Earnest

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Posts by Earnest

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  7

  Has this been posted? Crystal Lake, IL ...elders not reporting case

  by carla in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  i searched but could not find it, i apologize if it has already been covered.

  https://patch.com/illinois/crystallake/trial-starts-church-elders-accused-not-reporting-sex-abuse.

  and here too- https://www.shawlocal.com/northwest-herald/news/crime-and-courts/2022/03/03/trial-for-jehovahs-witnesses-elders-underway-without-decision-from-judge-on-what-hell-consider-in-evidence/.

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  Earnest

  BluesBrother : the WT instructions are clear , and were in 2006, that in a place that requires mandatory reporting- the elders report.

  The elder sought legal advice from Bethel at the time and was told (by legal counsel) he had no legal obligations under the Illinois law to disclose any information. The Illinois law (735 ILCS 5/8-803) includes clergy penitent privelege which relieves any reporting requirement.

  Sec. 8-803 states that

  A clergyman or practitioner of any religious denomination accredited by the religious body to which he or she belongs, shall not be compelled to disclose in any court, or to any administrative body or agency, or to any public officer, a confession or admission made to him or her in his or her professional character or as a spiritual advisor in the course of the discipline enjoined by the rules or practices of such religious body or of the religion which he or she professes, nor be compelled to divulge any information which has been obtained by him or her in such professional character or as such spiritual advisor.
  
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  25

  Religious groups in UK failing children over sex abuse, report says - BBC News

  by ballistic in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58420270.

  this item just featured on the bbc lunchtime news today as the headline story and the piece included a reporter who singled out jehovah's witnesses for discussion from the 30 organisations covered by the report.

  the news item then went on to feature an extensive interview ex elder and ex jehovah's witness writer lloyd evans..

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  Earnest

  This case started on 2nd March 2022. There is a report on the trial here.

  No witnesses were called. Only stipulations were handed to the judge, which he will read before ultimately making his ruling whether statements made by congregants to the elders may be admitted as evidence. Their defense attorneys have argued that the statements made by the congregant fall under the clergy-penitent privilege.

  The bench trial will reconvene March 11.
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  47

  JWs don’t use the apocryphal, yet source them

  by Anony Mous in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so a quick little note about a few things that i recently learned.

  if you ever had the yellow book of bible stories, there was the story of enoch, also repeated in other watchtower publications, about the angels fathering giants and being a menace on earth.

  now if you look at the nicean bible, which is the wtbts selection of the bible, it mentions enoch twice and only has a very brief passage about nephilim and ben elohim.

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  Earnest

  The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha was published in May 2021. The Enoch Seminar will present a virtual review of the book together with the authors on 17th March, and will be discussing the current state of affairs of apocrypha research. The event is free and you can register for it here if interested.
  
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  7

  Philistine pronunciation

  by road to nowhere in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the wt uses phi list ine.

  the world says phil is tine.

  i remember they had a pronunciation guide devised by a clergyman which is ok in as much as as we dont speak hebrew.

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  Earnest

  According to the OED the British and US pronunciation of "philistine" is different so it's a bit silly to be dogmatic about it. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. The etymology of the word is partly Latin (Philistinus) and partly French (Philistin), and in Hebrew it would be pronounced pel-ish-tee', but transliterations can be misleading on how to say it in English.
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  34

  Re: Use of revised New World Translation

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this letter will be read this week.

  you read it here first!.

  re: use of revised new world translation .

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  Earnest

  Thanks for reminding me about the Gideons, tenyearsafter. They are well known for Bible distribution and their website says they have placed and distributed more than 2 billion Bibles and New Testaments around the world.

  But unlike the Watchtower Society they do not have their own translation, but use the KIng James Version, the New King James Version, the English Standard Version as well as existing translations in languages other than English. However, your point is well made that they are probably the largest Bible distributor overall.
  
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  34

  Re: Use of revised New World Translation

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this letter will be read this week.

  you read it here first!.

  re: use of revised new world translation .

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  Earnest

  What is Andrew Thomson (the plaintiff) on about in the video above? He wants :
  

  (1) the Watchtower to restore the 1984 NWT Committee's signature in the hard copy to its 1984 online version;

  2) the Watchtower to change its 2013 title from the NW Translation to the NW English Revision;

  (3) the Watchtower to change the title of the authors of the 2013 NWT from the NWT Committee to the NW English Revision Committee;

  (4) that he be awarded nominal damages of $1.00 relative to the $40.00 that he paid to Watchtower for the 1984 NWT.

  Connecting the dots leads me to concur with the Supreme Court that the complaint was patently devoid of merit, and to conclude he is a nutter.
  
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  34

  Re: Use of revised New World Translation

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this letter will be read this week.

  you read it here first!.

  re: use of revised new world translation .

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  Earnest

  Thanks for that reference, road to nowhere. Those figures doubtless include the translations done by Jehovah's Witnesses and all other translators. But my question was whether any translator - a church, a Bible Society, an evangelical printing house etc. - were more prolific than JWs as you claimed.
  
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  34

  Re: Use of revised New World Translation

  by pixel in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this letter will be read this week.

  you read it here first!.

  re: use of revised new world translation .

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  Earnest

  road to nowhere : The WT is not the largest distributor of bibles, nor the most prolific translator.

  The website claims that more than 240 million copies of the NWT have been published in whole or in part in over 210 languages.

  Have any Bible distributors and/or translations surpassed this? Whether that is the case or not, it does indicate their primary interest in Bible translation and distribution.
  
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  25

  It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning

  by Yomama in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  organized shunning will stop when money stops.

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  Earnest

  Just a small bit of trivia you may not have noticed in the letter sent to the Norwegian branch office, is that the branch office address is Røyskattveien 25, 1914 YTRE ENEBAKK.

  Ytre Enebakk is a village in the county of Viken, 20 miles from the centre of Oslo, where the branch office was built 1981-1984. The postcode is 1914. Was this coincidence or design?
  
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  25

  It begins norway no money for wt because of shunning

  by Yomama in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  organized shunning will stop when money stops.

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  Earnest

  MeanMrMustard : So it was Furuli, after getting DFed himself, that got this ball rolling ... after decades of enforcing shunning and towing the WT line.

  Furuli maintains in his blog My Beloved Religion that 32 of the 43 disfellowshipping offences mentioned in Shepherd the Flock of God are made up by the GB and have no Bible backing. He also maintains that neither shunning nor disassociation are based on the Bible. Whether or not he enforced shunning and towing the WT line before being disfellowshipped I do not know.