[sword-devel] Coptic Book module

[DM Smith]

On Jan 27, 2008, at 11:42 PM, Jonathan Morgan wrote:

> On Jan 28, 2008 9:10 AM, Chris Little <chrislit at crosswire.org> wrote:
>> I'm certainly not the arbiter of orthodoxy, but have a couple  
>> points to
>> mention. First, CrossWire definitely isn't an Evangelical  
>> organization
>> in the sense that we have a statement of faith that aligns with some
>> subset of churches that have been categorized as Evangelical. We're
>> evangelical in the sense that we're working to spread the Gospel. But
>> we're fairly explicitly not aligned with any specific church or  
>> creed.
>>
>> That said, we do have to draw the line of orthodoxy somewhere this  
>> side
>> of Jesus Christ Superstar. The Book of Mormon & Joseph Smith's
>> translation fall on the other side, so we have them tagged as  
>> unorthodox
>> in the repository. I'm guessing you would like to avoid having that
>> happen in this case.
>
> I can understand your views on Joseph Smith's translation, but I've
> always been a little surprised at the Diaglott being in the Cult /
> Unorthodox / Questionable material.  I don't use it, but I thought
> that it was just a Greek / English NT or something similar.  Looking
> at the info page, it says that it is from Watchtower.  Does that
> automatically make it questionable, or are there other reasons? (or
> are the reasons lost in history anyway?)

In the early 70's, I was accidentally brought to Christ by a Jehovah's  
Witness after may hours of studying their material with them. God's  
grace and providence was at work in my life!

IMHO:

The JWs pride themselves on not valuing education. I have a 1954 (I  
think that is the date) Diaglott and it should be clear to any 1-st  
year seminarian in their first Greek course that it is not a  
translation of the Greek NT.

The fundamental doctrinal differences between Christianity and the JWs  
as found in the scripture have been heavily redacted, not based upon  
what the Greek says. Comparing that 1954 version with the one we have  
online and ones that the current JWs carry, there have been further  
redactions. I doubt the JWs have ever had anyone who studied NT Greek  
work on the translation. (Maybe they borrowed Joseph Smith's magical  
glasses.)

The JWs are a cult. Their Bible has been redacted to reflect their  
doctrine.

In His Service,
	DM