1975, Freddie Franz and Eve's Menstrual Cycle

by Band on the Run 14 Replies latest jw friends

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    Thank goodness I left before oral sex. My father was a prude. All the Bethelites seem to be prudes. It takes a disoriented man to see a menstrual cycle as filth. Their marriages must have been strange and challenging to say the least. My father was raised in the Rutherford school of absolute hatred towards women yet not being able to keep hands off women. Repeatedly, Biblical examples were cited indicating the purity and righetousness of men and how women lure them from God.

    Altho I was so young, I knew something was up with the focus on sexual matters. It seems they worked hard to raise sexual matters. My intellectual terror of demons ended when the WT printed an article about a demon materializing on some woman's bed in England. Oooooh. Oooooh.

    This isn't funny when you are raised by such parents. I had a major grudge against a JW classmate who was given preferential treatment by an asst. overseer. It turns out he was a pedophile. That sobered me. In retrospect, he picked on the more helpless girls, without strong family ties. Still, there but for the grace of God. Packed with his Rutherford ideas, my father would have killed me.

    A local nun was brutally raped in our local Catholic church. My mom's work friend was very devout. It happened in her parish. My father publicly announced that the nun deserved to be raped because she was a Catholic nun. This is being Christian at your best. Her friend was Christian enough to understand a terrible marriage. If she repeated it, he probably would have been beat to a pulp or even worse. This was solid Mafia country. Again, no Society official said so but the culture did not stop it, either.

  • A.Fenderson
    A.Fenderson

    I don't remember that schtick about "Eve's" menstrual cycle, but I've got news for ol' Freddy....

    Menstrual cycles are a part of being a MAMMAL

    Yes, but do perfect human women menstruate?

    Does God cry?

    Do unicorns shit gold?

  • designs
    designs

    Band-

    Your memories of those awful years are important for people to read about. If we can save a few from experiencing things like that then our time in the Society will have served some good end. I was older than you during that time and as a Brother was made a Servant early, late teens, I sat behind the closed doors with the Elders and COs and DOs listening and watching the guilt and fear build within this circle over all of the stuff coming out of Brooklyn and particularly Knorr and Franz. It takes some time for the scares of those experiences to fade and have healthy perspectives and life experiences replace them.

    All the best

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    Actually, I am reminded of the computation in the book of Jubilees re the date of Eve's creation (it concerns ritual impurity after childbirth rather than one's period). Maybe Freddy in his knowledge of Jewish literature adopted ideas from this book.

    "In the first week Adam was created and also the rib, his wife. And in the second week he showed her to him. And therefore the commandment was given to observe seven days for a male, but for a female twice seven days in their impurity [cf. Leviticus 12:2-5]. And after forty days were completed for Adam in the land where he was created, we brought him into the garden of Eden so that he might work it and guard it. And on the eighth day his wife was also brought in. And after this she entered the garden of Eden. And therefore the command was written in the heavenly tablets for one who bears, 'If she bears a male, she shall remain seven days in her impurity like the first seven days. And thirty-three days she shall remain in the blood of her purity. And she shall not touch anything holy. And she shall not enter the sanctuary until she has completed these days which are in accord with the rule for a male child. And that which is in accord with the rule for a female is two weeks -- like the first two weeks -- in her impurity. And sixty-six days she shall remain in the blood of her purity. And their total will be eighty days.' And when she finished those eighty days, we brought her into the garden of Eden because it is more holy than any land. And every tree which is planted in it is holy. Therefore the ordinances of these days were ordained for anyone who bears a male or female that she might not tough anything holy and she might not enter the sanctuary until these days are completed for a male or female" (Jubilees 3:8-13).

  • Band on the Run
    Band on the Run

    I clearly heard discussion of Eve's menstrual cycle besides purity notions. Since Genesis is at the beginning, I've read it many times in my life and there is no way any of this stuff is discussed. It all had to do with when they had sex. If I knew to slink as a pre-teen, why were the adults slinking down in their chairs.

    No one in my family or at the KH ever talked about it afterwards. What were his seminary ties? One would think he graduated from Harvard Seminary and then entered several leading German Protestant schools,, only to drop by Oxbridge, to pick up the ancient languages. Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoffer and others walked the planet at the same time. What a world of difference.

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