The Other Side of the Handbill

THE following experience was related by a woman witness of Jehovah at a circuit assembly in Illinois: “I was born into a Catholic family and had gone to several churches when, finally, I decided not to go to any of them as there was ‘something lacking.’ Several years ago I returned home from work one day to find a handbill advertising a public lecture of Jehovah’s witnesses. I was not impressed with the title of the lecture, nor the name Jehovah’s witnesses, as I never heard of them before; in fact, I did not even know who Jehovah was! But the message on the other side of the handbill asked the question, ‘How Well Do You Know Your Bible?’ This impressed me.

“I always wanted to know the Bible, so I wrote out a check and sent for the New World Translation before making supper and went to the corner to mail it. After I received the Bible, a Witness called on me one Saturday morning. During our conversation I recognized she knew something about the Bible. I mentioned that I wished I knew the Bible, and a study was started immediately. After she left, my husband threw up his hands and said, ‘Don’t get me mixed up with these people!’ Not knowing anything about ‘these people,’ I read the book ‘Let God Be True’ almost in its entirety that night. In the morning I mentioned to him that this was the only book on religion I had ever read that made sense. It was not long afterward that he joined our Bible study.

“In the meantime my mother passed away. My sister called and said, ‘Don’t study anymore with these people. With mother’s death and your studying the Bible, you are so confused. I’m coming over to straighten you out and comfort you.’ That evening I placed the book ‘Let God Be True’ with her and started a study the following week, which continued until we were both dedicated to Jehovah and baptized on the same day. My husband, who did not want anything to do with ‘these people,’ was baptized fifteen months later. I thank Jehovah God for sending someone to spread the Word of life—and I thank that someone who left a little handbill at our door when we were not at home.”

Questions From Readers

● Why does the New World Translation speak of the men who came from the East to view the child Jesus as astrologers? (Matt. 2:1) According to Strong’s dictionary of Greek words, the word here is magos and means ‘a Magian, i.e., Oriental scientist, by implication a magician, a sorcerer.’—R. A., United States.

Because magos means Magus or Magian, various Bible versions do have “Magi” in a marginal or footnote reading at Matthew 2:1, such as the Newberry Study Bible and the American Standard Version. On the other hand, some translations have the word “Magi” right in the text. Among such are Weymouth and the Catholic Confraternity. Now, who were these magi and for what were they renowned?

Many dictionaries speak of the magi as being a priestly caste of ancient Media and Persia. The Imperial Bible Dictionary gives considerable information about the background of the magi:

“According to Herodotus the magi were a tribe of the Medes, who professed to interpret dreams, and had the official charge of sacred rites; they were, in short, the learned and priestly class, and having, as was supposed, the skill of deriving from books and the observation of the stars a supernatural insight into coming events, they came to be possessed of great influence, and never failed to be consulted on all great occasions. Whether there was a native class among the Babylonians who practised the same learning and arts, or the Median tribe became naturalized also there, there can be no doubt that a class bearing the name of magi, and holding much the same position as among the Persians, existed in Babylon. Nay, so much did they appear to be at home there, that the word Chaldean came to be nearly synonymous with magus among the Greeks and Romans, and reference is also made in Scripture to the great account that was made among the Babylonians of that kind of mystic lore and assumed supernatural skill, for which the magi