see www.jwnews.net, steven unthank's private blog site where he posted the following material.
i enlarged and put in bold the third paragraph of the wt's letter where the elder, an ex-bethelite, made some fascinating errors while reading the letter by using the words, "borg" and "perp.
" does this mean what i think it means?
Anybody can read a letter and pretend it was the actual congregational reading, can he not?
Secondly, it might be different elsewhere, but where I live, a JW definitely is NOT a representative of the WB&TS, he is a JW, but the only representatives of the WB&TS are the COs, DOs etc.
belshazzar was the son of nabonidus the king.
darius i was a persian king who reigned after cyrus from 522 to 486 bc.
he succeeded the son of neriglissar, labashi-marduk who reigned for only nine months and was put to death in a conspiracy.. .
Amidst this very good and thorough discussion, mP wrote:
"........tye bookmof daniel has been shown by scholars not to be prophetciic but a rant in code against a ruler taht the jews really hated, antiochus iv. the same style of writing was used in revelation which is about nero who is the beast 666. xians dont want to accept this so they start inventing all sorts of wonderful stories, all of which are wrong. all armageddon predictions are wrong because rev and dan are not filled w/ prophecies.
the unfortunate thing is daniel contains anacharisms and historical errors. i will list but a few. (.......................)
-he gives the wrong location for antiochus death, dan says he will die east of the jordan while he doed west, or vice versa. i can t recall the exact details but he got a fifty fifty guess wrong."
Now THAT is what I call really SERIOUS scholarship! He will list "but a few", resulting in his listing two, and as for this last one it is "...or vice versa". He cannot "recall the exact details."
I am happy that kepler and anno'maly keep this discussion going at a somewhat different level.
here's a letter that has circulated among many ex-watchtowerites!.
just thought you'd want to know!.
awake!
The 438 languages are listed on this page, so you haven't tried too hard finding them:
the announcement of the reduced number of pages in the watchtower & awake will be made after the watchtower study following the "special talk" on april 8.. theoretically, that's when there will be more visitors and "outsiders" than usual.
even the talk itself has 1/2 of its content directed at inactive jws.. obviously this reduction in pages has been in the works for several weeks if not months.
why pick that date to announce it?
Does anyone know, by the way, what the "other letter" is about, the February 1 letter that is to be read directly after the talk? That is a different one from the letter that is to be read after the WT study.
the announcement of the reduced number of pages in the watchtower & awake will be made after the watchtower study following the "special talk" on april 8.. theoretically, that's when there will be more visitors and "outsiders" than usual.
even the talk itself has 1/2 of its content directed at inactive jws.. obviously this reduction in pages has been in the works for several weeks if not months.
why pick that date to announce it?
The study edition will continue as a 32 pages magazines, it is the "other" WT, the public one, that will be reduced.
I don't think they can ever drop the WT or merge the two magazines into one. The WT magazine itself is so basic, so vital for the history, that it must "always be". There are many easy-to-read article in the present magazines, about countries, mountains, animals, that after having thought about it, the more "religious" articles can easily be trimmed down to two 16 pages magazines.
But I seriously think about the JWs living in high altitude mining villages in Peru and Bolivia, in jungle settlements in the Amazonas, in the deep forests of Congo and Central Africa - when they are told they can find the articles on child rearing and more "fun-stuff" articles for the children to colour etc, on the Internet? Most of them do not have electricity, a few might have some diesel-driven aggregate that gives light ten minutes before going to bed at night, and computers is a "what-is-that?" word. Youths in the West will survive, but youths in the Congo ..............?
ohmygosh!!!
one of my friends who is a ms told me today that the elders have 'marked' me because i'm a reg.pioneer and i've decided to go to college next semester???!
he said he can't tell me anymore but to be careful---what the hell does 'mark' mean?
By the way, I have gone to college myself - and the only "mark" I have is that I hope I am "marked" for survival ........ :-)
ohmygosh!!!
one of my friends who is a ms told me today that the elders have 'marked' me because i'm a reg.pioneer and i've decided to go to college next semester???!
he said he can't tell me anymore but to be careful---what the hell does 'mark' mean?
A MS would not know that a person is "marked" any more than the person himself would know it, so the starting point is wrong. If the elders think someone is to be "marked", they beforehand have talked repeatedly with the person in question and also a talk might be given for the whole congregation, using the "local post" which is held once every month. If they see no need in giving such a talk but still think the person should be "marked", then that person has been the participent in a number of discussions, and of course would know about it. A MS cannot know something which the person in question does not know, unless an elder privately has said to him (what he ought NOT to do) that in his personal opinion, the person in question ought to be "marked", or the elders as a group have decided that they are to talk with the person in question (and then they no way ought to descuss this with a MS before they talk with the person himself).
So the starting point, the very onset, is bogus, fake, wrong, non-existant.
this is a scripture that was used a lot during the 70`s & 80`s proving that the end was so close,and it was to culminate in a grand influx before the great tribulation.
" it will be in those days that ten men out of all the languages of the nations will take hold,yes ,they will actually take hold of the skirt of a man who is a jew,saying,"we will go with you people for we have heard that god is with you people.".
when you look at the reality of the situation in this day....,their seems to be a marked decline in worldly converts in christendoms lands.....,mainly baptisms coming from young born ins,..... and certainly no marked increases from either asian, oriental, or other non christian lands,that would seem to indicate another failed prediction/prophecy we can credit to the f&ds class.
I never heard that verse used in connection with growth, only in connection with the great crowd joining the remnant, and that ten would be the symbolic figure for all of them. Isaiah and other verses connected with growth, yes, but not Zech. 8:23.
my folks joined the cult in 1968 if memory serves.
i was about 5 or six when they began studying so i have heard many of the weird suppositions made and superstitions fostered by jw's.
i read a post from a new member a moment ago and was intigued by something they said.
Weird individuals are to be found everywhere. I would not make generalizations based on a few isolated strange utterances, though. When a community is seven million strong and there are perhaps as many "hangarounds" additionally, there are bound to be a "strange one" or two around.
