the july 2025 watchtower has a paragraph that claims that it was the superior power and wisdom of jehovah that guided the gb into allowing jws to grow beards.. the study article is ‘can you still learn from basic bible teachings?’ under the subheading ‘jehovah is the creator’ paragraph 7 states-.
“ 7. what did rahela do to accept a change in direction?.
your answer.
Rattigan350:
Shaving everyday is just part of basic hygiene like brushing one's teeth and putting on deodorant.
Wearing beards are just a sign of the laziness and rebelliousness of the people today.
Or... they could.. wash their beards. I suppose you insist on baldness too. 🤦♂️
alot of my witness friends were excited sisters can now wear pants and you can say hi to disfellowshiped folks but what about important stuff child molesters in the congregation you need 2 witnesses blood fractions are fine but not whole blood????
607 bce is from the 1880s wrong....anything else?
Rattigan350:
No, that is not the gentile times. You didn't consider that Nathan told David that his offspring would sit on Jehovah's throne forever. But that ended when Jehoiakim lost that sovereignty. To not have that prophesy fail, Jehovah paused that for 2520 years. The Gentile times is from when it was paused until it stopped and Jesus became king because he didn't become king when he was on earth. It's that simple.
You don't get to tell me what I 'haven't considered'. I'm quite aware of this general superstition about David's throne (including the spurious genealogy in Matthew that invalidates application to Jesus as a descendant of Jeconiah), and the Adventist nonsense in particular. It's just wrong.
The same word rendered 'forever' in the verse Rattigan350 refers to (2 Samuel 7:13) is also used in reference to circumcision, the sabbath, owning individual slaves etc. It is a literary flourish and clearly does not literally mean for all eternity.
alot of my witness friends were excited sisters can now wear pants and you can say hi to disfellowshiped folks but what about important stuff child molesters in the congregation you need 2 witnesses blood fractions are fine but not whole blood????
607 bce is from the 1880s wrong....anything else?
Rattigan350:
607 is when the Gentile times began though Jerusalem was destroyed in 587.
The ‘gentle times’ was a period of 42 months during which the ‘holy city’ was ‘trampled’. It began in 66 CE and culminated in 70 CE. But JWs don’t care what the Bible actually says, and weird hybrid views like this are kind of worse.
I don't get why people and children want to celebrate birthdays.
🤨 Children are people. Anyway…
Let me tell you a story about a fox and some grapes.
yeah so we knock on doors and whatever religion we find we ask them to dismiss it and join us.
all other religions are a shame not real.
but if you questioned the j.w religion about 1914 or anything you would be disfellowshiped..
Because shunning is only mean when non-JWs do it...
Here's Dino Ali (yes, the same Dino Ali who was questioned in the Australian Royal Commission on 10 July 2015), in The Watchtower, 1 February, 2012:
It's not clear whether he was still shunning his disfellowshipped daughter by that time.Also, for many years after [becoming a JW], some of our relatives refused to visit us. We tried to treat them according to Bible principles by showing them love. Eventually, the barriers came down, and now our close relatives no longer shun us.
alot of my witness friends were excited sisters can now wear pants and you can say hi to disfellowshiped folks but what about important stuff child molesters in the congregation you need 2 witnesses blood fractions are fine but not whole blood????
607 bce is from the 1880s wrong....anything else?
TonusOH:
Did they really say this? That they are dropping the 607 BCE date?
The original statement was awkwardly worded but in any case, no, 607 BCE has not been dropped. And strictly speaking it’s only from the 1940s; they said it was 606 BCE until 1944.
asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.
got any clear examples?.
Thanks. I figured you had possibly copied it from someone else who copied it, which can make attribution harder. Not the end of the world. I’d be more annoyed if it was a significant chunk of content rather than just the small list. It’s not the first time my content has been ‘borrowed’.
alot of my witness friends were excited sisters can now wear pants and you can say hi to disfellowshiped folks but what about important stuff child molesters in the congregation you need 2 witnesses blood fractions are fine but not whole blood????
607 bce is from the 1880s wrong....anything else?
jhine:
They seem to get followers so far under the thumb that the rank and file are conditioned to " do and not question " in every aspect of , well , everything.
Indeed. It's pretty sad when people are actually excited that they're suddenly 'allowed' to do such mundane things as wear pants or grow a beard.
But it's totally not a high-control group. 🤣
asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.
got any clear examples?.
Thanks Phizzy :)
It would be nice if people attributed work they've used, though it's not like they took the whole article so I can live with it. But yeah, it's a bit rude.
'House of Cards' is a great way to put it. (They're not always wrong, but they are never uniquely right; anything they happen to have gotten right is available in better sources anyway.)
I'm 'only human' too, and I've also benefited from the excellent work of contributors like AnnOMaly and Leolaia. Particularly AnnOMaly for giving me the impetus to do a proper decision-table analysis of the dating systems used in the biblical sources.
I really don't know why some people balk at being 'corrected' as if being told they're wrong is the worst thing in the world. If I've gotten something wrong, I'd want someone to let me know. (But I'll double-check, not just roll over.)
Thanks again.
asking jehovah’s witnesses to interpret specific passages is a great way to demonstrate their interpretive abuse.
got any clear examples?.
Vanderhoven7:
Here is some of the fine spiritual food the Watchtower was dispensing in 1919
Interesting… The list that followed was almost entirely copied without attribution from my page at https://jeffro77.wordpress.com/index/jehovahs-witnesses-and-1914-2, re-ordered but verbatim down to the specific punctuation.
Also plagiarised in the original order (by year abandoned) on a Quora post.
the following is from the latest study watchtower july 2025, study article 28, paragraph 17:.
each christian must make up his or her own mind about whether to accept or to reject these fractions.
we may find it a challenge to understand this matter fully, but making decisions like this is part of the load that each of us must carry.
raymond frantz:
Duran , if you noticed ,they never talk about blood transfusions anymore.
Nope. Meeting Workbook for January 2025 addresses blood transfusions, with a link to a video about transfusions. They wouldn’t be still pushing members to contact a HLC if everything were a ‘conscience matter’.
Lesson 39 of their current ‘Bible Study’ textbook specifically address blood transfusions, and is required subject matter for all new or prospective members.
The reduced language around transfusions is about PR, not a shift in practice.
