I agree with Cygnus,
A spirited defense worthy of a good read.
He does unfortunately fall into a similar trap that WTS researchers do, and that is that he often ignores the evidence of the majority opinion of scholars and dwells on the ‘quotable’ of minority opinions, without acknowledging this to the reader.
For example he quotes C19th author Bullfinch in his defense of the literal number of the ‘144,000’ as described in the Revelation. Bullfinch is entirely in the minority over this issue, and apart from those theologically attached to ‘end-times’ hope, very few experts alive today, or his contemporaries, would agree with this view.
An interesting recent faux-pas made by WTS Writing was contained in the recent ‘Daniel’ book, when evidence was presented to bolster this chronology. A quotation in support of WTS chronology was used from the book by John Walvoord - ‘Armaggedon, Oil And The Middle East Crisis’. I was amazed to see this in the book, as Valvoord is an amateur prophet who is even outclassed by YK, and his interpretations of current events which culminate in a rapture for the faithful while the earth is pounded to pieces by God, are plainly unhinged. When I bought this to the attention of an acquaintance in Writing, his eyes swung heavenward as if to say, ‘Oh God! We have done it again’.
The moral of the tale is, if you want to prove something enough, there is always something written by somebody to help you. Flat earth, no problem. Barbara Streisand is an alien, look it up. The apostle Paul was a cigar salesman…you get my drift.
Another failing of the WTS researcher is to appeal to outdated information. An example of this is in his defense of the ‘607’ chronology in which he quotes an Assyrian researcher who wrote in 1956. The past 45 years, much has been achieved in the way of research in this field and though not an exact science as yet, the weight of evidence seems to clearly undermine the ‘607’ theology of the WTS.
That having been said, at least the person involved has offered some sort of evidence for his beliefs rather than take the usual JW stance of ‘We have the Truth whatever you might say’, and I salute him for that. He has certainly done more research to defend his views than many of us have that oppose them.
Best regards - HS
