Comments from the Friends - Online Edition - April-June 1998

[new paperback covers of WT KNOWLEDGE book and THE BIBLE book]

NEW
COVERS
adorn
Jehovah's
Witness
books

<< New paperback editions of two Watchtower books as pictured on the back of the December 8, 1997 Awake! magazine

THE SWITCH to full-color glossy paperback covers was announced at Brooklyn Bethel headquarters in December 1996, and we first reported it in the Spring 1997 issue of Comments from the Friends.

But we have yet to see an actual copy of one of the new softcovered Watchtower books. Those depicted here—the 1989 book The Bible: God's Word or Man's? and the 1995 release Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life—are shown as they appear on the back of the December 8, 1997 Awake! magazine. (The magazine features this illustration with a brief story of a man converted through a study of these books. Awake! fails to mention that the covers are new or that the man studied an earlier hardbound edition of each.)

Have any of the teachings of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society been changed in the new paperback editions? That remains to be seen. But the new volumes will certainly receive close scrutiny.

Why? Because the Watchtower Society has a long history of revising doctrines in revised editions of its books and periodicals. Our own book Jehovah's Witness Literature: A Critical Guide to Watchtower Publications traces that history, book by book, over more than a hundred years of changes. For example, it tells how revised editions of Thy Kingdom Come changed prophetic dates and changed a measurement in the Great Pyramid from 3416 inches to 3457 inches to make the year-for-an-inch dating agree.

Our Jehovah's Witness Literature book also points out changes in the illustrations and text of You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth among various editions from 1982 through 1989—with earlier editions indicating on pages 178-179 that the men of ancient Sodom would be resurrected, and then the 1989 edition reversing this (actually just the latest in a series of back-and-forth flip-flops on this question).

[Flip-flop on MINISTERS reflected in KINGDOM MINISTRY name changes 1975-1982]

My wife and I were active Witnesses when the January 1982 Our Kingdom Ministry came out—dropping the Our Kingdom Service name that had been adopted in 1976 and restoring the word Ministry. But we remembered that the switch from ministry to service was an important "new truth" in 1976; now going back to the previous point of view was introduced as a "new truth." We recognized it as an old error and, after examining a lot of other evidence, soon left "the truth" (so-called).

This illustration from Jehovah's Witnesses—Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (page 247) covers up the doctrinal flip-flop by leaving out the 1956-1982 name changes

[Flip-flop covered up in illustration, PROCLAIMERS page 247]

Jehovah's Witnesses usually need to see this sort of evidence—showing the Watchtower Society's dishonesty and unreliability—before they can begin to question and re-examine the organization's doctrinal teachings in the light of Scripture.

Jesus said, "For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." (Matthew 12:37 NIV) We are not the ones to acquit or condemn Watchtower leaders in the Judgment, but we can examine their words to decide whether or not to throw in our lot with them in this world. After all, it is dangerous to follow a false prophet: "the punishment of the prophet and the punishment of the inquirer shall be alike." (Ezekiel 14:10 RSV).

Due to their usefulness in documenting the Watchtower "prophet"'s words, I continue to "place" old publications—copies donated to this ministry to help with our support.

AntiqBooks is the name of our new online antiquarian bookstore offering "old light" that sheds light on the Witnesses' "new light." You can find it at on the Internet at:

http://AntiqBooks.ww7.com

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