Posts by Leolaia

11

New Human ancestors....

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

so at what point did god say....now you are human... your name is adam!.

a new skull has been found of a human ancestor 2 million years old.

when will mere evidence be enough?

Leolaia

I love new hominin discoveries. And wow...a jawbone.

747

Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie

by Farkel in

it was made by a women who in later years wore crotchless panties and bras which had holes in the nipple areas.

he not only knew the woman in question (she's now deceased), he has met her numerous times.

up until recently this secret of her year's long sexual affair with rutherford was kept by the family.

Talking about the Heaths, here is an interesting series of newspaper articles from the Sumter Daily Item (8/30/1987, pp. 13-14) on William Pratt Heath, Sr. (responsible for the formula of Coca-Cola, father of the husband of Bonnie Boyd Heath, and who donated the money to build Beth Shan), Alfred Taylor Heath Sr., and some of the other Heaths under discussion in this thread.

7

Boring Lunches - Bento Anyone?

by skeeter1 in

if you follow skeeter, you know that skeeter is a fan of the east.

bento is a japaneese lunchbox.

it originated from a tale where a small lunchbox fed a family for a long time.

Leolaia

I love bentos. Grew up on them, and they are always a very convenient meal to pick up when you are on the go in Japan.

747

Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie

by Farkel in

it was made by a women who in later years wore crotchless panties and bras which had holes in the nipple areas.

he not only knew the woman in question (she's now deceased), he has met her numerous times.

up until recently this secret of her year's long sexual affair with rutherford was kept by the family.

Leolaia

Well, folks, things continue to get curiouser and curiouser.

As many of us know, in 1917 Rutherford took control of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in part through deposing four of the seven members of the Board of Directors (who should have been a majority). They left following the January 1918 election and formed the Pastoral Bible Institute, with the Herald of Christ's Kingdom as its journal. In the midst of the Watchtower Society whipping up excitement over the 1925 date, the Herald re-examined Russell's chronology and found it to be erroneous, particularly in the reckoning of the "seventy years of servitude", leading them to change the date of Jerusalem's fall from 606 BC to 587 BC (15 April 1921 issue of the Herald, followed by more articles into 1922). The Watchtower responded with a flurry of articles in 1922 (starting in the 1 May 1922 issue) defending Russell's chronology and the 606 date, and stated most dogmatically that their dates were indisputably correct (including 1874 and 1914 and 1925) and Russell was led to discover these true dates through the Holy Spirit. The Watchtower Society since then has not budged from the 607 BC and 1914 dates, although it has quietly retired 1874 and 1925. But for Rutherford, the Pastoral Bible Institute and other Bible Student groups who broke from the Watchtower Society constituted the "Evil Servant" class supported by Satan in disrupting the work of God's organization. Still, in a veiled reference, Rutherford dismissed the Pastoral Bible Institute as one among "a dozen such schismatic 'little flocks', characterized by an increasing littleness and by an absence of the predicted glorious activity in the warfare of the Lamb with the beast" (Watchtower, 6/1/1922, p. 163). The deposed directors according to Rutherford belonged to " a class of insubordinate ones who rebelled against the ways of the Lord" (Watchtower, 6/1/1931, p. 169).

Anyway, why talk about the Pastoral Bible Institute in a thread about Berta and Bonnie? Well, it turns out that, one of the directors deposed by Rutherford, James Dennis Wright, happened to be married to the great-aunt of William Heath, Jr., the future husband of Bonnie Boyd. I totally did not expect to see that one coming.

First let me restate some of the info presented in the data dump on p. 29 of this thread:

Genealogical data available from various sources show that Heath's great-grandfather Reverend Nathaniel Alpheus Pratt was born on 1/29/1796 in Saybrook, Essex, Connecticut, married Catherine Barrington King on 3/1/1830 and died on 8/30/1879 in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia. Catherine, meanwhile, was the daughter of Roswell King (founder of the city of Roswell, Georgia) and was born on 7/21/1810 in St. Simons, Glynn, Georgia. They had eight children, the youngest of which was Catherine Quintard Pratt (some sources give her middle name as "Quinland", but this appears to have been incorrect), born on 11/10/1850 in Darien, Fulton, Georgia. She appears in the 1860 census as C. Q. Pratt, 9, daughter of N. A. Pratt, 64, who indicated that he was born in Connectict and worked as a "Minister", and Catherine B. Pratt, 50, all residing in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia. Then in c. 1875 the younger Catherine married Alfred Taylor Heath, Sr. in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia. Alfred was born in c. 1849 in Florida and worked as a farmer. He appeared in the 1850 census as the son of Marcus D. L. Heath, 31, who worked as a lawyer and Mary J. Heath, 23. He had an older brother Albert S. Heath, 3, and an older sister Eliza A. Heath, 5 (cf. Eliza Ansley Whitta, 32, Mary's sister, living at the same address). All lived in Marietta, Cobb, Georgia. He also appears in the 1870 census as Alfred T. Heath, 23, living with his mother Mary J. Heath, 50, and working as a farm hand in Subdivision 163, Newton, Georgia. Then he married Catherine Quintard Pratt in c. 1875, and they had the following children: William Pratt Heath, Sr., born in 1875, Natalie Heath, born in 1877, Eliza A. Heath, born in 1879, and Alfred Taylor Heath, Jr., born in 1884. The 1880 census mentions the following family living in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia: Alfred T. Heath, 32, born in Florida and who worked as a farmer, Katie Q. Heath, 29, and their children Willie P. Heath, 4, Natalie Heath, 3, Eliza A. Heath, 9 months, and also Katie's sister Anna Pratt, 36. Finally, according to the 1900 census, there lived at 255 Ashby Street, Atlanta, Fulton, Georgia: Alfred T. Heath, 51, born in March 1849 in Florida and who worked as a "Traveling Salesman", his wife Katie Heath, 49, born in November 1850 in Georgia, their son Willie P. Heath, 21, born in July 1877 [sic], who worked as a "Chemist", Nattilie Heath [sic], 21, born in Feburary 1878, Eleisa Heath [sic], 18, born in September 1881 [sic], Alfred T. Heath, Jr., 16, born in September 1883 [sic], and finally Katie's sister Anna Pratt, 54, born in April 1846.

As mentioned above, Catherine Quintard Pratt was the second youngest child of Reverend Nathaniel Alpheus Pratt (who as stated earlier in this thread was the minister who officiated at the wedding of the parents of President Theodore Roosevelt) and Catherine Barrington King (who was the daughter of Roswell King, the founder of the city of Roswell, Georgia). They had twelve children in all. The ninth child was Isabella Julia Pratt (sometimes spelled "Isabelle"). She first appears in the 1850 census as Isabella, 4 (i.e. born in c. 1845-1846), daughter of Nathaniel Pratt, 53, born in Connecticut and Catherine Pratt, 53 [sic], born in Georgia. Similarly in the 1860 census, we encounter Isabella Pratt, 14, living in District 1, Cobb, Georgia with her father N. A. Pratt, 64, and Catherine B. Pratt, 50. And again in the 1870 census, in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia lived Lithaniel [sic] A. Pratt, 74, born in Connecticut, his wife Catherine B. Pratt, 59, born in Georgia, and four children: Sarah A. Pratt, 26, Isabella Pratt, 24, Kate Q. Pratt, 19, and John H. Pratt, 12. Kate Q. Pratt, as mentioned above, was the grandmother of William Pratt Heath, Jr.

Now from Georgia Deaths Index, we learn that that Isabelle Julia Pratt was born on 4/4/1846 in Georgia to Nathaniel Pratt and Catherine King. It also states that she married a certain J. D. Wright and then later died on 11/24/1924 in Roswell, Cobb, Georgia. The book The History and Genealogy of the Habersham Family, published in 1901, listed the eleven children of Rev. Nathaniel A. Pratt and Catharine Barrington King (evidently the youngest, John H. Pratt, died at a young age):

"Rev. Nathaniel A. Pratt, married 1830, Catharine Barrington King, daughter of Roswell King and Catharine Barrington, and had: 1. Horace A. Pratt, born 1830; married Lillias Logan, of Virginia. 2. Rev. Henry Barrington Pratt, born 1832 ; married Janie Gildersleeve, of Virginia. 3. Nathaniel Alpheus Pratt, born 1834; married Julia E. Stubbs. 4. Francis Lorinda Pratt, born 1835; married Rev. Jno. W. Baker. 5. Bayard Hand Pratt, born 1838; married Miss Wood, of Alabama. 6. Catharine Barrington Pratt, born 1840; died young. 7. Charles Pratt, born 1842; married Emma C. Stubbs. 8. Sarah Anna Pratt, born 1844. 9. Isabel Julia Pratt [sic, spelling corrected to Isabella Julia Pratt in the errata], born 1846; married Rev. Walker, of Ohio. 10. William Nephew Pratt, born 1848. 11. Kate Quintard Pratt, born 1850; married A. T. Heath" (pp. 103-104).

Here we see that Isabella Julia Pratt married a certain "Rev. Walker"; the Georgia Deaths Index shows that unless this was an earlier first marriage, "Walker" here must be an error for "Wright". Isabella's husband is indicated as from Ohio. Now the Ohio Deaths Index lists a certain James Dennis Wright who was born on 8/20/1867 in Jefferson County, Ohio to John S. Wright and Catherine Dennis, who was a widower but earlier married to a certain Isabelle Wright, and he then died on 3/25/1946. The "John S. Wright" mentioned here can be located in the 1870 census where we find that John S. Wright, 24, lived in Salineville, Brush Creek, Jefferson, Ohio with his wife C. E. Wright, 24, and their four children William Wright, 8, Mary E. Wright, 6 (i.e. born in c. 1863-1864), J. W. Wright, 4, and James Wright, 2 (i.e. born in 1867-1868). Similarly, the 1880 census states that John S. Wright, 43, born in Ohio, worked as a coal miner and lived in Washington, Columbiana, Ohio with his wife Catherine Wright, 45, who was born in Pennsylvania, and with their six children including Mary E. Wright, 17, and James Wright, 13. This information all matches what is stated in the Ohio Deaths Index for James Dennis Wright. And what we find in the Ohio Deaths Index matches the information from the Georgia Deaths Index, which states that Isabella Julia Wright had been married to a J. D. Wright. And both of these match what is found in the 1920 census. At 972 Broadway Avenue in Bayonne, Hudson, New Jersey lived James B. Wright, 52 (i.e. born in c. 1867-1868), born in Ohio whose father was born in Ohio and whose mother was born in Pennsylvania (agreeing with the 1870 and 1880 census). He lived with his wife Isabelle P. Wright (= Isabelle Pratt Wright), 73 (i.e. born in 1846-1847), born in Georgia whose father was born in Connecticut and whose mother was born in Georgia. This matches perfectly with what we know about the Isabelle Julia Pratt from Georgia who married a J. D. Wright, and the James Dennis Wright from Ohio who was married to someone named Isabelle. For some reason however, James' middle initial is "B." instead of "D." How do we know that this James Wright was the same individual who was on the Board of Directors for the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society until 1917? We know thanks to the 1915 New York State Census that this James Wright was married to someone named Isabella: James D. Wright, 48 (i.e. born in 1866-1867) lived at 124 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, New York, where he worked as a minister of the gospel and lived with his wife Isabella J. Wright (= Isabella Julia Wright), 65, where she worked as a missionary. We also know that the middle name for the James D. Wright employed at Bethel was "Dennis"; the leaflet Facts for Shareholders published on 11/15/1917 lists him as J. Dennis Wright, Director. Also the 10/1/1911 issue of the Watchtower makes reference to "Brother J. D. Wright, of Ohio," confirming that Ohio was where the former director had been from. And finally, the street address given in the 1920 census, 972 Broadway Avenue, Bayonne, Hudson, New Jersey is identical to the address given for J. D. Wright in the charter for the Pastoral Bible Institute, published in the January 1919 issue of the Herald of Christ's Kingdom: "The names and places of residence of the persons to be the Directors of said corporation until its first annual meeting are: J. D. Wright, 972 Broadway, Bayonne, N. J. (etc.)". So it is a certitude that William J. Heath, Jr.'s aunt was married to one of the founders of the Pastoral Bible Institute, the main nemesis of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society in the early 1920s. (Thanks go to a certain somebody who asked me to look into James Wright's history)

It doesn't look like Wright remained long with the PBI however. Reference to him disappears from the pages of the Herald of Christ's Kingdom by 1920, which led some modern Bible Students to think that he had died around that time. But as the Ohio Deaths Index shows, he actually lived until 1946. It seems like he simply retired from a religious career, like Alfred Isaac Ritchie did, who became a professional masseur. In 1920 he was employed as a clerk in an office in a glass manufacturing company in New Jersey. Then in 1924, his wife Isabella was in Georgia where she died, suggesting that he moved down with her (maybe she had an illness for some time prior to her death?). Thereafter, Wright, already in middle age, lived in Ohio unemployed. He appears in the 1930 census as James B. Wright, 62, widowed, born in Ohio with his father born in Ohio and his mother born in Pennsylvania, living on Canton-Stubenville Road in Canton, Stark, Ohio with his sister Mary W. Steely (= Mary Wright Steely), 67 (i.e. born in 1862-1863), who was widowed but living with her three daughters, Mabel A., 35, who worked as a typist for an attorney, Lucy E., 34, who worked as a sales lady for a confectionary, and Hazel M., 32, who worked at a garment factory. Mary had been married to Daniel Steely who as the Ohio Deaths Index shows died on 2/16/1923 in Stark County, Ohio. He earlier appeared in the 1920 census: In Waco, Canton, Stark, Ohio lived Daniel Steely, 59, born in Ohio (whose parents were born in Pennsylvania), who worked as a stationary engineer, with his wife Mary E. Steely, 56 (i.e. born in c. 1863-1864), born in Ohio (whose parents were born in Ohio), and their children Mable C. Steely, 26 (who worked as stenographer in an axle company), Lucy E. Steely, 24, Hazel M., 22, and C. Dalmer Steely, 17. The Mary E. Steely here born in 1863-1864 matches the Mary E. Wright of the 1870 census born in the same year. The Leibtag Family Tree at Ancestry.com confirms that Daniel Steeley had married Mary E. Wright, born in 1863. So the 1930 census adds further confirmation that the "James Dennis Wright" born to John S. Wright in Ohio is the same person who lived at Bethel and then Bayonne, New Jersey. Then in the 1940 census, we find that James D. Wright, 72, lived in Canton, Stark, Ohio (while visiting Salineville, Columbiana, Ohio at the time of the census), both widowed and unemployed. He passed away six years later.

Anyway, I found that very surprising, that Bonnie Boyd Heath's husband had a family connection with one of the four directors of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society that Rutherford had thrown out of office.

15

Daniel 8:20,21 - what do secular authorities say?

by konceptual99 in

i am looking for anything that suggests there is a rational explaination for daniel apparently predicting the rise of greece as a world power.

there is some stuff online suggesting that scholars years ago thought it was modified over time but evidence points to it having been written in the 6th centuary bc and they have been forced to correct their view.. is there anything anywhere that presents the accepted secular view of this passage?.

cheers.

Leolaia

Interesting. In your opinion, does this grant it divine providence, or is there another explanation? Considering all the mishmash of ideas and re-interpretations that Daniel holds, it wouldn't seem likely, but still.... there is always that possibility for me.

That period of time was one in which there was a considerable guerilla resistence movement by Judah Maccabaeus to restore Judean sovereignty and the first goal was to get back the Temple and remove the blasphemous abomination inside. The author's optimism was certainly shared by many who sided against the Hellenizers during the civil war. The duration in ch. 7 and 9 was of a schematic length (3 1/2 being half of 7), possibly derivative of the "seven times" in ch. 4 that also marks an interruption to normal state of affairs. The duration in ch. 8 is less clearly schematic and, if written after the fact, might point to the actual duration when the Tamid offering was interrupted.

15

Daniel 8:20,21 - what do secular authorities say?

by konceptual99 in

i am looking for anything that suggests there is a rational explaination for daniel apparently predicting the rise of greece as a world power.

there is some stuff online suggesting that scholars years ago thought it was modified over time but evidence points to it having been written in the 6th centuary bc and they have been forced to correct their view.. is there anything anywhere that presents the accepted secular view of this passage?.

cheers.

Leolaia

My question about Daniel is that it predicted the Roman Empire? Would that be evidence of prophecy fulfilled?

The only reference to Romans in the whole book is the Kittim in Daniel 11:30 (from the Great Vision in the Hebrew apocalypse). These are the Roman allies of Egypt who prevented King Antiochus IV Epiphanes from carrying out his second Egyptian campaign in 168 BC. Specifically, it refers to Popilius Laenas, the Roman envoy, who handed Antiochus a senatus consultum as the Syrian king attempted to besiege Alexandria, and Laenas also humiliated Antiochus by marking a circle in the sand around the king and demanded to have an answer before Antiochus left the circle (cf. Polybius 29.27, Diodorus Siculus 31.2; Livy 45.12.3-6). After this defeat, the king sent his mysarch Apollonius to Jerusalem and devestated the city as related in 1 Maccabees 1:29-40, and this is what is discussed in the second half of Daniel 11:30.

I think you are talking about the "fourth kingdom" in the Aramaic apocalypse (in ch. 2 and 7), interpreted generally in later Jewish and Christian tradition as the "Roman empire". This is a secondary reinterpretation of what originally pertained to the kingdom of Greece. That the author of the Hebrew apocalypse considered the final kingdom to be Greece can be seen in his pesher in ch. 8, which explicitly identifies this kingdom (and its final king, the "little horn") as Greece. The different visions in ch. 2, 7, 8, 9, and 11-12 all follow the same scenario and are parallel; claiming that this kingdom is "Greece" in one chapter and "Rome" in another ignores this parallelism. The Roman interpretation undoubtedly arose because the God did not intervene to end the supremacy of the Greek kingdoms of Syria and Egypt, and so the expectations were deferred to the empire that succeeded Greece in the region. This understanding became popular in the first century BC when Rome became the dominant power, as can be seen at Qumran. Older soures, such as the third Sibylline Oracle, still view Greece as the "fourth kingdom". But the older interpretation did not die out. So for instance the Syriac Peshitta has glosses in ch. 7 identifying the fourth kingdom as "Greece" and the little horn as "Antiochus". The two interpretations co-existed; the late first century AD apocalypse of 4 Ezra for instance recognized that the original interpretation given to Daniel was superseded by the later "Roman" interpretation of the fourth kingdom (12:10-13).

15

Daniel 8:20,21 - what do secular authorities say?

by konceptual99 in

i am looking for anything that suggests there is a rational explaination for daniel apparently predicting the rise of greece as a world power.

there is some stuff online suggesting that scholars years ago thought it was modified over time but evidence points to it having been written in the 6th centuary bc and they have been forced to correct their view.. is there anything anywhere that presents the accepted secular view of this passage?.

cheers.

Leolaia

The literary and historical evidence clearly points to a date during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes when the book was finalized, sometime between the installation of the Abomination of Desolation in the Temple (on Chislev 25, 168 BC) and Antiochus' death in the spring of 164 BC (which did not occur according to the scenario foreseen by the author of the Hebrew apocalypse, ch. 8-12). One big question is whether the book was published prior to the removal of the Abomination of Desolation (exactly three lunar years after its installation, i.e. on Chislev 25, 165 BC), or in the months between its removal and Antiochus' death. The book correctly predicts the restoration of the Temple in approximately the correct length of time (3 1/2 years instead of 3), which was something that Josephus found impressive. Chapter 8 is specifically concerned with the duration of time when the Tamid offerings are interrupted and the sancutary is defiled, and it suggests that the duration is 1,150 days (reckoning the duration as the total number of Tamid offerings skipped, with one given in the morning and one in the evening), which is about 70 days longer than three schematic years. Since the myarch Apollonius' assault on Jerusalem occurred a few months before the heathen altar was installed in the Temple, it is possible that the Tamid offerings had stopped sometime prior to the installation of the heathen altar.

Chapter 8 is a commentary on ch. 7 and interprets the "little horn" of the fourth kingdom (Greece), here clearly revealed to be Antiochus Epiphanes; the question about the duration ("how long?") in ch. 8 was then treated to a lengthier explication in ch. 9. I am persuaded by the reconstruction of the book's evolution by Albertz and other scholars, which regards the book as a composite (which explains its unusual linguistic and literary features). The original nucleus of the book was a collection of stories about the Babylonian exile revolving around Daniel and his friends. These stories originally circulated in oral form (as ch. 3 clearly shows evidence of orality) but were eventually committed to writing in the fourth and third centuries BC. The literary form of the stories varied considerably from place to place. An early collection of ch. 4-6 arose in the middle of the third century BC which survives in the OG LXX; these chapters in the LXX are clearly independent versions of the same stories in the Aramaic but do not derive directly from the Aramaic (and they have a Tendenz reflecting the situation of the Jews in Egypt). Sometime at the end of the third century BC during the reign of Antiochus III, a similar collection of stories appeared in Aramaic: this supplemented the core in ch. 4-6 (a succession narrative) with the two martyr stories in ch. 3 and 6. There were other stories about Daniel that did not make it into this collection (such as the story of Bel, or the story of Susanna, or the story of the dragon), but which were later incorporated into the Greek versions of the book. Then during the Fifth Syrian War (between 202 and 195 BC), the Aramaic apocalypse of Daniel was completed with the addition of the visionary narratives in ch. 2 and 7 (the outermost layer to the Aramaic book). At this time there was an apocalyptic movement in Judea (also mentioned in the Animal Apocalypse) that encouraged "those violent among the people to rebel in order to fulfill the vision" (Daniel 11:14), but the author of the Aramaic apocalypse objected to this claiming that God himself would intervene to put an end to the current war and the hegemony of Greece (which would be replaced with God's kingdom), it would occur "not by human hand". Then during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Hebrew apocalypse (ch. 8-12) was added to the Aramaic collection (this was written in the first person). First the vision in ch. 7 was interpolated to include the figure of the "little horn", which gave rise to the pesher in ch. 8 that described in further detail the fall of Greece and the actions of the "little horn", particularly with respect to his desolation of the Temple. Then ch. 9 gives a fuller explanation of why the Temple was desolated so long after the end of the Babylonian exile, and exactly when the current desolation would come to an end. Then ch. 10-12 gave a parallel explication of Hellenistic history from the time of Alexander the Great to the present (165-164 BC), foreseeing a third campaign by Antiochus against Egypt which never occurred, and his death on Judean soil which never occurred. (Nor did the resurrection of the dead follow this as well) The book was completed with the addition of ch. 1 to the Aramaic apocalypse, which gave a proper introduction in Hebrew to the book, and the awkward splice between Hebrew and Aramaic is still visible at 2:4b. There are certainly other ways to analyze the compositional history of the book, but this is the one that makes the most sense to me.

It must be recalled that the book itself claims to have been published in the 160s BC. The book uses a common literary device to explain why no one had heretofore seen such a writing that supposedly had been written in the sixth century BC. The putative author, the prophet Daniel, seals up the scroll and the book goes into hiding until the "time of the end". Then when its message needs to be read by the people of a later time centuries later, the book is discovered and "unsealed", allowing its message to reach its intended audience. This same device of the hidden book occurs very commonly in apocalyptic and other literature. The Assumption of Moses claims that it is one of the books that Moses deposited in a secret place in earthenware jars, to be revealed when the "day of recompense" draws near (1:16-18). Similarly, the Damascus Document suggests that the Temple Scroll (11QTemple) is another sealed book of the Law that was kept inside the Ark of the Covenant and was unknown to David, and which would not be "revealed until the sons of Zadok [i.e. the Essenes] arose" (5:1). The book of Revelation actually explicitly rejects this trope by saying that it was NOT to be sealed up, for the message was intended for the first-century readers of the book (not readers centuries later), as the events prophesied in the book were about to "shortly take place" (22:10, 20). So Daniel is told in 8:26 "to keep the vision secret" and we read in 12:4, 9: "You, Daniel, must keep these words secret and the book sealed until the time of the end....These words are to remain secret and sealed until the time of the end". Notice that this isn't talking about a sealing of the true understanding of the book (as the Society explains the verse), it is the book itself that is sealed up. Of course, the book of Daniel is now no longer hidden and the author elsewhere indicates in ch. 8-11 that he believed that the Maccabean crisis of the 160s BC was the "time of the end". This means that it was around 168-164 BC when the Hebrew apocalypse appeared seemingly out of nowhere and circulated publically among the people. The book itself explains that the reason why no one had earlier seen this work is that it had been "sealed up" and "kept secret" until that time.

21

What would be the standing of a born-in who were always there (field work and all) but never baptized?

by dgp in

this may be an elementary question but i was never a jw.. i wonder if such a person can actually exist.. i assume a born-in knows basically all about jehovah's-witnesses by the time he is, say, 16. if he were to postpone baptism, this person would not be in the same situation as a worldly who doesn't know an iota of anything, but would not be a brother, either.

what would be his real standing?.

Leolaia

I was never baptized and had the status of "approved associate" or "unbaptized publisher". As I got older I participated in the field ministry less and less. I had some pressure to get baptized but it was never too intense. Everyone knew I was really into the Bible, and commented enthusiastically at the meetings (giving comments that always added to what was presented), and so maybe it was assumed that I might eventually get baptized? The real pressure I had was against going to college, but even there it was something I just shrugged at. I had a lot of leeway I think because my dad was an unbelieving mate. If he insisted that I apply for college, well, they can't object too much to that. If he wanted me to spend Saturday mornings with him for "family time", well they didn't press too hard on that. There were other girls I knew in the cong who were elder's daughters, and they were so different from me -- always pioneering, baptized very young, devoid of individuality at least in what they would publically display. I always felt bad for them. I had many friends at school who were not JWs. But I didn't exactly "live a double life" either since I was pretty much a goody-two shoes. There were other people I knew who were baptized and were reproved and disfellowshipped right and left....I never experienced even reproof, I guess, since I toed the line and was never baptized. Then I went to college and after a while, when I stopped going to meetings, then they got concerned and once asked me if I was leaning towards apostasy. But that was the only time that happened. Then I just walked away and never went back.

36