How much of the bible do JW's really use?

by blindfool 28 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Room 215

  Studying the Bible topically, i.e. assembling a list of scriptures that bear on a given topic, can be useful, but is vulnerable to abuses and distortions, as in the WT belief system. It seems never to occur to the dubs that the Bible did not drop out of heaven in its present form, subdivided by chapter and verse. This system is relatively recent. It's clear that the books of the Bible were intended to be read as one reads any book, i.e from beginning to end. Context and proportion are almost totally ignored by the JWs as they tread over the same catch-phrase memorized verses time after time, verses which represent probably no more than 5 percent of the total volume of scripture.

  Ask any JW for example, what Paul's main message to the Romans was (``salvation by grace, not works) and you're likely to get a blank stare.
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  willyloman

  All these comments are right on target. I spent 30 years in this club, going to every meeting, reading all the assigned material, looking up all the cited scriptures, and I don't know much more about the bible than I did 29 years ago. It's a year of intensive "study" of selected material and then rehash and recap.
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  RubaDub

  It's a year of intensive "study" of selected material and then rehash and recap.

  Willy ... good point.

  Sort of like going to, maybe, 6th grade in school.

  Then repeating it again .... and again .... and again .... and again ....

  And then telling everyone around you how much you learned at the last meeting or assembly ... how interesting it was ... how great the Tower was .... how great the experiences were ....

  I always thought that if someone that has been in the organization for 20 years and actually "learns" something from a "cut and paste" talk, they must have been .... I'll be polite here .... a "slow learner"

  ***** Rub a Dub
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  jgnat

  I agree that the WT method of "bible study" leaves much to be desired. Bits and pieces are cut up and resewn to match the subject the writer wants to cover. The last Christian I saw do that (outside of the WTS) was a United Church pastor. Listening to him as a child, I thought bible quotes were for helping the pastor come up with a topic to talk about. After the verse was read, he could talk about whatever he wanted.

  Here is the Inductive method of bible study, developed by *gasp* Christendom's Churches:

  http://www.christianity.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID34418%7CCHID149943%7CCIID293302,00.html
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  yxl1

  Blind,

  If you do manage to work out how often singular scriptures are repeated time and again I would be interested in knowing the results.

  yxl1
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  gumby

  Ask any JW for example, what Paul's main message to the Romans was (``salvation by grace, not works) and you're likely to get a blank stare.

  Room215,

  Excellent point.

  I remember when I left dubdom but not god.....I went to a group called BSF (bible study fellowship)

  I remembering studying Romans and thinking......"I don't ever remember discussing or learning these particular scriptures and the thought behind them".

  When you have been prepered to believe certain elements of the bible.......your mind passes right over the parts that are not taught in the Borg. These 'DIFFERENT ' scriptures are weeded out of your mind when you come across them when your a dub. Also , if you do consider them, you feel they only apply to the annointed anyway and not you.

  Gumby
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  cypher50

  Ask any JW for example, what Paul's main message to the Romans was (``salvation by grace, not works) and you're likely to get a blank stare.

  Ask any JW to read 1 Corinthians 8 and then ask them if they could exercise their conscience about the blood issue without being disassociated.
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  Narkissos

  Good point Cypher: welcome!

  Gumby: You make me remember we started a little group reading Bible texts just before I was disfellowshipped (1986). We began with the Passion narratives a few weeks before the Memorial, and at the end of May we were studying Romans when two of us (including me) were called before a Judicial Committee and quickly disfellowshipped... Bible reading and understanding is quite alien to most JWs.
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  Kenneson

  Oh, just to read the Bible without Watchtower literature to explain it! What freedom! How blessed were all those before Charles Taze Russell and the inception of the W.T. Society in 1881!

  And here's the irony. Jehovah is supposed to have given mankind the bible millennia ago, first the Old Testament, then the New, but beginning in the 4th century with the so-called Apostasy no one could understand it (but a handful of unknown genuine anointed Christians, whom JW's have never identified) until the W.T. Society came along to enlighten and explain it to us. What presumption! Wonder why Jehovah would do such a ridiculous thing? All these centuries of a Bible, but no W.T. Society to explain it! How were those few anointed ones able to understand it, then? Could it be they depended on the Holy Spirit? And if this handful could come to an accurate understanding of the Bible without a W.T. Society, than who needs them today anyhow? Jehovah should have waited to give us the Bible simultaneously with the W.T.Society, if JW's are correct!