Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Biblical Brawl

I had a conversation about the Bible with a Jehovah's Witness. He is a man that lives in my neighborhood, and I am a friend of his daughthers who are not Jehovah's Witnesses, something he is not happy with. So, as we started the conversation, he wasn't happy with me from the beginning, as one could imagine since he is very passionate for his religion, and thinks that everyone else should be as well. And I wasn't there to talk about his religion. I was there to discuss, the Bible. And I told him that. So, our conversation continues on vigorously. He told me that the Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible was the most accurate version of the Bible. I didn't laugh, or sneer, or even scoff at him. I simply asked him who wrote it? He could only reply that 100% of the Bible is inspired by God. By that being his only reply, it was obvious he had not read the Bible, even the Jehovah's Witness Bible, and I having read at least through Psalms, wanted to ask a few more questions.
"Are you familiar with the first book of the Bible about creation?", I proceed to ask him.
"Well, every Bible is a little different", he quickly shoots back. I am not looking to get in an argument at this point, I just want to see if he's read any Bible, or just the type, as we say in class, that claims to read the Bible, but never does.
So, I calmly ask, "Oh you know the story of Adam and Eve, and when God creates the Earth, what's the name of that Book in the Bible?"
I'm obviously playing dumb to make him more comfortable to answer, a bit satan like of me don't you think? :)
He just looks at me strange and replies, "We talked about that story all the time at my old Kingdom Hall I used to go to in Chicago." (Kingdom Hall is the Jehovah's Witness Church. I wasn't aware of this either.)
"It's called the Book of Genesis in the Bible" I inform to him.
He mocks me and says, "Well, The New World Translation of the Bible may be different and is more accurate."
I ask to see his Bible. He shows me it and I turn to the first Book. The Book of Genesis appears before me, and throughout the Book the scriptures are a little different a re-worded but nonetheless, the meaning is there. I show him his Bible, and I show him mine. I think he is a little astonished at this point.
"They're both here, pretty cool huh?" I tell him.

I think I learned from my discussion with him that he may have learned a lot about his religion by going to his Church and listening, but he never got the full meaning of the Bible by reading it for himself. He didn't even know the name of the first Book, or even that the story of Genesis was he opening to the Bible, even the opening to his Bible. It makes me want to finish the Bible even that much more so I can take into the account the meaning of the Books of the Bible for myself, instead of leaving it up to someone else to interpret them for me.

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