Crisis of Conscience
Page 48
In the spring and early summer of 1980 several long-time members of the Society’s headquarters staff (including members of the Writing Department who had researched and written most of the Aid To Bible Understanding1 book) were either dismissed, disfellowshipped or reassigned to another job after lengthy interrogations. One of the first doctrinal matters about which there seemed to be some dispute that became known to other members of the Bethel family pertained to the “great crowd” of Revelation 7:9. Apparently some were questioning the basis for the Society’s teaching that this is an earthly class, instead of a heavenly one, as most Bible commentators believe and as the Society itself taught until the year 1935.
At this time I was splitting my hours between working in the Service Department and the “Tenth Floor Offices” (later known as the “Executive Offices”) where I did secretarial work for men who handled correspondence, including Governing Body members like Milton Henschel and Ted Jaracz who worked in the Executive Offices.
The congregation I was assigned to was a local one, called “Fort Greene” and it met in the Kingdom Hall found in one of the Society’s factory buildings. Harold Jackson, one of the “section men” in the Service Department (who handled correspondence relating to congregational matters in a specific section of the United States) was scheduled to give a talk at our hall on one of the last Sundays in May of 1980. But Jackson informed us that he might have to cancel due to being assigned to take care of some serious judicial cases, which had arisen. As matters worked out, however, he was able to give the talk and in the course of delivering it, he appeared to be a bit shaken. One point he tried to make was in connection with the Greek word naos, the word used at Revelation 7:15 (translated by the word “temple” in the New World Translation and by the expression “divine habitation” in the literal translation under the Greek text in The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures) to describe where the “great crowd” is serving God. To show that this did not refer to God’s heavenly temple, Jackson read a verse out of the book of Matthew where the term is used in connection with the earthly temple that was in Jerusalem, and then stated that this showed the term naos could be used in referring to an earthly temple. He then cautioned us against listening to those who might come along and try to make a case for a heavenly “great crowd” instead of an earthly one on the basis of this term naos.
Later when I reported to work in the Service Department one morning the following week, a group of men were huddled around Harold Jackson plying him with questions about the nature of the judicial cases he was involved with. He was cautious about giving out details, but did remark that “this is big, this is big.”2 These events were the start of the rude awakening, which I would soon experience after nearly ten years of mostly pleasant and happy experiences in my full-time service as a pioneer and then as a member of the Bethel family.
I had tentatively decided to remain on at the Brooklyn headquarters for about eight months after some of the startling disfellowshippings and dismissals subsequently took place. In part, this was because we had been assured by members of the Governing Body that answers to some of the questions which had arisen would be forthcoming. These were to be presented in the Society’s publications as well as in the form of special, televised comments, which would be given at the morning breakfast table by members of the Writing Staff and others who would endeavor to respond to questions, which had come in. This was to start in September of 1980.
However, the month before this, an article appeared in the August 15, 1980 edition of The Watchtower entitled “The ‘Great Crowd’ Renders Sacred Service Where?” Probably most of the Bethel family knew this article was written in response to some of the issues, which had arisen earlier that year when the disfellowshippings and dismissals took place. And most everyone sensed the gravity of this article since by this time the lives of long-time members of the headquarters staff had been irrevocably changed; they had been branded as “apostates” and portrayed as being worse than persons without faith. It was generally assumed that Fred Franz was the author of this article, which was undoubtedly a correct assumption since he was the one who was looked to for answers during this organizational crisis when serious doctrinal issues had arisen.
The article endeavored to support the Society’s teaching that the “great crowd” is in fact an earthly group by showing that the word naos could actually be applied not just to the inner sanctuary of the temple (consisting of the Holy and Most Holy), but also to the outer courts of the temple, including the “courtyard of the Gentiles” where Jehovah’s Witnesses have been taught to believe the “great crowd” is serving in an antitypical fashion. This is important because in the Bible’s symbolism, the innermost part of the temple represents heaven, so those serving there would likewise have to be in heaven. (See for example, Hebrews 8:5; 9:11-12, 23-24; Revelation 11:19; 14:15, 17; 15:5-6, 8; 16:1,17.) This article presented a summary chart on page 15 as reproduced below to show how the Bible could use the term naos in a broader sense to apply not just to the inner sanctuary of the temple, but also to the outermost courtyard.
The chart above3, published in The Watchtower, August 15, 1980 issue, serves to explain how the “great crowd” could be in God’s naos (Revelation 7:15) and still be on earth.
Those at Bethel who made a careful examination of this article (few though they may have been), however, found something extremely disturbing about it, especially because of knowing that it was written to refute the conclusions formerly loved and respected members of the Bethel family may have arrived at as a result of their personal study of the Scriptures. Looking up the Biblical texts to which the summarized statements referred in the Society’s Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures revealed that the word naos is apparently not even used in some of the verses alluded to by the Watchtower.
What follows is a point-by-point discussion referring to the points made in the above Watchtower, August 15, 1980 chart:
•It was from the courts of the outer temple (na·os´) that Jesus drove the money changers4
The Biblical verses which describe how Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple are Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15, Luke 19:45 and John 2:14-15. Checking the Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures showed that the word hierón, not naos is used in these texts. (Naos is consistently rendered “divine habitation” in the Society’s Interlinear translation in the literal, word-for-word translation found under the Greek. Hierón is the word commonly used in the Scriptures to denote the whole temple area. As Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words states on page 115 [Seventeenth edition, 1966]: “HIERON … signifying the entire building with its precincts, or some part thereof, as distinct from the naos, the inner sanctuary …”)
This same point is also made on page 493 of the August 15, 1960 issue of The Watchtower in its discussion of the second chapter of John and how it was that the temple could have had room for the money changers and all the animals which were being sold there. It states:
What kind of building could this be that had room for all this traffic? The fact is that this temple was not just one building but a series of structures of which the temple sanctuary was the center. In the original tongue this is made quite clear, the Scripture writers distinguishing between the two by the use of the words hierón and naós. Hierón referred to the entire temple grounds, whereas naós applied to the temple structure itself, the successor of the tabernacle in the wilderness. Thus John tells that Jesus found all this traffic in the hierón.
(The Kingdom Interlinear Translation of the Greek Scriptures translates hierón by the word “temple” in the literal translation under the Greek text.)
The above photocopy is from page 493 of the August 15, 1960 issue of The Watchtower. It correctly identifies the outer part of the temple area (where the Bible says the money changers were located) by the Greek word hierón. Twenty years later, however, page 15 of the August 15, 1980 issue of The Watchtower mis
leadingly implied that the money changers were located in the area of the temple described by the word naos. This was done in an article designed to uphold the Society’s teaching that the “great crowd” is an earthly class despite their being located in God’s naos according to Revelation 7:15. (The sanctuary of the temple, the naos, pictures heaven in the Bible. The subject matter and writing style indicate that Frederick W. Franz was the author of both articles.)
•It was the entire temple (na·os´) that was destroyed as a judgment from God5
Matthew 24:1-2; Mark 13:1-3 and Luke 21:5-6 relate the words of Jesus where he prophesied concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, and again the Kingdom Interlinear shows the word hierón, not naos is used in these verses.
•It was in the outer temple (na·os´) that Judas threw back the 30 pieces of silver6
While it is true that some reference works will point to Matthew 27:5; (which describes how Judas threw back the 30 pieces of silver into the temple or naos) as a possible exception to the rule that naos always has reference only to the innermost part of the temple area, others point out that this is not necessarily the case. For example, Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon (1889, Harper & Brothers) says on page 422 in its definition of the word naos:
“[U]sed of the temple at Jerusalem, but only of the sacred edifice (or sanctuary) itself, consisting of the Holy place and the Holy of holies. …: Mt xxiii. 16 sq. 35; xxvii.40; Mk. xiv.58; xv.29; Jn. ii. 19 sq.; Rev. xi.2; nor need Mt. xxvii.5 be regarded as an exception, provided we suppose that Judas in his desperation entered the Holy place, which no one but the priests was allowed to enter …” (Emphasis added.)
From this it can be seen the use of the term naos in Matthew 27 is not necessarily an exception to the rule that this term always refers to the innermost sanctuary of the temple, since it may very well be that Judas, in his desperate frame of mind, did indeed enter into an area normally forbidden to all except the priests.7
In his commentary on the book of Matthew (Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1961), on pages 1079 and 1080, R.C.H. Lenski also comments on how Judas may have been able to have thrown the silver coins into the actual sanctuary building itself and not one of the outer structures of the temple complex:
Judas … hurls the silver “into the [naos] or Sanctuary.” Some think that this was the place (they call it the room) in the Temple where the receptacles for the receipt of money stood in the court of the women. But then [hierón] would have been the proper word. The term [naos] refers to the Sanctuary which included the Holy and the Holy of Holies.8 Judas went up to the top of the priestly court, took the sack of silver, and flung it into the open entrance of the Holy Place.
•BUT it was the entire temple (na·os´) that had been 46 years in the building9
John 2:19-20 are apparently the verses referred to here by The Watchtower. In these verses Jesus likens his own body to a sanctuary and tells the Jews “Break down this temple (naos) and in three days I will raise it up.” To this they responded, “This temple (naos) was built in forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” The Jews, of course, either by mistake or because of captiousness, were thinking that Jesus was talking about the literal temple rebuilt by Herod. Flavius Josephus reports in Antiquities of the Jews that the sanctuary of Herod’s temple was built in one and one-half years and the courtyards were under construction for an additional eight years. (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XV, Chapter XI, sect ions 5 & 6) Thus, the Watchtower Society publications Insight on the Scriptures (Volume 2, page 1079) and Aid To Bible Understanding (page 1584) make this observation:
When certain Jews approached Jesus Christ in 30 C.E., saying, “This temple was built in forty-six years” (John 2:20), these Jews were apparently talking about the work that continued on the complex of courts and buildings up until then.
While it may be true that the work which continued after the first one and one half years up until the time Jesus spoke the words recorded at John 2:19 largely involved the outer complex of courts and buildings, this does not in itself prove that naos must in this instance refer to more than the sanctuary. Certainly, at least one reason the Jews used the term naos in this case instead of hierón was because they were quoting Jesus who had used the term metaphorically in describing his body.
The basic structure of the sanctuary was apparently complete and in usable form after only one and one-half years of building, but the writings of Josephus also indicate that this structure remained in an unfinished state even at the time of its destruction by Roman armies in the year 70 C.E. (or A.O.) The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon Press, copyright 1962) notes the following on pages 551 and 552 with regard to the temple rebuilt by Herod:
The work of rebuilding was begun in the eighteenth year of Herod’s reign (20/19 B.C.). Herod thought, according to Josephus, that Solomon’s temple was 120 cubits high (cf. II Chr. 3:4); its successor was only half as high; Herod wished to redress the deficiency and restore the former glory (Antiq. XV.xi.1)….
The old foundations were removed and new ones laid. The new building was 100 cubits long, and the same in height; a structural difficulty prevented attainment of the full height of 120 cubits. …
In Antiq. XX.ix.7 we read that the construction of the temple precincts [hierón] was “finished” during the time of Agrippa II … during the procuratorship of Albinos, ca. 63. … Later, Agrippa gathered material to increase the height of the sanctuary building by 20 cubits to bring it to the supposed Solomonic height, but the war intervened before this work could be begun (War V.i.5).
Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews says the following regarding this in Book XV, Chapter XI, section 3 (as translated by William Whiston, A.M. in The Life And Works of Flavius Josephus, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York):
So Herod took away the old foundations, and laid others, and erected the temple upon them, being in length a hundred cubits, and in height twenty additional cubits, which [twenty], upon the sinking of their foundations fell down; and this part it was that we resolved to raise again in the days of Nero.
(Nero was emperor during the years 54 C.E. to 68 C.E., according to Insight on the Scriptures, Volume 1, page 382.)
Josephus adds to this in Book V, Chapter I, section 5 of Wars of the Jews. The materials which had been gathered to rebuild the sanctuary to its intended height were instead used by John of Gischala to support the war effort. Josephus writes (according to the Whiston translation cited above):
Nay, John abused the sacred materials, and employed them in the construction of his engines of war; for the people and the priests had formerly determined to support the temple, and raise the holy house twenty cubits higher; for king Agrippa had at very great expense, and with very great pains, brought thither such materials as were proper for that purpose, being pieces of timber very well worth seeing ….
A footnote in the Whiston translation of this part of Wars of the Jews says the following:
This timber, we see, was designed for the rebuilding [of] those twenty additional cubits of the holy house above the hundred, which had fallen down some years before.
This evidence shows that the sanctuary may very well have been considered to have been still “in the building” when the Jews spoke the words recorded at John 2:20 to Jesus. Since it appears that the sanctuary was never successfully brought to its intended height of 120 cubits, it may very well have been considered to have been still “under construction” at that time (either literally or in an anticipatory sense). Details are not given as to the manner in which this upper most portion of the sanctuary underwent the “sinking” process described by Josephus or the time span over which this occurred, but it very well may have been a gradual deterioration which began shortly after its construction and lasted over a period of years. Repeated efforts to shore up and save the defective structures may have been made by the temple builders before these efforts were abandoned and the work of removing and planning fo
r the replacement of the fallen structures was undertaken. If this were the case, it is understandable how the Jews could have been referring specifically to the sanctuary when saying the naos had been 46 years in the building. (Many translators, in fact, use the word “sanctuary” in their renderings of this verse. See for example, The Jerusalem Bible, An American Translation by Goodspeed and Smith, Young’s Literal Translation and the translations by Moffatt and Lenski.) Maintenance work (and possibly work of an ornamental or embellishing nature) very well may have been done on the sanctuary throughout the 46-year period described as well.
This explanation may be helpful in understanding John 2:20 if it truly has the sense commonly conveyed by both old and recent translations that the building process was still continuing. (The Berkeley Version makes this understanding explicit by translating this verse, “This temple has been in process of building for forty-six years.”) However, some scholars find this rendering of the original Greek text unacceptable. B.F. Wescott (who helped compile the Greek master text that New World Translation is based on) and Leon Morris feel instead that the Jews were referring to the completion of a definite stage of the work and that no building was going on when these words were spoken. (This is not to say that the work was totally completed at this time. As previously noted on page 8, Josephus reports in Antiquities of the Jews, Book XX, Chapter IX, section 7, that this did not take place until the procuratorship of Albinus in A.D. 62-64. Of course, the intended rebuilding of the uppermost part of the sanctuary building never was completed.) Thus, they feel that the Greek text may be accurately translated to carry the sense that “the Jews were asking Jesus how He would be able to raise up in three days the temple edifice which had stood for forty-six years.” (See the book Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ by Harold W. Hoehner, page 42, published in 1977 by the Zondervan Publishing House in Grand Rapids, Michigan.)