Posts by yaddayadda

21

Is the Watchtower happy being stagnant?

by RULES & REGULATIONS in

jw
friends

stagnant.

adj.not moving or flowing; motionless.

foul or stale from standing: stagnant ponds.showing little or no sign of activity or advancement; not developing or progressing; inactive: a stagnant economy the sunday talks are copy and paste .the watchtower study is the same.ask the preprinted questions and answer.the ministry school is reading the same parts of the bible.the service program has the same dull presentations.the book study has some books being read 3 - 4 times.. is the watchtower society happy with being stagnant and just going thru the motions?

yaddayadda

Hi Brant. Yes I do believe they sincerely believe it themselves. I think some of the GB have doubts about certain of their own teachings and doubts about the timing aspect of things, but overall I think they believe it all hook line and sinker, because they have quite convincing scriptural arguments for nearly all of it.

I don't believe any of them think it is a 'scam' in the usual sense of the word.

71

A Letter to the Governing Body

by truthsetsonefree in

(km 6/03 p. 1 par.

9 building for an eternal future, w87 2/1 p. 15 par.

(km 11/88 p. 4 par.

yaddayadda

Great letter and very sincere. I think any elder feeling the pressure could relate to it.

You are, however, at serious risk of being accused of apostasy for what will be perceived to be an attack on Watchtower doctrine and the GB. There are some pretty strong statements by you in that regard. A JC will likely ensue.

The 11th commandment for JW's is 'thou shalt not criticise the Watchtower Society or its doctrines'.

28

What other ancient Greek Manuscripts contained the divine name?

by yaddayadda in

the society in appendix 1a of their 'kingdom interlinear translation of the christian greek scriptures' refers to nine other greek manuscripts as containing the divine name, and they quote from jerome as referring to certain 'greek volumes' containing the tetragrammaton.

can anyone shed any light on what these greek manuscripts and volumes are and their dates of writing?

here is what the society says in full: .

yaddayadda

The Society in appendix 1a of their 'Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures' refers to Nine other Greek manuscripts as containing the divine name, and they quote from Jerome as referring to certain 'Greek volumes' containing the Tetragrammaton.

Can anyone shed any light on what these Greek manuscripts and volumes are and their dates of writing?

Here is what the Society says in full:

" From the photographs of 12 fragments of this papyrus roll our readers may examine these occurrences of the Tetragrammaton in such an early copy of LXX. Authorities fix the date for this papyrus as the first century B.C.E., that is, about two centuries after the LXX was begun. This proves that the original LXX did contain the divine name wherever it occurred in the Hebrew original. Nine other Greek manuscripts also contain the divine name. - See NW Ref. Bi., PP. 1562-1564.

Did Jesus Christ, and those of his disciples who wrote the Christian Greek Scriptures, have at hand copis of the Greek Septuagint with the divine name appearing therein in the form of the Tetragrammaton? Yes! The Tetragrammaton persisted in copies of LXX for centuries after Christ and his apostles. Sometime during the first half of the second century C.E., when Aquila's own Greek version was produced, it also showed the Tetragrammaton in archaic Hebrew letters.

Jerome, of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., in his prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings, said: "And we find the name of God, the Tetragrammaton [inserted], in certain Greek volumes even to this day expressed in ancient letters." Thus down to the time of Jerome, the chief translator who produced the Latin Vulgate, there were Greek manuscripts of translations of the Hebrew Scriptures that still contained the divine name in its four Hebrew charactors. "

Obviously the appearance of the tetragrammaton in this very early copy of the Septuagint doesn't prove that the 'original' LXX contained the tetragrammaton, nor does it categorically mean that Jesus and the writers of the NT had at hand the LXX with the divine name, as the Society contends. The most it could mean is that the original LXX could have contained the tetragrammaton and Jesus and the NT writers could have had at hand an LXX with the divine name in it (and my personal view is that it was likely they did). But my concern is just to know more about these 'nine other Greek manuscripts' the Society refers to (as I don't have a NW Reference Bible) and the 'certain Greek Volumes' that Jerome refers to.

Much thanks
Yadda

5

E-watchman replaces Watchtower's weirdness with his own

by yaddayadda in

robert king discredits the wt societys 1914 teaching and in one of his latest essays has now attacked their parousia theory that goes hand in hand with the 1914 teaching.

good job, you might say.

however, he has come up with a couple of radical new interpretations that seem just as bizarre as the societys teaching about christs presence.

yaddayadda

Robert King discredits the WT Society’s 1914 teaching and in one of his latest essays has now attacked their ‘parousia’ theory that goes hand in hand with the 1914 teaching. Good job, you might say. However, he has come up with a couple of radical new interpretations that seem just as bizarre as the Society’s teaching about Christ’s presence.

He states that the ‘two witnesses’ (the remnant of the anointed) during the Great tribulation will literally see Christ, in a manner similar to the transfiguration:

“The two witnesses are also commissioned to prophesy, as was John, indicating that the John class is the same as the two witnesses. The designation of “two witnesses” signifies that they will have visibly witnessed the very presence of Christ, just as Peter, James and John visibly witnessed the transfiguration and John also witnessed Christ in the vision of Revelation.”

Furthermore, he feels that the anointed themselves will be literally transfigured, like Moses was when he emitted rays, before they are taken to heaven:

“The sons of God shining like the sun in the kingdom of Jehovah means that they will have been fully accepted into the then-established kingdom; and not only that, but they will have conferred upon them the very glory of Christ – a glory that they will then reflect to illuminate others – those who have not allowed themselves to have become blinded by Satan. In a miraculous manifestation reminiscent of Moses, the anointed will then be transfigured so as to radiate Jehovah’s glory in their own faces and in that way the sons of God will be revealed before creation as an earthly reflection of the glorious revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Pretty odd wouldn’t you say. Even fundies expecting to be taken up in the rapture would find these interpretations bizarre.

20

Have you ever wondered. . . How the Question and Answer format got started?

by Lady Lee in

the question and answer from the paragraph format for watchtower study meetings has become a staple method for indoctrinating new recruits and maintaining control of the jws thought processes.. over the years i think they have played around a bit with the sequence of questions, readings and answers but the contenet has basically remained the same - ask the question, read the paragraph and give the answer.. so .

have you ever wondered who thought this might be a good method to conduct spiritual discussions?.

i never gave it much thought but i assumed rutherford came up with the tight control over discussions.. nope.

yaddayadda

Lady Lee, that article is unscientific hogwash. It's not only almost entirely inaccurate about how the Watchtower is actually conducted, thus losing all credibility from the start as to the author's claim of attending numerous meetings, but the comparisons to Freud's '4 rules' are all tenuous at best:

1 Watchtower puts out a song book with over one hundred songs that have words and music which create a slow subliminal tone to relax the congregation. Not one song in this Watchtower song book, has an up-tempo beat like the songs sung in the Orthodox Church. Every song they play induces relaxation.

NONSENSE. ONE COULD SAY THE SAME ABOUT ANY CHURCH IN THE LAST TWO THOUSAND YEARS. AND THERE ARE INDEED SOME 'UP-BEAT' SONGS FOUND AMONGST THE KINGDOM MELODIES. THE AUTHORS JUDGMENT HERE IS ABOUT AS UNTRUSTWORTHY AS HIS DESCRIPTION OF HOW THE WATCHTOWER STUDY IS ACTUALLY CONDUCTED.

2 The way that Watchtower has created this left-to-right eye movement, is to have the compere standing in the centre of the stage reading one paragraph of the story from the study book and the narrator sitting off to one side, reading a bible verse after each paragraph. As the congregation watches, not only do their eyes continually move from left to right which stops them from listening and examining the words of the story to reject what they don't agree with, but if they are not watching, their ears will hear the words spoken by the compere on the right and the narrator on the left.

ABSOLUTE PIFFLE. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT HOW THE STUDY IS CONDUCTED WHATSOEVER, SO WHERE IS THIS 'CONTINUALLY MOVING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT' OF THE EYES OF THE AUDIENCE AND EARS HEARING FROM THE RIGHT AND LEFT? THE FACT IS THAT AFTER THE READER HAS FINISHED READING THE PARAGRAPH, HE SITS DOWN TO ONE SIDE OF THE CONDUCTOR FOR THE ENTIRE DISCUSSION OF THAT PARAGRAPH UNLESS HE HIMSELF ANSWERS UP. HE NEVER STANDS IN THE CENTRE OF THE STAGE AS THIS AUTHOR CLAIMS.

3. The leaders of Watchtower have designed their study stories to have the four hypnotic suggestions within the story they want their Jehovah's Witness followers to believe in and have added bible scriptures after one or two paragraphs, in order to give the compere and the narrator their job to do to create left and right eye and hearing movement to produce the hypnotic effect. These study stories are so important to Watchtower to establish a hypnotic effect in all Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide, that they insist to all the leaders of each individual congregation centre in every country, that they must not stray from using the study story in every meeting or change the position of the compere and narrator or leave out the use of the usher for the all-important question time, held at the end of each story. Watchtower head office in New York, supplies every Jehovah's Witness meeting hall in every city of every country, with new study books each month, so that every Jehovah's witness world wide is subjected to this hypnotic process every time they attend a Jehovah's Witness meeting at any meeting hall. Even the Jehovah Witnesses who come to your home in pairs to study with you, are told to study from the Watchtower booklet sitting with you at your table, and one of them will read the story and the other will read the scripture, so that the exact same hypnotic effect is at work on you, in your own home even before you actually decide to commit yourself to attending the local Jehovah's Witness meeting hall as a congregation member. Jehovah's Witness followers are usually beautiful God-loving people who do not have a clue that this is going on, but I assure you, several managers at the very top of the Watchtower organisation in New York, are fully in control of this sinister deception that is killing more than a thousand Jehovah's Witnesses every year.) Reference for this statistic:- "Blood On The Altar" by author, David A Reed.

MORE SHAMELESS PIFFLE. HIS CLAIM THAT BIBLE STUDIES ARE CONDUCTED BY A PROCESS OF ONE PERSON READING THE 'STORY' AND THE OTHER READING THE SCRIPTURE, THUS INDUCING A HYPNOTIC EFFECT, IS AGAIN, NOT HOW A TYPICAL STUDY IS CONDUCTED. I KNOW AS I WAS IN THE ORG FOR OVER 30 YEARS AND CONDUCTED MANY BIBLE STUDIES. THE READING OF PARAGRAPHS AND SCRIPTURES IS ALWAYS SHARED.

4. When the therapist's hypnosis session is completed, at a time immediately after the left-to-right eye movement has been stopped, the therapist must ask a list of at least four questions which cover each of the four versions of the hypnotic suggestion story, so that the person being hypnotised, begins to think consciously about what was done during the hypnosis session, to bring the newly-programmed belief out of the unconscious mind and establish it as a fully accepted conscious belief. This last part of the session is essential as it joins the conscious mind with the unconscious mind to expand the brain's total acceptance of the hypnotic effect.

This task is covered extremely well by Watchtower's use of the questions supplied at the end of each story printed in the Watchtower study magazine and the usher who Watchtower has instructed to walk the isle to extend the michrophone to those who wish to answer the questions.

ITS CALLED REINFORCEMENT OF IDEAS, OR INDOCTRINATION AND BRAINWASHING, NOT HYPNOSIS. AND EVERY CLASSROOM IN THE WORLD USES THIS METHOD FOR TEACHING, WITH VARIATIONS.

15

Russell on prayer to Jesus & WTS charter? refers to worship of Jesus

by yaddayadda in

help needed.

i believe that in one of the oldest watchtower issues someone asked ct russell whether praying to jesus was allowed and russell published his response to the effect that it was ok and russell said he sometimes prayed to jesus.

i'd just love it if someone could dig up the actual article for me as i want to show it to someone who doesn't believe me.

yaddayadda

Pixies, seems you are basing your opinion pretty much on one source, ie, BAGD (whatever that is).

Of course proskuneo in relation to HUMANS can only ever mean "...do obesiance to, prostrate oneself, welcome respectfully...to human beings belonging to a superhuman realm... to a king...to the Church at Philadelphia."

But you are missing the point - there is a big distinction between the resurrected Jesus and a human authority figure that many prominent NT scholars have correctly taken into account: that Jesus is not merely a human, nor a mere angel who temporarily took on human form, but is the divine son of God, appointed by God the Father to the highest status in the universe other than Himself. As a divine being who is sitting at God's right hand and who, according to Revelation 15:13+14, receives the same reverence and glory as God (but not because he is God), he can rightfully be said to be 'worshipped' in a very similar manner to God the father.

You should do yourself a favour and read what certain scholars have to say on the subject instead of arrogantly dismissing them. They are not all biased Trinitarians. But since it's all "strictly commentary and contextual" as you assert then one's interpretation of what 'proskuneo' means in relation to Christ is completely derived from one's personal predisposition.

And try reading Hurtado first before contemptously criticising his 'binitarian' theory.

15

Russell on prayer to Jesus & WTS charter? refers to worship of Jesus

by yaddayadda in

help needed.

i believe that in one of the oldest watchtower issues someone asked ct russell whether praying to jesus was allowed and russell published his response to the effect that it was ok and russell said he sometimes prayed to jesus.

i'd just love it if someone could dig up the actual article for me as i want to show it to someone who doesn't believe me.

yaddayadda

Pixies, seems you are basing your opinion pretty much on one source, ie, BAGD (whatever that is).

Of course proskuneo in relation to HUMANS can only ever mean "...do obesiance to, prostrate oneself, welcome respectfully...to human beings belonging to a superhuman realm... to a king...to the Church at Philadelphia."

But you are missing the point, a distinction between the resurrected Jesus and an human authority figure that many prominent NT scholars have correctly taken into account (but you prefer to ignore or dismiss as not necessary). That is that Jesus is not merely a human, but is the divine son of God, appointed by God the Father to the highest status in the universe other than Himself. As a divine being who is sitting at God's right hand and who, according to Revelation 15, receives the same reverence and adoration as God (but not because he is God), he can rightfully be said to be 'worshipped' in a very similar manner to God the father.

But since it's all "strictly commentary and contextual" as you assert then one's interpretation of what 'proskuneo' means in relation to Christ is completely derived from one's personal predisposition.

Try reading Hurtado first before criticising his 'binatarian' theory.

20

Have you ever wondered. . . How the Question and Answer format got started?

by Lady Lee in

the question and answer from the paragraph format for watchtower study meetings has become a staple method for indoctrinating new recruits and maintaining control of the jws thought processes.. over the years i think they have played around a bit with the sequence of questions, readings and answers but the contenet has basically remained the same - ask the question, read the paragraph and give the answer.. so .

have you ever wondered who thought this might be a good method to conduct spiritual discussions?.

i never gave it much thought but i assumed rutherford came up with the tight control over discussions.. nope.

yaddayadda

That article trying to establish a connection between meetings and clinical hypnosis is the biggest load of pathetic hogwash I've read in ages. The writer doesn't even describe accurately how meetings are conducted. Honestly, One may as well argue that the process of reading any printed matter from left to right with the eyes is advanced hypnosis.

JW's are guilty of a lot of things, but this article is really getting desperate.

The practice of asking questions and answering in church settings can be traced back to traditional liturgical protestant practice.

22

As you get older, What have you learned?

by avidbiblereader in

what has life taught you?

any subject or any issue that you want to share to help someone else!!.

you cant change people no matter how hard you try.. money is important as we need it but happiness means more than money.

yaddayadda

That time is precious so make the most of what is left.

Always treating people with kindness and courtesy, even when they are in the wrong, is more important than being right or respected.

Not to be easily discouraged and quickly give up on things, because the difference between remaining an amateur and becoming an expert is simply TIME.

Money is not as important as what people imagine it is; however, love and relationships are much more important than what most people imagine they are.

Rage against the dying of the light. Love desperately.

3

Russell the Laodicean Messenger--7 Messengers to the Church

by cabasilas in

i remember seeing a picture of the 7 messengers to the church (st paul to russell) from the keratol edition of the finished mystery.

anyone know what page that was on?

or can someone post it here?

yaddayadda

"St Paul to Russell". Wow! Never heard that one before. Can you please tell us more about this old teaching re the 7 Messengars?