To address why the Society hasn't provided the pre-1950 literature on CD-ROM...to suggest that it's because they're sooooo busy maintaining the current stuff is nonsense. How else do you think the Proclaimers book got written? Maybe that took a lot of work and compiling stuff, but they did it, didn't they? Others have found it simple enough to put together the sum total of many years of Watchtower literature. Just search on archive.org. They could do it if they wanted to. Wouldn't be easy, but if they could do 60 years' worth of Watchtowers on CD-ROM, then they can do another 73 years. Size would be an issue, but even a computer from four or five years ago could handle a gigabyte of data without breaking a sweat. A gigabyte (and more) can fit in the palm of your hand and be bought on a flash drive for maybe $20 at most. So size doesn't present that much of an obstacle.
Having read quite a few full articles from the old days, well, they were extremely long, so selective quoting is about the only way to get a point across without boring somebody to tears with stuff that's not relevant to the point. But I find it rare indeed to see someone who dissents with the Society quote a statement out of its context. Even the post-1950 literature is riddled with contradiction and bizarre statements, so such misquoting would hardly be necessary. I've spent enough time on the CD-ROM to know that without any doubts at all.
I think it is clear, as others have said here, that the Society is, in its own way, attempting to provide JWs with a response to those who disagree with their teachings or say that they lie about their history. I don't think their argumentation or openness is going to magically improve, but it might be enough to keep people from asking questions that would, before series like this and the 607 articles, have proved challenging to answer. It does the thinking for you, so you don't worry about it.
Also, nobody reads the stuff in the KH library--who has time? And I don't doubt they'd be regarded at least with suspicion for doing so.
The other thing here is, quite a few of those old publications were specifically mentioned as fulfillments of prophecies from Revelation. That being said, it's peculiar that those books aren't being studied anymore at meetings. There's a reason why--they were filled with error.
The fact that the Society is distorting that is pretty well indicated from this January 15th, 2012 issue, page 8:
page 8: "Does it not reassure you to know that like the apostles and older men of the first century, those faithful men, our 'spiritual ancestors' of the late 1800's, were determined to align their beliefs solidly with God's Word?"
Determined as they were, they reached an awful lot of bizarre, unscriptural conclusions. But note the positive light they're presented in. That, given what the old literature actually says, is a distortion of reality to any objective mind.
--sd-7
