So this May 2015 Study Edition...I know you guys have talked about it already, but wow. This is classic. Mostly I like to revel in the presentation of these changes. The wording is so classic WT.
"For many years, our publications have explained that the name Gog of Magog refers to Satan after he was thrown out of heaven." So if anything went wrong, it was the publications' fault, not ours. Those books just got up and wrote themselves.
Blah blah, "So we understood that Gog must be another name for Satan. However, there were some problems with this explanation."
Let's read that again. "However, there were some problems with this explanation." Imagine saying that to someone in the congregation. That's the quickest way to end up in front of three elders. Also, THE PROBLEM IS IT'S WRONG! Just say it! It was wrong. I think it's just, the way they go about explaining the problems, it really makes it sound like the earlier understanding was written by complete idiots. I won't comment on that, nor do I need to. I'll let the Watchtower do so:
"But how could Satan, who is an invisible spirit creature, be eaten by birds and wild beasts? How could he be buried on earth? The Bible clearly shows that Satan will be thrown into the abyss for 1,000 years. He will not be eaten or buried."
"But if Satan is Gog, this means that Satan would have to mislead himself."
Only the Watchtower writers could be guilty of such horrible use of logic and actually throw people out of the congregation who see "problems with this explanation."
It further underscores the fact that they have no idea how to understand the Bible. You can pick just one of any number of Bible verses and, searching their publications, you could find three or more different "explanations" for the same verse, all contradictory, all written by the same divinely chosen 'faithful slave'. Matthew 24:34, Matthew 24:45-47, Romans 13--multiple explanations for just a handful of verses. If they don't understand these--as is abundantly evident by their constantly finding "problems" with their own prior explanations--then we have little reason to believe there are no problems with their explanations of the thousands of other Bible verses they claim to know the truth about.
I also just have to marvel at just how many changes have been made in the past 10-15 years. Thanks for the timely reminder to avoid the girl-on-girl porn, by the way. I've had to turn off or skip so many episodes of 'Game of Thrones', you know? Anyway, I hope you've got better things to do on a Saturday than read this. If you did, though, thanks for reading.
--sd-7