by hamilcarr 15 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
According to the WT, the only sincere bible students are those who adhere to WT teachings.
Everyone else belongs to the evil slave class.
In fact, the most sincere bible student close to our century was a man named.. C.T. Russell, I believe? I heard he started up a mega-billion dollar religious publishing company...
Well - - - - I grew up a Witness, and never heard about still existing Bible Students until last year, so...
I think most Witnesses - at least around where I live - believe it was a smooth transition; pretty much just a name change from 'Bible Students' to Jehovah's Witnesses'. That's what I always thought at least.
A rather complete examination of many of the schisms of the WTB&TS and the development of the "evil slave class" concept can be found in the book by Tony Wills titled, "A PEOPLE FOR HIS NAME - A HISTORY OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES AND AN EVALUATION" which can be obtained from Amazon.com pr LULU.com.
Funny thing, this subject cropped up a couple of weeks ago with the elder I am studying with.
I asked him about the bible students because I wanted him to tell me where the JW's came from and how am I to know they are chosen by god.
He told me that in the early days a few (I read the figure was eventually about 75%) witnesses broke off to 'follow the man Russel' instead of sticking with the organisation.
Their evil slave class Johnson, Paul S. L as mister evil slave himself.(See yearbook 1975) Since Bible Students believe in the Great Pyramid of Gizeh as a stone witness and the Watchtower claims it is full of pagan symbols (Watchtower issues of November 15 and December 1, 1928) and therefore cannot be from God. Bible Students are therefore part of Babylon the Great. And other reason's of course.
Interestingly, when the Proclaimers book came out, I was surprised that the Society even hinted that Bible Students still existed.
*** jv chap. 11 p. 151 How We Came to Be Known as Jehovah’s Witnesses *** True, our brothers often referred to themselves as Bible Students, and starting in 1910, they used the name International Bible Students’ Association with reference to their meetings. In 1914, in order to avoid confusion with their recently formed legal corporation called International Bible Students Association, they adopted the name Associated Bible Students for their local groups. But their worship involved more than studying the Bible. Furthermore, there were others who also studied the Bible—some, devoutly; others, as critics; and not a few, as persons who viewed it simply as fine literature. Then, after the death of Brother Russell, some former associates refused to cooperate with the Watch Tower Society and the International Bible Students Association, even opposing the work of these societies. Such fragmented groups used a variety of names, some of them clinging to the designation Associated Bible Students. This caused further confusion.
Of course this doesn't tell us that Bible Students exist. When I was with the JW's, we had a special talk on a Saturday, Br. Gangas visited us and gave a histort lesson. He told us there were only two evil slave members left and both died, one was found in n attic, decomposed, the other on a park bench. LOL
I think this was in the outline, because I have heard other WTS leaders say the same thing. Even my wife w ho was in the French congregation heard this.
Some years ago Witnesses came to our door. They didn't know us. We talked, they asked to come back, we talked some more. They came back with an elder, and we talked even more, sometimes for 2 hours. I never once told them I use to be a JW and never told them I was a Bible Student.
After about 6 or 7 visits, they told me they would not come back, because we were both convinced that we had the Truth. We agreed on much. Before they I left, I told them I was a Bible Student, and asked them what our fate would be, at the time my daughter was about 6 months old. The elder looked at me and said, "it doesn't matter how much Truth you have, unless you, your wife and child become Jehovah's Witnesses, you will all die at armageddon. There is no salvation outside out the Jehovah's Witnesses." I thanked them for their time and told them, "see you in the Kingdom!"
I was in a pro JW chatroom on paltalk. and one guy tried his best to toss me out, saying I was evil slave. Fortunately, the moderator of the room, allowed me to speak, and this lead to a discusssion about whether Bible Students today can be considered "evil slave". To my surprise, the moderator allowed the 30 or so people in the room to ask me any questions about the Bible Students and their beliefs. This went on for about 2 hours, afterwards. he kicked me out of the room and banned me. His reasoning was, this was a JW room only. I told him of that were the case, he should protect it via password or state it is a JW only room.
We get e-mails and correspondence on a daily basis from those who had no idea Bible Students still existed.
RR
