I couldn't skip a discussion of Sept KM Question Box

by OnTheWayOut 36 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Your knack for remembering the conversations and recording them as well as you do is remarkable to me. Not only that, but you seem to be able to remember all the facts and information that you've looked up during your fade and can reference it as you discuss things with your wife.

  Undeserved praise. There is much shortening of the conversations to post them.
  There are many things going through my head later that I wish I said. I stayed on
  simple subjects here.

  no matter how logical and organized I get a subject in my brain, whenever I get into a discussion with a JW family member, things go off in directions that I never would have imagined...and am usually not prepared for.

  I let her response dictate where to go, but if I am not prepared to go that way, I know
  how to steer toward something I am ready for. That's from JW training. Witnessing
  and Service Meeting parts have taught me how to do that.

  Now my conversations are usually short and sweet because when they try to divert the argument, I refuse to change subjects. Then they don't want to continue with what we were talking about because that defensive wall has slammed between us, forcing them to cover their ears and go "lalalalala".

  I have the same thing. I have other conversations that I have not posted. Often, I am scared to start
  ANOTHER one of these debates, but from reading RELEASING THE BONDS, I feel that I cannot let
  too many opportunities just go by. I don't have the support network in place like that book suggests to
  give her many mini-interventions from family and friends. So it's just me doing it for the wife. With so
  many mini-interventions, I occasionally have a successful one. (Okay- one that lasts more than 3 minutes
  before the 'lalalalalala' starts.)

  I didn't acknowledge the individuals who responded to this thread. I am working on that. Let me just say,
  thank you to Megsmomma, Changeling, Fokyc, Blueblades, YoungLove, TheListener, Starting Over, Oompa,
  Open mind, Justitia Themis, M.J., Undercover, and everyone who posts after this.

  Edited to add: Good positive thoughts added by Mind My Own. Thanks.
• 

  bigmouth

  My wife found it very hard to think about WT error and abuse and discuss it with me head on.
  
  However, when she OBSERVED my upset and distress then she became emotionally involved with me and felt able to do some research for herself.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  However, when she OBSERVED my upset and distress then she became emotionally involved with me and felt able to do some research for herself.

  bigmouth, I am inspired by that. I think, unintentionally, that's what I have been hoping for.
  It seems that I will have to hope that she secretly looks at things, because she doesn't want to
  do it with me.
• 

  NoLoveLost

  Open Mind and bigmouth are right on with their suggestions. It may seem manipulative (but all's fair when dealing with the WT), but any approach that draws her toward you emotionally will be more successful. Especially if she feel like you are making yourself vulnerable to her.
  
  Having said that, the thing that began to open my husband's eyes was the "J" source information in the 1969 KIT. That and actually looking back and forth from the Greek to the English. He was astounded that the earliest J source was from 1385 and the latest from the 1930's. He asked why there were more J source citations supporting "Jehovah" than there were citations supporting "Lord" and I asked him which of the close to 5000 manuscripts did he want proof from? He came to his own conclusion that that was intellectually dishonest. Some of those J sources actually support the trinity, but that information is obviously not disclosed. I have actually done more damage using purely WT literature than I ever could have otherwise because of his instant suspicion of other types of literature.
  
  I wish you the best - love bomb her while gently leading her - practice infinite patience and understanding - it will help to make her more malleable to your information, and hopefully someday she will see...
  
  KIT, 1969 - "Sincere searchers for eternal, life-giving truth desire an accurate understanding of the faith-inspiring Greek Scriptures, an understanding that will not be confused by sectarian, denominational religious teachings but that is fortified by the knowledge of what the original language says and means." - Oh the irony!!
• 

  PinTail

  Well speaking from experience to be a good Jehovah's Witness's your brain must have had to have been thoroughly hard boiled by means of GB dogma. It's a breading ground for individuals who have great need to be pampas A'H, it does not mean that the rank and file are bad people, it just means that you have Pharaoh type personalities in there and the slave personality who willing does what they are told, cause they are past the point of asking what for, cause they are hard boilded egg heads.

  Here is what a good Mormon said once about studying:

  "I think a full, free talk is frequently of great use; we want nothing secret nor underhanded, and I for one want no association with things that cannot
  be talked about and will not bear investigation."
  Mormon President John Taylor, Journal of Discourses, vol. 20, p. 264.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Thanks PinTail.

  NoLoveLost, I try to practice infinite patience and understanding, but I hope I can
  keep doing so for the YEARS it would probably take.
• 

  NoLoveLost

  I'm sure you do (practice patience and understanding) - it took 6 yrs for my husband and he's been DF'd since 1989!
• 

  AK - Jeff

  The New Testament is one of the best attested of all ancient writings with over 5,000 Greekextant manuscripts of the New Testament. The Tetragrammaton does not appear in any known
  original-language manuscripts of the New Testament, despite the discovery of papyrus fragments
  of the New Testament dating back to the middle of the second century. One of the most ancient
  fragments, the papyrus codex designated Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 2 [P46] is dated prior to
  200 A.D. and contains nine of the apostle Paul's letters. Of all 5,000 manuscripts, none contains
  either the Hebrew (YHWH) or Greek (Iabe) transliterations of the divine name.

  OTWO - This point is more powerful than it seems on the surface. 5000 extant manuscripts means that scribes were copying these original texts simultaneously throughout the Christian community. Any conspiracy to 'remove the Divine Name' would have failed somewhere along the line and some texts [especially those held by 'true Christians'] would have survived - yet apparently none did. ALL the copies show no Divine Name. Any conspiracy that ran that deeply could only mean that no actual 'true Christians' were still around. Besides - how was a widespread conspiracy conducted and completed across such a wide area as Christians were spread? There was no high speed communications in which to inform all scribes that we want to remove the Divine Name now and destroy all original or copies of the epistles and gospels that contain such. How could some copies not be missed - or maybe be buried with someone and found years later? Ludicrous I say!

  History is replete with martyrs for the Christian cause who sacrificed life and freedom to translate the Bible for others. Can we believe that already, less than 100 years after the death of the last apostles, there was no one willing to risk it all to keep God's Name intact in hidden copies of the NT? Ludicrous.

  And why - with all the millions of hours that have gone into archeological work to piece together history of this period - does no one know of such conspiracy except the wise old men in Brooklyn. Ludicrous again.

  My 2 cents.

  Jeff
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  So, AK-Jeff- Do I approach her with any of that or not?

  Just your 2 cents worth would help.
• 

  AK - Jeff

  I can't say how she would react - but it would have made me think - not perhaps to change my mind with this single point of course.

  She is an educated woman. Ask her how easy it would be to hide from history the name of the 16th president of the United States? Would even a conspiracy to remove his name in all known places succeed in hiding it from historians in a thousand years from now? Could all documents be erased or destroyed that would make him known only as 'the 16th president' instead as Abraham Lincoln? Of course not. Such could not have succeeded even if it had begun on the very day of his death until now. Dictators have striven to do such a thing - Pol Pot intended to wipe out any references to or understanding of Cambodian history - he burned all the evidence and killed half the population. Yet that history is known today.

  And yet we are expected to believe that God in his Ulitmate Power could not stop such a blasphemous action against the highest Name in the universe? That simple men - a conspiracy of scribes - nearly succeeded in wiping His name from His Holy Writ the New Testament Bible?

  Perhaps a corolary of some sort would work. Yet, on point you know what would work better than anyone. As a teacher [is that right?] she might relate to some of that,

  Jeff