Watching the World

God’s Name Found in Jerusalem

● Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay has announced the finding of a tiny silver scroll said to contain the first inscription of God’s name to be found in Jerusalem. He had found two of the little scrolls dating from the sixth century B.C.E. some time ago in a tomb chamber opposite Mount Zion. But “to unroll them without causing damage was a technical challenge that laboratories in Israel and Germany would ponder for three years” before succeeding, reported the Jerusalem Post. “They were very difficult to decipher, but on one of the scrolls Barkay was able to make out distinctly the Hebrew word for God: the letters yud-heh-vav-heh transliterated as Yahwe or Jehovah.” The Post explained that the name was seldom found in Israel because “the material on which the name was commonly written, papyrus, had long since disintegrated.” An Associated Press report also noted that “devout Jews refrain from uttering God’s name, and it is written in such a way as to be impossible to pronounce correctly.”

‘Amazing Transformation’

● Richmond Barbour, who writes the “You and Your Problems” column for The Tribune of San Diego, California, recently was asked, “Will my dad stay converted? He used to drink, swear, fight, and generally raise [havoc]. Then two folks from Jehovah’s Witnesses converted him. Now . . . he prays, reads the Bible, and studies the church literature. The transformation is amazing. Will it last?”

Barbour’s reply notes that for a lasting change, “the church involved must keep the convert busy doing worthwhile things” and “all concerned must continue to make the individual feel important.” The columnist’s opinion in this case? “Jehovah’s Witness churches provide both of those factors. Your dad’s conversion may well be permanent.”

Lifesaving Work

● In addition to receiving spiritual assistance from the door-to-door preaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses, communities also may benefit from their being in the right place at the right time. “A four-year-old boy, believed to have started a fire with a cigarette lighter when he was left alone in his Muskegon [Michigan] home Sunday night,” reported The Muskegon Chronicle, “was pulled from the building by three Jehovah’s Witnesses who were canvassing door-to-door in the neighborhood.” The Witnesses reportedly kicked in the front door, crawled to the little boy through heavy smoke and carried him out just before flames engulfed the room.

Inflation Staggers Argentina

● Argentina’s dizzying rate of inflation has forced the government to remove four zeros from their battered currency denominations. Ten thousand pesos will become just one new Argentine peso on June 30. This is the second time in 14 years that authorities have had to take such action. But in 1969 only 100 old pesos became one new peso. Argentine inflation was 210 percent in 1982, the world’s highest. With the value of the peso at the official exchange rate of 53,000 to one U.S. dollar, a worker making the minimum wage earns a seemingly astronomical million pesos a week, but it amounts to just $19.

“In the Name of Religion”

● The well-known American commentator Paul Harvey recently wrote about “what Prof. Howard Didsbury of Kean College calls ‘the tyranny of the righteous’ [that] justifies ‘killing for religion.’” His column in the newspaper Grit noted the situation in a number of nations such as Ireland, where “people kill people in the name of religion.”

On a similar theme, priest Russell Becker spoke at New York’s St. Francis of Assisi Catholic church. According to The New York Times, he told worshipers that “early Christian theologians such as Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria forbade believers from serving in the military forces” and “when the church grew to be a temporal as well as religious power, it endorsed warfare in the name of the faith.” “The church’s involvement in war is the shameful part of our history,” the priest declared, “when the church went into the world and became like the evil we were to overcome.”

Church and Nazis

The Enciclopedia del Novecento, edited by the Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, discusses tensions between Hitler’s Nazi regime and the Roman Catholic Church under the heading “National Socialism.” This authority states: “But since the episcopacy, after agreeing to an unusually obliging concordat [with the Nazis], was hesitant to go openly against the regime, and since Secretary of State cardinal Pacelli (later pope Pius XII) looked favorably on the anti-Bolshevik aspect of the Third Reich . . . the tension never exploded into a formal rupture. . . . Nevertheless relations between the regime and the churches, who avoided absolutely uttering a word against the persecution of Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses, were in a state of suspension, since Hitler, against Bormann’s view, forbade actions clearly anticlerical until the war would be over. . . . The majority of the clergy of the two creeds, [Lutheran and Catholic] maintained behavior that was outwardly loyal to the regime . . . In foreign politics the conciliatory attitude of the Vatican was of valid support to the regime, especially during the stage of its rise to power.”​—Volume IV, page 519.

Body “Wisdom”

● Recent findings indicate that certain body parts and bodily reactions to injury or disease formerly thought unnecessary or harmful actually are evidence of the body’s inherent “wisdom.” Note these examples:

● When a person loses consciousness for an extended period after being hit hard on the head, he is said to be in a coma. “Now scientists have evidence that coma results from activation of a specific brain system that suppresses normal behavior,” reports Science News. “Existence of a coma-producing brain center suggests that unconsciousness may be something other than a destructive process to be avoided at all costs.” One possible reason may be that “because brain injuries frequently depress respiration, unconsciousness prevents active muscles from competing with the brain for the limited oxygen available,” notes the article.

● “New findings [by the U.S. National Institutes of Health] raise serious questions about the wisdom for most people of taking aspirin or acetaminophen for fevers below 104 degrees,” reports The New York Times. “Indeed, a number of physicians, including pediatricians, are now suggesting that moderate fevers be allowed to run their course, for they may shorten the illness, potentiate [assist] the action of antibiotics and reduce the chances of spreading the infection to others.”

● In the past, if a person had a damaged spleen, surgeons seldom hesitated to take it out, as they thought it was of little use in adults. But “they have recently found that the spleenless come down with severe infections more often than the general population, and more often die of them,” says the magazine American Health. “The mortality rate, in fact, runs close to 50%.” The conclusion? “Future science may bank more on the body’s wisdom,” predicts American Health.

Occult Communications Banned

● Colombian communications authorities reportedly have banned broadcasts of fortune-telling, sorcery, spiritism and hypnotism. The rapid spread of occult practices prompted the ban, causing the minister of communications to declare that broadcasts on the subject “disturb the minds of the people.” Stations that put communication with the spirit world ahead of normal radio communication were warned that they would face suspension of their licenses.

Politicians or Churchmen?

● “The Archbishop of Canterbury gave his clerical approval to the Falklands war yesterday,” reported London’s Daily Mail. In the first address an archbishop has ever given to the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Robert Runcie told the assembled diplomats that “it was right to send a task force after the Argentine invasion.” He went on to advise them on how to handle the nuclear threat and disarmament.

● “A commission of Canadian [Catholic] bishops has made a stunningly silly plunge into criticism of economic policy, thereby undermining respect for the teaching role of the church,” writes Washington Post columnist George F. Will, a Catholic. Will notes the bishops’ claim that their criticisms of government tax and budget policies are “inspired by the Gospel,” but asserts that “there is no surer trivialization of the mysteries of Christianity than the pretense that the faith, properly scrutinized, supports this or that fiscal and monetary policy.”

VD Plague

● A recent national survey by Dr. Mazuru Gundidza of the University of Zimbabwe revealed that half of the adult women in Zimbabwe and some 20 percent of the entire population have suffered or are suffering from sexually transmitted diseases (STD). “Worst hit in the capital was Kopje high-density area,” reported the Zimbabwe Herald. “There the survey had proved 99.9 percent of the inhabitants were STD victims.” Dr. Gundidza said the survey paints a “gloomy and appalling” picture of a situation that continues to deteriorate with the spread of penicillin-resistant strains.

Camel Comeback

● In the Middle East, camels reportedly are being sold for the highest prices ever, as much as $1,000. They are ideal as a desert vehicle. “A good, strong camel can work for 25 years,” declared one Cairo camel trader, “so this is a more important investment than buying a car.” As for their usefulness, he said, “They’re stupid animals, no brains at all, but at work they are not afraid.”

Tiny Thugs Freed

● Though the attackers of a 78-year-old woman in Bolton, England, were caught, they will not be prosecuted. Three boys aged six, eight and nine tried to steal Mary Brindle’s purse, knocking her to the ground and kicking her until she bled. In England, they are too young to be charged with crime.

Whose ‘Smoking Problem’?

● When high school students in the Xanthi area of northern Greece asked for a smoking room at the school, surprised teachers replied that smoking is not allowed. But the student council insisted, claiming that they did not want to use the rest rooms for taking a puff because of the cold in winter, the odor and risk of disease. “Following this,” reported Athens News, “the school called a meeting of the P.T.A. (Parents-Teachers Association), which convened with members lighting cigarettes to tackle the students’ ‘smoking’ problem!”