Hebrew Loan Society Application: Fill & Download for Free

I am surprised that no one is talking about money lenders. History is quite clear that money lenders have been the most contentious group in all of history. As far back as Babylon there was a fear of money lenders because of their power to overthrow monarchies, to fuel war, to drive slavery through people selling themselves and their families to the money lenders or the state/temple for defaulted loans or unpaid taxes due to defaulted loans. This is because of the criminal nature of charging interest on abstract forms of money. Usury is a derivation of the Latin word for interest usura.“ORIGIN OF THE WORD FOR INTERESTWhat gave the ancient Sumerians the idea of charging one another interest? Linguistic evidence provides a clue. In the Sumerian language, the word for interest, mash, was also the term for calves. In ancient Greek, the word for interest, tokos, also refers to the offspring of cattle. The Latin term pecus, or flock, is the root of our word “pecuniary.” The Egyptian word for interest, like the Sumerian word, is ms, and means “to give birth.” All these terms point to the derivation of interest rates from the natural multiplication of livestock. If you lend someone a herd of thirty cattle for one year, you expect to be repaid with more than thirty cattle. The herd multiplies—the herder’s wealth has a natural rate of increase equal to the rate of reproduction of the livestock. If cattle were the standard currency, then loans in all comparable commodities would be expected to “give birth” as well. The idea of interest seems to be a natural one for an agricultural or pastoral society, but not so for hunter-gatherers. Ancient Sumerian society—in particular, Uruk, sometimes referred to as “the city of sheepfolds”—would have been the perfect setting for the evolution of the practice of lending money at interest.”William N. Goetzmann. “Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible.”Keep in mind here that money lenders have never created the currency to pay the interest with, the currency itself was expected to grow and reproduce biologically under the direct care of the borrower. Interest is literally the concept of giving birth to new life, or new currency.From Aristotle to the time period revolving around the discovery of America intellectual, legal, and philosophical battles were fought over these issues which often led to wars. Aristotle pointed out that abstract currencies have no intrinsic qualities except as being a medium of exchange. The abstract currency has no means of self replication, which makes expecting interest payments on abstract currencies illogical and immoral and a useless practice.“God, nature, reason, all scripture, all law, all authors, all doctors, yea all councils are against usury. Philosophers, Greeks, Latins, Lawyers, Divines, Catholics, Heretics, all tongues, all nations, have thought usury as bad as a thief.—Roger Fenton, 1612”We don't have enough content from before Ancient Greece on the ideas of interest in popular writings, but most every major and many minor religious texts and ancient legal codes tries to control usury(interest) because of its destructive nature. This is nowhere more clear than Charlemenge’s complete ban of both secular and ecclesiastical practices of charging interest to represent this point. These laws drove the issues of the Middle Ages, helped give rise to the power of the Knights Templar and other groups who sought work around to the laws, solidified in the minds of Middle Ages Europeans that Jews were evil and untrustworthy money lenders since they were the only group that was permitted to lend money at interest (of note Jews were not allowed to charge each other interest because of its destructive power, but non-Jewish Gentiles were fair targets).Leviticus 25:36 Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God, so that they may continue to live among you. This page shows that there are many references in the Old Testament that clearly states that Jews were only to consider these ideas of not charging interest when dealing with countrymen, also described as brothers, which clearly describes fellow Jews. This is because the charging of interest on abstract currencies is a criminal act and through the voice of the Jewish concept of God these narratives show these concepts quite well, specifically highlighting the fact that if they want their brothers to succeed they cannot lend money at interest. Yet, there are no stipulations against foreigners or Gentiles concerning interest. This is most likely due to the evidence that historically interest, especially the abusive application of compound interest, was used as a disciplinary action to weaken an enemy. The Enmetena cone dated to 2400 BCE is the first known example of the use of compound interest being leveraged as war reparations by Enmetena after the conquest of Lagash.“Early loan contracts demonstrate that, admonitions aside, lending at usury occurred despite the warnings of the prophets. Interest was set at 12 percent among the Hebrews. A similar rate structure was found in many ancient cultures. When Nehemiah was the provincial governor of Judea between 444 and 432 B.C., he declared the 12 percent rate to be used to settle disputes, a practice that would endure for over two thousand years.A similar admonition can be found in Psalms. “He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved” (25:5). These statements, especially the one concerning lending to members of one’s own tribe, were perhaps the earliest foundation of a cottage industry that would be known throughout the ancient and medieval worlds. In order to conform to Deuteronomy, Jews could only lend to gentiles and a tradition began that survived for centuries. They became associated with lending and suffered both the fruits and the consequences of their activity. As they later discovered, rulers in Europe often required their services desperately but often cited church law forbidding usury when it was time to repay. Citing religion was a powerful reason for not repaying a loan since secular law traditionally did not condemn usury.”Charles R. Geisst. “Beggar Thy Neighbor.”With the intellectual growth of the Renaissance and Lutheran Reformation and other religious changes the money lenders began to win the arguments and various tools were allowed to be developed that brought interest back into popular use, and eventually returned it to full legality. Some tools used during strict usury prohibition was to hide interest with fees, like charging for currency exchanges when trading across borders.“After the discovery of America, capital was in demand, and men were ready to pay interest on it. Then the theologians were obliged to review their teachings. If it had come to this, that money must be had, and men would pay interest on it, ecclesiastical ethics must be revised.—Richard Henry Dana, 1867”The desire for money lenders to earn easy profits from the poor and from the rich alike has been universally hated by all races of men and all countries and all religions throughout history.However, as America grew into an independent nation and internatnal commerce expanded and the churches stopped preaching the criminal nature of interest, the textbooks stopped talking about it. The politicians and clergymen who wanted to limit interest were pushed aside and largely ignored, because the flood gates were being opened and a feeding frenzy was to begin. To try and stop the rise of power of the bankers and the increased use of interest to control the public and nations alike interest ceilings were put into place. However, these only lasted until the middle 19th century when pressure from the bankers finally dissolved the debt ceilings and interest was allowed to rise to any level the bankers wished to use. Laws have moved back and forth since then, capping interest and raising the caps. Where banks couldn't overcome legislation they used assassinations, bribery, and many other tricks to destabilize governments. When that wasn't expedient the banks would just move their headquarters to new jurisdictions.Groups like the Mafia and other criminal organizations lend money at rates up to 1000% or more, because of its disciplinary power and the ease with which money lending can be used to turn a profit.In the 1980’s Chase Manhattan Bank moved their credit card issuing banks out of New York because of the usury laws there. The banks were moved to areas where credit cards could be issued with higher interest rates.Greece and much of Europe is suffering from the interest charged on loans from the IMF. It's a global issue, and the hatred of money lenders is on the rise again. The use of mass media largely owned by the bankers is working hard to sell the nonsense ideas of trickle down economics and to disregard conspiracy theories, especially those that focus on the bankers working together for control of the world.Of note is the evidence that the American Revolution was begun because of Central banks, specifically the Bank of England, lending money to kings at high interest. The taxes levied against the people, specifically the taxes levied against the colonies, were used as collateral against the loans from the Bank of England. To borrow more money to fight the wars taking place in the late 1700’s King George III needed more cash flow to feed the banks with. These issues were why private central banks were hated by many of the founding fathers.The federal reserve is a perfect example of the power of money lenders, and as the secrets of banking are becoming known by the masses again, a deep and ancient hatred for money lenders is growing again.I could take more time and write a much more detailed article about why I see money lenders as the most hated group in all of history, but I think I've made my case.Edit: other more complicated reasons that money lenders are hated include fractional reserve lending, the creation of money out of nothing at the time of the loan, and banks destroying independent and sovereign economies that refuse to participate in their criminal banking schemes. Perhaps when I have time I can discuss these issues as well.

I have never met “a true expert” in biblical and ancint Hebrew — but I know a few people who are exceptional in knowledge.I answer this question with the following prerequisites:“Biblical Hebrew”, as some people call it, was originally the exclusive spoken and written language of a group of people whose role is to preserve Torah in its original form - without redaction or modification. We are guardians of legal texts and their concomitant semiotics, which have been refined and tested to empower civilizations to emerge from analphabetic and illiterate beginnings.To understand the semiotics and hermeneutics of Biblical Hebrew we must think like a Hebrew. We cannot overlay contemporary themes, semiotics and hermeneutics on Torah or other Hebrew texts. Moreover, it is not enough to “be a Jew”, you must *think* like a Hebrew. If a Jew has no connection to their obligations under the contract of Har Sinai, then it will be difficult (read ‘pointless’) to instruct them in Semiotics and hermeneutics of their ancestors…their mind has assimilated into the society in which they find themselves.Torah was written in Ktav Ibri by a single Hebrew writer - Moshe Rabbeinu, it is God’s novel, yet, Moshe was God’s scribe.Texts of Nevi’im and Ketuv’im were written by Hebrew and ARamaic-literate authors.When Assyrian Empire laid waste to the First Temple (Temple of Solomon) , they attempted to destroy all Samaritan-script Hebrew sefarim because those texts had drifted from original meanings due to subjective redaction and additions. Ezra the Scribe located the correct “master scroll” and transliterated the Ktav Ibri scroll to Ktav Assir while preserving the semiotics and hermeneutics of it’s original Aramaic/Akkadian/Babylonian form. Please recall that the Assyrian Empire and Babylonian empires emerged simultaneously from the dissolution of Akkadian Empire which was a continuation of Sumer.Targum Ahnqelos and other aramaic Targumim are tools of decoding Biblocal Hebrew…regardless of writing system.Loan words enter Biblical Hebrew at different times in its history (Akkadian primarily). When you know enough about the history of Biblical texts and their authors you can pinpoint those loan words and gain greater understanding of content.If you do not know precisely who authored a Biblical Hebrew text, and you do not understand the millieu in which they were written, you cannot interpret them in the manner their author intended….semiotics and hermeneutics are vital.Full foreknowledge of halakha as taught by Babylonian Gaonim, perush’im Mequbbal’im, decoding sugyot to understand Din’im Mufla’im, as well as taqqanoth, gezeroth and minhagim which are community-specific. For example, Hebrews had been resident in present-day spain since the time of Solomon…when Romans engaged in genocide in Judea, the Hebrews of Hispania had nothing to do with it…if you did not know that little fact, you will never comprehend why Jews are so fixated upon writing about being oppressed…the oppression of Jews in Hispania was the result of stereotypes inculcated in Rome and Judea…stereotypes which had no connection with Hebrews in Hispania.Firstly, do not conflate spoken kanguages with writing systems. There are variable pronunciations (Tiberian, Babylonian, Teimani, Ashkenazi, Amsterdam Sephardi, Haketia, etc…). In my opinion, Babylonian pronunciation is preferred due to ta’amim. I prefer understanding ta’amim for each community because written works emanate from varying time axes and political millieu….Jews have been very mobile to avoid “dancing elephants”, the psychology of a writer represents a multi-variate states which varies according to time and geography. You should know that when I sat-in on Salat with Tajik tribesman, I witnessed perfect Quranic Arabic spoken as if Muhammad himself were standing among us. If you have heard Gulf Arabic, you will not recognize Quranic Arabic — pronunciation is quite literally “music to the ears”.Secondly, there is no distinction between Biblical and Ancient Hebrew. Hebrew is the only spoken language which persists simultaneously in a plurality of different writing systems (Judeo Arabic, Spaniol, proto-tifinagh, cuneiform, Farsi, Yiddish, ). When Grammarians sought to resolve arcane aspect of Hebrew/Aramaic writing, they turned to the Academies of Qairouan and ‘Calat Bani Hammad’ to resolve important details which had been lost due to near extinction of Hebrew as a writing system and spoken language. A little over 1,000 years ago, learning Biblical Hebrew was a purely academic pursuit with no application to surroundings. Without the work of Sa’adya Gaon, and the Grammarians of al-Andalus and Qairouan (Radak, RiF, Dunash ibn Labrat, etc), Hebrew would have died out during the Crusades.Thirdly, the writing systems used to express different forms of spoken Biblical Hebrew includeLatin Alphabet (Yiddish, Spaniol),Maghrebi Arabic Abjad (Ktav Ibri),Hebrew Abjad (Ktav Assir),proto-tifinagh abjad (Ktav Ibri)Ugarit Cuneiform,At times in our history, certain teachers attempted to formulate their own unique script to simultaneously exclude non-Jews from reading it…while forcing Jews to learn a *new thing*, Rashi Script is an example of such a script…but Rashi Script is used primarily for commnetary upon Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic texts.I can go on and on….a Jew must possess a passionate desire to connect to their past in order to master Biblical Hebrew to the best of their abilities. Going through the motions isn’t ‘good enough’…the assimilatd mind will have a hard time adjusting to a Hebrew Mindset and thought patterns…but it can, and must, be done.

As I wrote in another answer, the future is technically unknown, but just like Donald Trump is not very likely to suddenly declare himself a communist, I don’t quite see myself ever becoming a Jehovah’s Witness.(Grammar Nazi digression: I have no problem with the phrase “a Jehovah’s Witness”. It is quite true that a phrase like “a George’s son” would be incorrect as a way of expressing “a son of George’s”, but “Jehovah’s Witness” has through long use become a de facto loose compound despite starting out as a regular genitive phrase, and so articles like “a” or “the” can be prefixed to refer to an individual adherent of this faith. End of Grammar Nazi digression, included in honor of User-10722347183441734497: User-10722347183441734497's answer to How do I witness to a Jehovah's Witness?.)I wasn’t aware that I’m profoundly obsessed by Jehovah’s Witnesses. On an average day I probably hardly think about them at all. Yet I have been sort of paying attention to them, on and off, for about 30 years now, since I was in my late teens. I don’t hate them, far from it. However, I can say with complete honesty that not for a single split-second in these three decades have I considered joining.Seriously? To me it would be like joining the Flat Earth Society! I don’t buy even the most basic ideas the whole ideology is built upon.This said, you can learn something from all people, even the ones you generally disagree with. I will not deny that sometimes, Watchtower literature brings up valid points and interesting perspectives, or at least points to things that it is interesting to research further on my own (though that is not what the writers really intended).Well. Allow me to rant and ramble a bit here, now that I have had the immense honor of being directly addressed in a Question centering on myself. Yay!This will be … longish … and not entirely coherent. Consider yourself warned. But I will tell you a little about myself, address some points raised by some actual Witnesses in their answers to this question, and maybe even get back to the reasons why I am not likely to ever become a Jehovah’s Witness. (Since there is apparently some confusion over this, let me reiterate that I am not an ex-Witness as it is. I have been inside a Kingdom Hall ca. five times in my entire life, including one instance of that strange yearly non-communion, the Lord’s Evening Supper. The regulars go straight into love-bombing mode when they see a new face. I have experienced it, and it is an embarassing situation I very much want to avoid; nor would I ever deliberately give the believers false hopes that a possible convert has arrived.)From the viewpoint of a skeptic and an outsider, I am interested in religions. Professionally, I have studied religious scholarship at the university of Bergen, Norway. Already in the late 1990s I produced a study of Norwegian Bible translations (where the Norw. version of the New World Translation was one of the three versions compared). I studied Biblical Hebrew and Greek.Yes, I made myself somewhat well-informed about religions. They may not tell us so much about any deity or give us much insight on transcendent truths, but they do tell us much about the human psyche. By comparison: I am also highly skeptical about the existence of any spiritual “afterlife” (which the Witnesses don’t believe in, either), but I love a good ghost story as much as the next guy.(Unless, of course, the next guy is a Witness who is obsessed with the idea that all stories, movies etc. that somehow touch on paranormal themes are celebrations of “spiritism” and so invite demons … sigh, can’t you learn the difference between fact and fiction, folks, and enjoy the latter for what it is?)Most of mainstream Christianity is pretty bland and toothless these days. Anything from evolution to gay rights has essentially been accepted, especially here in secular Scandinavia. That is good for society, but honestly, it is so much more fun to research the really wacky religions. You know, the ones that are seriously trying to build, maintain and stubbornly inhabit their very own reality bubble. Science and scholarship be damned! No matter how many times the big doomsday event fails to arrive when supposedly scheduled — no matter how many decades pass with no hint of the allegedly imminent armageddons or raptures or second-comings — these are the believers and movements that will trudge on, forever impervious to any disconfirmation of their beliefs.Yeah, these movements are indeed more fun to research than bland Churchianity (as I believe second Watchtower President Joseph Rutherford once called it, with characteristic contempt). Jehovah’s Witnesses are a grateful, ahem, study object in this regard. These days, such stubborn Bible literalism is rare in my part of the world.The Witnesses also make it easy for the researcher, arriving at my door at their own expence, placing more or less free literature in my hands, and generally being so happy that someone will actually hear them out and have a discussion with them, instead of just slamming the door in their face.Happy to oblige, folks.But of course, I didn’t stop with their own literature. I read the other accounts and histories as well, some scholarly, some by former members. Penton’s Apocalypse Delayed gives a full overview of their history. Franz’ Crisis of Conscience is most illuminating. And as the Internet exploded in the mid-90s, researching the full and true story of the Watchtower movement became easy.Sorry, folks. Your history isn’t the story of “God’s visible organization” marching forward in ever greater insight, unity and love, finally readying itself to form the kernel of a wondrous “new system” here on earth after the storm of Armageddon has cleared away “the wicked”. It is a very much human story about apocalyptic longings. Some people that would normally be pretty harmless cranks somehow ended up with immense authority and having an enormous propaganda machine at their disposal. This allowed them to present their crankery as profound insights on the Bible, whether it was Russell and his pyramidology, Rutherford with his grandiose delusion that “millions now living will never die” because the End was due in 1925, or long-time doctrinal oracle Freddie Franz with all his fanciful “types”/”antitypes” and ultimately the 1975 fiasco.(As for the “types” … you know, this is for instance when every single darn Bible story that somehow describes one group or person joining another group or person is suddenly declared to be a subtle prophecy about the “great crowd” joining the 144,000 in the 1930s. Jehonadab joining Jehu? “Type” of the Crowd and the 144K! Gibeonites making a covenant with the invading Israelites? Prophetic “type” of the Crowd and 144K! And so on and on and on throughout the entire Bible, Freddie Franz’ imagination running completely wild. Incidentally, most of the “types” and “antitypes” were quietly buried in the Watchtower March 2015 Study Edition … a tremendous amount of 20th-century Watchtower “spiritual food” thus going out of the window, and Freddie rotating in his grave. Yes, I do think he is still in his grave instead of having received a heavenly resurrection.)Reading Penton’s scholarly history of the movement while bearing in mind the sanitized in-house version set out in Watchtower’s own history book Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom is a strange experience. One might say the scholarly version is two-dimensional where the in-house one is three-dimensional (and since I consider the third dimension to be quite imaginary, that is not a compliment).If you get my shaky metaphor, the in-house version has height, indeed transcendental height reaching into the heavens, in addition to earthly breadth and width. As the Witnesses want to see their history, Jehovah thrones above it, the ultimate Fantasy Friend who loving leads “his people” and sometimes brings about thrilling new insights. Wow, so the “great crowd” of Revelation is an earthly class and not a secondary heavenly class as Russell thought (though you have to forgive him, since the actual text of Revelation describes the crowd as standing before God’s throne in heaven …) What a great leap forward in our understanding! Oh, thank you for this new light, O great Jehovah!Reading Penton’s scholarly history, where this element of imagined divine guidance and blessing is completely missing, the whole thing just seems to deflate and collapse into something quite different. Suddenly it is just a very much more trivial story, the tale of a century of squabbling, infighting, hard-ball church politics, good old crankery and sometimes very opportunistic reinterpretations of Bible texts. For instance, in the 1930s, Rutherford understood that the movement would soon come to have more than 144,000 members (if it didn’t already). Where to put the excess number, theologically speaking? He seized on the “great crowd” in Revelation, casually demoted them from the heavenly status they seem to enjoy in the actual Bible text, and turned them into the “earthly class” they have been ever since. Problem solved.A tremendous breakthrough in Bible exegesis? A flash of “new light” from Jehovah’s sublime throne?Nah, I don’t think so.Sorry. I just don’t.But Rutherford — the Brigham Young to Russell’s Joseph Smith and the Stalin to Russell’s Lenin — did with his iron fist and tyrannical methods manage to whip the movement into something that could enjoy a certain permanence on the religious market. To quote my oh-so-insightful answer here: Helge Kåre Fauskanger's answer to Are Jehovah's Witnesses evil? (TL; DR: No, they aren’t.)The problems with the Watchtower Society and its ideology are systemic, not so much due to the people who actually make up the organization. It is a huge, authoritarian people-machine that was constructed by Joseph Rutherford in the interwar period, based on the completely faulty premise that the end of the world lay in the immediate future. You can say the whole thing is a peculiar manifestation of the human desire for a utopia, plus the desire to feel important.The machine dangles a wonderful carrot before those that are dragged into it — serve this organization faithfully, and soon-soon-soon you can survive into a wondrous “new world” of peace and happiness and eternal youth. A lifetime after Rutherford’s passing, the grand promises and expectations are still unfulfilled, but the machine rolls on and on, unable to stop and unable to let go. Apparently enough people are always sufficiently hypnotized by the ever-retreating mirage of the “new world” to keep the machine going.Unquote myself.I don’t particularly “target” Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t see myself as the “enemy” of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I do in no way applaud the recent Russian ban, for instance. When I become the undisputed dictator of the world, the Witnesses will for the very first time be free to openly preach everywhere. Russia, China, the Muslim world, all over the place.As dictator I will put the Witnesses under a single new restriction relative to today: Persons baptized before the age of 18 are, for life, completely immune to congregational discipline and disfellowshipping. If the elders ever try to give the shunning order as regards such a person, I will give that one the right to sue the whole sorry organization into oblivion for attempted mental torture. All those baptized before 18 have never, at a responsible age, granted Watchtower the right to control their lives or to rip away their entire social circle if they should ever change their mind.Seriously, we hear about people baptized as young as seven! It’s a life-changing decision every bit as momentous as getting married. If you are not old enough to marry, you certainly aren’t old enough to join such a high-control religion either! Also, it’s absurd that you are to make your life choice of religion as a young child and are then never allowed to change your mind without the suffering gravest of punishments — in many cases involving the loss of your entire family, that will shun you like the plague. Apparently about two thirds of the born-ins eventually leave anyway, meaning that Watchtower policies lead to many broken families.And yet Awake! magazine had the gall to write in July 2009, p. 29: “No one should be forced to worship in a way that he finds unacceptable or be made to choose between his beliefs and his family.”Of course: This applied to those who want to join the Witnesses and so risk being disowned by their totally unreasonable families. It probably didn’t even cross the writer’s mind that these words could in any way be applicable to a Jehovah’s Witness who rethinks his or her religion, maybe when they reach maturity after baptism around the age of 10. If such a person should ever change their mind religionwise, that one must in the typical case most certainly choose between “his beliefs and his family.”But as for people who willingly and knowingly joined this religion as adults?I make no effort to “deconvert” any individual Witness who seems to be happy with their chosen faith. Back in the 1990s, when I was somewhat younger and perhaps more hot-headed, I might relish minor intellectual battles with these uninvited guests. Hah, here they come, the misguided purveyors of superstition and obscurantism, not knowing what is about to hit them! They are about to encounter me, the great Defender of Science and Rationalism, the well-informed Debunker of fundamentalism and Bible-literalism!Of course, the other side would see themselves as the Defenders of Divine Truth and representatives of the Supreme Being of the Universe. Quite a head trip for both parties, I imagine. It goes without saying that these debates never proved particularly fruitful, though luckily I can only remember two or three occasions where things started to get really ugly and voices were raised.When the Witnesses show up on my doorstep these days, our exchanges tend to be pretty polite and maybe even pleasant. Each to his own. Enjoy your chosen cup of tea. Whatever floats your boat, my friends. If this would-be “preaching” is what gives meaning and substance to somebody’s life, I will not rip it from them. But dear uninvited guests, don’t ask me to pretend that I believe your fantasy about an imminent “paradise” will ever come true, and don’t ask me to pretend I’m sorry, either. After all, your paradise is to be built on the bones of seven billion mostly innocent people, after a genocidal fit of divine rage that seems more worthy of Cthulhu than any “loving and just God”.Sometimes I just let my visitors ramble on a little bit about Watchtower doctrines I know in full detail already. Why not, if they enjoy setting out these ideas and have spent many hours perfecting their spiels? And sometimes one or both sides may actually learn something. Earlier this year, one middle-aged guy and his twenty-something daughter were at my door (refreshingly, he instantly and with no evasions admitted that the Witnesses had been wrong about the End coming in 1975 … how very nice!)They talked about how sad it was that most Bible versions have replaced Jehovah’s proper name with the title “Lord”. I had no problem agreeing that most versions are here deferring rather sheepishly to a Jewish superstition that made the divine name taboo, and that from a philological perspective, it is better to render the Tetragrammaton directly (whether as Yahweh or in the Anglicized form Jehovah). But I also pointed out that in the New Testament, the New World Translation commits the reverse translation error, in many cases mistranslating the Greek term Kyrios (Lord) as “Jehovah”.This was apparently new to my visitors. The man was not aware that the Divine Name does not appear in any extant copy of the Greek scriptures (unless you count the “Jah” part of the few instances of “hallelujah” in Revelation). He had to research this!He and his daughter came back some weeks later, declaring that the Divine Name does occur in Acts 2:21: “Everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.” Well, I brought out a Greek New Testament as well as a Hebrew Bible (okay, maybe I was showing off just a little bit), and we had a pretty interesting little “study” together, I believe enjoyable for all three people involved. I demonstrated to them that the Greek text we now have does not contain the word Jehovah, but only a form of the Greek word for Lord, Kyrios. We looked at the Hebrew original of the text that is alluded to, namely Joel 2:23. (Finding it was a pain, since the chapter-and-verse division is in this instance different in the Hebrew bible.) Sure enough, that verse contains the Tetragrammaton YHWH.So we kind of arrived at the common understanding (which I had at the outset) that the name Jehovah doesn’t really occur in the Greek New Testament texts we have now, but it has been inserted into the New World Translation where the translators feel confident that Kyrios refers to Jehovah (not Jesus or some earthly lord). They “determine” this largely by looking at related texts in the Hebrew Bible.My guests read me some words from a publication claiming that Jehovah’s name had been removed from the “Christian Greek Scriptures” (New Testament) by unappreciative copyists. I pointed out, not rudely or aggressively, that this is really just a Watchtower factoid without one single manuscript fragment to confirm it.Yeah, I think our little study was reasonably pleasant for all the involved.So my direct interactions with the Witnesses may be pretty “nice” nowadays. Sometimes I just let them prattle on about their favorite topics, like in this case the importance of using God’s name.Maybe it is more tempting to be rude and curt, or at least easier to come across as such, when I communicate with Witnesses online. Sometimes it is admittedly difficult to maintain patience with Jehovah’s Witnesses who seem to be in adamant denial of any “unfortunate” details of Watchtower history. For instance, Ben Gordon Burns lives in a curious parallel universe where the Witnesses “never predicted the end of the world at any time” (emphasis his). I must beg to differ; see my follow-up in the comment section here: https://www.quora.com/How-does-it-feel-to-be-a-Jehovahs-Witness-after-your-religion-predicted-the-end-of-the-world-and-was-wrong-so-many-times/answer/Ben-Gordon-BurnsJen Sanderson writes to me, even on Facebook, to elaborate on how this is absolutely not a high-control religion (as I may have inconsiderately written more than once). Why, all that is required is “clean living”!Okay, Jen. Let us imagine this situation. One day, completely out of the blue, the elders in your Kingdom Hall declare from the platform: “Jane Doe is no longer one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”Now, Jen, it so happens that Jane Doe is your best friend in the entire congreation. You are quite shocked. What has she done? Has she been disfellowshipped? Did she disassociate herself?The elders didn’t even tell you that.And they won’t answer if you ask them. In fact, it would be a serious breach of protocol if you ever did ask. The details are confidential! The committee of elders arrived at this conclusion, that is all you need to know!And of course, you wouldn’t ask your former best friend herself if you were to run into her. In fact, you would deny her even the commonest of courtesies, such as saying hi or hello. After all, you would remember the grave and timely warning from God’s very own organization:A simple ‘Hello’ to someone can be the first step that develops into a conversation and maybe even a friendship. Would we want to take that first step with a disfellowshiped person?(Full dose of Watchtower wisdom here: How to Treat a Disfellowshipped Person)But normal people don’t cut off their friends just like that.Seriously, Jen, they don’t. They would at least ask questions and insist on having answers. If necessary they would directly ask the person concerned.But you, if you were to follow the rules, could never do that. You would shun your former best friend Jane Doe, if needed for as long as either one of you should live, without even knowing why.As noted, that is not what normal people do.But people in high-control religions might do so.Also, Jen, do you seriously feel free to make any remark about the higher echelons of the Watchtower organization that might be construed as critical?As for the last point, let us consider what happened when Eugene Rideout wrote his own answer to this question about me:User-10722347183441734497's answer to Will Helge Kåre Fauskanger ever become a Jehovah's Witness since he is so profoundly obsessed by this religion?In a follow-up in the comments section, he gushes about how this organization does not collect money from its members.In my reply, I pointed out that the Governing Body has really instituted “stealth tithing” in recent years, albeit at congregational rather than individ level. A pretty dishonest letter, only half of which was to be read to the congregations, gave the impression that any debt the congregation had to the organization was now cancelled. (They can get loans to build local Kingdom Halls, for instance.) Very generous, hm?However, the for-elders’-eyes only part of the letter made it clear that the organization still expects at least the same amount of money to be paid at the same intervals. Whereas a loan would sooner or later be paid back in full, these “voluntary contributions” are to continue indefinitely.Eugene’s response when I brought up this:I’m going to have to terminate this. You are beginning to beat the “faithful slave,” and that’s totally unacceptable.So there you have it. Any critical comment about the Governing Body (which in recent years usurped the title of “faithful and discreet slave” entirely for themselves) will see Eugene going off in a huff. These people are just beyond criticism. They are God’s chosen, or whatever.Does he react in the same way reading the section in Revelation - Its Grand Climax at Hand! where his own religion assassinates the character of a whole string of medieval Catholic Popes? What would he say to a Catholic who goes, “You are beating on God’s representative on earth, and that is totally unacceptable”?Presumably Eugene would regard such a Catholic as close-minded and brainwashed. I might even agree. The rest I leave as an exercise for Eugene to work out for himself.Let me also consider what Sherryl Taylor wrote in her own answer to “my” question: https://www.quora.com/Will-Helge-K%C3%A5re-Fauskanger-ever-become-a-Jehovahs-Witness-since-he-is-so-profoundly-obsessed-by-this-religion/answer/Sherryl-TaylorApparently I am just one of those guys who love “targeting” the poor Witnesses.And we do make great targets;[1] Because, people think we are dorks or a cult. (…)[2] Because, people assume we are populated with illiterate, brainwashed robotic dimwits. (…)[3] Because, just because, they can.[4] Because, we are a butte in the seat and a door to door religion, which means too much work, for the once a year religious types.[5] Because, we teach things that make people grind their teeth in irritation. Like no Trinity, no Hell and heaven is reservation only.Point by point:I assume the Witnesses do have their share of “dorks”, but that is true of any large group of people. As for the word “cult”, if you have been reading my answers I have argued against using it, of the Witnesses or anyone else. It’s a lazy term for “bad/improper/spurious religion”, and may tell us more about the perspective of the person using the word than the movement they are talking about. Rather use a technically correct phrase like “high-control religion”. (There, I said it again.)2. An illiterate Witness would clearly be disadvantaged, given how important the written word is in this religion. But as for you being “brainwashed robotic dimwits”, I have never used such language. A great number of the members are simply born-ins who are raised in this faith, and when you are told from infancy that this is The Truth, you are not necessarily a “dimwit” for accepting it. It may simply mean that you are seeking the approval of your peers and your social circle.As for brainwashing, it is however plain that the organization would dearly like its members to stay firmly within the Watchtower echo-chamber and never expose themselves overmuch to contrary voices. Why the grave warnings against ever reading material prepared by former members, for instance? If such stuff is really all lies and baseless slander, should not this be obvious to a Witness reader? Why is it so important that the voices of former members must not be heard?3. I voice critical perspectives on the Witnesses “just because, [I] can”. Indeed. Somebody has to do it, since members of this movement obviously can’t. There is no room whatsoever for any whistleblowers, no official forum where the doctrines can be discussed with anything but complete acceptance. After all, we really don’t want to run ahead of Jehovah’s chariot, do we? (I often don’t know whether to be amused or annoyed by the more flowery parts of Watchtower jargon.)We just saw how Eugene metaphorically shut his ears and went LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-I-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU once I said something that could be construed as critical of the Watchtower leadership. You simply don’t do that! It’s outrageous! It’s “completely unacceptable”!No. Not to me it isn’t. And a religion that has spent a century castigating “Christendom” as apostate and totally worthless must be able to deal with criticism itself. This can’t be a one-way street.4. The Witnesses with their persistence irritate the “once a year religious types.” Don’t worry, Sherryl. I’m a zero-a-year religious type.5. “ We teach things that make people grind their teeth in irritation. Like no Trinity, no Hell and heaven is reservation only.” For purposes of worship I couldn’t care less whether there is any trinity or not, since I don’t believe in the Biblical deity in the first place. The New Testament mostly does give the impression that God and Jesus were originally seen as separate entities, in contrast with later church doctrine, so quite possibly Watchtower has a point here.I have no expectation of going to the Biblical “heaven”, by reservation or otherwise, and Hell is to me an altogether puerile idea. Here I unfortunately cannot agree with the Witnesses that the teaching of eternal suffering is unbiblical (though it is not particularly prominent in the Bible). The Watchtower “explanations” of texts like the Rich Man and Lazarus, or Revelation 20:10 (“they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”), strike me as vague and unconvincing attempts to escape the plain meaning of the words.By the way, I remember reading statements in Watchtower literature to the effect that “the notion that God will burn people in fire is repugnant to sensible persons” (quoted from memory and back-translated from Norwegian, but this was the gist of it). Ah, really? But you expect “sensible persons” to find it altogether reasonable that God will soon murder people by the billions, literally turning them into birdfood because they weren’t baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses?Well … no. You actually don’t expect people to readily accept this. This is why the true doctrine of Armageddon is hidden away in euphemisms these days. In the oh-so-bland “public” version of Watchtower Magazine you will only read vague statements about how the Jehovah is going to lovingly “remove” those who are “wicked”, leaving only the “righteous” to set up a New System.Just who are these “righteous” ones, and who are all the “wicked” that are going to be summarily killed off? Are they “righteous” and “wicked” in the regular sense of the words, as the naive reader must assume, or is this actually all about religious affiliation?As in “Jehovah’s Witnesses live, all others become birdfood, no matter how ‘righteous’ and good-hearted and moral and caring and loving and selfless they may be”?Witnesses, also here on Quora, will very frequently point us to Jehovah’s Witnesses—Official Website: jw.org as an authoritative source of information about the religion. But the fact is, this website is propaganda. You would have to dig deep indeed before you would find the less savory parts of the doctrine. I am particularly provoked by the evasive answer the online “FAQ” gives to the question “Do Jehovah’s Witnesses feel they are the only ones who will be saved?”No. Many millions who lived in centuries past and who weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses will have an opportunity for salvation. The Bible explains that in God’s promised new world, “there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Acts 24:15) Additionally, many now living may yet begin to serve God, and they too will gain salvation. - Will Only Jehovah’s Witnesses Be Saved? | FAQWHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE KIDDING, FOLKS? If there was ever an example of “lying by omission”, this is it. Yeah, you believe a number of now-dead non-Witnesses will be resurrected and that some of them will be permanently “saved” (which of course must involve their total submission to Jehovah and fully abandoning whatever religious beliefs they had in their first life).Also, “many now living may yet begin to serve God” and be saved. And we all know what “begin to serve God” is meant to convey in this context — they become Jehovah’s Witnesses! What does this have to do with anything? The question wasn’t, “Do the Witnesses who are already Jehovah’s Witnesses and alive in this instant feel they are the only ones that will be saved, so that future converts perhaps won’t be?”And then there is the big, the huge, the enormous, the gargantuan omission — the fate of the billions of humans who are alive now, and who have not become Jehovah’s Witnesses when Armageddon strikes.Exactly what happens to them?Just who do Jehovah’s Witnesses think will be saved through Armageddon, and who are all going to die?Hello, dear FAQ?I can’t hear you?These days, the illustrations in Watchtower literature are frankly more enlightening than the vague, evasive text when it comes to understanding what fate this religion really assigns to all who make the unforgivable mistake of not joining.This tiny little detail of Watchtower doctrine — the imminent global holocaust obliterating all of non-Witness humanity — would perhaps deserve to be mentioned in the FAQ as well, as opposed to being adroitly side-stepped and ignored?I have read so much Watchtower literature that I know the real answer to the question “Do Jehovah’s Witnesses feel they are the only ones who will be saved?” is THIS (my summary):Yes. True, many who were not Jehovah’s Witnesses in their first life will be resurrected into the soon-to-come paradise earth, but they must then unreservedly accept our religion and our God to be allowed to live on. As for the billions of humans alive now, the vast majority of them will soon perish in Armageddon unless they become Jehovah’s Witnesses in whatever little time remains. Those who are thus executed by God will never receive a resurrection, either. We are not absolutely sure about how Jehovah will deal with small children, the mentally retarded etc., but no sane adults can expect to survive Armageddon if they are not Jehovah’s Witnesses.This is the truth. You know it and I know it. This is how your doctrine really goes.But that is not how your FAQ goes, for whatever reason.Why not? Why aren’t we told about the billions who are going to be killed by fire-balls from the sky (or whatever other grotesqueries Jehovah has in store), and then eaten by birds?Obviously because this FAQ, and indeed the entire website, is not intended to give a full and representative introduction to Watchtower doctrine. Instead it is intended to present the religion in the best possible light, sweeping the less savory doctrines under the carpet. Those doctines are best gradually absorbed by the convert when he or she has already been sucked so far in that the convert is willing to buy the premise that the Witnesses are the only “righteous” people on the planet, and that everyone else is so “wicked” that their horrible demise in Armageddon is nothing much to worry about. Good riddance, non-Witness humanity!Here, indeed, we reach one of the huge absurdities in Watchtower doctrine, quite irrespective of the “humanitarian” horrors involved. This is one reason why I could never become a Jehovah’s Witness as the doctrine now stands.This religion teaches that the vast majority of those who die before Armageddon will receive a resurrection and have a fresh chance to accept the “truth” in the best possible conditions, with no Satanic interference and indeed in a situation where the doctrine is no longer a matter of belief at all. So maybe someone thought the story of Noah and the ark had to be obvious mythology, a Hebrew retelling of the Gilgamesh story, and therefore this person couldn’t accept the Bible as true in his first life? Well, here is Noah in person! And Shem, and Ham, and Japheth! And their wives, whose names weren’t interesting enough to even be mentioned in the Bible. Duly resurrected, all of ‘em!We also have once-again-living eyewitnesses to each and every miracle, indeed every event, mentioned in the Bible. Oh, here is Moses to confirm that he wrote the entire Pentateuch and that the “documentary theory” of the critics was total garbage dreamed up by academic eggheads. Incidentally, the resurrected Darwin has already recanted everything after long conversations with Abel, who was able to confirm that his parents Adam and Eve were absolutely real. (Those who have absorbed the wisdom of Watchtower literature will know that Mr. A and Ms. E themselves are not eligible for resurrection since they sinned in a perfect state. But hey, we do have Abel available to confirm that Mom and Dad were the real progenitors of the human race, and that no pesky apes entered the picture at any point.)Yeah, it’s pretty hard to cling to any doubts now, hm?But to have this wonderful opportunity to learn the “truth”, you must be dead before Armageddon strikes. Thus the door-knockers will tell people that they have a wonderful chance of seeing their dead loved ones again, never asking any questions about the moral standing of these dead ones, or whether they had the slightest interest in Watchtower doctrine before they passed. It really doesn’t matter. With only a few exceptions, like the first-century Pharisees that Jesus assigned to Gehenna in Matthew 23:33, they will all be back, like Arnold.(Sorry about the confusing pop-cultural reference to Arnold; it refers to certain action movies good Jehovah’s Witnesses obviously wouldn’t watch. Just ignore it and read on. It’s not important.)In fact, if Jehovah is serious about this ‘not wanting anyone to perish’ thing of 2 Peter 3:9, he should according to Watchtower doctrine arrange for some absolutely devastating world disaster before Armageddon, making sure that nearly everyone dies before the big bang. He would leave only a few absolutely incorrigible sociopaths alive to actually perish (forever!) in Armageddon proper. In that way, nearly everyone will be eligible for a resurrection, and they can come back to life and learn Watchtower doctrine in a world situation where its truth would be obvious to all the resurrected ones.Rather more convincing than uninvited guests turning up on people’s doorsteps, trying to hawk some wafer-thin magazines with lots of bullet points and pretty pictures.But no. Jehovah isn’t that smart. Or maybe he just prefers to roast all those billions of people with his fire-balls, because they miserably failed to understand that the One True Religion of the Endtimes was the faith founded by a pyramidologist in the late 1800s.Let us work this out. I tried to bring it up in a comment to one of Eugene Rideout’s answers where he talks about how wonderful it is that so many that are now dead will be resurrected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he just deleted my comment. It’s no use, Eugene. I’ll just repeat it here instead. In fact I may develop it into a nice little novella, for the enjoyment of Witness readers and any others who may be interested.Let’s imagine, say, two sisters. Even make them twins, to emphasize how similar they are. By normal standards, they are both perfectly decent and moral people. Like most people, neither one has the slightest interest in Watchtower doctrine. Then again, they have nothing very particular against the Witnesses either. Just plain not interested.One day, one of the sisters is hit by a bus and instantly killed.The next she knows, she opens her eyes in a rather nicely landscaped area with flowers, sunshine, smiling people and remarkably harmless leopards:Now this is rather confusing at first, but soon she is addressed by a small committee of people in colorful clothes.“Hi,” one of them says. “I’m Eugene, and here you have Ben, Jen and Sherryl. We are your designated minders and mentors. We are here to help you settle into your new life. All the newly resurrected receive such loving help.”RESURRECTED?!Her heart swells as she begins to grasp the magnitude of what is going on. I died in that bus accident, she realizes. But now I live again! Not really in heaven, for clearly I’m still a physical person and not a spirit. But hey, this looks like heaven on earth anyway …Her minders inform her that as a person who went through life ignorant of Jehovah’s Wonderful Purposes™, she has been resurrected from the dead into the lovely paradise God’s Kingdom has now established on earth! Here she can now learn the 100 % correct interpretation of the Bible, even converse with resurrected Bible characters if she so pleases, and if she reacts positively, she can live forever in this fabulous New System!Yes, it’s all so wonderful, isn’t it! Oh, what a loving God Jehovah must be, to give her this second chance, though she never even bothered to read Watchtower Magazine in her first life. Jehovah’s Witnesses, of all people, had the true religion! Who would have thought?It’s all so very wonderful … until she happens to ask one very specific question.“Where’s my sister?”For the first time, her appointed “minders” look slightly serious. Most of the time, people in this new world order seem to go around with their lips frozen in permanent smiles (actually rather Stepfordesque, now that she thinks of it).“Your sister … is not here.”“She isn’t?”“No.”Well, she thinks, maybe centuries have passed and my sister simply lived out her life in the old system… “She’s dead, like I was?”“Yes. She is dead.”“Oh no! I so wanted to share all this with her! But surely Jehovah will resurrect her, just like he resurrected me?”Awkward silence.For the first time since she awoke in this seemingly so very beautiful new world, she feels cold, even while standing in the apparently permanent sunshine. Something is wrong here …Finally, one of her minders says something, his face disturbingly hard. “I’m afraid your sister … is not in line for resurrection.”She feels a horrible emptiness growing inside her. “What?!”“Forget about her. She’s gone, forever. I’m sorry for your loss, but not for the fact that she is dead. Nor should you feel sorry, if you want to live on here. She was directly executed by Jehovah, so you are not to mourn her. By the way, I think I saw Aaron here a moment ago — he can tell you how Jehovah instructed him not to mourn after his sons Nadab and Abihu were executed for …”“I’m not interested in meeting Aaron!” she cries. “I want my sister! She’s been executed by Jehovah?! For what crime?! Why do I deserve to be here if she can’t be? What had she done? What was her sin?”“She … perished in Armageddon.”“Huh?!”“Listen, woman! Some eight months after that bus hit you and you died, the time for Jehovah’s judgment had come. If your sister had wanted to live, she should have joined Jehovah’s visible organization as a baptized member of the local congregation of Witnesses. But she didn’t, so she died. Consumed by a big fireball from the sky, most likely. Or maybe it was the giant hail that got her. Or maybe the flesh-eating plague that was predicted in Zechariah, chapter 14. Don’t worry — in any case she didn’t suffer particularly long. Then the birds ate her flesh. In short, she’s dead and not coming back. It’s perfectly just. How could it not be? It was God who did it!”Her forever-dead sister’s face seems to fill her entire field of consciousness, and yet she feels another question rising to her mind. An implication of unspeakable horror is hitting her.“All who were not Witnesses … died?”“Of course.”“Like … seven billion people including my sister?”Her minders seem little inclined to even answer. They look at her disapprovingly, as if she is a rude and ungrateful child. Apparently this just isn’t a proper subject of conversation in this new world, somewhat like Germans couldn’t openly discuss the Holocaust with Hitler in power.She looks again at all the lush vegetation around her, all the lovely sweet-smelling flowers with their endless variation in color, and for all their beauty she suddenly sees them in a quite different light. Seven billion people die, the birds eat their flesh, the birds shite fertilizer …But she can’t visualize seven billion dead people. She can only visualize her sister.Suddenly loud sobs are rising from deep inside her. And yet through her tears she tries to voice some kind of feeble protest against the horror and injustice hiding right beneath the lovely surface of this place. Slowly her voice regains strength, though it is the strength of desperation.“B-but … how can this be just? There is like, zero chance that I would have joined the Witnesses in the few months that remained before Armageddon. Our family wasn’t religious at all. Are you really telling me that the sole reason I’m here is that I happened to be hit by a bus, and my sister is dead forever because she unfortunately was not killed in some accident and so died in Armageddon itself?! How am I any better that my sister, so that I deserve to be here? How was she any worse than me, so that she deserved to die horribly and be left in eternal death? Are pure accidents like this going to decide who can live forever in bliss and who are just murdered by God with no resurrection, ever? Is this divine justice? Is this the best Jehovah can do?”The once-welcoming faces of her minders have become hard and cold. Their smiles are gone. Clearly she is not reacting the way she is supposed to.“Listen very carefully, young lady!” their apparent leader says, enunciating extremely distinctly. “You should appreciate that you are very fortunate to be here. As you say, there is every reason to think that the fatal bus accident was all that saved you from perishing in Armageddon: One with the independent and fault-finding attitude you are displaying is most unlikely to have accepted the truth of the Bible in time. So be very glad that you are here now, with the opportunity to develop the meek and humble spirit that is especially fitting for women anyway, and stop whining about your sister who so very justly and rightly died in Armageddon, executed by God himself. The way you are talking, you are questioning Jehovah’s justice, and that is totally unacceptable here in the New System. Do you understand that?”The horror she feels just deepens. Oh my God, she thinks, oh my God! And then she understands that even that phrase is meaningless now. She feels a cosmic, existential angst unlike anything she has ever experienced in either her former life or the minutes she has been here.What do you do, where do you turn, as a puny human being when it turns out that God himself is totally unreasonable? When his “justice” is a complete travesty? When his big project is apparently to create some kind of global reservation where pet-like humans will be kept alive forever just to boost his ego by unreservedly singing his praises no matter how bizarrely he behaves?She can’t help herself. She just can’t swallow it.These would-be minders of hers are apparently so brainwashed, or indifferent, that they will indeed swallow anything and still declare that Jehovah is just and righteous. But she herself can’t. She just can’t.“How can this be just?” she repeats — desperately, helplessly. “How can you expect me to love a God who has killed my sister for no other reason than that she was alive at the wrong time? How can the difference between eternal death and the option of eternal life come down to being hit by a bus before Armageddon struck?”Every last trace of friendliness is gone from the faces of her minders. Their eyes have become cold and contemptful. She suddenly has the impression that they now regard her as little more than a disgusting insect. They take some steps backward.“You have made your choice,” their leader says, his voice steady with the chilling calm of the absolutely self-righteous. “Go be with your confounded sister, then!”The weirdest feeling creeps up through her legs and into her torso and arms. She looks down and sees the skin on her arms beginning to peel off, fast returning to dry, dead earth …The last words she hears before her ears and her brain crumble to dust are full of disdain: “Well, Jehovah gave her the chance! What an ungrateful person! Good thing she revealed her independent and fault-finding spirit right away. I’m so glad we didn’t need to have her around until the final test at the end of the thousand years, when she would obviously have been weeded out anyway!”The End …… but don’t worry, those who were more able to adjust their ideas about justice to Jehovah’s supreme standards went right on towards eternity, every day enjoying the delicious fruits and wonderful flowers of their, uhm, well-fertilized global garden.This point I try to raise in this little novella of mine is to my mind one of the chief absurdies of Watchtowerism in its current form. There can be no doubt that the doctrine presupposes that those who (by sheer accident of birth-date) are alive when Armageddon comes are mysteriously to be judged infinitely more harshly than those who die before the big A. If you are just dead beforehand, you will normally be resurrected.In some cases, a random fatal accident shortly before Armageddon would thus be your ticket to paradise. Time and unexpected events overtake them all, right? (Ecclesiastes 9:11, Silver Sword NWT) Thus mere undirected happenstance — dumb coincidence — would make a person eligible for resurrection on paradise Earth.On the other hand, those unlucky enough to live on until Armageddon would be killed by God, forever. Some, like the poor resurrectee in our little story, would find it very hard to understand why their near and dear ones are now killed off forever solely because they didn’t happen to die in time.This would not affect just a few individuals. The entire last generation that generally had time to die off before Armageddon would come back only to learn that their children are gone forever, not because they were inherently any “worse” than all previous generations, but because Jehovah is simply clinging to the irrational principle that all those he personally killed in Armageddon will never be resurrected. Justice, shustice!Imagine an entire generation desperately screaming to heaven: “WHY, Jehovah? Why did you have to kill our children forever? How were they any worse than ourselves, or all other generations? If you really had to kill them to start building a new system with only your worshippers present at first, can’t you at least resurrect them further down the line, like you gradually resurrected almost everyone else who lived and died down the ages?”And a thundering voice from heaven answers: “I make the rules here, folks! Shut up, love me and enjoy the scenery, or return to the dust forever!”There are several obvious “solutions” to this absurd point of Watchtower doctrine. One solution would be to revise the doctrine so that the impression the writers often try to give becomes the actual teaching: Those who die in Armageddon are the wicked — the real wicked, not simply “non-Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Absolutely incorrigible sociopaths beyond all hope of reform are killed off, everyone else stays. In this scenario, the vast majority of humans would survive Armageddon, just like Witnesses expect the vast majority of all previous generations to be resurrected.Alternatively, all but the Witnesses are indeed killed off in Armageddon, so that the New World can be built around a orginal core of already-devoted believers and expand from there. However, those killed in Armageddon are later judged by exactly the same standards as those that happened to die for other reasons earlier. Again, if the vast majority of previous generations are resurrected, we must except that the great majority of Armageddon victims would also be back when the turn came to that final generation of the old system. (Watchtower literature suggests that the dead will be gradually resurrected, likely generation by generation, so as not to swamp the New System with the sudden arrival of untrained, unbelieving billions.)Yes, both of these solutions could work, and would suddenly make Watchtower doctrine far more reasonable.But I fear no such “new light” will be glinting in the offices of the Governing Body. A recruiting apocalyptic movement needs a threat to dangle over the heads of people. In these alternative eschatological scenarios, even the present generation would have every prospect of sooner or later experiencing Paradise Earth. There they could learn the truth of the Witness religion, even in the presence of resurrected Bible characters, as outlined above.But … then the bottom falls out of the entire system! Why should people become Jehovah’s Witnesses now? Why not just wait and see, since if this religion is true, you would eventually have the chance of salvation under the best possible circumstances — indeed when you can see the chief claims of this faith confirmed with your own eyes?No, this won’t work. So therefore, and only therefore, this religion needs those who die in Armageddon to stay dead forever.Don’t tell me that “this is just what the Bible teaches”. In fact, the Bible teaches extremely little about Armageddon, and what very little it does say is mostly regarded as symbolical by the Watchtower. In fact, the one paragraph that mentions Armageddon (in Revelation 16) seems only tangentially connected to the elaborate ideas set forth in Watchtower literature, and this Bible text certainly does not say that this is a great battle where God kills all non-believers forever. In fact, the Bible text only speaks of the kings of the earth gathering for a battle at Armageddon (a place), and then leaves it most unclear whether any battle even occurs. We go on with further plagues in the next chapters, including things that according to Watchtowerism should already have taken place before the all-comprehensive slaughter of non-believers, such as the “judgment of the great harlot” (the elimination of false religion, in the Watchtower interpretation).For all the frantic talk of this movement that “we are the only religion to base everything we teach on the Bible”, many of the Watchtower interpretations and applications seem quite random. This especially applies to the eschatological scenario, so all-important for an apocalyptic movement.Surely the Bible text never says that Armageddon is when God kills everybody who doesn’t believe, forever. It seems to be just one event in the long catalogue of plagues and torments set out in Revelation. But in the vision of the Great White Throne in chapter 20, we get the distinct impression that everybody, without exception, will at one point be resurrected and judged. Then they go into the Lake of Fire if their names are not written in the Book of Life. (And in the Bible, this comes after the millennial reign of Christ, despite a pretty pathetic attempt in Revelation — Its Grand Climax at Hand! to garble the chronology so that this event can take place during the millennium instead.)I’ll generally leave Bible interpretation to the believers. But it seems clear to me that even the Watchtower claim that their interpretation is uniquely sound and well-founded on the Bible text is more than dubious. Jehovah’s Witnesses have simply developed their own tradition of interpretation, and like every church and school in “Christendom” they have reached the point where they often can’t tell their own interpretation apart from “Christianity” or “the Bible” as such.Perhaps it is time for me to conclude my rambling epistle, its word count already well exceeding Paul’s letter to the Romans. I hope you have sort of enjoyed my reflections on Jehovah’s Witnesses, this curious movement I have been observing for three decades — without hatred, but also without the slightest inclination to ever join.