The Isaiah book?s? (page 3)

DanTheMan

Thanks for the 1919 count Blondie. Not that I ever talk with JW's anymore, but apologist/intellectual type dubs are quick to bristle at allegations of mind-control or brainwashing. But what else can a dub do but chant along when this crap is repeated so many times in books published by an organization that claims divine direction? And what is it that is being repeated? The date that the FDS was supposedly given their appointment over J's earthly interests. They're so damn obsessed with their imagined authority, it is sickening.

If I'm not mistaken the first book was released at the 2001 DC. I didn't get a copy of it there, nor did I pick one up later at the KH, even though I was still attending meetings regularly for 3 months aftwerwards. The disconnect was on, though I wasn't fully aware of it.

no one

This is what I learned from the Isaiah books (apologies to those groaning over seeing a portion of it in print):

Book 1, page 253 (highlighting mine):

"It must occur in that day that Tyre must be forgotten seventy years, the same as the days of one king." (Isaiah 23:15a) Following the destruction of the mainland city by the Babylonians, the island-city of Tyre will "be forgotten." True to the prophesy, for the duration of "one king"-- the Babylonian Empire-- the island-city of Tyre will not be an important financial power. Jehovah, through Jeremiah, includes Tyre among the nations that will be singled out to drink the wine of His rage. He says: "These nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years." (Jeremiah 25:8-17,22,27) True, the island-city of Tyre is not sublect to Babylon for a full 70 years, since the Babylonian Empire falls in 539 B.C.E. Evidently, the 70 years represents the period of Babylonia's greatest domination--when the Babylonian royal dynasty boasts of having lifted its throne even above "the stars of God" (Isaiah 14:13) Different nations come under that domination at different times.

If only they could see how these same statements could be applied to the fall of Jerusalem. Of course, that would mess up their 1914 thingy.

shamus

What garbage!

That whole paragraph is not only untrue but jumps around more than a kid after a whoppin! How can people look themselves in the mirror after a day of printing that crap?

And see how desperate they are to explain everything... after all, they are the only one's who have god's holy spirit, and all of the rest of the world are "walking corpses".

It's astonishing how completely stupid the religion really is.

blondie

But now I see I wasn't alone. I wished I'd had the courage to express my true feelings to the study conductor.

I did tell the conductor (he was my husband). He said he was bored too. He started having all the scriptures for the evening read in their entirety first, then discuss each paragraph encouraging people to think about how they would have responded back then to Isaiah's message and to think about Isaiah and his family, how difficult it was to be surrounded by people claiming to worship God but proving false to his requirements. "Imagaine if you were amongst God's people today and lived under the conditions Isaiah did. Isaiah was executed by his own people." Then at the end the scriptures for the evening were read in their entirety and the points learned were directly tied to the scriptures not the publication. It helped some and the book study was well attended and lively

This was the last book I studied before I faded. The only book I ever liked was the Greatest Man book, partly because it did not have the read the paragraph-answer the question-read the paragraph-answer the question format. The paragraphs aren't even numbered.

Blondie (no longer in her seat at this very moment to be bored out of my mind by a public talk or in the back room sleeping during the WT study)

czarofmischief

Even the Greatest Man book had that disturbing image of Jesus predicting his presence would be heralded by sputnik.

Of course, by the time we actually got around to studying it, the "new light" had dawned and sputnik no longer was the sign of the son of man.

anybody else remember that bizarre idea? It's in Crisis of Conscience, where three GB's decided they might be able to shift the start date of the end times to 1957, when sputnik was launched, thereby displaying the onset of the Sign.

God... if only my moments of psychosis were as financially rewarding.

CZAR

Euphemism

shamusmore boring to study than hebrew.

Hey, Hebrew is actually quite an interesting language, I'll have you know! The whole consonantal-root construction of semitic languages is quite fascinating...

czar... yeah, I remember that. It was kind of funny, watching the Bookstudy conductor (yes, he was still called a 'conductor' in those days ) try to juggle that one. And being the young snot that I was, I would laugh at the people who couldn't keep the old and new light straight...

minimus

Hebrew's a great language to speak if you like spitting a lot.

seattleniceguy

I have a friend who was conducting at that time. I guess the inane-ness of the study wore him down. He left the org three months ahead of me.

In my bookstudy, almost all the paragraphs were answered by like three people. We'd just look at each other like, "You go." "No, you go!" "I took the last 1919 answer! I can't think of any more ways to phrase it!" There would be one full minute of silence. Finally someone would lose the staring contest and resignedly put a hand up. "Well...as it turns out, 1919 was a historic year for God's people...."

Looks like these books really did help people. Got at least a couple out in my cong! Way to go, Brooklyn!

SNG

The Isaiah book?s?

Share this