followed the wt reading schedule for several years with the son. why? Wt wanted to use wt material in the "family worship" night, and the bible reading allowed us to avoid that indoctrination fool tool. Treating the scriptures as a piece to be studied as is, , as cofty said, is actually quite good, and gives you ammo to startle the know-all elders with real deep controversial stuff, and gets your 4 hours automatic credit to keep family peace. bible reading? a win win win situation.
Did you actually read the bible end to end?
by Ultimate Axiom 47 Replies latest watchtower bible
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jonahstourguide
"Why would a perfect woman who had been clued in about the animals that her perfect husband had named observing their characteristics, talk to a snake"
Right on the money Blondie. As I returned (my mistake but I'm working on it) I decided to read it contextually from cover to cover. That instance was my first light bulb moment and then I applied critical thinking to the rest of it and was astounded at the various possible translations of the lost language. Comparing various translations is invaluable to uncovering the deceit of the wbts and most likely others trying to push their wheelbarrow of reasoning. Likely then, the credibility of Christianity in general is up for questioning too.
And thank you for all the most informative posts that you provided over the years and for the time I have been here.
jtg
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smiddy3
I might ask ,which Bible are you referring too ? In Christendoms religions their are different numbers of Books that are considered to be part of the Bible
Just as an example : 2 Bible Accounts of Noah
The book of Enoch .
The book of Jubilees
The Testament of Noah
The book of Jasher
Compare the following :
The roman Catholic Church
The Protestant Churches
The Greek orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Churches
Just to name a few that have different numbers of Books in their Bible from other Churches .
And their are heaps of other Books of Scripture that men, not any God, that decided not to include them in the finished product .
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jonahstourguide
My point exactly smiddy3.
It's all up for grabs, depending on the power the power mongers want to exert upon their respective congregants.
And what the supposedly 'holy spirit inspired' self appointed guardians of doctrine choose to use to control the gullible to facilitate their coersive ideals.
jtg
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dozy
I ( somewhat intermittently ) followed the Societies 4 chapters a week routine and at one time decided to read the NT but gave up after Acts.
If it truly is the word of God ( spoiler alert - it isn't ) , it is a complete dog's breakfast of a book , especially the OT , though I do accept that there are elements of it that are of value.
What is quite sad is that after being a JW for 40 years , regularly attending 3 meetings a week & studying every week I still can't really say I knew much about the bible.Ray Franz mentioned that when he was compiling the Aid Book , he found the information in "Christendoms" research books far superior , comprehensive and scholarly compared to that from the Society.
On the ( very rare ) occasions in the ministry I actually met anybody knowledgeable and wishing to converse about the bible , I was pretty lost - several times I remember scrambling about in the concordance at the back trying to locate scriptures. That is probably true of almost all JWs , especially nowadays when there are very few scholarly JWs around. The Society simply focus intensely on a few core scriptures ( eg Matthew 24:14 ) that back up their doctrines - that's all you need to know.
For almost all JWs, saying they "know their bible" is like me saying I am completely fluent in Spanish when all I really know is what I remember from my schoolboy high school Spanish which just about gets me through holidays on the Costa Del Sol.
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waton
- several times I remember scrambling about in the concordance at the back trying to locate scriptures. dozy
good point, but having a good set of bible facts retained is not the same as knowing where they are located, two different memories, different skills.
I always laugh at wt illustrations showing elders with open bibles at counselling sessions. must be looking at scripture numbers that others have brought up.
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DesirousOfChange
Yes. We did it as a family. Actually reading the Bible is what raised the most controversial questions. Questions that couldn't be answered. I first discovered that I couldn't answer the question my kids asked. Then I found I couldn't find answers to the questions that I had. Then I realized JWs were not even allowed to ASK those questions (that have no answers) lest you be labeled an "apostate".
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nowwhat?
I've read the new testament 3 times that's how I learned jw's don't follow the teachings of Christ!
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Ding
Randy Watters said that when he was at Bethel, he was part of a group that was studying the Bible alone, but they had WT literature open on the table so they wouldn't get in trouble if someone saw them.
What does that tell you about the WT organization?
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eyeuse2badub
Interestingly, my super duper 91 year old jw M-I-L claims she has read the bible entirely several times. However, just about a month ago she started to re- read it one more time. I talk to her every other day or so and she's been mentioning how much of the "ugly side" of the bible she just didn't seem to remember reading the first few times. So I asked her;
"If the contents of the "ugly side " of the bible was made into a movie, what would it be rated?"
She thought for a bit and then answered, "I wouldn't be able to watch it."
"Exactly" I replied, So why are we encouraged to read it?"
just saying!