Ozzie: The original ' 69 edition is no longer in print. The later, ' 85 edition, though not officially out of print, is virtually impossible to obtain freely. It takes a lot of hard looking and asking around. The trick that the WTS used was restricting the printing run.
At the same assembly that the revised KIT was released we saw the release of the "Reasoning" book. With the WT following at that time topping the 2.5 mill mark, the printing of the "reasoning book" was put at 2mil, thus ensuring a fair distribution to all. The KIT, however was limited to less than 1 mil copies, with no reprints. [The Reasoning book was reprinted, with revisions -naturally- in ' 89 for additional converts]
With the population of the WTS currently standing at 6 mil, the possibility of finding a copy is even more remote, unless the WTS allows another print run, which appears unlikely.
I am not entirely sure why the WTS published the KIT back in ' 69. But possibly there was a need for being up to date. Remember that the WTS already had an Interlinear on the market, called the "Emphatic Diaglott" first published by the Society in 1902, reprinted, without changes in 1942. Although the author, Benjamin Wilson had an Anti-trinitarian bias, his version was ultimately unsatisfactory.
For instance, despite his interlinear portion rendered Jo 1:1 as "a god was the logos" his actual translation admitted to "And the Logos was God" Freddy obviously felt that a thorough WT leaning interlinear should be released.
However, having said that, there seems to be another reason. To give the impression to the R&F at least, that the WTS is an open, Bible organisation, with scholastic pretensions, and with nothing to hide. Like all the conjuring tricks employed by the WTS, the perception is different from the reality. Simultaneous with its release, there was also a deliberate attempt to downplay its significance, in that the R&F were never actually encouraged to use the book in any meaningful way. No WT study used it, except insofar as to make an incidental reference to some obscure point of WT doctrine.
No witness was educated in its structure, nor enlightened on its ability to make the NT text more accessable to the reader. In fact, other than the use of Jo 1:1 to show the "need" for the "a god" rendering, and that the Greek "Parousia" at Matt 24:3 means "presence" the majority of the R&F were unaware of its contents. In fact we on JWD would be far more knowledgable abouts its subject matter than they. Having obtained a copy, it then lies, like a slowly ticking bomb, unused, in a JWs library shelf.
Significantly it is not logged into the WT CD Rom library in either the ' 04 or ' 05 editions
It seems appropiate to point out that the original ED published in 1902 had a larger print run than the current KIT. Which ironically means that that book is easier to obtain than the KIT. [Actually, the WTS copyright on the ED has expired, putting it into the public domain. Some months ago Altlantis made it available for download on JWD.] The original KIT has also now been made available by Atlantis on a current thread.
Cheers
