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Questions From ReadersThe Watchtower—1954 | March 15
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● On page 84 of the book “This Means Everlasting Life” it says that Xerxes I was succeeded on the Persian throne by Artaxerxes III. Was it not Artaxerxes I instead?—J. C., Canada.
In Watch Tower publications this Artaxerxes has been referred to as Artaxerxes III for the following reason: The Magian impostor Smerdis, who occupied Persia’s throne for less than eight months (522 B.C.), is called in Greek Arthasasthaʹ, usually translated Artaxerxes. Hence he would be the first Artaxerxes. (Ezra 4:7-24) The Greek Septuagint next speaks of Esther’s royal husband as “Artaxerxes,” who was really Xerxes the Great, and who was hence the second Artaxerxes. (Esther 1:1) The next one, who is usually referred to as Artaxerxes I, is the third Artaxerxes, being the one with whom Nehemiah dealt. Concerning him McClintock & Strong’s Cyclopædia, Volume 1, page 440, column 1, says: “He is the same with the third Artaxerxes, the Persian king who, in the twentieth year of his reign, considerately allowed Nehemiah to go to Jerusalem for the furtherance of purely national objects, invested him with the government of his own people, and allowed him to remain there for twelve years (Neh. 2:1; 5:14).” Hence it is to avoid any confusion of identity that the successor of Xerxes the Great is referred to as Artaxerxes III.
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Better Immoral than One of Jehovah’s Witnesses?The Watchtower—1954 | March 15
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Better Immoral than One of Jehovah’s Witnesses?
THE claim of the Roman Catholic organization in the United States that she believes that salvation is possible outside of her church is difficult to reconcile with the expressions made by her spokesmen in other parts of the world. For example, late in 1952 in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, one of Jehovah’s witnesses began a Bible study with a policeman and his wife. Shortly the wife began to come to the Kingdom Hall meetings, but the husband held back some because of fear of losing his job. After two months of study they began to receive persecution.
By means of ridicule the city police tried to influence him to change, and one of them, his landlord, threatened to put him out of his apartment if he ever allowed Jehovah’s witnesses to call on him again. His parents and other members of his family wrote him long letters begging him to stop his studies with Jehovah’s witnesses. To all these he wrote excellent replies, explaining from the Scriptures what he now believed and why he could no longer accept the teachings of the Catholic Church.
He was visited at his place of employment by a priest who has known him for many years. The priest spent several hours trying to persuade him to stop his studying with Jehovah’s witnesses; warned him he would lose his job and his friends and would bring shame upon a Catholic family. The policeman asked the priest if his past life as a Catholic was better, going out, drinking, running around and suchlike. The priest replied that it was worse to be one of Jehovah’s witnesses. But the priest’s arguments were in vain, even as were the threats of the police and the pleas of relatives.
A similar report was received from one of the Watch Tower missionaries in St. Lucia, B.W.I. There a certain Catholic priest has spies posted and whenever a Catholic visits the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s witnesses the priest sends a committee of two to interview the Catholic whose curiosity has caused him to tread on forbidden ground. Two of such recently called on a woman who had shown some interest in Jehovah’s witnesses and attended their meeting.
Not at all intimidated or put on the defensive by their seeming casual discussion of the work of Jehovah’s witnesses, the woman of good will forthrightly told them: “Yes, I have been attending the meetings of Jehovah’s witnesses and I am going to keep on attending them. For the first time in my life I am gaining an understanding of the Bible. You are here to try to stop me from gaining this knowledge. If I had spent the night in carousing or in immoral conduct, if I had gotten drunk, you would not call on me, you would not be interested in my welfare; but because I have attended a Bible-study meeting you express concern. You know the situation in the local parochial school, that several of the girls had to be dismissed because of their being pregnant, but that does not interest you. Only when somebody tries to learn the truth of God’s Word are you concerned.”
Yes, the attitude of some is, Better immoral than one of Jehovah’s witnesses.
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