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Emphasis of the Watch Tower by Glen James | |||||
 Printer Friendly Version - opens in separate window February 10, 2003 - First RevisionFOREWORD The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society claims to be a Bible-based religion, but is it? Yes, the Bible is used frequently at meetings and studies, but what is being emphasised today and has this emphasis changed over the last 120 years? If the more benign Bible references of Russell have now morphed to support the strict legalism of today, how can we measure that? My hypothesis is that only a small percentage of Scriptures are used to support this changing Watchtower thinking. My proposal is to identify a number of Key Scriptures and Key Words used in the Watchtower magazines and compare the relative usage rates during Russell's time, by searching the CD of that era, and compare that relative rate to the Watchtower's 1999 CD of Watchtower magazines. What I do want to do is make sure is that I am including in the searches Scriptures and Key Words that accurately reflect Watch Tower emphasis, then and now. Your help in providing a good range is requested. Please email me your suggestions. In the meantime please take a look at the following article to get a sense of what Russell emphasised in the (Zion's') Watch Tower magazines from 1879 until his death in 1916. I believe the benefit of this project is to show to
the concerned Bible Student that statistically the Watch Tower Bible
and Tract Society has changed its emphasis. It appears to have even
deceived its adherents by using Scripture to propagate and support changes
in Watchtower doctrine over many years. The 'Present Truth' of Charles
Taze Russell is substantially different to that of the Governing Body
of Jehovah's Witnesses today. Changes and apparent manipulation of Bible
texts has, I believe, created a totalitarian society of Orwellian proportions.
As lovers of statistics and numbers I would expect the Watchtower Society
to be interested in an analysis of this sort, whereby only its own publications
are used. POSITION STATEMENT Although the Watch Tower Society (WTS) has always claimed to be a Bible-based religion, the reality is that only a very small % of scriptures have been emphasised in Watchtower study articles that currently support the unique beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses. Although we all would like to think we were conducting "Bible Studies," the reality is these were Watchtower publication studies. The Watchtower magazine itself has become the regular study publication of six million Jehovah's Witnesses. No other study is given this much attention; the runner up would be the mid-week Book Study, using another publication of the Society. About 40% pre-study/read the Watchtower and another 40% read along with it at the Sunday meeting, including the public question and answer session. Four million Jehovah's Witnesses read or re-read these articles each and every week. It is from these pages that the Society's doctrine is propagated and inculcated. Taking the 80/20 rule the maths goes like this: The "80/20 Rule", also known as the Pareto Principle, illustrates that the minority of inputs produce the majority of results. (Such as, 20% of customers produce 80% of sales) Total Bible verses (approx.) 31,500
= 100% Total Used in Watchtower magazines … X 20% =
6,300 = 20% of total To back this up supposition, I added up the number of verses in the 44 sections of the "Bible Topics for Discussion" at the back of the 1984 New World Translation (NWT) and came up with 1,300 verses. There were many doubles (same scriptures to support differing items). And some "control oriented" scriptures were missing. To me a classic example of this would be 1 Corinthians 15:33, where Evil Communication/Companionship has morphed into Bad Association - Russell's magazines had just two entries for this verse in 38 years! All would understand and agree with avoiding Evil Companionship, but with Bad Association the touch of the typewriter determines what is and what is not "bad association." This is about the only scripture my daughter remembers word for word. To her all worldly people were bad association, after all that's about what she was taught. In roughly totalling up the "Bible Words Indexed" in the NWT I came up with approximately 23,000 verses, many used over and over again. However, as a mini-concordance I would expect more Bible verses than generally used in the Watchtower magazine itself. I am going to have to "proof" my "6,300 verses used in the Watchtower magazine" hypothesis another way. INITIAL SCRIPTURE AND KEY WORD SEARCH For now, let's say this reasoning holds water. I searched for 32 scriptures and 71 key words in the Berean Bible Studies in the (Zion) Watch Towers in the 38 years from 1879-1916 and looked at the relative positions rather than the numerical absolutes. Early Watchtower writers were not as prolific in loading scriptures into the magazine as Fred Franz was. Often the Scriptures were summarised or quoted instead and there is generally something about it in Russell's other works, notably the well distributed, six volumes in his Studies in the Scriptures. Since his works were still seen as 'Present Truth,' they were always current. (See APPENDIX#2 for full list). First, I picked 32 Scriptures that I remembered. I will compare this list, as well as the others following, with the current Watch Tower CD (1999's) later. The current CD does not sort the same way, so I will look at it relatively. I will use exactly the same scriptures and key words and I'll compare them against Russell's to determine a rational trend. In short, the 38 years of Watchtowers, published and authored in most cases by Charles Taze Russell himself, show that there was much said in the magazine about Russell's prophecies and his 'Truth', and the preaching of the Good News. Interesting, the preaching work was to be over in 1914 at the end of the Harvest Age. Standard Christian scriptures top the list. TOP FIVE (most Watch Tower
magazine entries) John 3:16 God gave only begotten son The Scriptures that I recalled that had one entry between them in the Search Results that reinforces the loyal publisher to respect blood, the elders, the organisation and the door-to-door ministry - just ONE entry between them. BOTTOM FIVE (numbers 2-5 with
zero entries) Acts 6:3 Organisation (seven able men) APPENDIX#1 is a similar search using key words instead. I used 71 words or phrases that came to mind. So here is the top 10 and bottom 17. Once again there are many references to Russell's other works, including an interesting list in "What Pastor Russell Said." It's quite clear the 'consecrated' relied on his every word - as Witnesses do today respecting the Society, the current faithful and discreet slave. Do bear in mind however that Victorian English is quite different than today's. At the top of the list, the consecrated Christian in Russell's 'Truth' gets the most discussion. Note that the derogatory term "worldly" gets its start with Russell, so too "new order" and the Great Pyramid was popular. TOP TEN Consecration ("little flock's" dedication) BOTTOM SEVENTEEN (0 entries
for each) True religion WHAT THEN IS THE CONCLUSION? Nothing at this time, as I need to keep sorting through the same references from the current Watch Tower CD. My initial hypothesis still seems reasonable. I would like a critical review to make sure I have the most reasonable selection of key words and Scriptures to show that the Watch Tower Society has continued to move away from being a Bible-based religion by concentrating on just 1% of the available Scriptures. In turn this emphasis has moved from a more benign form under Russell through the legalism of Rutherford, the organisation of Knorr, and the insensitive dogma of Franz that keeps its rank and file members under control going nowhere, waiting for God. APPENDIX #1 Rank Key Word (1879-1916) No. of
Entries APPENDIX #2 Rank Scripture Scriptural Principle # of entries in Watch Towers (1879-1916) If the reader would like to proof the math by doing his own Search I would greatly appreciate the help and another set of eyes. Please send any additional key words and scripture. Thank you. If you would like the data file, which is in Microsoft Excel, please let me know. A COUPLE OF EARLY OBSERVATIONS IN SORTING THE SAME KEY WORDS AND SCRIPTURES IN THE WTBTS' 1999 CD (largely comparing 1993-99 rates against 1950-92 rates) Traditional Christian scriptures, such as John 1:1,
are lower on the list than in Russell's day Well, that's it for now.
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