Hi all,
These points and related ones have been raised here before, but I think it's worthwhile to pose several questions for comment. Here goes:
Is salvation collective or individual? This one poses a dilemma for JWs. On the one hand, they compare being in the organization to riding out the flood in the Ark; on the other hand, they exploit the rank and file's insecurity and guilt by raising the dread of destruction if fails to ``live up to his/her dedication'' by lagging in field service or meetings.
If, then it's axiomatic that a baptised person can be destroyed, then the corollary would have to be that unbaptised people could be spared, i.e. salvation is individual; no?
Then too, is the question of linking salvation to literacy. The JW distortion of the meaning by the mistranslation of John 17:3, links the attainment of everlasting life to ``taking in knowledge'' in the sense of the accumulation of knowledge, presumably gained through reading.
Having spent one's life in a modern developed nation, one can easily take widespread literacy granted, and lose sight of the fact that today's average rate is historically unprecedented. It seems not to have occured to the NWT translators that by making literacy a virtual requirement for salvation, they shut off untold billions of humans throughout history including no small percentage of people living today. population.
In fact, it would be intriguing to know what the average level of literacy was in Bible times, generally and among Jew and Gentile in the time of Christ an before.
Literacy could not have been very high in ancient times; there is no mention made of schools that I can find in the Old Testament, and the fact that the people needed to gather to have the law read to them suggests literacy was comparatively scarce.
What say you?