Would you like to know the Truth?

That is a very good title. Yes, I would like to know the ‘truth’ about a whole lot of things that have puzzled me in my life. I won’t bore you with my list, I am sure you have your own. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t wonder about the ‘truth’ of God and the Bible. I knew at 17 that I wanted to be a theologian, even if only an informal one, and I did complete a year and a half of a Bachelor of Theology Degree at St Marks Anglican College in Canberra Australia before financial reasons made me give it up (I couldn’t drive a taxi for 16 hours a day and sleep and study with any intelligence). I regret stopping studying, although at the time it was just another load off my back. Now, when life is simpler I know I don’t have the academic ability to go back, but I am still fascinated by it all, still own all the books and study guides and weblinks I found over the time, and I still dip into the wonder and mystery of it all, and the daftness and nonsense.

Daftness and nonsense are not the subjects for today, although mistranslation does sometimes come under that subject heading. It is amazing what we can make the Bible do with just a touch of a twist, or play on words, and presto! it can say whatever you want.

Why do we do that? How does that help with the search on the subject of God? Why does God put up with the mistranslations? He (and she) must have tremendous faith in us to let us get away with the type of rubbish we can come up with when we try. S/he knows we all return to the same source eventually. I am working at not making too many detours. :-)

Back to the title.

While I was out one day the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania dropped a brochure through our dog door. You guessed it. “Would you like to know the Truth?” Since I am fascinated by all peoples’, and groups’, belief systems, I don’t automatically put them in the bin. Instead I sit down and read them through, and look up all the bible quotes they suggest, and really think about what they believe. The ‘how?’ comes later. So this brochure had me questioning their questions – does God really care about us? Will war and suffering ever end? What happens to us when we die? Is there any hope for the dead? (Given the last question I am not sure I want to know what they think is the answer. :-) ) How can I pray and be heard by God? How can I find happiness in this life? Very good questions. Then they go on – “Where would you look for answer to these questions? If you went to libraries or bookstores, you might find thousands of books claiming to provide the answers. Often, though, one book contradicts another” .. etc. Very true. To them there is only one book that contains reliable answers – their Holy Bible.

Now I say ‘their’ because their book is a different translation to mine. I know this, because I have looked their quotes up.

One of the benefits of going to university is that they tried very hard to give us accurate information, including the most up-to-date translation of the Bible, from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. Mine includes the Apocrypha. (In this case (2007) The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd edition), copyright 2001, Oxford University Press, Inc). And then there are the 11 other bibles, all Christian, that I own that I use to check quotes, including the Interlinear Bible which has the Old and New Testament in Hebrew and Greek words, as well as the English translation, so you can check sentence structure, etc. I guess you can see I am serious on the subject. And so I dipped into the Watchtower brochure looking for their answers to their questions and found these:

Does God Really Care about Us?

The brochure said - God never causes what is wicked. “Far be it from the true God to act wickedly, and the Almighty to act unjustly!” (Job 34:10) I don’t think Saul would agree though, having been tormented by an evil spirit from the Lord .. the Lord being Jehovah. He chose to punish Saul because Saul did not obey Samael, his prophet, totally and completely. Saul killed all the Amalekites but kept the best of the sheep, cattle, fatlings and lambs alive. At the time he also spared Agag, the King, but later killed him. Was wanting to feed his people an act against God? God wanted the Amalekites killed because they had opposed the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. (1 Sam 15:2) Just how bad was the opposition that S/He commanded all the people, including children killed? What sort of God does that? Is that a just act? Why aren’t we all condemned now because the Israelites still suffer .. oh, I forgot, they are no longer God’s chosen people.

Given this example from the Old Testament I would have to say that the ‘Lord’, aka Jehovah, doesn’t really seem to care about us, certainly not if we defy Him/Her and go our own way. But wait .. how come we aren’t all dead, or in hell (and that’s another subject), because people defy God constantly in our society? Maybe the answer is back in the brochure. Let’s look at their quote.

“Far be it from the true God to act wickedly, and the Almighty to act unjustly!” (Job 34:10) The Oxford Bible says “far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong”.

True God? Which is the true God? If you dip into the Interlinear you will find that God has any number of names. The one dealing with Saul is called YHWH, Jehovah is a bad translation of those consonants, the other is simply called El. When Jesus prayed to God he prayed to El. So the Watchtower people called our attention to the true God and said he never caused wickedness, but killing your own people, in our society’s estimation is definitely wicked. What was the name of that God .. oh yes, Jehovah. And as one of the lady’s told me in person a few weeks ago, their true God is Jehovah. Given His actions with Saul, and on other occasions, I think I would rather go with El.

To be continued