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Dear Truetom:  Naaman “was a mighty warrior, although he was a leper.” (2 Kings 5:1) The footnote says “struck with a skin disease”. So it may not have been leprosy but something else, perhaps psoriasis or similar?

Ans: If so, we can await in which a restored Naaman gushes praise, not to Elisha or God, but to Pharma, for making the continual-use pill that cleared up his skin. Then he cannonballs into the Jordan, just like the guy in the ad who cannonballs into the swimming pool as the camera swivels around him in freeze-motion stops. Nobody has the dough to create an ad like Pharma.

(Photo: tookapic.com, off Wikipedia)

 Q: No explanation as to why Elisha didn’t come out himself, as would have been a normal thing to expect, and Naaman did expect that. So, was the reason a lesson in humility for Naaman? And why was it so important for Naaman to learn that lesson?

A: Because it makes for a better reading than if Elisha did come out and do what Naaman expected: stand solid in place, call upon the name of God—I  have that reading tonight—and my hands at this point will shoot into the air, and then wave his hand to and fro over the leprosy to cure it. (My hand will do that too, very ostentatiously. These will not be those choreographed gestures that have been likened to synchronized swimming.)

 Q: “Now Naaman’s leprosy will stick to you and your descendants forever.” Why were Gehazi’s descendants punished for Gehazi’s sin? And forever?

A: It may have been the reproach of having such a forefather that would stick forever. Especially important in times when family lineage is o so important, not like today when few people give a hoot. ‘Tell us about your grandpa,’ Gehazi’s grandchildren’s schoolmates would ask, and the kids would hang their heads in shame.

Q: “But may Jehovah forgive your servant for this one thing: When my lord goes into the house of Rimʹmon to bow down there, he supports himself on my arm, so I have to bow down at the house of Rimʹmon. When I bow down at the house of Rimmon, may Jehovah, please, forgive your servant for this.” What’s the lesson there? Can we have caveats too?

A: Maybe. Keep this verse in your pocket in case you ever need it to get yourself out of a spot.

Q: Imagine—Naaman acting on the servant girl’s advice and hustling off to Israel. Maye he wanted his leprosy caught early, maybe he wasn't getting enough respect as a commanding general, or maybe his underling officers were just afraid to get too close to him? At any rate, even the King of Syria (Aram) intervened for him.

A: I’m not so sure. It could be the king of Israel was right when he said the guy was seeking a quarrel with him. (vs 7)  I had that Bible reading last night, so had plenty of time to mull it over. Naaman thought is was worth a shot, but that doesn’t mean the Syrian king did. The two kings hated each other’s guts. He probably thought, ‘Here’s a good chance to stick it to my rival.’  Even on being cured, Naaman seemed to realize it wouldn’t make any difference to the Syrian king. He’d still be bowing down to his dungheap god same as always.

That Bible reading paid a high complement last night. “The kids all paid rapt attention,” one sis told me—the same kids who normally fidget. I milked the reading a little, working up a rage to parallel Naaman’s. Then, upon being confronted by my own trusty servants, (vs 13) I paused, slightly nodded as though to say, ‘That makes sense,’ and then read the final line as an anticlimax.

The assignment helped me in another way, too. I decided that Naaman is the guy I want to meet first in the new system. You know how the brothers are—they’re always spinning that question, and people are always saying Noah or David. The lines to meet these guys will be pretty long. But Naaman will be sitting there all by himself. Of course, on behalf of my former Bible student who has suffered women problems, I may have to greet Solomon first. “Were you out of your mind?!” I will say to him. “What on earth were you thinking?! Even my former student told me he stopped well short of 700!”

I’ll see where the friends are living, too. A while back the local group played a game to post a pic of what will be their dream house in the new system. I’m perfectly content right where I am. Besides, I said (we had some LDC couples with us), ‘Bro LDC is going to make us all live in dormitories anyway.’ But they were pressing me to post something, so I posted a pic of the local boy’s reform school, with it’s razor wire gleaming in the sun. I like it for its bling, I said.

Seemed materialistic to me, but someone said afterward that the full-time servants love games like this because they have lived a lifetime in small apartments. So in that light, I guess it makes sense. Sort of like when I said how visiting helpers or GB always stayed in Bethel facilities or private homes and then was corrected by an old-time Bethelite that they didn’t necessarily. Many of them prefer to do just that, I was told, but they also have a hotel allowance. He ventured his opinion that when they utilized this option it was on account of their wives who wanted a break from the relentless institutional Bethel atmosphere. It was so human that I immediately accepted it as true—and inserted it in the Governing Body chapter of I Don’t Know Why We Persecute Jehovah’s Witnesses: Searching for the Why.

Q: You may meet these guys eventually, but they’ll probably be far away. You’ll be so busy building houses in the new system you’ll forget all about it.

A: Don’t be too sure. “Look at how that brother is missing the nail with every other swing,” one person on the tour commented, watching me trying to attach an overhead tarp. “Say, Truetom, we know you mean well,” someone will say, “but this may not be your special skill set. Maybe you should pay a return visit on that resurrected Naaman. He keeps killing people. Bad habit from the old days, no doubt. Maybe you can encourage him to work harder not to do that.”

 

******  The bookstore

See Part 1 and Part 2

Like a cult leader looking on in dismay as his sheep scatter, Frankfurter saw his eight to one majority opinion slamming Jehovah’s Witnesses morph into a three to six minority opinion in just three years. He didn’t take it well. Drawing on World War II lingo, he began to refer to the flipflopping three as ‘the Axis.’ (Pg 238) He was “livid” over their defection and appended an “angry” marginal note to his own records. (the author’s words both, from ‘Judging Jehovah’s Witnesses.’) His biographer opines he “prepared for the reversal [of Gobitis] as a proud but doomed gunfighter would approach his final shootout.”

Proud, angry, livid—none of those words will get you in good with the Universal Court of Appeals. Nor do dire warnings of doom help one’s cause: “The stability and credibility of the Court were undoubtedly shaken,” Frankfurter suggested, when justices like Black, Douglas, and Murphy ignore precident and disavowed a ruling they had enthusiastically supported just a few years earlier.” (pg 257)

They hadn’t ‘enthusiastically supported’ it. They’d been bullied. (see prior post) Adding insult to injury, the new six-to-three majority “ridiculed Frankfurter’s suggestion that flag-salute requirements were crucial to the preservation of national security.” (Peters— p235) And—rub it in why don’t you?—the six-to-three reversal of Gobitis was announced on June 4, 1943—Flag Day, as though to affirm that the flag stands for more than just blindly saluting it whenever some man tells you to, and to rebuke those who would claim otherwise.

(Plainly, three flipflopping justices does not account for eight to one becoming three to six. Two other Justices had retired in the interim, two replacements coming on board.)

Writing the majority opinion in Gobitis, Justice Frankfurter was now charged with writing the minority opinion. He pulled out all the stops, much to the dismay of colleagues, who thought his dissent far too personal, even playing the R-card (religion): “One who belongs to the most vilified and persecuted minority in history is not likely to be insensitive to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution,” he opened, as he went on to reaffirm his original view.

Yet even here one can be selective in what one focuses upon. He might have drawn upon the fact that, whereas his minority was suffering horribly in the German concentration camps at that time, so were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Moreover, none of Jehovah’s Witnesses had put his people in those camps, yet here he was sitting with fellow justices—Roman Catholic and Protestant background alike—whose fellow religious members had!

If we look for pithy observations of the difference between Jehovah’s Witnesses and greater society, the preceding just may be one of them. To Witness, their worship is everything, and it is axiomatic that their faith will make them unified—all one body, though in many members, says Paul. To those of the greater religious world it is rarely that way. Religion to them is at most a molding force to them, seldom a dominant one, and the notion that religious members should act in a unified way is too bizarre to merit serious consideration.

Witness attorney Hayden Covington compared the Gobitis decision to the horrendous Dred Scott decision of 1857 that prioritized the interests of slaveholders over slaves even in free states. It’s a statement of Covington but, judging from contemporary press and legal review, it is a statement most others would acquiesce to. I wonder if Covington knew, or if Peters in quoting him, that Justice Frankfurter had also had called it “one of the Court’s great self-inflicted wounds”* before himself going on to inflict another—and then go down in flames defending that infliction.

The tests facing those determined to worship God change. Within the month I have spoken to someone who as a boy recalls getting beat up for not saluting the flag. I also spoke with a Witness teenager who classmates have made it their “purpose in life” (her words) that she should start vaping. Flag-salute is a complete non-issue for her. Could it be, as Witness opponents might assert, that members refusal to salute has cascaded into the gross disrespect shown the flag today?

I think not. Two years after Gobitis, the American Legion (relentless instigators of Witness persecution) sponsored Public Law 623, which codified flag-salute protocol into what Witnesses had said all along they had no objection to. Though hand-over-heart was preferred, replacing the stiff-armed Nazi-like salute, standing in silence in “respectful attention” appeared to be enough. (pg 246) Witnesses were willing to do that then. They do it now. Meanwhile, the overall world has gone from outright worship of the flag to wearing it for bandanas and underwear. Even driveway ‘patriots’ leave their flags exposed to the elements where it is torn into shreds.

(*Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, chapter 6)

To be continued…

******  The bookstore

See Part 1, Part 2

“Poor Africans can get by with very little….. but mange to have fun with things which cost little such as singing, dancing, and sitting and talking. And they always seem yo be happy – the real poor ones,” said Emma, who was born and raised there. 

This led to the unhelpful remark from someone lacking in empathy: 

“Too bad you can't get them to stop dancing, sitting and talking and maybe learn to do some farming and engineering upkeep of the infrastructure,” followed up with an example or two of life going to hell in a hand basket. 

Alas, in the USA are to be found people who do much worse than ‘dancing, sitting, and talking.’ They party, drink, and do drugs. My wife had a Zoom student from a very poor city neighborhood—and in the States, that often means dangerous—who had very meager income, in fact, I didn’t know how she could survive (though I found out) who was continually loaning money to her needy neighbors who did all the above things (party, drink, drugs) and more. Universally thought “big-hearted,” anyone could run a sob story past her and walk away with some money—even though she didn’t have it. Turned out credit cards were indirectly fueling her giving. The funny thing about credit cards is that they make it possible for one financial hand to not know what the other is doing.

We helped her with her phrasing. “Look, do not say you are “loaning” money to such and such. Have you ever, ever, EVER been paid back? Say you are “giving” money, making a gift. It is your business if you wish to do it, but call it what it is.”

When people are irresponsible, don’t think it is easy to be tight-fisted in their midst, especially when one has a “big heart.” She came across some bawling and seemingly neglected child who couldn’t answer anything about anything but was plainly in a sorry state. She fed the child, cleaned it, afterwards attended to its other needs which included an immediate nap, after which the unknown child returned home. Next day her mother tried to drop her off while she went out carousing.

Another sis I know was continually giving money, which did not come easily to her, to her eternally needy granddaughter from far away. She only checked herself when, during the course of a visit, the girl revealed how she had spent a fairly large sum having the name of her on-again off-again live-in druggie boyfriend tattooed on a intimate part of her body where the sun don’t shine.

I’ll take “dancing, sitting, and talking” any day.

(See Part 1)

the bookstore

This is part of a multi-part series. Here is Part 1

Jehovah’s Witnesses fend off critics on two fronts. JWs are the prime targets of the fundamentalist church religious world. “I have been unable to discover any words of sympathy for them in any of the orthodox religious journals,” wrote Ray H Abrams in the first edition (1933) of ‘Preachers Present Arms.’

They are also the prime targets of the secular irreligious front as represented by ‘anti-cultists.’ “Russia’s religious persecution focuses almost exclusively on Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Human Rights Watch said in 2021.

If ‘Preachers Present Arms’ and Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t present them, why would they be the prime target of the irrelgious world that also says it wants peace? And in an age when religionists seek to force their views upon others through legislation and sometimes violence, but Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t—the standards they have they apply only to themselves—again, you would not think they would be prime target of the irreligious world. Why not go after someone who does do these meddling things? There are plenty of groups to choose from.

The answer is offered by Massimo Introvigne—he the scholar of new religions. When the fledgling irreligious anti-cult movement first started ‘flexing their muscles,’ they simply latched on to what already was the prime target of the religious would, Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Witnesses are the prime target of the fundamentalist church world—trust me on this—primarily because they reject the trinity doctrine. For that reason, they’re usually denied Christian status altogether by these ones. “No thanks, I’m Christian,” sniggered one fellow I encountered at the door, with the clear implication that I wasn’t. I answered in perplexity that only a Christian would do the work I was doing, and “frankly, I’m a little surprised that you’re doing it yourself.” Fade smug smile. Of course, I would never do this for an honest misunderstanding, but believe me—this was no honest misunderstanding.

It’s a denial of status that the fundamentalists can’t quite make stick—it sticks only among themselves. “The Witnesses come right up my driveway to talk about Jesus as God’s chosen king,” non-fundamentalists will say, who may not be thrilled to see them do that but they obviously recognize them as Christian, and in fact, pretty serious Christians to be putting biblical direction to preach into practice.

If the trinity truly was the central reality of the faith, you’d expect it to be on nearly every page of the Bible. Instead, references to it are few and far between, and almost always, if seen in any other context, would be instantly dismissed as figure of speech. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” Jesus says as he is being put to death. Who’s he talking to—himself? Again, it’s odd that anti-cultists would makes Witnesses their central target, who make sense on this doctrine, as opposed to a horde of groups that do not—but Introvigne has explained why.

When you respond to a critic, it’s well to know where that one is coming from. Is he/she from the secular anti-cult front, or the religionist front? What answers one will not answer another. The critic who savaged the masterpiece TrueTom vs the Apostates, taking exception to a point of chronology that is nowhere discussed in the book, is from the church religious world. This is the world in which if you have ever said something that turned out not so, you are a “false prophet.” The irreligious world would never speak that way.

With regard to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem, Witnesses don’t have the date favored by the majority of scholars. Accept it and move on. After all, we don’t have the majority view on the origin of mankind either. Maybe someday scholars will change on this point. Maybe they will not. Have scholars never been wrong? All the time they are reversing themselves.

On the other hand, what would be the consequences if they were right and we were wrong? A matter of timing is all. It would affect the ‘when’ of the faith, but not the ‘who’ ‘what’ ‘why’ ‘where’ and ‘how’. Awkward? Yes. A deal-breaker? No. Opponents who would not know who was president before their birth have studied up on a tiny sliver of Persian history in order to undermine their former associates. Should I study up on it too? I’m sure I could get the Cliff Notes version in short order, but it would take a lot more than that to weigh with any authority. I do monitor someone who, at great length, argues of flaws with the consensus view. It goes over my head. I let it do that because either outcome is irrelevant to the big picture. At most, it adds to uncertainty as to where we are in the stream of time, but you’d still be crazy to get out of the stream.

History is often scholars angling for position, egos and reputations at stake, and after they take control of the playing field they tilt it so anyone of competing view slides off. So I won’t lose my cookies when our view is not the majority one. Every factoid of Bible history must be argued with critics intent on gutting them, and when they reluctantly concede to one, they do not extend that concession to any others—you have to beat them down one rung at a time. “The great patriarchal tales in the book of Genesis are prehistoric, no more historically true than the tales of . . . King Arthur,” wrote clergyman Stopford Brooke in his book The Old Testament and Modern Life. “It is impossible,” another theologian added, “to place implicit confidence in any of these records.” I remember giving a talk on how these guys all had to turn around on Genesis 14 in the face of accumulating archeological finds.

…Okay, here’s the unsavory review. Imagine! Anyone criticizing TrueTom vs the Apostates! Who would do that other than . . . Ah, “taste and see Jehovah is good,” says the Psalm. They have tasted and seen he is bad. Think they’re going to like the book? But there is such a thing as making lemonade from lemons:

 

“This guy is part of a cult, and it shows. His great "debates" if you can even call them that, seem to consist of him running in circles trying to distract from the fact that he has no actual evidence for his false doctrine.

I actually emailed him regarding the JW belief that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE, long story short he resorted to name calling and insults and then stopped replying. The "truth" indeed…”

 

To use the lingo of critical thinkers, what the nasty reviewer is doing is called setting up a straw man argument. Bernard Strawman himself, my return visit character from ‘Tom Irregardless and Me,’ (who is progressing very well, thank you) would spot it in an instant. It’s not at all true, as the reviewer implies, that the Witness organization desperately tries to hide their miscues lest they lose some aura of infallibility. Instead, they’re very open about expectations that did not work out. In public broadcast, Anthony Morris recently stated he comes from a line of Witnesses, each one of whom thought the end was at hand. If they did it in the first century, they’ll do it in the present as well. And they did do it in the first century:

“[Jesus] spoke in addition an illustration, because he was near Jerusalem and [his disciples] were imagining that the kingdom of God was going to display itself instantly.  (Luke 19:11)

“When, now, [the disciples] had assembled, they went asking him: “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” (Acts 1:6)

You think it’s easy looking into the future? The watchman peers into the mist and makes a few false calls. He gets everyone scrambling for nothing! But it’s all in keeping with the continual NT language to “keep on the watch,” be ever “vigilant,” for the Lord’s day “is coming unexpectedly,” like a “thief in the night,” and happy is the one not caught napping. What good is a watchman who sounds the alarm only when the bow of approaching ship pinches his toes, having just smashed through the gunwales?

I suppose this reviewer’s second statement also is ‘raising a straw man argument:’ “His great "debates" if you can even call them that . . . “ I never did call them that. Like 607 BCE, this claim doesn’t appear from my pen. The only one who wanted to debate, inviting me repeatedly for that purpose, was Nemo of Chapter 3, a real and rabid opposer (though name is changed) who later blew his credibility (and, alas, his family) by cavorting with the lithe young prostitutes of Thailand, fulfilling exactly the biblical description of apostates “promising freedom” while they themselves exist as “slaves of corruption.”

So with that in mind, here is the email thread the reviewer referred to. I’ve kept it, pending further reply that I may or may not have gotten around to. Note how he gets the last word. You have to acquiesce to this if you engage with any of his type, because no way will they give up! They come out of nowhere, ram you as those big dumb animals with horns in the nature shows, thereafter take for granted that all your time is theirs, and the moment you cease correspondence declare glorious victory!!! 

He’s not stupid. He makes some valid points. It certainly would be better not to make any mistakes, a dilemma that is often solved by not doing anything. You might even end up agreeing with him. But I don’t:

 

Dave: Hello Mr Harley: Just wondering if you could explain to me why your religion's publications repeatedly tells it's members that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce when all available evidence points to 587/586 bce. I know it's tied up in doctrine, and I believe it's dishonest to misrepresent history like this. 

Tom: For the same reason our religion’s publications repeatedly tell members that Adam and Eve are our first human parents when “all available evidence” points to them being imaginary. I believe the publishers defer to the Bible’s own chronology over that of academia.

Dave: It seems to me that rather then "deferring" to the Bible's chronology your leaders are rather "making up" a chronology that suits their needs. Strange how the Babylonian records are employed to establish the return of the Jews, but suddenly become untrustworthy when it comes to the destruction of Jerusalem. Many Christian scholars have demonstrated workable timetables that preserve the 70 years and agree with the cuneiform tablets.

Tom: Whatever was done it was done long ago and it permitted the Witnesses to point well ahead of time to 1914, since deemed by historians a ‘turning point year.’ It seemed to correlate well with Matthew 24:7 as the first time that the entire world was at war at once. I wrote of it here: [see link] Is it wrong? I don’t really think so, though I am aware that ours is the minority view. Sometimes the minority view turns out to be the correct one. But if not, it simply becomes an issue of delayed timing, a little like misreading the bus schedule. It doesn’t mean the bus is not coming.

Dave: The Bible students pointed to many dates for the end, which all failed, and I'd hardly call 1914 a slam dunk either. If you'd examine world history you'd see that 1914 was in fact not the first time that the whole world was at war. Plus Jesus told his disciples not to be alarmed by warring nations because the end was not yet, they were just the "beginning pangs" to use your translation.

It's not really a minority view though is it? It's a view for which there's no evidence, and you have a lot riding on it. Could you explain to me how your "faithful and discreet slave" doctrine works without 1914? Seems like without this discredited chronology you're really just obeying men rather then Jesus.

Tom: Probably the people of God are destined to be chumps, always prematurely expecting the end which does not occur until it does. It’s not too different from first century disciples wanting to know if Christ was bringing the end “at this time,” and who imagined “the kingdom of God was going to display itself instantly.” It’s a regrettable downside of “keeping on the watch,” but still beats “sleeping on as the rest do.”

And World War I certainly was the first time the whole world was concurrently at war, either as direct participants or as colonies of direct participants, their resources exploited to that end. That’s why it is called ‘World War I’—it had never happened before. Rather than a dismissive directive to “examine world history,” give me an example of a greater conflict if you think there was one. I doubt very much your knowledge of history exceeds mine, barring only a cherry-picked area or two which you seize upon only because you think you can undermine Jehovah’s Witnesses with it.

Dave: I would agree with you that keeping on the watch is important, it's what our Lord told us to do. However keeping on the watch does not mean run around prophesying that the end is coming on <insert date here>. Jesus told us to not do exactly that at Matt 24: 24-27, instead said his coming would be obvious like lightning, no one would have to point it out.

Funny, you seem to missed these wars: The Napoleonic wars, The war of American independence, the seven years war, and the war of Spanish succession. All these wars are classed as "world wars". The Napoleonic wars were fought on all continents whereas the world war of 1914 was largely limited to Europe. 

The generally accepted combined figure of soldier and civilian deaths for world war I is 10-12 million. This figure shows that rather then being the most devastating conflict in history up to that time as watchtower has claimed, it's well within normal margins. Next to the Taiping rebellion of 1850-1864 that resulted in 40 million deaths it pales in comparison, and is closer to the 10 million deaths of The Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648.

You still haven't provided a good reason as to why JW's reject 587/586 bce, there are literally thousands of tablets that give us a very detailed chronology of the period of Jewish exile. I do however appreciate your willingness to even discuss this with me, I've been brushed off by many other witnesses.

Tom: If the wars you mentioned were ‘world wars,’ that little spat in 1914 would be known as ‘World War V.’ It isn’t. It is World War I. Yours is a ridiculous take that I have never heard before.

What is it with you? Do you live to argue? Sometimes people disagree. I can live with that.

Dave: According to the historians Richard F. Hamilton and Holger H. Herwig there have been eight world wars, beginning with the nine years' war in 1688, followed by the War of the Spanish succession, The war of the Austrian succession, the Seven years war, the French revolutionary wars, the Napoleonic wars, world war I, and world war II. 

Source: Richard F. Hamilton; Holger H. Herwig, eds. (24 February 2003). The Origins of World War I. Cambridge University Press. pp. 4–9. ISBN 978-1-107-39386-8

Here's two mainstream historians who refer to world war I as world war VII. Hardly ridiculous, but not as well known as it should be. [it’s because they’re ridiculous] Oh and I never called it a little spat, it was among the deadliest wars in history, but it wasn't a war that made all preceding conflicts look small in comparison. 

Well I wouldn't say I live to argue per se, but I love truth and God. Since your religion calls itself "the truth" I thought maybe you would be able to defend their doctrines.

I get the sense we've reached an impasse, since you haven't provided any evidence or arguments to support your organisation's chronology besides insisting that world war I proves it. I do want you to know that I admire you for maintaining an internet presence when so many JW's avoid religious discussions online. I hope you come to Christ someday brother. God bless 

Tom: The fact that after two exchanges you say we’ve “reached an impasse” is evidence enough for me of your penchant for arguing. After conceding that we hold the minority view, there is hardly any point of you blustering on about your majority view, yet you do anyway. If I have not addressed all your concerns, neither have you addressed your inconsistency on complete reliance on academia when it comes to chronology, yet complete rejection of it when it comes to Adam and Eve. It is the same thing when it comes to world war. Here the consensus of academia means nothing to you. Instead you champion the view of a lone wolf whose work I have never heard of. If you think Jehovah’s Witnesses cherry-pick you do it no less.

Look to the scriptures on the imperfections of humans (I’ve given you two examples regarding disciples ‘jumping the gun’ in the first century) and you’ll better forgive if the same has happened in the present. JWs are very open about it. Anthony Morris recently stated in public address that going several generations back, Witnesses he knew of often thought the end would occur within their lifetimes. 

Humoring you for a moment, if it turns out your view of 607 is correct, the Witness organization will adjust, as they have many times before. The prime source of their headship is that they do the work of spreading the gospel. There are tens of thousands of different organizations today. Always, they are led by people who organize and do the work.

And I have no sense of not coming to Christ. On the contrary, in my view Jehovah’s Witnesses best champion his overarching role in God’s purpose.

Dave: Last I checked you were the one "blustering" on about minority and majority views, I'm just looking at evidence, something you should try out sometime. That's why I said we'd reached an impasse, your view is in fact refuted by all available historical evidence.

Adam and Eve is a bit different from the exile. The Babylonian exile is described in clearly historical terms whereas Adam and Eve and the creation account in Gen 1 are classic examples of mythic history, their story is a clear polemic against Egyptian and mesopotamian myths, and is it just a coincidence that Adams story mimics Israel's? I doubt it. That doesn't mean that I don't believe they never existed but I do believe these accounts are more concerned with theology then history, and clinging to a rigid interpretation of these stories does more harm than good.

The "consensus view" is that while we don't call these previous conflicts world wars, they do fit the criteria. Even world war I wasn't officially called that until much later. It's just a matter of nomenclature why these earlier conflicts weren't called world wars. 

I suppose those faithful JW's thought the end would come because "this generation will not pass away". Well that didn't age quite so well…

Let me share a scripture with you, Matt 24: 23: "Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it." 

It seems to me that saying has returned and has been reigning invisibly for over 100 years fits that category nicely. Being eager for the kingdom is good, but it's no excuse for becoming a false prophet. 

To be continued: here.

******  The bookstore

This will be a multi-part series. For best results, start here.

For most of human history it was, ‘if you want to figure out something, go to what has been revealed about it.’ That was Scripture—information given from on high, information revered because it “had stood the test of time.”

It was not only Scripture. When “science” emerged (at first called “natural history,”) it followed that same pattern of knowledge through revelation, knowledge that had been revealed, knowledge that had stood the test of time! Aristotle philosophied on how the world was three hundred years before Christ and his teachings were dogma for almost 2000 years. Euclid, Aristotle’s contemporary, derived rules of mathematics and nobody dared add to that structure for as many years.

The motive to think of and do things as they had always been done was overwhelming. Experiment with new growing methods in the days of subsistence farming and if you get it wrong you die! Who would take a chance on something so risky? Stick with ideas “that had stood the test of time.”

At first glance, Jehovah’s Witnesses are not unduly hobbled by this mindset of knowing things by revelation. They have at least three things going for them. One, they keep up with science, more or less. They’re not the ones who put dinosaurs on the Kentucky ark. They put them on the inside of their 1961 Bible cover, but they took them out in deference to science declaring that those monsters lived long before humans. 1961 might seem awfully late to still be putting dinosaurs on your inside Bible cover, but recall it took till 1987 for the evolutionists to arm twist the U. S. Supreme Court (Edwards v. Aguillard) that creation science is not science, and since that time the Witness organization has never said it was. Maybe they never said it at all, since “creation science” has political overtones and the Witnesses don’t do politics.

Instead, Witnesses have become accustomed to reading such things as “the Bible is not a book of science, but it is in harmony with true science.” Materialists will choke at this phrasing, for they assume that ALL science is true, and if it is not there is no other way to correct the problem than a further advance of science. But the Watchtower’s phrasing is in accord with the truth that not everything is examined physically; some things are examined spiritually, and when science encroaches on that field where it has but clumsy and inapplicable tools, it is apt to come up with something other than “true science.”

So if scientists have been convinced of evolution since the day Darwin stepped off the returning ship, the teaching was still controversial for the great unwashed up till at least 1987. Jehovah’s Witnesses by and large are from the great unwashed. Few are scientists. That being the case, it’s reasonably progressive of them to be interviewing Michael Behe in 1996, who believes in evolution in the main but insists it has limits—the “edge of evolution,” in his words. Micro-evolution is correct, he maintains. It is the bird beaks that Darwin wrote about, little different than animal husbandry that farmers have known of forever. But macro-evolution is unproven, Behe says, and abiogenesis much more so. In fact, Jehovah’s Witnesses will have little objection to Darwin. They wouldn’t have interviewed Behe if they hated his guts. When they do object to Darwin, it is because of correctly anticipating the tractor-trailer loads of dogma that atheists will drive through the door he leaves open.

Not everything dovetails. But by and large, the Witness organization takes the view, ‘let scientists be scientists and Bible students be Bible students.’ You don’t have to know everything this instant. It’s okay to put some things on the shelf pending further information. Is it true that we cannot hold ideas that don’t entirely square with one another simultaneously without our heads short circuiting?  One look at a Pharma ad suffices to show that cognitive dissonance is a concept vastly overrated—with narrator insisting that you must have the drug peddled and voiceover saying that it may kill you.

To be continued: here.

******  The bookstore

 

#publictalk “Are you on the road to everlasting life?”

After outlining a fictional city where every driver makes up his own rules for driving, the speaker asks, “Would you want to drive in that city?”

 

#watchtowerstudy today: “Lessons We Can Learn From Jesus’ Tears.” Theme verse: “Jesus gave way to tears.”​—JOHN 11:35.

The newly associated person who has never commented before tells how he shed tears losing a cousin to a drunk driver.

Imagine. He knows he is going to solve the problem, and still “Jesus gave way to tears.” John 11:35

Para 9: To be frank, washing my car is not a task that would be concerned about one way or the other during grievous times, since I barely attend to it during good times.

Para 9: Whoa. One sis tells how she is comforting a far-away woman, via frequent calls and texts, whose dad recently succumbed after many weeks of illness. I knew and much liked this fellow, worked closely with him at one point, but had long since lost track of him.

Para 9: Whoa. One sis tells how she is comforting a far-away woman, via frequent calls and texts, whose dad recently succumbed after many weeks of illness. I knew and much liked this fellow, worked closely with him at one point, but had long since lost track of him.

Para 10: The bro who we had over for a meal last night just commented and he said he thinks door-to-door will not return in this covid-conscious world. But I think he is all wet. There is barely any point to upcoming paragraphs in that event.

Footnote Para 12: “The Greek word rendered “neighbor” at Matthew 22:39 can include more than just those who live nearby [but] to anyone with whom a person interacts.’ All the same, in service I refrain from saying ‘We’re calling on our neighbors’ unless I actually live nearby.

Para 15: “It was during those difficult hours that Jesus ‘offered up supplications . . . with strong outcries and tears.’” (Heb. 5:7)  Who can’t identify? It’s easy to talk a good game from the comfort of our lounges.

Para 17: “That might be one rendering of it” says the Wt conductor after a sis gets the picture wrong. No, the guard is not bringing a form to sign involving guilt. He is bringing letters of encouragement.

The Wt study ends with a list of verses in which Jesus wept: John 11:35, Luke 19:21, Luke 22:44, and Hebrews 5:7:

“During his life on earth, Christ offered up supplications and also petitions, with strong outcries and tears, to the One who was able to save him out of death…”

 

Commenting on the cartoon mom reasoning with Caleb to lose the inappropriate toy, one bro says, “I would have just said, ‘That’s going in the trash!’” #midweekmeeting

This one I like: “So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer: “Come and let us cross over to the outpost of these uncircumcised men. Perhaps Jehovah will act in our behalf, for nothing can hinder Jehovah from saving by many or by few.” (1 Sam 14:6)

“But the men of Israel were hard-pressed on that day, for Saul had put the people under this oath: “Cursed is the man who eats any food before the evening and until I have taken vengeance on my enemies!” So [no one] ate any food.” (1 Sam 14:24)   Why would the blockhead do that?

Saul said: “Thus may God do and may he add to it if you do not die, Jonathan.”  But the people said to Saul: “Should Jonathan die….With that the people rescued Jonʹa·than, and he did not die. (1 Sam 14:44) Some days nothing goes right for a guy. Saul is having one of those days.

Here I write up a nice review of Seminega’s book, ‘No Greater Love: How My Family Survived the Genocide in Rwanda,’ but I write it up as an apologist. He writes up his own book as a scholar. He has to. Otherwise his credibility is diminished among the academic community that is his audience and to which he genuinely belongs, even as he is also a Witness. It is more than a little crazy, but that’s the way it is. If you are a non-member of anything, you just may be up for writing accurate history. But if you are a member, it is assumed you are biased and your observations are downgraded, if not discarded. “If I really say it the radio won’t play it.” Ah, well—no use in bellyaching. It is what it is. Nobody wants to hear you grumbling about the rules of the game as you play.

“Brother Seminega prefers to let others say it, not he himself. That is how it is with scholars.  He is content to include in an appendix: “Peace and conflict researcher Christian P. Scherrer states: ‘All the churches active in Rwanda, with the exception of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (of whom only a few survived), were involved at least ‘passively’ in the genocide.’”

Do you know that I am yet blocked by the book’s publisher and the author himself? I know how that came to be, or at least I think I do. He nosed around one fine day when I was squabbling with opposers, said ‘We’re not the sort to do that,’ and figured I must be up to no good myself! Yikes! Here the hats are reversed. Here any Witness such as he knows that hobnobbing with the opposers (sometimes apostates) is anything but the bee’s knees with our people. Better give anyone who does it a wide berth! Whereas, if you’re trying to research certain topics, you sort of have to go to who represents them. It all works out for me like Rodney Dangerfield’s point of view: ‘I don’t get no respect.’

I threw them all out—all the apostates.  I had to. I blasted them away as though with phasers. And when someone from that camp began following me recently, I told him he was welcome to follow but he had to behave. Alas, I’ve learned from experience that if I engage with the malcontents, the neighbors start to complain, so be forewarned: the block mechanism was on hair trigger. A guy’s point of view must be allowed to stand on his own profile page.

It worked out okay. He DMed me with a question or two. I answered him for the most part with posts already posted, and presently he went away, after observing I had a “strange skewed logic” for viewing the world. But I replied that “strange skewed logic” is in the eye of the beholder. He acquiesced to this—he was not unpleasant. I acknowledged this even as I observed it is not exactly as though the world is firing on all cylinders running on its “logic,” which makes one wonder just who is it that has the “strange skewed’ variety.

And I observed that his paradigm of a slave breaking free from his master was a little silly. “We are all slaves to something,” said Herman Melville’s Ismael, as he signed aboard a whaling ship, making himself “slave” to Captain Arab for the next three years. If you believe the Bible narrative, you look forward to not being a slave to ‘80 years & out.’ If you don’t, you drop down to the more temporary, more relatively petty things, and carry on about breaking free from them. If you lose faith, you find yourself adapting to a new reality. You convince yourself you have found the true reality and may even start beating up on your fellow slaves still “trapped” in the old reality.

It is a game as old as time and it plays out everywhere. That’s why I like following world events—you can see it playing out in diverse fields that have nothing to do with religion. One team gets the ball and tries to run the other off the field. They may even try tilting the field, making it mighty slippery for those on the other team.

(See Part 1);

***The bookstore.

 

Great Courses, Bob Brier, tweets composed and sent while dog-walking. AI screwups corrected in brackets

For continuity, start with Part 1:

No narrating into the phone today. It’s too cold. A few days ago it was almost 80. Now it is in the mid-30’s, wet, and blowy. Today walking the dog I’ll must take in the lectures on the headphones and write them up later:

Lecture 25: the end of dynsasty XVIII

No children from the final 3 kings, big problem for continuity.

Horemhab is the last of three. A military general. He is the one who first integrated priests into the army—the first “chaplains?” He saw how powerful priests were with the people, figured ‘best get them on our side.’

That monotheistic king—Athenaten? He’s an embarrassment by now, and subsequent kings try to erase him. That’s why little is known about Tutankhamen other than his intact tomb—the only one that is intact.

The restoration stela at Karnak says that after Athenaten, the statues of the gods had  been melted down (even the one god Athenatem worshiped he said there would be no images of), weeds were growing in the temples, the military was no longer respected.

The images and the weeds—two scenarios that repeat whenever the faithful Israelite kings toss out the riffraff and restore Jehovah’s worship! Only here that is considered a bad thing, not a good thing.

Look, I’m going to chase this down someday. If Joseph can be connected with the Hyksos, Athenaten is not too far removed from him—is he Joseph apostasized? No, I don’t expect to find what the great men have missed. Still, you never know with great men. Sometimes they make assumptions that mess up all subsequent conclusions.

I wonder if Bob brings up and speculates about this later. There is an upcoming lecture about ‘Exodus—did it happen?’

Horemhab’s wife was named Mutnedjemet. It means “sweet mama!” A common name, Bob says, so it maybe isn’t Tutankhamen’s sister-in-law, as some Egyptologists think. 

Lecture 26: Mummification

Bob loves mummification. He has done one, you know. (I wonder on who?) People come to Egypt and they want to see two things: pyramids and mummies. Mummies are special, he says. A recognizable figure staring at you from thousands of years in the past.

Still, they weren’t much cared for until recently. Artifacts were, but it did not occur to the collectors that dead bodies should be. Now Bob Brier will try to retrace how dead ones were mummified.

Not easy, because no written instructions were kept. Just a relief he tells of somewhere that shows the mummified body up on two blocks, so you can wrap underneath with out disturbing it. “Like jacking up a car,” the professor from the Bronx states. 

He spends time on embalmers, that they in many ways like undertakers today—a family profession. They might have several being embalmed at the same time, and they had different options representing different expense levels!

Just like when I buried my Dad and I told the undertaker that JW’s (Dad was not one, but he would have agreed on this) view the body as a container. At death, the person no longer has any need of it. Therefore, cremation would do just fine.

He said he thought of bodies much the same way. Did it give him the creeps working alone at at night amidst bodies? He said sometimes at first, but the feeling quickly fades. (I’ll bet he doesn’t feast on horror shows, though.) 

This is the funeral director who let me sit is his vintage Cadillac, picked up from some Hollywood mogul. It had been in a few films.

How to do mummies was a trade secret, not written down, but for Herodotus, since he was going away, Bob says embalmers told him a lot. Like how they take the brain out—through the nose with a “sharp Ethiopian stone.” Bob figures obsidian.

Go to Part 14

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