book by book is not going to solve it.

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Well, we can be different here. Fundamentalists never use the book by book solution, you sometimes use it, as you see fit, and I use it more often, as I see fit. For me, it does solve the Christology question simply. To me, it seems that Mark simply had a different Christology than John, who saw Jesus as equal to God the Father. Jesus as the suffering servant of God is consistent throughout Mark, while Jesus as divine creator of the world is consistent within John. To each his own.

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Sure, and so did Luke when he creatively copied Mark. We can each choose whether or not that will be a theological problem or not.

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Yes, but there is a difference between Luke and Luther. A big huge time gap, for one, making what Luther did a disregard for certain texts based on his theological problem.

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Why does the time gap matter? Is it OK to let your theology affect your writing today, but won’t be OK to do the same thing in the future? Luke did certainly disregard parts of Mark’s text. In fact, in his opening lines, Luke appears to insult Mark. It reminds me of Luther saying that the book of James was “an epistle made of straw”. I’m still struggling to see a distinction, except perhaps that Luke actually did exclude the parts of Mark he didn’t like, while Luther ended up keeping the whole book of James unchanged.

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The Trinity is a resolution of the contradictory texts, one of several. That is not to say that the Trinity is less of a mystery in itself.

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That sounds like a contradiction. A “resolution” of a contradiction is not a mystery, it’s a resolution. Is the Trinity a mystery (= something that doesn’t make human logical sense)? If not, then why call it a mystery? Actually, that’s a rhetorical question. We both know that the church doctrine is that the trinity is indeed a mystery because it is beyond human comprehension. Or is there another divine mystery on top of that, which says that a logical resolution can indeed still be a mystery and it’s a divine mystery as to how a logical resolution can still be a mystery? : )

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the JW sect being one of those non-Trinitarians...although in certain terminologies they are not considered christian.

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This sounds an awful lot like the whole “only our sect is saved”. The early Christians called the other Christians “not Christian”, and many modern Christians call other Christians “not Christian” if they don’t like their doctrine. Many Baptists say that Catholics aren’t “really Christian”, and on and on. It seems to me that anyone who bases their religion on their understanding of Jesus is a Christian. Do you consider Truthlover to be a Christian? Truthlover doesn’t base his Christianity on the Bible, which the JW’s at least do. Thus truthlover is a heretic at least as bad as the JWs in the RCC’s eyes. Though not a Christian myself, I don’t support the whole “Christianer than thou” stance we see so often. Actually, Anastasia, I bet you don’t either. Am I right? Thanks--Equinox

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but christians can't believe Jesus changes in every book. He can't be only God, and then only Man. He must be both/and or either/or.

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Ah - there’s that word: “Can’t”. Can’t due to what the doctrine/priest/preacher says? “Can’t” because it’s required to think as your are told - such as that the Bible is inerrant? Some similar “Can’t” reason? Christians could indeed decided that Mark’s gospel is right, and ignore John’s or vice versa. That’s how things were at the start of Christianity, and the PO picked which gospels to allow and which to toss - see my Peter example below.

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And yes, I do think a solution can be a mystery!

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We’ll agree to disagree. : )

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Why does the time gap matter?

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What matters is that Luke is in the Bible, and Luther isn't. Therefore, whatever Luke did matters to Bible readers, and whatever Luther did is take-it-or-leave-it.

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So the unspoken assumption is that the Bible is inerrant. Otherwise, you could decide that Luke wasn’t any more justified than Luther, and then the time gap doesn’t matter. After all, even hundred of years after Jesus, the PO decided to exclude the Gospel of Peter, which appears to have been about as common as the Gospel of Mark. Or in the 1500’s the Protestants took out books like maccabbees and such, and the RCC doctrine of the immaculate conception is only a couple centuries old. Maybe taking some books of the Bible and not all of them is more consistent with how the early Christians were, and how things have been even up to now? And/or, add the new revelations from God, which you alluded to here:

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The revelations of God are recorded in the Bible. They don't end there. . . ..

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If you say 'more christian' that could mean more Biblical or more orthodox.

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Why? Both “Biblical” and “orthodox” are human constructions from hundreds of years after Jesus, where Christians were on all sides of the debates.

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Generally speaking, Christians follow Jesus as God.

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Why require the “as god” part? The Gnostics (who aren't considered Christian by some Christians) certainly did see Jesus as God - depending on the type of Gnostic.Plus, and more importantly, the “as God” part isn’t needed. For instance, Buddhists don’t see Buddha as God or even as a god. Marxists don’t see Karl as God or a god. Confucists don't see Confucius as God. Isn’t a Christian simply a person who follows Christ, just as a Buddhist follows Buddha, etc?

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some main tenets which MOST Christians follow are denied, and one of those is that Jesus is God.

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So then is the definition of “what a Christian is” determined by popularity? As we noted, with the rapid growth of the non-trinitarian Christianities, it seems quite possible that in the foreseeable future, perhaps in our lifetimes, most Christians will reject the trinity. Would that change who is a “true Christian”?Have a nice day, I’ll be back next week--EquinoxEdited by Equinox, : clarification