munchausen

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Posts by munchausen

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  29

  "Do not go beyond the things written"

  by hotspur in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how many times did you hear that?

  it wasn't until i read with disbelief no room for george's pitiful statement about being proud to be a jw did i start to think of a simple of way of discrediting the jws... it needed a simple scriptural phrase that causes them to shoot their own foot!.

  so - how many different ways can you think of where jws have "gone beyond the things written"?.

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  munchausen

  How about their translation of that verse in the NW, which in itself goes beyond what is written:

  1 Cor 4:6 "... that in our case you may learn the [rule]: 'Do not go beyond the things that are written,'..." NW

  Their use of brackets shows a word inserted which is not in the original. The NW is almost unique in calling this a 'rule', most translations use words like

  'saying' NIV

  'maxim' Jerusalem Bible

  'saying' TEV

  The New English uses the word 'rules' but qualifies it "keep within the rules, as they say"

  Other translations , even the King James, re-worded it entirely but still did not use the word 'rule'
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  115

  Frederick Franz, "Bible Scholar"

  by Quendi in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as some of you know by now, i spent sunday, 7 august, renewing ties with a dear friend.

  we're both disfellowshipped, the difference between us being he is seeking reinstatement and i am not.

  we got into some very spirited discussions on different bible topics and one of them was the value of the new world translation itself.

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  munchausen

  I cannot resist adding my two cents worth. While I am not an expert in any Biblical language, I have studied Greek enough to be read the alphabet and to intelligently use a greek concordance and lexicon. My feelings about the NW is that the OT is very literal, slavishly so. The NT is more creatively manipulated to support JW doctine. In these respects it is similar to the Green or the Youngs translation, which were intended to be literal. The major failure of the NW, though, is that it fails to do the one thing a translation should do. That is to communicate to the reader what the author was thinking. The best evidence of this the book of Job, which is in many translations a gloriously poetic expression. But in the NW it is virtually unreadable. It makes no sense, because the translators were so crazy about following the literal rendition that they lost sense of trying to get it to make sense. It is no wonder that the typical JW has no appreciation of the Bible as literature... only as a source of proof texts to 'prove' some point. The NW is a ridiculous failure, not that it is biased (virtually all translations are biased in some way, some worse than the NW... see the Amplified or the Living Bible or the CEV), but that it has alienated so many from appreciation of the Bible.

  In agreement with some of the other posters, I believe Franz had studied on his own sufficient to be equal to other translators who had credentials. However, Franz was in a cult, as I think everyone here knows. He produced a translation that supported his cult beliefs.
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  79

  Watchtower falsification of its history

  by jwfacts in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  i received an email with the following information that is worth sharing.. the 2011 yearbook goes to great lengths to elevate the truthfulness of watchtower information in even minor details, and criticise information from other sources.

  so it is telling that the 2010 "jehovah's witnesses - faith in action, part 1" has omitted an important element of their history when re-enacting the 1922 cedar point convention.. under the heading "tracing all things with accuracy" the 2011 yearbook states: .

  "jesus said that the faithful slave would be discreet in giving the domestics "their food at the proper time.

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  munchausen

  I would agree that the re-enacted event purposely omitted the US flag. But little has been said about the possible motives to falsify the video. Two reasons come to mind:

  1. Embarassment that the US flag was prominently displayed at the 'historic' convention in view of the later 1939-1943 flag salute issues. (Although I have been to many assemblies where there is a flag draped up somewhere in the facility and nobody seems to notice or care.)

  2. The majority of JWs now are not in the US, and the DVD is intended (with translation) to be distributed worldwide. There is some objection that it is an American religion. It could be that the flag was omitted purposely to make it more palatable to the non-US witnesses.

  Concerning the headware: The Proclaimers book p 258 has a photo of the crowd at Cedar Point in 1919 seated outside, it is clear that almost every woman has a headcovering of some sort, either a fashionable hat or a handkerchief for-the-sake-of-the-angels headcovering. The photo of Cedar point in 1922 (p 259) also has some of the same silly handkerchiefs. The photo from the Daniel book p. 299 appears to be taken from a vantage point further back; maybe the sisters didn't put on their headcovering until they sat down? I don't know, maybe one of the oldtimers would know more about that.
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  59

  New Curcuit Overseer Brainwash Talk....Obey the Slave even if you find a serious Flaw in JW Doctrine

  by foolsparadise in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/media/circuit-overseer-5-15-11.mp3.

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  brainwashing at its best here.

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  munchausen

  Violia,

  This link seems to work OK for me. It opens up the recording automatically. Maybe someone who is more tech savvy than me would know.

  Here is the link: http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/media/circuit-overseer-5-15-11.mp3
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  59

  New Curcuit Overseer Brainwash Talk....Obey the Slave even if you find a serious Flaw in JW Doctrine

  by foolsparadise in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  http://www.sixscreensofthewatchtower.com/media/circuit-overseer-5-15-11.mp3.

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  brainwashing at its best here.

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  munchausen

  bump
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  36

  Watchtower — Pre-Eve Adam was not male!

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower pre-eve adam was not male!

  today i uploaded a new article to my blog addressing watchtowers teaching of adams sexuality at the time of his creation.

  as it turns out, adam was not originally created as a male.

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  munchausen

  Along the same lines, I recall that the Russellites believed that the resurrected humans to the earth would be sexless also. The belief was that the ones to be resurrected to earth were the heathens, ie Non-Christian peoples, they would be sexless and thus there would never be children born in the new earth during the Millenium.

  The idea that someone or something could have both male and female characteristics has been around for a long time, I think the Shakers had such a belief about the nature of God. Many of the Shakers were believers in the Advent (the 1844 movement) and so share some ideological kinship with Russell.
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  6

  Watchtower — “Birthday Suit”

  by Marvin Shilmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  watchtower birthday suit .

  just a cute watchtower illustration from the 1950s.

  available at: http://marvinshilmer.blogspot.com/2011/07/watchtower-birthday-suit.html.

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  munchausen

  So when did the Society come out against birthdays? I don't recall ever hearing about that.
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  18

  So How Much Does the New World Translation Cost?

  by AllTimeJeff in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  you can't make this up.

  i just got back from half price books around where i live...... .

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  munchausen

  I think this is a special super-large print edition available for the near-blind. I have never seen one, but I seem to recall it was available once upon a time. There was also a braille version available for the blind.
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  52

  Racial question about the annointed aka 144,000...

  by Joliette in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  as an african american associate of jehovah's witnesses (since the age of 5, actually i remember going to the kingdom hall as young as 3).

  i've always wondered why most of the annointed were and are white.

  i know there are a lot of white people on here so why is it that there are.

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  munchausen

  My 2 cents,

  During the 60's and 70's, all of the anointed were people who had become consecrated (the old term for dedicated) before 1935, in fact virtually all who came in before '35 believed they were going to heaven. This meant that nearly all of the anointed living at that time (the ones who did not leave in the 20's and 30's, aka the remnant) came from the areas of the world where most of the Bible Students pre-1935 had been concentrated. In those days it was mostly a white American religion. It is worth noting that many if not most of the Russellites in the 1800's had been believers in the teachings of William Miller or its offshoots. The Millerites had been concentrated in the American Northeast - very little presence in the American south. This was partly due to many of the prominent early Adventists were staunch abolitionists, and the anti-slavery rhetoric didn't go over very well in the South. The JWs continued to be a predominantly white religion until probably the 70's or 80's.

  Nowadays, it is another matter, as virtually all of the anointed now date to after '35, including the WT leadership. If we had full demographics of the WT religion I think we would find that the majority of Witnesses; 1. reside outside the US, 2. are not English speakers, 3. are non-white. The original poster's question is a good one; why doesn't the JW leadership resemble the JW community in ethnicity? Does this not represent an inherent racism?

  Also, I do recall looking at a 1920's JW yearbook once and was surprised to see a section about the work among 'our colored brethren' in the south. Of course it was segregated and they continued to have segregated congregations in the South into the 60's. Were not these ones in the 20's also anointed, and why didn't any of them ever find their way to WT leadership?
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  5

  Angels and Women reccomended by Sam Herd. (VIDEO)

  by Wasanelder Once in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  just put up a new video using the soundbite of sam herd expounding on the quality of the book angels and women.

  i think it turned out fairly well.

  feedback appreciated.. .

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  munchausen

  My personal memory of this book dates to when my mom, who studied in the early 60's, was given the book Angels and Women as good reading for studies. She read it and talked about for years afterwards. I have read it, as well as Atla. I see them as fanciful fiction, not too different from other early science fiction-type literature from the late 1800's to early 1900's. The commonly seen quotations about 'channelling' from the spirit are not in the original, but are in the forward. Herd says in the recording that Russell may have written the forward; I really doubt that, as Angels and Women was published in the mid 20's. If I were to make an educated guess as to who wrote the forward I would say it was Clayton Woodworth. His opinions and beliefs were really bizarre.