"this publication has been updated"

[Ostria]

WHERE... WHY... HOW?! Is there a way when they update something that we can see EXACTLY what they changed? I know  ELF was updated recently and i wanna know how. It bugs me so much and i cant be the only one. I see people have little thingy dos for different uses for the apps, but is something like this already out there? 

[gusdn1]

25 minutes ago, Ostria said:

WHERE... WHY... HOW?! Is there a way when they update something that we can see EXACTLY what they changed? I know  ELF was updated recently and i wanna know how. It bugs me so much and i cant be the only one. I see people have little thingy dos for different uses for the apps, but is something like this already out there? 

 

The most recent update is about the new arrangement regarding the removal of certain individuals from the congregation. It is detailed in Lesson 57 of the LFF book: What if You Commit a Serious Sin?

 

If you have a previous copy of the LFF book, you can see the difference. Although this is just one of the changes made so far, other updates were implemented earlier.

 

Tracking all updates and changes in publications is not very easy, but some updates or changes are quite easy to track or even expect. For instance, when a new arrangement is made, we can anticipate updates in our publications because of it, or when a publisher is removed and replaced by a different publisher. Otherwise, tracking all changes is difficult unless you review every publication each time there is an update. Sometimes, the updates do not include new content but are simply bug fixes, such as correcting non-responsive links or improperly coded parts of the publication.

Edited July 16 by gusdn1

[Ostria]

3 minutes ago, gusdn1 said:

 

The most recent update was about the new arrangement regarding the removal such ones from the congregation.

It is on Lesson 57 of lff book: What if You Commit a Serious Sin?

If you have a printed copy of the lff book, you can see the difference. Although that is only one of the changes made so far. Other changes were made a while ago.

Wait... So how did you know that? Did you go page by page? I used ELF as a current example i be wanting to know everything O_O

[gusdn1]

5 minutes ago, Ostria said:

Wait... So how did you know that? Did you go page by page? I used ELF as a current example i be wanting to know everything O_O

 

 When a new arrangement is made, we can anticipate updates in our publications because of it, or when a publisher is removed and replaced by a different publisher (e.g. Bro. Morris)

[jwhess]

Some updates are unimportan (like the address change for a branch offce listed in the back).  Sometime it is a computer code change (like Br. JP said).

Most of the changes are like those.

 

Every now and then a major change takes place.  Back around 1990, the organization needed to update the Revelation book with lots of changes due to an improved understanding of prophecy.  We didn't have digital electronic publications then.  So they sent out pages of printed changes and told us to glue them into the book.  Today they would just release an updated book and tell us to use that one.

 

If you have the current book in PDF electronic format and the new updated one in PDF, you can download a PDF file comparator app and put both books into the app and it will compare them and tell you the changes.  I did that a couple of times.  Mostly it was not worth the time. Sometimes the printing will have an addtional space between the Chapter number, title and page number (like   Chapter 1  How to get to know God     4)    and it is changed to (Chapter 1    How to get to know God         4).

 

Important changest like we saw in the Enjoy Life Forever book were made because we changed the information, videos and reference material in lesson 57.  The songbook changed because we added 9 new songs.

 

EDIT:  just for your personal information, the Enjoy Life Foreve book is abbreviated lff-E  The letter names are chosen by the organization and not made up by us.  You can find them on the publishers page of each book or on the back page of a tract.

 

 

Edited July 16 by jwhess

[Ostria]

1 hour ago, gusdn1 said:

 

 When a new arrangement is made, we can anticipate updates in our publications because of it, or when a publisher is removed and replaced by a different publisher (e.g. Bro. Morris)

Oh, who is bro morris? Tea is being spilled.... Wait.... Cant gossip.... Drat

[Ostria]

27 minutes ago, jwhess said:

Some updates are unimportan (like the address change for a branch offce listed in the back).  Sometime it is a computer code change (like Br. JP said).

Most of the changes are like those.

 

Every now and then a major change takes place.  Back around 1990, the organization needed to update the Revelation book with lots of changes due to an improved understanding of prophecy.  We didn't have digital electronic publications then.  So they sent out pages of printed changes and told us to glue them into the book.  Today they would just release an updated book and tell us to use that one.

 

If you have the current book in PDF electronic format and the new updated one in PDF, you can download a PDF file comparator app and put both books into the app and it will compare them and tell you the changes.  I did that a couple of times.  Mostly it was not worth the time. Sometimes the printing will have an addtional space between the Chapter number, title and page number (like   Chapter 1  How to get to know God     4)    and it is changed to (Chapter 1    How to get to know God         4).

 

Important changest like we saw in the Enjoy Life Forever book were made because we changed the information, videos and reference material in lesson 57.  The songbook changed because we added 9 new songs.

 

EDIT:  just for your personal information, the Enjoy Life Foreve book is abbreviated lff-E  The letter names are chosen by the organization and not made up by us.  You can find them on the publishers page of each book or on the back page of a tract.

 

 

Ahhh ive seen the book abbreviations before. I wonder how they come up with them because most of them dont make since

[gusdn1]

55 minutes ago, Ostria said:

Ahhh ive seen the book abbreviations before. I wonder how they come up with them because most of them dont make since

 

The GB committee responsible for our publication production is the one that decides what mnemonic to use. We don't really know how they choose it unless someone here has information about it.

Edited July 16 by gusdn1

[jwhess]

You asked:

Ahhh ive seen the book abbreviations before. I wonder how they come up with them because most of them dont make since

 

Here is a really quick summary of the letters.

 

Why do the mnemonic abbreviations come the way they do?  Mostly they try to make some reasonable effort to make hem identifiable.

But they already have lots of names.  We can’t use them twice.  Below is an example. 

 

Why wasn’t the Bible Teach book called  bt?  Beacause we already had a book called bt (Bearing Thorough witness book).  So they used the first letter ‘b’ and the last letter ‘h’ to make Bible Teach.

 

We used to have only 2 letters.  Then we had a lot more publications.  The ‘simplified’ Bible Teach book just became ‘bhs’ (the s was added to make it ‘simplified’).

 

We have publications going back to 1879,  The Awake magazine is identified with a single letter ‘g’.  Why a 'g'?  Because the magazine was first introduced as the ‘Golden Age’ magazine.  So the ‘g’.

 

bh

Bible Teach

What Does the Bible Really Teach? (2005, 2014)

 

bt

Bearing Witness

“Bearing Thorough Witness” About God’s Kingdom (2009, 2022)

 

Why can’t the new book be called Enjoy Life?  We already have a book (in 1950) called Everlasting Life whose abbreviation is el  And to call a completely different book the same letters or just add one on the end (like the bhs) would indicate it was a related upgrade and that is not true.  We used Life Forever and chose the 'l' in Life and the 'f' in life and the 'f' in Forever...lff

 

There are two listings of abbreviations in the index.  One covers 1930 to 1985 and the other list covers 1096 tp 2024.  Each list has about 20-30 pages in each list.  There are hundreds of publications. Below are the first pages of each.

 

*** dx30-85 Abbreviations of Publication Titles *** 

ABBREVIATIONS OF PUBLICATION TITLES

Symbol

Short Title

Full Title (Copyright)

Format

 

aa

—

After Armageddon—God’s New World (1953)

Booklet

 

ad

Aid

Aid to Bible Understanding (1971)

Book

af

 

—

Hereafter (1932)

Booklet

 

*** dx86-24 Abbreviations of Publication Titles *** 

ABBREVIATIONS OF PUBLICATION TITLES

Mnemonic

Short Title

Full Title (Copyright)

Format

 

ba

Book for All

A Book for All People (1997)

Brochure

 

be

Ministry School

Benefit From Theocratic Ministry School Education (2001)

Book

 

bh

Bible Teach

What Does the Bible Really Teach? (2005, 2014)

Book

 

Edited July 16 by jwhess

[Tsheppar]

1 hour ago, Ostria said:

Oh, who is bro morris?

Ha! Ostria , You ARE new ! Lol I love your comments ,questions, and excitement by the way.😁

 Brother Morris was a Governing Body member that was removed recently. 

 

Ohhhz and as a lifelong witness  myself , I feel the same way about updates. Everytime i see update...Im like Now hold on just a minute!  What got changed?! I waanna know !! Hahhahahhaha! 

Edited July 16 by Tsheppar

[jwhess]

2 hours ago, Ostria said:

Oh, who is bro morris? Tea is being spilled.... Wait.... Cant gossip.... Drat

Br Anthony Morris was a long-standing Governing Body member who no longer serves in that capacity.  His life story is in the May 15th Watchtower of 2015.

 

https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/w20150515/remembering-first-love-for-jehovah/

 

Because of a Caleb & Sophia video he was is, he is sometimes called "Caleb's Grandfather".

 

 

Edited July 16 by jwhess

[Hinata]

7 hours ago, Ostria said:

WHERE... WHY... HOW?! Is there a way when they update something that we can see EXACTLY what they changed? I know  ELF was updated recently and i wanna know how. It bugs me so much and i cant be the only one. I see people have little thingy dos for different uses for the apps, but is something like this already out there? 

 

The brothers do not publish what was changed except for very small portions of books.

 

We used to do it more in earlier times when paper book was more convenient, so we can mark or cut the papers of the book from when it was changed. (Good times.)

 

Many times, the brothers in this web site will be glad to let you know what was changed. It is easy to compare with computer programs if we already had previous publication downloaded.

 

But the society does not actively let us know what has changed.

 

[Parale]

5 hours ago, Tsheppar said:

Brother Morris was a Governing Body member that was removed recently. 

 

I don't think you meant to say 'removed'?

 

https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/watchtower-study-august-2024/Help-for-Those-Who-Are-Removed-From-the-Congregation/#footnote2

 

 

There was an announcement in February 2023 on the JW.org website - which has since been removed - that said: "On Wednesday, February 22, 2023 it was announced at World Headquarters that Brother Anthony Morris III is no longer serving as a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses."

 

FWIW below is a timeline of Governing Body members from 1971 though to the present day:

Governing Body 1971 Timeline - Dec 2023.pdf

 

 

Also, FWIW, The Watchtower June 2024, on pages 11 and 12, paragraphs 12 and 13 stated:

 

Psalm 15:3 also reminds us that Jehovah’s guests do nothing bad to their neighbors and do not defame their friends. What might that involve?

We could unintentionally defame someone by spreading negative information. For example: (1) a sister discontinues her full-time service, (2) a married couple no longer serve at Bethel, or (3) a brother is no longer serving as an elder or a ministerial servant. Would it be proper to speculate on the reasons why these adjustments were made and to share that opinion with others? There may well be reasons for the change that we are unaware of. Furthermore, a guest in Jehovah’s tent “does nothing bad to his neighbor, and he does not defame his friends.”

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2024446#h=20-84

 

Edited July 16 by Parale

[Witness1970]

There are times when knowing what the changes are would be important. Knowing what has changed would help us not to teach an old belief that has been updated.  We might unknowingly teach incorrect information if we are unaware of the update.  

[foghorn]

1 hour ago, Witness1970 said:

We might unknowingly teach incorrect information if we are unaware of the update.

None of us want to do that. In most cases, though, any significant change in our teaching will be presented first via JW Broadcasting (ie, Governing Body Updates, Monthly Broadcast, Letters to the congregation, etc.) It is only later that the publications are updated to reflect the changes. Case in point: recent changes in understanding of how to assist those involved in serious sin. Our electronic publications really help assure we are all teaching the same thing. 

 

To illustrate: some years ago a pioneer was conducting a Bible study out of the Live Forever book (large red one). His student and I both had a newly obtained book; the pioneer had his old, well-worn study book. The student read the paragraph, which was updated in the newer book. The study conductor became very confused, thinking the student was on the wrong paragraph. We had to show him both new books before he would accept the newer version!

 

Our electronic publications make that scenario very unlikely to occur nowadays. As long as we keep our JW Library current, we will all be teaching the same thing.

[Tortuga]

8 hours ago, Tsheppar said:

Brother Morris was a Governing Body member that was removed recently.

Let's rephrase that so it doesn't insinuate that it was an involuntary action.

All we know is that Brother Morris is no longer serving as a member of the Governing Body.

[Sheep]

Yes. I have one of those apps that detects differences between two pdf files. I was comparing the July 2023 and July 2024 versions of lff-E, and I found more than I expected! All that I found:

 

Page 140: Explore, point 2. Picture and text changed.

Page 165: Footnote.

Page 186: Explore, point 3. Picture and text changed.

Page 208: Explore, point 4. Picture and text changed.

Page 232: Explore, point 2. Picture and text changed.

Page 236: Explore, point 3. Picture and text changed.

Lessons 57 and 58. Numerous changes.

[gusdn1]

Another example is the revision made on 2 Chronicles 3:4. If you have earlier editions of the New World Translation published before 2023. You can see that the Bible verse was updated. And the changes were explained in Questions From Readers—October 2024.

 

Previous version before 2023:

"The porch in front was 20 cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and its height was 120; and he overlaid it inside with pure gold."

Current version after 2023:

"The porch in front was 20 cubits long, corresponding to the width of the house, and its height was 20 cubits; and he overlaid it inside with pure gold."

 

Edited July 17 by gusdn1