JW Insider

There is a lot of readily available research on this topic already online. As I began to join in, I also realized that I might be repeating information that has already come up in other questions and topics on this forum. I'll start with the J docs that I arbitrarily assigned to Category #4. , The J Docs initially referred to about 19 different Hebrew translations (from Greek to "modern" Hebrew) numbered J1, J2, J3, etc, up to J19. A few more have now been added to the 1985 Reference NWT, but these include even more modern non-Hebrew translations that use a form of "Jehovah" in the NT. From the standpoint of how the Greek Scriptures (NT) should be translated into English (or any other language) the "J Docs" are meaningless. I think that several of us have misinterpreted their importance. These have nothing to do with what the ancient Greek texts said or meant. They are not old texts from the viewpoint of the Scriptures. They are "modern" texts. (J2 is the oldest from about 100 years before Columbus and the next oldest J7 is from about 100 years after Columbus. The rest are mostly from the 1800s through the late 1900's). They are modern Hebrew translations of the New Testament. They were sometimes simply the work of biased Trinitarian missionaries who wanted to create a Christian ministry to Jewish speakers of Hebrew. They added the divine name in the places in the NT where they thought these verses should show a direct connection between the God/Lord of the OT and the God/Lord of the NT. They referred to God as YHWH even in cases where the NT was not quoting the OT. The problem is that the Trinitarian bias allowed these "translators" to pick several cases where even Jesus as Lord is directly connected to Jehovah as Lord. Note this information about J18. The 1969 edition of the Kingdom Interlinear Translation says: Our old NWT Bibles (1950, 1951, 1963) used to include a statement about them altogether like this: All together, the appearances of the sacred Tetragrammaton in the 19 Hebrew versions to which we have had access total up to 307 distinct occurrences." But we didn't count all of the "distinct occurrences." There are over 100 additional distinct occurrences that we didn't count because we couldn't use them. Just a few examples will show why. This has already been started on other sites that I copy from below. They include HollyW's examples: 1 Corinth. 12:3 in J14 "...no one can say "Jesus is Lord (יהוה), except by the Holy Spirit." 1 Thess. 4:16,17 in J7,8,13,14,24 2 Timothy 1:18 in J7,8,13,14,16,17,18,22,23,24 Hebrews 1:10 in J8 in which Jehovah addresses the Son using the Divine Name. 1 Peter 2:3 in J13, J14 1 Peter 3:15 in J7 J20 (Concordance to the Greek Testament) cites יהוה at both 1 Peter 2:3 and 1 Peter 3:15. Revelation 16:5 in J7,8,13,14,16 Romans 10:9 in J12-14, 16-18, 22 Acts 26:14,15 in J17,J18 "'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' But I said, 'Who are you Lord?" And the Lord (haAdohn - Jehovah God) said, 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.'" [Several places in the J Docs even name the Holy Spirit as YHWH.]

Happy to get to that soon. Let's say: Category #1 would be cases where the NWT uses the name "Jehovah" when the NT (GS) is NOT quoting from the OT (HS). There are over 100 of these cases. Category #2, then, would be rare cases where the NT (GS) quotes or references the OT (HS) in places where "Jehovah" was used in the OT but the NWT chooses NOT to translate the name "Jehovah." That means I left out a couple of important categories:They might seem minor at first but one of them, we'll call it "Category #3" turns out to be important in the way they show the reliance on the LXX in the NT (GS) instead of the Hebrew in quotes of the OT (HS). Category #3, then, contains the few instances where the Hebrew was known to contain the Divine Name but the LXX did not replace it with the usual "kyrios" (Lord) but instead replaced it with "God." Category #4 could be the many cases where the "J" texts use the name Jehovah, but the NWT does NOT choose to translate "Jehovah" in those locations. What would we expect to happen in the case of a Category #3? The NWT is based on the "Masoretic" texts (MT) from more than 1,000 years after the time of Jesus. That's because we have very few full texts of Hebrew Bible books (in Hebrew) from any earlier. (The Dead Sea Scrolls [DSS] weren't published in time to affect the NWT, but full books are rarely covered.) In cases where the MT and other texts including available DSS use the Divine Name, the LXX usually replaces with the word "Lord." if the NT (GS) quotes from one of those places, would we expect the MT and/or DSS or would be expect the LXX version of the OT verse?

Technically, there is still no evidence that Christian scribes took Jehovah's personal name out of the text of the Christian Greek Scriptures, so it is probably not fair to judge these persons as "apo-state" since they are technically imaginary, so far. Also, we shouldn't say that the Hebrew Scriptures did not fare any better. They fared much better in this regard, if we are correct about what we imagine might have happened to the Greek texts. Those Hebrew texts contain the divine name nearly 7,000 times, and only in about 130 places does it appear that the divine name was replaced with "Lord." That means that between 98% and 99% of those occurrences fared perfectly well. But we believe that at least 237 out of 237 cases in the Greek texts were removed. To review, then, the score is: Greek texts: 0% Hebrew texts 98% There is no reason, then, to say that the Hebrew Scriptures did not fare any better than the Greek. That was a mistake. Also, the Masoretes left a recognizable pattern which helps us understand the reasoning behind the removal in a lot of these cases. I'm not sure why we would praise these same scribes for their faithfulness on the one hand and then judge them as apo-states in 2010. We should take this subject very seriously because if we have done the wrong thing here we have actually removed the word Lord 237 times from the text of the Greek Scriptures and replaced it with Jehovah. In most of these cases there is NOT a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures, and in a couple of cases where it IS a quote from the Hebrew Scriptures where the divine name was used, we do NOT use the divine name, but leave it as Lord.

One of the administrators/moderators must have used the "dirty-word-filter" and used it to change the word "a-p-o s-t-a-t-e" to "brother." The original Watchtower article calls them "APO"+"STATE" Christians, NOT "brother Christians." Don't know if the punctuation I just used will get around the filter.

He was referring to the Isaiah Scroll, which is a very long scroll that is often quoted as being 99.9% faithful to the original. In fact, it also shows that literally hundreds of changes occurred over just 12 centuries, but that most of them appear accidental and they were of only minor importance to the overall text. What makes your question even more interesting is the fact that the name YHWH was never removed from those texts over that thousand year period. We only claim that the YHWH (or some Hebrew/Greek/hybrid form of it) was removed from Greek texts. Hebrew texts remained intact.

I tried to do an estimated range once on this subject. I would have really doubted a method that researched every story about them, because no more than a small percentage would have had a story written up about it. (Newspapers tend to deal with the very young and/or photogenic. Otherwise, even if it bleeds, it doesn't lead; it gets buried.) I have had access to JSTOR and an awful lot of medical journals due to the fact that my son's Harvard ID allowed me to share a lot of those journals and library resources. There are a lot of interviews with doctors who have done studies on the difference in mortality rates from those who refuse most blood therapies and those who accept all blood therapies. But these are not statistics that most hospitals or doctors would like to have made public. I get a much higher number based on extrapolating from these doctors who have done studies, but there is still a wide range of possibility. There is a location here with a simple (incorrect) attempt: http://www.krev.info/library/pocetumrti.pdf That article gives a number that appears high. If the number is correct, it makes a blunder in the method however in attempting to extrapolate the committed population of JWs to include the entire group of those who might attend Memorial (in effect). It also appears to assume a steady population of JWs. Also there is a difference in mortality during operations by doctors who are not as skilled in bloodless surgery (those who don't specialize in bloodless surgery) and those who normally use blood as a backup, but are forced not to have that backup. Elective and sometimes even emergency surgeries for JWs are often handled by doctors selected in advance for their willingness to respect JW beliefs. At any rate, I can't give a very good answer, but the minimum possible range that I see is still much higher than what you got for "100 years."

Micro-chimera is also common for a time after organ transplants, even without transfusions. There is also a level of micro-chimera that can occur in both directions between mother and child during pregnancy (usually dangerous, as mother and child may have different blood types), and of course, white blood cell transference (not into bloodstream) during breast-feeding from mother to child.

Wasn't me. Must have been someone I ate. :o) Yes. It's not that there is no such thing as medical micro-chimera. It's the way this is overblown and made to sound so dramatic. First it starts out with the incorrect implication that you might get convicted incorrectly for a crime (or get away with a crime) because the DNA evidence from a crime scene will be wrong. (It won't be.) Then comes a series of exaggerations that are, in fact, so wild that they are evidently intended to lead to misunderstanding. This starts from the very first sentence: "If you get my blood you will now have my DNA." Because he is dressed up in his doctor's attire and speaking with such authority, you will likely get the idea that this is always going to be a true statement. It isn't necessarily true at all. In fact, it rarely happens unless the transfusion included unreduced white cells AND the person was still experiencing injury trauma (when the body puts white blood cells to greater use) at the time of the transfusion AND there is a strong likelihood that the micro-chimera condition won't remain in the system more than a few weeks. (Studies of many transfused women after giving birth only hold onto the extra white cells in their system for a about six weeks, never longer.) Most blood therapy today does not make use of whole blood transfusions (including unreduced white cells) because the various components are so valuable as separate components, and often only the red cell component is the portion wanted for improving oxygen distribution after traumatic blood loss. So it's possibly true, but not necessarily true. But they also changed the voice in a way to create a kind of "eeriness" similar to the way a "science" channel uses pseudo-science for ratings. They dress up people and change the voice to add credence to the possible "reality" of a UFO or haunted house or an unidentified "chimera" or prehistoric beast, etc. On those shows, if a wolf bites you, you might get just enough of its DNA to become a wolf-man chimera. And from this video, you may actually think that there is some science behind the idea that if a wolf bit you, you may become a different animal. In fact that very type of wording was used in the video: "You will become a kind of chimera. You will become a blended animal. You will no longer be a single, distinct human being." That's not at all what the real medical research is about. It's only about the fact that some allogenic white cells can remain in the bloodstream for several years. Then the video gives the notion that the tests from WWII vets done 10 years ago (I think) proves that we don't have the foggiest notion about the possible long-term effects. Actually, the discovery of MC (micro-chimera) in this test group gives us exactly the same amount of information about the long-term effects as if we had gone out looking to find such a group of such persons to test. So far, they tell us that there are no long-term effects, although further study might show that there is some (probably minimal, or at least heretofore unnoticed) effect on immunology. The whole video, in other words, was just some hyped-up, dramatic language that ended up saying we don't yet know if there is or will be anything significant about this discovery. I found it interesting, and maybe more will be discovered someday. But I was guessing that it was a situation where someone's research needed to be hyped up like this, because it was about to relegated to the scrap heap of insignificance, and the doctor doesn't want this piece of his work to be forgotten.

I'm sure you are aware that Romans 14 is one of many passages that indicates that you should be careful about judging another man's faith. You call my faith a blind faith, but I don't use the New World Translation to base my faith upon. I use the message of the gospel, and my faith is upon Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. I find the message in almost all Bible translations. The NWT is not even my favorite for just plain reading, nor for serious study. (It's about 5th on my list at the moment.) But a lot of serious study has shown me that it is often much more accurate than the KJV, and much easier to read, espcially in the 2013 edition. What you call red herrings is merely the best information I know that helps answer the question about whether the translators knew Hebrew or Greek. You asked how I knew what they were doing if I don't know who translated. Notice that I said I did NOT know what they were doing. Even if I did know who they all were, I wouldn't know what they were doing. One of the brothers on that same translation committee gave me research projects to handle and several of them required research in Greek. (Some of these continued even after I left Bethel to get married.) The major projects were about the use of two Greek terms that we translated "house-to-house" and another on the Greek word "naos" (temple) and another on the Greek word "genea" (generation). These projects were not about translating or revising the NWT, but about reviewing the uses of these terms in Josephus, Pseudepigrapha, Aprocrypha, Philo, and NT Greek language resources that had been published after 1950. I agree. But they relied on Hebrew and Greek scholars. Two or three of them knew enough to make use of a lot of Hebrew and Greek scholarship. The documents and translations used were the same translations and Bible language resources that any reasonable translator would have checked. The ONLY ONE that produced real "scandal" is Greber's translation, and the NWT matched Greber's wording in only two places that I know of, where other translations made other choices. There is a consistency of style in the NWT that shows it was not merely an eclectic hodgepodge lifted from various other translations. The NWT committee happened to agree with Greber's version of John 1:1. This does not mean that they relied on Greber. Since you also do not know what they did you can't truthfully claim that they relied on Greber's translation, only that they were aware that Greber had also translated it the same way. You are probably aware that the translation of John 1:1 is a match of a much earlier interlinear translation: Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglott. Besides, while at Bethel, and a couple years after, I did some research on Philo, and some of that research (or perhaps identical research from someone else) made it into the 12/15/1985 Watchtower. Many scholars agree that Philo (a contemporary of John) used the word "theos" to mean "divine" and he specifically differentiated it from "ho theos" (God). In fact, Philo was speaking about the "logos" (Word) when he said this. To avoid a red herring I won't quote from the article here. I don't know what you mean here, but I also don't see the relevance. The very best research (most complete, most informative) is often from people who don't believe in what they are researching. I also note that your own posts have mentioned scholars who are neither Jewish nor Christian in the sense of believing in the Bible.

That's a little like claiming that the verb "to say" isn't in the following sentence: "Whenever he says something, others begin saying the same thing that he said." In Greek, there are many more forms of verb tense conjugations than there are in English. So verbs are simply referenced by the first form: first person singular. Therefore, for reference purposes, proskunesatosan is proskuneo.

I don't know. I only know of one person who would sometimes admit that he was on the committee to persons who would ask (Gangas), and one person who admitted it through a "wink and an nod" privately (Schroeder). Just being on the committee doesn't mean that they all translated, per se. I am also acquainted with a John Albu (now deceased) through whom some excellent research books were made available. Albu appears not to have been involved with the original NWT, but with revisions, however. A non-JW named Steven Byington had also offered services and suggestions for translation revisions. Fred Franz also had a couple of non-JW, Jewish "rabbi" friends, one who came to visit him at Bethel, and the latter may have been a scholar in Hebrew. If one looked carefully at the Bethel library in the 1970's, it was still obvious that there had been purchases of dozens of different Bible translations and Bible translation aids from the late 1940's through the early 1950's. I believe the process of translating involved a lot of research made "on the spot" and not so much from knowledge they brought to the table. I think that the biggest decisions were about how to translate words that could have multiple meanings, because the NWT had an idea that they could try to find the core word or phrase that could be used consistently. (Parousia can mean advent or presence and the NWT chose presence for all the occurrences. Theos can mean "G/god" or "divine" (in certain circumstances) and the NWT chose G/god for all the occurrences, even when referring to Satan or a stomach as a god. Proskuneo can mean "worship" or "crouching/bending the knee" or "kissing the master's hand" so a different kind of decision had to be made for this word depending on who was being "worshiped." (See Strong's #4352, or Thayer's Lexicon) It was not always possible to be perfectly consistent. (The 2013 revision gives up this idea of perfect consistency for simpler readability.) Again, I don't know, but I expect that a committee went through each verse one by one and read the original literal translation from an Interlinear, looked up possible variant meanings of the original language words, looked to how it was translated in up to 20 or 30 different translations, and if any of those other translations had a questionable solution, they'd have to look up their lexicons to see if it was within the range of correct possibilities. When there was a range of meaning, they sided with a more consistent, and sometimes more literal rendering. There could be many variations, but discussions of the meanings of various Greek and Hebrew words that appear in the pages of the Watchtowers in the 1950's indicate to me that the process was something like that.

Absolutely correct. When only one person is your real teacher/rabbi/leader and there is only one person you should call "Father," Jesus was completely overturning the power and authority structures that are so ingrained into the thinking of the world and society. Jesus preached empathy and sympathy for the downtrodden: the first shall be last. In his time, just like ours, there are always people who love to put on the "long robes" and the long prayers, just for the authority they squeeze out of self-righteousness. It should not be that way with Christians.

Technically, we are not "sticking with the inspection of the temple in 1919." In fact, we never before had a doctrine about an inspection in 1919. And technically, it's not exactly accurate, even now, to speak of an inspection that happened specifically in 1919. Here's why: Up until a few months ago (2013), we taught that the inspection of the spiritual temple was an event that happened in the "Spring of 1918." That specific year and time was specially chosen for a reason (see July 15, 1960 Watchtower, p.436) because it referred to the time that Jehovah himself disfellowshipped those who were disloyal: *** w60 7/15 p. 436 par. 20 The Awake “Faithful and Discreet Slave” *** Previously, in the spring of 1918, Jehovah came to his temple of earthly Christian servants for inspection and cleansing. (Mal. 3:1-3) The many bad ones were disfellowshiped by Him and sent away. . . . See You May Survive Armageddon into God’s New World, pp. 303 to 305. I think a detailed review of the legal events of those days could easily be the basis for the change. Many of the specifics details that we used to claim were significant for that period are no longer considered significant. At any rate, we also do not claim an inspection specifically for 1919 because it is now considered to be an ongoing inspection that lasted from 1914 to 1919. *** w13 7/15 p. 11 par. 6 “Look! I Am With You All the Days” *** To settle that question, Jesus began to inspect the spiritual temple in 1914. That inspection and cleansing work involved a period of time—from 1914 to the early part of 1919. . . .This is an adjustment in understanding. Previously, we thought that Jesus’ inspection took place in 1918. *** w13 7/15 p. 23 par. 12 “Who Really Is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?” *** That question was answered after he and his Father came and inspected the temple, or spiritual arrangement for worship, from 1914 to the early part of 1919. (Mal. 3:1) They were pleased with a small band of loyal Bible Students who showed that their heart was with Jehovah and his Word. Of course, they needed some cleansing, but they humbly responded during a brief period of testing and refining. (Mal. 3:2-4) Those faithful Bible Students were true Christian wheat. In 1919, a time of spiritual revival, Jesus selected capable anointed brothers from among them to be the faithful and discreet slave and appointed them over his domestics. Hope that wasn't too pedantic, I just wanted it to be technically accurate.

Laughing to myself! Didn't see that ending coming. (It would have made for a terrible story, but I was expecting that the horse would finally be convinced to make such an effort that he would fool the farmer into thinking he had been cured, and then all the horses and other animals would die when the virus spread after all. And this would only prove that we should never encourage one another.)

Me neither. I have my doubts that there is any link between Knorr foods and N.H.Knorr. This type of information spreads quickly as gossip within Bethel. One brother who often handled the front desk for visitors was rumored to be brother of the "Marlboro man" and another was rumored to have made millions from 1-penny royalties on the use of a famous car's logo that he had designed. In the case of the latter one, I was able to confirm with the brother who made this claim, although I don't know if it was really millions of dollars or millions of pennies. With such rumors all around, don't know why this one would have not have been making the rounds if it were true.

Brothers Russell, Rutherford and Fred Franz were big on this kind of numerology, too. But when you look closely, all of their examples, too, reveal a similar "fudging" of numbers to make these ideas work. The 59th Gilead Graduation speech is the one where Fred Franz used his time slot to "condemn" the idea of a decision-making "Governing Body" and spoke out even against "committees" and indicated that we are opposing the arrangement of Jesus if we support a Jerusalem-council-like "governing body." But what is often missed from this speech is the fact that Brother Franz also incorporated just a small bit of numerology to add to the feeling of significance for the year 1975. Here is the relevant portion of the transcript below. Notice how he first ties the 59th Gilead class to the 60th so that he can speak about how amazing it was that the 59th class was the first one that reached the 60th century since man was created, so that the 60th class would start in the first year of the 7th millennium, or the beginning of the 61st century since Adam. To Brother Franz, even though he was technically off by one from the common perspective, he was still able to speak of the numerical coincidence as "surprising, startling, happifying" and "grand."

http://users.cecs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/dilugim/panin_mark.html I think the link provides a good part of the answer. Reminds me of a time when I wasted a few hours writing a program that showed that the so-called "Bible Codes" in the Hebrew Scriptures were not useful in showing that Jesus would be the Messiah, or that Yitzhak Rabin would be assassinated. Turns out you can feed any official version of the Masoretic Text or Dead Sea Scrolls text into a "Bible Code" program and ALSO prove --in the exact same way-- that Jehovah is Satan, God is the Devil, Jesus is Satan, Christ is the Devil, etc. Of course all of these ones are ignored and only the "good" examples are used. Similarly, atheists (who have more at stake in this argument) have shown that Panin's methods can also prove that all the works of Edgar Allen Poe are inspired. Just one example is the portion of Mark that the 2013 Revised NWT finally removed. It's discussed in the link that I put at the top of this post. It shows how Panin merely adjusted whatever was necessary to make the numbers work. Part of the work on Matthew might be a bit more complex, because Matthew ( according to the Aid Book and the 9/1/1970 Watchtower - Question From Readers) was likely creating a mnemonic in chapter 1 to help readers remember the basic structure of the sets of 14 generations. These are NOT the same names found in the Hebrew text, and not even the same names found in all different versions of the LXX.

Don't know anything about what happened to comments. Maybe it was moved to another topic area and the comments didn't come along for the ride. Anyway, our thoughts are with the brothers and sisters there, and anyone else who has suffered from these terrible actions.

The article that claims that 'Jehovah's Witnesses destroyed ancient indigenous temple site in Mexico' appears ridiculous. If true, then I would say that JWT is correct about the possibility that these were very not "real" JW's, or misidentified themselves. The one thing that might make it seem possible is the idea that they believed demonic practices were continuing to be observed in modern times here, not just ancient times. That might make someone feel they should do the same thing that some of the good kings and judges of Judah and Israel had done. But it is extremely unlikely in my opinion. Also, this particular news site is one of those where people can make up their own news and submit it. That's a "red flag" that this entire thing might be made up. Those types of sites become victims to falsehood and/or satire. If this story doesn't show up elsewhere in a more reputable source, then I'm sure it can be dismissed as false.

Marital infidelity is the same whether it was another Witness involved or not. The offending spouse may or may not be disfellowshipped. That depends on a lot of circumstances, including especially the level of perceived repentance, whether hidden or confessed, attitude toward the Biblical counsel and suggestions given, the evidence of the person to make a complete change based on their statements and even their activity levels in the congregation. Also, although this is sometimes claimed to be a factor in the decision to disfellowship, the desire to force circumstances in order to get away from a spouse someone who might be deemed spiritually dangerous should not be a factor.

I personally have had the DNA of several different cows, steers, bulls, fish and chickens in my digestive system. This makes me a chimera, too. I'm told that some of that DNA stays in your colon for years. (Not to mention a few times when I have also had the DNA of a crawfish, lobster, clam, oyster, rabbit, bison, deer, and pig in me. Probably not all at the same time, however.) I like the way the man in the video gives the impression that the speaker might be a doctor by dressing him in white and displaying the words "medical center" on his clothing. He forgot the clipboard and stethoscope, however, which always creates a more convincing image. At first I thought this was going to be a repeat of the long-debunked theory that a blood transfusion or heart transplant from a criminal might make you become a criminal, too.

I don't really get what this is or what it "proves." You can do almost anything you want with numbers by making up "meanings" behind the factors that make up the number. In fact, just for fun, notice that 144,000 divides evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. So the only digit that isn't a perfect factor of 144,000 is 7. Therefore 7 must mean imperfection. (But it doesn't, of course.) Also, there are some mistaken ideas in the pdf. These things are interesting, and sometimes fun, but you can't really ever find a consistent meaning using numerology, no matter how tempting.

The video was shown at Bethel to the entire family, and I don't think it would have been shown if those who made that decision to show it, thought that it definitely showed him in a drunken condition. However, there are at least two other pictures of Rutherford that show him in a condition that is almost the definition of what we would expect a drunk to look like. But Brother Rutherford evidently did [allegedly] suffer from alcoholism, and it was not always apparent when he was under the influence. Hayden Covington, the Society's attorney, has admitted this to others, and even to relatives of mine. Of course, Hayden Covington, was himself an admitted alcoholic, who was disfellowshipped for related behavior. So his claims might be biased. On the other hand, the elder who was my own table head at Bethel said the same about Rutherford, and much more. Another friend of mine from Bethel, Arthur Worsley, Brother Swingle's roommate before Lyman married Crystal, has admitted that he lied under oath to protect Rutherford out of fear of being kicked out of Bethel at the Olin Moyle trial. (The previous Society attorney before Covington was Olin Moyle, who felt it necessary to write a letter to Rutherford about abusive behavior, and even complained that Rutherford had been making arrangements to illegally bring in liquor from Canada during Prohibition. When Rutherford went public about Moyle in the pages of the Watchtower, where Rutherford railed against Moyle as an "evil slave," the case finally went to court, where Rutherford lost and had to pay Moyle $30,000 - reduced to $15,000 in an appeal in 1944. An anti-Moyle resolution was even adopted at the 1941 St. Louis assembly naming Olin Moyle as an "evil slave.") Don't know if the booklet from the 1930's is related to Rutherford's alleged alcoholism, but it is titled "Prohibition and the League of Nations - Born of God or the Devil, Which?" Rutherford had spoken out against liquor prohibition as "born from the Devil" as far back as 1924 or earlier.

I should correct this for accuracy. I spoke often with George Gangas, and even practiced some modern Greek with him at the dinner table. I actually have no idea, however, if he really knew that much about koine or "New Testament" Greek. People often asked him how similar it was to modern Greek and he was given out numbers like "85% the same." I never personally asked him about the meaning of a Biblical Greek word and he never offered any knowledge of Greek in his morning worship talks. (Several others did.) He actually seemed uncomfortable discussing anything but the most simple doctrinal matters. Around Bethel, he would often ask a trivia question about the Bible but I never heard him speak of anything doctrinal. At morning worship he gave experiences and stories but very little in the way of a spiritual lesson. When he prayed at Bethel meals people made fun of him (wrongly of course) for thanking Jehovah for the potatoes and the napkins and the silverware and the lettuce, and going on and on as if he was just looking around the table to add more things to the list. I found this kind of endearing and I liked him. But I have to admit that there was also a rumor that he was added to the NWT committee around 1949 because he was already known to be a long-time, loyal Bethelite who never questioned anything, and had already been put on the Board of Directors of the Watch Tower Pennsylvania corporation for the same reason. Most people on the Board of Directors were there for legal reasons, but had absolutely nothing to do and no say in how things were run. Brother Gangas continued to work in the kitchen, just as others on that board continued to work menial jobs in the factory (Charles Feckel in bindery, Lyman Swingle making ink, etc). Later these same ones were put on the Governing Body. By this, I don't mean to say that he did not have some knowledge of koine Greek, but I gave a response that made it seem like I knew he did, when I was only taking him at his own word when he said things like koine was 80 to 90% the same as modern Greek. I wouldn't have said anything more, except that there really was a rumor that he didn't know much of anything about koine Greek, per se, even though he was good at modern Greek.

I'm glad the girl had the capacity to accuse him before a statute of limitations had run out. In the USA so many cases never get prosecuted because the victims who are very young often wait until they are 21 or older before finally getting up the nerve to accuse a respected person. We are always taught that the word of a youngster isn't worth as much as an older person, especially a person who gets respect from everyone else. What's worse is that even parents tend to minimize the child's belief in himself or herself because they, too, don't want any part in bringing shame and reproach on the congregation. If only people would learn that the reproach was brought about by the elder (in this case) and ALL such accusations should be taken seriously. People who abuse like this once are the type who will invariably keep abusing over and over again. If a person doesn't stop them, it just makes it easier for them to abuse repeatedly. It's not just a sin, it's a crime!