Posts by Anony Mous

73

Rekindled Light — The Narrative Structure of the Hexaemeron (Genesis 1:1–31)

by Mebaqqer2 in

i used to comment here many years ago when i had an interest in biblical research in relation to jehovah’s witnesses.

these days my biblical research is little concerned with jehovah’s witnesses.

i feel my time is better spent researching the diachronistic development of the biblical text and ascertaining what the biblical writers and editors intended in the times in which they lived.. i have recently placed a summary diagram for a paper that i have written with original research entitled the narrative structure of the hexaemeron on academia.edu.

Anony Mous

Just as a hint as to why people may not read your paper: it’s on academia.edu, it’s a bad site, it won’t let me read the papers (for free), it wants my personal information and the only anonymous option (Apple ID) is broken.

That being said, the part of the preview I can see has no references. You cannot write a paper and have no references as to the authority or even if you are going to go against the mainstream, what specific things you try to disprove, nobody will take you seriously. I saw something you quoted Augustine, but there was no reference to the actual quote which makes it hard to verify your statements, however If you quote things (intentionally or unintentionally) without attribution and reference, that can be considered plagiarism.

If you want to be taken serious by serious scholars, publish on a serious, non scammy site like one of the ArXiV or OSF and get it peer reviewed but you need to do a bit better than an essay.

54

If the org. Is being advised by consultants, is a name change in the works?

by nowwhat? in

let's be honest, there's a stigma to the name jehovah's witness.

if they are going more mainstream.

i imagine the first recommendation was a name change.

Anony Mous

I can imagine certain parts of the name being less emphasized, like they are already doing, leaning on the JW.org instead of Jehovah’s Witnesses. As others pointed out, eliminating the word Watchtower or even retiring the legal entity Watchtower Bible and Tract Society may be a legal thing to get rid of the bad name and debt without the majority of JWs even noticing. They try to do this all the time in CSA lawsuits, by eliminating the shell corporation that a local Kingdom Hall is and then re-incorporating it under another name with another set of elders, it makes it harder to go after them and recover any damages and they can claim this was ten years ago with a group of rogue leaders and they no longer exist and that reduces damages significantly.

So I think the private/public Watchtower and Awake will be eliminated, they’ll probably combine them into something a bit more modern. They may even go ‘back’ to a magazine that is a bit more substantial but combine their 3 magazines in one, something like Eternal Decades.

194

GB Update #2, March 2024: Women allowed to wear pants, no ties/coats required if not giving a talk, & now able to greet DF ones in the KH!

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

you heard me correct, this is not a joke, and it is not april fools day!

the asl portion of the governing body updated #2 (march 2024) has been released a bit early and someone caught it.

summary: .

Anony Mous

@Dagney: partially that, but they have been making the conversion to a ‘mainstream’ church for a while now. My main issue is that people won’t leave as much anymore but it will always have that culty tinge. I think a lot of hardcore ones will take this as an opportunity to pressure those have left to rejoin. They’ve plastered over the superficial issues, but unlikely they will have changed their core.

8

Albert Delmont Jones

by vienne in

jones was a principal investor in the knickerbocker bank of new york city.

there was an earlier and defunct bank of the same name.

the bank issued its own currency, a common practice at the time.

Anony Mous

8

Albert Delmont Jones

by vienne in

jones was a principal investor in the knickerbocker bank of new york city.

there was an earlier and defunct bank of the same name.

the bank issued its own currency, a common practice at the time.

Anony Mous

37

My grandmother called my mother

by Anony Mous in

so, i’m just posting this as a warning to lurking jws.

if you’re still on the fence, here is a story.. my grandmother, now in her 80s hasn’t talked to anyone in the family for over 20 years ever since my mother was the last one of her children that left ‘the truth’, she had sent my mother a card to never talk to her again.

so here we are 21 years later, she gets a call out of the blue that she needed help, she hadn’t been able to get into her kitchen.

Anony Mous

A bit of an update, my mother now has full control over the finances. Apparently there was her JW friend (if I recall, that friend was also a ‘pioneer’ back in the day) who for the last few years had control over the finances due to the dementia, the reason she was alone for those days before she finally called my mother is because the savings account had 17 cents left. From what we can piece together, this friend over the past few years paid for my grandmother, her own and apparently her son’s groceries, they also went on trips, cruises, paid for appliances, restaurants, electronics, even donations in name of the friend, they used my grandmother’s money for everything.

All-in-all in the last few years $75k on top of monthly pension payment was spent. Once the money was gone, so was the friendship and care. My mother filed a police report, talked to social services, but being in Europe, financial abuse does not get followed up. An elder called about the whole situation, now he wants to talk about what happened, I gave my mother the advice not to say anything and refer them to the police if they have anything to add to the story. Weirdly enough it is just a single elder, I guess they don’t have more.

Good Thing, she hasn’t been to a meeting since, she doesn’t know how to use Zoom, her friend still has the iPad. It sounds like after nearly 60 years in JW, most of it being a full time pioneer, now with severe dementia she has finally woken up and is sorry for what she did to her children for the last 30. Now she wants to see her sons and daughters (8 in all, 2 have already passed), all of whom left the JW decades ago. My mother is close friends with the group that sued JW for shunning in Europe, although the case was lost, it was bad PR for the JW, so there may be some media attention brought to this. Hopefully more to come.

144

Hailstone message AND everyone will be saved? Questions

by slimboyfat in

i’ve not been paying close attention to watchtower developments, but talking to a jw yesterday it occurred to me the society (yes, still use that term - old school) have been sending out mixed messages in recent years.

from what i gather, a few years ago the gb announced that during the great tribulation jws would be required to preach a “hailstone message of judgement” which involved telling people it was too late for them to repent and they were definitely going to be destroyed.

there were hints that this could be very soon, “any day now” preaching could stop and the hailstone message come in, kind of thing.

Anony Mous

@slimboyfat: your original stance is correct that is what I always was learned.

However in the past 1-2 decades they had changed that to say that people that know about JWs but did not convert or knowingly rejected them (aka bible studies that did not end in baptism, spouses, children and apostates) would not be saved either after death or the great tribulation.

If what you say is true, and I have no doubt it could be interpreted that way, that is a complete reversal on doctrinal things from complete batshit crazy end of day cults that resulted in numerous kidnappings and apparently even a few murders in the past to “mainstream Christian church”, “everyone is loved” hippy dippy bullshit.

I don’t know the exact timelines on every doctrinal change in the directions but it seems to me the eviction of Anthony Morris and retirement of a few other old timers has its effects.

However do be careful, if the source of the material is well published “official stance” kinds of stuff then it is not unusual to have duplicitous messages. I wouldn’t be surprised that they present these public annual addresses that no real JW watches as a “this is what we officially believe, we don’t control what our followers believe” kind of excuse for the courts, investors etc. Once they publish it in the non-public Watchtower and provide this new guidance to CO and elder schools about the changes, then it’s official.

32

New approach to ministry

by Mikejw in

jw
friends

there is a new approach to ministry where the direction is to just talk to people and listen to what they want to talk about.

the new school for the midweek meeting is completely different and is all about the new approach .

even before the no reporting changes field service dropped right off.

Anony Mous

Is this official or is this just JW social media trying to convince people to go back in service? If official, that is a huge change but people will feel duped after the first time having a nice chat with a sister when they come back for their “date” with a bible.

48

The Date for the Memorial is WRONG this year!

by Kelley959 in

an interesting video was on youtube with a person claiming that the memorial date for 2024 was wrong.

so i consulted three different jewish calendars online and sure enough, he appears to be right.

i went back to 2014 and forward to 2027. they have the future dates listed.

Anony Mous

No, I did not say that Nisan 14 was a sabbath, I said that the events following the lord’s meal must have ended or gone through a sabbath if the assertion is that the lord’s meal, as JWs imply, happens on Nisan 14 after sundown. I was merely pointing out the logical error that if you put the Lord’s meal on the beginning of Nisan 14, the earliest he could’ve died and still fit in all the events was Nisan 15, and that is ignoring lots and lots of things that would still not make sense (like a lot of the legal procedures would need to starting and ending that night, as if a Roman was going to rise from his bed to adjudicate some poor sap).

The Bible puts the day of death on EITHER Nisan 14 or Nisan 15 depending on the gospel and tradition says Nisan 14 was a Friday at about 3pm (because he needs to be taken down, wrapped and buried by 6pm). My opinion, as is that of most Bible scholars and churches is that the day of the Lord’s supper must have happened on that Wednesday or perhaps earlier (Nisan 12 for a death to happen by 3pm of Nisan 14). You keep implying there is a fixed date of Nisan 14, as JWs hold, in which everything, including the meal, must take place within ~20 hours, including the requisite two days of trial for a capital punishment, but it simply isn’t supported by Biblical or contemporary sources.

48

The Date for the Memorial is WRONG this year!

by Kelley959 in

an interesting video was on youtube with a person claiming that the memorial date for 2024 was wrong.

so i consulted three different jewish calendars online and sure enough, he appears to be right.

i went back to 2014 and forward to 2027. they have the future dates listed.

Anony Mous

@Kerry: read my previous post on that subject in this thread as to why it is impossible for all that to have transpired in less than 24 hours. The synoptic gospels all record his death on Nisan 15 as a result of the statement that the Last Supper is a Passover meal which is obviously then entering the Sabbath as you point out. The Sanhedrin requires 2 days for a capital punishment to be considered, you have at least 2 nights recorded in the gospels. Only John recorded Nisan 14 as his day of death.

Early Christians subsequently understood the Last Supper to be on a Thursday in order not to have the timeline conflict.

Sir Colin Humphrey which has a book on the subject and calculated this according to astronomy and timeline of the events “A Wednesday Last Supper with the Crucifixion on Friday also allows just the right amount of time for all the events the Gospels record between the Last Supper and the Crucifixion”