Curious change in December 15 Study Article (page 4)

Snoozy

Sounds like they are afraid of saying something they may get sued for and are trying to be extra careful of how they say it..

I bet the GB makes those tiny changes just for fun sometimes; or, better, just to get the sheep used to instant rewritting of doctrine. It's like they put them in 'shape' somehow. You know the example: you can't put a frog in boiling water immediately, he'll pop out; but raise the temperature slowly, and voila! you have your boiled frog :)

freddo

I have the printed Dec 15th WT in the UK it reads exactly as your quoted pdf version.

Bobcat

Freddo:

That's interesting. I take it the UK mags don't come from Canada?

sir82

I see this as someone at a high level placing a phone call- "WTF!! Do you want us to stop building branches and KHs??"

Bingo!

Yeah, we had "Brother On Top of Things" rush a printed out copy of the "corrected" WT text to the WT conductor who in turn passed in on to the reader. This was about 2 paragraphs prior to the change.

Interestingly, no one commented about the change, it seemed that no one noticed. My wife, fer cryin' out loud, who notices a speck of lint on my shirt from 30 paces, didn't notice the change.

I.e., no one really pays attention to what the Watchtower says.

Faithful Witness

I noticed this in a previous publication but did not take the time to compare and lay it out in such detail. Thanks for the effort, and good catch!

I'm sure they are going to keep pushing the JWs to switch to digital readers, so they can make edits to their publications at will. They will instruct the friends to make sure and download the latest version for this Sunday's meeting, as some clarifications have been made...

And not a single JW will even blink, when told that the magazines are being edited. They will be thankful for it.

prologos

what do 'they' mean by "full-time position on the Regional Building Comittee"? full time on pay?

some professional brothers are already charging for their 'services', although the R&F 'volunteers' are supposed to give free, take free?

hoser

At our meeting they read and conducted from the printed version. The ones following along with the PDF e readers didn't blink or miss a beat. as sir82 mentioned it is blatantly obvious that no one really pays attention to the watchtower. A real bunch of mindless drones.

EndofMysteries

With those changes, the printed article seemed very specific for the meetings/kingdomhall and the online one was general.

Two theories here....

1. Wording and phrases are changed for worldwide use vs USA only, so the USA printed ones had that. (this could be proven or disproven with English watchtowers in other english speaking countries or maybe foreign language.

2. MORE DUBIOUS - they may be inserting things and testing out having the wording on printed 'studied and only active members' WT vs the online articles that anybody can get. (They may be trying to test means of propaganda and being able to continue using words and teachings such as ex members being 'mentally diseased' where it will only be on the printed form and the online version will be sugar coated. )

Curious change in December 15 Study Article