Hello!
I am having a bible study over the yellow "What does the bible really teach"-book. Originally, i wanted to have a study of early jw doctrine and 607, and i had my study conductor agree that this was the core subject to understand jehovahs witnesses and we even agreed to find litterature. But lo and behold, the next time he had a change of heart, so the yellow book it is ;-) .
Actually i think the study is going pretty well. He seems to be an intelligent and open minded guy, and there is a really friendly atmospheare at the study, even though its clear that i disagree with many of the things. So far i have avoided scriptual infight (because i feel it is pointless and, i admit, i dont know the bible very well) and focused on a) the fact that i feel the whole first part of genesis is rather unreasonable when you look at what actually goes on (eg. that the flood was triggered because god allowed angels to screw earthly woman, then punished ALL humans) and more important b) pointing out flaws, omitions and impressisions in the litterature when you compare it with the actual evidence.
The last part has been where i have spend most of my energy, and tried to draw the conversation over to how jehovahs witnesses look at outside material, especially apostate material, and generally tried to use the stuff i have read about mind-control. The last part has been quite interesting - the last time it was like he got confused and admitted that the line of reasoning he had kept to for 30 minutes was wrong and didnt offer anything else - i desided not to persue it because i dont want to appear hostile.
Well, so thats a little update on my study :-). Now i consider if i should get a bit more cheaky - for today we will study the chapters "Where are the dead" and "real hope for loved ones who are dead". Personally, i think these chapters are rather dull and i think i wont sound any objections since i dont want to be to argumentative - but i think there is good subjects later in the book.
Personally, im holding out for chapter 10 - gods kingdom. its really about introducing 1914 as a 'confirmed fact' (it was briefly mentioned previously in the book) and the appendix points to the Insighs-book with the whole bag-of-worms that the neo-babylonian chronology presents to the WTS.
Im guessing plenty of people here have conducted studies over exactly this book and know it inside out (as teachers), so what i want to ask you is what you, if you were in my shoes, would draw forth? Which chapters, topics would you focus on?
ps.
just an observation, taking time reading sentences out loud is abselutely driving me NUTS!