Ann O'Maly

Ah, I see you've read this article too:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/
It's definitely worth reading. I saved it to my computer a couple of years ago.
There's another factor to this debate: Jesus was the Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). Wouldn't it undermine the symbolism if Jesus was sacrificed after Passover?
Also consider:
John 18:28 - "Then they led Jesus from Caʹia·phas to the governor’s residence. It was now early in the morning. But they themselves did not enter into the governor’s residence, so that they would not get defiled but could eat the Passover."
But surely they would have already eaten Passover at the same time Jesus and his disciples did? 
 
 

Very interesting EOIN , Instead of answering with a yes or no (like a Christian), you chose to answer like a Greek philosopher?
Anyway...
According to John, Jesus died before the festival began at sundown...the “day of Preparation for the Passover” (John 19:14).
So my question still stands. Maybe Jesus made the memorial with unleavened bread...
Please take in consideration that when Jesus gave Judas to eat.. gave him bread  after he had dipped it (John 13:26). For those who know about  matzot, they know also that there is no reason to dip a bread like this, because they cannot absorb moisture by dipping. they need many time in order to absorb liquids.

Also,while the narrative in the synoptics situates the Last Supper during Passover, the fact 
remains that the only foods we are told the disciples ate are bread and wine the basic elements of any formal Jewish meal. If this was a Passover meal, where is the Passover lamb? Where are the bitter herbs? Where are the four cups of wine?

No, the first full Passover day is April 11.
There must be something really basic I'm overlooking ...
 

Yes, the Memorial is on April 11, 2017, but Passover is listed by multiple sources as beginning sunset April 10, which I can't find a reason for if the new crescent is first visible in Jerusalem on March 29.

Don't forget that the Jews are counting lunar months (29 or 30 days long each month). JWs are counting Gregorian calendar months (28/29 or 30 or 31 days long) and just pay attention to the lunar cycle for one month only - for calculating their equivalent of Nisan 14. The timing of the (approximate) full moon after the spring equinox serves to offset any major drift between the JW method and the Jewish one - about a month's difference at worst. 

Giannis has piqued my curiosity about the 2017 Passover. Why April 10? By my reckoning, that would be Nisan 13. Hmm.

There are lots of better places to get the full explanation, but here goes another attempt. Here's our typical expectation of the range of dates involved.
*** km 12/76 p. 3 Announcements ***
For future reference, you may wish to keep a record of local sunset times for the period of March 22 through April 19, 1977, since Memorial always falls within this period.
It's actually possible for this range to be expanded from March 21 through April 21 (although the one time we celebrated on March 20, 1932 we were not using our own criteria correctly). The Watchtower has determined dates outside of the range (1976 km) on five different occasions.
In 1948, the Watchtower said:
"1948 Memorial Date -   The date for celebrating the annual Memorial of Christ's death . . . is Nisan 14. . . . The Watch Tower Society calculates this according to the first new moon that falls nearest to the spring equinox, whether before it or after it. We do not follow strictly the fixed Jewish schedule of 7 intercalary months for every 19 year period."
In reality, this is about the same thing as saying the first FULL moon AFTER the vernal equinox, because the closest new moon to March 20/21 will result in a full moon observed about 13 to 15 days later. Therefore, we use the following method:
*** w76 2/1 p. 73 “Keep Doing This in Remembrance of Me” ***
According to our present method of calculation, the Memorial date approximates the nearest full moon after the spring equinox.
For easy calculation, let's say the equinox is always on 3/20 or 3/21, and you are looking for the nearest NEW moon before or after. You could get a new moon on 3/7 it could be slightly closer to 3/20 (13 days) than if the new moon was on 4/3 (14 days) after the equinox. Therefore, adding about 14 days to 3/7 gives us the earliest possible Memorial 3/21. For the latest possible Memorial, let's assume the equinox is on 3/21 that year, and the nearest new moon was determined to be 4/5. Adding 15 days to 4/5 could result in about the latest Memorial on 4/20.
Although our range for Nisan 14 is therefore 3/21 to 4/20, the Jewish Passover (Nisan 15) is celebrated between 3/26 and 4/30. Adjusting the Jewish calendar's range to Nisan 14 would mean 3/25 to 4/29. But that is still a range of about 35 days instead of 30 days. The reason is the timing of the leap-month, Adar II, (second Adar or Ve-Adar). The 1948 Watchtower said that we do not strictly follow the fixed Jewish schedule of 7 intercalary months for every 19 year period.
Of course, we actually do add 7 intercalary months for every 19 year period, but we don't do it on the same schedule the Jewish calendar uses. We did this until 1929, not necessarily by calculating it ourselves, but by watching what they used and subtracting a day or two for Nisan 14. But since 1929, we follow the same schedule that is used for determining the Easter season.
Easter Sunday generally falls on the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon (i.e., the first full moon of Spring in the northern hemisphere, or the first full moon occurring after the date of the vernal equinox).
In 1929, 1932, 1948, 1951, 1959, 1967, 1970, 1978, 1986, 1989, 1997, 2002, 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2016 this method would result in being about 30 days ahead of the Jewish Passover season in each of those years. That's because the Jewish calendar added the leap-month in that very year, but we, in effect, followed a calendar that added it in the next year. This means that each of the years mentioned were the only years in that period where Easter and Passover were not aligned. Nisan 14 was 30 days earlier using the "Easter" calendar.
In every case, we followed the "Easter" calendar. (Not because it was "Easter" but because we use the same method.)
From the time of the first Watchtower in 1879, the only possible exceptions between Easter season and Passover season were in 1883, 1894, 1902, 1910, 1913, and 1921. (Easter and Passover were also about 30 days apart in those years.) In every one of those cases we did exactly the opposite. We always chose to follow the Jewish calendar for Passover.
In other words, in every year from 1880 to 1928 we always held Memorial within 3 days of the Jewish Passover. In every year from 1929 until now, including 2016 we have always held Memorial within the 8 day period prior to Easter.
 

Amendment was posted to that quote:
Adjustment in italics. Thanks Ann O'Maly

It's a good point that all Memorial dates are calculated in advance and are not based on actual observation ... which makes it more puzzling that the Org's choice of time for theoretical new crescent visibility is sometimes at variance with that of many (dare I say, 'most'?) other astronomical programs' calculations. And if anyone should know when the new lunar month ought to begin, it should be the Jews, right?
Also, picking full moon is no guarantee of hitting on the 14th day of the lunar month. Because of the nature of the Moon's orbit, full moon can occur any time from the 13th to 16th day. 

But Giannis is asking why a person, who was disfellowshipped for having a kidney transplant, should repent of something that the Org. no longer believed was wrong. 

I see that the link was already shared. So as not to be misunderstood, contributions to that topic, including my own post, were not stating anything about how the "Society" calculates the the date of the Memorial. Most of the responses on that post dealt with the issue of being within one or two days in front of the Jewish Passover, and a discussion of whether or not Memorial could be scripturally interpreted as Nisan 15 instead of Nisan 14. There were some speculatory reasons that one might consider as to why the date for the Memorial could be a day or two off, but I don't think such reasons were ever taken into account by the "Society."  Those speculations are implied by some of the statements made in the Watchtower, but I don't believe they have ever been invoked -- especially not weather related visibility issues for the "new moon." This was not well explained, and if I still can, I might go back and edit that old post to make it clearer.
This question being discussed now is a bit different, anyway. It is about being one MONTH off from the Jewish Passover. Here, again, I think I was just throwing out some general ideas to offer a background to the reasons the lunar calendar needs adjustment to the solar calendar. The exact adjustments that are usually made, and formalized, include different methods from the ones I mentioned. I was speaking of the kinds of adjustments that we might make to the lunar calendar, including some leap days and leap months, that we, as JWs, could make, because we are not under the same constraints as the Jews are. (For example, certain months are sometimes given a leap day (or not) just so that the Passover can only fall on only one of 4 different options for allowable days of the week. (This is because there are certain activities within the several days of the Passover holiday season that can't fall on a Sabbath.) As JWs we could ignore some of these restrictions and make a much simpler determination of Nisan 14 through observation of the solar March equinox, and the determination of either the first full moon after that equinox or the one closest to that equinox.
In fact, however, even though the Watch Tower publications have mentioned some of the ideas I mentioned, they have never been factored in like that. If you were to look at the longest explanations about calculating the date (i.e., 1909, 1929, 1948, 1976, 2014, etc) you might think that observation had something to do with the date. In fact the dates were determined MONTHS in advance. Even the April 1976 date was already determined in print, and rolling off the presses in December 1975 (in the January 1976 km). Since the 1930's, the Watchtower usually printed the date 3 or 4 months in advance. The 2014 date, even though it was wrong, had already been determined in December 2012 in the Kingdom Ministry announcements.
*** km 12/12 p. 8 Announcements *** [2012]
The Memorial for 2014 will be on Monday, April 14.
*** w76 2/1 p. 73 “Keep Doing This in Remembrance of Me” ***
The modern Jewish calendar determines the beginning of their month of Nisan by the astronomical new moon. However, usually it is eighteen hours or more later when the first sliver of the crescent of the new moon becomes visible in Jerusalem. Each year, in recent times, the governing body of Jehovah’s witnesses has determined the actual new moon that becomes visible in Jerusalem, which is the way the first of Nisan was determined in Biblical times. For this reason often there has been a difference of a day or two between the Memorial date of Jehovah’s witnesses and the Nisan 14 date according to the modern Jewish calendar.
According to our present method of calculation, the Memorial date approximates the nearest full moon after the spring equinox. . . . .The date for Memorial in 1976, calculated by our present method, falls on Wednesday, April 14, after sundown.
 
The issue in this question is about when it might be appropriate to add the "leap-month" to a different year than the Jewish custom might have chosen, either through an adjustment to the metonic cycle, or a calculation that makes sure Nisan 14/15 is either the first full moon after the spring equinox (or one that makes sure it is the one closest to the spring equinox. The only thing I believe we have ever done in this regard is, since 1929, to accept the earlier adjustment to the metonic cycle than the one that Jewish custom accepts.
Most of the time "Easter season" is within a week (between 1 and 8 days) of "Passover season."
This might surprise everyone, but as it turns out, we (WTS) ALWAYS accept an early "leap-month" when it will put our Memorial back in line with the Easter season and therefore a month prior to the Passover season. We ALWAYS reject the timing of the Jewish "leap-month" when it would put our Memorial in line ONLY with the Jewish Passover season. 
In other words, whenever Easter and Passover are NOT within a week of each other, they are about one month apart. Our calculation method means that we have NEVER missed putting our Memorial in the Easter season since 1929. Furthermore, prior to 1929, we ALWAYS matched Memorial to the Jewish Passover, 100% of the time, INSTEAD of choosing the Easter season, when Easter and Passover were not the same. 
There was ALMOST one exception. In 1913 (prior to 1929) we accidentally made a big mistake, where I think it's fairly obvious that we intended to match the date to the Jewish Passover season. We never matched it to Easter, instead, when we had the chance to choose. That  which was our custom every year for the prior 30 years. But we got the month wrong in 1913, and ended up having a Memorial that was even outside of the possible range of either Easter or Passover. 1913 was one of the earliest possible Easter dates that only comes around every hundred years or so, and we chose a date even prior to that.  It apparently fell on about Adar 12, instead of Nisan 14. The next month, the Watchtower printed a new date for the Memorial -- April 20, instead of March 20. The article said that if you already celebrated last month, you can go ahead and celebrate it again.
 

*** w13 12/15 p. 23 ‘Do This in Remembrance of Me’ ***

MEMORIAL 2014

  "The moon circles our earth each month. In the course of each cycle, there is a moment when the moon lines up between the earth and the sun. This astronomical configuration is termed “new moon.” At that point, the moon is not visible from the earth nor will it be until 18 to 30 hours later.

  "During 2014, the new moon nearest the vernal (spring) equinox will be on March 30, at 8:45 p.m. (20:45), Jerusalem time. The following sunset in Jerusalem (March 31) will come about 21 hours later. It is doubtful that the first sliver of the moon will be visible then. More likely, the first sunset when the initial crescent of the moon can be seen in Jerusalem will be on April 1. By the method the ancient Jews used, that will be the day when the first month (Nisan 1) will start, at sunset.
 
"Hence, congregations of Jehovah’s Witnesses around the earth have been informed that Nisan 14 will begin at sunset on Monday, April 14, 2014. That will be about the time of the full moon.—For more details on calculating the date, see The Watchtower of June 15, 1977, pages 383-384."
 
Part in blue: 
Correct date - new moon was on March 30.
Wrong time - new moon was at 21:45 Jerusalem time. The researcher hadn't factored in Daylight Saving Time that came in on March 28 for Israel.
Part in yellow:
Miscalculation of crescent visibility. Three astronomical programs calculated that the new crescent would be visible with the naked eye from Jerusalem on March 31. Granted, the crescent would be toward the limits of visibility criteria, but still would be theoretically possible to see according to,
the Planetary, Lunar and Stellar Visibility program (free download online) http://astro.ukho.gov.uk/moonwatch/index.html http://torahcalendar.com/MOON.asp?JDN=2457458&TDAY=1&MNFLG=0 Screenshots can be provided if you are that interested.
The Moon's crescent was indeed sighted in the vicinity of Jerusalem on March 31 as reported by this website.

Therefore, sunset March 31 was Nisan 1, and sunset April 13 (not 14) was Nisan 14. So JWs celebrated the 2014 Memorial on Nisan 15.
 

http://www.jw-archive.org/post/135869785598/when-was-the-last-time-our-memorial-was-not-within

Lol. Absolutely! And the beans JWs have to count are getting smaller and smaller - every tract, every JW video shown, every pdf sent. I think of Matt. 23:23, 24.
Enjoy your hot, sunny, late summer afternoon. Hmpf. I'm not jealous. Honest.

You may have missed where Jay Witness said he didn't agree with his friends counting time for this. So it's an open question he's asking rather than an 'obsession.'

But Giannis is asking why a person, who was disfellowshipped for having a kidney transplant, should repent of something that the Org. no longer believed was wrong. 

There was a JWTV broadcast last year (can't remember the month) that interviewed a lawyer who had been funded by the Org. to get his law degree. Anthony Morris (?) said Bethel wouldn't be sending Bethelites to College anymore because of the dangers.
Also last year (1/13/15), a letter was sent out to the Bodies of Elders calling for legal experts within the congregation who might be able to volunteer their services to HQ and to quietly make enquiries. The letter said:
"We trust that you will use discretion in approaching publishers regarding volunteering to
assist the organization in the above way. Please note that we are not encouraging individuals to
pursue higher education or university degrees to obtain skills related to legal matters. (w13 10/15
pp. 15-16 pars. 13-14) Thank you for your assistance."
3/6/12 BOE letter.
"Appointed men must be exemplary in heeding the warnings given by the faithful slave and
its Governing Body when it comes to education. (Matt. 24:45-47) Would an elder, a ministerial
servant, or a pioneer continue to qualify to serve as such if he, his wife, or his children pursue higher
education? Much depends on the circumstances and how he is viewed. When such a situation
arises, the body of elders should consider the following questions and scriptures:

• Does he show that he puts Kingdom interests first? (Matt. 6:33)
• Does he teach his family to put Kingdom interests first?
• Does he respect what has been published by the faithful slave on the dangers of higher
education? (3 John 9)
• Do his speech and conduct reveal that he is a spiritual person? (Ps. 1:2, 3; 1 Cor. 2:13-16)
• How is he viewed by the congregation?
• Why is he or his family pursuing higher education?
• Does the family have theocratic goals? (Phil. 3:8)
• Does the pursuit of higher education interfere with regular meeting attendance, meaningful
participation in field service, or other theocratic activities?

As the body of elders prayerfully and carefully considers the matter, it may be readily apparent
that the brother has a positive attitude about what the organization has published regarding
higher education and still retains the respect of others in the congregation. They may also observe
that he and his family are keeping Kingdom interests first if the education does not interfere with
meetings and the ministry. In such a case, the elders may determine that he could continue serving.—
1 Tim. 3:2, 4-6; Heb. 13:7.
On the other hand, if an elder or a ministerial servant is promoting higher education to others for the material advantages or the status it may bring, he is calling into question his qualifications to serve the congregation because of the effect on his and his fellow appointed brothers' freeness of speech. (1 Tim 3:13; Titus 1:9) The body of elders may therefore determine that the brother no longer qualifies to serve. In most cases, however, such a determination should be made in conjunction with the visit of the circuit overseer." 
 

There's another thread here too. It may give you some pointers:
 

OK.
I notice that you do not give specific references or quotes to support your point. This makes it harder to verify your claim. Perhaps you just threw out names hoping some might stick. It's appears you didn't bother to actually check what they said.
Barnes refers the reader of 2 John 7 to his notes on 1 John 4:2 where he says,
"It is quite probable that the apostle here refers to such sentiments as those which were held by the 'Docetae;' and that he meant to teach that it was indispensable to proper evidence that anyone came from God, that he should maintain that Jesus was truly a man, or that there was a real incarnation of the Son of God."
Alford neither agrees nor disagrees. He doesn't mention the Docetists in his commentary.
A.E. Brooks - The Johannine Epistles, I presume. While he questions whether John was specifically pinning down Docetism as the 'false teaching,' he does say that the "connection of the [first] Epistle with Gnostic ideas is quite apparent" (p. xliii). He also acknowledges that the recognized connection between John's First and Second Epistles with Docetism has had a long history and, while he finds it unfortunate that the term 'Docetism' has both a "wider and narrower signification," he says it can be applied in a more popular sense,
"to characterize all teaching which denied the reality of the Incarnation, and therefore the reality and completeness of the Lord's humanity." (p. xliv) 
This application is still pretty specific and again is not meant to be a catch-all for any infraction of an ecclesiastical authority's policies and teaching.
"The team at Intervarsity Press" - too vague. 
W Hall Harris - Are you referring to his book, 1, 2, 3 John - Comfort and Counsel for a Church in Crisis? P.211 - "There is no indisputable evidence for docetism in the Johannine letters." Well, that's one scholar so far.
The Pulpit Commentary:

"These seducers deny 'Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh,' or they deny 'Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh.' The present participle ἐρχόμενον seems to indicate exactly the position of some of the Gnostic teachers. ... The Gnostic denied that the Incarnation could take place: no such Person as the Christ coming in the flesh was possible; that the Infinite should become finite, that the Divine Word should become flesh, was inconceivable. The teacher who brings such doctrine as this 'is the deceiver and the antichrist' about whom the elder's children had been so frequently warned."
Docetism was a form of Gnosticism.
 
FB Hole neither agrees nor disagrees with the idea that John was targeting Docetists because he doesn't mention them. He applies John's words to 'Modernism.'
William Kelly -  neither agrees nor disagrees. He doesn't mention the Docetists but talks in generalities.
J R Dummelow - his introduction to 2 John discusses the historical context of the letter and how the Docetist view, which denied Jesus' true nature, was a threat to the Christianity that John held dear. No disagreement from Drummelow.
Leon Morris - did he do a discussion of John's letters? I cannot find one among his listed works.
James Macknight -  A New Literal Translation, from the Original Greek, of all the Apostolical Epistles, with a Commentary, and Notes, Philological, Critical, Explanatory, and Practical. To which is added, A History of the Life of the Apostle Paul, Vol VI - an old 18th century commentary. MacKnight says that the purpose of the 2nd epistle to John was 
"to confute the error of Basilides and his followers, who affirmed that Christ was not a real man, but only a man in appearance; consequently, that he neither did nor suffered what he appeared to do and suffer." (P. 134)
MacKnight was mistaken in attributing the heresy to Basilides as he lived after John's letter was supposed to have been written, but it's clear that MacKnight thought John was targeting Gnostic heresy.
Coffman's commentaries:
"The heresy of the false deceivers was that of denying the Incarnation. Various scholars have identified such teachers as Docetists, Cerinthians, and Gnostics."
Nah. Your "most scholars" that "disagree" John was targeting the Docetic heresy amount to ... let me get my calculator ... a grand total of ... one.

There was a JWTV broadcast last year (can't remember the month) that interviewed a lawyer who had been funded by the Org. to get his law degree. Anthony Morris (?) said Bethel wouldn't be sending Bethelites to College anymore because of the dangers.
Also last year (1/13/15), a letter was sent out to the Bodies of Elders calling for legal experts within the congregation who might be able to volunteer their services to HQ and to quietly make enquiries. The letter said:
"We trust that you will use discretion in approaching publishers regarding volunteering to
assist the organization in the above way. Please note that we are not encouraging individuals to
pursue higher education or university degrees to obtain skills related to legal matters. (w13 10/15
pp. 15-16 pars. 13-14) Thank you for your assistance."
3/6/12 BOE letter.
"Appointed men must be exemplary in heeding the warnings given by the faithful slave and
its Governing Body when it comes to education. (Matt. 24:45-47) Would an elder, a ministerial
servant, or a pioneer continue to qualify to serve as such if he, his wife, or his children pursue higher
education? Much depends on the circumstances and how he is viewed. When such a situation
arises, the body of elders should consider the following questions and scriptures:

• Does he show that he puts Kingdom interests first? (Matt. 6:33)
• Does he teach his family to put Kingdom interests first?
• Does he respect what has been published by the faithful slave on the dangers of higher
education? (3 John 9)
• Do his speech and conduct reveal that he is a spiritual person? (Ps. 1:2, 3; 1 Cor. 2:13-16)
• How is he viewed by the congregation?
• Why is he or his family pursuing higher education?
• Does the family have theocratic goals? (Phil. 3:8)
• Does the pursuit of higher education interfere with regular meeting attendance, meaningful
participation in field service, or other theocratic activities?

As the body of elders prayerfully and carefully considers the matter, it may be readily apparent
that the brother has a positive attitude about what the organization has published regarding
higher education and still retains the respect of others in the congregation. They may also observe
that he and his family are keeping Kingdom interests first if the education does not interfere with
meetings and the ministry. In such a case, the elders may determine that he could continue serving.—
1 Tim. 3:2, 4-6; Heb. 13:7.
On the other hand, if an elder or a ministerial servant is promoting higher education to others for the material advantages or the status it may bring, he is calling into question his qualifications to serve the congregation because of the effect on his and his fellow appointed brothers' freeness of speech. (1 Tim 3:13; Titus 1:9) The body of elders may therefore determine that the brother no longer qualifies to serve. In most cases, however, such a determination should be made in conjunction with the visit of the circuit overseer." 
 

A knotty problem is whether religious belief should infringe on the freedoms of others, e.g. when men enjoy certain freedoms denied to women, as outlined in the article. 
Another problem is how animals are slaughtered and how to make this the most humane. It is alleged that Kosher and Halal methods fall short of the standards put forward by animal welfare advisory bodies.
Is there any sound religious basis to insist on certain practices? Or are those practices just traditions that could be changed without compromising foundational beliefs?

(Giannis, Robert King is disfellowshipped so it's unlikely that loyal JWs will read anything he says.)
I remember the controversy when it broke and researched the matter for myself at the time.
The issue wasn't so much that Watchtower became a NGO, but that it also became associated with the UN's Department of Public Information which required assenting to the UN Charter (read it to see what that involved) and promoting the UN's work, aims and values. Every year, as the rules stood, the Organization had to provide evidence to the DPI that it was doing that in order to continue association. This is why the articles in the Awakes during the 1990s softened their anti-UN stance and put the UN's accomplishments in a more positive light.
It's easy to minimize the Watchtower's involvement as the actions of one Bethelite, but he and the other named representative were high-up Bethelites. At least one GB member was aware because he was also listed as one of the representatives on the accreditation forms (W. [Lloyd] Barry). Not only that but, 
"Each article in both The Watchtower and Awake! and every page, including the artwork, is scrutinized by selected members of the Governing Body before it is printed." - w87 3/1 p. 15 par. 18.
So any 'spiritual food' that promoted the UN's work (in contrast to the usual contempt about it) was checked and signed off by members of the GB. It would be those kinds of articles that were provided to the DPI so the Org. could continue its association.
Given that the UN has long been viewed as the 'disgusting thing' of Daniel and the 'scarlet wild beast' of Revelation, it's understandable why many would be stumbled by the Org's actions.

Me too. I was going to mention it in my post but, like you, I didn't keep a copy, my memory was too vague on it, and the list has gone into cyber-oblivion.
Yes, signing up was a mistake in view of the Org's true opinion of the UN. Despite writing more positively about the UN's work, which was refreshing to see on the one hand, it also meant that the Org. was being two-faced. In addition, it made it appear like the 'disgusting thing' was having a say in what kind of 'spiritual food' was to be produced. I don't know why nobody at the top picked up on the inconsistency.
 

Astronomers use the Hubble Space Telescope to discover GN-z11, the remotest galaxy yet discovered. 

GN-z11 is a high-redshift galaxy found at the constellation Ursa Major. GN-z11 has a spectroscopic redshift ofz = 11.1, an age of 13.4 billion years, and is observed as it existed 400 million years after the Big Bang that occurred 13.8 billion years ago.
As of March 3, 2016, GN-z11 is the most distant known galaxy in the Universe. GN-z11 was identified by a team studying data from the Hubble Space Telescope's CANDELS and GOODS-North surveys.
“Right now, we expect this galaxy to be about 32 billion light-years away from us in distance,” per study coauthor Pascal Oesch of Yale University.
The research team used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to measure the distance to GN-z11 spectroscopically, by splitting the light into its component colors to measure the redshift caused by the expansion of the universe.
GN-z11 is 25 times smaller than the Milky Way and has 1% of the Milky Way galaxy’s mass in stars. GN-z11 is growing forming stars at a rate about 20 times faster than the Milky Way galaxy does today.
The study authors said: “It’s amazing that a galaxy so massive existed only 200 to 300 million years after the very first stars started to form”, “It takes really fast growth, producing stars at a huge rate, to have formed a galaxy that is a billion solar masses (one solar mass is equal to the mass of the Sun) so soon.”
“The discovery of this unexpectedly bright galaxy at such a great distance challenges some of our current theoretical models for the build-up of galaxies,” “Larger area datasets are now needed to measure how common such bright galaxies really are so early in the history of the universe.”

(Giannis, Robert King is disfellowshipped so it's unlikely that loyal JWs will read anything he says.)
I remember the controversy when it broke and researched the matter for myself at the time.
The issue wasn't so much that Watchtower became a NGO, but that it also became associated with the UN's Department of Public Information which required assenting to the UN Charter (read it to see what that involved) and promoting the UN's work, aims and values. Every year, as the rules stood, the Organization had to provide evidence to the DPI that it was doing that in order to continue association. This is why the articles in the Awakes during the 1990s softened their anti-UN stance and put the UN's accomplishments in a more positive light.
It's easy to minimize the Watchtower's involvement as the actions of one Bethelite, but he and the other named representative were high-up Bethelites. At least one GB member was aware because he was also listed as one of the representatives on the accreditation forms (W. [Lloyd] Barry). Not only that but, 
"Each article in both The Watchtower and Awake! and every page, including the artwork, is scrutinized by selected members of the Governing Body before it is printed." - w87 3/1 p. 15 par. 18.
So any 'spiritual food' that promoted the UN's work (in contrast to the usual contempt about it) was checked and signed off by members of the GB. It would be those kinds of articles that were provided to the DPI so the Org. could continue its association.
Given that the UN has long been viewed as the 'disgusting thing' of Daniel and the 'scarlet wild beast' of Revelation, it's understandable why many would be stumbled by the Org's actions.