Temporary post ...

I think that it's time to post my Introductory Essay for volume 2. It is partial, incomplete, in rough draft, and a work in progress. It will displease a few of our readers, but understand it will change. Make your comments now, because this will not be up long.

Preface One – By R. M. de Vienne

            It’s taken longer to write this volume of Separate Identity than we anticipated, but as with the two previous books, few of our expectations have stood up under the light of better research. We believed that a second volume would complete our research. It has not done so. There will be, assuming we live long enough to complete it, a third and final volume. 

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Make sense, please ...

If you use the contact form, please write in English and in a fashion we can understand. If we have questions about what you write, we cannot ask them if you do not include your email.

We recently received a message from someone in the Netherlands to which we cannot respond, and the content of which is unclear. If you sent that and want a response, recontact us with your proper email. Omit a link to your blog. We have that. It is not something to which we will contribute, and if that's what you're asking the answer is no.

So ...

I have a backlog of emails and blog comments to answer. It will be a few days. In the mean time, in response to a request by another writer, I've complied this list. This is from my email to him. I do not know how useful this is, but some of you may be interested:

Hi, 

You asked if I could add to your bibliography. I'm not certain if you will find these useful. While I've read them all, some of them are full of nonsense or are refutations. Some are outside the era we're writing about. But herewith is a list of theses and dissertations I've consulted while writing the current work:

Dissertations and Theses

 

 

Miquel Angel Plaza-Navas: Música y Testigos Cristianos de Jehová, 2013.

 

Giovanna Muir: Fear Inspiring Faith: A Rhetorical Analysis of Watchtower and Awake! Oregon State University, 2009.

 

Douglas Edward Cowan: 'Bearing False Witness’: Propaganda, Reality-Maintenance, and Christian Anticult Apologetics, University of Calgary, 1999.

 

Jose Carlos Ramos: A People Waiting for Salvation: a Biblical Evaluation of Watchtower Christology and Soteriology With Suggested Strategies for the Evangelization of Jehovah's Witnesses, Andrews University, 1984.

 

Bart Leu: A Search for the Christology of the Jehovah's Witnesses as Interpreted Through its Historical Development, Asbury Theological Seminary, 1992.

 

Julia Gutgsell: 'A Loving Provision’? How Former Jehovah’s Witnesses Experience Shunning Practices, Vrije University, Belgium, 2017.

 

Kenneth J. Baumgarten: A Critique of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures Treatment of Nine Texts Employing ΘΕΌΣ  in Reference to Jesus Christ, South African Theological Seminary, 2007.

 

David Leslie Bridges: The Unique Beliefs of the Jehovah’s Witnesses: An Anglican Perspective, School of Theology of the University of the South, 2015.

 

Lucas Nathaniel Butler: Trusting the Faithful and Discreet Slave: A Critique of the Authority of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2014.

 

Robert S. Rutherfurd: Cases of Conscience: The Supreme Court and Conscientious Objectors to Military Service During the Post World War II Era, University of Montana, 2015.

 

Chisenga Cecilia: An Evaluation of the Literacy Programme Offered by the Church: A Case of Selected Jehovah’s Witness Congregations in Chongew District in Zambia, University of Zambia, 2013.

 

Gene Edson Ahlstrom: The Church in the Thought of Charles Taze Russell, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1990.

 

William H. Cumberland: A History of Jehovah’s Witnesses, University of Iowa, 1958.

 

Foster Kamanga: Experiences of Religious Minorities in Public High Schools in the Pioneer Valley: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2016.

 

Klaus V. Lottes: Jehovah’s Witnesses: A Contemporary Sectarian Community, McMaster University, 1972.

 

Jena Barchas-Lichtenstein: "When the dead are resurrected, how are we going to speak to them?": Jehovah's Witnesses and the Use of Indigenous Languages in the Globalizing Textual Community, University of California at Los Angeles, 2013.

 

Youngoh Jung: The History of Conscientious Objection and the Normalization of Universal Male Conscription in South Korean Society, University of Toronto, 2014.

 

Phillip Gray: A Research Paper on the Major Doctrines and Doomsday Apocalypticism of the Watchtower Organization, (Originally submitted as a Research Paper for Erskine Theological Seminary’s SD 630 The Book of Revelation and Modern Apocalypticism under Dr. Loyd Melton, September of 1997.)

 

Åke Strom: Jehovah's Witnesses' Three Periods [While I have this and have read it, I have no publication or submission details.]

 

Aleksander Limit: Evangelists in a Secular Environment: Jehovah’s Witnesses in Tartu, University of Tartu, 2017.

 

Susanne Kuipers: Loyal to Jehovah’s Good News: Religious motivation among Jehovah’s Witnesses, Leiden University, 2015.

 

Timothy Richter: The Last Days: An interpretive history of Watch Tower Eschatology, and its Impact on Jehovah's Witness Social Attitudes, University of South Australia, 2000.

 

James LeRoy Stasko: Radio Broadcasting as Used by Jehovah’s Witnesses, Boston University, 1947.

 

Elena Sorchiotti: The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society: How Jehovah’s Witnesses denounced and resisted the Nazi regime, James Madison University, 2016.

If you ...

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Can we confirm this at all?

I'm working on my intro essay for volume 2 of Separate Identity. An interview with a long-serving Witness elder has led me to this quest. Sometime between January 1965 and December 1967 The Watchtower's American edition contained an article on marriage specific to Caribbean islands. It was not meant for the American edition and after it was spotted was replaced by another article for the American and international editions. I'm told very few copies circulated.

Do any of you have any details. I cannot use this as is. It's interesting, and if accurate it is illustrative. But until I can trace this down, I cannot use it. Anyone?

A very temporary post ... It will come down monday if not sooner.

Comment now. Usual rules. You've seen bits of this before. Some new material.

Evangelical Voice

            Personal evangelism was characteristic of the age especially among millennialist groups. Belief in Christ’s near return meant that spreading the message was urgent. The New Testament suggests that Christians share that message, and millennialists saw doing so as an imperative obligation. Millennialst belief was widely spread in Churches, even when the pastor rejected it. Believers were susceptible to the message, no less so to the Watch Tower message. Post Civil War, American churches reached a fragile peace among themselves with a tacit agreement, not always observed, to not criticize each other. Millennialists, including Watch Tower adherents, felt free, even obligated, to criticize the lack of moral and scriptural adherence among the denominations. Clergy reacted strongly and negatively, but “imminence has meant that the individual must be ever-vigilant for the Lord’s return.”[1] This, in turn, meant that they would share their beliefs and expectations.

       
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Malcom in the Manna

Mike C who has around 38 copies of Daily Heavenly Manna at last counting, kindly found me the signature of Malcom Rutherford, the only son of J F Rutherford.

The date of the entry is November 10.

A closer look at the four signatures in this copy has Malcom's as the fourth.

We can try and enhance the signature to make it more readable as the ink has faded.

You can now see he has signed as M C Rutherford, Boonville, '92.

What we don't know is what year he signed the Manna, but he was an active Bible Student from the time his father and mother became Bible Students up to at least 1918 when he wrote a letter to the St Paul Enterprise.

If any new readers stumble across this and want more information on Malcom's history they should use the search facility on this blog to access earlier articles on him. Be warned that you need to spell his name as "Malcom" in the search box not "Malcolm."

Do you know

Do you know who wrote Jehovah's Witnesses in the Divine Purpose?

The author was Harry Peloyan, a member of the NY Bethel family and a Gilead instructor. Another source gives us John Wischuck as author. Since Watchtower books are written by committees, both may be correct.