See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Part 5  Part 6

Upon the release of his movie, The Passion, Mel Gibson was asked whether it was true that the Jews killed Jesus. “Well, it wasn’t the Scandinavians,” he replied. No, it wasn’t. But neither was it the Jews, per se. It was the religious leaders of the Jews that did the deed. Jealous at Jesus’ sway with the crowds, agitated at his challenge to their authority, they manipulated the crowd present there in the middle of the night to turn against Jesus. Days before, the little people, the ones who had to sleep at night for the working day ahead and so were not at that hasty trial, had welcomed Jesus with unbridled enthusiasm. It wasn’t the Jews. It was their leaders at the time. Why can’t revisionists make that distinction? Who today says Germans killed the Jews during the Holocaust? Nobody blames the entire German people. It is enough to say Hitler killed the Jews—and that is how it is said.

Ms. Pagels bends over backwards to qualify all four gospel accounts on this point. They all reveal that the Jewish authorities instigated Jesus’ death. She tries to spin it that they didn’t. There is precious little basis for challenging the point, but she challenges it anyway on all four of them. Pilate was cruel, she points out, summing up sparse accounts of his life. He would not have gone out on a limb to free a Jew, she insists; he despised Jews. It is unconvincing to me. Why would he not have tried to free Jesus, especially if doing so annoyed the ruling Jews, whom he probably despised more? They woke him out of a sound sleep to kill a clearly innocent man just to satisfy their religious envy. Why wouldn’t he thwart them? If you “despise” a people, won’t you despise the leaders of them more?

Pagels writes of how shocked she was upon discovering that the charge of Jews killing Jesus had fueled countless pogroms throughout history. Isn’t that behind the modern determination to pin Jesus’ death on Pilate and the Romans alone? To be sure, preventing pogroms is a noble cause. It is hard to fault her for motive. But one need not gut the scriptures to do it. It works perfectly well to paint the Jews as hijacked by their religious leaders, just as the Germans were hijacked by Hitler two thousand years later. In fact, it works even better; Both deeds were done in the dark, but only Jesus’ trial was literally in the dark.

To those whose religious sensibilities takes decidedly a second place to human peacekeeping efforts, it will be, ‘Who cares who killed him? He’s dead. Spin it whatever way placates the masses.’ They will be totally oblivious to any sense of Jesus foretelling his own death, such as at John 22:24: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just one grain; but if it dies, it then bears much fruit,” ‘Naw, that line was thrown in after the fact,’ they will say, viewing it that he was a preacher who failed in his mission, but later opportunists managed to build a religion out of it.

Other conclusions seem equally doubtful. ‘Jesus wouldn’t have insulted the Jews,’ Pagels writes, referring to passages such as the 23rd chapter of Matthew. ‘He was a Jew.’ She has never heard of class distinction? Frankly, I think she goes easy on the educated rulers of the time because she also is of that educated class. It is not just her, but virtually all of today’s theologians. They are not drawn from the lower disadvantaged classes that included Jesus and the majority of those heeding him. They are from the higher classes. As such, they are generally inclined to say of the lower, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ It will be as in the 2011 film Inside Job, in which the director expresses dismay that no specific individuals of the 2008 financial collapse were ever brought to justice:

   Charles Ferguson (film director): “Why do you think there isn’t a more systematic investigation being undertaken?”

   Nouriel Roubini (Professor, NYU Business School): “Because then you will find the culprits.”

Culprits and regulators alike belonged to the same social set and were members of the same country clubs; they had no desire to turn on one another. So it is that today’s theologians cannot see religious leaders of the past as anything but well-intentioned. They are of the same background and class. They will not turn on each other.

To be Continued

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See art 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Part 5

It is almost painful to see the critically-minded exploring biblical passages and, as though by design, discarding every key they come across. Time and again, you find yourself saying, ‘Not that one, don’t toss that one, you will need it, that one’s a keeper!’ Heedless, they say, ‘We are wise and learned adults, far too clever to be sold Adam and Eve (or whatever). What’s next? Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck? We will opt for a deeper meaning, never mind if if doesn’t add up to anything.’ So reliably does this happen that one almost suspects some sinister power at work manipulating the wise to destroy every useful map, that they may wander forever in the critical wilderness, with nary an oasis in sight.

Elaine Pagels writes a book (Why Religion? This one is her autobiography) in which she wrenches apart her soul, chronicling her unrelenting anguish at the deaths of both her young son and, several years later, her husband. She is an excellent researcher and author, and her documentation on her own ordeals is as expressive as anything I have read. It is enough to make one ashamed at better weathering similar trial, except . . .except for the reservation that, through her training, she systematically threw away any key that might have helped her. Untimely death, though still horrific, is infinitely more bearable to one entertaining the Bible’s resurrection hope.

You cannot throw away keys you never had, one might point out. If her education served to keep those keys shrouded, that is hardly her fault. Her only prior taste of Christianity was with the brand that spins the death of an infant as God picking flowers for his beautiful heavenly garden—who wouldn’t be repelled by that?—thereafter leaving her tastebuds for Christianity permanently seared. Consequently, though Pagel’s life work of religious legend and textual scholarship makes a fascinating read, both her education and religious experience have prejudiced her to overlook the keys. She never had them.

Though it has long been a staple of preachers, the analogy of God picking flowers is nowhere found in the Bible. However, there is an analogy parallel in all respects except the moral at the end. It is found in Nathan’s tale to David, the tale of the rich man who slaughtered and prepared for his visitors the sole lamb of a poor man, sparing his own abundant flock. That man did not receive praise from David, but rather instant wrath. “As surely as Jehovah is living, the man who did this deserves to die!” the king said. (FN) Likely, Pagels picked up on the contrast between David’s wholly understandable response and the evangelical model that holds God behaves just like that cruel man. Preachers make a horrific mess trying to extract themselves from the moral corners their doctrines unfailingly paint them into—in this case, the doctrine that the soul lives on and can never die.

One person who, unlike Pagels, did have the keys and did throw them away, all the time imagining she was taking a step forward, even when she desperately needed a certain key, is a woman praised to high heaven by an (one can only assume) atheist professor of theology at Harvard. Something is greatly off-base about the New York Times review (FN) of Amber Scorah’s book, Leaving the Witnesses, and it is not Amber. It is the reviewer, C. E. Morgan, who goes about her task with a humanist fervor that merits a review in itself. One wonders what she could possibly teach at that Divinity School or what might be the outcome for students who attend her class—students who likely went there because they wanted to learn about God. Her lavish praise of Ms. Scorah’s book: “She teaches us how integrity is determined . . . by enduring the universe as we find it—breathtaking in its ecstasies and vicious in its losses—without recourse to a God,” surely should give those students pause—are they truly in the place they thought they were? Or did they somehow get shunted off into Atheist Academy?

Ms. Scorah herself, as presented by Ms. Morgan, is more conventional. Hers is one of the oldest stories of time—of someone disillusioned with her present life, so she reaches out for another, which upon seizing, she finds exhilarating. It is a coming-of-age story. It is a staple of literature. Since she is “leaving the Witnesses”—Jehovah’s Witnesses, one must at least consider how the Witnesses themselves might have phrased her departure, perhaps similar to the words of the apostle Paul addressed to Timothy: “Demas has forsaken me because he loved the present world.”

Ms. Morgan cannot be expected to put it as did Paul, but since she teaches at the divinity school, one might at least expect her to be cognizant of that point of view. Instead, Amber’s departure is a tale of pure heroism for her—that of escape from an “extreme” religion—even worse than a “fundamentalist” religion, in her view—and it is “most valuable as an artifact of how one individual can escape mind control.”

It would appear that any denomination of Christianity that has not interpreted away into oblivion the resurrection of Christ would be fundamentalist in Ms. Morgan’s eyes. “The anti-intellectualism of these [fundamentalist] authoritarian movements, their staunch refusal to cede ground to reason and empiricism, often confounds nonbelievers,” and it seems she counts herself as Chief of the Nonbelievers—never mind what her teaching title might suggest. “How can people devote the totality of their lives to the unseen, the unevidenced?” she laments, seemingly unaware that such is the very fabric of faith, of those who interpret “evidence” differently, and who will say, akin to Jesus addressing the Pharisees, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have evidence as our father.’ For I say to you that the devil is able to raise up evidence from these monied and agenda-driven stones.” (FN Matthew 3:9) But she will not say it. “How can faith subsume thinking?” she complains instead. Her frustration could not be more clear—‘We have fired everything we have at them and yet they keep standing!’

As bad as fundamentalism is, however, it is not so bad in her eyes as an “extreme religion” like Jehovah’s Witnesses. To establish that she has done her homework, she relates that from its 1870 inception, the faith “rejected Christian doctrines it deemed extratextual [not in the Bible], including trinitarianism and hell.” You would think she would be happy about that, for it is a distinct step toward reason—Witness leader C. T. Russell was known within his lifetime as “the man who turned the hose on hell and put out the fire.” The Witness description of death, “extinction or non-being,” is exactly the rationalist view, though it will be marred in her eyes by the caveat of a future resurrection from the dead.

The notion that Christianity should return to its default state Morgan finds “dubious.” Yes, of course she would find it dubious, for it freezes religion in place. It halts evolution. It detracts from her authority at the Divinity School to proclaim a new gospel holding that dependence on God is for chumps. No, she wants religion to evolve, as does everything else in her Darwinian world. Witnesses also “actively proselytize, warning of an imminent Armageddon,” she complains, as though it is wrong to even suggest that an earth carved up into scores of eternally squabbling nations might not be exactly God’s dream come true.

In short, she has found people—ordinary people for the most part—who disagree with her, and she oozes disdain for them. Children raised in such religion “experience a totalizing indoctrination that so severely limits the formation of an adult psychology that many don’t ever achieve maturity in the way secular society conceives of it.” Necessarily, this means that she thinks adults of that faith are, for the most part, immature children. None of them will be found among her social contacts or workplace, perhaps barring a support worker or two, with whom she may occasionally exchange a brief word so long as they keep their stupid opinions to themselves.

The patronization is simply too much. Any time someone leaves one culture for another, there is some catching up to do—say, in the case of a person migrating from one country to another. Would Ms. Morgan similarly find it necessary to crow her superiority over the country and culture of emigration, say, where Hinduism is practiced, perhaps, or Spanish is spoken? She would recoil at the thought, but when it comes to religious views that stray from her worldview, it is as natural to her as breathing air. Let her “world” prove itself reasonably “free from sin” before she casts stones on those who have come to see things differently.

Amber ran out on a “loveless marriage,” Ms. Morgan states, and her implication is clear that Jehovah’s Witnesses think loveless marriages are the bee’s knees, since she presents love as the balm that finally wakes Ms. Scorah up. I will take her word for it that Scorah’s book is as she says it to be—an “earnest one, fueled by a plucky humor and a can-do spirit that endears.” And yet it does not completely satisfy the reviewer—it shows too much the “the remnants of a Christian modesty not well suited to the task of memoir.” One can all but hear her plead, ‘Modesty? What’s that?! Come on, SPILL!’ as she redefines “miracle” into “enduring the universe as we find it — breathtaking in its ecstasies and vicious in its losses — without recourse to a God.” Look, if I were a student in her divinity class, about this time I’d be asking for my money back, assuming I wasn’t too brainwashed just then to think of it. I mean, I get it that she’s not going to use her tenure to save souls, but you still wouldn’t think God would be public enemy #1 at the Divinity School.

But, her review has not yet come to the most gripping part. When it does, Morgan foresees another book. “Many readers know Scorah through her viral article in The New York Times about the death of her son on his first day of day care,” she writes. “This, one senses, is her brutal but beautiful route into a new book—a shorter, wiser one, sharp and devastating. Here she reveals a chastened existence, steeped in grief and unknowing without recourse to pacifying religious answers.” It is unbelievable! It is “wiser” to tell God to take a hike! If a religious answer comforts, throw it away! It is as though sawing off the tree limb upon which one has long perched and, as it comes crashing down to earth, whooping for joy at the liberation, like the Dr. Strangelove cowboy straddling the falling nuke!

Scorah must have anguished with the notion that her child might not have died but for the abandonment of her faith—she must have. Pagels thought it—what might she have done differently that might have averted tragedy? Job thought it, especially as his three visitors pulled out all the stops to convince him that he had caused his own downfall. Scorah, too, must have for a time grappled with the notion of ‘retributive justice,’ same as Job. There is no reason to think it is so, but she is human. She must have grappled with it.

She had the key, as Pagels did not. Swayed by the revisionists, she discarded it. She exchanged a backdrop of: “We do not want you to be ignorant about those who are sleeping in death, so that you may not sorrow as the rest do who have no hope” (FN 1 Thessalonians 4:13) for one that urges, “Stay Ignorant. Stuff happens. Get used to it.” Ms. Morgan reckons that exchange an unmitigated triumph of the human spirit! Anyone of sense would reckon it as does Paul, a “shipwreck of faith.” Keep smashing your head into the wall of critical education until you feel better. It is impossible for the biblically-literate not to think of the verse regarding those who, ‘although claiming they were wise, became foolish.’ (FN Rom 1:22)

From the upcoming: [working title]: The Book of Job: a Workman's Theodicy

to be continued here

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See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Those brought up with the Bible narrative are super impressed with that account of the angel halting 185,000 Assyrian troops in their tracks. How could they not be? The unstoppable Assyrians toppled one city after another, sweeping in from the north, but after a long siege, they were stopped at Jerusalem. Literally, they were stopped dead. Sennacherib boasts of his conquests—these kings were invariably braggarts. Their scribes had no choice but to corroborate their boasts, upping the numbers along the way to keep their bosses happy. So here he is, after knocking over one city after another, describing his encounter with Jerusalem:

“As to Hezekiah, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts and to the countless small villages in their vicinity, and conquered (them) by means of well-stamped (earth-)ramps, and battering-rams brought (thus) near (to the walls) (combined with) the attack by foot soldiers, (using) mines, breaches as well as sapper work. I drove out (of them) 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting, and considered (them) booty. Himself [Hezekiah] I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. . . . His towns which I had plundered, I took away from his country and gave them (over) to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi, king of Ekron, and Sillibel, king of Gaza. . . . Hezekiah himself . . . did send me, later, to Nineveh, my lordly city, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, precious stones, antimony, large cuts of red stone, couches (inlaid) with ivory, nimedu -chairs (inlaid) with ivory, elephant-hides, ebony-wood, boxwood (and) all kinds of valuable treasures, his (own) daughters, concubines, male and female musicians. In order to deliver the tribute and to do obeisance as a slave he sent his (personal) messenger.” —Sennacherib Prism, per Ancient Near Eastern Texts, p. 288. [Bolding mine]

Oh, yeah? How come he didn’t conquer Hezekiah like he did everyone else? Why just let him off with a promise to pay if he was such a tough guy? The Bible record says that payment was paid before, not after, the siege began, whereas Sennacherib says just the opposite. This inverted order of events “looks like a screen to cover up something which he does not wish to mention,” says Funk and Wagnalls New Standard Bible Dictionary of 1936 (p. 829). Those who believe the Bible account say it is the angel he’s trying to covering up. But the secular historians today are inclined to say, ‘Nah, it was probably just a plague.’ That’s what Jean-Pierre Isbouts says in his 2022 lecture series, History and Archeology of the Bible.

The modern believer may take the Bible narrative as history, but the modern sociologist, anthropologist, archaeologist, historian, philosopher, theologian, psychologist—you name it—does not. The Bible narrative is but a source to them, and a source that doesn’t mean much unless it is validated by one of those ‘superior’ human fields of study. “We have our own maps and geodetic survey plans, of course, but where the Bible and the maps are at odds, we opt for The Book,”  said Dr. Ze’ev Shremer in 1967. Today, you can all but hear the modernists say, ‘We use pages of The Book to wrap our lunch sandwiches in.’

Who were the Bible writers, the scribes, the prophets, according to all those who track human activity? They were merely devout men trying to interpret the political events of the day into religious terms. Should it not be the other way around, that world events be interpreted through spirituality? It is that way with Jehovah’s Witnesses today and many other sets of believers. It was also that way with the Bible writers themselves, who come across just as ‘insular’ to world politics of the day as Witnesses do now. Unless some development of politics substantially impacted the people of God in those Bible times, the Old Testament, and later the New Testament writers, seem to know little about it. They kept track of their own cause—the furtherance of God’s purpose—not the ever-changing twists of what they regarded as that children’s game, ‘King of the Mountain.’ As far as they were concerned, the rise and fall of human powers was just such a game, barely worth writing down unless it somehow interfered with that greater purpose.

“Look! The nations are like a drop from a bucket, And as the film of dust on the scales they are regarded,” writes Isaiah. (40:15) Why waste your time chronicling drops and film? the Bible writers would have supposed, and so they didn’t do it. As though speaking for them all, Paul says, “We keep our eyes, not on the things seen, but on the things unseen. For the things seen are temporary, but the things unseen are everlasting.” No wonder the Bible writings seem insular to those who drink the drops and walk the film. They are tracking entire different things.

Always, among today’s educated, it is taken for granted that the struggles between nations are the realities to watch. Never for one moment is it speculated that these nations might be playing second fiddle to a greater cause. Theology is not a study of God. It is a study of man, so it is hardly surprising that it is human institutions they chronicle, and God‘s institutions only so far as they play ball with those of humans.

to be continued here

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See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

In this age of fierce independence, it will not be surprising to find that the sheepfold model described by Jesus is unp0pular. Many don’t want the shepherds to be shepherds. They want them to be guidance counselors encouraging the sheep to ‘be all that you can be.’ Such is not the shepherd’s job. His job is to shepherd.

It is not that the sheepfold model does not frustrate me sometimes. It does. But I do my best to work with it because it is Jesus’ model. The present GB are just doing their best to fulfill their role as the human shepherd. When the sheep start shaking at the wires and the shepherd nudges them back, I say, “Well, that is what you would expect the shepherd to do.”  When a sheep starts to act in a way that you would not expect a sheep to act and refuses to be tamed, I say, when the shepherd ejects it from the pen, ‘Well, that is what you would expect the shepherd to do.’ If the shepherd even reads a false positive of rebellion into a sheep, I say, ‘Well, doctors read false positives all the time. Let the sheep sit in the penalty box for a time and then it can get back in the game.’ Tough love is no more of a crime than is unconditional love.

Since the sheepfold model is Jesus model, and I accept that, it is not for me even to say what I sometimes find ‘frustrating’ about it. It is enough to sing the song, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ However, sometimes Newton’s law enforces itself that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. At this point, I have been in motion for a few paragraphs. Probably the grumblers cited would not disagree with their remarks being rephrased as ‘The shepherd sure does nanny a lot.’ Can it backfire?

We all know that a great way to get someone to do something is to tell them they should not. It is just human nature. Are we “at war” with a certain element? Usually, the first thing done in war is reconnaissance of the enemy. Ought we not help out a brother when he’s gotten himself into a spot because “he shouldn’t be there?” We don’t say the same when our bull has fallen into a pit, nor when our child is playing in the street, nor when we are reading up on Elihu helping Job out of a jam. I get it that David wants to stay mum as all day long his enemies speak against him. I get it that Jesus says ‘wisdom will prove righteous by its works.’  But perusing any policy to the nth degree has its drawbacks, too. Analyzing enemy action in order to devise a response is a significant part of any war. It never seems to occur to anyone that doing so might benefit a soldier and not be like drinking poison.

Every virus wants to hijack the cell so as to spit out copies of itself. I do get the doctor trying to make those cell walls ironclad. But the body has an immune system too. That immune system may even be weakened if it does not have a thorough workout from time to time. It is all very well to avoid the toxic climate where harsh criticism prevails and forgiveness is unheard of—the very attributes that have ground the overall world to a standstill. It is all very well to cancel your subscription to the Sinai Gazette over its feature series (that they seem to have made into their mission statement) on Moses’ foreign wives. But the one who reads it through, getting madder and madder, and is forming a rebuttal on account of the Gibeonites who may read the story, might be doing something useful indeed.

If I get into nice chatty sessions with some lout who is intent on working ill, then I think I would be transgressing that Bible counsel to avoid those who stir up dissension: “Now I urge you, brothers, to keep your eye on those who create divisions and causes for stumbling contrary to the teaching that you have learned, and avoid them.” (Romans 16:17) But if the person says something derogatory and I know 100 new people will read it and possibly take it to heart, I do not feel in violation for once, succinctly, and with respect, pointing out what is wrong about the comment. To do otherwise just strikes me as cowardly, a violation of ‘always be ready to make a defense to anyone who demands a reason for your hope.’ I don’t do it for him but for whoever might be reading him. If the answer is nobody, or even just his buddies, I won’t do it. To avoid contact under any circumstances just strikes me as though the Witness attorney in court declining to cross-examine an apostate, for fear he will be saying a greeting to such a one.

It saps my desire to engage in the ministry if I can’t address what makes people resistant to it. It is like “withhold[ing] good from those to whom you should give it if it is within your power to help.” (Prov 3:27) It is almost a parallel to not speaking for fear your remark will bring reproach, whereas the abuser has already brought the reproach, and your speaking may do some good to readers who don’t know the truth of the matter. Often, it is not a matter of correcting a flat-out lie, but of supplying the context that changes everything. I do get it, though, that one ought do it with discretion and sparingly. It can get toxic, hypercritical on the one hand, juvenile on the other, as though adolescents mocking out teachers. Forgiveness is unheard of. As these are the very qualities that have made the overall world cease to function, nobody should be encouraged to do it, just not all but forbidden. Every virus seeks to hijack the cell and force it to spit out copies of itself. If apostates had their druthers, every JW would be hashing out their beefs 24/7.

to be continued: here

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See Part 1, Part 2,

‘Insular,’ a charge that is leveled against Jehovah’s Witnesses, bears a relationship to ‘no part of the world.’ Alas, the name of that relationship might be ‘identity.’ What is insulation if not material to keep one substance ‘no part’ of another?

To stay ‘no part of  the world’ is part of the mission statement of Jehovah’s Witnesses today. From that position of safety, they attempt to extend a helping hand to others. They must first stay ‘safe’ themselves. It’s biblical.  “They are no part of the world, just as I am no part of the world,” Jesus said of his followers. (John 16:17) Paul said: “I personally promised you in marriage to one husband that I might present you as a chaste virgin to the Christ.” He didn’t say: “I personally promised to expose you to all the new moralities in the world so you can decide if you want to marry this Guy or not.”

While the shepherd does ‘fear’ displeasing Norway and any other nation taking umbrage at their discipline policies reflecting lack of inclusion, he fears much more displeasing God by allowing admittance into the sheepfold of ones who may spread sickness among the sheep. Does anyone think God is disciplining his people over too securely fastening the gate of the sheepfold? We ain’t seen nothing next to how he would discipline them for leaving the gate open. That’s probably what the shepherd is thinking these days.

Policies can be tweaked without compromising core principles. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t disfellowship anymore. (August 2024 Watchtower) However, they do “remove from the congregation” those who refuse to abide by the biblical norms that all have agreed to. Is it but a shell game with words? Partly yes and partly no. The word ‘disfellowshipping’ is not actually found in the Bible. The term ‘removal from the congregation’ is:

“But now I am writing you to stop keeping company with anyone called a brother who is sexually immoral or a greedy person or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even eating with such a man. For what do I have to do with judging those outside? Do you not judge those inside, while God judges those outside? “Remove the wicked person from among yourselves.” (1 Corinthians 5:11-13)

But . . . but . . . is that not what Witnesses call disfellowshipping? Yes. Exactly. And, in a world that seeks to mandate ‘inclusion,’ that’s the problem: Witnesses call it that. Thus, people not overly paying attention can be manipulated into thinking it is a policy of a human organization. Call it “removal” and then it becomes clear that it is a biblical policy.  

Too, there is the disturbance over the Witness organization supposedly telling individual members how they should interact with disfellowshipped ones. Strike the term disfellowship, substitute remove, and then the problem of telling ones how to treat disfellowshipped persons vanishes because there are no disfellowshipped persons. Instead, individual members will be guided by how the Bible says to treat ones who have been removed. Since, they belong to an organization that takes the Bible seriously, they will probably be impressed by the phrase ‘not even eating with such a man,’ from that 1 Corinthians passage.

Not much has changed, some will say, but actually it is an important change. Ones who are critical of the Witness discipline policy called disfellowshipping must now redirect their criticism toward the Bible. Some will be more than ready to do it. If so, let them say it. Let them say, ‘The problem is the Bible itself, not the Witnesses who do no more than follow it.’ Let them say it. The Bible is a much harder target to censure than is a group of people patterned after it.

Maybe, they’ll do what a Russian court did. Object to the “hate speech” in the Witness-produced Bible, the New World Translation, at Genesis 19:24. “God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah. All their wicked inhabitants perished,” and use that verse as a pretext to ban it, notwithstanding that all Bibles say the same thing. In the previous post of this series, another instance was mentioned, by another Russian court—Psalm 37:29: “The righteous will inherit the earth and will live forever.” This verse from the New World Translation was also deemed exclusionary to those who live otherwise. Again, it didn’t matter that all Bibles say the same thing. The New World Translation was banned in Russia. This was too much even for Alexander Dvorkin, FECRIS vice president, and one of the prime instigators of the Witness organization being banned in Russia. It is obviously a Bible, he pointed out. Banning it just makes our people look like ignorant goons. To which I said, ‘Ban it for exactly that reason.’ See if Russian scholars will thank Alex for it the next time they are laughed off some academic stage. The tactic of banning an organization but not the religion of that organization is so duplicitous that ordinary people can’t get their heads around it. The lower courts just figured it was their job to declare everything Witnesses touch illegal.

Meanwhile, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, whose lives have been severely impacted, at least are not impacted by this ban of the New World Translation. They just switch to another Bible. They all work. 

Same thing here in the 1 Corinthians 5  ‘remove the wicked man from among yourselves.’ Will Witness opponents seek to outlaw the New World Translation, despite all other Bibles saying the same thing? No, you might say, that would be a very stupid thing to do. But since that is exactly what was done in Russia over different verses, one cannot rule anything out. If so, Jehovah’s Witnesses will have to switch to a different Bible that also says it—but one to which its readers up to now have paid no attention to, so it arouses no ire. I mean, you could have instructions on how to assemble a nuclear bomb in most Bible translations. Since the book is never read by most who call themselves Christian, no harm done.

To be continued: here 

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