Posted by J.H. on March 22, 1999 at 13:50:23 {MWKQmDRkic4cM}:
In Reply to: Stafford's Response to White posted by Cygnus on March 22, 1999 at 12:51:39:
: Stafford offers a rebuttal of White's criticism on this page for any who might be interested.
Thanks, Cyg. I managed to keep awake all through it. I will conclude that Stafford is at least as sane as his accuser. That, alas, says very little. In a debate between a JW and a CRI member I would always hope for mutual absolute annihilation :-)
My few comments on Stafford's statement:
Stafford claims "Jehovah" is a more accurate rendering of YHWH than Yahweh, and totally wacky claim. The pronounciation was never lost. It was, and is, Yahweh, a name for a semitic deity. We know how the misunderstanding "Jehovah" (with latin pronounciation Yehovah) came about. Otherwise, I agree with the JW argument that when you pronounce Yeshuah "Dzjeeeeezuz", making a big fuss out of YHWH is insane, especially when you believe they are the same God!
The "Ego Eimi"'s of the gospels: this is among the silliest arguments ever forwarded in the trinity debate. Stafford is quite right.
Under the "is my argument circular" headline Stafford accuses White of making a circular argument. Here Stafford is obviously wrong, since there is more than one use of "theos" in John, and the other examples are certainly relevant to a discussion of John 1:1. White is correct in that if all other uses of theos refers to Yahweh, then it is very likely John 1:1 does, too. This is a serious argument, but it's certainly not definite, and on the evidence I think it is somewhat unlikely.
As is typical for such debates among fundamentalists, the participants are never able to make a single admission. When a person in a trinity debate, where the evidence is so obviously ambiguous that any impartial observer can easily see it, does not admit that at least some of the opponents' arguments have merit or pose difficult challenges, what we see is intellectual dishonesty. And this is why critics such as myself think these debates are a total waste of time.
If Stafford wants to be taken seriously by real scholars, not only pseudoscholars in fundie non-think-tanks, he should tackle serious questions: chronology, false
prophecies/predictions vs claims to represent God, and of course the blood doctrine.