by snowbird 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The Aid to Bible Understanding encyclopedia was mostly written by Ray Franz. Were the Insight volumes written to supplant his work? If that is the case, how spiteful and petty can an organization become?
I remember reading the Aid book through from Aaron to Zuzim and thoroughly enjoying it. Anyone else with similar memories?
Snowbird
I don't remember the AID book being used at all when I was growing up, just the insight books. I think a lot of what he wrote was considered too obtuse for the average JW or simply too out there and embarassing which is why they redid the book.
I think when Ray Franz wrote the Aid book, he discovered that the date of 607 could not be supported. He wrote it the way they wanted it written, but he wrote about it in CoC later. I am sure they couldn't let anything like that remain. They had to distance themselves from anything related to Franz or his book.
You did good if you read the Aid book from cover to cover. I wanted too, but just couldn't make it through. Never made it very far in the Insight books either. They seemed to be more dressed up and like standard encyclopedias to me. At the same time, they seemed less well written. I guess they were dumbed down with the rest of the literature.
i recently tried to read the insight book, i got side tracked, i need to read it through though
The Insight Book was a dumbed down version of the Aid book. The Watchtower seems to be simplifying all their books. The last book for new Bible studies is incredibly simple, just listing doctrine with very little effort to justify an of the beliefs or to discuss any alternate viewpoints. Very much a "you will believe this or else" attitude
I've read both AID book and the Insight volumes from cover to cover (nerd alert: I read the encyclopedia from A to about P or so as a kid). In fact, I have written all over the top edge of the Aid book that the Insight book a reminder to myself that this was replaced by the Insight book and to only use it to compare new and old and replace outdated references in outlines...
How anal was that? I was a do-gooder MS ...I studied the Insight book extensively a few years ago... enjoyed it at the time, especially the chronology portion...
looking back...neither publication is the scholarly book the dubs make it out to be... the research is biased and the sources are all pro-dub researchers....(but then so are most newspapers and many mainstream media mags...time, newsweek, us news...etc...all have their editorial bent/slant....
both are crap.... still in my bookcase....not sure why I keep any of it....just cant let it go quite yet...
SnakesInTheTower (of the "not so scholarly" Sheep Class)
Sankes/Snakes said,
looking back...neither publication is the scholarly book the dubs make it out to be... the research is biased and the sources are all pro-dub researchers....(but then so are most newspapers and many mainstream media mags...time, newsweek, us news...etc...all have their editorial bent/slant....
both are crap.... still in my bookcase....not sure why I keep any of it....just cant let it go quite yet...
Now that's what I'm talking 'bout. This is one of the reasons I've come to this forum for the past seven years. It's a tell-it-like-is, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may place. And the cost is much, much less than psychotherapy.
Snowbird
both are crap.... still in my bookcase....not sure why I keep any of it....just cant let it go quite yet...
Ditto
I know some ex-jws that still hang on to their aid book because Ray had a part in writing it, but I can have never seem to figure out the logic. Watchtower material is still Watchtower material no matter which way you slice it.
I spent well over 50 years "studying" their lies (used to call it studying but can you STUDY fiction?).
Time is too valuable to spend it reading such utter fiction. Last year I dumped 50 years worth of accumulated garbage.
I should have labeled it
"TOXIC RUBBISH. TOO DANGEROUS TO RECYLCE. INCINERATE ONLY".
This toxic rubbish has cost people their friends, families and even their lives and all to no avail.
The WTS is in the top 50 largest business in New York. (Itself a centre for the world’s largest and most prosperous businesses). It’s a massive publishing business. It masquerades as a religion so as to attract a large unpaid workforce to give their time and their lives to further the amassing of DOLLARS for what must be one of the most unethical businesses of the last two centuries.
Most businesses provide some benefit to their customer in exchange for a payment. (Even smokers would argue that the tobacco companies provide some benefit s to them even if it ultimately shortens their life).
This business not only fails to provide ANY kind of benefit but actively damages those who buy into its fairy tales.
Its appeal is to the very worst of human failings namely, FEAR and GREED.
Its sales pitch appeals to a desire of something for nothing.
"WHAT, LIVE FOREVER WITH EVERYTHING I’D EVER WANTED? ALL I NEED DO IS GO TO A FEW MEETING EVERY WEEK AND SPREAD THE WORD. I’VE TRIED A FEW NETWORK MARKETING SCAMS BEFORE BUT THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. SIGN ME UP"
Over time you begin to realize that you been lied to and deceived, hook, line and sinker. But what keeps you perpetrating the deception? FEAR. Fear of losing the very things that GREED got you to believing in the first place, just in case by the remotest chance it might be true and you lose it all at the last moment.
Also FEAR of losing the huge investment that you’ve made in this business over many years. An investment that has never paid out and never will because it’s based on lies, deception and dishonesty of the worst kind. It pays absolutely no regard to the damage it does to its followers or the number of those that suffer severe consequences for supporting it all their life.
We were just "gun-fodder", expendable resources in their pursuit of DOLLARS.
Your suspicions are correct. When Ray Franz was declared an "apostate", they realized that their
greatest work on Bible scholarship was written by an infidel. So, they quickly changed that.
metatron
