Which Christianity is the True Faith?

[boatsnguitars]

Seems after 2000 years, Christians can't decide - and God isn't talking.

So, which brave Christian wants to set it out clearly here: Who will speak for God?

Which Christianity is the true faith!?

(popping popcorn)

[Data]

Nowhere in the Bible is it recorded that Jesus ever uttered the word "Jehovah."
But "Jehovah's Witnesses" apparently think they know God's name better than Jesus did.

What name did Jesus use for God? For example, when he was reading from the scrolls?

[Diogenes]

Nowhere in the Bible is it recorded that Jesus ever uttered the word "Jehovah."
But "Jehovah's Witnesses" apparently think they know God's name better than Jesus did.

What name did Jesus use for God? For example, when he was reading from the scrolls?

As an observant Jew, Jesus would not have pronounced God's "name" at all. Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce יהוה‎ nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as Yahweh; instead they replace it with a different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel.

That is the whole point of the 'Tetragrammaton,' to avoid using a name for God, hence the four letters, in English, "YHWH." God's "name" is too holy to be spoken aloud.
According to the Gospels Jesus used the word "Abba"* or "Father" as in "Our Heavenly Father," from the "Lord's Prayer."

The blasphemy and frankly stupidity of giving God a name at all denotes ignorance of the meaning of the passage where Moses talks to God in the form of a burning bush. Moses specifically asks God his name. "God" tells him he has no name, that he is what he is, "I am that I am..." or in Popeye's perhaps more accurate version, "I am what I am," sometimes heard in its vegetative version, "I Yam what I Yam."


_____________________________
*"And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt."

__ Mark 14:36, KJV

[boatsnguitars]

Funny thing is, Christians, when among their own sects, will gladly talk about how wrong other sects are. They will call them Satanic or blasphemers. The Christians here know this, but like children of abused parents, they've learned not to talk about it openly, or they'll get reprimanded.

[TRANSPONDER]

Funny thing is, Christians, when among their own sects, will gladly talk about how wrong other sects are. They will call them Satanic or blasphemers. The Christians here know this, but like children of abused parents, they've learned not to talk about it openly, or they'll get reprimanded.

I saw it happen all the time on Christian discussion forums. My former Forum (I'm now actually posting back there too) had to ban Christians saying the others weren't real Christians. happened all the time. With disagreeing on interpretation of scripture and whether one was right with Jesusgod depending on it, denouncing the other one as not really being a Christian was inevitable.

[boatsnguitars]

Funny thing is, Christians, when among their own sects, will gladly talk about how wrong other sects are. They will call them Satanic or blasphemers. The Christians here know this, but like children of abused parents, they've learned not to talk about it openly, or they'll get reprimanded.

I saw it happen all the time on Christian discussion forums. My former Forum (I'm now actually posting back there too) had to ban Christians saying the others weren't real Christians. happened all the time. With disagreeing on interpretation of scripture and whether one was right with Jesusgod depending on it, denouncing the other one as not really being a Christian was inevitable.

The overly facile answer we were taught to say (when asked which is the true Christianity): "The one that most closely follows the Bible."

We were to say with a smirk, apparently, since it's such a smarmy answer it must be meant to thumb our nose at people. Of course, the knowing wink when we say it is "And we all know I mean MY Christianity!"

And, of course, this raises the age old dilemma: Do you stay in the Church you were born into, or choose the Church that more closely aligns with your beliefs?

[TRANSPONDER]

Funny thing is, Christians, when among their own sects, will gladly talk about how wrong other sects are. They will call them Satanic or blasphemers. The Christians here know this, but like children of abused parents, they've learned not to talk about it openly, or they'll get reprimanded.

I saw it happen all the time on Christian discussion forums. My former Forum (I'm now actually posting back there too) had to ban Christians saying the others weren't real Christians. happened all the time. With disagreeing on interpretation of scripture and whether one was right with Jesusgod depending on it, denouncing the other one as not really being a Christian was inevitable.

The overly facile answer we were taught to say (when asked which is the true Christianity): "The one that most closely follows the Bible."

We were to say with a smirk, apparently, since it's such a smarmy answer it must be meant to thumb our nose at people. Of course, the knowing wink when we say it is "And we all know I mean MY Christianity!"

And, of course, this raises the age old dilemma: Do you stay in the Church you were born into, or choose the Church that more closely aligns with your beliefs?

That seems easy - you didn't choose where to be born, so you can't be sure your local church is the right one. But then is the local denomination - or even religion - the right one? One has to start questioning (slippery slope to disbelief) unless one becomes switched off - just take the easy Feelgood route and stop thinking. But people will think and may find they disagree with teachings, especially if they take the plastic wrapper off their Bible.

Of course, predestination may rear its' triangular head. "You were born into the Church God planned for you to be born into". I suppose one can sit tight, keep churchgoing and hope God chose you the right one...until it occurs to you..."If you change churches, that was God's plan for you, too". I can already feel panic, and it's not even me.

[Data]

As an observant Jew, Jesus would not have pronounced God's "name" at all.

Yes he would have. It was about the time of Jesus that the Scribes began to have a superstitious fear of the name, fearing it would be abused by the common people. (Jeremiah 23:27)

Observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce יהוה‎ nor do they read aloud proposed transcription forms such as Yahweh; instead they replace it with a different term, whether in addressing or referring to the God of Israel.

Some of them. Since about the time of the Septuagint.

That is the whole point of the 'Tetragrammaton,' to avoid using a name for God, hence the four letters, in English, "YHWH."

No, in Hebrew YHWH. In English JHVH. The ancient Hebrew written language didn't have vowels, they simply pronounced the vowels as needed. All names are translated, not transliterated. So though no one knows (and it isn't terribly relevant) what those vowels were, the Hebrew Yahweh is the English Jehovah. Here are 70 translations in other languages. Some insist that the Hebrew is more accurate, it isn't, and some pronounce Yahweh while translating other names, Joshua, Jeremiah, into the English. It's silliness.

God's "name" is too holy to be spoken aloud.
According to the Gospels Jesus used the word "Abba"* or "Father" as in "Our Heavenly Father," from the "Lord's Prayer."

Jesus, in the temple, read aloud from the Septuagint. The early Christians, disciples, apostles, read the Septuagint which included the name. In Journal of Biblical Literature, George Howard of the University of Georgia wrote: “We know for a fact that Greek-speaking Jews continued to write יהוה within their Greek Scriptures. Moreover, it is most unlikely that early conservative Greek-speaking Jewish Christians varied from this practice. Although in secondary references to God they probably used the words [God] and [Lord], it would have been extremely unusual for them to have dismissed the Tetragram from the biblical text itself. . . . Since the Tetragram was still written in the copies of the Greek Bible which made up the Scriptures of the early church, it is reasonable to believe that the N[ew] T[estament] writers, when quoting from Scripture, preserved the Tetragram within the biblical text. . . . But when it was removed from the Greek O[ld] T[estament], it was also removed from the quotations of the O[ld] T[estament] in the N[ew] T[estament]. Thus somewhere around the beginning of the second century the use of surrogates [substitutes] must have crowded out the Tetragram in both Testaments.”—Vol. 96, No. 1, March 1977, pp. 76, 77.

Matthew, according to Jerome, first wrote his gospel in Hebrew. The name appears 11 times and there isn't any reason to believe Matthew left it out.

The blasphemy and frankly stupidity of giving God a name at all denotes ignorance of the meaning of the passage where Moses talks to God in the form of a burning bush. Moses specifically asks God his name. "God" tells him he has no name, that he is what he is, "I am that I am..." or in Popeye's perhaps more accurate version, "I am what I am," sometimes heard in its vegetative version, "I Yam what I Yam."

It's a self designation. He would prove what he would prove to be to Israel. It wasn't that he didn't have a name, it's that it was more important for them to be introduced to what was behind the name.

[TRANSPONDER]

Gotta say I'm impressed. After your confused and illogical posts this is good stuff. I'm at least more open now to the idea that Jews may have done their scripture in Greek and even used the Septuagint and the use of Hebrew as anything but a liturgical language came later,after the Jewish wars as the construction of the Mazoretic texts. I'd like to know what Hebrew scholars think about that rather than the opinion of Church fathers.

And of course how offended they might be by using the name of Jehovah.