Why was Gilead originally made into a Bombshelter!!!!

by Witness 007 20 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  Witness 007

  Rutherford's book "Enemies" 1937: "Will great Britain and America become Fascist under Catholic control? The Scriptures and the facts support that conclusion." Where do you hide the Bethel family from Fascist Catholics?

  Watch 82 8/15 p.10 "...as a precuation for the saftey of the Bethel family, a place of refuge was built in South Lansing, New York....it was never needed for that purpose...later transformed into Gilead missionary school."

  Watch 81 12/15 p.28 "Rutherford believed that intense persecution against the Witnesses might require them to leave Headquarters. Thus he built a building in upstate New York, that could be used to house the Bethel family."

  The area if you've seen the photo is isolated and has it's own orchard for food. Good hiding place for the great tribulation.

  Nathan Knorr new this was crazy, so after Rutherford died, he gave the convention talk, Peace- can it last? "This War is not the battle of Jehovah...a careful review tells us that a period of peace will follow." There was much rejoicing and relief! In Feb 1st 1943 the first Gilead missonaries began training at the bombshelter at South Lansing.
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  cabasilas

  Is there more on this? Any pictures from that time of the original building as a bomb shelter? Or references to it in Consolation or some other publication? This is fascinating stuff!
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  cabasilas

  I did find this in a booklet on the history of Kingdom Farm:

  http://www.theocraticlibrary.com/downloads/Kingdom_Farm_and_Gilead_School.pdf

  On pp. 6-7 a 40,000 sq ft brick building was built and dedicated by Rutherford on June 1, 1941.

  I checked the 1941 WT and did not find any references to the building. Perhaps in Consolation?
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  Witness 007

  Thanks Cabasilas! The interesting parts of the book state page 12. "...It's original purpose was to supply food in time of emergency for Jehovah's Witnesses in full-time activity." {Yeah right! The book claims it was checked by Bethel, it's no doubt been censored.}

  Page 14 is interesting : "...On flag day June 14 1940 a mob came to Kingdom farm to destroy it....two of them became Witnesses."

  Two weeks after Rutherford's dedication a mob nearly destroys the place...wow, paranoia must have been high back then.

  Great photo's too...thanks.
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  cabasilas

  This fits in with the story of Beth Shan (next to Beth Sarim) that was built about the same time as a place of security. See:

  http://www.premier1.net/~raines/bethshan.html

  Apparently, there were great concerns for the safety of JWs.

  Does anyone have the Consolations for 1941? Any of them mention the building at Kingdom Farm in 1941?
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  Leolaia

  That's right, Rutherford had kept up a steady drumbeat of Armageddon right around the corner just months ahead ever since the mid-1930s, and especially since the war started which was explicitly described as leading to Armageddon (see the "Demon Rule Ending" series of articles in 1941). All of that talk suddenly ceased in 1942. For the next few years, it is very hard to find explicit statements about Armageddon lying just ahead. Rather, Knorr claimed that first the war must end and then some post-war peacetime organization established that will then declare peace and THEN the end would come. That implied that as long as the war continued, the end would not yet come. Knorr however was not as accurate about the post-war world as the Society now makes him out to be. He was quite clear that Armageddon would happen early in the post-war period before much else happens.
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  cabasilas

  Page 12 of the history of the Gilead booklet linked above says the Gilead building built in 1940 (41?) had 59 rooms. That could have housed the nucleus of the Bethel family.
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  Witness 007

  I didn't know they had their own water supply and plenty of food....a perfect place to hide but no guns!
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  cabasilas

  The 1938 Yearbook (page 10) says the Bethel family was "nearly 200." So the 59 rooms in the Gilead building could hold nearly 180 people if they put 3 to a room. Under emergency conditions, it could have held the entire Bethel family. This is interesting. I wonder if there any news reports of the building in the local papers back then?
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  Atlantis

  Here is an earlier post on this subject!

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/105877/1.ashx

  Cheers! Atlantis-