Why does the Watchtower and Jehovah's Witnesses use the Bible?

by WireRider 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  WireRider

  The Watchtower, post Russell, and the Jehovah's Witnesses hate the Jews and the Catholics. They are not allowed to even set foot in the Churches of the Bible. They endlessly rail against how wrong they are - but they are all based on their book??

  The Watchtower has no Bible - period.

  JW are not allowed to walk in my door. WTF?

  Then why use (pervert) their book?

  Russell praised Arius - exiled from the Church, and Rutherford was a teen age girl groupie of Hitler - many still suffer from the adoption of the Nazi youth program brainwashing by Rutherford.
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  Introvert 2

  Not quite sure what you're getting at WR buy yes I've always noticed the similarities of JW with Nazism myself
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  WireRider

  Use use the Old Testament - hate Jews for writing it wrong and misunderstanding their own writings. Use use the New Testament and hate hate the Catholics that wrote it for understanding it wrong.

  Why do the WT/JW hate the Jews and Catholics so very much for writing the book they follow so seriously?

  The WT/JW are not allowed to set foot into the writers of the book they follow.
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  Saintbertholdt

  Hi there Wirerider, you wrote:

  ...Jehovah's Witnesses hate the Jews and the Catholics.
  

  Well they just adopted an old protestant sentiment.

  Then why use (pervert) their book?

  Because its very difficult to gain credibility with a brand new holy book and anyone who claims to be directly inspired by God or to have special knowledge is quickly challenged to prove it, which as yet nobody can. So its easier to use an existing book to base your theology on and to claim to be the only one correctly interpreting it.

  In the case of the Watchtower, Rutherford just evolved Russell's belief that Christianity had essentially been corrupted (this idea originated during the protestant reformation) and it was the Bible Student's task to distill the "truth" from the lies. Therefore sooner or later (later in this particular case) a Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible had to logically follow.

  ... Rutherford was a teen age girl groupie of Hitler

  Rutherford attempted a compromise with Hitler between 1933 - 1935 and used questionable language to attempt to find a neutral space for the Bible Students to exist. After no compromise was to be found, he was exceptionally anti-Nazi.

  ...many still suffer from the adoption of the Nazi youth program brainwashing by Rutherford.

  I'm not aware of the Watchtower ever adopting any Hitler youth methodology's as the Bible Students had even been persecuted under the Weimar Republic which severely escalated during the Nazi era from 1933 onward.

  Do you perhaps have more information on this adoption of "Nazi youth" techniques?
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  WireRider

  That you for the dialog. Well said. I need to think about the implications.

  Because its very difficult to gain credibility with a brand new holy book and anyone who claims to be directly inspired by God or to have special knowledge is quickly challenged to prove it, which as yet nobody can. So its easier to use an existing book to base your theology on and to claim to be the only one correctly interpreting it.

  I think we all need time to ponder that. The WT/JW is only a 100 yrs old and tried to force a religion.

  In the case of the Watchtower, Rutherford just evolved Russell's belief that Christianity had essentially been corrupted (this idea originated during the protestant reformation) and it was the Bible Student's task to distill the "truth" from the lies. Therefore sooner or later (later in this particular case) a Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible had to logically follow.

  I do respectively disagree. In the mid 1900's Christianity from some small place in the middle east didn't have time to be corrupted. Russell followed Miller to Arianism and Adventistism and end-of-the-world religions.

  Russell had a successor picked out. It wasn't Rutherford. Rutherford hijacked the group and commercialized it. He stole over 150 million to build his place in CA. He was never a pastor - or cared.

  to follow:
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  Finkelstein

  It pays to reflectively keep in mind that both Russell and Rutherford were not academically trained bible theologians. Russell got absorbed into the Christian Adventist theology at time as well Eastern Egyptian theology involving Pyramidology as a supporting aspect to The New World Order or Golden Age that mankind was supposedly entering.

  What propelled these men to create and embrace their own devised theology was the Publishing Company that these men held as executive directors.

  As the organization (IBSA) grew more doctrines were created to aid in the proliferation of those published works. Zions Watchtower ( Announcing Christ's Kingdom ) The Golden Age which is now titled the Awake etc.

  The point being that WTS was more concentrated in their books and developing their own writings rather than closely adhere to the writings in the bible.
  

  The WTS. essentially created its own pseudo theology that was very much endeavored to increase the readership of its own published works.

  The WTS intentionally blindsides people to not take notice of that and people do get caught off guard by the WTS. self supporting inherent corruption.

  Ironically the WTS/JWS may eventually crumble over by virtue of its own professed expressed doctrines which were devised originally to make the organization grow and flourish.
  
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  Saintbertholdt

  Hi again Wirerider,

  You wrote: I do respectively disagree. In the mid 1900's Christianity from some small place in the middle east didn't have time to be corrupted.

  I think you are misinterpreting what I meant. Russell believed that Christianity had been corrupted very early in Christian history. Here is a 1911 quote from the Church Record Card which Russell introduced:

  "...I love all who love God and are seeking His ways, but I abominate the creeds of the 'dark ages,' which did so much to misrepresent the Divine Character and Plan and which so seriously enslaved so many of God’s people in the chains of ignorance and superstition."

  Russell believed that most Christian denominations had elements of "truth" that survived over the centuries which needed to be distilled into the original form of Christianity. For example, from the book Pastor Russell's Sermon's: "I believe more emphatically than do most Presbyterians that the Church is an especially elect class, and is now being gathered out of the world to be God’s agents in the ultimate blessing of all the non-elect. I believe with Baptists that only the Elect, the immersed, will constitute the Kingdom of God, although I deny their claim that baptism in water is the real immersion. I hold, with the Apostle, that it is baptism into Christ’s death. Similarly I hold to the great Catholic doctrine that there is only one true Church, founded by the Lord Jesus Christ through His Apostles, nearly nineteen centuries ago."

  So this idea that the "truth" needed to be filtered continued on with Rutherford during the 1920s with the abandonment of traditional Christian practices such as Christmas (which was now deemed pagan) and so on.

  Which now comes full circle to your question of: "Then why use (pervert) their book?"'

  My reasoning is pretty straight forward: When a religion develops over time that feels that it is sifting out the original spirit, sentiment and dogma of "original" Christianity, it would only be a matter of time before that religion would re-evaluate the efforts of past Christian translators and therefore "a Jehovah's Witness version of the Bible [would] logically follow" as a result. Which it did, although later than might have been expected, although factors such as the organizations size and a world war need to be considered as possible contributing factors to the delay.
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  Finkelstein

  From the purposed premise that Russell was sincerely endeavored to reveal true and accurate bible interpretation where most of Christendom faltered, was also to circumvent his own public notoriety as well attract attention to the literature he published.
  

  Quite a bit more notoriety than being a simple clothing salesmen.
  
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  Ding

  It is surprising that the WTS encourages people to read the Bible, given their teaching that no one can understand the Bible without WT literature to explain it. That would make admittedly uninspired WT literature superior to the scriptures the organization accepts as inspired, wouldn't it?
  

  In fact, what percentage of JWs read books of the Bible straight through as opposed to simply looking up and parroting the WT's favorite proof texts?

  Sometimes the WT's proof texts don't include the entire verse, as with Ecclesiastes 9:5: "For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, nor do they have any more reward, because all memory of them is forgotten."
  

  In such a situation, I wonder how many JWs have actually read the entire verse.
  
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  Wonderment

  Ding: "It is surprising that the WTS encourages people to read the Bible, given their teaching that no one can understand the Bible without WT literature to explain it. That would make admittedly uninspired WT literature superior to the scriptures the organization accepts as inspired, wouldn't it?"

  I like that!