Posts by KalebOutWest

11

The Akedah

by peacefulpete in

the genesis 22 episode, often referred to as the akedah (aqueda) ie "the binding" is a topic worthy a masterclass in textual and theological development.

a comprehensive discussion regarding this development would involve volumes and still leave much to be uncertain.

in short, the internal contradictions the narrative offers as it appears in genesis have inspired millennia of interpretive expansions and elaborations.

KalebOutWest

I personally cannot speak to much of what has been written here.

I was taught some of the Document Hypothesis but only as in "that is what we used to teach," almost sort of the way the Governing Body offers "new light" except that this is due to new archological scholarship.

While Jews do talk about the "Deuteronomist" author(s), this is for a very limited portion of the Torah, actually limited mostly to verses found only in Deuteronomy itself. The rest of the Torah is actually divided, along with the work of other books of the Hebrew text, namely into the work of the Israelites and the work of the Judahites. The reason for this is that it is no longer believed that we were ever originally one people, or that the Biblical stories originally came from a singular culture. It appears that what we have is a story politcally manipulated by the Judahite people to read the way it does, and instead of the Torah and the Nevi'im (Joshua-Judges-Samuel-Kings) being separate collections written by different writers at separate times, the Torah and Nevi'im is actually one collection produced by one redactor or set of redactors, namely the Jedahites. They merely collected some legends and folktales from Israelites who merged with them after the Assyrians destroyed their northern territory.

While this does not mean that there are no more separate composers like "J" and "E," etc. There are, and in fact, there are a plethora more. Many others have been identified since the original Document Hypothesis was developed in the mid-18th century. "J" and "E" have now, for example, been merged, and they are considered the probable source of the Akedah.

While this doesn't mean that some of what was posted above isn't correct or that some of what many scholars have posited is no longer applicable. (You did great work, PeacefulPete. I should have teach my Sunday Hebrew school for me. My kids would love you.) What it does suggest is that we have to make room for what we now are coming to understand and that this could mean that we might have to abandon some very long-held theories.(I can hear some people crying in the backrow. It's okay. Let it out.)

Whatever the critical data shows doesn't change the traditions or applications much, nor does it makes our previous study a waste. To illustrate, of interest are the midrash traditions where Isaac does indeed seem to die and Satan plays a trick on Sarah coming to her as her son only to announce he is dead which causes Sarah's own death. There are a few versions of this. But the particular one with "the Satan" is one of the few where one can see the development of a personification that leaped from Judaism to Christianity, only to be abandoned once the character takes off as Jesus' archenemy. (See Sarah and the Akedah for more interesting details of the narratives themselves.) Jews had only a short history of demonology that came from our exposure to Persian culture but became lost with the introduction of great sages like Rambam (Maimonides) who introduced rationalism and a return to stricter adherence to traditional Judaism which has no demons. It was believed that good and evil should be morally attributed to God in the end according Scripture.--Job 2:10.

I think the Akedah is less a story about a deity and more a story about us. Where do we come from? What do we do? Do we sacrifice our children ever so blindly on altars? We do it when there is a call for secular war. We do it when there are politcal demands when we vote someone in office that our young people don't like and make them live by laws they don't agree with or can't live by. We do it when we take away their rights by these laws. We do it when we carelessly do things in this generation that makes it difficult for the young to inherit the world we live behind. We sacrifice our children on altars to our gods all the time, gods that we blindly follow because we believe in them, but gods they might not, whether it's the God of the Bible or the gods of our disbelief.

It's a shame we don't put up more of a fight for our children before we sacrifice them to something we think is best for them. There are no angels to call from the heavens to stop us. There will be no rams to wonderously appear to take their place. If we don't learn from myths or legends, then we obviously aren't smart enough to face reality.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

For joey jojo:

I will offer below two good sources to help answer your questions. But first a brief explanation.

Judaism is a spectrum of belief and practices, not only among its groups of peoples such as the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Secular Humanist, Renewal, and Post-denomantional, but also among each individual person that allows for constant change.

Can an atheist change their beliefs and still remain an atheist? Can a Christian change theirs and still remain a Christian?

Unlike Westerners who are usually identified and self-identify according to strict creeds or general static set of definitions, Jews can and will switch what they believe and practice among this spectrum as they live and grow and age employing a diverse cornacopa of traditions and ethics to without losing their place in the tribe.

This doesn't work for, let's say a Jehovah's Witness who cannot stop believing in Jesus one day and still expect to remain a Witness. But a Jew can indeed go from theist to atheist one day then agnostic the next and then decide that they are something called an "ignostic" the next day, only later to start the cycle again, never to loose there place or membership in Judaism.

How? Why?

Open Judaism: A Guide for Atheists, Believers, and Agnostics by Rabbi Barry L Schwartz (it's available as an Ebook too)

and a YouTube series about charts--yes, charts, by Dr Matt Baker (yes, he is also a Jew). How will charts help? Click on his playlists and watch his Introduction to the Bible series at

https://youtu.be/KqSkXmFun14?si=wZEd1MLmnnPrQ1QY

and his Religious Studies series.

https://youtu.be/7wtBBVnyX3A?si=IC4y7Yw-sGBCDS8k

Many, many hours of stuff that will explain things.

Now, I am off to be "enslaved" by resting on the Jewish Sabbath.

Shabbat Shalom.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

You are right NZ.

There was a Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, Rambam, who though persecuted at the time eventually won the Jews over with the prevailing theology that we had to reject the literal reading of any text of Scripture that suggested that God had a body or human traits or features.

While in many of the stories of the Bible, God is merely a player no less or greater than any other, this went often forgotten by the rabbis and they began to take it literal that God had a body. Rambam taught the opposite, that the writers made a character out of God in our human image to make God pliable for the purpose of each storyline. If one takes these literally, Rambam taught, you are actually guilty of idolatry.

Today this, outside of the claim that "God is one," is the only other universal definition that Jews tend to agree upon (if even they are agnostic and atheist), that the Jewish God is "Ineffable."

This is why the idea of a deity flooding the world and "feeling regret" for his actions is not taken literal by the Jews. It breaks Rambam's rule of ascribing anthropomorphic facets to God.

This makes most of Watchtower's theology incompatible with Judaism because it basically advocates worship of a god in human form with human features and qualities.

To many Jews, due to the introduction of teachers like Spinoza and Kaplan and even Sherwin Wine, God is not a person or there is no personal God.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

We are not "enslaved" as JWs teach or you suggest.

A Secular Humanistic Jew, for example, who observes the sabbath or a holy day or places a mezzuzah on their door post is not doing this because they are enslaved to biblical obligations. Humanist Jews don't even believe in the Bible and most are strict atheists.

These are cultural practices, most of which came before they were written down into laws and regulations and given mythical significance. Jews celebrated things like the Passover and the Festival of Tabernacles with totally different meanings before the priesthood attached the meanings you read about them in the Torah. Our culture didn't start with the Bible. It is older. The laws you read in the Bible are not the way the Jews ever did things or do them today.

The Torah is mainly illustrative, not practical. That is why we have the Talmud and responsa.

Our culture is impotant to us. The music, food, dress, languages, holidays and myths and just some of the ways we celebrate our identity as a people.

It isn't slavery to celebrate your culture.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

P.S.--I know you are not mad at God.

Or Luke or his dad.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

I was pointing out how the stories present the god of the Bible from a straightforward reading...Stories about the noachian flood (and those stories that followed)...

First, the Noachin Deluge is the newer myth. It was composed after the Babylonian Exile, around 538 BCE, and was added to the Torah during the Persian Era. We know this because it has the editorial earmarks of Gilgamesh tablet 11. The other stories came before, they did not follow. In fact, some scholars are in agreement that the redactors of the Torah might be making fun of the Atrahasis (another older Mesoptamian flood legend) and the Gilgamesh story by showing that Yahweh hangs up his weapon at the end and won't be like the heathen gods in the other stories by his limiting his power via covenant-making, a new element not found in the other flood myths.

These are not the qualities we were taught to understand that he [God] had, nor are they the qualities that many who worship this god insist he has, or represents. Growing up, I was taught to approach these stories in a certain way, which is very different from how they read if you just... you know... read them.

As a Jew I can attest that we do not teach anywhere in our Scriptures that "God is love," like it does in 1 John chapter 4:8 & 16.

Is God just? Is God merciful? Is God omnipresent? Omniscient? In Judaism, God is often not even considered an entity let alone a deity. Humans created deities. Many Jews are atheists, agnostics or don't put belief in God central in their religious lives. (It sounds weird to Christians who measure religion by what "God" is, but yeah.) One's view of God can change from one day to the next.

The word "Israel" means "he who wrestles with God." Our nation and people is called "Israel" and not "Abraham" because we wrestle with the God-issue. We don't obey or believe blindly.

As for reading these stories, we Jews know how to read them. We understand that the first 11 chapters are filled with mythology and legends. And Genesis is part of the Mosaic Law, not the Mosaic History. It's a book teaching Jews how to perform the Law. It's stories having a bearing on how to perform the Law: the first chapter of Genesis about why it's important to observe the Sabbath, the second chapter about our need to observe the commandments, the third about what happens when you break a commandment and so on, etc. It's not really about history. It the Torah. It teaches you lessons to be a good Jew. It wasn't written to be read literally or outside the idea that it wasn't the Torah or wasn't the Mosaic Law.

I was there for a few years with my JW aunt in the Kingdom Hall and listened to how people were taught that this meant this and that meant that. So? What if you were taught that Star Wars was a real story all your life when you were raised as a Mormon? And then you grew up and learned it wasn't? Are you going to hate Luke Skywalker? Or George Lucas?

It's fiction. You had a wrong view of it. Others taught you that wrong view. There was a correct view, but you never learned it. The more you refuse to learn that there is a possible correct view, that it is fiction, the more you will just sit being angry.

You anger isn't wrong. It's just misdirected. There are people who you should be angry at.

A myth and a mythological god are not to blame, especially when the story had a completely different context than you thought it did.

(I mean, God is not even named "Jehovah." That name means nothing to us Jews. That should tell you something right there. You can't even read the story straightfoward either. It's in Hebrew. We can, and we do. You folks argue over whether or not you have a good or correct translation, and can't ever be sure if you have a correct one. We don't need a translation. That should also tell you something.)

Be mad if you want to. But I would direct my anger at the right people and do something constructive with it instead of being mad at, for example "Luke Skywalker" and "Darth Vader." They were never real to being with. And being mad at them all day ain't gonna make them "realler"

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

The flood story also brings up an interesting thought: doesn't it speak to god's failures?

When we leave the Jehovah's Witnesses, we might often focus our disappointment in "God" and do our best to criticize (in an honest and rational way) what we might see as a betrayal on behalf of the trust we once put forth.

The mythology of the Hebrew Bible is not stating what the Watchtower taught us or what you or I believed when we faithfully went to the Kingdom Hall. Ancient peoples of various cultures believed that the present world, in fact the entire universe was created from a previous existing one that had been wiped out of existence by the cosmic forces closing in on themselves and starting from scatch.

They did not believe in a vacuum of space but that the world was flat and covered with a bowl that likely held the stars and sun in place and kept the cosmic waters from falling upon us, allowing only some of them to sprinkle upon us every now and then in the form of rain or snow.

But practically each culture, not just the Jews, had this view. Since they all believed that the forces of nature were either controlled by the gods or were gods, they blamed this cataclysmic restart on their deities.

The Vikings blamed their Norse gods for flooding the previous world, starting over and creating the world we previously live in now. And North American Hopi taught that the world has had not just one restart but that we are currently living in the fifth world! (If you thought Jehovah was a failure...)

The gods that started all these horrific restarts in these stories, slaughtering millions, perhaps billions, each time in these mythologies, do you believe any of them are real? Or are you just angry at God in Genesis because you were once one of Jehovah's Witnesses?

What makes the God of the Bible more of a failure in the Noachin flood when that is clearly just the same sort of creation type of mythology? Should we blame stories that were clearly creation/origin myths, including any or all deities that are clearly the product of another culture or our misunderstandings that were not even produced by the people who wrote these myths but were introduced to us by others?

If you are going to think with a critical mind, is it logical to be angry at a mythical god in a myth based on the interpretation made by a cult that is run by unlettered and uneducated men who cannot even read the myth in its original language? Critically, where does the blame really lie? The deity? The myth? The cult? In us who believed the false teaching of the cult at one time?

The story is even considered allegorical by Orthodox Jews, and they take most of the Hebrew Bible at face value. And we angry about a flood that even Orthodox Jews said never happened? Think about that for a while. What rational mind would spend time being angry about something that never happened?

Just some things to consider. We may not have answers right away. We might not all have the same answers or agree.

One this is certain. A lot of blame should be placed at the feet of the Watcthtower leaders who offer impossible interpretations of Noah's Flood that cannot be traced to the original sources or type of writing that these type of stories are meant to reflect to ancient peoples.

47

The First Holocaust

by nicolaou in

please, please ignore all the scientific impossibilities here, that's not what this topic is about.. let's make the assumption as many christians do that the bible is historically accurate.

the noachian flood actually happened a little less than 4,500 years ago after which eight adults stepped off the ark to repopulate the planet.. that means that approximately 60 million lives had been snuffed out, a holocaust by anyone's estimation.

as if that isn't horrific enough just think about the babies, toddlers and young children god killed.. he drowned all of them, every single one.

KalebOutWest

This is ridiculous.

The story doesn't even originate with Yahweh, the God of Abraham. The original flood story comes from the Gilgamesh tradition.

It claims the flood was the result of a debate between the gods Enlil and Enki.

The Genesis story just copied that one. So if really believe there was a flood, why not pick the older story? Why not blame the gods Enlil and Enki?

See how stupid all this sounds?

45

Isaiah 40:29-31 and Being Gay

by IWant2Know in

i'm new here and i have perhaps an unusual question.

it's just something that i would like to know from ex's or formers rather than from other jehovah's witnesses.

but i would like to know what your experience and your struggle was for former jws who were gay when they were jws.

KalebOutWest

IWant2Know:

So, what about predictions such as Isaiah 11:6-9 and Isaiah 65:17-25? And Daniel 2:31-45, which I mentioned before?

Catholic, and mainstream Protestants, as well as Jews don't view them as "predictions" in the same sense as Jehovah's Witnesses and many Fundamentalists. A prediction is what a medium or soothsayer does, such as forecasting or foretelling the future, like a palm reader or spiritualist claims to do in a crystal ball.

The prophets did not predict the future, per se, as least not the way Jews, Catholics, and mainstream Protestants believe and some Fundamentalists hold.

The reason Jehovah's Witnesses believe this is that JWs teach that Jehovah is an entity or being that exists on the same temporal plain of existence that humans do, thus experiencing time from the same frame of reference that we do with one difference: that God can foretell or foresee the future (and past). Christians and Jews teach that the God of Abraham is Ineffable and therefore does not exist on our temporal plain. God created the temporal plain, including the phenomenon of time. Therefore God is not affected by time. The beginning, the middle, and the end of time are all available to God at once, like all the letters in a word. God is like the reader, outside a word, and we are like the ink on a page that make up the individual markings of each stroke of each letter on a page. God is not affected by time whatsoever.

For Jehovah's WItnesses, God must "foresee" and "foretell" the future and must keep time, partially because the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses is based on "timekeeping" and "the end of times." If this understanding fails, so does their teaching that their religion is the only true one. Their leaders have spent over a century trying to teach they only they can understand the "predictions" of the "prophets."

But if there are predictions, then explain to me the 30 pieces of silver prophecy in reference to Jesus before I explain the others.

Don't worry. You can't. You know why, because it isn't a prediction.

In reality, the writers of the New Testament, who were Jews, used a type of Jewish exegesis known as "midrash" to interpret Scripture to explain what the prophets meant in fulfillment about Jesus. "Midrash" is not a claim that a prophet or an oracle can foretell the future, but that a Jewish writer is using a play on words, claiming that the Holy Spirit put something deep into holy writ that had an application that was not apparent to the original composer of the text.

Take for instance this "prophecy" about Jesus being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. At Matthew 27:3-10, it is claimed that Judas betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and then Judas killing himself fulfills a prophecy written by Jeremiah. This is combination of three texts, neither of which are foretelling events, none speaking about the Jewish Messiah, and then only the first of the two which were written by Jeremiah.

The first is an obscure text about a potter from Jeremiah 18:2-3, then one about buying a field at 32:6-9; and then finally a text from Zechariah 11:12-13 and 30 where Zechariah receives 30 pieces of silver for his labor. The author of Matthew uses the technique of "midrash" to stitch them together to produce the "prophecy" of Jeremiah's oracle about the Messiah being betrayed for 30 pieces of silver, even though such an oracle or prophecy about the Messiah never occurs in the book of Jeremiah. The author of Matthew can say that, however, under the rules of midrash--because a prophecy is not about predicting the future.

I'll bet you could not have done that if I had not told you that, now could you.

As for each text you have given me:

Isaiah 11:6-9--Isaiah is indeed talking about the ideal king in Davidic king and restoration under him for all Israel's benefit, but it should be noted that the oracle does not have any particular historical person or time period in mind.

Isaiah 65:17-25 is part of an apocalypse and not a prophecy, written by Deutero-Isaiah or maybe even Third or Fourth Isaiah. It is speaking of the conditions experienced by the Jews after they returned from exile to Babylon. Apocalypse speaks of the present in future terms, as if it has yet to be fulfilled, using symbols. The book of Daniel, as apocalypse, does this throughout its "visions," for example.

And none of the texts from Daniel are prophetic. The book is an "apocalypse," not a prophecy. In fact, "Daniel" is not even a real person. That is why when you open a Jewish Bible, the Book of Daniel does not appear in the "Prophets" section but in the "Writings" section.

The Book of Daniel was written by the Maccabees during their persecution and subsequent revolt under the Hasmoneons, with events ending in the celebrations of the very first Chanukah. "Daniel" is a folk hero--like America's Paul Bunyan. Daniel gives warnings and messages to Nebuchadnezzar, even though the Jews have been back from the exiles for generations now. They are facing a new threat from the Hellenists who want to stop Jewish worship. Using apocalyptic language that sound like oracles and visions, the Maccabees encourage their fellow Jews with folktales of Daniel overcoming the heathens and their gods, showing how they will defeat the Hellenists and restore the Temple and pure worship in their own day if they keep up the fight (which they did).

None of these are predictions.

And the son of man verses in Daniel 7:13-14?

The Church Fathers, using the "midrash" that Jesus and the apostles used as recorded in the New Testament, applied this to Jesus. Again, this is an apocalypse, not a book by a real prophet or even by a person named Daniel. The folk hero by that name did not exist and is not listed as one of the prophets of Israel in the Talmud.

And what do Jews believe Genesis 3:15ff means? Exactly what it reads. That women and snakes would not get along, etc. The story is not considered necessarily a literal story either. Remember this is the Torah, a book of Law, not history like Jehovah's Witnesses believe. So any narrative in its has some relation to the Mosaic Law itself.

The Torah ends with the story of Moses east of the Jordan not being able to enter the Promised Land. It is generally agreed that this was added as narrative during the exile to explain that the Jews, being "east" of the Promised Land, were still hoping to return. The narrative of the Garden of Eden is based on the type of enclosed garden of the king of Babylon that had a guard with a sword and kept people out. It had, on its outside, cherubim, for the decor. Adam and Eve in the narrative represent the Jews who, though in the "image of God," break covenant (represented by stealing from one of the trees) and then covering themselves up afterwards (believing they are naked or no longer in God's image). They are sent out of the paradise and left "east of Eden," or in Babylon.

The Torah begins like it ends, with characters on the "east" of paradise or the Promised Land. In both instances Moses and Adam & Eve represent the position the Jews are in, wanting to return. If the people observer the Torah, the just might.

Of insterest, the Tree of Life represents enterance to the Most Holy or the Temple itself. Christianity saw it as the Cross. The author of the Gospel of Luke uses the Greek equivalent for cross (starous--there really wasn't an equivalent because the "cross" was a new Roman invention that did not exist when the Greek language was around, thus the new Latin word "crux") but after Jesus is resurrected in Acts he starts using the word for tree instead (xylon) such as in Peter's speech on Pentecost.

Now let me ask you for a change:

I am Jewish by birth. I have a Catholic parent and a Jewish one. I went to Catholic catechism and Hebrew school. I learned Koine Greek, ecclesiatical Latin, and Biblical/liturgical Hebrew. I got raised for a few years by a JW relation when my parents divorced but left when I grew up. What religion am I today?

Now that you have read my replies, what are your counter arguments? If you have none what are you doing about it?

If you have them, what are they?

Who cares what I believe? How cares about what you believe? What are you doing with your life now that is helping others more than you? Finding answers for you is good--but it's a selfish thing to an extent. To a cetain point you have to stop asking and start doing. Jehovah's Witnesses are a selfish religion that teach to ask, ask, and learn, learn, for yourself, self, self, self. What do you do that forgets about you for a change? (Don't answer me on this last one. Answer yourself and then go do it)

543

Encouraging scriptures for the day

by Kosonen in

jw
friends

hello my friends,.

here are some encouraging scriptures for the day:.

revelation 21:2 i also saw the holy city, new jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from god and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.. hebrews 11:10 for he (abraham) was awaiting the city having real foundations, whose designer and builder is god.. revelation 21:24 and the nations will walk by means of its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.. revelation 22:1 and he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, flowing out from the throne of god and of the lamb 2 down the middle of its main street (of the holy city).

KalebOutWest

Vinene,

In Kosonen's defense, I don't think there is an attempt in his discussions to make a difference between "exegesis" and "eisegesis." I have spoken with him and his belief system is admittedly based on what he could personally develop from when he stood his ground against the JWs for what he believed was false doctrine. He is giving, what is known theologically as a "testimonial," even though this would also not be something he might be considering when he is writing these things.

His current belief system is still somewhat (though not completely) built upon the system of thelogy the Watchtower once had in place about 20 years ago. Even then, as they stand today, Jehovah's Witnesses do not embrace theological methodologies, as they have no learned or seminarian trained academics on the Governing Body (or ever had). So no one, from top to bottom in that religion knows what "exegesis" or "eisegesis" is or how to employ either. In order to actually do so (while not requiring a seminarian) does at least require exposure to this form of thought which is outside the scope of the Watchtower religion.

It's like asking a JW or exJW about liturgy. Though it is very old and is used universally throughout Judaism, Catholicism, the Lutheran and Angelican Church and more, Witnesses can't describe it at all. It is vital to know about it if you are going to discuss the history of Bible canonization (another thing JWs cannot do--because they don't even understand "liturgy"). Why not? The Watchtower religion is not a liturgical one, so you cannot expect a Witness to be able to talk things liturgical.

Regardless of what we might think about K's personal interpretation of Scripture, we cannot fault him for things or topics he knows nothing of. He was merely not exposed to them.

At least he is and was courageous enough to speak up for what he believes in and therefore told the Organization he was not going to budge from his position. This is something the Governing Body can't do. They keep "moving the goal post."