Why are there two Watchtowers published? The real reason

by exjehovah 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  exjehovah

  So I talked to my dear Aunt who is disfellowshipped but still has to interact with my elderly JW witness and masquerading JW Aunt (really doesn't agree with the JW doctrine, but lives with my grandmother to take care of her) and she told me that there are now two Watchtowers published, one that they use for congregation and the other for their "field service".

  Why do you suppose they are really doing that? Is it because they are trying to keep things from the public eyes? I was really surprised to hear that.
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  Witness My Fury

  2 WTs means they can speak out of both sides of their mouths.

  Careful wording in the Public edition to avoid lawsuits, but Fear and Guilt a plenty in the Study edition to keep the R&F in check. Very clever...
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  OnTheWayOut

  My opinion- it's a way to cut back on printing. The magazines were the meat-potatoes provider for WTS for years, but it's dried up. They no longer make much of a profit on magazines. The money comes from the members who pick them up at the Kingdom Hall. So a members-only mag. has to only reach 7 million people instead of twice or three times that. They hoped that the members would continue to contribute the same amount when they reduced printing.

  They further cut AWAKE in half later, down to once-a-month, for the same reason. Don't be surprised if they ditch the two magazines and combine them into one WATCHTOWER a month for offering to the public.
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  processor

  IMO the major reason is to conceal unattractive doctrines from the public.

  Brochure: "God will do away with the wicked."

  Public Watchtower: "God will do away with all people who do not obey him."

  Internal Watchtower: "God will do away with all people who do not obey the Governing Body."
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  steve2

  They said that the "new" public edition was more simply worded and going to be easier to understand than the kingdom hall edition. This will be a challenge because I thought the kingdom hall editionwas already bordering on a simpleton's grasp of language. I suppose that among the fooled and foolish it will now appear that the kingdom hall edition contains the "deeper" things of scripture. It's at times like this I wish my long-dead two sets of JW grandparents could read the simple-minded rubbish in both editions. They'd be shocked at how dumbed-down the already basic message has become. Say what you like about the older publications - they at least had a semblance of deeper learning in them. Who can forget the mightily misguided very think book that came out in the mid-1960s entitled something like, "Get Out of Her My People!" which traced the history of true and false religions from the garden of Eden to the then-present (from a biased Watchtower persepctive of course. As warped as that and other similar books were, they required careful reading and cross-checking. It's decades since the organization has published anything meaty!
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  breakfast of champions

  One of the reasons given for the bifurcation was that the study edition contained "theocratic" language that the public doesn't understand.

  Basically, that was an admission that they are a cult using "loaded" language that sets them apart from society!
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  exjehovah

  I don't think the member's realize how they are being indoctrinated with these cult techniques, which are buzz words that keep their followers blinded and following their "masters". Once I started reading up on the behaviors of cult indoctrination, it followed the practices of the JW "religion" to a T. Very interesting.
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  thetrueone

  My opinion is that the WTS. realized their old established doctrines were waning out of their validity as potential

  vehicles of alluring the publics attention. So the Public only Watchtower was devised in a watered down version

  with less of the we are living in the last days propaganda plastered over the usual JW study issue.
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  punkofnice

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvY2vTfhQOk
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  steve2

  Regardless of which edition is being read, I bet there are significantly fewer specific references to the date 1914 in both compared to the literature of say, 30 or more years ago, when study articles were always banging on about the connection between 1914 and the nearness of the end.