This was shared in a Whatsapp group and there were some things shared I found questionable - not about the translation issue but other things
I am including transcript to easily refer to and keep the thread somewhat organized.
00:00 Michael let's take John 8:58 in the New
00:03 World Translation one of the more
00:05 infamous renderings of the Jehovah's
00:08 Witnesses so the Greek would either be
00:12 rendered before Abraham was I am or I am
00:15 he Jehovah's Witnesses come up with a
00:18 new non-existent verbal form in Greek or
00:21 they identify grammatically so that
00:24 never existed at least they did decades
00:25 ago when I interact it with them
00:27 give me an another example of something
00:30 in New World Translation that's just
00:32 I've been really bad just inexcusable
00:35 well III think one of the things they're
00:39 basically two things I I tend to do if I
00:42 have the time when a Jehovah's Witness
00:43 you know comes to my house or whatever
00:45 and one is we want to go to John one
00:48 okay because they want to say that in
00:50 the beginning was the word the Word was
00:51 a god yeah they want to make it
00:54 indefinite let's take a look at every
00:56 place where that that term occurs in
00:59 John one and translate all of them a God
01:03 and it just doesn't work it sounds
01:06 ridiculous and it even becomes offensive
01:09 to their own theology because there are
01:11 places in John 1 where the God of Israel
01:13 is just a God so it's a nice quick way
01:17 of illustrating to them that what you're
01:19 trying to do in this one verse to strip
01:21 away the deity of Jesus if we want to
01:25 really be consistent here you're gonna
01:27 find out that that just doesn't help
01:30 your theology a whole lot either you
01:32 know through the rest of the passage so
01:34 why are you inconsistent it looks to me
01:36 like you're angling to get rid of the
01:39 deity of this one character this one
01:42 figure and not the other but it's not
01:44 consistent not since I kind of again
01:46 show them something like that yeah and
01:49 and sometimes it can be unsettling if
01:51 they're willing to thank just take a
01:53 look at it cuz there there are no good
01:55 answers that yo the last the last time
01:59 one came to my house I the first
02:02 question I asked was the person was is
02:04 the God of Israel an angel and of course
02:08 no no no you know angels are created
02:10 beings you know you know no way so then
02:13 I went to Jenna
02:13 forty-eight 15 and 16 uh-huh you know
02:18 yeah yeah yeah when Jacob Jacob was
02:21 blessing you know the children of Joseph
02:23 and he says you know may the God you
02:28 know the and it's hot Elohim you know in
02:31 in in the text so they can't really deny
02:34 that this is the God of Israel but
02:35 there's three stanzas to this he says
02:39 you know God before whom my father's
02:42 Abraham and Isaac walked and made the
02:45 God which fed me all my life long to
02:48 this day and the third stanza is the
02:50 angel who redeemed me from all evil and
02:53 then then here comes the verb blessed
02:56 these boys the verb is singular yep so
03:00 if the writer wanted to make a
03:01 distinction between the God of Israel
03:03 and this particular angel he would have
03:05 used a plural but he doesn't uses a
03:08 singular which fuses them together so
03:10 tell me again is the god of a God of
03:13 Israel an angel you know and the look on
03:16 their face is like well I never saw that
03:19 one before
03:20 you know that kind of thing and then I
03:21 use that to say well I agree the God of
03:23 Israel is not an angel but this
03:26 particular angel happens to be God mmm
03:29 this is this is Yahweh an embodied form
03:31 and that's gonna work itself on into the
03:33 New Testament into the Incarnation and
03:36 then we start looking at other passages
03:37 about where the language used of this
03:40 particular angel in the Old Testament is
03:41 also picked up by New Testament writers
03:44 and attributed to Jesus yeah so it you
03:47 know I try to get them to do the math
03:49 you know to connect the dots and but
03:53 it's an unusual starting point for them
03:55 because they're so insisted on this one
03:57 point and it traps them real quickly and
04:00 allows you to steer the discussion so
04:03 that's just a point of advice there yeah
04:05 because normally they they know the
04:07 standard Christian answers the standard
04:09 Christian questions and in which you
04:11 want to get them to do is think
I am including transcript to easily refer to and keep the thread somewhat organized.
00:00 Michael let's take John 8:58 in the New
00:03 World Translation one of the more
00:05 infamous renderings of the Jehovah's
00:08 Witnesses so the Greek would either be
00:12 rendered before Abraham was I am or I am
00:15 he Jehovah's Witnesses come up with a
00:18 new non-existent verbal form in Greek or
00:21 they identify grammatically so that
00:24 never existed at least they did decades
00:25 ago when I interact it with them
00:27 give me an another example of something
00:30 in New World Translation that's just
00:32 I've been really bad just inexcusable
00:35 well III think one of the things they're
00:39 basically two things I I tend to do if I
00:42 have the time when a Jehovah's Witness
00:43 you know comes to my house or whatever
00:45 and one is we want to go to John one
00:48 okay because they want to say that in
00:50 the beginning was the word the Word was
00:51 a god yeah they want to make it
00:54 indefinite let's take a look at every
00:56 place where that that term occurs in
00:59 John one and translate all of them a God
01:03 and it just doesn't work it sounds
01:06 ridiculous and it even becomes offensive
01:09 to their own theology because there are
01:11 places in John 1 where the God of Israel
01:13 is just a God so it's a nice quick way
01:17 of illustrating to them that what you're
01:19 trying to do in this one verse to strip
01:21 away the deity of Jesus if we want to
01:25 really be consistent here you're gonna
01:27 find out that that just doesn't help
01:30 your theology a whole lot either you
01:32 know through the rest of the passage so
01:34 why are you inconsistent it looks to me
01:36 like you're angling to get rid of the
01:39 deity of this one character this one
01:42 figure and not the other but it's not
01:44 consistent not since I kind of again
01:46 show them something like that yeah and
01:49 and sometimes it can be unsettling if
01:51 they're willing to thank just take a
01:53 look at it cuz there there are no good
01:55 answers that yo the last the last time
01:59 one came to my house I the first
02:02 question I asked was the person was is
02:04 the God of Israel an angel and of course
02:08 no no no you know angels are created
02:10 beings you know you know no way so then
02:13 I went to Jenna
02:13 forty-eight 15 and 16 uh-huh you know
02:18 yeah yeah yeah when Jacob Jacob was
02:21 blessing you know the children of Joseph
02:23 and he says you know may the God you
02:28 know the and it's hot Elohim you know in
02:31 in in the text so they can't really deny
02:34 that this is the God of Israel but
02:35 there's three stanzas to this he says
02:39 you know God before whom my father's
02:42 Abraham and Isaac walked and made the
02:45 God which fed me all my life long to
02:48 this day and the third stanza is the
02:50 angel who redeemed me from all evil and
02:53 then then here comes the verb blessed
02:56 these boys the verb is singular yep so
03:00 if the writer wanted to make a
03:01 distinction between the God of Israel
03:03 and this particular angel he would have
03:05 used a plural but he doesn't uses a
03:08 singular which fuses them together so
03:10 tell me again is the god of a God of
03:13 Israel an angel you know and the look on
03:16 their face is like well I never saw that
03:19 one before
03:20 you know that kind of thing and then I
03:21 use that to say well I agree the God of
03:23 Israel is not an angel but this
03:26 particular angel happens to be God mmm
03:29 this is this is Yahweh an embodied form
03:31 and that's gonna work itself on into the
03:33 New Testament into the Incarnation and
03:36 then we start looking at other passages
03:37 about where the language used of this
03:40 particular angel in the Old Testament is
03:41 also picked up by New Testament writers
03:44 and attributed to Jesus yeah so it you
03:47 know I try to get them to do the math
03:49 you know to connect the dots and but
03:53 it's an unusual starting point for them
03:55 because they're so insisted on this one
03:57 point and it traps them real quickly and
04:00 allows you to steer the discussion so
04:03 that's just a point of advice there yeah
04:05 because normally they they know the
04:07 standard Christian answers the standard
04:09 Christian questions and in which you
04:11 want to get them to do is think