i wasn't sure where to post this.
not sure why i'm posting this.
it's only going to add fuel to the fire.
E. G. White borrowed extensively. One of those she plagiarized was Horace Lorenzo Hastings. "Borrowing" was more common among Adventists of various sorts than among other groups. I do not know why.
One of Russell's first tracts was a rewrite and paraphrase of one by Henry Smith-Warleigh, Anglican rector of Ashchurch, Gloucestershire. Mom and B dissect this in detail in Separate Identity vol 2.
i wasn't sure where to post this.
not sure why i'm posting this.
it's only going to add fuel to the fire.
Joen,
Aren't the two doctrines you mention what Russell meant when he wrote "though Adventism helped me to no single truth, it did help me greatly in the unlearning of errors, and thus prepared me for the truth"?
At least Wendell put his mind at rest over hellfire. He may have rejected the trinity via another route; there were non-Trinitarian Congregationalist churches. [Russell wasn't Arian. His approach, especially in regard to Holy Sprit, differed from Arianism.]
But I have some questions about other Russellite doctrines. Russell was accused of Second-Probationism. That's not exactly what he taught, but close enough. Adventists rejected anything resembling Second Probation. So, from where did Russell derive his belief? Not from Adventism in this case.
i wasn't sure where to post this.
not sure why i'm posting this.
it's only going to add fuel to the fire.
Russell wrote in the May 1890 issue of Zion's Watch Tower:
"Though his Scripture exposition was not entirely clear, and though it was very far from what we now rejoice in, it was sufficient, under God, to re-establish my wavering faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible, and to show that the records of the apostles and prophets are indissolubly linked. What I heard sent me to my Bible to study with more zeal and care than ever before, and I shall ever thank the Lord for that leading; for though Adventism helped me to no single truth, it did help me greatly in the unlearning of errors, and thus prepared me for the truth."
My question is: What errors did Adventism help him unlearn. And, if Adventism did not lead him to 'truth' from where did his doctrine come?
i wasn't sure where to post this.
not sure why i'm posting this.
it's only going to add fuel to the fire.
From Schulz and de Vienne, Separate Identity, vol. one:
When Wendell returned to Pittsburgh in 1872, he was fresh from distressing personal
controversy. An Associated Press dispatch from Erie, Pennsylvania, claimed that Wendell was arrested
in Erie and taken to Edinboro on “a charge of fornication with a girl of 16 named Terry.”99 As printed in
The Utica, New York, Daily Observer, the notice read: “Rev. Jonas Wendell, sixty years of age, has
been arrested and taken to Edinborough (sic), near Erie, Pa., on the charge of improper intimacy with a
girl named Ferry, [sic] aged sixteen years. Wendell secured the girl’s release from the House of Refuge
some time since, and had arranged to run away with her.”100 The Wheeling, West Virginia, Daily
Intelligencer added that their destination was Pittsburgh.101
The report was picked up by several smaller New York State newspapers and by The New York
Daily Tribune. It was the Tribune with its larger circulation that came to Wendell’s notice. On June 2,
1871, he wrote to the Tribune’s editor from Erie, where he still was rather than in jail in Edinboro,
saying: “I have just had my attention called to an article which appeared in The Tribune of May 29,
headed, ‘A Clergyman in Difficulty.’ I pronounce the charge therein made false, and without any
foundation in truth.” An editorial comment on Wendell’s note blamed the Associated Press, which was
prone to manufacturing the news rather than reporting it.102 Wendell’s denial does not say the arrest did
not occur, merely that he was innocent of the charge. Obviously if he has been found culpable, he would
not have been in a position to write to The Tribune.
The report was published by papers as far away as California. The Daily Alta California ran a
report in its May 29, 1871, issue: “Eire, Pa., May 28th - The Rev. Jonas Wendell has been arrested and
brought to Edinboro, in this county, where he resides, on the charge of fornication. He is an Adventist
minister, and about sixty years of age. The alleged partner of his crime is a young girl about sixteen
years of age, named Terrey. [sic] Wendell secured her release from the House of Refuge some time
since. At the time of his arrest he had made arrangements to run away with her to Pittston. The
examination will be held at Edinboro to-morrow evening.”
An Internet-based history site suggests that the girl was taken from the Pittsburgh House of
Refuge. There is no basis for this claim. There were many Houses of Refuge. Most of the residents were
runaways and juvenile offenders. Often enough inmates were orphans who lived on the streets.
The report was false. That's shown by Wendell being elsewhere when this was first published. Also, if anything similar happened, the girl involved was a Terry, a daughter of prominent Second Adventists [Advent Christian or Life and Advent Union] who hosted a large gathering in 1873. Mom's notes suggest that while Terry may have written to Wendell for assistance, it was Terry who picked up his daughter. The rest is fabrication.
Associating a false report about Wendell with Russell's character is false logic.
i'm looking for wts quotations that contrast with ii timothy 3:15-16 whereby they downplay scripture.. here is one from way back..
"...people cannot see the divine plan in studying the bible by itself...if he then lays them [scripture studies] aside and ignores them and goes to the bible alone, though he has understood his bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness.
on the other hand, if he had merely read the scripture studies with their references, and had not read a page of the bible, as such, he would be in the light at the end of the two years, because he would have the light of the scriptures," (watchtower, sept. 15, 1910, p. 298).
From Schulz and de Vienne, Separate Identity, vol. 2:
We can forgive inexperienced students for accepting Rogerson’s work. He is supposed to know his subject matter. An experienced historian, unless his intellect is clouded by prejudice or by a quest for a preferred result, would look at the un-footnoted assertions found within his book with an adult skepticism. Accepting something because ‘everyone knows it’s true,’ is a major logic flaw – argumentum ad populum. A writer with some depth of research into Watch Tower history should be able to recognize typical research flaws. If one has coached students through thesis and dissertation writing, one knows the shortcuts some students take. An example in Rogerson’s case is presenting a lengthy quotation from Zion’s Watch Tower and footnoting it to the original issue. This quotation is found on page eleven:
Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot see the divine plan in
studying the Bible by itself, but we see also that if anyone lays the ‘Scripture
Studies’ aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with
them, after he has read them for ten years – if he lays them aside and ignores
them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten
years, our experience shows that within two years he goes into darkness. On
the other hand, if he had merely read the 'Scripture Studies' and had not read a
page of the Bible as such, he would be in the light at the end of two years,
because he would have the light of the Scriptures.
Rogerson did not consult the Watch Tower article where one finds the original. He lifted this entire and without alteration from opposition literature. Judging by his bibliography he found this in Martin and Klann’s Jehovah of the Watch Tower. He leads us through his footnote not to the secondary source from which he drew this but to a specific page in Zion’s Watch Tower. Even his footnote is uncharacteristic, citing a specific page when he otherwise cited a date of publication without noting a page number. Even his footnote is borrowed. Ethically, he should have consulted the original article. Instead, he chose to pretend that he had. In context, the original says something different. Russell’s full message was that to have confidence in Studies of the Scriptures one must test it against scripture:
The six volumes of Scripture Studies are not intended to supplant the Bible.
There are various methods to be pursued in the study of the Bible and these
aids to Bible study are in such form that they, of themselves, contain the
important elements of the Bible as well as the comments or elucidations of
those that our Lord and the Apostles quoted from the Old Testament ... .
Our thought, therefore, is that these Scripture Studies are a great assistance, a
very valuable help, in the understanding of God’s Word. If these books are to
be of any value to us it must be because we see in them loyalty to the Word of
God, and as far as our judgment goes, see them to be in full harmony with the
Word and not antagonistic to it. Therefore, in reading them the first time, and
perhaps the second time, and before we would accept anything as being our
own personal faith and conviction, we should say, “I will not take it because
these studies say so; I wish to see what the Bible says.” And so we would ...
prove every point or disprove it, as the case may be. We would be satisfied
with nothing less than a thorough investigation of the Bible from this
standpoint.
Russell’s comments on his books do not differ in purpose or meaning from those of other Protestant writers but are part of a tradition that extends back to 17th Century British – primarily English – and American Colonial Era writers. David Hall demonstrates that the objective of lay writers and clergy was to “reduce the distance between what they said and what was contained in the great original;” i.e. the Bible. They believed they’d gotten it right, and their words were the Bible condensed or clarified. Hall takes us to a colonial-era writer who advised readers to “diligently read it over and over again, and when you have done, enter upon a serious consideration.” Russell trod this familiar path.
A new article about W. H. Conley: https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/
did you know that noah entered the ark in the end part of november and also that jesus' followers flead jerusalem around 25th of november 66ce?.
could it be that a significant group of jehovah's witnesses would begin to flee to the "wilderness" in the end of november?
revelation 12 speaks about a flight of a symbolic woman to a wilderness.
Apparently Kosonen thinks of himself as some sort of modern day prophet. He needs mental health counseling and some medications. His mental problems explain why he became a Witness and why he left. Sad, huh?
this church covered up my abuse and got away with it..
Posts such as this peg my 'troll meter.' Do you know of any Witness or former Witness that would call it a "church"?
i had an elder that was very nosey in my business.
i was so to the point and told him to screw off.
have any you have any stories like this?.
Yes. and my mom did that on a regular basis. they believed that because my grandmother and other relatives were witnesses they had some place in my mom's life. that extends to me and my relationship to my elder uncles. I'm not a witness, though I am largely sympathetic. I do not like controlling behaviors.
can someone please tell the wt janitor to turn the lights off when the last jw leaves the watchtower after learning that early christians used the cross as a christian logo of sorts?
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