cleaning up scripture

] On Feb25 eachallberg say: Cleaning Up Scripture... Peace, I see the bible
] as edited. Words missing, some added... What verses do you feel have
] been added or altered? (Besides the johannine comma) <snip>
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wurm say: Also please note that the end of the third-gospel (ie. John) was
*extensively* tampered with! Observe what the trinitarian-type redactors did to
this literary masterpiece with their absurd and pointless additions:
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Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed
because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written
in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name. -- Jn 20:28-31 / RSV
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The words "and my God" are an addition, as are the words "the Son of God".
Now read the ending of the third gospel the way it was *meant* to be read:
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Thomas answered him, "My Lord!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me?
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence
of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christos, and that by believing you may have life in his name. -- John 20:28-31 / Prophet Version
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Isn't that the one and only totally awesome ending to the good-news?! And isn't that
also so much *more* consistent with the style, diction, and theology of the prophet
John who actually wrote the good-news according to John? You bet your little booties
it is! :) Moreover, the redactors/theologians were NOT satisfied with their little textual-
mutilation (they never are), so they promptly set about to create a "newer and better"
ending for John. Yes, chapter 21 in its entirety is a later romish-addition NOT authored
by the prophet. You can tell that this is so both from the rather obvious over-emphasis
on Peter, AND from the diction alone!!!

> On Feb27 SwordoftheLord say: Bible for Dummies! (see I can copy and paste also) ... Just read that.
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wurm say: You sure know how to ask a lot from a guy, mister SwordoftheLord. Stepping into textual-garbage
all day long is definitely NOT my idea of fun! :(
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] In the so-called 'Bible for Dummies' one Dr John Ankerberg and one Dr John Weldon didst together write an
] article entitled 'Jehovah's Witnesses and John 1:1' which begins thusly:
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wurm interrupts to say: But don't be overly impressed by the fine-sounding titles of these two Doctors John.
This is simply the way that bible-scholars of the scribal persuasion establish their authority as bible-teachers.
They are indeed authorized to teach the bible to dummies; and to anyone else who doesn't know that they are
basically just two more highly biased interpreters of the scriptures. They are biased in favor of the trinitarian
theology (which determines ALL of their saying and teaching). Of course, the reader should also be aware that
we are just as biased in our exegesis as the two doctors-john are in theirs. But our bias is rather different in
terms of quality, in that our bias is in favor of the *integrity* of the sacred-texts. So let us now see which
warped-perspective sheds more light upon the verses at hand ...
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] A&W: In John 1:1, the New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses inserts the word "a" in an attempt
] to deny Christ's deity: "In (the) beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a
] god." --New World Translation (NWT) The same verse in the New American Standard Version reads this way:
] "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
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] The transliterated Greek of this verse looks like this:
] En arche en ho logos               / In beginning was the Word
] kai ho logos en pros ton theon / and the word was toward the God
] kai theos en ho logos              / and God was the Word
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] A&W: In essence, the Watchtower Society claims it can translate theos as "a god" because there is no definite
] article before this usage of theos (God) in the last clause of John 1:1. Note that the first use of the term God
] (pros ton theon) has the article (ton-the). The second use simply states kai theos ("and God," not "and the
] God"). Because it does not say "and the God" Jehovah's Witnesses argue they are free to interpret this second
] usage of God as figuratively meaning a lesser deity, "a god"-signifying Christ's exalted status, even though he
] is still only a creature. Their main concern here is to escape the clear meaning of this passage. Christ is here
] called theos, God. The difficulty is that, had the apostle John used the article, he would have declared that
] "the God was the Word." Had he done so, he would have confused the persons of the Trinity and supported
] modalism (in the early church known as the heresy of Sabellianism). In other words, to declare that "the God
] was the word [Jesus]" would have stated that all of God-i.e., the whole trinity-was Jesus. This would have
] supported modalistic belief that there is only one Person in the Godhead (i.e., Jesus) and that the terms Father,
] Son and Spirit in Scripture only refer to modes or offices of the one God who exists as one person.
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Please note that the good doctors are here *assuming* that when John says 'the-god' he is referring not to the
Father, but to the Trinity. And therefore the theos/god in v.1c refers to one person of the triune-godhead, namely,
God the Son. In order to put all these baseless assumptions into proper perspective, let us now show John 1:1
exactly as the trinitarians actually do, in fact, see it:
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"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the Trinity, and the Word was God the Son."
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Yes, and what a terrible shame that the greek-text does NOT support this fanciful (and episcopal) interpretation!
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] A&W: The apostle John had to make a finer distinction and, on the one hand, clearly declare that the person
] of Jesus was deity, but, on the other, not make it seem as if all three persons in the Godhead were to be
] considered the same as the person of Jesus. To make this fine distinction he had to use the exact wording he
] used. We should also note that the Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Interlinear (p. 1158-1159) utilizes both Julius
] Mantey's Manual Grammar and A.T. Robertson's Grammar in defense of their John 1:1 translation. However,
] Mantey observes: "Since my name is used and our Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament is quoted on
] page 744 to seek to justify their translation, I am making this statement… of all the scholars in the world, as
] far as we know none have translated this verse as Jehovah's Witnesses have done. If the Greek article occurred
] with both Word and God in John 1:1, the implication would be that they are one and the same person, absolutely
] identical. But John affirmed that "the Word was with (the) God" (the definite article preceding each noun), and
] in so writing, he indicated his belief that they are distinct and separate personalities. Then John next stated
] that the Word was God, i.e., of the same family or essence that characterizes the Creator. Or, in other words,
] that both are of the same nature, and that nature is the highest in existence, namely divine ..." <snip remainder>
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wow. Now that's what we call some convoluted logic there! If the author had wanted to indicate that the Logos
was divine, what prevented him from simply saying "and divine was the Logos"? Such a statement would, in fact,
be *entirely* consistent with the centuries old logos traditions of the philosophers and jewish sages. So rather
than project trinitarian concepts and meanings into texts that are not built to hold them, maybe we should seek
for a more *historical* solution to this problem. Check this out:
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kai theos en ho logos   / and God was the Logos
kai theios en ho logos / and divine was the Logos
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Do you see what a huge difference just one little iota makes? Do you see how easy (not to mention tempting) it
must have been to just conveniently "drop" that bothersome iota so as to make the prophet John *seem* like a
trinitarian theologian (and therefore acceptable to the episcopal councils tasked with determining the canon of
christian scritptures)? ... Given the undeniable literary fact that the third gospel is a textual nightmare of post-
autograph adjustments, additions, and changes, what are the odds that the second rendition above represents
the words that John actually wrote? We would argue that the overall weight of *all* the textual evidence pushes
us to a very strong probability (bordering even on certainty). Nor am I the only translator who reasons this way,
and thus supports 'theios' over 'theos':
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"and the Word was divine" - The Bible: An American Translation, by John Smith and E.J. Goodspeed, Chicago. 1935
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"so the Word was divine" - The Authentic New Testament, by Hugh J. Schonfield, Aberdeen. 1955
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My only objection here is that although they have the right word (theios), they changed the order (to
accommodate to english), and this we see as a literary and theological mistake (albeit a relatively minor
one). A *much* bigger mistake is translating 'Logos' into english as 'Word', which is a translation that is
devoid of almost all of the theological-meaning that the prophet John puts into that one small word. What
John means by the divine-Logos is, unfortunately, not something that the trinitarians are at all able to
grasp, let alone understand ...
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Here then is the best english translation of what the prophet
John's greek-text actually *means*:
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] En arche en ho logos
/ In [the] beginning was the way of love and reason,
] kai ho logos en pros ton theon
/ and the way of love and reason was facing the-god,
] kai theios en ho logos
/ and divine was the way of love and reason.
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Yes, dear reader, it certainly does look as if we have no need for trinitarian assumptions after all. The text
pretty much explains itself, and does not require us to pursue these absurd theological gymnastics (that the
trinitarians so excel at)! "the-god" is the one and only God, the Cosmic Father, whose name is ABBA. And the
divine-Logos is the only-begotten-one who was "made flesh" in and through Joshua of Nazareth. The divine-
Logos then entered into the flow of historical reality by taking on human being, and so *became* a human
person in Jesus. And *this* is why he, and no other, is the Anointed One (Christos). Therefore JC is the
physical manifestation of the Way of Love & Reason. Or (to put it another way), Jesus Christ is human-being
taken to the max!
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This is the gospel according to John.