The Interrogation of Unitarian Anabaptist Martyr Herman van Vlekwijk
I came across this in the book _Early sources of English Unitarian Christianity_ By Amy Gaston C.A. Bonet-Maury and I thought my readers might enjoy it:
This is the judicial examination to which an Anabaptist preacher in the province of Flanders, Herman van Flekwijk (burnt at Bruges, 10 June, 1569), was subjected by Cornelis Adriaans, of the Franciscan convent at Dordrecht, and inquisitor at Bruges, in presence of the Secretary and of the Clerk of the Inquisition:
Inquisitor. "What! Don't you believe that Christ is the second person of the Holy Trinity?"
Anabaptist. "We never call things but as they are called in Scripture The Scripture speaks of One God, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit."
Inq. "If you had read the Creed of St. Athanasius, you would have found in it 'God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.'"
Anab. "I am a stranger to the Creed of St. Athanasius. It is sufficient for me to believe in the living God, and that Christ is the Son of the living God, as Peter believed; and to believe in the Holy Spirit, which the Father hath poured out upon us through Jesus Christ our Lord, as Paul says."
Inq. "You are an impertinent fellow, to fancy that God pours out His Spirit upon you, who do not believe that the Holy Spirit is God! You have borrowed those heretical opinions from the diabolical books of the cursed Erasmus, of Rotterdam, who, in his Preface to the Works of St. Hilary, pretends that this holy man says, at the end of his twelfth Book, 'That the Holy Spirit is not called God in any part of the Scripture; and that we are so bold as to call Him so, though the Fathers of the Church scrupled to give Him that name.' Will you be a follower of that Antitrinitarian?"....
Anab. "God forbid I should deny the divinity of Christ! We believe that he is a divine and heavenly person;.... I call him 'the Son of the living God,' as Peter does, and 'the Lord,' as the other Apostles call him. He is called in the Acts of the Apostles, 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God raised from the dead.' And Paul calls him 'that man by whom God shall judge the world in righteousness.'"
Inq. "These are the wretched arguments of the cursed Erasmus, in his small treatise 'On Prayer,' and in his 'Apology to the Bishop of Seville.' If you are contented to call Christ the 'Son of God,' you do not give him a more eminent title than that which St. Luke gives to Adam," ....
Anab. "God forbid! We believe that the body of Christ is not earthly, like that of Adam, but that he is a heavenly man, as Paul says." ....
Inq. "But St. John says . . . . 'There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.'"
Anab. "I have often heard that Erasmus, in his Annotations upon that passage, shows that this text is not in the Greek original."
"Thereupon Broer Cornelis, turning to the Secretary and the Clerk of the Inquisition, said: 'Sirs, what think you of this? Am I to blame because I attack so frequently in my sermons Erasmus, that cursed Antitrinitarian? Erasmus has done worse still. He says in his 'Annotations upon the Gospel according to St. Luke,' chapter iv. ver. 22, that a strange falsification has crept into the holy Scripture, by interpolating some words, on account of the heretics. Nay, this Antitrinitarian whom you see here, and the arch-heretic Erasmus, reproach us with having added these words, 'Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen,' in Rom. ix. 5. Or else they pretend that this doxology ought to be translated thus: 'Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all. God be blessed for ever. Amen.'"
We have reproduced this lengthy extract from an Inquisitorial report of 1569, because it exhibits a lively picture of the extent to which Anabaptism was saturated with Antitrinitarian ideas, as well as of the degree of influence exercised by the exegesis of Erasmus on the Christology of the Reformers. It is not difficult to recognise traces of this influence in Luther's Bible and in Calvin's Commentaries. Still more decidedly was it felt in England, where Erasmus' Annotations and his Paraphrases upon the New Testament were officially introduced into every parish (1547). Moreover, the great missionary of the Renascence had resided at Oxford for several years (1498—1500), had been professor at Cambridge (1509), and had lived in intimate relations with the leaders of the new learning in England, John Colet, Linacre and Latimer. It is worth while, therefore, to investigate the measure of his own approach to Unitarian Christianity.
All the active relations of God to the actual world, all objective revelation of God therein, is comprised in the out-spoken logos. He is the measure of all things, inasmuch as being the place of ideas, he gives to every thing its magnitude and relations, or contains in himself this magnitude and these relations. Accordingly, this logos forms or creates the world, since as the divine signet, he stamps himself on matter, or communicates to it his own ideal form. And as he created the world (or with a difference of expression, God created the world by him DI AUTOU) so he supports it also; he is the divine power dwelling in the world, which he upholds; and, as he contains the collected ideas of God, or powers of the world, so is he its lord. As such he is full of light and life, with which he also fills all; ruling and ordering the world with divine wisdom, love, justice, and holiness. Thus does he pervade and animate, guide and conduct the world, as the divine Providence, and is in external nature the divine order and necessity, by which all things are held together, in human kind, partly the divine power which dwells by nature in every soul, pure intelligence; partly the source of wisdom and the guardian of virtue. Since, however, all wisdom and order, as well as all virtue, streams forth from him, he is also called the wisdom of God H SOFIA TOU QEOU. He is, moreover, one and the same with the Spirit of God, with the Holy Spirit, in his objective appearance in the world; partly, inasmuch as he holds the world together as a uniting spirit; partly, inasmuch as he animates and enlightens man, especially as a prophetic spirit.
The logos according to Philo [was] the oldest creation of God; not unbegotten, as God himself, but also not created, as finite beings; he is the oldest son of the eternal Father, the first begotten, the image of God, the creator of the world, the revealed name of God, the mediator between God and the world, who separates and binds together both; the highest angel, even the second God, the high priest, atoner, advocate of the world and of men, whose historical life and appearance is visible, especially in the history of the Jewish people, so that all the divine forms and appearances in the sacred writings are to be referred to the logos.
Did Philo then conceive and represent the divine logos as a truly real and distinct personality, as an hypostasis distinct from God himself? As long as we confine our thoughts to separate representations, we may, considering these as figures of speech, see reason to hesitate, but the more we enter into the internal connexions of Philo's religious philosophy, the more decided an affirmative shall we give to the question. A part of Philo's personifications of the logos is purely imaginative and allegorical, and serves only for a figurative contemplation and a Biblical representation of his ideas. In this class may be placed the descriptions of the logos as high priest, advocate, chain, seal; many others of the same kind. But there are considerations which concur to show that Philo regarded out-spoken word, and as involved in this, the inner word, as a real being, different from and dependent on God.
Philo repeatedly names the logos ARCAGGELOS, archangel. But as, according to the then existing Jewish theology, he conceived of the angels as personal beings different from God, so must he have thought the logos, the highest angel, to be a person. But Philo expressly defines the logos as TON DEUTERON QEON—the second God; and distinguishes from this second God, the one that was before the logos; discribing the latter as the God who is above the logos; or as God who is highest and Father of all. He undertakes to explain, in what sense God in Gen. i. 27., in the image of God have I made man; and says this (namely image,) is meant of another God, that is, the first God made man in the image of the second God: distinctly adding, that nothing mortal can be in the likeness of the highest God, the Father of all, but to the second god, who is his word.
From these statements it is manifest that Philo held the logos to be a person. This fact is involved not merely in the terms he employs, but also in the substance of his philosophical system. Regarding God himself as an essence distinct and remote from the created world, having no connexion with matter, and being the object of no human thought, Philo was necessarily led to suppose another god, who stood in such a relation to finite things, as the doctrine of the Bible, touching the creation, the obvious lessons of nature, not to say his own philosophy, taught to exist, shewing that these finite things had an origin in the act, mediately or immediately, of an infinite intelligence. The monotheism of an advanced stage of civilization, as well as that of the Bible, refers the existence of the entire universe, to the will of the one sole God, creator of heaven and earth; but as Philo had reasoned himself into the conviction that this, 'the only true God' had and could have no connexion with matter, so was he led to make out of metaphorical language and the teeming fancies of his own mind, a second God, who did what the first was too high and too abstract to execute. The incompatibility which really existed between this contrivance and the pure monotheism of the sacred books he appears not to have been altogether ignorant of, since he says that the logos, as a second god, DEUTEROS QEOS, is god only in an improper sense, EN KATACRHSEI. Some difference must of necessity have existed in his mind between the two. What that difference was, it is now not easy to determine. Yet while the second remained god, he must have been so far different from the first, as to be fit to perform acts too humble for the first to execute. Hence the second obviously approached more nearly to outward, visible, and finite things. This difficulty, which is in truth insuperable, Philo tried to solve by the doctrine of emanation. Derived from the first, the second god remained divine, while by his very emanation he went forth to create the world, and dwell among men. Accordingly the logos is termed by Philo hUIOS TOU QEOU, Son of God, PRWTOLOGOS, first begotten, O ANQRWPOS TOU QEOU, the man of God.
The Absurdity of Trinitarian Belief by George Stuart Hawthorne 1851
There is scarcely any thing, however, too absurd or too extravagant for a Trinitarian to say, or suppose, when he is called upon to fence round, and to defend, the idolatrous doctrine of the Trinity; to the blasphemous absurdities of which he has surrendered his judgment. He has so many absurd positions to maintain, that he becomes familiar with absurdity; and is ever ready to take any amount of it under his guardianship. When (certain) scripture(s) are pressed upon him, he says, “Oh, Christ spake this only in his human nature!” When Christ said, “my Father is greater than I,” “Oh!” says the Trinitarian, “he meant that only in his human nature!”—“he is ‘inferior” to the Father, as touching his manhood,” says the creed, “but “equal’ to him, as touching his Godhead.” When Christ spake of some things which “he did not know, as they had been reserved by his Father, in his own power,” “Oh!” says the Trinitarian, “he only meant that he did not know them in his human nature: but, in his divine nature, he knew them perfectly!”—thus, directly, charging Christ with the grossest duplicity and falsehood! O, ye slow of heart to believe all that Christ hath spoken!
What can be thought of the following, “extravaganza,” in the way of allegation, put forward to enable the parties to shirk an extinguishing argument?—It being plain and palpable, that neither in the prayers of the patriarchs and prophets of old, nor in those which Christ himself addressed to heaven, nor in the form of prayer he prescribed to his disciples, is to be found one expression, which, even by the most inventive and robust imagination, could be tortured or twisted, so as to bear the feeblest semblance of a precedent for a prayer to a Trinity, or which could, by any amount of ingenuity, be construed so as to afford a presumption, of, even the most equivocal, recognition of a Trinity—it has been alleged, “that the different persons of the Trinity were not made known to men, till they became successively revealed:” and that therefore a Trinity of persons was not known, or believed in by any body, till after the resurrection of Christ, and after the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost; and that, consequently, the absence of any allusion to the existence of a Trinity, in the prayers of Christ, and those who went before him, goes for nothing!! Yes! so blinded in their minds have Trinitarians become, that they will adopt any supposition, however absurd,—they will, in short, believe, or profess to believe, any thing, rather than be forced into an admission of the truth; because, to admit the truth would be to give up their idolized creed— to give up those long, and blindly, cherished doctrines which are seducing them away, and drawing them away, after false modes of worship. How naturally prone the heart of man is to idolatry! The gods many, and the lords many, of the heathen, tell us of this. The “Golden Calf,” even of that highly favoured people the Jews, tells us of this.
Could I have fervent charity towards Trinitarians, and not adjure them to reflect, whether they may not be sitting in the chair of those of whom the apostle Paul spake, when he said, “Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of DEITIES: speaking lies in hypocrisy having their conscience seared with a hot iron!”—l Tim. iv. 1, 2.—The word which I have, here, translated “deities” is, in our English translation, incorrectly translated “devils.” The word in the original Greek means “deities,” or objects of veneration and worship, as I have rendered it—.
But, allowing the Trinitarian the full benefit of his “seared-conscience” supposition—that Christ, while in the world, had been keeping his disciples in the dark, and that it was only after his resurrection from the dead, they had discovered that in him they had had a God, incognito, amongst them; and, further, that, it was, only, after the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, they had found that a third God, called “The Holy Ghost,” had made his “début” amongst them; neither of which Gods had ever before been heard of, since the foundation of the world— even allowing the Trinitarian the full benefit of this, to say the least of it—very large—supposition; we may observe that we should, under such circumstances, most certainly, have expected to receive very early intimation of all this from the apostles: we should have expected to find them taking the very earliest opportunity, of offering their public homage to the several persons of this newly-discovered “Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity”—We should have expected, also, that their forms of prayer would, very speedily, have acquired the orthodox mould, and would, soon, have been found, in this respect, not one whit behind even our Litany itself—we should have expected, too, that they would not have failed to leave on record, a very explicit and welldrawn-out exposition, of all these wondrous things which had so unexpectedly come to light: something that would have been a “proto-type,” however unworthy, of “The Athanasian Creed,” that was to be. We should, most certainly, have expected that at least Paul, the intellectual Paul—that man of subtile and philosophic mind—that man of watchful solicitude for the interests of the truth—we should have expected that he, at least, would have addressed himself to this, it may have been difficult, but all-important, task—.
But, no!: we find nothing of all this. The apostles, filled as they were with the Holy Spirit, never spake of any God but “one,” “the God and Father of all.” They never prayed to any God but “one,” “the God and Father of the holy child Jesus.” They never penned an exposition of the mysteries, and blasphemies, and nonsense, of “the Athanasian Creed.” —How will Trinitarians account for this? What is the next “supposition” they will make to help them over this difficulty?—it will require an “incomprehensibly” large one to be of much service to them!
But let us dwell, for a little, upon the question, as to whom the apostles exclusively addressed themselves in prayer. One of their first public prayers, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is recorded in the fourth chapter of the “Acts of the Apostles.” Let us note it carefully. It is as follows:– “And, when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord thou art God, who hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is; who, by the mouth of thy servant David, hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together, against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. And now Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they may speak thy word; by stretching forth thy hand to heal, and that signs, and wonders, may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.”—Acts iv. 24-30.
Is there no mention of a Trinity here? In this public prayer, offered up, so recently after the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit, is there no mention made of the Trinity?—not even an allusion to it? How unaccountable!— According to the Trinitarian supposition, the apostles had very recently discovered, in the resurrection of Christ, that he who had gone out and in amongst them was no less than “the co-equal and co-eternal” of that God whom they had formerly worshipped; and, further, that, immediately succeeding that event, they had found that a third divinity, “co-equal and co-eternal” with the other two had alighted in their midst, on a mission of love and mercy, and had filled their hearts with his divine presence!—Should we not, therefore, have expected that, under such felicitous circumstances, the apostles would have taken this earliest, and very fitting, opportunity, to testify their ready admission of these successive claims upon their divine fealty; and would have signalized the occasion, by a public, and emphatic, and explicit, declaration of the wondrous, and, to the Jews, perchance, incredible, things which had just come to light? This, however, they did not do. These recreant apostles, the predecessors of our worthy Episcopal staff, so recently commissioned to go out and preach the gospel to every creature, and to call upon all to worship the “Holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity,”—consisting of three persons, each by himself being God and Lord, the glory being equal and the majesty co-eternal, and to proclaim that all who would not think of the three, and worship the three, should, without doubt, perish everlastingly!—these miscreant apostles impiously refuse to recognise, or admit, the claim of more than one of these personages to divine honours!—Should not our worthy archbishops and bishops, immediately, meet in solemn conclave, and repudiate, for ever, any connection with such reprobates! and blot out, for ever, the names of the twelve apostles from their calendar of saints; and refuse, for all time coming, to acknowledge their having any claim to the distinguished honour of being their predecessors? I do not see how any consistent Trinitarian could say that this ought not to be done.
Might it not, I ask, be fairly presumed that these apostles were justly chargeable with, at least, “the sin against the Holy Ghost,” in not having mentioned even him, in their prayer? Might not the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, very justly, have said that these apostles were “a stiff-necked and rebellious race,” who would still persist in addressing themselves to only one of their number; while the existence of “the whole three” had been revealed to them by such strong and full evidence? and might they not, very justly, have abandoned them for ever?—Were the Trinitarian supposition true, the apostles must have been so abandoned of heaven. Was this, however, the case? No: on the contrary, we find that when they had prayed, as above recorded, “the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the holy spirit, and spake the word of God with boldness”—Acts iv. 31. That God, to whom they prayed—the God and Father of the holy child Jesus —recognised in them, those who worshipped him “in spirit and in truth.” He heard their prayers, and answered them. I have said enough, conclusively to settle the quesion, for ever, as to the being whom the apostles and disciples worshipped; and to whom, when they prayed, they exclusively addressed themselves. The God whom the apostles worshipped, and to whom they prayed, was “the God and Father” of “the holy child Jesus.” They did not pray to the holy child Jesus himself, “the second person of the Trinity;” nor did they pray to the Holy Ghost, “the third person of the Trinity.”—They did not discover after the resurrection of Christ, that he had been a God, incognito, going out and in amongst them, and eating and drinking with them; nor did they discover that a third God, in the shape of the holy spirit, had made his appearance amongst them on the day of Pentecost. No: they knew of no God but “one,” and that one was “the God and Father of all.”
Although, however, the apostles did not recognise, in the holy child Jesus, a hitherto unknown deity, they recognised in him what was, to them, equally consolatory and equally cheering, namely, “the long promised Messiah.” And although they did not recognise in the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the appearance of a third deity amongst them; they recognised, in that divine manifestation, what was to them equally satisfactory, namely, no less than the Holy Spirit of “Jehovah,” the God in whom they and their fathers had trusted.
I have said that, although the apostles did not recognise, in the holy child Jesus, a hitherto unknown deity, they recognised in him the long promised Messiah. Yes: Jesus was the Messiah promised unto their fathers. The question has been often put to me, “Well, if Christ was not God, what then was he?” To this I answer—He was “The Messiah”—the Messiah promised unto the fathers—and he was neither more nor less than this. All things which Moses, in the law, and, which the prophets did write of the Messiah were fulfilled in the holy child Jesus, to the letter; but in him, who is the second person of the Trinity, not a single one of those promises could, by any possibility, have been fulfilled. --NO: NOT A SINGLE ONE of THEM!
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Over 100 Books on DVDrom (scanned from the originals) to Work as a Companion to the New World Translation Bible
Books are in the public domain. I will take checks or money orders as well. Contents (created on a Windows computer):
You love your New World Translation Bible but you also hate all the criticisms about John 1:1, John 8:58, the Divine Name instead of LORD, Stake instead of Cross and so on, but many other sources and Bibles agree with the New World Translation, and I have accumulated many of these sources on this download.
Contents of Download - Books Mostly Scanned from the Originals into PDF format:
The NWT Bible is translated these texts which are included on the disk:
The New Testament in the Original Greek by Fenton John Anthony Hort, Brooke Foss Westcott 1898
Kittel's Biblia Hebraica Volume 1 1906
Kittel's Biblia Hebraica Volume 2 1906 (remember to start the PDF at the last page because Hebrew starts there)
Books on the Cross/Stauros:
John Denham Parson's The Non-Christian Cross
The History of the Cross - the Pagan Origin by Henry Dana Ward 1871
The Two Babylons by Rev. Alexander Hislop
A Reply to: Jehovah Witnesses And The Symbol Of The Cross by Heinz Schmitz
The Cross, Heathen and Christian - a Fragmentary Notice of its Early Pagan Existence and Subsequent Christian Adoption by Mourant Brock 1879
The Image of the Cross by Homer Dixon 1879
The Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels by T.J. Thoburn 1916
"In the whole of Christendom it passes as a settled matter that Jesus died upon the cross; but this has the shape, as it is usually represented among painters, of the so-called Latin cross, in which the horizontal crosspiece is shorter than the vertical beam. On what, then, does the opinion rest that the cross is the gibbet? The evangelists themselves give us no information on this point. The Jews described the instrument which they made use of in executions by the expression "wood", or "tree". Under this description it often occurs in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, in which the gibbet is rendered by xulon, the same expression being also found in the Gospels. Usually, however, the gibbet is described as stauros "stake," so much so that stauros and xulon pass for synonyms."
and...
THE BIBLE HELL: The words rendered hell in the bible, sheol, hadees, tartarus, and gehenna, shown to denote a state of temporal duration byJ.W. Hanson, D.D
The Parousia- a Critical Study of the Scripture doctrines of Christ's Second Coming - Israel Perkins Warren 1884
Here again our translation misleads. Parousia means not coming; it means presence, being present, as is plain by referring to its root, pareimi, I am present. The taking of all these things so as to be seen is of itself complete proof of the
presence (not ocularly visible presence, but presence in the scriptural sense) of Christ. [See also the Emphatic Diaglott included with this disk]
A Critical Lexicon and Concordance by Bullinger 1908 (see definitions of Cross/Stauros and Coming/Parousia)
Studies in the Scriptures - The Time is at Hand by Charles Russell 1911
"An imperfect translation of the word parousia has further tended to obscure the sense of this passage. In the Emphatic Diaglott (included on this disk) and in Prof. Young s translation (also included on this disk) it is rendered presence; in Rotherham's (also included) it is arrival; while in the common version it is rendered coming. And though the text of the Revised Version retains this last erroneous rendering coming yet in the marginal reading it acknowledges "presence" to be the true definition of the Greek (the Revised Version with this marginal reading is also included on this disk).
The following books deal with John 1:1 and John 8:58:
Texts and Margins of the Revised New Testament by George Vance Smith 1881
"[On John 8:58] It follows that he is not here represented by the Evangelist as arrogating to himself the title of the self-existent Jehovah. The wonder is that such an understanding of his words should have found favour with any careful expositor. [Also talks of many other trinity proof texts]
The New Testament Translated from the Greek Text of Tischendorf by George Noyes and Ezra Abbot 1878
This New Testament actually has "From before Abraham was, I have been." Check also their translations of Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1
Hanson, J.W. New Covenant (4 Gospels) (1884)
_Jesus said to them, _truly, truly, I say to you, I am before Abraham was born.__
A Translation of the Four Gospels from the Syriac of the Sinaitic Palimpsest by Agness Smith Lewis 1894
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I have been."
Moffatt New Testament
John 1:1 has "Logos was Divine" and John 8:58 has "I have existed before Abraham was born."
A Response to Andy Bjorklund's _Misleading Revisions in the New World Translation_
Brenton's Septuagint Bible 1884 (has "I am The Being" at Ex. 3:14
Newcome's corrected New Testament 1808 (also uses Jehovah at Matt. 22:44)
Abner Kneeland New Testament 1823 (poor quality scan) (also uses Jehovah at Matt. 22:44)
Hermann Heinfetter's New Testament
"In commencing this dispensation, the commans was existing, yet the command was with the God, as the command had relation to a God." His John 8:58 has "Before Abraham was born I exist)
St. Matthew's gospel, with the parallel passages in the other evangelists ... - Page 331
edited by James Stark - 1878
The correct translation is: ' In a beginning was the Word, and the Word was WITH
THE GOD, and the Word WAS A GOD ; he was in a beginning WITH THE GOD. ...
The Four Gospels Translated from the Greek, with Preliminary Dissertations
by George Campbell - 1837
Others maintain that QEOS here should be translated "a God was the word.'
The Freewill Baptist Quarterly - 1866
We open to John 1: 1-5, and copy the word for word translation:-"In a beginning
was the word, and the word was with the God, and a God was the word. ...
The Testament of Jesus
by Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy - 1901 - 140 pages
16 John answered them, saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
a God, and the Word was the sacred Spirit of God. ...
The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy: Page 831
by Rammohun Roy- 1906
1, "the word was a God" ? We may, however, easily account for this inconsistency.
The term " God " in, Exodus is applied to Moses, the notion of whose ...
The Gospel According to St John translated from the 11 Oldest Versions by Solomon Malan 1862 (a god was the Word)
Emphatic Diaglott
Young's Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible 1885 ("[A]nd a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word")
An Exposition of the Historical Writings of the New Testament Volume 2 by Timothy Kenrick 1828
(In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was [a] God.)
The relevant pages only of The Coptic version of the New Testament in the Southern dialect BY Goege Horner 1911
(In the beginning was being the word, and the word was being with God, and [a] God was the word.)
A Liberal Translation of the New Testament by E Harwood 1768 (and was himself a divine person)
An Illustrated Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John by Lyman Abbott 1879 (prefers "the Word was divine)
A Calm Inquiry Into the Scripture Doctrine Concerning the Person of Christ by Thomas Belsham 1817 (word was a god)
Robert Countess and the Translation of QEOS in the New World Translation
Is the NWT Inconsistent in its use of QEOS (theos)?
What is the Best New Testament: Colwell's Apparatus (proving that the New World Translation is the most accurate.
Romans 8:1 and the Case of the Missing "Now" in the New World Translation
Did the New American Standard Bible Lie to Us?
An Reply to _An analysis of The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Watchtower Society -
"Theotes" in Col 2:9 and "Theiotes" in Rom 1:20_
Which Bible Best Retains Most of the Original Wording Prior to the Emendations (Corrections) made to the Hebrew Text
On Romans 9:5 - is [Messiah, who is God over all, blessed forever], or something else?
Ezra Abbot on Romans 9:5
Recent Discussions of Romans ix. 5. BY PROF. EZRA ABBOT, D.D., LL.D. in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis 1882
At Luke 23:43 Jesus says in most Bibles: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise, but the New World Translation has the comma AFTER the word "today", and the following sources agree with them:
A Brief Enquiry into the Prospects of the Church of Christ by Gerard Thomas Noel
Has an appendix dealing with Luke 23:43 "Reasons for altering the punctuation in Luke xxiii. 43."
A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament, together with an index of Greek Words by EW Bullinger 1895 - who also makes a plea for changing the punctuation at Luke 23:43
Biblical Psychology by John Forster 1873
"the punctuation should be thus, 'Verily I say unto thee to-day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.'
The Rainbow, a Magazine of Christian Literature 1884
Then, as in Deut. viii. 19: "I testify against you this day, that ye shall perish," so here, according to the prevalent usage, we read, and the context demands it as a direct reply to the thief's petition: " Verily, I say unto you this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise."
The Bible Doctrine of the Soul by Charles Linnaeus Ives 1874 (discusses the comma at Luke 23:43 at length)
Rotherham's Bible (see below) also uses the different punctuation
On Sharp's Rule - do we translate Titus 2:13 as "looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" or "of our great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ"
Included: A Grammar of the Idioms of the Greek Language of the New Testament by Georg Benedikt Winer 1840
(on Titus 2:13)
See also: Henry Alford's Greek Testament Volume 3
Henry Alford, in The Greek Testament, states: “I would submit that [a rendering that clearly differentiates God and Christ, at Titus 2:13] satisfies all the grammatical requirements of the sentence: that it is both structurally and contextually more probable, and more agreeable to the Apostle’s way of writing.”
and Winstanley's: A Vindication of Certain Passages 1819
Hebrews 1:8 - Most Bibles have the vocative "your throne, O God" when referring to Jesus, but the NWT Bible has "God is your throne"
Included here:The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Texts with Notes and Essays by Brooke Foss Westcott 1892 (he prefers "God is thy throne")
Moffatt's New Testament is included, and he also has "God is thy throne."
Over 65 Divine Name Bibles and New Testaments and Helps:
The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures by Heinz Schmitz
(Comes with many photocopied pages of older New Testaments that used the Divine Name)
Passages cited from the Old Testament by the Writers of the New Testament compared with the Original Hebrew and Greek Septuagint 1827
This is handy as it shows the Hebrew text alongside the quoted passage in the Christian Greek Scriptures which has the Divine Name.
A Complete Concordance of the American Standard Version 1922 (show all of the thousands of occurences of the Divine Name Jehovah).
A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by William Gesenius, translated by Edward Robinson 1844, 1154 pages
Dictionary of Bible Proper Names by Cyrus Potts 1922
Scriptures Hebrew and Christian Volume 1 (first 543 pages) by Edward Bartlett and John Peters 1888
Follows the KJV but has made changes in idiom, and uses the divine name Jehovah throughout.
Scriptures Hebrew and Christian Volume 2 by Edward Bartlett and John Peters 1888
The Julia Smith Bible 1876 - first few pages are missing.
The Book of the Prophet Hosea Literally Translated with Notes by Francis Tilney Bassett M.A. 1869
The Books of Joshua, Judges and Ruth - the Common Version revised for the American Bible Union 1878
The Book of Genesis - the Common Version Revised for the American Bible Union, with explanatory notes 1868
The Psalms - a New Translation by John De Witt 1891
The Psalter: With Responsive Readings by United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 1912
The Holy Bible - An Improved Edition, based in Part on the Bible Union Version 1913
American Standard Version Cross Reference Bible
Commentary on the Prophets of the Old Testament Vol 4
by Heinrich Ewald, John Frederick Smith - 1880 (translation uses Yahve)
Commentary on the Books of Haggai, Zakharya, Malaki, Yona, Barukh, Daniel
By Heinrich Ewald, John Frederick Smith 1881 (translation uses Yahve)
Biblical Commentary on the Psalms
by Franz Delitzsch, Francis Bolton - 1871 (translation uses Yahve)
Biblical Commentary on the Proverbs of Solomon
by Franz Delitzsch - 1884 (translation uses Yahve)
The Holy Bible by John Nelson Darby in txt format.
American Standard Version 1901 - Searchable
Divine Name Bibles on Youtube
Newcome's Corrected New Testament 1808 (uses Jehovah at Matthew 22:44)
The Holy Bible Volume 2 by Leicester Ambrose Sawyer
Young's Literal Translation of the Bible - Searchable
Hymns, Founded on Various Texts in the Holy Scriptures
by Philip Doddridge, Job Orton - Hymns - 1825 - 290 pages
The Epistles of Paul in Modern English-A Paraphrase by George Barker Stevens, Ph.D., D.D. 1898
"In the Scripture Jehovah solemnly declares he will punish his foes and vindicate his people." Hebrews 10:29
Isaiah: a New Translation: With a Preliminary Dissertation, and Notes
by Robert Lowth - 1834 - 417 pages
The Book of Genesis and part of the Book of Exodus - A Revised Version with Marginal References and Explanatory Commentary by Henry Alford D.D. 1872
St. Paul from the Trenches: A Rendering of the Epistles to the Corinthians and Ephesians Done in France During the Great War by Gerald Warre Cornish
The Psalter, Or, Psalms of David In English Verse by John Keble 1869
Emphatic Diaglott by Benjamin Wilson
The Holy Bible translated by Leicester Ambrose Sawyer - Vol 2 - 1861 - 390 pages
The Modern Readers Bible by Richard Moulton, 1907, 1740 pages
The Prophets of the Restoration: Or, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. A New Translation by T. V. Moore - 1856 - 400 pages
A New Translation of the Book of Psalms: With an Introduction - Page 153
by George Rapall Noyes - Bible - 227 pages
"O SING to Jehovah a new song, Sing to Jehovah, all the earth ! ¡aim is, with
some slight and said to have been ¡a of the ark to mount 2 Sing to Jehovah"
The Psalms: A New Translation by John De Witt 1891 - 320 pages
"With Jehovah on my side as my helper, Even I, undismayed, can look on my foes. To hide in Jehovah is better Than trusting in man"
The book of Daniel, tr. from the Heb. and Chaldee text by J. Bellamy by Daniel, John Bellamy - 1863
Joseph Bryant Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (one of the first to use YAHWEH as a divine name)
A New Translation of Job, Ecclesiastes and the Canticles
by George Noyes - 1868
Notes on the prophecies of Amos; with a new translation
by William Drake - 1869
The Psalms of David: Versified from a New Translation and Adapted
by Elhanan Winchester 1797
A new translation of the Book of psalms, with explanatory notes
1842
The Book of Job: Its Origin, Growth and Interpretation : Together with a New Translation by Morris Jastrow - 1920
Quotations in the New Testament by Crawford Toy 1884
(Mentions "Yahwe" quite often)
THE BOOK OF PSALMS BY JOHN CALVIN TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL LATIN, AND COLLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S FRENCH VERSION BY THE REV. JAMES ANDERSON 1849 (Volume 5)
The Book of Ecclesiastes with a new translation by Samuel Cox 1890
The Book of Genesis in English-Hebrew Accompanied by an Interlinear Translation, with Notes by William Greenfield 1828
On the use of Jehovah and Elohim in the Pentateuch by H.T. 1869
The Prophecies of Isaiah: A New Translation by Thomas Cheyne 1884 Volume 1
The Prophecies of Isaiah: A New Translation by Thomas Cheyne 1884 Volume 2
A New Translation of the Psalms with a Plea for Revisal of our Versions Part 1
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the book of Genesis, with a New Translation by James Murphy
Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical, on the book of Job with a New Translation by Albert Barnes Volume 1
Notes, Critical, Illustrative, and Practical, on the book of Job with a New Translation by Albert Barnes Volume 2
THE PROPHETS OF THE RESTORATION - HAGGAI, ZECHARIAH, AND MALACHI, a New Translation by Rev. T.V. Moore 1856
The Psalms of David Versified from a New Translation by Elhanan Winchester 1797
The Book of Psalms a New Translation by J.J. Stewart Perowne 1880
The Book of Esther a New Translation by J. W. Haley
A Commentary on the Proverbs with a new translation by John Miller 1872
Literal translation of the Psalms of David by Parkhurst 1830
Heinfetter New Testament 1864 (uses "Jehovah" liberally throughout his New Testament)
St Paul's Epistle to the Romans by W.G. Rutherford
A Version or Paraphrase of the Psalms by James Merrick 1789
The Epistles of Paul in Modern English, A Paraphrase by George Barker Stevens 1898
A Paraphrase and Notes on the Revelation of St. John by Moses Lowman 1773
(JEHOVAH scattered throughout, but not a lot of uses)
The Book of Job, essays and a Metrical Paraphrase by Rossiter Raymond 1878
The Messages of the Later Prophets arranged in the order of time, Analyzed, and Freely Rendered in Paraphrase by Charles Foster Kent 1899
The Book of Psalms of David the king and prophet by Edward Faulkener 1875
The First Book of Moses, called Genesis translated into the Grebo Tongue (African) uses "Jehova" 1850
Notes on the Book of Job with a New Version by William Kelly 1879
A New Version of the Psalms of David Fitted to the Tunes Used in the Churches by Nicholas Brady 1839
(Uses Jehovah about 6 times)
Over 100 articles in .html and .pdf (.txt) format by an Apologist
Sample articles:
Acts 20:28: DIA TOU hAIMATOS TOU IDIOU "blood of his own Son" or "his own blood?"
Robert Bowman and the "Faithful and Discreet Slave"
CRI and the Money Scandal
Walter Martin on Bible Translations and Capitalization
Spurious Passages of the New Testament
AUTO as an Neuter Pronoun in the Greek. Is the Holy Spirit an "IT?"
Romans 8:1 and the Case of the Missing "Now" in the New World Translation
What's Wrong with the New King James Version
Appreciating the Bible via the Watchtower - An answer to the critics.
Why is the NWT a Superior Version at John 8:58? Why do so many other Bibles read similarly?
Is John 20:28 actually addressed to Jesus. What does the New Testament Greek Tell us?
Outrage, Hank Hanegraaff, and John 5:18
Can John 1:1c be translated as "the Word was LIKE God"
GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY! Ron Rhodes and Mark 10:18
Answering Jay Hess on the word "Worship" and the "Angel of the Lord" and Michael.
Why is the NWT a Superior Version at John 1:1?
Hermann Heinfetter, A Literal Translation of the New Testament,1863, [A]s a god the Command was"
Abner Kneeland-The New Testament in Greek and English, 1822, "The Word was a God"
Robert Young, LL.D. (Concise Commentary on the Holy Bible [Grand Rapids: Baker, n.d.], 54). 1885, "[A]nd a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word"
Belsham N.T. 1809 ?the Word was a god?
Leicester Ambrose, The Final Theology, Volume 1, New York, New York; M.B. Sawyer and Company, 1879, "And the logos was a god"...PLUS MUCH MORE!!
Proof that Jesus IS the Archangel Michael.
John A. Lees, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1930, Vol. 3, page 2048 states:
"The earlier Protestant scholars usually identified Michael with the pre-incarnate Christ, finding support for their view, not only in the juxtaposition of the "child" and the archangel in Rev 12, but also in the attributes ascribed to him in Dnl.
Protestant Reformer JOHN CALVIN said regarding "Michael" in its occurence at Daniel 12:1:
"I embrace the opinion of those who refer this to the person of Christ, because it suits the subject best to represent him as standing forward for the defense of his elect people."
J. Calvin, COMMENTARIES ON THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET DANIEL, trans. T. Myers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), vol. 2 p. 369.
List of Whole Translations with the Divine Name and other info.
Angels as Gods.
The Comma Johanneum and the Trinity.
Are there Contradictions in the Bible?
What a Difference a Word Makes in Bible Translation.
The New Testament In An Improved Version-Newcome-Gospel of John in .txt format (Gospel of John only).
Bible Theology and the Word "HELL".
An Inclusive Version-The Feminist Bible.
My Vicious Letter from the International Standard Version Bible.
Who Was King James?/King James the Fop.
The King James(Authorized) Version Bible-Is it the Best?
Why Jehovah's Witnesses are not False Prophets.
Don Cupitt on John 1:1 and Divine Agency
Protestant Witchhunt and the Case of Murray J. Harris
Defending the New World Translation-The NWT vs. the NIV and the NASB.
Smoke and Mirrors-Tactics Used by Opposers to Sway Jehovah's Witnesses.
Lies Ron Rhodes Tells in his Book against JW's.
Consider: Rhodes says the following regarding the NWT's rendering of the verse at Acts 20:28, "The New World Translation rendering of this verse GOES AGAINST ALL LEGITIMATE TRANSLATIONS OF SCRIPTURE" (p. 86. _Reasoning from the Scriptures with Jehovah's Witnesses_)WHY IS THIS AN OUT AND OUT LIE...plus more?
My Response to Andy Bjorklund and his attack on the New World Translation.
John 1:1 and the Word/Wisdom of God, and many many Bibles that also DO NOT READ "The Word was God."
The Misunderstood Jehovah and the Ridiculous Notion that his name means "Mischief."
Proskuneo and Worship/Obeisance/Homage of Jesus and others.
Jesus Christ the Firstborn/PRWTOTOKOS of all creatures.
Did the Book of Mormon Plagiarize the Bible?
Conversations on the Trinity.
A Reply to Jehovah's Witnesses and the Symbol of the Cross.
A Reply to "Only Begotten Son" or "Only Son."
The Majority Text/Byzantine Text vs the Modern Critical Text. With Another Look at the King James Version.
A Reply to the Jewish "Why We Reject Jesus."
Conversations on the Textus Receptus (Received Text).
Colossians 2:9 and the "divine quality."
Johannes Greber and John 1:1c.
Is the Holy Spirit a Force or the 3rd Person of the Trinity?
50 Answers to 50 Questions to ask Jehovah's Witnesseses.
Rhodes vs Jehovah-Is it Jehovah, Yahweh, or just plain LORD?
Elohim, Echad and the 3 Angels of Mamre.
Ezra Abbot on Luther's Bible and the Comma Johanneum.
Is Jesus Jehovah-Heb 1:10/Ps 102 etc.
Is Jesus Jehovah Pt. 2/Bible Innerancy and the Mindset of Opposers.
Colwell's Rule of Bible Translations-What is the best New Testament?
According to Colwell's apparatus, the NASB would only get a 59 out of 64 rating of accuracy, while the NIV garners a scant 51 points. But Goodspeeds New Testament and the New World Translation get top marks.
The Biblical view of Only True God/TON MONON ALHQINON QEON.
On the NIV, the Insertion of the word "other", soul, hell, analusai etc.
The ARCHE at Rev 3:14-Beginning or Ruler/Source?
Proof that kolasin be translated *cutting-off* NOT *punishment* at Matthew 25:46?
Ezra Abbot on the Construction of Titus 2:13.
Answers to 65 questions every Jehovah's Witness should be asked using the NWT-A Catholic Perspective.
Is Jesus the Angel of the Abyss (Abaddon/Apollyon)?
John 1:3, 4, Punctuation, Staircase Parallelism and Caris.
Is Organization Necessary for True Believers?
On the Construction of Romans 9:5 by Ezra Abbott.
My Response to Lynn Lundquist's "The Tetragrammaton and the Christian Greek Scriptures.
The Bible and the Deity of Jesus Christ: On Matthew 1:23 and Immanuel; John 20:28; Men as gods; Psalms 45:6; Colossians 2:9; the Divine Name in the LXX, the worship of Jesus, John 1:1, etc.
A Reply to James Stewart's Review of Rolf Furuli's book on Bible Translation and the NWT
Which Bible Best Retains Most of the Original Wording Prior to the Emendations (Corrections) made to the Hebrew Text
More on the Spirit and Quoting.
Bible Versions and the "Once Saved Always Saved" Theology
Jay Hess and the word "Worship" and the "Angel of the LORD"
A Response to Gomes, Homosexuality and the Good Book
Did the New American Standard Bible Translators Lie to us?
The Absurdity of the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ From Reason and Dogma, Or, Footprints of a Soul By Henry Truro Bray 1897
“I have but little faith, Mr. Merton, in the doctrines of Christianity. I have scarcely attended services for years. Since you have been here, I have come pretty regularly; but just as soon as you are gone, I shall fall back again into my old place of indifference. I have a contempt for the average minister. It is shocking to hear their contradictions; insulting to hear their maledictions against those who refuse to believe in their nature-subverting assertions. Who can believe, for instance, that a being in human shape is the infinite God of the universe! I declare that it is absolutely impossible for a reasonable man to believe such absurdity, as the dogma about the deity of Christ."
“I do not believe...that Jesus Christ was God. There have been, and are, men who are relatively very pure. Like a mirror, they seem to reflect the image of what the good man might suppose God to be. Such were Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius, Mencius, Marcus Aurelius, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Jesus Christ, and many others; and it is possible, though by no means certain, that Jesus Christ remains the greatest of all the great. In this sense, and in this sense only, can I believe that Jesus Christ was divine, In one sense all things are divine; for nature in its entirety flows out from God, as light from the sun. Nature itself is an emanation from Deity. Reason can conceive a being in human shape permeated as it were with the Universal Spirit, as a sponge in the ocean is permeated with water; but it can not conceive the ocean as contained in the sponge, nor a man as containing God. If the Universal and Infinite Spirit was not contained in the human body of Christ, then, as the sponge would not contain the sea, so was Christ not God. As permeated with God, he might have been divine; as a sponge permeated with water, would be watery. But as the sponge contained in the ocean, can not be the ocean which contains it; so the finite, limited, human body of Christ, contained in the universe, could not have contained the Universal Being which contained him. As of others, so of Christ; divinity is predicable, but deity is unthinkable, and absurd. It is impossible for an intelligent man to conceive of a place where God is not: it is impossible that God should not fill the whole; impossible that the whole of existence should not be contained in Him; impossible that He should be less than infinite. It is, therefore, impossible that God should be bounded, or outlined, or have any conceivable form; and, therefore, it is absurd to think of the unbounded, formless, infinite Deity as being contained in the bounded, definitely formed body of Christ. And if God was not contained in the body of Christ, then was Christ not God. It is philosophically possible that Christ was full of deity; but that no more makes Christ God, than the fulness of the sponge with water, makes the sponge the ocean. It is possible, therefore, that Christ was in God; but it is impossible that God was in Christ.
"Another modern rendering which likewise merits close attention and study is characterized as "The Bible: An American Translation." This version appeared in 1931, the Old Testament being translated by a group of scholars under the editorship of Dr. J. M. P. Smith, while Professor Edgar J. Goodspeed is responsible for the New Testament. Evaluating this American translation, Prof. Beatrice Brooks referred to it as "great literature" while she also noted its faithfulness to the original texts (see Journal of Bible and Religion, January-March, 1937). Among its many interesting contributions, one of the most thought provoking is that which offers the rendering, 'Blessed are those who feel their spiritual need,' in place of the familiar 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' of the King James Version (Matt. 5:3)."
Interestingly, the New World Translation has a similar rendering: "Happy are those conscious of their spiritual need."*
Perhaps the NWT should be classed alongside Smith & Goodspeed's Bible as "great literature" as well.
*The _An Understandable Version_ and the _New Simplified Bible_ have similar readings.
It is well known to those who enter upon missionary work that the doctrine of the Trinity presents an almost insuperable difficulty in the effort to make converts of Jews, Muslims, Parsees, and others. A Japanese once said, "What a contempt you must have of our understanding if we are expected to receive instruction like this ". Five times a day the Muslims repeats, "There is no God but one God," as a kind of protest against the theory of a Triune Deity. The well educated Muslim tells the Christian missionary that the doctrine of the Trinity is neither in the Old Testament nor the New, but is an after-thought grafted upon the primitive Monotheistic creed which Christ himself taught. Of the intelligent Hindoos, the late Rev. Rowland Williams (who made Hindoo mythology a special study) is compelled to acknowledge that Christianity, in its prevalent form, can never win the general assent of the Oriental mind, and that only the simple religious ideas and precepts of the Gospel—the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the grand sentiments which harmonise with the intuitive moral judgment—can exercise long and lasting influence upon the Hindoo race.
In addition to the difficulties with Muslims and Pagans, it is scarcely necessary to repeat the thrice-told tale of the absolute repugnance of the Jews to the theory of a three-fold Deity. We know there are some controversialists reckless enough to say that the Jews were once Trinitarians and may be so again. This was not the view of Bishop Beveridge, who writes, "The Jews have had the law above three thousand years, and the prophets above two thousand years, yet to this day they could never make the Trinity an article of their faith ". And Bishop Bloomfield says, in reference to some who hold that the Jews once believed in the Trinity—"I confess that I am not prepared to go to the full length of these positions. I think it in the highest degree probable that the Jews expected a Messiah who would be a sharer in the divine nature, but not one who should be equal with God ".
The following lines, the composition of a Jew, fully illustrate this position:—
When thou canst wash the Ethiopian white, Govern the winds, or give the sun more light, Cause by thy word the mountain to remove, Control the seas, or hurl the bolts of Jove,— Then hope (but not till then) to turn the Jews To Christian doctrines and to Christian views. For Christian faith, say conscience is thy guide, The Jews, for conscience' sake, 'gainst it decide. One God thou callest Three, and Three but One; The Jews acknowledge God as One alone.
It would not be difficult to fill pages with the testimony of many learned historians and divines, that the Jews have through all ages believed and upheld the simple and absolute unity of God as one person. They lay great stress on the words, "Jehovah our God is one Jehovah". When these words are read in their services they emphasise them by repetitions. Canon Farrar, in "Early Days of Christianity", in evidence of the Monotheism of the Jews, gives the following, on the authority of Berachoth: "Thus, as regards Monotheism, we find that in repeating the Shema, or daily prayer, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God' (Deut. vi. 4), whosoever prolongs the utterance of the word One (echad), shall have his days and years prolonged to him". There is similar evidence by Dr. Adam Clarke in his "Commentary", under Deuteronomy vi. 4. The Unity of God is the first and great commandment of Moses, and it is also the first and great commandment of Christ. During the earliest period of Christian history the ablest advocates of Christianity were Jews. At the present time the Jewish race is scattered over all the earth, bearing its testimony to the truth of the doctrine of one God in one person. There is a widespead belief that the Muslims have been raised up by Divine Providence as a protest against the doctrine of the Trinity. Their voice is heard, their worship is felt, over the cast of Europe, and in Asia and Africa as well. Some 30 millions of Muslims are leavening our great empire of India with a Monotheistic theology. It is very questionable if Islam, which has hindered the progress of Christianity in the East, would have had any existence at all in the world had the Church kept to the Monotheism of the New Testament. The Parsees also and the Hindus constantly proclaim the doctrine of the undivided unity of God. Some years ago when we had a serious difference with the Queen of Oude, and referred in one of our proclamations to the Christian religion, the following reply was issued by her command:—"In the [Queen of England's] proclamation it is written that the Christian religion is true, but no other creed will suffer oppression; and that the laws will be observed towards all. What has the administration of justice to do with the truth or falsehood of religion? That religion is true which acknowledges One God and knows no other. Where there are Three Gods in religion, neither Muslims nor Hindus, nay, not even Jews, Sun-worshippers, or Fire-worshippers, can believe it true".
The LORD Possessed Me...or the LORD Created Me at Proverbs 8:22?
The LXX (Septuagint), the very first translation of the Holy Scriptures, made several centuries before Christ, and was used by him and by the Apostles, had a variety of words it could have used for Qanah at Prov 8:22 [for instance KTAOMAI, LAMBANW, DECOMAI], but it settled on one. The Greek word for "Created" is EKTISEN (#2936). It is used at Mark 13:19; 1Tim 4:3 and Revelation 10:6. The Septuagint uses this word only once in Proverbs, and that is at chapter 8 verse 22. This is how this word (qanah) was understood by the Jews and early Christians in this verse.
Bullinger states in his Companion Bible: "Heb. kanah. Occurs 86 times in O.T.; rendered 'possess' only four times...Sept. and Syr. render it 'created.'"
From a footnote on the NET translation of Proverbs 8:22 found at www.bible.org:
“There are two roots in Hebrew, one meaning ‘to possess,’ and the other meaning ‘to create.’ The older translations did not know of the second root, but suspected in certain places that a meaning like that was necessary (e.g., Genesis 4:1; 14:19; Deuteronomy 32:6). Ugaritic confirmed that it was indeed another root. The older versions have the translation ‘possess’ because otherwise it sounds like God lacked wisdom and therefore created it at the beginning. They wanted to avoid saying that wisdom was not eternal. Arius liked the idea of Christ as the wisdom of God and so chose the translation ‘create.’ Athanasius translated it, ‘constituted me as the head of creation.’ The verb occurs twelve times in Proverbs with the meaning of ‘to acquire’; but the Greek and the Syriac versions have the meaning ‘create.’
Although the idea is that wisdom existed before creation, the parallel ideas in these verses (‘appointed,’ ‘given birth’) argue for the translation of ‘create’ or ‘establish’ (R. N.
Whybray, ‘Proverbs 8:22-31 and Its Supposed Prototypes,’VT 15 [1965]: 504-14; and W. A. Irwin, ‘Where Will Wisdom Be Found?’ JBL 80 [1961]: 133-42).” Many translators render qanahas “created.”.
“Gesenius gives as the primary meaning of qanah: ‘to get, to gain, to obtain, to acquire.’ Davies gives it the meaning of ‘to form or make, to get or acquire, to gain or buy.’ Strong defines qanah as ‘to erect, i.e., to create; by extension to procure, especially by purchase.’ ” —The Great Debate, by Robert Wagoner
The following passages translate in the KJV, the word “qanah” as buy, bought or buyer.
Gen. 25:10
33:19
39:1
47:19,22,23
49:30
50:13
Exodus 15:16
21:2
Leviticus 22:11
25: 15,28,30,44,45,50
27:24
Deuteronomy 28:68
32:6
Joshua 24:32
Ruth 4:4,5,9,10
2 Samuel 12:3
24:24
1 Kings 16:24
2 Kings 22:6
1 Chron. 21:24
Nehemiah 5:16
Proverbs 20:14
Ecclesiastes 2:7
Isaiah 24:2
43:24
Jeremiah 13:2,4
32:7,8,9,,15,25,43,44
Ezekiel 7:12
Zechariah 11:5
13:5
The following places render “qanah” as obtain, gained, get or gotten.
Gen 4:1 (acquired, NJB)
Psalms 74:2
78:54
Proverbs 1:5 (acquire, NJB)
4:5,7 (acquire, NJB)
15:32
16:16
17:16 (buy, NJB)
18:5, 22
23:23 (purchase, NJB)
Isaiah 11:11
It is rendered as “cause” (making, Young's Literal) at Ezekiel 8:3
It is rendered “redeemed”(bought, NIV) at Nehemiah 5:8
It is rendered “possessed’ or “possessor” at:
Genesis 14:19, 22 and Psalm 139:13
As we can seen “qanah” always indicates something that was not previously possessed.
C.F. Burney, in his article, stated:
"[T]he verb kana [Burney's spelling] always seems to possess the sense ‘get, acquire’, never the sense ‘possess, own’ simply, apart from the idea of possessing something which has been acquired in one way or another. This clearly appears from examination of the usages of the verb in Hebrew, and through comparison of the cognate languages.…To this evidence for the Hebrew usage of the verb hnq it is important for our purpose to add the proper name Elkana, which can hardly mean anything else than ‘(He whom) God has begotten or created’….Whether kana here has the sense ‘beget’ or ‘create’ is ambiguous….In face of this evidence we must surely conclude that the ground-meaning of kana is that of acquiring something not previously possessed, which may be done by buying or making it, in the case of a child by begetting it, in the case of wisdom by accumulating it through mental application. (emphasis added)."
Surely, to contend that Almighty God had to acquire wisdom by mental application, is at variance with the data given to us about Him in His Word.
The Hebrew qanah as created can be viewed in passages like the following:
Genesis 4:1: “And the man knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, “I have gotten [qanah] a man with the help of Jehovah.”—ASV.
Genesis 14:19: “[A]nd he [Melchizedek] blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator [qanah, margin, “or, Possessor”] of heaven and earth.”—NIV.
Genesis 14:22: “But Abram said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the LORD God Most High, Creator [qanah] of heaven and earth.”—NIV.
Deuteronomy 32:6: “[I]s this the way you repay the LORD foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator [qanah, “he-created you”—The NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament,
John R. Kohlenberger III] who made and formed —NIV.
The BDAG Lexicon (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature 2001) is considered among the most highly respected dictionaries of Biblical Greek. It is the gold standard in Greek/English lexicons.
When the BDAG replaced the BAGD, a change was noticed under ARCH/ARXH. Christ as "first created" at Rv 3:14 had been upgraded from possible to probable.
Here they cite the JTS article "Christ as ARCH of Creation," by C.F. Burney, Journa; of Theological Studies 27, 1926. 160-77. Burney breaks down in detail the Hebrew word for beginning [reshith]: You can download this article at https://digilander.libero.it/domingo7/Burney.pdf "Another New Testament allusion to Prov. viii 22 in reference to Christ is found in Rev. iii 14 H ARXH THS KTISEWS TOU QEOU, [the beginning of the creation of/by God] a title of the risen Christ which Dr. Swete and Dr. Charles have not a shadow of authority for limiting in meaning to 'the Source of God's Creation'. There is every reason to suppose that ARXH is here used with all the fullness and meaning which St Paul extracts from reshith--Beginning..." and then Burney turned to Rev. 21:6 where ARCH is translated as "beginning." The BAGD/BDAG reference also mentions Job 40:19 ARCH, speaking of Behemoth "He is the first (ARCH) of the works of God" (RSV). Behemoth was not the "source" of God's works, but rather was one of them. Even Henry Alford in his Greek Testament states the following:
Alford goes on to argue against this position and has to use sources outside the New Testament to do so. This is much like the admissions we read from many that the reading "the word was a god" at John 1:1 is possible from the point of grammar alone....but they don't want you to accept that.
