My Explanation of Why They Got it Wrong About Blood Using Only the NWT (page 6)

The blood ban is the last remaining vestigial teaching from the Wordsworth / Rutherford / Knorr era when all sorts of medical quackery was being promulgated - eg banning vaccinations , transplants etc. It has been diluted over the years & sooner or later there will be "new light" & the teaching will be ditched but it is a belief so intrinsically linked with JWs & so much energy has been spent by the society in defending it that it is going to take quite a few years. I've always thought that the WTBTS has been hoping that medical advances in creating artificial blood & blood substitutes would bail them out.

Ding

In the OP, Cofty said, "I used the Concordance to consider the context of every reference to blood in the bible and finally wrote up my conclusions."

It seems to me that is the proper way to do a topical study. If there are too many references to a given topic in the Bible to do a detailed study of every one of the relevant passages, at least we should make sure what we examine is representative of the entire picture.

For example, in trying to figure out who the Bible says Jesus is, someone could select only the verses dealing with his humanity and ignore all the verses dealing with his divinity. Or they could do the reverse. Either way, they would come up with a totally skewed view of what the Bible really teaches on the subject.

The WTS makes this error all the time. They come up with a doctrine, latch on to one or two proof texts, and ignore all the passages that would point to a different conclusion. Sometimes their proof texts are only parts of verses removed from the context of the rest of the passage.

Often, they ignore the original contexts and string together a number of unrelated texts, thereby creating the illusion that their doctrine IS the context of all of those passages. In other words, instead of proper exegesis (drawing OUT the original teaching), they end up with eisgesis (reading INTO the Bible whatever they want it to mean.)

I'm never sure whether the WT writers realize they are doing this. It is the way "the truth" was taught to them, so it seems normal to them.

I also think this may help to explain why it's so hard to break through to a JW about what the Bible is really saying on any given subject. Doing the kind of thorough study Cofty did on the blood issue is hard work, and it takes a lot of time to walk someone else through it. Additionally, the WT discourages such studies as being dangerous, independent thinking.

It's much easier to use the WT's selectively chosen proof texts as jingles or mantras.

That way, you can let the GB do your thinking for you...

My Explanation of Why They Got it Wrong About Blood Using Only the NWT

EdenOne

dozy

Ding

Stealth

Pams girl

KiddingMe

cofty

Vanderhoven7

Giordano

yadda yadda 2

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