An early Watch Tower evangelist was E. C. Leigh. In 1882, he was a student in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. He traveled through the central states in the 1880s and early 1890s. By mid 1890s he was living in Fort Worth Texas. We do not know his full name. Can you find it?
You tired of me asking for help yet?
by vienne 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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vienne
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steve2
No not at all. But I am curious: You're the researcher/author who probably has already exhausted all the available online sources - so I wonder why you'd ask others if they have found what you so far haven't been able to find.
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vienne
One of my best friends was a Witness named Antonious de Geuss. He lived in the Netherlands. He was an adept researcher, often finding things Dr. Schulz and I could not. Unfortunately he died, He was very, very old. We have others who are interested in our work who supplement our efforts, sometimes finding much we could not. I hope to find someone who is more competent than we are. They're out there.
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Athanasius
Have you checked with some of the independent Bible Student groups? Perhaps the Dawn Bible Students, the Layman's Home Missionary Movement, the Chicago Bible Students, or the Pastoral Bible Institute could be of help.
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vienne
Yes, Athanasius, we have contact with their most significant researchers.
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Half banana
Rachael you are doing a sterling job getting to the roots of the Watchtower. It is necessary for you to enquire at this site since a few here are fifth generation Bible Students/ JWs. However there is little sense of WT history at the family level among witnesses.
Since Armageddon has been imminent for one hundred and thirty years, perhaps mementoes and records of the earlier days are discarded as irrelevant or even undesirable, the past is often lost in the churn of doctrine. Only what the governing body is now saying has relevance to the mind of the JW.
But do keep on asking.......
What brought you to this obscure corner of research?
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vienne
A friend of our research posted here (old goat). He's 90, I think, and a retired history professor. He occasionally pointed to things here.
The American part of my family has a long connection to the Watchtower. I was raised a Catholic. My mother was Austrian. She converted to the Witnesses. One of my sisters did as well. I did not. But I became interested in their history. Witnesses are uncomfortable with disaffected members. I read what everyone says.
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sparrowdown
As a disaffected (shunned) member myself I can say that witnesses being "uncomfortable" with me would have to be the understatement of the year lol.
If you have never been witness it would be very difficult if not impossible to know where we are coming from even if you have family that are witnesses that didn't kick you to the kerb when they became witnesses.
I believe you have to have lived it yourself to "get it" and not just by proxy.
The view of JWs as a group is a very different view from the outside than the view from inside the compound. This group rewrites it's own official history to suit it's power and control agenda, but I am assuming your research is a dispassionate, unbiased account of verifiable history not a social commentary or a WT propoganda piece like the proclaimers book.
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vienne
Sparrow, Thanks for your comments. Our histories focus on the Russell years, essentially a different religion than what you see today. So we don't worry about contemporary issues. Eventually, I will, without my writing partner, consider the post Rutherford years.
We have no agenda beyond giving a detailed, accurate account.
While I am empathetic toward those shunned, I am certain that I do not fully understand the consequences in the same way someone who's experienced it does. I was an Abrahamic Faith adherent for some years but differed from them on the nature of Jesus. They're Socinians; I am not. So we parted company religiously, but I did not lose their friendship.
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smiddy
I was told by a Presiding Overseer in the early 60`s that the Borean Bible Society in melbourne Australia was an off- shoot of C.T.Russell
Maybe that`s another avenue you could investigate.