Jehovah's Witnesses believe there will be a ban on religion

[JehovahsWitness]

Jehovah's Witnesses have long pointed to what they believe is bible prophecy that there will eventually be political measures to restrict all outward manifestations of religious activity.

My question is:

- Do you believe the world will be a safer place if what they believe came true, ie an end to religioun (leaving personal belief a private matter)?

[historia]

There are Bible versions that have gone back to the original languages and have discerned the true meanings behind many controversial verses and/or words, which the King James committee did not. It relied on the LATIN translation, which was not an original language of the Bible. So there you have the crux of the matter.

I have to say that if people really check into the history of the versions and how they were translated, etc., people would soon see that the KJV is lacking in many ways. It was translated from a Latin version because satisfactory Greek mss. were not available in any great quanitity (as we have discovered such in more recent years).

I'm afraid this is simply mistaken. The King James version is not translated from Latin.

Rather, the KJV translators used the Textus Receptus, a critical Greek text based on a variety of then-known Greek manuscripts, for the New Testament, and the Bomberg (Hebrew and Aramaic) Masoretic Text for translating the Old Testament.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 30 by onewithhim]

Anyway, I will still use the KJV to show the truth. It contradicts itself as far as the Trinity, Hell-fire, and such, but you can reason with a person that it must be a bad translation to be so contradictory!

What say you to Roman Catholics? They don't use the KJV, yet still believe in the Trinity.

What do you think happens if one day, someone comes onto the site and says "The Trinity is real" and points to Bible verses to support him? What happens if that person goes up against yourself, onewithhim?
I'll tell you what will happen. Onewithhim will say "No, the Trinity is not real, there is no plurality of gods" and will point to verses from the Bible to back herself up, and insist on the interpretation she gives them.
The other person (let's call him Bob) will say "The Trinity is real, you're wrong" and point to any number of verses and insists on his own interpretation.
All the while, I'm back here, wondering which of you two is correct, and over there is the rule about the Bible is to be considered authoritative, useless at resolving this dilemma.

Why say, "the Word was God" in one place, and then "Jesus said to the Father, 'You are the only true God'" in another? It seems to me that a person who is looking for the truth would think about these things.

Even in the version(s) of the Bible that you support, contradictions can be found. (I don't think you've specified yet which ones you do?). Matthew 21 has Jesus saying to his disciples to go and fetch him two animals, and he somehow rides on both at the same time in his entrance to Jerusalem.
http://biblehub.com/matthew/21-7.htm
Click the link and tell me how many versions have Jesus sitting/riding BOTH animals?
The Aramaic Bible in Plain English has Jesus riding on the colt alone,

Divine Insight couldn't be serious if he says that the Bible says that one doesn't have to believe in Jesus to be saved. Show me that one, D.I.

I'm pretty sure DI quotes the following
""If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world."
John 12:47
Now, you may retort with something about context, about what Jesus 'really' meant...but why should I, DI or anyone else go with your interpretation, onewithhim?

A person can go back to what the Bible really says if he/she takes the time to look at the New Tetstament in the original Greek language, for example. There one sees every Greek term that is used, and not just "hell" 16 times.

I give you the same response as I do the Muslims who insist one can only properly read the Quran in Arabic.
If God really does have a message for humanity, then here are the three options he can do
1) Ensure somehow that his message is translated correctly, that there are no ambiguities or people falling for 'incorrect' translations. Most people, OWH, who hold to the KJV, do not hear about and probably will never hear about the errors in translation. In their minds, it HAS been translated correctly. Are they to blame for believing the 'wrong' things, like a literal fire-and-brimstone hell?
2) Give people the ability to understand other languages. If you're telling me to go read Greek, then maybe, just maybe, God could have given me and everyone else the ability to read Greek, or the ability to learn it. I quite frankly suck at non-English languages. I studied Irish for 13 years in school, and when it came time to do my school leaving exams - I left the exam paper blank. No joke. I've never really been able to parse a language that isn't English. My brain just short circuits whenever I try, and believe you me...I tried my damned hardest.
3) Telepathically tell us all, instead of working through people who all insist they have it direct from the horse's mouth (or burning bush or voice from the sky...) but who all inevitably end up disagreeing with one another.

[rikuoamero]

There are Bible versions that have gone back to the original languages and have discerned the true meanings behind many controversial verses and/or words, which the King James committee did not. It relied on the LATIN translation, which was not an original language of the Bible. So there you have the crux of the matter.

I have to say that if people really check into the history of the versions and how they were translated, etc., people would soon see that the KJV is lacking in many ways. It was translated from a Latin version because satisfactory Greek mss. were not available in any great quanitity (as we have discovered such in more recent years).

I'm afraid this is simply mistaken. The King James version is not translated from Latin.

Rather, the KJV translators used the Textus Receptus, a critical Greek text based on a variety of then-known Greek manuscripts, for the New Testament, and the Bomberg (Hebrew and Aramaic) Masoretic Text for translating the Old Testament.

To quote from Wikipedia

The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England.[8] In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version

Seems like someone who says that others should check into the history of translations...should really check into the history of the translations themselves.

[onewithhim]

There are Bible versions that have gone back to the original languages and have discerned the true meanings behind many controversial verses and/or words, which the King James committee did not. It relied on the LATIN translation, which was not an original language of the Bible. So there you have the crux of the matter.

I have to say that if people really check into the history of the versions and how they were translated, etc., people would soon see that the KJV is lacking in many ways. It was translated from a Latin version because satisfactory Greek mss. were not available in any great quanitity (as we have discovered such in more recent years).

I'm afraid this is simply mistaken. The King James version is not translated from Latin.

Rather, the KJV translators used the Textus Receptus, a critical Greek text based on a variety of then-known Greek manuscripts, for the New Testament, and the Bomberg (Hebrew and Aramaic) Masoretic Text for translating the Old Testament.

That's not actually true. Most of the existing Bible manuscripts in England at the time were in Latin. There were printed editions of the Greek text, based on the few recent manuscripts (many generations removed from original documents of the biblical authors) that could be found in western Europe at the time. At times, then, the KJV committee suspected that the Greek manuscripts were in error, and chose to follow the Latin version instead. The well-understood meaning of the Latin Vulgate (early 5th century) filled in for any uncertainty about the meaning of the original Greek. And there was a lot of uncertainty.


(See Truth in Translation by BeDuhn, p.7)

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 30 by onewithhim]

Anyway, I will still use the KJV to show the truth. It contradicts itself as far as the Trinity, Hell-fire, and such, but you can reason with a person that it must be a bad translation to be so contradictory!

What say you to Roman Catholics? They don't use the KJV, yet still believe in the Trinity.

What do you think happens if one day, someone comes onto the site and says "The Trinity is real" and points to Bible verses to support him? What happens if that person goes up against yourself, onewithhim?
I'll tell you what will happen. Onewithhim will say "No, the Trinity is not real, there is no plurality of gods" and will point to verses from the Bible to back herself up, and insist on the interpretation she gives them.
The other person (let's call him Bob) will say "The Trinity is real, you're wrong" and point to any number of verses and insists on his own interpretation.
All the while, I'm back here, wondering which of you two is correct, and over there is the rule about the Bible is to be considered authoritative, useless at resolving this dilemma.

Why say, "the Word was God" in one place, and then "Jesus said to the Father, 'You are the only true God'" in another? It seems to me that a person who is looking for the truth would think about these things.

Even in the version(s) of the Bible that you support, contradictions can be found. (I don't think you've specified yet which ones you do?). Matthew 21 has Jesus saying to his disciples to go and fetch him two animals, and he somehow rides on both at the same time in his entrance to Jerusalem.
http://biblehub.com/matthew/21-7.htm
Click the link and tell me how many versions have Jesus sitting/riding BOTH animals?
The Aramaic Bible in Plain English has Jesus riding on the colt alone,

Divine Insight couldn't be serious if he says that the Bible says that one doesn't have to believe in Jesus to be saved. Show me that one, D.I.

I'm pretty sure DI quotes the following
""If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world."
John 12:47
Now, you may retort with something about context, about what Jesus 'really' meant...but why should I, DI or anyone else go with your interpretation, onewithhim?

A person can go back to what the Bible really says if he/she takes the time to look at the New Tetstament in the original Greek language, for example. There one sees every Greek term that is used, and not just "hell" 16 times.

I give you the same response as I do the Muslims who insist one can only properly read the Quran in Arabic.
If God really does have a message for humanity, then here are the three options he can do
1) Ensure somehow that his message is translated correctly, that there are no ambiguities or people falling for 'incorrect' translations. Most people, OWH, who hold to the KJV, do not hear about and probably will never hear about the errors in translation. In their minds, it HAS been translated correctly. Are they to blame for believing the 'wrong' things, like a literal fire-and-brimstone hell?
2) Give people the ability to understand other languages. If you're telling me to go read Greek, then maybe, just maybe, God could have given me and everyone else the ability to read Greek, or the ability to learn it. I quite frankly suck at non-English languages. I studied Irish for 13 years in school, and when it came time to do my school leaving exams - I left the exam paper blank. No joke. I've never really been able to parse a language that isn't English. My brain just short circuits whenever I try, and believe you me...I tried my damned hardest.
3) Telepathically tell us all, instead of working through people who all insist they have it direct from the horse's mouth (or burning bush or voice from the sky...) but who all inevitably end up disagreeing with one another.

What say I to Catholics? I would use any Bible they want to use. Their Douay-Rheims Version is very much like the KJV. One wonders how they could be so close, one being Protestant and the other Catholic. Anyway, I said we would use any version to show them the truth. The Catholic New American Bible is quite good, and renders Philippians 2:6, for example, differently from the 1610 Douay version.

Douay (word-for-word like the KJV): "Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God."

NAB: "Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped." ("Grasp" in this case means taking something that someone did not previously have.)

Two Catholic Bibles, two different meanings. The point is....if someone is looking for the truth, they can find it in any Bible. I said before---if shown the contradictions in one version and then compare it to another version, a person can get the idea of what's what after awhile. I believe I already explained all this.

If a person walks up to me and shows me verses that he says proves a Trinity, I will discuss it with him and show him how and why he's wrong. I've already told you about one contradiction in his line of thought. He'll show me John 1:1 and it doesn't harmonize with John 17:3 or John 14:28 or John 5:19 or a list of other verses contradicting the Trinity.

My favorite version is the New World Translation. I also like the Catholic New American Bible and the New American Standard Version, which I quote most of the time on these threads.

God's message HAS been correctly translated. You seem to think it has not. Jehovah saw to it that The New World Translation has been made available since around 1950. If Greek is the best language to read the Bible in, and you don't want to take the NWT's word for anything, then learn Greek. The Bible's true meaning is available!

You know, it's kind of funny that, for instance, Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727 A.D.) read the Bible (probably the KJV) and he did not get out of it that there was a Trinity. He did not believe in a Trinity, and he was a very spiritual man. He wrote more books on the Bible than he did on science. In spite of examples like that, you will say that the Bible can prove the Trinity. It really cannot, and it's just stuck in people's heads that the Trinity is in the Bible because the clergy down through the centuries has taught this, just like they have taught the spurious hell-fire.

[onewithhim]

There are Bible versions that have gone back to the original languages and have discerned the true meanings behind many controversial verses and/or words, which the King James committee did not. It relied on the LATIN translation, which was not an original language of the Bible. So there you have the crux of the matter.

I have to say that if people really check into the history of the versions and how they were translated, etc., people would soon see that the KJV is lacking in many ways. It was translated from a Latin version because satisfactory Greek mss. were not available in any great quanitity (as we have discovered such in more recent years).

I'm afraid this is simply mistaken. The King James version is not translated from Latin.

Rather, the KJV translators used the Textus Receptus, a critical Greek text based on a variety of then-known Greek manuscripts, for the New Testament, and the Bomberg (Hebrew and Aramaic) Masoretic Text for translating the Old Testament.

To quote from Wikipedia

The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England.[8] In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version

Seems like someone who says that others should check into the history of translations...should really check into the history of the translations themselves.

I certainly did check into it, and I posted (post #34) what I found, above. They relied HEAVILY on the Latin Vulgate.

Also, I checked out D.I's argument that a person doesn't need to believe in Christ to be saved. As I might have guessed, and you foresaw, he took it out of context. This is the verse and also the verse after it:

"47If anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world [at this present time; brackets mine], but to save the world. 48He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings, has One who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day." (NASB)

So the person WILL be judged for rejecting Jesus...."at the last day," during Christ's Thousand-Year Reign.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 35 by onewithhim]

The point is....if someone is looking for the truth, they can find it in any Bible.

Is the KJV an exception to this 'rule'?

God's message HAS been correctly translated. You seem to think it has not. Jehovah saw to it that The New World Translation has been made available since around 1950. If Greek is the best language to read the Bible in, and you don't want to take the NWT's word for anything, then learn Greek. The Bible's true meaning is available!

Why did Jehovah wait until 1950 for English speakers to get the 'correct' translation?
Also, are you sure there are no problems with the NWT itself? How about the word Jehovah? It's not Greek or Hebrew.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah

"Jehovah (/dʒᵻˈhoʊvə/ jə-hoh-və) is a Latinization of the Hebrew יְהֹוָה‎, one vocalization of the Tetragrammaton יהוה‎ (YHWH), the proper name of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible."

Given that you seem to have a dislike of Latin when it comes to the Bible, it seems VERY STRANGE that you use a Latin name for the God of your religion.

In spite of examples like that, you will say that the Bible can prove the Trinity.

No, I'm saying that people can quote verses from the Bible and say 'These verses prove the Trinity'. I myself do not believe in the Trinity - I am an atheist.
I am also saying that other people, such as yourself, can do the opposite - pull verses to support the contention that no, the Trinity is not real.

Also, if you're going to promote the NWT as somehow being the 'best' English translation, then please tell me who the translators were, and what skills they had? I've looked them up and from I've found, none of them had any thorough understanding of the languages in question.
If like the JWs you insist it doesn't matter who the translators were or what their skill level was...then on what basis can you assure myself and others that the NWT is indeed the most accurate translation?

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 22 by Claire Evans]



[center]The planetary wide Luciferian conspiracy[/center]

My question is:

- Do you believe the world will be a safer place if what they believe came true, ie an end to religioun (leaving personal belief a private matter)?

The plan is to do away with all religions in favour of Lucifer worship.

And that would be Luciferian religions.
I don't think we have to worry about those too much.

No one will enter the New World Order unless he or she will make a pledge to worship Lucifer. No one will enter the New Age unless he will take a LUCIFERIAN Initiation."
- David Spangler
Director of Planetary Initiative
United Nations

I really don't think that David has anything to do with the United Nations except for in his imagination. And Mr. Spangler has an extra active one of those.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Spa ... bliography

[historia]

There are Bible versions that have gone back to the original languages and have discerned the true meanings behind many controversial verses and/or words, which the King James committee did not. It relied on the LATIN translation, which was not an original language of the Bible. So there you have the crux of the matter.

I have to say that if people really check into the history of the versions and how they were translated, etc., people would soon see that the KJV is lacking in many ways. It was translated from a Latin version because satisfactory Greek mss. were not available in any great quanitity (as we have discovered such in more recent years).

I'm afraid this is simply mistaken. The King James version is not translated from Latin.

Rather, the KJV translators used the Textus Receptus, a critical Greek text based on a variety of then-known Greek manuscripts, for the New Testament, and the Bomberg (Hebrew and Aramaic) Masoretic Text for translating the Old Testament.

That's not actually true.

No, it is actually true. The King James version is not a translation from a Latin text.

Most of the existing Bible manuscripts in England at the time were in Latin. There were printed editions of the Greek text, based on the few recent manuscripts (many generations removed from original documents of the biblical authors) that could be found in western Europe at the time. At times, then, the KJV committee suspected that the Greek manuscripts were in error, and chose to follow the Latin version instead. The well-understood meaning of the Latin Vulgate (early 5th century) filled in for any uncertainty about the meaning of the original Greek. And there was a lot of uncertainty.

(See Truth in Translation by BeDuhn, p.7)

First, a minor point: If you are going to quote an author verbatim, as you have here, it would be helpful to the rest of us if you could put quotation marks around his or her words. In that way, we can clearly delineate your comments from those of the author -- in this case Jason BeDuhn.

Here's BeDuhn's exact comment from your citation:

How did the King James committee do its work? Its first task was rounding up some Bible manuscripts to compare with one another to make sure the most accurate biblical text was used as a base to work from in making a translation. Most of the existing Bible manuscripts in England at the time were, of course, in Latin. But there were printed editions of the Greek text, based on the few, recent manuscripts -- many generations removed from original autographs of the biblical authors -- that could be found in western Europe at the time. At times, then, the committee suspected that the Greek manuscripts were in error, and chose to follow the Latin version instead.

Once the committee had agreed on the base text, translation could begin. The well-understood meaning of the Latin Vulgate (from the early 5th century) filled in for any uncertainty about the meaning of the original Greek. But the committee worked in earnest to produce the most clear, accurate, and aesthetically pleasing translation possible.

It seems to me your earlier comments go far beyond what BeDuhn has said here. You said above that the KJV "did not go back" to the "original languages," and was instead "translated from a Latin version." This is, at best, misleading.

By contrast, BeDuhn says plainly (elsewhere in his work) that the KJV is translated from Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. But "at times" the committee chose to follow the Vulgate over against the available Greek manuscripts -- the key word here being at times.

In fact, F. H. A. Scrivener, in his work The Authorized Edition of the English Bible (1884, 1910) catalogs these "times" when the KJV translators apparently followed the Vulgate (see Appendix E). It seems to me these few dozen instances amount to very little. In checking these I noticed that, in at least one occasion (Matt 10:25), the New World Translation also follows the Vulgate over against the Greek text (and in contrast to other modern translations).

Of course, there are occasions when the critical Greek text the KJV translators consulted itself was influenced by the Vulgate, such as the Comma Johanneum and several verses from Revelation. But now we're getting even further afield from your direct comments.

They relied HEAVILY on the Latin Vulgate.

Here, as above, it seems to me you are exaggerating the situation beyond what the evidence supports.