Can anyone give me some good examples of the WT misquoting scientists/historians etc???
misquotes, misquoted & misquoting
by SpiceItUp 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
RunningMan
Here's a little something I put together a while ago:
QUOTATIONS
Often, the society will quote from secular authorities to back up its stand and logic on matters. If you take the quotes at face value, they can be quite convincing. However, if you take the time to check the sources, you are sometimes surprised.
1. Authorities quoted are often unqualified.
2. At times, quotations are selected in very misleading manners. Sometimes they are taken out of context. Other times phrases are extracted from sentences and misrepresented.
3. Scientific quotations are sometimes outdated, being 50 to 300 years old, with no reference to the age of the document.
4. Persons quoted have at times spoken out regarding the twisting of their words.
1. Qualifications of Authorities
Francis Hitching:
He is cited as one of the main sources for the Creation book, and is quoted several times in the God’s Word or Man’s book.
The reference work Contemporary Authors (Vol. 103, page 208) lists him as a member of the Society for Psychical Research, the British Society of Dowsers and the American Society of Dowsers. His writings include: Earth Magic; Dowsing: The Psi Connection; Mysterious World: An Atlas of the Unexplained; Fraud, Mischief, and the Supernatural and Instead of Darwin.
He is a tabloid TV writer, paranormalist and major figure in the dowsing community. He has written on Mayan pyramid energy and for some In Search Of episodes on BBC television. He has no scientific credentials, not even a degree.
Johannes Greber:
“It comes as no surprise that one Johannes Greber, a former Catholic clergyman, has become a spiritualist and has published the book entitled Communication with the Spirit World, Its laws and Its Purpose." - w 55 10/1 p603
So, if they knew he was a spiritist in 1955, why did they continue to quote from him?
Ÿ w61 1/1 30 Was There a Resurrection?
Ÿ "The Word" -- Who Is He? According to John (1962) p.5 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
Ÿ w62 9/15 p.554
Ÿ Make Sure of All Things: Hold Fast to What is Fine (1965) p. 489 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
? Aid to Bible Understanding (1969) p. 1134 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
? Aid to Bible Understanding (1969) p. 1669 [Not available on 1993/1995 CD-ROMs]
? w75 10/15 640 Questions from Readers
? w76 4/15 231 Insight on the News
“Questions From Readers
“ Why, in recent years, has The Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest, Johannes Greber?
“This translator relied on "God's Spirit World" to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: "His wife, a medium of God's Spirit world was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God's Messengers to Pastor Greber." The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)” - w83 4/1 31 Questions From Readers
John S. Thompson:
In the 1985 edition of the NWT Interlinear Bible, John S. Thompson is cited as an authority for the translation of John 1:1.
According to The American Quarterly Review, Sept 1830, Vol 8, p 227, he held many different faiths and experienced spirit voices which bade him to write and translate.
C. Piazzi Smyth
He is quoted as a reference in the book Survival into a New Earth, 1984, p 49. The Guide to Edinburgh’s Popular Observatory describes him like this:
“Piazzi Smyth had a major obsession with the pseudo-science of pyramidology, which is founded in the belief that the measurements of the Great Pyramid contain a mystical significance. Indeed he was the only person ever to have resigned his fellowship of the Royal Society, following their refusal to publish his pyramid papers.”
Zoologist Coffin:
“Clearly, the impartial inquirer would be led to conclude that fossils do not support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, fossil evidence does lend strong weight to the arguments for creation. As zoologist Coffin stated: ...” - Creation p70
Coffin is really a young-earth creationist, and the quote is from an Adventist paper. He has no scientific credentials.
2. Misleading quotations
The Quote:
“Fossil hunter Donald Johanson acknowledged: ‘No one can be sure just what any extinct hominid looked like.’” - Creation p 89
What it really said:
“No one can be sure what any extinct hominid looked like with its skin and hair on. Sizes here are to scale, with afarensis about two feet shorter than the average human being.” - Donald C. Johanson and Maitland A. Edey, Lucy - the Beginnings of Humankind, New York: Warner Books, Inc, 1981, p. 286
The Quote:
“At this point a reader may begin to understand Dawkins comment in the preface to his book: ‘This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction.’” - Creation p39
What it really said:
“This book should be read almost as though it were science fiction. It is designed to appeal to the imagination. But it is not science fiction: it is science. Cliché or not, ‘stranger than fiction’ expresses exactly how I feel about the truth.” - Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 1976, p. 9
The Quote:
”Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms ‘appear to have been carefully and artfully designed.’ He views them as ‘the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.’” - Creation p 143
What it really said:
“The manifest fit between organisms and their environment is a major outcome of evolution.... Life forms are more than simply multiple and diverse, however. Organisms fit remarkably well into the external world in which they live. They have morphologies, physiologies and behaviors that appear to have been carefully and artfully designed to enable each organism to appropriate the world around it for its own life. It was the marvelous fit of organisms to the environment, much more than the great diversity of forms, that was the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer. Darwin realized that if a naturalistic theory of evolution was to be successful, it would have to explain the apparent perfection of organisms and not simply their variation.” -Richard C. Lewontin, “Adaptation”, Scientific American, vol. 239, September 1978, p. 213
The Quote:
”Carl Sagan, in his book Cosmos, candidly acknowledged ‘The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a great designer.’” - Reasoning from the Scriptures, 1985, p124
What it really said:
“The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a great designer; perhaps some species are destroyed when the Designer becomes dissatisfied with them, and new experiments are attempted on an imperfect design. But this notion is a little disconcerting. Each plant and animal is exquisitly made; should not a supremely competent Designer have been able to make the intended variety from the start? The fossil record implies trial and error, an inability to anticipate the future, features inconsistent with an efficient Great Designer (although not with a designer of a more remote and indirect temperment).” - Cosmos, p29
3. Out of date information presented as current
Wallace Platt:
“This geologist, Wallace Platt, also noted that the order of events from the origin of the oceans, to the emergence of land, to the appearance of marine life, and then to birds and mammals is essentially the sequence of the principal divisions of geologic time. ” - Creation p 36
Wallace Platt said this in a lecture in 1928. He was a young-earth creationist who discounted all scientific evidence .
W Sullivan:
“The hypothesis that life has developed from inorganic matter is, at present, still an article of faith.” - Creation p. 52
The “present” time is, of course, 1933.
Jean Baptiste Denys
"It is of no consequence that the blood is taken into the body through the veins instead of the mouth. Nor does the claim by some that it is not the same as intravenous feeding carry weight. The fact is that it nourishes or sustains the life of the body. In harmony with this is a statement in the book Hemorrhage and Transfusion, by George W. Crile, A.M., M.D., who quotes a letter from Denys, French physician and early researcher in the field of transfusions. It says: ‘In performing transfusion it is nothing else than nourishing by a shorter road than ordinary - that is to say, placing in the veins blood all made in place of taking food which only turns to blood after several changes.’" (The Watchtower, Sept. 15, 1961, p. 558)
Jean Baptiste Denys lived in the 1600’s.
4. MISQUOTED PERSONS SPEAK OUT
Richard Lewontin:
"But the point of my article, 'Adaptation' in Scientific American, from which these snippets were lifted, was precisely that the 'perfection of organisms' is often illusory and that any attempt to describe organisms as perfectly adapted is destined for serious contradictions. Moreover, the appearance of careful and artful design was taken in the nineteenth century before Darwin as 'the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.' The past tense of my article ('It was the marvelous fit of organisms to the environment ... that was the chief evidence of Supreme Designer') has been conveniently dropped by creationist [Gary] Parker in his attempt to pass off this ancient doctrine as modern science."
Lewontin, "Misquoted Scientists Respond," Creation/Evolution, VI, Fall 1981, p. 35.
Note: Gary Parker is the author of a Seventh Day Adventist book on evolution from which most of the Society’s Creation book was copied.
George Howard:
“If Kim’s dating is correct, it would show that in a Pauline MS of the first century, the Tetragram was not used as I suggested. This weakens my theory, at least in regard to the Pauline letters. Whether or not first century manuscripts of the gospels and other writings would follow the pattern of P46 would still be a matter of conjecture... The Jehovah’s Witnesses have made too much out of my articles. I do not support their theories.” - George Howard, Department of Religion, University of Georgia, July 8, 1988
Note: Not only has this person been misquoted, but subsequent developments that change his theory are never reported.
Keiiti Aki:
“I feel strongly that the seismicity has been stationary for thousands of years. I was trying to convince Jehovah’s Witnesses about the stationarity of seismicity, using the data obtained in China for the period 1500 through 1700, but they put only weak emphasis in the published statement... It is clear that they quoted the part they wanted, eliminating my main message.” - Professor Keiiti Aki, June 16, 1986, after reading a Watchtower article based on an interview with him.
Torben Lund:
What the Watchtower said: “Denmark’s minister of health also disagreed with the bad publicity Dan’s doctors received. He stated that the doctors had done the right thing in respecting Dan’s mature decision and well-founded faith.” (WT 02/01/96 p 15)
His response: “’I absolutely do not agree with Jehovah’s Witnesses brainwashing their young members to get them to refuse blood. On the contrary I find their methods bordering on the criminal, so you can safely say that I have been misquoted.’ says Torben Lund.” (Ekstra Bladet, Danish newspaper, Jan 25, 1996)
Julius Mantey
He is recognized by the Watchtower as a Greek scholar, and is quoted on page 1158 of their Kingdom Interlinear Translation.
How he responds: He calls the Watchtower translation of John 1:1 "A grossly misleading translation. It is neither scholarly nor reasonable to translate John 1:1 ‘the Word was a god.' But of all the scholars in the world, so far as we know, none have translated this verse as Jehovah's Witnesses have done."
"I was disturbed because they (the Watchtower) had misquoted me in support of their translation. I called their attention to the fact that the whole body of the New Testament was against their view. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus is glorified and magnified--yet here they were denigrating Him and making Him into a little god of pagan concept . . .I believe it's a terrible thing for a person to be deceived … because somebody deliberately misled him by distorting the Scripture!. . . Ninety-nine percent of the scholars of the world who know Greek and who have helped translate the Bible are in disagreement with the Jehovah's Witnesses. People who are looking for the truth ought to know what the majority of the scholars really believe. They should not allow themselves to be misled by the Jehovah's Witnesses…"
“In view of the preceding facts, especially because you have been quoting me out of context, I herewith request you not to quote the Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament again, which you have been doing for 24 years. Also that you not quote it or me in any of your publications from this time on.
“Also that you publicly and immediately apologize in the Watchtower magazine, since my words had no relevance to the absence of the article before theos in John 1:1. And please write to Caris and state that you misused and misquoted my ‘rule.’
“On the page before the Preface in the grammar are these words: ‘All rights reserved - no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.’
“If you have such permission, please send me a photo-copy of it.
“If you do not heed these requests you will suffer the consequences.”
-
SpiceItUp
Hey thanks guys...this should keep me going for a while....
Of coarse if you have more I will take it.
Spice of the planning to overwhelm the parents class
-
Bangalore
Bttt.
Bangalore
-
Band on the Run
Casually reading an odd WT or Awake, I noted how they misconstrue the context of someone's words. It expects too much of people to be fact check every quote. When I wrote my opus supporting creation in 7th grade, I took the WT lit and looked up every cite. The quotes were correct but without reading the rest of the text, the meaning was misconstrued.
When I was much younger, this fact-citing and quotes from secular figures gave the WTs an allure of credibility. I could not believe why if people knew the facts, they would not be Witnesses. They certainly do not read this lit, ponder its implications and decide on doctrines. The doctrines come first, then desperate grabs to justify it. How do you explain to people this technique?
Part of me wanted my family to be correct. It hurt me deeply when I realized most of these statements were dubious.
-
Lady Lee
I'd love to see more on this topic
-
Lady Lee
Here are some links from JWD/N
http://www.dannyhaszard.com/jinfo/misquotes.htm
http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/1deityofchrist2.html
Misquotes just on the issue of the Trinity alone
http://www.bible.ca/trinity/trinity-jw-anti-trinity-booklet-master-index-quotes.htm
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/78486/1/WT-practice-of-misquoting-scholars Note that the link to Watchtower Observer no longer works
http://www.docbob.org/wordpress/?p=813 re earthquakes
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070515092312AAHX4ZJ list of misquotes
I googled Watchtower Society misquotes and came up with a huge list> Many are repetitions but there is a wealth of info out there regarding Watchtower misquotes and misrepresentation
-
pirata
Excellent List. Lady Lee, thanks for compiling!
RunningMan, if you're still reading this, thanks for your research!
-
Lady Lee
Here is a very interesting site http://knockingonheavnsdoor.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/academic-dishonesty-or-incompetence-what-did-the-experts-really-say/
-
diamondiiz
bttt