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Has WT Tried to Control its Past?
by leavingwt 34 Replies latest jw friends
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Joshinaz
How many times has the WBTS omitted sentences, paragrahs, or even pages of their teachings? Or has changed the printed theme of "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" to Millions Now Living May Never Die? Sounds like their controlling the past for the rookie dubbies to me.
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diamondiiz
Absolutely. How many of us knew of Russell's chronology and his weird teachings? What of Rutherford? What about the organ transplants being banned and many crazy medical ideas found in pages of Golden Age? Who today knows the full story of 1975? Anything that is too embarrassing to wts is swept under the rug. They may mention some events in an innocent like manner but the whole scope of the events never appears for today's followers. Even the UN affiliation and the pedophile lawsuits aren't known by today's followers and these events are very recent.
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Crisis of Conscience
Joshinaz - How many times has the WBTS omitted sentences, paragrahs, or even pages of their teachings? Or has changed the printed theme of "Millions Now Living Will Never Die" to Millions Now Living May Never Die? Sounds like their controlling the past for the rookie dubbies to me.
I believe yknot posted some pictures about the 1989 articles mentioned in the thread below but I couldn't find it. Anyway, this could be a helpful example.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/186192/1/Changing-WT-wording
CoC
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cabasilas
One of our own here at JWN put together this article showing how the Watchtower Society has idealized its portrayal of 1914 in its publications:
http://www.archive.org/details/HistoricalIdealismAndJehovahsWitnesses
Fully documented. One of the best treatments on the subject, IMO.
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leavingwt
The 1975 issue is a great example, IMHO.
If you walk up to a JW and ask them about it, they'll say that "the Society never said that", etc.
However, we all KNOW that JWs ONLY believe what the WT tells them to believe. They're forbidden to have religious ideas that don't originate with Mother.
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blondie
Edits of the Studies in Scriptures and other WTS publications
http://www.spotlightministries.org.uk/changedhistory.htm
Quotations that speak for themselves:
"That the deliverance of the saints must take place some time before 1914 is manifest...Just how long before 1914 the last living members of the body of Christ will be glorified, we are not directly informed;" (Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 3, p. 228).
"That the deliverance of the saints must take place very soon after 1914 is manifest... Just how long after 1914 the last living members of the body of Christ will be glorified, we are not directly informed;" (Ibid., 1923 ed.)
"This calculation shows A.D. 1874 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years B.C. plus 1874 years A.D. equals 3416 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1874 was the chronological beginning of the time of trouble..." (Studies in the Scriptures, Vol. 3, p. 342, 1889 ed.)
"This calculation shows A.D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years B.C. plus 1915 years A.D. equals 3457 years. Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble..." (Ibid., 1905 ed.)
"Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and the church members by millions..." (The Finished Mystery, 1917 ed.).
"Also, in the year 1918, when God begins to destroys the churches and the church members by millions..." (Ibid., 1926 ed.)
These are some of the writings foundational to Watchtower history, but what of more recent examples?:
"Also, as reported back in 1960, a former United States Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, declared that our time is "a period of unequaled instability, unequaled violence." And he warned: "I know enough of what is going on to assure you that, in fifteen years from today, this world is going to be too dangerous to live in." (The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, p.9. [as published prior to 1975]).
"Also, as reported back in 1960, a former United States Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, declared that our time is "a period of unequaled instability, unequaled violence." Based on what he knew was then going on in the world, it was his conclusion that soon "this world is going to be too dangerous to live in." (The Truth that Leads to Eternal Life, p.9. [as published after to 1975]).
Note that this was changed after the significant Watchtower date of 1975, which was strongly hinted to be the date for the beginning of the millennium reign of Christ, failed to materialised.
"The apostle Paul was spearheading the Christian missionary activity. He was also laying a foundation for a work that would be completed in our 20th century." (w89 1/1 12 "The Hand of Jehovah Was With Them" [as originally published in the Watchtower magazine]).
"The apostle Paul was spearheading the Christian missionary activity. He was also laying a foundation for a work that would be completed in our day." (w89 1/1 12 "The Hand of Jehovah Was With Them" [as it appears in Watchtower bound volumes & CD-ROMs])
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TD
....we have never attempted to control our past.
As a group, Jehovah's Witnesses are completely blind to the incongruities between what was actually taught in the 19th and early 20th century and what the Society today claims was taught.
Therefore they aren't usually very good judges of whether past history has been manipulated. There are many examples of this in the modern literature of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Describing Russell's view of the Parousia in the future tense is one of the most common:
"So Jehovah's people of the 19th century correctly understood that the pa-rou-si'a of Christ would be an invisible one." (The Watchtower May 1, 1993 p. 11 emphasis mine)
However C. T. Russell by his own testimony was convinced by N. H. Barbour in 1876 that Christ's invisible presence was already underway and had been since 1874. Therefore he would have looked upon the start of the Parousia as a past, rather than a future event.
This is a clear example of attempting to control the past through a misleading use of the future tense and it is rampant in JW literture. It deliberately draws attention away from the fact that Russell was one of many in the 1800's erroneously proclaiming the return of Christ.
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Elder-Patrol
I have been in dozens of Kingdom Halls in and around Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere. Many of their libraries have WT publications which are nearly and more than a century old, and all of that is freely available to read there and photocopy. No effort is made to hide this information.
The vast majority of JWs know that those older publications include obsolete phrases, illustrations, and yes understandings.
My college textbooks (yes, I still have many of them) also include obsolete phrases, illustrations, and understandings. If I were to go to a professional conference today paraphrasing those books, my patient colleagues would likely say well that's not exactly wrong but there are good reasons we now explain it this way instead...
Over 131 years, the number of JW doctrinal changes has been in the dozens, not the hundreds. Published expectations have been carefully worded; they weren't "expiration dates".
For example, Macmillan wrote that on October 1, 1914, he was good-naturedly teased and laughed at by WT staff for having said at a recent convention, “This is probably the last public address I shall ever deliver because we shall be going home soon [to heaven].” Macmillan himself wrote about giving a talk on October 7, 1914, "In that talk I tried to show the friends that perhaps some of us had been a bit too hasty in thinking that we were going to heaven right away, and the thing for us to do would be to keep busy in the Lord’s service until he determined when any of his approved servants would be taken home to heaven."
That sentiment wasn't revisionist history written in 1980; he spoke those words October 7, 1914 when several weeks remained in October 1914. -
TD
The issue at stake is not the existence of obsolete phrases, illustrations and understandings in older literature, but the extent to which that doctrinal development is acknowledged today.
Here's a typical example:
"Why then, do the nations not realize and accept the approach of this climax of judgment? It is because they have not heeded the world-wide advertising of Christ's return and his second presence. Since long before World War I Jehovah's witnesses pointed to 1914 as the time for this great event to occur." (The Watchtower June 15, 1954 p. 370)
Were the Bible Students "long before World War I" actually pointing to 1914 as the time for "Christ's return" and his "second presence?"
How is that possible given the fact that the 1874 date for Christ's return and second presence was not discarded until the mid 1930's?
"We would like to correct this misapprehension once for all, by stating that we do not expect Jesus to come this year, nor any other year, for we believe that all time prophecies (bearing upon Jesus' coming) ended at and before the fall of 1874, and that He came there, and the second advent is now in progress and will continue during the entire Millennial age." (Zion's Watch Tower May 1881 p. 5)
