If a person gives a police report of a traumatic event, but later changes their facts during cross-examination, these changes are used to IMPEACH the honesty of the witness.
This impeachment flows from a logical understanding facts must match reality without contradiction.
Let’s examine the history of the Watchtower Corporation’s leaders with a view to the harmony of
“true” teaching over a period of years from 1879-1942.
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CELEBRATION OF CHRISTMAS
"Even though Christmas is not the real anniversary of our Lord's birth, but more properly the annunciation day or the date of his human begetting (Luke 1:28), nevertheless, since the celebration of our Lord's birth is not a matter of divine appointment or injunction, but merely a tribute of respect to him, it is not necessary for us to quibble particularly about the date. We may as well join with the civilized world in celebrating the grand event on the day which the majority celebrate - "Christmas day."" Zion's Watch Tower 1904 Dec 1 p.364*
BETHEL, Christmas 1926 photo containing Watchtower Presidents:
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In 1928 celebration of Christmas stopped at Bethel.
Why? What had happened? What changed? Had any facts shifted?
"Pardon me for intruding on your precious time, but I just can't help letting you know how much I appreciate the phonograph which came to me on the morning after the 8th, which was my 80th birthday. It was indeed a birthday gift from Jehovah, to be used in proclaiming his name. May grace and strength be given me to do with my might what my hands find to do." Watchtower 1940 Jan 1 p.16
Note: Birthdays continued to be celebrated until 1951.
Two facts we cannot overlook.
- Jehovah (was / was not) guiding the Society as His mouthpiece.
- No facts about pagan origins had ever been unknown. *
"Is it proper to have or attend celebrations of birthday anniversaries?-F. K., Nevada. Such celebrations have their roots in pagan religions, and not Scriptural grounds. Some Bible commentators suggest that birthday celebrations may have had their origin in the "notion of the immortality of the soul"."Watchtower 1951 Oct 1 p.607 Questions from Readers
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A criminal is aware of his crimes and seeks to avoid discovery by HIDING EVIDENCE.
The following is a Big, Fat, LIE. It is a COVERUP. Read it carefully.
January 1, 2000 Watchtower:
Paragraphs 11-13 state:
In June 1918, Satan frantically tried to wipe out those Bible students ... He also sought to destroy their legal corporation, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. Responsible officers of the Society were imprisoned ... But in 1919, these officers were released, enabling them to continue their ministry. Later, they were fully exonerated. What did this watchman see? Again, Jehovah's watchman, his witness class, announced: "She has fallen! Babylon has fallen, and all the graven images of her gods he [Jehovah] has broken to the earth!" ... This time, following World War I, it is Babylon the Great, the world empire of false religion,that is toppled from its perch of authority... In 1919, Babylon the Great could not prevent the Bible Students, as Jehovah's Witnesses were then known, from escaping from their inactive state and embarking on a worldwide witnessing campaign that still continues... That signaled a fall for Babylon the Great, just as the release of Israel in the sixth century B.C.E. signaled a fall for ancient Babylon.
For the above to be factual, actually a true statement (by Watchtower standards) the following would occur:
- Christmas would no longer be celebrated
- Birthdays would no longer be celebrated
- The pagan names for days of the week and the months would not be used.
Nonesuch, any such proof took place!
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WHAT ARE THE FACTS?
Starting in 1963, for the first time, the Society (Fred Franz) began teaching that "Babylon the Great" fell in a spiritual sense in 1919. But since the Watch Tower gives the nearly certain impression that the "watchman" announced this in 1919, we can see that the WTS writers are bold liars when they print otherwise. (As they have since 1963).
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ENTER THE DRAGON
Alexander Hislop had published his peculiar book, The Two Babylons, a whopping 75 years prior to the time the Bible Students suddenly flashed on the truth about Christmas, in which Hislop painstakingly sought to build an argument about the Babylonish character of Christmas.
Three quarters of a century delay? How embarassing!
What else did this 1995 Watchtower article identify as New Light channeled through Jehovah's specially"selected channel?"
“For many years the Bible Students made the cross prominent as a symbol of Christianity. They even had a “cross-and-crown” pin… For decades this symbol also appeared on the cover of the Watch Tower magazine. The book Riches, published by the Society in 1936, made clear that Jesus Christ was executed, not on a cross, but on an upright pole, or stake.”
Yet, in 1858 Alexander Hislop used the same reasoning and examples to put forward the same conclusions as the "New Light" of 1936 in the Watchtower. Why fail to credit Hislop's jump start on this conclusion? Why claim it as their special revelation?
WHO WAS ALEXANDER HISLOP?
Hislop was a pseudo-historian, violently anti-Catholic, writing pre and post Civil War, pulling out-of-context connections from history to support his arguments.
1. Hislop cherry picked minutia. He strained seeming connections where there weren't any and drew conclusions through false analogies. He drew on similarities and ignored differences.
2. Hislop partially quoted historical sources, misquoted and often misrepresented his connections by simply distorting the facts. He drew parallels of practices into a false conclusion of cause and effect influences.
3. Hislop invented out of whole cloth significances which weren't called for and used them to build even greater strained arguments. He used partial information and not entire contexts.
4. Hislop painted with a broad brush while amassing a mountain of irrelevancies. He employed a scholarly tone of academic neutrality while employing ad hominems to poison the reader's conclusions. He failed to emphasize when his speculations were passed off as fact based.
Because Hislop wrote in the mid-1800s, the books he refers to or quotes are now quite old: books such as Layards Nineveh and Its Remains, Kittos Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature, Wilkinsons Ancient Egyptians, as well as old editions of Pausanias, Pliny, Tacitus, Herodotus, and many more. When I checked his footnote references, in numerous cases I discovered they do not support his claims.
The same pattern of dishonesty is evident in other ways. For instance, the same study article says of the cross:
“For many years the Bible Students made the cross prominent as a symbol of Christianity. They even had a “cross-and-crown” pin… For decades this symbol also appeared on the cover of the Watch Tower magazine. The book Riches, published by the Society in 1936, made clear that Jesus Christ was executed, not on a cross, but on an upright pole, or stake.”
The Cross and Crown Masonic emblem that used to appear on the cover of the Watch Tower Magazine
The article goes in to mention that the cross is connected with the false god, Tammuz. However, many years before light flashed up for Jehovah’s Witnesses concerning the cross, Alexander Hislop had already published the cross-Tammuz connection. (See chapter Sign of the Cross) Again, why did it take the Watchtower Society decades to accept the truth? And why do they now pretend to have freshly revealed the truth and give no credit to Alexander Hislop for the valuable contribution he made?
THE MYSTERY REMAINS!
What was the REAL (hidden) reason for these changes in Watchtower doctrines?
It can’t be New Flashes of Light.
It can’t be that these connections to pagan origin were previously hidden.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE behind the change?