New Books and Brochures available on Media Website

by Caminante 6 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Caminante

  A brother brought to my attention that there are certain publications (books and brochures) available on JW Media in PDF format, both English and Russian, on the "Banned Publications" list. As it was previously the case, i.e. the first time publications were downloadable (before there was a public Books and Brochures section on JW.org), these files have only text, no images whatsoever, to keep file size as small as possible. Take into the account that certain publications typeset before 1998 are not searchable, because the text is rendered as bitmaps, and not as PostScript type.

  The following publications are available on JW Media (links are to the English versions. For the Russian version, use the Copy Link/Shortcut feature, and when pasting the address in a new tab, replace "_e" by "_u" in the name of the PDF file.)

  “Come Be My Follower” (PDF, 868 KB)
  Draw Close to Jehovah (PDF, 1.30 MB)
  The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived (PDF, 18.9 MB, not searchable)
  Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? (PDF, 25.2 MB, not searchable)
  Mankind’s Search for God (PDF, 46.6 MB, not searchable)
  My Book of Bible Stories (PDF, 12 MB, not searchable)
  Pay Attention to Daniel’s Prophecy! (PDF, 1.35 MB)
  Questions Young People Ask—Answers That Work, Volume 1 (PDF, 36.4 MB, not searchable)
  Questions Young People Ask—Answers That Work, Volume 2 (PDF, 1.71 MB)
  Revelation—Its Grand Climax At Hand! (revised edition, PDF, 2.38 MB)
  What Does the Bible Really Teach? (PDF, 784 KB)
  A Book for All People (PDF, 7.83 MB, not searchable)
  Jehovah’s Witnesses—Who Are They? What Do They Believe? (PDF, 270 KB)
  Spirits of the Dead—Can They Help You or Harm You? Do They Really Exist? (PDF, 2.66 MB, not searchable)
  What Is the Purpose of Life—How Can You Find It? (PDF, 7.10 MB, not searchable)
  You Can Be God’s Friend! (PDF, 422 KB)

  Besides these, you can find some excerpts from certain issues of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines.

  Enjoy.

  Dorel Caminante
• 

  Mad Sweeney

  Thanks for the links. Specifically, which ones are banned in Russia?
• 

  Caminante

  All of these. Reportedly there's an official list of 34 publications. But recently the European Court of Human Right stated their final decision in favor of the Witnesses, saying that the ban was completely illegal. So the Russian government will have to implement the measures needed to reassure the Witnesses' freedom to organize Christian meetings and perform the public ministry without any hindrance.
• 

  Yan Bibiyan

  I find the WTs' quoted commentaries next to each publication fascinating! Is it just me? WT is practically telling on itself why certain passages were found offensive by the russian courts. Does not seem far at all that someone will actually read commentaries and ask themselfs the same questions...

  From the WT Site below:

  JUDGE FOR YOURSELF

  Why were these publications declared extremist?

  On December 8, 2009, the publications listed below were declared to be “extremist materials” by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Below are statements found in the publications and comments made about them, including the expert conclusions declaring them extremist.—“Expert Conclusions of the Composite Judicial Expert Study Carried Out by a Commission” dated July 15, 2009, Rostov-on-Don; experts: T.N. Kasyanyuk (linguist), S.S. Shipshin (psychologist), and S.N. Astapov (religious expert).

  We present the experts’ findings without comment, translated from Russian.

  The book What Does the Bible Really Teach?

  Quotation: “Some religions teach that if a person lives a bad life, after death he will go to a place of fiery torment to suffer forever. This teaching dishonors God.” (Page 64) “Because of the connections that Christmas has with false religion, however, those who want to please God do not celebrate it or any other holiday that has its roots in pagan worship.”—Pages 158, 159.

  Religious studies expert: “The fundamental idea of this book is the statement that Jehovah’s Witnesses are the ones whose lives are in harmony with the Bible’s commands; their religion is considered to be the true religion. A number of statements show the negative attitude of Jehovah’s Witnesses toward various features of traditional Christianity.”—Page 12 of the Expert Study (Russian).

  Expert linguist: “The reader derives the following negative information from the text: all religions except the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses understand the Bible incorrectly; their teachings are false and do not correspond to Bible truths; consequently they explain the Word of God and Bible truth incorrectly to people, and the clergymen and theologians of such religions deceive people and lie to them.”—Page 40 of the Expert Study (Russian).

  Expert psychologist: “Traditional Christianity is viewed as a false religion.”—Pages 81 and 82 of the Expert Study (Russian).

  C'mon, the assessments above are DEAD ON. Is the WT saying that any of the above quotes (and the rest of the quotes pretty much in the same spirit) are false?
• 

  fokyc

  So many blank pages!

  Where are the pictures in these downloads?

  Do they have something to hide?
• 

  Mythbuster

  It's a clever way to get banned material into Russia. All a Russian Witness needs to do is download and distribute the PDF.
• 

  agonus

  This whole thing does seem very odd.

  However, I don't think we can conclude "the apostates have taken over" until the Child Custody Packet and other classified materials are posted on jwmedia so outsiders can truly "judge for themselves".

  But yes, it almost seems like somebody is... I don't know, playing mind games or something.

  Strange.