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Since wierwille relied a lot on Bullinger, here is a website for The Complete Companion Bible. However, any discussion of Bullinger's work that do not apply to vp's literal translations according to usage would be off topic for this thread. I just sent it along as an additional resource. The KJV Companion Bible in PDF Online

Unfortunately, my copy of your book was accidentally ruined when my water bottle soaked it while in my bag, so I can't refer to it. John S. wrote, "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery...This paper is the result of those years of study." In his Additional Comments, he said, "My paper is quite accurately presented here in WayDale. I wrote in through the summer of 1986 and handed it in to the research department in September of 1986." Do you or anyone else know more about why vp wanted such a study done? Was he having doubts about his ideas about adultery being accurate? Or was he counting on the study exonerating him? Did the fact that he was having serious health issues at the time have anything to do with this request? I ask because according to VPW's Birth Certificate, John Juedes wrote about wierwille wearing an eye patch and that ,"Witnesses at the Rock of Ages 1983 reported that Wierwille's speech began to slur during a hymn-sing, and he had to leave the stage during a teaching because he was having trouble communicating. Although rumors suggested Wierwille had two strokes, no specifics were generally announced." Also, why did it take JS around 3 years to study the topic and then begin to write it and hand it in after wierwille's death? That was a long time to keep him waiting, even denying him the privilege of actually getting an answer. Did he possibly share his results with vp privately before his death. Finally, is John Schoenheit still willing to talk about the paper and answer questions?

I'd love to see a handling of II Peter 1:20. (Irony is my middle name.)

James Mason Georgy Girl Lynn Redgrave George

Cool. Not curious enough to buy it though. Not at that price. Anyone else recall examples from previous study or publication?

Yes. Exceedingly, abundantly rotten. Of course they are dismissive of rape, adultery and bestiality fetishes. What I'm asking is, do they NOW teach John Schoenheit's exegesis on adultery? I don't need to be shown what the Bible says about adultery to know it's wrong, but many do. Schoenheit's paper seems to me to be a thorough exegetical treatment of the issue. Without the appendices, I could imagine TWI turning a paper like that into a collateral pamphlet. (Changing some words here and there to claim it as original.) That is, if they are really trying to distance themselves from their filthy past. They remade PFAL into PFALToday, cutting the duration by 50%. Though that's the easiest edit to make, It's a step in the right direction. Teaching Schoenheit's thesis is another righteous step. It could demonstrate real change without having to admit anything. They want to distance themselves from their past. They want people to beleeeve they've changed. So simple.

These days they don't justify anything. "that was a long time ago. It's OK now". I usually say "The foundation of TWI is rotten. You can pain the walls all you want. "

I've never seen this one but it may be helpful, https://www.amazon.com/Literal-Translations-According-Victor-Wierwille/dp/1482768968#detailBullets_feature_div

I got to wondering if there is a collection of these somewhere. Wouldn't that be handy? The most famous, of course, is agape as "the love of God in the renewed mind in manifestation." I can confidently say these many years later that this definition of that one word is pretty much made up out of whole cloth. It seems to be a concerted effort to work the words "renewed mind" and "manifestation" into a word that implies neither. BUT that doesn't make it necessarily a bad definition. I just think it needs to be thought out more. There were some verses where that translation makes no damn sense. Like when God so loved the world. Did he renew his mind? I mean come on. Explore. What were some of the others? I've long since discarded my TWI books, but I would be interested in exploring some of the others and analyzing whether they were accurate or self-serving. Post em if you've got em.

Does anyone know TWI's current position on this issue? How do they explain the firing of John Schoenheit for rightly dividing the word on adultery? Surely, they don't dispute the thesis of his paper. EDIT: JuniorCorps wasn't alone in leaving over this issue. How does TWI defend against this legitimate reason. They must be prepared. After all, those postcards about "coming home" were sent to former dupes they must know left because for this very reason.

Thanks. I just put that on my list of re-reads.

If anyone wants to read my first-hand account of being on staff at HQ and talking with John right after he was fired, it's in Undertow, Chapter 54: Clampdown. I got his permission to use his real name in my book.

Thanks WordWolf for filling in the blanks of what I remembered hearing.

Thanks for the belly laugh waysider .

In light of the “Blast from the Past” thread in About the Way, this thread in the Atheism subforum is a way to ask rhetorical questions about topics like clerical sexual abuse. A rhetorical question (RQ) is asked to make a point, rather than get an answer. When it comes to God, many questions are rhetorical because only God knows the answers which he may or may not reveal in the afterlife which is not helpful in the hear and now. One of the heinous part of CSA is the cover up that is done within the religious group (like what happened in twi). CSA became well-known in the cases of the Catholic Church scandal, and the Julie Roys website below gives examples of this happening in protestant churches as well. Catholic Church child sexual abuse scandal Julie Roys There are now laws, and often civil lawsuits, against those involved in cover ups because of the seriousness of turning a blind eye to victims in order to protect the church/ministry instead of the flock. So here's my RQ. If it's so important to hold humans responsible for not immediately revealing abuse so the abuser can be stopped and held accountable, what about Christ? How is it that as head of the church who sees all is not being held responsible as well? Christians might consider this an absurd question because the spiritual world does not work in the same way as the physical world. God's absolute judgments come in another life. However, I think as a rhetorical question, it can make the point that this problematic scenario of Jesus being the head while abuse is frequently occurring is an impossible one since Jesus, as the resurrected son of God, cannot even be proven to exist (that is outside of the claims of the bible and claims are not evidence). So, what seems to be left is the continued abuse of children and adults under Christ's watchful eyes where questions as to why this is must become rhetorical ones because they simply can't be answered in this lifetime.

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I get this which makes Schoenheit's "Forward" interesting to read. "In 1982 or 1983 Rev. Ralph Dubofsky and Rev. Vince Finegan came to me. Dr. Wierwille had asked them to do some work on the subject of adultery. Ralph and Vince wanted to know what I knew and if it would help them. I was genuinely surprised at how little I knew about the subject from the Word of God. This paper is the result of those years of study." "As I struggled to control my mind, I realized that I did not have a scripture to grab onto for support. I literally was not completely positive as to what the Word of God had to say on the subject." This was understandable, because after all, vp never taught it in the Christian Family and Sex class so how were people supposed to know.

And then there was the one who didn't. edit: Different situation, but dealt with in the same manner.

That's where vpw's cadre of sin came in. First, they procure the victim and get them to go to him in private. Afterwards, one of them "coincidentally" ran into her as she left, trying to make sense of what happened. This exit counselor, so to speak, can tell her how she was privileged and so on, and watch her for signs of exploding. If she seemed ready to spill the beans on having been raped/sexually assaulted, then the exit counselor passed word. Quickly, she's announced as unworthy in some way and kicked off grounds. This attacks her self-esteem while she's trying to make sense of things, and let's some innocent people possibly see she was kicked out for supposedly some weakness on her part (kept vague, of course.) She's immediately put on a nice, slow bus. That's really cheap, and since they're in the middle of nowhere, it will take her a day to reach home if she is close, dayS if she is not. That gives the twi propaganda machine lots of time to contact all the leadership in the person's home area and destroy her reputation. That way, if she says something to them, they've already "poisoned the well." Furthermore, it isolates her further, damaging her self-esteem even more. Any time someone was any kind of liability, twi shoved them on a bus. Sometimes it meant a person took a WEEK to get home, because they were in no shape to go home alone, and got lost somewhere in the US. That happened a few times. lcm documented vpw doing it in his book "VP and Me." (We discussed that in the thread "VP and Me in Wonderland.") A man in residence evidenced some sort of event- he was incoherent. Any normal place- where having a fiduciary responsibility to care for people they accepted responsibility for- would have had him taken to a hospital and evaluated. What did vpw do? He CONFRONTED the man! As if this was a sane response. Then he sent the man home on a bus. lcm worried about the man getting home, but vpw told him to stop worrying and the man would get home. A WEEK later, he turned up at home. That's the most anyone at twi knew about what happened to the man. He showed up at home a WEEK later. I wish we had details about his ordeal, and about what medical situation had happened. Was it acute malnutrition or sleep deprivation? Was it some undiagnosed brain condition? Was it something else? We'll never know, and vpw never cared. We know at least one woman got sent home (IIRC, after getting raped hitchhiking on LEAD when she was sent alone on someone's vehicle) and she was a mess psychologically when she left. Nobody cared. She was in no shape to take care of her connections, and she got lost somewhere in the US. Several days later, she made it home.

We left not only because he had to write this but because he was fired for it. It made no sense. It made me turn my back on TTW after 15 years. That's how stupidly they handled it.

That's where the reasons given in the Appendices come in. What should have been so obvious became overshadowed by deceit, lies and powerful positions in twi.

"the spiritually mature can handle anything and that anything done in the love of God is okay." This also serves as a form of gaslighting in that if a victim does feel bad afterwards (instead of being "blessed" for having been chosen by the man of God), she has to see herself as spiritually immature for not having enough love of God in the renewed mind. It's called shifting the blame. I've read something along the line that if a victim of vp couldn't deal with it, she would be kicked out of the ministry for some made-up reason and then lies are told about her being "off the word" so others will want nothing more to do with her.

This was the catalyst to us finally deciding to leave. I was young but I remember thinking "I didn't know we needed this research paper? That's kinda crazy. How is this not the most obvious thing in the world?"