by AnnOMaly 322 Replies latest watchtower bible
Question: What exactly could the scholars do to the WTB&TS in this case? Could they force a printed retraction?
This is what I had in mind. The trouble is, the WT is so insignificant as to be irrelevant to these people. If it was a well respected publication misquoting them, I'm sure they would be quick to demand a retraction.
@ MM. It depends. If the public edition has a global distribution of over 42 million in 188 languages, then I think it is significant enough and justifiable for those misrepresented scholars to kick up a stink about it.
A retraction? They won't get it.
What disturbs me is that what was once a controversial (as well as profoundly flawed) hypothesis from a private individual has been canonized now it has been printed in The Watchtower. It is no longer some individual JW's private opinion or research that any other JW can agree or disagree with. It has been officially adopted by and sanctioned by the WTS/GB/FDS as Truth.
The WTBTS don't do retractions , even when they print something that is obviously wrong. At best , they might change it in the bound volume (like they did in 1989 when they removed the statement that the preaching work would end before 2000). But that was very unusual. I suppose they would argue that they did publish a disclaimer in the article ( that none of the scholars quoted believed that Jerusalem fell in 607. )
For example , I was speaking to a friend high up in the WTBTS who was talking to a Brooklyn Bethelite about the spurious experience in a Watchtower earlier this year (an Ethiopian schoolgirl who was allegedly offered a 2000 euro a month job but turned it down to serve Jehovah.) The Bethelite admitted that after it went to press they realised that the experience was a load of rubbish but once it was in the magazine they could do nothing about it & they couldn't amend it & to print any kind of correction in a subsequent magazine would "stumble the brothers".
This makes my head hurt!
Please do not give any credence to what the Tower say with respect to 607. It's a laughing stock.
The only reason 607 is worth a passing mention is because of its necessity as regards 1914 which proved to be a huge miscalculation indeed.
Instead of admitting they were wrong they invented the false teaching of the invisible return.
So, for all of you Watchtower supporters here, please try to convince me that Christ returned in 1914. If you can do that then 607 becomes irrelevant because we have to accept that you are the true religion. And if you are the true religion, you can say that the Jewish Temple was destroyed in 1956 and I have to believe you because you are God's mouthpiece.
So again, convince me that Christ returned in 1914. JUST TRY!!!
Before you try to do this, please keep in mind what the bible says will happen when He does return. More than a few false teachers wandering around peddling second rate magazines thats for sure.
In fact, even you won't sleep through it!
Why did the WT print this? (LOL, I agree that they will regret it sooner than later)
1. Like VM44 said, they can now just refer to the article.
2.
The anonymous author of the article tries to cover all bases, but you can't have it both ways!
Actually, they do this on purpose, I believe.
This is a continuation of a pattern started by the WT in the late 90's. An article perceived to be authoritative will have sections that can be later quoted FROM BOTHS SIDES OF AN ISSUE.
First, consider this answer from a QFR dated 6/15/1999 regarding voting:
"As to whether they will personally vote for someone running in an election, each one of Jehovah's Witnesses makes a decision based on his Bible trained conscience and an understanding of his responsibility to God and to the State."
Clear? CONSCIENCE matter.
But wait:
"Whatever personal decisions Jehovah's Witnesses make in the face of different situations, they take care to preserve their Christian neutrality and freeness of speech.
It then lists 5 things to consider about voting: you are responsible for the actions of the person you voted for, you are no part of the world, you are expected to be neutral as (friends of) ambassadors of Christ, 'Christians' value their unity and politics encourages disunity, and keeping out of politics gives us freeness of speech to tak about the kingdom.
The implication is that if you vote, you might be responsible for those killed in war, you are now part of the world, you aren't neutral, you aren't an ambassador of Jesus, you are not unified with the congregation and you have no freeness of speech.
This article will hit the note familiar to most JW's: neutral means you don't vote. No witness I know would ever enter a voting booth out of peer pressure only later to state he did not pull the lever. If Malawi witnesses died for neutrality, the idea of being pressured into a fake vote is repulsive to every witness I know. They would resist this to the end.
But this article can be referenced by outside sources in support of the 'reasonableness' of the WT position, OR later by the WT themselves after they have changed (and they will change) their stance on voting.
OR this QFR on working in churches:
This QFR dating to 4/15/1999 will hit the note familiar to many witnesses: you don't have ANYTHING to do with Babylon the Great:
"Revelation 18:4 sets out the command: "Get out of her my people if you do not want to share with her in her sins". A person would be sharing in the works and sins of Babylon the Great if he was a regular employee of a religion that was teaching false worship."
It goes on to say no matter what the work: accountant, janitor, whatever; you are sharing if you are a direct employee.
BUT it then poses the matter of contract work: it lists 5 questions to consider to see if it would be 'wrong', including is the work itself scripturally objectionable, does the person have authority over his own work tasks (for some reason, the WT here considers that an employee can't refuse to do something, a position they eschew most of the time), to what degree is the person involved, what is the source of the pay, and what is the effect of doing the work, will it stumble one's own conscience or others. (What if you are a janitor that works for a contractor that has a contract with the church for regular maintenance? HMM??)
So: directly employed--NO. Contract work: maybe, with a truly pharisaic (apologies to the pharisees) list of qualifiers.
This is another article the WT can mine for quotes later when they change (and they will change) their position completely about contract work for churches.
(Personal note: I had a business when this came out, and we were asked to bid on churches. I bid on them; one of my employees objected, based on this article. I said I had read the article, and found no reason not to bid on the one time work. She based her objection on the same article, then told me that the article told her that if I told her to work on them she had to, and it was OK for her to do so. I replied, look: it is either right or wrong; it can't be right or wrong based on whether I tell you to or not, and if that was the standard, then it must not be wrong at all. She must have complained to her elders, who talked to my elders. When they brought it up to me without any warning, I said I was not prepared to talk about it at the time. I asked them about the meeting 3 times after that; one elder finally shrugged his shoulders and said, "it is conscience matter anyway, don't worry about it." !!!)
So I think those 2 public articles about 607 fill 2 purposes: to make the position seem reasonable to outsiders (this is where it will backfire; outsiders will have no qualms about actually researching the authors and will find them to be misquoted) and to mine for quotes when they change (and they will change) their doctrine about 607.
AnnOMaly post 2052 --- Here is the Sack "completely upset" quote in context.
The scans are of pages 2 and 3 of Ronald H. Sack's Amel-Marduk 562-560 B.C. A Study based on Cuneiform, Old Testament, Greek, Latin and Rabbinical Sources.With Plates., 1972, Verlag Butzon & Bercker Kevelaer. Posted with permission.
Here is BM 58872, No. 79 from Sack's Amel-Marduk 562-560 B.C. A Study based on Cuneiform, Old testament, Greek, Latim and Rabbinical Sources. With Plates., 1972.
And here is BM 80920, No. 56, from Sack's Amel-Marduk.
The month was later corrected by C. B. F. Walker. The tablet actually reads month 7, not month 4.
Edited - messed up. Sorry.
Alleymom you're a - thank you!
I don't see that Sack has been misrepresented here (not like e.g. Walker and Steele). But what it shows us is that the WT author is not up-to-speed with the latest scholarship - or else he's conveniently filtered it out.
The bottom line is that Amel-Marduk's reign overlapped with Nebuchadnezzar's by up to a month. When you consider that tablets dated to Neb's last month (6) were from outside Babylon - mostly from Uruk 100 miles away - and that Amel-Marduk was not exactly a popular choice as a successor (if those 'unreliable classical historians' are to be believed), such an overlap is understandable.
