by leaving_quietly 43 Replies latest watchtower bible
What I find interesting in this 'declaration' is that it states something that is absolutely TRUE.
That the IBSA is proclaiming erroneous teachings and under the cloak of religion.
DAMN! The third Reich got that right!
The rest of it..............a bit extreme. Kinda an exchange of one lunacy for another.
That's a TRANSLATION of the declaration the SS tried to get signed. A translation provided by the same people who brought us the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. The same people who are quite notorious for their liberal use and creative indulgence in other people's quotes.
Makes me wonder how much more benign the original document really was.
And it isn't generally known that among those counted as JWs in the camps were actually many of the old Bible Students Russelite "Standfasters") who defected when Rutherford took over control of the WTBTS.,
Irondork: the translation presented in the Proclaimers book is 100% accurate. You can find the facsimile of the original under a Wikipedia link I posted on the first page.
Even if you question the accuracy of the translation the point remains: There is no reference to God or Jehovah in it!
"Modern Christians held in Nazi concentration camps with possible death facing them were given repeated opportunities to gain their freedom by signing a declaration renouncing Jehovah." - w2013 1/15, p. 11, para. 17
So the comment in the WT study for last week was wrong in that it said those in Nazi camps were pressured to renounce their faith in God.
I posted a link in Blondie's 'Comments' thread a couple of days ago. It has a facsimile of the German original and the English translation (the same as the Proclaimers book and pretty accurate).
Here: http://www.alst.org/pages-us/primary-documents/declaration.html
Even if I agreed with the 'erroneous teachings' part, I would have felt deeply uncomfortable signing such a declaration.
Thanks AnnOMaly!
Here's the facsimile of the document in German:
http://www.alst.org/zimgs2/archives/divers/erklarung-petit.jpg
You can see the Proclaimer's book version on the previous page of this thread.
AnnOMaly: Even if I agreed with the 'erroneous teachings' part, I would have felt deeply uncomfortable signing such a declaration promising to rat out other Bible Students.
Agreed.
No one is trying to rehabilitate the Nazis here. The point is that this Declaration involved renouncing the Bibelforscher , NOT Jehovah as the WT falsely said in last week's WT Study.
It was about disassociating oneself from a religion, not about renouncing faith in any particular God.
Now we all know that the WTBTS conflates faith in God with obedience to the organization.
WTBTS = Jehovah
But they do this through subtle manipulative means such as the statement in last week's WT; they never actually come right out and say, "The Organization is our God. You must worship the WT!"
And any R&F JW would deny that they equate the organization with God. But their actions belie any such rhetorical denials.
In next week's WT Study, anyone that has left the organization is described as someone that "leaves Jehovah." (w2013 1/5, pp. 15 - 16)
Note these telling comments:
19 The sister quoted above says, “I know that I must stay busy in Jehovah’s service and keep myself in a spiritually strong condition so that when my daughter does come back to Jehovah, I will be in a position to help her.”
20 It is not wrong for you to entertain the hope that your loved one will return. Each year, many wrongdoers repent and come back to Jehovah’s organization. - w2013 1/5, p. 16, para. 19 & 20 (Emphasis added)
Jehovah = Jehovah's organization (WTBTS)
To renouce the organisation IS to renounce Jehovah from the Watchtower's perspective. There is no distinction between the two.
slimboyfat, yes. That is the point of my post immediately preceeding yours. We had a short power outage right as I was composing it and I hadn't finished making my point before you posted your comment.
I was thinking if we directly asked any one of JWs if the organization is the same as Jehovah they would immediately deny it. They would reject it outright.
But as you commented, for all intents and purposes they are the same in regard to the behavior and actions of all JWs. It is manipulative language like this that creates this conflation in the minds of the R&F. In that respect, the WT quote which is highlighted in the OP is a perfect example of how the WTBTS exercises Mind-Control techniques over their followers.
For many of us, when we're just waking up to the Truth about "The Truth" (TTATT), we wonder if the GB and the WT writers know the real truth and if they are deliberately deceptive and manipulative or if they are somehow also just innocent victims of the cult mentality.
I think there is no question that they are captives of the cult mentality. But articles like this one is just more example of a pattern of incontrovertible evidence that the writers of WT publications deliberately write false things that are carefully worded for the express purpose of manipulating and controlling the Rank & File members of the congregations. They know what they are doing. It is not accidental.
00DAD
