Lobber wrote:They have been read and analyzed and meditated up by many bible scholars and wise men who have found the truth that the bible speaks.
There are many who have read and analyzed and meditated upon the Bible, and many who are called "scholars", but few who are wise, and few who are trustworthy. Many have come to your conclusions, but many many more have come to different conclusions than what your scholars have come to. How do you suppose we should determine whose scholarship to trust?
The standard by which I measure is a simple one:
does it make sense? This takes many forms:
- does this idea about what a verse means make sense as it compares to those verses immediately preceding and following it? (Replace the verse with your paraphrased idea, and re-read the passage. Does it fit?)
- does this interpretation make sense as something the people this was written to would understand? (For example, would God be teaching 20th century BC shepherds about the makeup up the atom? Would He teach them about how people are like sheep?)
- does this teaching make sense as it relates to other teachings in the Bible? (In particular, how does it compare to major teachings about Law, grace, redemption, etc.?)
- does this teaching make sense as it relates to outside sources (the physical world, direct revelation, etc.)?
Applying those standards, I can come to no other conclusion than that the JW position on this point is a misreading of scripture. Ignoring the entire *concept* of a blood covenant, ignoring teachings on cleanliness depending on what goes out of the body rather than on what comes in, and drawing an analogy from eating blood to recieving blood through a medical procedure... these are not good methods of interpretation. The teaching "no blood transfusions" simply doesn't make sense. The teaching relies on strange methods of interpretation, and it is incorrect.
How would I know what is twisted and what is straight? Examine my life, and see if you think I live as one who knows the Lord or not.
