Wow, resurrecting one of Leolaia's old and always informative posts. She has been inactive here now for 10+ years. She went off into comparative linguistics at the graduate level. Does anyone know how she's doing?
careful
JoinedPosts by careful
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60
The Evolution of Judas Iscariot
by Leolaia inthe story of judas iscariot in the gospels provides the reader with a fascinating picture of how the plot and details of the narratives were gleaned from the ot and embellished in different ways.
the evangelists and the tradents that preceded them looked to the ot (and other affiliated literature) for information on what happened to jesus, employing a haggadaic method of biblical interpretation similar to how rabbis and authors of pseudepigraphs in the second temple era expanded the brief stories of the patriarchs in genesis with reams of new detail and legendary episodes -- through the means of exegesis aimed to penetrate beyond a plain reading of the text to "fill in the blanks" of what must have happened.
the authors of the gospels also scoured through the ot to discover what was supposed to happen to jesus and wrote their stories accordingly.
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18
Black penis and other subliminal messages on song book
by Mikejw ini’m sure this has been covered in the past but there are a lot of videos appearing lately bringing this up again.. this chap phoned bethel in london about it and as soon as he said song book the service desk said i’m hanging up now.
they obviously know about it.. https://youtu.be/0dn-gj73r5u?si=ao4cd-0rpg7rv3ws.
so was there some pimos in the art department or was it more sinister and this organisation wanted to but pedo messages on the song book a bit like the demonic hand in the rev book?.
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careful
Mikejw,
This notion of hidden images in WTS publications, and the reported exposure of them, goes back a while, to the 1980s. There was gossip then among R&F JWs about hidden or subliminal images in the artwork. In the late 80s an active Witness named Darek Barefoot (yes, first name spelled correctly) attempted to expose this matter secretly within the org, knowing he'd be shut down if he tried openly. He was from a respected multi-generation JW family. Eventually he was exposed by a fellow Witness coworker and his entire family was DFed, including members who had nothing to do with his attempts at exposure, for not reporting him and denouncing him.
His story is published in his book JWs and the Hour of Darkness, 1992 red cover, revised ed. green cover, later the same year, now both out of print. There are plenty of examples of the images in his book. The issue of hidden images in the WTS artwork has been brought up in various posts on this forum from time to time since, with mainly reactions of "I can't see it," "this is hogwash," etc. though some here agree that the images are present.
If they really are there, then the reasons behind them and the org's denial and defense of the people responsible for them becomes the resulting issue. Were the pics created by in-house artists and sneaked past blind overseers? Did the artists have the goods somehow on the Bethel heavies, so they were tolerated out of fear? On and on such conjectures can go.
You can search yourself for these past posts on this site's search function. I don't know whether anyone has scanned Barefoot's book and made it available online or not.
Hope this helps with some history.
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10
"Beast" Memories
by NotFormer ini've been crapping on the wt a lot lately, which sometimes seems a bit unfair to me, especially since i was never in, therefore i don't really have a dog in the fight.
to provide a bit of balance, i'll reminisce about the rampant prophecy speculation going on in mainstream christianity (i refuse to use the wt's pejorative term: "christendom", especially since by definition, they're part of that classification 🙄) in the 70s and 80s.
to be fair, the churches themselves had been around long enough to realise that end times interpretations are like arseholes, everybody has one.
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careful
You said it, 'To the imaginative, this spelled "666".'
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18
Were JW Celebrities Ever An Asset To The Organisation?
by NotFormer injust wondering if the rich celebrities that occasionally were aligned with the wt gave enough to the 'tower to be a worthwhile presence within the organisation?.
my gut instinct is: "no".
i imagine that the jackson family gave a fair bit, but it was obviously never enough to buy michael the right to be held as being in good standing.
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careful
But the true visual is probably more like that of that idiot Herbert W Armstrong, getting himself filmed with various leaders while jetting 🛩️ around the world 🌍🌎🙄
Yeah, he took Paul's line about being "ambassadors for Christ" to a whole new level!
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Any JW's been “debaptised” in Belgium?
by was a new boy in'the belgian church, facing rising protests after a television film on sexual abuse and cover-ups in its ranks, has appealed against a government data protection agency ruling that the diocese of ghent must let a person be “debaptised”.
the church considers baptism a permanent act that cannot be done away with, but the agency ruled in december that the plaintiff’s personal data record overrides the church’s interest in preserving its records.. .
the number of “debaptism” requests had been falling since a peak of 5,237 in 2021, when the vatican said it could not bless same-sex unions, but they have reportedly spiked again after the television series gotvergeten (“forgotten by god”) last september depicted the scandals in belgium.
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careful
WANB, thanks for the share. Yes, NF, "This is a nice precedent in waiting". I wonder if the Catholic Church, the WTS, or any other religious group will fight this in court. Surely the org will feel threatened by this agency's decision.
BA2, "the spy and cop business"----HA! So true, so true.
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101
The Next Big Thing In WT World
by NotFormer inthings got a bit lively after the agm leaks in october.
there was a lot of discussion going on on this board for a few months.
now that all the leaks have been more or less confirmed as policy, and we've had lively discussions at length concerning the changes, things seem to have slowed down here.. a few suggestions have been raised as to what might be the next changes, such as women being allowed to wear slacks (in the usa, anyway), decoupling from 1914 as an anchoring date and others.. so, what changes do you think will be announced this year?.
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careful
Obrien: whatever you wish to share will likely be welcomed by someone here since the forum is pretty diverse.
TousOH: on the blood issue, I think you're right. I doubt that'd ever change that doctrine, however, so my question is really a fantasy.
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The Reasoning Book
by Magnum inthe book reasoning from the scriptures was released in the 1980's, and it was used at virtually every meeting for service, every service meeting, and every theocratic ministry school meeting thereafter.
many jws had copies bound together with their bibles.
it was huge in jw land back then.. at that time, with the reasoning book, jws were trained to keep conversations going in spite of objections, to almost stick their feet in people's doors to keep conversations going, to defend "the truth," to argue doctrine, etc.. compare the situation today with that of the 80's.
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careful
I'm not really joking when I say that the "reasoning" employed today in the upper levels of the org is quite a step down from what it was back when that book came out. It itself was a revision of the Make Sure of All Things book. While other factors are likely at work, don't you think that the lack of intelligence among the current GB and their devotees is one reason why it's gone out of print and stayed so? I mean you have to have some intelligence to realize that old book's considerable value.
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101
The Next Big Thing In WT World
by NotFormer inthings got a bit lively after the agm leaks in october.
there was a lot of discussion going on on this board for a few months.
now that all the leaks have been more or less confirmed as policy, and we've had lively discussions at length concerning the changes, things seem to have slowed down here.. a few suggestions have been raised as to what might be the next changes, such as women being allowed to wear slacks (in the usa, anyway), decoupling from 1914 as an anchoring date and others.. so, what changes do you think will be announced this year?.
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careful
I agree with "pent-up demand" when it comes to beards. Do you think that if they GB dropped the blood refusal (something I doubt they'd do!) would Witnesses flock to blood banks to donate?
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Patterson New Visitor Centre & Museum Announced
by raymond frantz inhttps://www.jwupdates.com/post/new-patterson-visitor-center-and-first-century-museum.
january 1, 2024, marked the official opening of the patterson visitor center, located at the watchtower educational center in patterson, new york, u.s.a. the feature museum of the visitors’ center is entitled “first-century bible village.” brother isaiah miller, who works in the museum department at bethel, said: “the bible village was designed to provide everyone with a realistic and educational experience.
studies show that interactive learning has a powerful effect on people of all ages.” after her tour, one visitor exclaimed: “this museum made me feel like i had been transported back to the land of ancient israel.
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careful
Vidiot2 days ago
Worth a shot, I s’pose.Taking a page from Ken Ham’s playbook, huh?
I think what may be going more than imitating Ken Ham is that they are trying to compete with Steve Green and his millions from Hobby Lobby, specifically with his huge Museum of the Bible in Washington DC. The GB would rather have their faithful visit Warwick, Selters, and now Patterson instead of the ark exhibit south of Cincinnati in Kentucky or the MOTB in Washington.
BTW, the MOTB has proven to be quite a scandal:
https://hyperallergic.com/467318/dead-sea-scrolls-at-the-museum-of-the-bible-revealed-as-forgeries/
Since the Greens are so politically involved (right wing, of course), they've drawn a lot of fire. The org's projects are so much smaller and they are so removed from the big bad world that no-one outside of Witnessland will take note of their projects.
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The Next Big Thing In WT World
by NotFormer inthings got a bit lively after the agm leaks in october.
there was a lot of discussion going on on this board for a few months.
now that all the leaks have been more or less confirmed as policy, and we've had lively discussions at length concerning the changes, things seem to have slowed down here.. a few suggestions have been raised as to what might be the next changes, such as women being allowed to wear slacks (in the usa, anyway), decoupling from 1914 as an anchoring date and others.. so, what changes do you think will be announced this year?.
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careful
HA, Obrien—"the Abigail class"! Now that's really funny. But given Fred Franz's departure, it's hardly possible that any of the current GB members and their lackeys would be so creative, biblical, or theological. It smells too much of type/anti-type, far over the current leaders' intellect. Remember how they have categorically rejected the entire type/anti-type paradigm, without replacing it anything, of course!
Even if they were to create such an "Abigail class", they would never serve on the GB—wrong gender. I doubt they would ever go with women being equal with men in administration. The statements in the NT on the role of women are just too blunt, and you know how they feel about "inspiration" and "inerrancy."
Are you new here? If so, welcome.