by WingCommander 760 Replies latest jw friends
OldHippie,
I'm glad you liked Mom and Uncle B's book. I'll pass that on to Uncle Bruce. Do you visit his history blog?
The Watchtower let the book on Peter's letters go out of print, and even though it is in the library, at the time they did not use it much beyond the publication date. Reason? I have no clue.
Well, at least the Commentary on the Book of James is on the Watchtower Library 1999 CD-ROM I have at home.
vienne it’s a bit graceless not to even acknowledge responses from me or Jeffro. I know it’s not pleasant to be wrong, but I hope when others point out a mistake I make that I will be thankful to them for correcting a wrong idea I had, and have the respect and the self confidence to express it.
Disillusioned JW - The Commentary on the Book of James is in the library. The nearest thing to censorship around it was parts of it being rewritten before its publication at the insistence of Fred Franz, as documented by Raymond Franz. (He includes pictures of the redrafts) The information from Raymond Franz is very interesting in terms of what changes were made, but I don’t know if it was particularly unusual for drafts to be rejected and rewritten. Raymond Franz thought it was noteworthy, but he was only at the headquarters for around 15 years. Frederick Franz was editor in chief of Watchtower publications for more than half a century.
Edit: I just checked the James book isn’t in the online library though was on the CD ROM, don’t know why.
i'm not wrong.
Everyone is missing the main point. slimboyfat is the self-proclaimed font of all knowledge and you are forgetting to bow down to him.
Chill out slimboy. You're making a complete ass out of yourself.
I’ll start this with a few generalized comments about Aid to Bible Understanding. Raymond Franz did not write it. He was coordinator of an editorial committee. A few of the articles are his, but not many. Articles were farmed out to various Witnesses; about two hundred fifty from “more than 90 countries” contributed.[1] That Franz did not write the entire book does not diminish he role as coordinator of the editorial committee. Some of you may have filled an editorial role and know how important that work is to a quality finished product.
The impression of some of those reading Crisis of Conscience is that Franz was responsible for everything. He says differently, crediting Edward Dunlap with a large share of the work, and noting that he was part of a larger group, that included Reinhard Lengtat and John Wischuk.[2] While critical of the ability of some of those chosen to write articles, he inadvertently tells us that much of the work was done before he came into the project.[3]
I asserted earlier that a few articles in Aid can reliably be assigned to R. Franz. The most obvious are “Chronology” (part), “Older Man” and “Overseer.” We can assign these to Franz because he indicates that he was the primary researcher.[4]
When I said that the Watchtower Society deleted Franz’ articles replacing them with something else when Insight on the Scriptures was published, it raised the hackles of a few of you. S. B. Fat denied this was true, saying that anyone could compare the two books and see that the articles were the same. It was a good suggestion. But of those engaging in this conversation, only Jefro did so. And though his comments were limited, he acknowledged some changes.
Some of the original article remains in Insight. The portions that remain are derived from, paraphrase and repeat, previously written material found scattered through Watch Tower publications from the blue paper chart (1923) to All Scripture Inspired and Beneficial and Watchtower articles more recently published. Much of the original manuscript material was derived from previous Watch Tower publications. An example is the article “Zipporah” (Aid, page 1693) where the explanation of the phrase “Bridegroom of Blood” as explained in paragraph four is derived from the 1948 Watchtower.
The article as it appears in Aid is 23 pages of fine print. The article as it appears in Insight is 19 pages of larger print. What remains is what, in my opinion, was in the original manuscript as Franz received it from Knorr. We can pass on from my supposition to more solid evidence.
Those insisting that the Insight articles Older Man and Overseer are as they appeared in the Aid to Bible Understanding should have followed their own advice and compared the two. Older Man as it appears in Insight has been totally rewritten, rephrasing some thoughts and omitting large portions. The same is true of the article titled Overseer.
Mr. Fat thinks I owed him obeisance as the corrector of my wrong statements. I do not. I view most of what he says on this board with considerable skepticism or disdain. He is more often wrong than right.
I may not be as knowledgeable in this field as was my mother, but I’m not stupid. And by now in my education – I’m a post-graduate student – I know how to research. Apparently Mr. Fat does not.
[1] The Approaching Peace of a Thousand Years: “Peace on Earth” International Assembly of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1969, page 19.
[2] R. Franz: Crisis of Conscience, 1988, 21.
[3] R. Franz: Crisis of Conscience, page 20.
[4] R. Franz: Crisis of Conscience, page 22, notes that he was assigned to research and write the articles Older Man, and Overseer. Page 25 notes that he was one of those responsible for the article on Chronology.
When I arrived on the forum there were many posters who knew the history of Watchtower inside out, sadly many of them now departed, not only from the forum but from this life. You couldn’t get more knowledgeable on Watchtower history than AlanF for example, and James Woods who knew Ed Dunlap personally. Larc and Farkel and of course Leolaia and many more could be mentioned. These people not only knew about Watchtower history - some of them had front row seats. We don’t have so many detailed discussions about the history any more. I don’t know if it’s because few are left who know or care about Watchtower history, but it is a noticeable shift on the forum.
My granduncle would never post here. He has his own history blog. https://truthhistory.blogspot.com/ . Unlike the nonsense often posted here, you can rely on it to be well researched and as accurate as possible. You won't find the nonsense recently written about John Aquila Brown there, because what was said here was way off the mark. You will find a reliable biography of Brown. And in Nelson Barbour: The Millennium's Forgotten Prophet you will find a reliable discussion of Brown's place in Watch Tower history.
You won't find the utter nonsense about the Masons and the Watch Tower that seeps from the gullible into our discussions. You will find an accurate, verifiable discussion of that topic in Separate Identity, vol. one. Posters have a responsibility to those who read this discussion board to be truthful and as accurate as possible.
Uncle B is a long-serving Witness, but he is also a well respected, honest historian, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He attended his first convention in 1952. Makes him old, and a bit of living history.
