Posts by dropoffyourkeylee

29

Watchtower Farms Cemetery

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

did someone post this already?.

the list of the watchtower farms cementery.... http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&gscid=2403939.

gorby.

dropoffyourkeylee

How about compiling a brief bio of each of the 160 names at the WT cemetery. Here's one that I remember meeting back in the day.

John Kurzen 1913-1980

Mr Kurzen was a longtime Bethelite. He had his brother Russell had both been there since the 30's when I met them in the late 70's. John was a bit of an inventor and tinkerer. He had supposedly designed the Fisher body emblem and received royalties for each car that Chrysler made. He had enough money to have his own car (a Citroen). He was the man who designed the folding phonograph that the JW's carried door to door to play Rutherford's sermons. Both the Kurzens were friendly and pleasant to talk to.

29

Watchtower Farms Cemetery

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

did someone post this already?.

the list of the watchtower farms cementery.... http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&gscid=2403939.

gorby.

dropoffyourkeylee

Here's a question. I thought I would look to see which of the burials was the oldest, and found A H MacMillan who died in 1966. But the attached obit says "He was buried August 29, 1966 at the Bethel Family plot in Staten Island. " Were his remains removed or is the obit in error?

6

1984 Bible release vs. now

by rebel8 in

jw
friends

in 1984 a revised nwt was released.. i lived in jw fundieland at the time and i believe thats the year i got baptized.

this was the tail end of the great apostasy scare and a great gearing up for armageddon because we were told, in print, that it would come in the 20th century.

we were positively whipped up into a fervor.

dropoffyourkeylee

I agree, this is a very different release than the '84 version. That one had almost no change to the wording of the text, only single words changed here and there. Also added were cross references, appendix, etc. This time they have actually reworded large parts for the sake of readability. While the way the NWT had been translated (literal, which retains some of the original flavor) has some merit, overall it was so difficult to read for any period of time that it discouraged Bible reading. This time it is actually readable. It is a very significant change in the intent of the translation.

49

My highlights from the AGM

by Apognophos in

some of this will not be new to those of you who read other people's notes, but i bet there are a few new bits for you here, so i've provided a user-friendly table of contents, as an homage to the contents that appear before each book of the bible in the new nwt.

i might remember more highlights later, as i'm rather tired right now, but this is what i can recall off the top of my head.. contents (use of quote marks in this section is facetious; these are not actual quotes).

"say, did you notice that 2014 is the 100th anniversary, people?".

dropoffyourkeylee

Thanks Apog and all for the comments and insights.

I'm a little confused by this one:

Have they changed John 8:58. Apart from the disputed theology, "I was" has been criticised as simply poor English. Has it been altered to "I have been" or rephrased altogether?

Good guess, slimboyfat. This verse now indeed ends "I have been"!

because in the NWT I have it has always read 'I have been'. The one I have is the 1984 study version.

22

A major change in the new song book I initially overlooked

by slimboyfat in

it occurred to me the other day that i am beginning to forget the tunes to all the old kingdom songs i once knew by heart.

so i have started recording myself singing a few of my favourites from the old song book and uploading them to youtube.

and it struck me as i was singing them how many of the old songs have a military theme running through them, with references to warfare, soldiers, weapons and so on.

dropoffyourkeylee

Good observations everyone. I have noticed the same thing, but to see all the changes commented on in one place is very convincing. I personally think it has a lot to do with making the songbook acceptable to different cultures and languages. After all, some of the hymns in the US from the 1800's had a military theme, so didn't sound too much out of place in the WT heartland in the early part of the last century. But you take the same words, translate to Swahili and try to get an African audience to sing it... I'm sure there were some awkward moments.

On another related note, the song 'Shulamite Maiden' has had the words completely changed, though the tune remains in the new songbook. I'm sure it is because the words were a little too explicit, even though they came right from the Song of Solomon.

15

Demon materialization image in 1978 booklet Unseen spirits page 13 ?

by trackregister99 in

the image of page 13 of booklet "unseen spirits" from 1978 show a animal similar to a monkey, but it have the pointy ears.

it is a demon materialization?.

.

dropoffyourkeylee

It is human nature to see patterns and attribute motives where none exist. My opinion is that all the supposed subliminal artwork is simply artwork that is bad, followed by equally bad (or worse) duplication in cheap publication. I knew a guy once who went to work for the Society in the art department. He said that even the best artwork really gets butchered by the time it appears in print.

3

WT and dual prophecies

by leaving_quietly in

growing up, i knew of two, maybe three dual prophecies in the bible espoused by wt, matt 24 being the main one (last days), daniel 4 being the other (2520 years), and possibly one other, but i can't recall from back then.

nowadays, it seems as if nearly every prophecy in the bible has two fulfillments, according to wt.

prophecies in jeremiah, malachi 3:1 (yep, right from the 7/15/13... how they get the "jesus inspected the spiritual temple" thing and now that russell was a forerunner to fds 2.0), even psalm 37 has a dual prophecy... most often applied to "paradise earth", it also applied during solomon's reign, when it was a time of peace.

dropoffyourkeylee

When I was growing up, it seemed like every single prophecy in the Old Testament was supposed to have a second fulfilment. Back then it was called 'type' and 'antitype'. I found out later that the concept was common in Bible literature of the 1800's

293

AGM 5 OCTOBER 2013 (UNOFFICIAL RUMORS)

by WatchTower87 in

- 23 day to go .. annual meeting unofficial rumors.

- new bible.

- new nwt (revision).

dropoffyourkeylee

The circuit overseer in our mid West US congregation a couple of weeks ago hinted that the revised NWT would be announced or released at the annual meeting this year. To me this all but confirms the rumor, as I don't think he would have said that if it were not true.

53

Kidnaper of 3 Cleveland women - his mom a JW

by Gayle in

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/castro-brothers-spend-night-jail-article-1.1338131#ixzz2sjzrxozd.

dropoffyourkeylee

After Ariel Castro's death this week, his brother-in-law Juan Alicea was interviewed on CNN. Here is the link to the news item which includes part of the interview at two different places in the broadcast.

http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2013/09/05/erin-savidge-castro-family-speaks-on-ariel-suicide.cnn.html

The way he talks and acts is very suggestive that the brother-in-law might be a JW. Does anyone from Cleveland know him by any chance?

31

Millions now living will never die... could still be true...

by ILoveTTATT in

jw
friends

playing devil's advocate here...

researching online, i found that approximately 1% of the world's population is 90 years of age or older.

this means that, come 2015, there will still be around 70 million people who fit the bill of "now living" in 1925 and still living.

dropoffyourkeylee

Funny, at this summer's convention, one of the speakers said something like 'many of those living today will never die'. The wording wasn't exactly the same, but it struck me that JW's still believe that 'Millions now living will never die' and are still teaching the same thing.