Thanks for posting the image for me! I'm sorry I didn't know enough to shrink it before I emailed it to you.
You can see that the JW who prepared the file for me took some care to cut-and-paste the CE/BCE definitions so they line up with the margins of the Britannica search engine page, creating the impression that these are "results you can trust" from the Britannica site.
If you look at http://www.religioustolerance.org/ce.htm you will see that they lifted the definitons from that site, font and italics and all. They did cut out the sentence about the year of Jesus' birth, however, since that is not in accord with WT chronology.
My husband wondered if they thought we were so gullible that we would believe the entire packet came from the Britannica site, rather than being a collection of WT articles. I don't know about that, but I think the first page (the one you posted for me) definitely gives the impression that the BCE/CE definitions come from the Britannica.
And it's such a dumb thing to do. Why bother with such a petty dishonesty?
I had told them my husband was formerly an editor at an archaeology magazine, so they should have realized we are well aware of the meaning of CE and BCE anyway. That's one more reason I think they did not do this themselves, but received it from someone else at the congregation.
Incidentally, the May 15, 2003 WT magazine they left with me has a couple of errors in the first article. On page 5 of the article, the authors cite Keil and Delitzch's Commentary on the Ol Testament, but they have the page number wrong. I found the quote, but in the modern editions it is on a different page. I think they are quoting from an older edition. Again, a small thing, but they may be trying to hide the fact that Keil and Delitzch actually count the days in the ark differently than the WT does. The WT article says "Noah and the others spent one lunar year and ten days (370 days) in the ark".
But a lunar year actually has 354 days, not 360 days. (360 days is what is known as a "prophetic" year; it is not the same as a lunar year). They are counting the extra ten days incorrectly. Most scholars count it inclusively, as 11 days. That makes for a lunar year of 354 days plus an extra 11 days, adding up to exactly one solar year.
Again, such a small thing, but it is exactly this kind of inaccurate and misleading quoting from scholarly sources that drives me crazy. We own many of the books and articles that the WT quotes from, and when I look up the sources, there's frequently something a little awry with the WT's use of the source.
Thanks again for your help!
Marjorie
