The Deity of Jesus: "The Logos was God"

I apologize, but which two scriptures are being spoken of? I personally made no mention of scripture in my post you are replying to. Perhaps, you are reacting to the founder of the JW movement, C. T. Russell, and his comments; one, that Jesus was, and is, to be worshiped; two, that Michael is not the Son of God making reference to Heb. 1:6.

I'm certain that the word obeisance was well known in Russell's time and to him; and certainly would have used obeisance if that was what he intended to convey as opposed to worship. It is only in more modern times that the governing body has moved away from its roots of theology of its founder.

For example the NWT at least up to 1961 reads worship at Heb. 1:6.  

I see you've personally reached the meltdown stage of discourse. Must have struck a nerve with C. T. Russell's view brought to light.

Really, do you ever research anything at all regarding the movements history; or read what is provided by JW.org?

From JW.org the following:

"THE modern history of Jehovah’s Witnesses began more than a hundred years ago. In the early 1870’s, a rather inconspicuous Bible study group began in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., which is now a part of Pittsburgh. Charles Taze Russell was the prime mover of the group. In July 1879, the first issue of the magazine Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence appeared."

Russell, founded the Bible Student movement which is indeed the forerunner of the JW movement even keeping the WatchTower publication he started and was editor.

In what world of yours was the above claimed? A little bit of table-pounding to distract, perhaps. Any fair-minded reading of my post could not come away with the idea that there was an assertion on my part that a long dead person, Russell, wrote? the NWT. Another distraction on your part.   

Contrary to your stance on this, worship was not replaced with obeisance in the NWT until the 1970 edition was published.

"Too much to take", on what basis can you state that; it certainly is not based upon the original language of the biblical texts extant – it must surely be motivated and driven by the theological doctrine of the governing body which seemingly has no firsthand knowledge of the original languages. Also, it is interesting that it took 31 years to finally get around to correcting the places where worship is used, don't you think?

And how is it that 4-5 persons on a translation team having no knowledge or ability with the original biblical languages with the exception of one person having slight knowledge and ability in only one of the original languages; how, on the face of it, is that to be considered as superior and less prone to inaccuracy? All they did was to copy the KJV, updating some language and made a few changes to better support their theological tenets. You should explorer reading the book by one of the JW translators – the title was given in an older thread post.

You consider Charles Taze Russell as a trinitarian? It was his words that I cited. His theological perspective seems very similar to Arius' position.

No, I'm providing support for the contention that modern day WT beliefs regarding worship of Jesus, and Michael being the Son of God, are at complete odds with Russell's teaching. 

You certainly have a well-honed ability to twist what a person says; or, perhaps it is just general misunderstanding of what is written on the page that then is manifested in your reply.

The no in my previous reply:

• "No, I'm providing support for the contention that modern day WT beliefs regarding worship of Jesus, and Michael being the Son of God, are at complete odds with Russell's teaching." 

Has absolutely nothing to do with either my agreeing or disagreeing with Russell's statements. Russell, against the WT view of Jesus, does not regard Michael as the Son of God; nor, did he disapprove of worship being given to Jesus – but, considered it proper to worship Jesus – the two statements I provided from July and November 1879 Watch Tower publication. Are those the WT views at present? If they are the current views of the WT then why are you so adamant to the contrary?

No christian (well at the 99.99% might as well be 100%) knows that the autographs were inspired and that they are no longer extant; but, what we have are just copies of copies and etc. Am I speaking to someone who has never read any text critical resources, looked at textual transmission, even looked at an apparatus once?

I would be surprised if the autographs lasted as long as the date you give. Not because of grubby hands or evil intents; but, due to the writing materials themself, insects, the handling of them, and how the papyri might be used several times for different purposes, would all contribute to their demise and the need for copies prior to that time.

As to your fanciful fairy tail of, "trinitarians got their grubby hands on the real scriptures and forged falsified translations.", there are so many lines of manuscript transmission, the geographical distance between manuscripts, to render this beyond absurd. The closest historical event that comes somewhat close is when Uthman ca. 644 rounded up almost all of the Quran texts to burn and create one text so that all Quran text would be uniform in text. He didn't fully succeed even though having a smaller geographical area and starting this project 12 years after Muhammad's death ca. 632.

Compared to the NT where writings are dated as early as late 40's and completed before the end of the first century, the large area, slow travel, etc.; and then have roughly 225 years of text transmission to contend with – what you propose is pure fantasy.

"Contain inaccurate knowledge", interesting turn of phrase. Could be worse, at least I have something according to your assertion. That you find my reply to your response a "non-answer" and "rabbit hole" tells me that there is a unwillingness to acknowledge the truth of my statement regarding C. T. Russell which was the following:

• Has absolutely nothing to do with either my agreeing or disagreeing with Russell's statements. Russell, against the WT view of Jesus, does not regard Michael as the Son of God; nor, did he disapprove of worship being given to Jesus – but, considered it proper to worship Jesus – the two statements I provided from July and November 1879 Watch Tower publication. Are those the WT views at present? If they are the current views of the WT then why are you so adamant to the contrary?

Which by the following remarks made in your same post lead me to question the consistency and coherency of your statement above.

Followed by the fifteen scripture references to where the NWT changed worship to obeisance from the published 1970 edition and all following editions of the NWT. Try from 1961 and earlier editions of the NWT.

On what basis is this statement founded that you have personal knowledge that "Tertullian had access to all the Inspired Writings"? 

Additionally, what NT letters, or epistles, were addressed to the church at Carthage? Certainly, none of the churches in the NT receiving a directed letter to them would pass along the original – if it was passed on to another church, or congregation, it would have been a copy of the received original. Given that, the probability of Tertullian having an autograph of the four gospels, Acts, Hebrews, or Revelation is quite unlikely; just as it is highly unlikely any other autograph found its way into his possession. Do we have today any extant document of his stating he personally had access to all the known NT autographs? 

In that case, why do you believe anything at all in scripture – from your perspective God wasn't able to preserve his word and watched this unfold helplessly. You do recognize that the NWT is also in this global uninspired class of translation you have formed, don't you?

Copies are how the transmission of OT and NT writings were made available to others near and far; do you somehow believe the scrolls used in each and every synagogue outside Jerusalem were not copies. 

All translations of the NT into other languages was done from the Greek text available – it is unknown to translate from, i.e., Greek (source) to Syriac (target), and from this Syriac (target) to Latin (target) – it doesn't work in that manner. NT translations are from the (source) Greek text into each and every other individual (target) language; the same principle applies to translation of the OT.  

In summary, I completely disagree with your view regarding the transmission of the NT texts for very good reason.

@Brother Rando

I am very interested in hearing what your response is to this question I asked of you regarding this assertion, "Tertullian had access to all the Inspired Writings", made in your previous post. I'll ask the question again and rephrase it.

• By what circumstance are you privy to having personal first-hand knowledge of Tertullian's collection of literary resources to include "all the Inspired Writings" i.e., the NT autographs?

This response below does not answer the direct question I asked.

My question, which I will repeat, is:

• By what circumstance are you privy to having personal first-hand knowledge of Tertullian's collection of literary resources to include "all the Inspired Writings" i.e., the NT autographs?

And

All this is irrelevant to the question asked of you; additionally, this supposed quote has been shown to spurious and you were informed of that along with the actual context and quote sometime ago when you were posting it numerous times. It is disingenuous and deceitful to keep posting a doctored quote when you have been notified of its nature. 

Though asked to provide this quote as it is presented with full context from the encyclopedia, never once have you complied; because there was no due diligence done on your part to vet that it is truthful.

The rest of your post has nothing to do with the question I asked regarding your special knowledge of Tertullian's library having NT autographs.

First, can you be more specific as to which quote the OP, @C Mc, provided that you have applied this to?

Second, I'm not the OP so there is nothing to explain, or defend, on my part regarding your disagreement with his writing.

The question I have now asked for the third time is still awaiting an answer regarding the special supernatural knowledge you possess to intimately know what the contents of Tertullian's personal library and what he had access to in Carthage, North Africa, during the latter part of the 2nd century AD, in particular all inspired i.e. autographs of scripture.

I remind you that the definition applied to Inspired Writings by you in your argument concerning textual criticism is the autographs themselves.

Repeated for the third time:

• By what circumstance are you privy to having personal first-hand knowledge of Tertullian's collection of literary resources to include "all the Inspired Writings" i.e., the NT autographs?

As I've already stated in my previous post regarding this if you seek an answer for proof respond to the OP, @C Mc , the person with whom there is disagreement.

I believe the lack of understanding of the trinity doctrine is glaring in the above assertion. How would you know a true trinitarian when failing to expound the doctrine correctly yourself? 

Anyway, you are welcome to your opinion on this; but, I want to get back to your previous claim and assertion regarding Tertullian and his library and access to autographs, the real and only inspired writings, by your words.

By what circumstance are you privy to having personal first-hand knowledge of Tertullian's collection of literary resources to include "all the Inspired Writings" i.e., the NT autographs?

@Brother Rando

I have neither said, claimed, nor intimated that @C Mc, the OP, is in error – seems to be a complete misreading and misinterpretation of what I have written as well as what he wrote.

I encourage you to address @C Mc and lodge your disagreement with him in a post regarding his statements.

Regarding the above question I will say the following:

Your question assumes a uni-personal God where based on "Jesus is God" would exhaust all there is of God in His Being completely; which, is not at all the trinitarian view. That view is tri-personal where the Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit are indeed co-equal, co-eternal, distinct in person, where neither any one of the persons exhaust all that there is of the Being of God having no remainder.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit throughout scripture designate a particular role given the distinct persons interaction with, and within, the created order in regard to redemption and salvation. For example, the phrase, "redemption accomplished and applied", contains the Father decreeing redemption and sending His Son, the Son then accomplishing this decree, and the Holy Spirit applying this accomplished redemption by the Son to believers.

Additional thoughts relating to this are 1) God is not a proper noun, though in our times it may be almost understood that way; but, Jehovah, or Yahweh, is a proper noun. 2) The term God designates a class of Being – in other words ontological; 3) Jehovah, or Yahweh, on the other hand is a specific and personal name of the one who exists in His Being as God. 4) "Jesus is the human presence of the eternal Son, the second person of the trinity" (R. Bauckham) – or, as I've posted elsewhere, "Jesus is fully human, but not merely human. Also fully divine." (T. V. Morris).

But our discussion started on the historical statements from the November 1879 edition of the ZION'S Watch Tower AND HERALD OF CHRIST'S PRESENCE regarding two worthy items of note: the first being the worship of Jesus being proper; and the second, that Michael is not the Son of God.

At this time I'd also like to present from the 1945 Yearbook of Jehovah Witnesses this statement:

• "and for the public Christian worship of Almighty God and Jesus Christ"

Worship in its full sense is once again applied in context to Jesus. It is clear, that were the intended sense one of honor and respect those words would have been used, or the term obeisance used denoting that sense instead – but, that's not the case. Worship of Jesus existed, and was promoted, by the WT for a little more than half of this movement's current lifetime of roughly 144 years.

I am aware that the governing body changed course on the worship of Jesus mid 1950's; but, how does this change effect the salvation of JW's who did worship Jesus during the late 1800's to mid 1950's and had passed away?

Regarding your "Inspired NT autograph" mantra; I'll suggest the following.

As a reading recommendation this particular resource, available in either Logos or Accordance, might be something to consider for yourself. 

• Myths and Mistakes in New Testament Textual Criticism.

Additionally, you still fail to give an answer to the question of how you came to have personal knowledge of Tertullian's library contents as having the NT autographs; something you claimed to possess in this assertion you presented, "Tertullian had access to all the Inspired Writings".

Perhaps, you will now explain more fully as to how you know this, and by what method you came to this knowledge.

Well, it took me awhile to piece together the chronological timeline of interaction on a total of three different threads, this one included, to see the point of view held by yourself below.

• @Pages - I have neither said, claimed, nor intimated that @C Mc, the OP, is in error – seems to be a complete misreading and misinterpretation of what I have written as well as what he wrote.

• While @Pages writes The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are indeed co-equal, co-eternal, and have the same nature, attributes, or essence. But God, Himself, is not claimed in any manner within trinity doctrine as existing alongside the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

• in regard to actual trinity doctrine, but also by stating there is God who is existing along with the Father, Son, and Spirit – expanding the trinity into a quartet.

Along with this from an earlier post on this thread:

Which, in my view, I maintain is an incorrect claim as I have never directly addressed @C Mc in this thread or any other thread regarding this, nor made any claim of having done so – quite the opposite.

I did directly address you initially on this statement of yours in this thread, "It's in coherent for a trinitarian to claim God is a trinity, then claim God is Co-equal, Co-creator, and Co-eternal with the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.".

Which is not a direct quote of the opening statement found in this thread; but, is instead an assessment of what was written without providing reference.

What has seemingly transpired through all of this is my indirect participation in correcting someone else's use of grammatical syntax poorly chosen.

Regarding the unfortunate wording used in the opening statement of this thread by @C Mc; which, is now the center of discussion in a total of three unrelated threads, the exception being this referred to statement – I want to make the following comments.

The first, grammar, aural or written, is absolutely critical to understanding intent of meaning a particular writer, or speaker, wishes to convey to their reader(s), or listener(s) – and when grammatical syntax goes astray so too does the original intended meaning.

Second, as unfortunate as poor grammatical structure is, it does, without bias, bite everyone from time to time – and within technical theological discussion, which we have here, precision tolerance is tight.

Accordingly, the preposition "with" used in the opening statement, as it is formulated, "Because "Jesus is God." It's in plain sight from Genesis to Revelation. Jesus is Co-equal, Co-creator, and Co-eternal with the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.", will require a rewriting to reflect what the presumed intended meaning was to reflect originally with respect to the deity of Jesus.

Third, nonetheless as it stands, it is incorrect in what it grammatically implies as written in the first post's opening statement – that, Jesus being God exists as a separate entity, alongside with, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a co-equal, co-eternal state. 

I give you credit for catching this.

Now to something else.

Historically, that correction of those "uninspired copies" you speak of didn't begin to occur until the mid 1950's while the 1960 NWT edition still utilized worship up until the 1970 NWT edition – roughly 90 plus years for this "infested error" to come to light and be corrected by the WT.

So, naturally some questions follow:

1) Do you maintain that the relied on Wescott-Hort Greek NT used for the base text of the NWT NT to be a theological error-infested document? 

2) Do you maintain that prior to the 1970 edition of the NWT no Christian from the first century to the twentieth has had access to scripture without, as you say, "trinitarian infested error"? 

3) How did this corrected stance come about? 

4) Were inspired copies of scripture found by the NWT editors?

5) If yes to #4 where exactly were these inspired copies of scripture discovered?

One final question I'm curious to know what answer you might give regarding all those previous Jehovah Witnesses who worshiped Jesus under the direction and guidance of the governing body.

Who, for nearly a hundred years worshiped Jesus and then passed away prior to this new corrected stance by the governing body– implying an incorrect and unbiblical worship of Jesus (i.e. sin) – what of their salvation status under current WT theological principles?

@Brother Rando

In your response you avoided answering all questions presented to you. I presume that is due to lacking actual credible support for the position held by yourself; else, I'm sure an answer would have been supplied. 

I also think that governing body changes to the WT theological stance as having quite important impact upon a Jehovah Witnesses' salvation; certainly, a major change that those who have passed away having embraced and accepted previous theological beliefs under the very guidance of those who control a JW's salvation, as in the case of worshiping Jesus. 

There must be an incredible uneasiness with regard to this amongst the Jehovah Witness flock; that, at the whim of the governing body salvation is in jeopardy.  

As always, welcome to your opinion. 

And, yes, in my mind a hasty grammatical mis-wording error; supported by this example from a much earlier post where @C Mc stated the following:

• "In view of this, God is One (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). I hope this help? CM"

I'm fairly certain there is no difference to be found between @C Mc and myself regarding the trinity when all is articulated properly as witnessed by the above.

Isn't Jesus the Son of God, God's Christ, or Messiah, within the existing theological framework that you believe in? All of which are titles used of Jesus in scripture – in my view, you are just playing with semantics here.

But, in reading these two comments of yours above, I find it interesting that you've capitalized Deity both times; and, asserted the sentiment in the one that trinitarians deny the Deity of Christ – thereby asserting Jesus, who is the Christ, is Deity. 

In the next, you follow up with "The Deity of Christ completely absent from the trinity doctrine". In this case, as in the first, you have grammatically expressed and assigned Deity – capital D – to the Christ (Jesus).

This isn't the first time you've posted this particular grammatical construct on this forum. 

This phrase you use, "the Deity of Christ", seems consistent in its form in each use; thereby, not being attributable to a grammatical error on your part – it is stated with intent to convey that the Christ, who is Jesus, is Deity. 

In my view, I believe the following sums up your emphatic assertion stated above – "Jesus is the human presence of the eternal Son, the second person of the trinity" (R. Bauckham); and, "Jesus is fully human, but not merely human. Also fully divine." (T. V. Morris).

No commentary on scripture is "part of the Original Inspired Writings."; so what, what is your point?

If, by this, you mean in exact wording I agree; however, the concepts are in place I would argue. 

Just as you believe Wisdom is a real and breathing person who is Michael; I ask you where is it explicitly and exactly stated with these words "Wisdom is Michael", even "Michael is Wisdom" – obviously nowhere in scripture – yet you derive that concept from that very same scripture. So, unless you are willing to vacate all your theological beliefs based on this absurd position you put forward; it would be recommended that you thoroughly re-think this through.

Welcome to your opinion on this as always. 

There it is again. 

I am really intrigued by this, as searching the JW.org website for this phrase produced zero results as I might expect. 

You haven't denied that this assertion made multiple times by yourself throughout this forum grammatically expresses and assigns Deity to the Christ, who is Jesus; thereby, Jesus, who is the Christ is Deity (God).  

Using those exact words, no; but, Pr. 8:22-25 is, in your view, literal and real. 

In our previous discussion of this section of text you were adamant that Wisdom, herself, was the first created, brought forth, born, begotten, of God. And that has been consistently the position on this passage you put forward. You have denied that Wisdom is a personification of Jehovah's own attribute; thereby, dismissing the figurative or metaphorical language used in this area of text. Without figurative language being understood as such; then, the very first of Jehovah's creation exhibiting personal characteristics is a real created being – a perspective I disagree with.

I believe the point of what I wrote to you has been missed by the unintended focus of yourself on the example used regarding Wisdom and Michael. And that point being made was in reference to this quote from your post provided below:

The above was in response to two quotes I used: "Jesus is the human presence of the eternal Son, the second person of the trinity" (R. Bauckham); and, "Jesus is fully human, but not merely human. Also fully divine." (T. V. Morris). 

So, I want to point out that no commentary outside of scripture's own commentary on itself is part "of the Original Inspired Writings"; but, on the face of it, this argument is absurd and without merit as commentary is commentary, and scripture is scripture.

In fact, I'm fairly certain, over 90% of what is written in this forum alone is simply commentary on what scripture is thought to reveal on any given subject. In other words, don't you comment on scripture, doesn't the WT comment on scripture, perhaps your next door neighbor also comments on scripture – none of which, apart from scripture citation, is part "of the Original Inspired Writings".

Not to mention, the position maintained by yourself regarding the state of "Original Inspired Writings" i.e. autographs.

As far as this assertion of yours, "There is No Such Scripture In Hebrew or Greek.", is also without any merit as it can also be applied to the use of only the original languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek; for certainly, no English was used in the writing of scripture; therefore, not being original.

The other issues with such a stringent requirement placed on scripture would be 1) which English translation ought to be used to convey the original – but, English isn't the original language of scripture – so then, which manuscript in the original languages ought to be used. 2) That any comment on scripture can be immediately brushed off when that comment doesn't align with one's beliefs without giving any thoughtful consideration to what has been stated. 

All in all, following the above demands, "This commentary is not part of the Original Inspired Writings. There is No Such Scripture In Hebrew or Greek.", would simply stifle any productive conversation on scripture; and, most unfortunately, render all non-denominational or denominational beliefs and practices invalid – that includes the WT.

Back to my original point I hoped to have understood in my previous post:

My point in that previous exchange was; that many theological concepts are not explicitly spelled out within scripture, nor in exact words that then come to describe it – but those concepts are derived from that same scripture – true in any denomination's faith and practice.

@Brother Rando

Glad you agree.

Mk. 15:32; Lk. 23:35, 24:26; Acts 5:30, 17:3 26:23; Ro. 1:4, 5:6, 8, 6:3-4, 8-9; 1Co. 1:23, 2:2, 15:3, 12-17, 20.

Jesus, who is the Christ, went to the cross, died, was buried, and was raised on the third day. 

I remind you once again that trinitarians understand "Jesus is fully human, but not merely human. Also fully divine." (T. V. Morris); which, by the wording of your questions you seem to have easily forgotten.

So, in this thread you have asserted numerous times "the Deity of Christ", perhaps now is a good time to revisit unanswered questions I previously asked of you regarding this.

Grammatically speaking, by capitalizing D in Deity you give the reader the sense of your stating Christ is God; but, Christ is a title for Jesus – in essence it seems to me that your assertion "the Deity of Christ" in meaning is that Jesus, who is the Christ, is God. I find that most intriguing for a Jehovah Witness to state this in public, not once, but multiple times.

Would you care to comment on this assertion of yours that you have previously sidestepped away from answering? As there is no answer for this "the Deity of Christ" on JW.org – it's not mentioned anywhere I've been able to find – a search for this word combination on that website doesn't return any hits.