Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Steven Avery <stevenavery AT verizon.net>]

Hi,

Subject changed from: [b-hebrew] G.Gertoux and the Name...

When Rolf Furuli tries to sneak in the New Testament theories of 
selective doctrinal insertion of Jehovah (the theory of the JWs), he 
plays a little loose. And Rolf tries to ignore a number of humongous 
difficulties with the theories.  Some good points have been made in the thread.

This last arose in 2005 on the forum, and I pointed out some of the 
difficulties here:

A second conversation was here:

[b-hebrew] NWT's approach of consistent translation - Steven Avery - 
Nov 17, 2005
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2005-November/027016.html
[b-hebrew] NWT's approach of consistent translation - Steven Avery - 
Nov 18, 2005
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2005-November/027061.html

It is good to also truly consider the modern JW theories of how
   a) multiple authors in
   b) multiple books transmitted their text early, in
   c) multiple languages of early translation

.  They are supposed to have inserted the Hebrew Tetragrammaton (or 
some unknown
equivalent) into an original work Greek text, something unseen and 
unknown in all
textual history, Jewish or Christian.  (This is not the same as 
Hebrew-->Greek translation
decisions, we are talking here about original Greek language writing).

   This is supposed to have occurred without a trace of this being 
found or mentioned historically.

   And then there is conjectured a massive redaction of each and 
every occurrence in each and
every book to bring them back to Greek (and perhaps Latin and 
Aramaic) as we have them today.

   And this was done without any reference in any writings by the 
early church writers,
and in addition this was a massive textual redaction done over a wide 
range of books,
authors and languages -- and yet this massive translation tampering 
in the first centuries
was somehow done 100% consistently, and without a trace.

   When you really consider what is being alleged, it truly takes on 
an Alice-in-Wonderland
type of nature.

   It also means that the New Testament was corrupt for about 1800 
years, and that the
only true New Testament even today has no textual witness whatsoever 
in the original
language.

Yours in Jesus,
Steven Avery

========================================

Stephen Shead.
> Dear Rolf, A fourth reason is that you included the claim in your 
> post - and I considered the statement rather mischievous, especially 
> your use of "evidence", without anything to back it up. So I wanted 
> to check whether you actually did have some hard data from some NT 
> MS that I wasn't aware of - and if not, I didn't want the claim to 
> slip through uncritiqued.
>
> And you continue to use terms like "evidence", "sound philological 
> methods" and "corrupt text" where there is no evidence (as normally 
> understood), only the same astounding reasoning I have heard before 
> from Jehovah's Witnesses - astounding because of the extreme 
> historical improbability of such a whole-sale change with no trace 
> left in even early MSS.
>
> The evidence: textual variety in the LXX (and, as per Martin's 
> reply, I think your analysis of the LXX is also simplistic); textual 
> uniformity in the NT. And none of the standard criteria of textual 
> criticism would lead us to emend the uniform witness of the 
> thousands of NT MSS. I have no complaint if you keep using your 
> argument - but please present it as "despite the fact that we have 
> no direct evidence in the NT MSS...". Otherwise, your language of 
> "evidence" is misleading.