JW Insider

This will be my last point on this topic here, unless you continue to make further references to me, as you have done so many times already. After what you have said above, this is a good place to summarize the most important points again. You say that the organization holds steadfast to the numbers in the Bible. This is true, because the Bible offers a fairly complete relative chronology with very few places where one must resort to interpretation to complete a relative chronology from Adam to Zedekiah, or even Jehoiachin's 37th year of exile, or at the very latest, 70 years after the destruction of the Temple, referenced in Zechariah 1:8 landing on the . . .On the 24th day of the 11th month, that is, the month of Sheʹbat, in the second year of Da·riʹus. . .). So there is a long stretch of relative dates. But there are no BC/BCE dates in the Bible. There is no Bible-based way to connect any BCE dates to our day, or even to the time of Jesus. There are no indications in the Bible that would give us the BC/BCE dates. Even the WTS relies both directly and indirectly on records from Babylonian/Persian/Greek ASTRONOMY to link the Bible accounts to any BCE date. If we claim they are from unreliable records, then that means that our own claims about any BCE dates are just as unreliable. So it is wrong to say that the WTS stance is grounded in divine guidance. The Watchtower's BCE dates are grounded in Babylonian astronomy. However, the dates used by the WTS are cherry-picked so that astronomy-based BCE dates are accepted only as long they are AFTER about 560 BCE, and all dates PRIOR to 560 BCE only presented after adding 20 years to them. Personally, I have no problem with the claim that the 70 years of servitude to Babylon ran from 607 to 587. That seems to be the right time period supported by astronomy. [And I have no problem with the astronomy evidence that says Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year was 587, and the astronomical evidence that Darius' 2nd year was about 518, which would explain the other 70-year period mentioned in Zechariah 1:7-12] And if someone wants to start a 2520 year period from 607, that's just an interpretation. No harm done. But the astronomy evidence the WTS relies on to get 539 also shows that 607 was NOT the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's as we claim, but points to a year in which there was no such thing as a King Nebuchadnezzar. He didn't become king for another two years. The claim that the astronomy evidence might be wrong or unreliable is one thing. But it's problematic to claim that only a tiny percentage of that data is correct. Especially because the part we accept is the part that is MOST prone to the errors the WTS makes use of to dismiss the much larger set of excellent evidence. We dismiss literally ALL the evidence which is not as prone to those same errors. We even say we can make "pivotal" dates from the more error-prone evidence, but that we must also ignore the better parts of that same "pivotal" evidence in places where we don't like what it tells us. If we merely claimed that the WTS has divine guidance and that's what it completely relies on, then that might be a difficult concept for some, but it would not be so problematic. It only becomes problematic when we try to impeach the very evidence we make use of. The WTS uses WT articles that try to show that the same evidence might mean two different things. That shows that we somehow "need" the Babylonian evidence to support us. And we have even followed Furuli's folly in order to make a FALSE claim about VAT 4956. This was really disingenuous, not just because the claims were 100% FALSE, but because VAT 4956 is only one of a dozen different completely independent sources for the entire set of astronomical dates for Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Of course, I can't fault any of us for not understanding this. Very few of us will try to look into it for ourselves. And I'm no expert, and I fell for the same bits of false reasoning that made me think we were right and the rest of the world was wrong. But it's those false claims that we are right because "the Bible tells us so" or that "divine guidance tells us so" that will continue to embarrass us for anyone who goes to the trouble to check out the evidence. As I said, I'm no expert, but it doesn't take one. It's a very straightforward thing to look up the astronomical evidence for ourselves and tell others what we found. Any junior high school student could do it. You don't need that much education. You don't need to be an expert. So there is obviously a reason that almost no Witnesses will ever go to the trouble of looking up any of the Babylonian observations we pretend to rely on. You haven't done it, or if you have you won't admit what you found. Scholar JW won't do it. The GB won't do it. The GB Helpers won't do it. JWs are intelligent. And yet almost none of them dare to do it. If they do, they don't dare admit publicly what they found out. There are just a couple of exceptions to that rule. And we see what happens to them. As for me, I don't think it's right to learn something and not be able to share it. I think that if we love the organization, if we love the brotherhood, and if we love Jehovah who is a lover of truth, we would share our concerns. We shouldn't want the organization to be embarrassed by having made a man-made obsession about something so trivial and unnecessary. The WTS should never have made such a big deal out of a secular, man-made set of dates. As for me, I will follow Psalm 26: 26 Judge me, O Jehovah, for I myself have walked in my own integrity, And in Jehovah I have trusted, that I may not wobble. 2  Examine me, O Jehovah, and put me to the test; Refine my kidneys and my heart. 3  For your loving-kindness is in front of my eyes, And I have walked in your truth. 4  I have not sat with men of untruth; And with those who hide what they are I do not come in. ... 8  Jehovah, I have loved the dwelling of your house And the place of the residing of your glory. ... 11  As for me, in my integrity I shall walk. O redeem me and show me favor. 12  My own foot will certainly stand on a level place; Among the congregated throngs I shall bless Jehovah.

Convoluted and muddy thinking again: You say that if we can assume the tablet was 568 this suggests that the king was in his palace to issue the order for Borsippa. But 20 years earlier, a runner would have to run for weeks or a month to get that order from Judah for 588, a date historically suggested for Nebuchadnezzar's army to be sieging Jerusalem. So your basic point is that, yes it might make sense for 568, the astronomical date for his 37th year, but if we want his 37th year to be twenty years earlier, in his 17th year in 588, when he might be there with his army at Jerusalem. And even though this is more difficult because a runner would have to take up to a month for the message (and a month to get back), then that means that his 37th year could also be his 17th year, and we can therefore use the 588 date for that same event. If anyone here believes that to be a valid argument, they simply have no business discussing the topic. Besides, your only response always boils down to just name-calling, and flailing on about how I misrepresented your words, while ignoring your own words, and then (ironically) blatantly misrepresenting my words. And everyone can also see the immature "I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I?" projection tactics. Typical.

Quite an admission on your part.

Hallucinations? Not that it matters, but it's closer to 11 miles. The claim you made that Borsippa was much further than Babylon from Jerusalem turned out to be a false claim. But I never cared, and never struggled with it, and never made any point about it. If you are trying to make a point that the king was far away from Jerusalem in 588, so what? Rather than confusing you, it could merely be thought of as a further agreement with the Bible's account. Notice that there is a difference between the Bible accounts related to Nebuchadnezzar's 18th and/or 19th year attack on Jerusalem, and the Bible accounts related to Nebuchadnezzar's 7th and/or 8th year attack on Jerusalem. See if you can spot the difference: Here are some references to the 7th/8th year: (2 Kings 24:8-12) . . .Je·hoiʹa·chin was 18 years old when he became king, . . . During that time the servants of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon came up against Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon came to the city while his servants were laying siege to it. King Je·hoiʹa·chin of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, along with his mother, his servants, his princes, and his court officials; and the king of Babylon took him captive in the eighth year of his reign. (Jeremiah 52:28-30) . . .These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar took into exile: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews.  In the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, 832 people were taken from Jerusalem.  In the 23rd year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard took Jews into exile, 745 people.. . . And here are the references to the 18th, then the 19th year (Jeremiah 32:1, 2) . . .The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah in the 10th year of King Zed·e·kiʹah of Judah, that is, the 18th year of Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar.  At that time the armies of the king of Babylon were besieging Jerusalem,. . . (2 Kings 25:1, 2) . . .In the ninth year of Zed·e·kiʹah’s reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem. He camped against it and built a siege wall all around it,  and the city was under siege until the 11th year of King Zed·e·kiʹah. (2 Kings 25:8, 9) . . .In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, that is, in the 19th year of King Neb·u·chad·nezʹzar the king of Babylon, Neb·uʹzar·adʹan the chief of the guard, the servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned down the house of Jehovah, the king’s house,. . . Nebuchadnezzar is said to be explicitly interacting with Jerusalem in his 7th/8th year, which astronomy evidence places around 597. Then about 10 years later, which would be about 587, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem again, for a long nearly two-year siege. Does he stay for the entire siege? Is he the one who takes the exiles this time, as Jeremiah says he had done in this 7th year? In fact, about 10 years later, per the Bible's record, this time the city may have been under siege for between 1 and 2 years. Does the king have to sit around with them outside the city for all those months? Or does it become the responsibility of his army and his chief, Nebuzaradan, to come to Jerusalem to take the city when it is finally weakened to the point of surrender? Per astronomical records the entire siege could have included 589, 588, and 587. Does that mean that Nebuchadnezzar could not order the death of someone in Borsippa, just because a siege of Jerusalem was going on at the time? Did you think the army of an empire like Babylon could not wage wars on several fronts at the same time? But all of this argument of yours is nonsense -- it's MOOT -- because it is YOU who are trying to create the confusion. The astronomical records indicate that the 37th year of Babylon is 568, not 588. So this is long AFTER Jehovah has allowed Nebuchadnezzar to "take care" of Jerusalem. You don't even need to know the BC/BCE years involved. Very explicitly the tablet says this is the 37th year. And the 37th year is long after the 18th and 19th years.

That was convoluted and strange. I assume it was that way on purpose. I have not tried to refute anything from VAT 4956. My "acceptance" of the evidence from VAT 4956 is not the same thing as "refuting" it. Unless you are doing that thing again where you say you can use words to mean whatever you want. Now you are doing that thing again where you hope to imply that the stance of 100% of the current "authorities" and "experts" the Watchtower has quoted just happen to agree with COJ. So, in order to make it easier to dismiss the conclusions of all those experts, you need to point out that those experts agree with COJ, therefore you can dismiss their conclusions. This is not just stupid. It's dishonest because you have done it before. It's also hypocritical because you have never once ever been able to point out even one sentence from his GTR book that was wrong. When you finally did attempt to prove he was wrong about something, you picked his reference to Nabopolassar's years mentioned in the "Chronicles," you ended up inadvertently showing that COJ was perfectly accurate. That must have been embarrassing. As you know, COJ has nothing to do with this discussion. From now on, instead of referring to COJ directly, I think we should just refer call him, "the person that George88 has shown to be accurate." In fact, until you can show even one inaccurate sentence, that's how I will refer to "COJ, the person that George88 has shown to be accurate."

Try not to manipulate my words with your usual tactics. I said: "I’m sure you know by now that there is absolutely nothing in the diary indicating the year 588." I said this in direct response to your claim that the events on the tablet indicated 588. You said that the events on the tablet indicated 588. You said: "You can reference VAT 4956." . . . "Why is this so significant? Pay extremely close attention to the language inscribed on this tablet" . . . "Year 37 of Nebukadnezzar, King of Babylon. Month I," . . "Additional reports in this Diary include . . . Borsippa, . . . .This indicates that the conflict in that region in 588 . . . " No, you didn't actually say that. Besides I have no argument about 587. I only point out that ALL the astronomical evidence from the entire period shows that this was Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year. You have never made an argument (either valid or invalid) that "my argument about 587 can also be interpreted as 588." Not that it matters in the least, but Borsippa is NOT way further in distance from Jerusalem. It's about 10 miles CLOSER "as the crow flies" and nearly the same distance using the usual travel routes of the time. Perhaps that's why no one mentioned it before. However, even here, I have already posted the entire contents of the tablet, including the reference to Borsippa. Not that it matters. I certainly hope so!

That's completely false. You invariably attempt to weasel your way out of your false statements by claiming that someone has distorted your words. You make false claims about them and claim that they are the ones in the wrong. Then you bluster with some barely-related material hoping it impresses someone (or yourself) into thinking you are some kind of expert or authority. That barely-related material you make use of invariably says nearly the opposite of what you had claimed, which you should have known had you just read the context, or understood what you were reading. I'll get to the specifics at a later time on this particular point, but it is nearly the same as with almost all these matters. I have learned to expect you to NEVER admit an error, no matter how much evidence is shown. I don't expect you to admit your error on these recent points, but your "style" provides a revealing display of the lengths people will go to, in order to support a pseudo-chronology.

I always take a topic I'm reading, and if I want to share something about a related subject, I just click on "Create a New Topic" from there. If it was about music, I'll make the new topic about music; if it was about JWs, I'll make it about JWs. I don't usually care what Club it's in, if any. I must have been reading a topic about JWs and just clicked "Create a New Topic" without looking at the Club. When I saw that the topic was not in the JW Closed or JW Open "Club" I tried to move it in the same way I can move a post to another topic. The pulldown menu I get for moving it allows me to move it to the "JW Topics" or JWs Only Topics." [farther down on the list] I picked "JW Topics" but it didn't move it to the "Club." Anyway, I wanted it in the Open Club because I wanted George/BTK/etc to feel free to complain openly about it. (I have to admit, this was my actual thought and reason before moving it, because I had referenced him obliquely in the opening paragraph. He has made so many specific condemnations of against Fox News and Trump, for example.)

I’m sure you know by now that there is absolutely nothing in the diary indicating the year 588. There are a couple of scribal errors on the copied diary, and not even these anomalies point to 588. The only reason anyone would ever try to suggest that is because they are obsessed with trying to “create” false evidence that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year would land in 607. But it’s dishonest. And it’s easy to understand why it’s hypocritical to suggest it. Here’s why. What if they discovered the diary for Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year and 30 observations pointed to 607. That would be amazing and I’m sure we would all be thrilled. But what if there were two scribal errors on the tablet and I said that with only some twisting I could make a case that those two anomalies point to 587 and therefore the whole tablet must be for 587. You’d obviously say I was dishonest and obsessed with 587. You’d say I was stupid for ignoring the other 30 observations. Yet that is almost exactly what is being done in the other direction by Furuli and those who fell for his pseudo-chronology.

LOL. I’m not telling you how to use words. That’s up to you. I’m just reminding you that if you want to be understood it’s best to let people know in advance that you are intending to use words with your own or different or even incorrect meanings. I’m not suggesting that you even necessarily want to be understood. If you want to be misunderstood, that’s up to you too. If I wanted to say that a certain timeline was NOT pivotal by saying that the timeline IS pivotal you would probably say I was being dishonest. I shouldn’t say something is “important” or “useful” and then say that I am using those words to mean that the thing is NOT important or NOT useful.

If you intended a different meaning for the word "pivotal" you should have either said so, or not used the word "pivotal". With respect to Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year, how can you find it baffling for anyone to defend 587 if every one of the current authorities you have made use of also defends 587? Every one of the Watchtower Society's quoted authorities also defends 587 as Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year. Through the years, as I showed in another post, the WTS quotes at least 12 different current authorities on the topic of Babylonian history and chronology. 100% of those authorities defend 587, and 0% defend 607. So why are you still baffled?

You might be right, but I have a feeling it was more of a carryover from the 1940's. This was a rough era for the Watchtower, and opposition could get crazy in some areas of the US. I don't know that they ever had much of a problem with intruders. The guards did their rounds at night, and couldn't turn on any lights, with just a flashlight through dark hallways and corridors. At Brooklyn Bethel, every four to six months, all single brothers (under 30, I think) would get an assignment for either night-time dish duty (to help out the overnight kitchen crew) or guard duty. I always traded my dish duty for night-time guard duty because it gave me the morning off the next day, and I hate doing dishes. But we had no weapons and were told never to approach an intruder, just call the police. In fact, it was just a matter of walking around with a key and turning it into a "time-clock" at a location on two ends of each floor, and making that round two or three times during the night. If we found windows open we were to close them, and if we found any lights left on we were to turn them off, of if we smelled an excess of 'flammables' we could turn on a light and investigate. I was told that making these rounds reduced our insurance rates considerably. The closest thing to an intruder I ever found was a Bethelite who had stayed in the Squibb factory building overnight to hide away in a dark place with someone I assumed was his girlfriend.

Page 152 of the book Encyclopedia of the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt, edited by Kathryn Bard has the following information. You quoted from this in the first post of this topic, as I just requoted above, and you said it should be marked as pivotal. I'm wondering why you consider a date to be pivotal when, if pivotal, it would completely demolish the "chronology" used by the Watchtower. /* Setting the table width to 100% of its container */ table { width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; /* Collapses the border between cells */ } /* Setting each table header and data cell to take 50% of the table width */ th, td { width: 50%; text-align: left; /* Aligns text to the left */ } Your source for the "pivotal" timeline quote. Page 152. Watchtower publications. Dates are 20 years different from your "pivotal" ones. *** ad p. 325 Chronology *** to synchronize Assyrian and Biblical history . . . particularly for the period . . . to 649 B.C.E [Assyrian power ends around 649 per WTS, not your pivotal timeline in 629] *** ad p. 175 Babylon *** Under the control of the Assyrian World Power, Babylon figured in various struggles and revolts. Then . . . Nabopolassar founded a new dynasty in Babylon about 645 B.C.E. [Note 645 here, not 625 when Nabopolassar began per your pivotal timeline in the fourth year after Ashurbanipal died in 629.] *** it-1 p. 205 Assyria *** . . . in the 14th year of Nabopolassar (632 B.C.E.) [Note 632 here, not 612 per your pivotal information], Ashur-uballit II attempted to continue Assyrian rule from Haran as his capital city. This chronicle states, under the 17th year of Nabopolassar (629 B.C.E.): *** it-2 pp. 482-483 Necho(h) *** A pharaoh of Egypt . . . Nechos (Necho) was the son of Psammetichus (Psamtik I) and succeeded his father as ruler of Egypt. Toward the close of Josiah’s 31-year reign (659-629 B.C.E.), [Note 630/629 here, not 610 per your pivotal information] Pharaoh Necho was on his way to help the Assyrians at the river Euphrates. *** it-1 p. 238 Babylon *** In 632 B.C.E. Assyria was subdued by this new Chaldean dynasty, with the assistance of Median and Scythian allies. In 625 B.C.E., [note 625 here, not 605 per your pivotal information] Nabopolassar’s eldest son, Nebuchadnezzar (II), defeated Pharaoh Necho of Egypt at the battle of Carchemish, and in the same year he assumed the helm of government. I find it a bit hypocritical when you attempt all this name-calling, and attempts to insult anyone who accepts the evidence for the timeline on the left. Yet you yourself call that timeline "pivotal." If you accept that the evidence for it is pivotal, fine. But why insult and denigrate anyone else who happens to agree with that timeline? You will note that 607 is PRIOR to the 605 battle of Carchemish by two years in your pivotal timeline. Yet the Watchtower publications put that 605 battle in 625. Therefore Nebuchadnezzar was not even a king in 607 BCE. (Per your own pivotal timeline.)

At the mid-week meeting we had the Bible reading that included Psalm 26. We also sang song #34. It's a very beautiful melody, even though I have other favorites. What I like most about the song is that it follows the Psalm very closely. It's a good reminder that the words of the original Psalm 26 were also sung, even though we don't know the original melody. But the tune and music we use seem very appropriate for the tone of the Psalm itself. Last week, of course, we had this for the 23rd Psalm, too. And I think the same about that melody and how appropriate it is to the words of the Psalm.

Same at our Costco. It’s next to a firing range in constant use by local and county police.

I doubt it. Bethelite guards used to carry guns in the factory up until the 1960s. I recall a well known story of a brother who shot up a large roll of paper for the printing press because it shot at him first. (Actually it “popped” several times because that’s what tightly rolled rolls of paper will do when they contract and expand from temperature changes. I’m told that the biggest concern is keeping out protesters. Also the “webmaster” told me that they also are always on the watch for hackers who try to get inside the network to get to the databases. That was the gist of my hacking jokes that started at the top of this thread.

I also have trouble extracting a sense of humor from AI tools.

Don’t know if this happens to you. But when I bring up Gaza I get a version of this AIPAC ad on the page. As I did just now: (I strongly dislike AIPAC)

I always get confused when a Subaru comes up behind me because in my rear view mirror it says U R A BUS.

It’s amazing how people like Joe Rogan have become better than most modern journalists. I’d listen to him more but his show is too long for me and I need a summary first. I met Dr Peter McCullough in Tampa when he was staying directly across from my wife and I in our hotel room. My son and I talked to him in the lobby briefly. I am not quite as impressed with him now that he has tried some questionable methods to turn his own work into a money-making machine. But Rogan and McCullough were both very good sources about Covid. I am more and more impressed with Tucker on the majority of his current shows: Putin, covid, exposing the idiocy of Christian Zionist supporters, etc He is going where no man with his popularity has gone before. Alexander Mercurion is another example of the best news commentary on the Ukraine war but he is too detailed and will give a two hour program on the day's battles and predictions and comment on both sides of the news reports. You get a much better sense of who is doing more spinning and who is doing more straightforward reporting. It's useful, or at least interesting, but who can give 10 hours a week? Scott Ritter does well with shorter summaries on shows with Danny Haiphong for example. But his own super-pro-Russian biases come through too often. There are a couple of excellent resources for Gaza-Israel reporting from people who have lived and worked in both Palestine and Israel. But people tend to defend the indefensible even if they are generally giving correct info. They try to read excuses into bad actions by Hamas. Scott Ritter does this too.

The link was excellent. I remember my parents going to pbs and npr but only after Walter Cronkite was no longer THE source. In those days I trusted the NYT the way my doctors still trust the Lancet or the BMJ. Rogue reporters have explained a lot about how we were fooled for so long. Tucker Carlson is often the new best source on several topics and has ditched much or most of his prior ideological baggage from 4 or 5 years ago. Clayton Morris from “Redacted,” also a former Fox News commentator, still carries more of that baggage than Tucker I think. I like that Clayton’s wife, Natalie Morris, raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, is consistently anti-war. anti-bigotry, and anti-woke, and neutral where she can be. But for some topics they are spot on. For that matter Fox itself is often the best of the bunch for being less inclined to be influenced by current State propaganda.

My overall point is that most Witnesses I know in the United States are very political and don't even know it. Often much more political than their neighbors who vote. There are certain limits to what we will say about our political views, but I think we don't recognize that those political views often come out inadvertently in other ways. In fact, I've seen strong political views among Witnesses who only use the line "we don't take sides in politics" when they wish to shut down an argument they disagree with. My parents and many relatives were of the type that said they wouldn't be fooled by all the lies and exaggerations from MS-NBC supposedly on the "progressive left." Nor the lies and exaggerations from FOX News on the supposedly "conservative right." But that didn't stop them from being fooled by thinking that CNN was not mostly "state-sponsored media" that would cherry-pick stories now and then to keep up the ruse that they weren't. As long as they continued to support corporate sponsors, including "Big Pharma" and "Big Military Industrial Complex," it was clear what side they were going to take. And although Trump was golden to all networks for his ability to spout controversy, one of his biggest sins for CNN was the fact that he went 4 years without getting the USA involved in any new wars. We were watching CNN once, not on purpose, and although many segments were introduced with "Brought to you by Pfizer" one was introduced "Brought to you by McDonnell-Douglas." As if any of us watching were about to go out and buy McDonnell-Douglas fighter jets and missiles for accessories. Of course, even the segments brought to you by Pfizer weren't really for any of us to be swayed in our pharmacy choices, either. As with all corporate media, those ads are really just payments to CNN; they are all just a way for corporations to PAY (bribe) the news writers and commentators to realize on which side their bread is buttered. They are merely buying influence. ---- All this was probably just my own rationale to excuse my own tendency to throw in opinions about politics, politicians, and the mainstream corporate media. There are no easy answers to how someone should go about getting their news, or how to feed their own opinions. But I would be happy to hear about the various sources people use when trying to find the "truth" about various world events.

Here was the general conversation, skipping a part where I had just explained how 30,000 Palestinians, largely women and children, had been killed, and the majority of major news outlets were still equivocating about whether Israel had gone too far. But when half-a-dozen mostly "white" aid workers were killed, suddenly Nancy Pelosi (friend of the aid organization founder), Joe Scarborough, Elizabeth Warren, and a bunch of others turn on a dime to stop giving Israel a free pass -- embarrassing their own man Biden. THEM: Well, anyway, we don't take sides about literal Israel, and we don't discuss political sides of who supports whom. ME: But that last part is just information, even history. THEM: History is one thing but the Bible says don't speak against the King. What's that it says in Ecclesiastes? (Ecclesiastes 10:20) . . .Even in your thoughts, do not curse the king, and do not curse the rich in your bedroom; for a bird may convey the sound, or a creature with wings may repeat what was said. ME: Yeah. That's where we get the expression: "a little birdie told me." Basically, it means that someone on Twitter will turn you in. Or all the government agencies will be listening in on Twitter. THEM: Very funny. You mean "X." ME: Yeah, but they still call them "tweets." THEM: But still we don't take sides, we don't even say anything against any ruler, whether he's good or bad. We only pray that they make decisions that are good for us. ME: I don't think it's wrong to say something against a ruler. Don't you think Hitler was a bad ruler? THEM: But he's not a king now is he? He's dead. ME: I mean even when he was alive. THEM: Well, of course, because he was attacking Jehovah's people. ME: But it would have been wrong to say he was bad while he was attacking millions of Jews? THEM: [changing subject] But look how respectful Paul was talking to Felix, he never said a word against him. ME: Maybe not, but Luke tells us he was probably looking for a bribe. That's pretty negative. ME: continuing . . . And Jesus called Herod a fox. THEM: Well maybe he was "foxy" -- "crafty" not always a bad thing. ME: You don't believe that . . . and even if it was a good thing, then Jesus was taking sides. THEM: Anyway . . . it's wrong.

The conversation went like this: ME: I'm just now seeing the new article on the front of jw.org, about whether Bible prophecy points to literal Israel. That seems to be on everyone's mind. THEM: Absolutely. One of my studies just asked that question and I went through the usual scriptures, especially Galatians 6. I hadn't seen the article yet. I wish I had. ME: Yes, the article uses Matthew 23:37 "your house is abandoned to you" and Galatians 6, and Romans 11. THEM: I think I used Romans 11, too. ME: I just noticed that the article says one thing that might be confusing though. “A dulling of sensibilities has happened in part to Israel until the full number of people of the nations has come in, and in this manner all Israel will be saved.” (Romans 11:25, 26) . . . By the expression “all Israel,” Paul meant all of spiritual Israel. ME: continuing . . . Actually, I don't think that will make sense to most people though. I mean, ultimately, yes, it's spiritual Israel that is saved. We know that from Galatians 6, but in this context people are going to notice that Paul actually was speaking about the two olive trees and the LITERAL Gentiles getting grafted into the tree representing LITERAL Israel. THEM: But it means all of spiritual Israel will be saved. ME: That's the only way it works out in the long run, yes. But doesn't it make more sense that as many of literal Israel as possible get saved because it's these people of the nations who now have Jehovah's blessing, and this makes some of natural Israel jealous? And that helps lead to the salvation of as many natural Israelites as possible. (Romans 11:11) etc., etc. Who is right on this point is not important here, it's the next part of the conversation. Next post . . .

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses, I always learned that you don't take sides in politics. In our family, this meant that you also don't discuss politics. Discussing it inevitably turns to offering opinions that favor one ideological side over another. But in a recent topic on the forum, several other JWs and/or those who have been associated with JWs brought up issues that appeared to take sides for or against the two major U.S. presidential candidates, as of April 2024. As factual commentary, this doesn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, if one favors one candidate over the other, this doesn't bother me either. But I just had a serious discussion about our (JW) view of politics with an 86-year old Witness, who thinks just like my own family always had. It started with the current jw.org front page article on: Does Bible Prophecy Point to the Modern State of Israel? When you read the article you also get pointed to other articles: Will Armageddon Begin in Israel?—What Does the Bible Say? Are Jehovah’s Witnesses Zionists? If you read more and go to specific links, you can also find articles on Human Rights Organizations, Russia and the European Court, etc. Taganrog LRO and Others v. Russia Russia Withdraws From the European Court Or even end up linked to a mildly amusing article such as: Who Is to Blame—Russia or the Tourist? But the conversation, next post, made me think of our general stance on political discussion.