JW Insider

@Witness Thanks for responding. Too much to respond to right now, but I never had the impression that many who claim to be of the anointed have concerns about doctrinal differences anyway. There are often quirky persons among them, but in my experience, they seem to be quite loyal to the GB, and among the GB themselves, they seem quite loyal to the existing doctrines. Wasn't GB member Martin Poetzinger a person who had gone through Nazi persecution? He never spoke much when I was at Bethel, even though he was on the Governing Body, so I never heard him tell his own experiences, but I understand he spent a total of 8 or 9 years in concentration camps.

Just had to comment on the point at 23:55 in the video: "In a well-known Bible translation we can read, 'I shall prove to be what I shall prove to be.' " The video won't say, of course, what translation this is, but we already know it's the old NWT: (Exodus 3:14) At this God said to Moses: “I SHALL PROVE TO BE WHAT I SHALL PROVE TO BE.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the sons of Israel, ‘I SHALL PROVE TO BE has sent me to YOU.’” Of course, this was changed in the 2013 revision: (Exodus 3:14) 14 So God said to Moses: “I Will Become (AHYH) What I Choose to Become (AHYH).” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I Will Become (AHYH)has sent me to you.’” Oddly, the new 2013 translation got rid of the verb form "prove to be [this or that]" in about 300 places, leaving only a few exceptions which seem now as if they are just accidental, vestigial remnants of the old translation. But it's also odd that in the new translation Jehovah CHANGES his name in the middle of this verse, leaving out the idea of "CHOOSING" even though it was never in the Hebrew to begin with. In the Hebrew there is a different "tetragrammaton" here "AHYH" and it never changes between the first two uses and the third use. (Using "A" for the consonant "ayin") It's actually just a form of the word "to be." It's the same word found here: (Genesis 3:1) 3 Now the serpent was the most cautious of all the wild animals. . . (NWT) (Judges 20:12) 12 Then the tribes of Israel sent men to all the tribesmen of Benjamin, saying: “What is this terrible thing that has happened among you? (NWT) Hebrew, like some other Semitic languages, does not always need the verb "to be" (or "am") especially in the present tense, because it is easily understood in most contexts without spelling it out. It's used more often when it's useful in producing a non-standard "tense" of a verb. It's definitely given special significance in Exodus 3:14, but not so much that it requires various ideas to be added to the translation.

-----Found it (from a private conversation)... No. It's a common vowel pointing. It showed up this way sometimes in the Masoretic texts about 1,000 years ago. I know you already know that there were no vowel points in the older Hebrew texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls. Usually it did not include the "o" (holam) point after the first "H". Here's an example at https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/departinghoreb/masoretic-hebrew-vs-septuagint-part-1/ It doesn't say, but it's the Aleppo Codex of Joshua 1:1 . . . . It includes the "e" and the "a[h]" but not the "o". Here's an example at http://danielbenyaacovysrael.blogspot.com/2013/02/parsha-tetzaveh-youshall-command-shmot.html It doesn't say, but it's also from the Aleppo Codex of Ezekiel 28:2 and it includes the "o". I included the picture, because it highlights the tetragrammaton. So, yes, it's one of the possible vowel pointings, which may have been used to remind readers to pronounce with the word ADONAI, ELOHIM, or HA-SHEM, etc. Notice the evidence that this Adonai vowel pointing was NOT supposed to be the actual pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton, but a replacement pronunciation of the entire word "ADONAI" (Lord). What would happen (sometimes) if the term used in the original Heberw was already ADONAI YHWH? The reader would end up saying ADONAI ADONAI. This happens in Judges 6:22 for example. Judges 6:22 in the same Aleppo Codex, uses different vowel points shown in the smaller picture, attached. These are the vowel points for ELOHIM. It's evidently because it follows the word ADONAI. (Notice that the "o" is left off Adonai here, too.) It's not consistent, as the Ezekel 28:2 passage showed, but the fact that the name has inconsistent vowel pointing is evidence that whatever vowel points are used were NOT intended for pronunciation. That fact alone is evidence that these two vowel pointings become evidence of two ways in which the name must NOT have been pronounced. (Although someone could argue that an exceptional vowel pointing could have been an accidental slip that revealed the actual way it was pronounced at the time of the Masorete scribes.) Â Â

Most (perhaps all?) of the known people associated with the sponsor of the video (Reibling Foundation) are Witnesses, too. If they are trying to hide this fact they have not done a good job. Obviously, the language and expressions in the video also indicates that it is from Witnesses. There are some huge logical gaffes in the video. Furuli says that "as far back as we have evidence we can find the four letters of the divine name" immediately after showing that the 14th C BCE example is only a trigrammaton (YHW) and it is the "Moabite stone "Mesha stele" (from the 9th C BCE) that is the oldest known use of the tetragrammaton example we have in writing. (The Moabite stone, the first tetragrammaton, is nearly 500 years younger than the older trigrammaton.)The narrator tries to drive the point home by saying that this evidence AGAINST his premise indisputably proves the premise. On "Yah" (Jah), the narrator says that "Yah is indeed God's name...the short version", after which Furuli argues that Yah is "absolutely not an alternative name for Jehovah." (And Gertoux argues that it is not a shortened form based on the pronunciation of the first syllable, but at 21:40 says that Yah/Yahu is God's name when it attached to the end of a personal name.). This is argued from its supposed rarity as a standalone name. But Furuli says it's found 20 times in hallelujah, and 19 times as a standalone name, which totals 49 times (20+19=49). His math is never corrected (either here or in his chronology books), probably because he speaks so authoritatively that no one notices. Of course, the name "Yah" is also embedded in many proper names of individuals in the same way that this video had already shown that others like Nebuchadnezzar, Ramses, etc, included the name of their god(s) in their names. This gets discussed starting at minute 21 of the video. Then they show Furuli and Gertoux disagreeing about the importance of the final H, where Gertoux says it means the pronunciation was like the a in "ah" but Furuli correctly points out that it was only "very often" and could also stand for either "A" or an "AE." He indicates through his pronunciation that "AE" means either a short "eh" sound or the vowel sometimes represented by the term "schwa"). Then the narrator ignores this contradiction, pretends it's not one at all, and strangely uses it to leap to the conclusion that Jehovah is therefore correct and Yahweh is isn't. See also http://creationcalendar.com/NameYHWH/6-ah-eh.pdf for a different point on the vowel to be included with the ending "H". On the point that the vowels for ADONAI (Lord) were attached to the Tetragrammaton the video goes through a confused "proof" that this can't be true because the slight difference in the actual vowels of Adonai are different from the Masoretic INITIAL vowel pointing of YHWH. (YaHoWaH vs. YeHoWaH). But instead of showing the evidence, an interview with Nehemia Gordon shifts the subject to the middle vowel "O" as if this was not already known in the Masoretic text and he appears to pretend that he has discovered this "missing" vowel himself. He didn't "discover" anything except for himself; it was already known. This is the place in the video where Gertoux tries to apply the age-old conspiracy theory that scholars know something but don't want to upset their fellow colleagues. This happens under centralized power structures all the time, but this of course is in direct contradiction to the parallel claim that scholars are always in competition for something new and will sacrifice their own mother for gaining a bit of attention in the academic world. In truth, the reason it's difficult to get a hearing on some new theory is that you have to show good evidence that disproves the earlier theory which should mean that you deal with all the evidence already put forth for the previous theory. These types of videos are rarely ever based on ALL the prior evidence, but usually just some small piece of the evidence that can be made to appear weak. And the audience is often limited to those who are hoping for something, anything, that they can hang onto in support of their own pet theories. 6 of the 60 Masoretic manuscripts are known to have the full vowels corresponding to Yehowah. (Note minute 46 of this interview with Nehemia Gordon, the same person interviewed in the Reibling video in your original post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLMPZrFom3Q ) "Even the scholar Rolf Furuli speaks out against the form Yahweh" is so disingenuous as to be cringeworthy. (18:52) What they have left out here which is very important is that the vowels roughly corresponding to Adonai were NOT the only vowels that the Masoretic texts applied to YHWH. In the portion of the video about embedding the divine name as part of an individual's name assumptions are made about the vowel pronunciation that completely forget the prior admission that we don't know the pronunciation of the vowels as they were pronounced in ancient Hebrew. (Gordon sells books based on the premise that Hebrew was a resurrected language, not spoken for 2000 years, which allows him some extra freedom for "discovery.") There are also known differences in initial vowels that were long and become short based on the pronunciation of the second vowel in a word. Contractions based on syllable emphasis are common and are even seen in the various verb forms. An initial vowel that we might think would be unpronounced in some words could also develop into a well-pronounced longer vowel if the middle consonant/vowel combination was contracted. The ah and oh vowels were sometimes interchangeable in words so that even the Masoretic pointing for the "ah" is still pronounced "oh" in some words. The long O and U are also commonly interchanged so that even when WAW/VAV is used as a vowel, it can swap between the O "oh" sound and the U "oooh" sound. (Also in Arabic as in the difference between Osama and Usama, Koran/Quran.) In the Bible itself we see alternative names that give evidence of contractions where Yahu or Yeho at the beginning of a word becomes Yo, (Jonathan from Yehonathan, Joshuah/Jesus from Yehoshuah) but the ending Yah could include "YahU" as is admitted in the video by Gertoux at location 21:34. In the mention of Jehoshaphat, Joel is quoted. It's not mentioned that Joel himself is a name that means Jehovah (Yo) is God (El) but without a Yehoel form known. Similarly, Elijah means God (El) is Jehovah (Yah). It's odd that the video says there are no exceptions when Jonathan himself is a name mentioned with one of the exceptions. (Ezra 10:15) 15 However, Jonʹa·than the son of Asʹa·hel and Jah·zeiʹah the son of Tikʹvah objected to this, and the Levites Me·shulʹlam and Shabʹbe·thai supported them. This only covers some problems from the first half of the video, which appears intended to convince people who have not done a full study. I'm sure we shouldn't discount the possibility that "Jehovah" (from "Yehowah") is one of the possible alternatives. If however, the entire point of the Masoretic text was to produce vowel-pointed pronunciations that helped readers avoid the true pronunciation, then they did a terrible job by supposedly giving away the true vowels in some places but not others. I believe I wrote a note to the Librarian here once that had some evidence about this in the Masoretic texts. I'll see if it's still here and post it.

@Anna It was really quite amazing. I always wanted to go back when I was retired and do this, but the opportunity never came up. For my work, I had visited Paris 8+ times (and worked there for up to two weeks at a time) even though my office was in NYC, but had only seen the Louvre once with a group of Bethelites 40 years ago, and one other short visit after work, made even shorter due to long lines that day. Finally, just two years ago, I was able to get a 3-day pass and spend more time over two leisurely visits. I shared a couple of pictures on the jw-archive forum from that Louvre visit. I took about 3,000 pictures. Didn't take as many at the British Museum, but still got nearly 1,000. I was finally able to go in through the Staff entrance once, escorted, but the vast majority of staff are there to help manage the huge gift shop (and restock things like Milk Duds in the vending machines). I didn't get (or expect) answers to most of my questions, but could have gotten closer to an answer on a couple of topics. Naturally, a lot of new topics came up, too. Since you can easily create your own tour with respect to the major empires of Bible history (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome) I was interested in whether any of the beast imagery in Daniel had more correlation with motifs and iconography of those nations. (Lions, bears, eagles, goats, leopards, etc.) Another topic that came up with one of the research assistants was the Flood evidence (which we like to say is known in every ancient culture), and the related issue with respect to the JEPD theory of the redaction of Genesis and "OT" texts. A research coordinator was very well-versed in the topic of early Christian history, and wanted to spend considerable time on the parallels between Christianity and contemporary popular religions of the first century. He showed me that this was an important topic for even the earliest "Church Fathers" to explain (which I had somehow missed in any cursory readings of Tertullian, etc.). A topic that came up here recently about just how early Trinity had reared its ugly head (heads?) also came up in the discussion of iconography of early Christianity, and I was given a lot of information on some very recent presentations on this topic. If any of these topics seem worthwhile on this forum, I will be happy to include them in discussions that come up, or topics that I start myself. I have a lot of information to sort through, and believe that a lot of my own assumptions were likely wrong. So I also need to get better grounding on most of these topics myself.

I'm sorry to hear about your particular situation, whether you are referring to health or a related issue. It's good to hear that you are confident in the outworking of Jehovah's purpose.

This common foundation in many of your posts confuses me. I've heard something like it before from a person who became an apostate. He thought that JWs were wrong on just about everything except moral standards, war/neutrality, Trinity and Hell. He was disfellowshipped for apostasy and holds the confusing idea that he needs to get back in so he can warn people to "get out of her, my people." I'm curious as to why you think that all the anointed alive at this time were attracted to join this particular organization if this organization is so full of delusion, false prophecy, false directives, abusive and lying leadership, etc. Is it your opinion that Jehovah somehow makes it happen that all anointed go through a kind of tribulation through this particular organization?

a load of croc

My guess is that they all had return tickets, but not for leaving immediately after a negative outcome. I think they couldn't know in advance how long the case would take. In the international company I worked for up until I retired about 5 years ago it would be against the fiduciary responsibilities toward the shareholders to have 18 lawyers and officers of the company on the same airplane. Seriously!!

It won't be long now. . . . . . before I understand your joke.

Dark, anti-religious poetry does not make one a Satanist. I think it was best explained in a couple of short reviews for a book currently for sale on Am-a-zon called, "Was Karl Marx a Satanist?" Marx was an atheist Jew. He neither believed in the Christian conception of Satan, nor the Anton LeVay concept of Satan. The author offers no evidence, confusing mere hostility toward religion with Satanism, and offers some syntax-related conspiracy theories. "This sad book deosn't have any literary qualities whatsoever. This is pure Anti-semetic drivel full of ultra christian rhetoric from the extreme right. Marx was a philosopher and an idealist, this book doesnt examine him in anyway whatseoever it just descends into religious rants." By the way, you have got to be the most interesting person to read on this forum and I always enjoy your politically-oriented comments. You do not come at the world's issues with the typical Eurocentric myopia that drives so many others (and which usually drives Adventist-style prophetic explanations, for that matter). Naturally, I disagree with a lot of what you say, too, but this doesn't much change the overall value of hearing your opinion on things.

I found the article, and read several of the other ones, too. (At least in a Google Translation from Italian to English.) I thought that most of your articles were very clear, and I appreciate that you are asking good questions about the many gaps and inconsistencies in our current explanations. Since Daniel is a book that many of us have just recently been reading in our Bible reading schedules, I think a separate topic would be great and timely. It would have to be under "Controversial Posts" because, of course, even the potential existence of gaps and inconsistencies is something that many of us must deny. I have not yet come up with a good explanation that resolves all the gaps, although, the vast majority of them are automatically resolved by just accepting certain verses at face value, instead of imposing unlikely interpretations of them. Still, prophecy in Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation are some of the most intriguing and I have not considered any of my digging to be conclusive. I can tell you have put a lot of thought and time into understanding them through scriptural references. I must tell you right from the start that my approach is similar, in always using other scriptures to find explanations, or just admit that we won't know if no specific scriptural support can be found. Still, even though you apparently think in the same terms, I can tell that we will still disagree on most of our current opinions. Of course, different opinions are just fine with me . . . so I still think a further discussion is worth the while.

I agree that it is a red flag if we do not cooperate. (Although you weren't clear on who you meant by "them.") But the second part of what you said there might be ambiguous. Did you mean it is a red flag if you do call them rulers, or a red flag if you do not call them rulers? I assume you meant the organizing shepherds who care for us in the new system. But "them" in the quote above appears to speak of "red flags" in the present. This is why I'm confused as to whether you might be saying it's a red flag now to not call them rulers.

Your take on this is interesting. I agree that there is a gap in the Watchtower's reasoning here. This was just barely touched upon at the convention this summer. I watched your video but didn't go to your site. Can you say what you think is a more likely view of the King of the North and South in your opinion?

I never have supported a false claim about the Watchtower's statements in 1989. And I don't plan on starting to support any such false claims now.

This is strange. Everything else you said in the paragraph that this quote came from is very true. But this particular sentence quoted here is false. It would also be completely irrelevant to a printed document or an electronic version of a printed document. The Y2K problem (which the Society cared nothing about in 1989) would not have made a 2017 CD-ROM a 1917 CD-ROM any more than it would have made it a pre-Gutenberg 1317 CD-ROM. Your claim is meaningless. The CD-ROM programs from the Watchtower that came out in 1993 can still be made to work today. I think 1993 was the first one. There never was an impending disaster coming from Y2K. And there will not be one arising from the 2038 Unix Millennium Bug either. (An upgrade to the operating system can make over 99% of the 2038 bug go away immediately without changing software.) The original Y2K bug could cause problems in a whole range of areas, and most of us in IT had to waste several years of our careers becoming our own QA departments, certifying that all our programs were going to work without a glitch. My own department's programs were mostly in C during those years (and a little bit of dBase+Clipper, Turbo Pascal, Excel Macros) but relied on mainframe feeds mostly through SQL+DB2. But I was also surprised that so many of the COBOL programs we checked had already worked around the Y2K problem even without storing 4-character years. That even goes for solving financial range problems that crossed January 1, 2000 and/or February 29, 2000.

Hah! I noticed this little blast from the past (and present for many of us, too). Hard to believe that so many of us fell for this little mix-up between which word was the better one to use and which was not so good. Turns out that "LUCK" was more than likely just a term for success or loss that came into English from middle German where a lot of gaming and gambling terms came from in the 1500s. So we all replaced it with a word based on FORTUNE, which had been personified as a false Roman goddess during Bible times. Even when it came into English the earliest known instance is in the phrase "Dame Fortune." Even in the Bible, the word translated "fortune" was associated with bad things: (Leviticus 20:27) 27 “‘Any man or woman who acts as a spirit medium or is a fortune-teller should be put to death without fail. . . . of course, it was based on the translation of (Isaiah 65:11) 11 “But YOU men are those leaving Jehovah, those forgetting my holy mountain, those setting in order a table for the god of Good Luck. . . But the foot-note for that verse says *** Rbi8 Isaiah 65:11 *** “For the god of Good Luck.” Heb., lag·gadhʹ; LXX, “the demon”; Lat., For·tuʹnae. Compare Ge 30:11 ftns. Of course if you follow the footnotes for Genesis 30:11 you see that the same word for "Luck" here is translated "Fortune" in Genesis: (Genesis 30:10, 11) . . .. 11 Then Leʹah said: “With good fortune!” So she called his name Gad. The name of the tribe was "Luck" just as "laggadh' basically means "to Luck" if the footnote for Isaiah 65:11 is correct. Or Isaiah was referring to the god of Fortune, if the footnote to Genesis 30:11 is correct. It was about as silly as saying that we shouldn't say something was "destined" to occur, because this somehow invokes the god of Destiny. (Luke 9:44) . . .for the Son of man is destined to be delivered into the hands of men.” (Mark 13:4) 4 “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are destined to come to a conclusion?” (Isaiah 65:11) . . .And those filling up cups of mixed wine for the god of Destiny.

Nice phrase. This sums up nearly the entire story of the world since nearly the beginning of the world.

Can't tell if you are trying to solve the Society's "generation" crisis, or trying to sell books, or just don't want to throw out your obsolete neckties.

I don't think that's quite what I was trying to say, nor what the Watchtower's resources implied. For one thing, the "K" in Kingdom was always capitalized; it was only the "H" in Hall that was made "lower case," but this was in a 1937 Year Book (written in late 1936). In 1935, when the term first comes up, it's not only a capitalized title, it's a word that seems intended as a replacement for the way many people used "Church" or "Temple," as in, "Today I'm going to church" or "Today I'm going to Kingdom Hall." There is a different sense if you say "Today, I am going to "a" Kingdom Hall, or "the" Kingdom Hall." It's a little like you are going to "Royal Albert Hall" or "Tammany Hall," recognizing that there is just one of these that can go by that name. Similar to a time when going to "Bethel" meant just one particular building that "Reverend" Henry Ward Beecher had named "Bethel" in Brooklyn and which was later also applied to the dormitory attached to Beecher's old house at 124 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn. Even in the 1938 Year Book (written in late 1937) there was still only one place where "Kingdom Hall" was mentioned, and it was still only with reference to Hawaii: ----quoting 1938 Year Book, page 163 ---- The company at Honolulu has been very active and faithful, and the totals of their witnessing are: Books 1,264 Average Number Publishers 6 . . . [either down from 12, or not including 6 pioneers?] . . . The crowning blessing of the year was the sending down of the two main convention addresses from Columbus, September 18 and 19. This was indeed a great boon from the Lord, and the listeners at Kingdom Hall were profoundly stirred to greater activity in the Lord's service. It was a wonderful testimony to Jehovah's name, and against his enemies. . . . . . . Many shortwave receiving sets enabled a great number to hear, in addition to audience at Kingdom Hall. . . . This report is submitted with many thanks to Jehovah, and with much love and best wishes to you, Brother Rutherford. ---- end of quote --- In the 1939 Year Book, there are now TWO different passages where the term "Kingdom Hall" is used, and it is still used without an "a" or "the" in front of it. This time it includes the use of it in London, where the JW London Tabernacle had just been renamed "Kingdom Hall" along with a few other smaller meeting places around London. Note: ---------quotes from 1939 Year Book --------- The greater London company, which now has more than 1,000 company field publishers, has been divided into nine units. The general headquarters is maintained at Kingdom Hall (formerly known as the Tabernacle). During the year the company doubled its placement of bound books and booklets in the greater city. . . . During recent months additional Kingdom halls have been arranged for, so that there are now six Kingdom halls in addition to the one at Craven Terrace to serve the increasing numbers in the various large sections of the city. (page 90) .... The people of the Hawaiian Islands are receiving the Kingdom message through the efforts put forth by the Society's local representative and company workers, which work is directed from Kingdom Hall, in Honolulu. (p. 164) ----end of quotes from 1939 Year Book --- It shouldn't be overlooked that Watchtower writing often makes use of obvious "parallel" phrases that could have also been at work in choosing the name "Kingdom Hall" in Hawaii and London. You can find dozens of examples of such parallel phrases, especially in assembly talks. It's not uncommon in London and Hawaii to see the term "Royal" and "Kingdom" due to it being a Kingdom (Kingdom of Great Britain, etc). The word Kingdom was also common in Hawaii, due to it's being long known as "The Kingdom of Hawaii" -- and it was not a U.S. state until 1959. Note the following examples which might be unrelated from a 1951 Watchtower: *** w51 12/1 p. 707 International “Clean Worship” Assembly in London *** WEMBLEY Stadium, site of the 1948 Olympic Games, has seen many famous athletes strip for action to win a coveted prize. But August 1-5, 1951, this same stadium in London, England, saw tens of thousands of persons from forty different lands and nations strip themselves of the hindering things of this world for a greater contest. Not to compete with one another, but to work together as one international team to win the race for the prize of eternal life in the approaching new world of righteousness. . . . You did not notice where this orchestra was? . . . at the top of the North Stand of the stadium, over the Royal Box, and so commanding a full view of the arena. . . . An afternoon symposium presented three brothers who talked on “Met together in my name (a) At the same place, (b) Conduct in GodÂ’s household, (c) Kindness to strangers”. This emphasized how the local Kingdom Hall of each company is a royal place, the most important building in the community. This would seem trivial, if it didn't happen so often. The stadium had had "strippers" who raced -- well we have "strippers" in a race too. The stadium has a "Royal Box" where the most important persons can see the entire stadium. Well, we have local "royal places" which are the most important buildings in the community. And speaking of races, "Kingdom Hall" had also been the name of a popular race horse that was well-known in 1919 and 1920 back in Russell's old stomping grounds.  Â

That's even worse! You think that the real reason the correction was made was because they understood the potential that a software glitch would have made us revert back to the end of the 19th century, doomed to repeat the last 100 years like a "Groundhog Day" for centuries instead of days. All I can say is what you said . . . Â

@Queen Esther I think Jesus was just making the same point that Paul made in 1 Corinthians. Jesus made the point in a dramatic way that would catch everyone's attention. Paul, I think, is providing a commentary for the same point, showing that it was not literal, of course, but by personal choice. It's about the choice to marry or not to marry. I merely pulled the three cross-referenced scriptures that the NWT uses for the verse in Matthew: (1 Corinthians 7:32) Indeed, I want you to be free from anxiety. The unmarried man is anxious for the things of the Lord, how he may gain the Lord’s approval. (1 Corinthians 7:38) So also, whoever marries does well, but whoever does not marry will do better. (1 Corinthians 9:5) We have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as the rest of the apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Ceʹphas, do we not?

The 1936 Year Book said: HAWAIIAN ISLANDS The Society's branch office established in Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, is making progress. Only a small number of workers are there, the publishers numbering 12 in all. During the year property was purchased and a suitable hall and living quarters were erected. This building fronts on a boulevard and also abuts on a side street. Signs are placed on the building, advertising the hall and the books. These are illuminated by electricity, so that everyone passing must see the signs. The work has progressed there during the year, and the total number of books and booklets placed is, to wit, 19,170. From the local director's report the following is taken : The real high point of the year's witness, Brother Rutherford, was the public address delivered by you here in Honolulu at McKinley auditorium last April, and which was carried by radio to the other islands. . . . In Jehovah's providence it arrived in time for use on June 2, for the world-wide broadcast. And Jehovah's blessing has been very manifestly upon its use ever since. And then came to us Kingdom Hall, for use in honoring his name at transcription lectures and study meetings, also as a headquarters for Jehovah's literature and publishers at this place. In addition to the meetings held in it, Kingdom Hall, with its signs and books on display, brings the name and word of Jehovah prominently before the people. . . . The Lord has done so much for his work that the publishers here feel an additional weight of responsibility to faithfully carry out the work the Lord has given them. Meetings in Kingdom Hall are held in English, Spanish and Japanese. During the construction of Kingdom Hall many things occurred which demonstrated clearly the providences of Jehovah. It has been the means of greater co-operation amongst Jehovah's witnesses at this place. ----end of excerpt quoted from 1936 Year Book, p.145-146.

I don't have a better answer, but I can give a longer one. I've haven't heard what you heard, although it's quite possibly a truer version, of course. Looking at all the probabilities from my perspective, fwiw, I'd say it could go either way, but makes a little bit more sense that the Hawaiian brothers had already been using the term Kingdom Hall, but it still needed the stamp of approval from Rutherford if it were to remain, or catch on for other places. Rutherford probably gave it his approval either during or shortly after his visit to Honolulu in April 1935. I think it was more than just "tacit" approval based on the earliest mention. It's typical in Watchtower publications that the wording of any specific experience gets tweaked so often before it reaches print that even an "exact quote" might not look anything like the original "exact quote." You can see this if you compare the first version of MacMillan's "Faith on the March" to the one that was finally published and distributed to Kingdom Halls. You can see that the announcement that Russell supposedly made on October 1st, 1914 (later changed to October 4th, then later changed to October 2nd) was never mentioned anywhere until the 1920's. I've witnessed the changing of exact quotes in experiences given to the Bethel family, changing PR lines that I was to give in answer to questions when giving special tours at Betherl to non-JWs who might question recent news items. On a more local level, I know that it's not just me, but several of us who have been involved in giving our experiences at conventions have probably been surprised to hear our own "exact quotes" changed for public consumption. For the reasons just mentioned, I would have some doubt about the exact quote that Rutherford was supposed to have said. Early versions of the story never included anything like an exact quote from Rutherford which is included in the official story in the "Proclaimers" Book: *** jv chap. 20 p. 319 Building Together on a Global Scale *** Before World War II, there were a few congregations that built meeting places specially designed for their use. Even as early as 1890, a group of Bible Students in the United States at Mount Lookout, West Virginia, built their own meeting place.* [*footnote: It was known as the “New Light” Church because those who associated there felt that as a result of reading Watch Tower publications, they had new light on the Bible.] Widespread building of Kingdom Halls, however, did not get under way until the 1950Â’s. The name Kingdom Hall was suggested in 1935 by J. F. Rutherford, who was then president of the Watch Tower Society. In connection with the SocietyÂ’s branch facilities in Honolulu, Hawaii, he arranged for the brothers to construct a hall where meetings could be held. When James Harrub asked what Brother Rutherford was going to call the building, he replied: “DonÂ’t you think we should call it ‘Kingdom Hall,Â’ since that is what we are doing, preaching the good news of the Kingdom?” Thereafter, where possible, halls regularly being used by the Witnesses gradually began to be identified by signs that said “Kingdom Hall.” Thus, when the London Tabernacle was renovated in 1937-38, it was renamed Kingdom Hall. In time, the principal local meeting place of congregations worldwide came to be known as the Kingdom Hall of JehovahÂ’s Witnesses. That was in 1993, and it might have been the first time, I think, that anyone came up with a quote for Rutherford to have said in this context. Almost 10 years earlier, September 1983, research was being recompiled for the celebration of the 100 YEAR anniversary of the birth of of Watch Tower's corporate charter. (I know this for a fact because I had a small research project for this pamphlet, which I called the "Birthday Brochure" because its code was "br") I'll quote a longer excerpt from it here because it helps answer the question about what "Kingdom Halls" were called prior to 1935. *** br84 pp. 14-15 Watch Tower Society and Congregation Meetings *** The Bible Students in Pittsburgh established the pattern of meeting together two and eventually three times a week. Meetings on Sunday were public lectures held in a rented hall, such as the Curry Institute Hall on the corner of Penn Avenue and 6th Street in Pittsburgh. Apart from the lectures on Sundays, meetings were held in private homes—in the beginning at the home of the father of Charles Russell, J. L. Russell, 80 Cedar Avenue, Allegheny City. These came to be called cottage meetings. Group meetings in private homes on Wednesdays consisted of Prayer, Praise and Testimony Meetings, which have developed into our Service Meetings of today. Later they also arranged “Dawn Circles” on Friday evenings where they studied from the early books of the Society called Millennial Dawn series. . . . As groups increased in size various meeting halls were rented, sometimes even available church buildings being used. . . . Sometimes suitable buildings were purchased by the Bible Students locally. . . . Various names were given to these, such as a local designation followed by the word “Tabernacle,” for example “Brooklyn Tabernacle,” “London Tabernacle.”   However, the Watch Tower Society introduced a unifying feature with regard to meeting halls of JehovahÂ’s people. In 1935 arrangements were made to construct a meeting hall in connection with the new branch building being erected in Honolulu, Hawaii. The president of the Watch Tower Society, J. F. Rutherford, was visiting there, and it had been decided to call the meeting hall “Kingdom Hall” so as to keep GodÂ’s Kingdom to the fore. From that time on JehovahÂ’s Witnesses the world over have called their congregational meeting centers Kingdom Halls. Saying "it had been decided" didn't give the credit to specifically to Rutherford. This was slightly reworded for the February 1, 1984 Watchtower where Rutherford was given the credit, although still without a "story" that showed he was only "suggesting" it: *** w84 2/1 p. 25 par. 14 ‘Oneness of SpiritÂ’ in a Rapidly Growing Flock *** In the same year that the “great crowd” was properly identified as an earthly class, J. F. Rutherford, then president of the Watch Tower Society, gave the name Kingdom Hall to a meeting place of JehovahÂ’s Witnesses in Hawaii. From that time on, this name has regularly been used by JehovahÂ’s Witnesses for their meeting halls. *** w55 8/15 p. 491 Part 16—Publishing Under a New Name, Theocratically *** Among other developments to note was that resulting from the visit of the SocietyÂ’s president to the Hawaiian Islands in 1935. Then a branch office was established in Honolulu and arrangements were made for construction of an assembly hall in connection with the new branch building there being erected. At the dedication this hall was appropriately designated “Kingdom Hall,” thus commencing the practice of JehovahÂ’s witnesses the world over of calling their congregational meeting centers Kingdom Halls. In the fall of 1937 what had formerly been known as the “London Tabernacle” was now redecorated and renamed “Kingdom Hall.” U.S. Newspapers, as far as I can tell never included the term Kingdom Hall with reference to Witnesses until 1938, and even then mostly in Michigan. Even in the 1937 Yearbook, p. 170 the only mention of a Kingdom Hall is still in regard to the building in Hawaii: By means of shortwave, however, and the sound car, the lecture was heard well in Kingdom hall to a good-size audience there assembled. The story of Hawaii first appeared in the 1936 Yearbook, p. 145. It's interesting to note that the title Kingdom Hall was used in a different way than it is today in English. This post is long so I'll post it right below. Â

I met a group of Witnesses from Paris in a tour group - tagged along for a bit and enjoyed their company. Also a Japanese group of Witnesses, but without enough language in common to communicate. I'm sure there were other Witness tours that I missed. This was my fourth time here in 40 years, and I have been on a Witness-sponsored tour here before, too. This was the first time I ever got to meet with some staff and get a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look. This was not because of anything I had done or researched, I was just taking advantage of an opportunity. (A BM project leader was meeting with the non-Witness roommate of a relative of mine at his college in 2015 and I got to meet the same person at the university at that time.) The roommate's project was not religious: it was related to restoring pigmentation and original color to old statues and paintings. But I found that this project leader had been in archaeological digs in Sudan and had studied the Kushites. I asked him what he knew of the claim that the Bible's mention of Tirhakah of "Cush/Ethiopia" had been doubted by authorities until the discovery of statues of him (or rather, the correct translation of inscriptions on previously discovered statues.) It had supposedly been doubted because the Sennacherib Prism (and Taylor's Prism) along with the mural pictorials at Nineveh had mentioned many of the same points from 2 Kings 19, but it never mentioned the diversion from Tirhakah's intended attack on Sennacherib when he was threatening Hezekiah. The prisms mention Hezekiah and some of his actions. The British Museum houses the Taylor Prism mentioning his first and second incursion to Hezekiah without success, a mural from Nineveh that includes the battle of Lachish, a statue of Tirhakah and, of course, the Rosetta Stone that held the key to the correct translation of the inscriptions. So this particular instance of Bible corroboration is often pointed out in tours. At any rate, many Bible tours are given by many different religious groups, as the British Museum was set up in such a way that it encourages (and intrigues) persons with Biblical interest. Various items are still labeled with Bible stories in mind: Gilgamesh and the Flood. Abraham's home of Ur and Ur's "Ram in a Thicket" motif. What did the Tower of Babel look like? What Pharaoh was the Pharaoh of the Exodus? If Jehu, or Hezekiah, or another Bible personage is mentioned or alluded to, it's often mentioned in the descriptions of items. The British Museum is one of the best places to give a tour of Bible related items. Several of the museum staff are very happy to accommodate well-meaning researchers whose only goal is to provide more accurate information when giving tours, for example. Apparently, a few people take advantage. And of course, there are those who go through and give outlandishly wrong information in their tours, just to push an agenda about UFO's or racial issues. I am uncomfortable with the way a lot of the tour guides claim that this or that artifact "proves" that the Bible is right. They often support the Bible's historical narratives perfectly, but no material item "proves" the Bible is right, just as the Bible doesn't "prove" that the artifact is right. Still, there is a lot of wonderment and even a kind of thrill at finding corroborating evidences carved in stone, almost contemporaneous with Biblical events. I am always amazed and appreciative of the experience that such a museum can provide to a Bible believer.