A Problem With The WT's Kingdom Interlinear Translation

In the 1969 KIT the society used a book by Bible scholar Justus Lipsius as source material for their upright stake "Stauros" doctrine of the death of Christ. They used an image of a man hung on an upright stake with no crossbeam attached to it. Then they placed a caption under it saying that the illustration came from Lipsius. This implies that Lipsius actually backed their teaching. The thing is that Lipsius had included in his book many, many illustrations of various methods and implements of crucifixion. They didn't show all of them, just that one. Also, if you read his writings, Lipsius taught that Jesus was actually crucified on a cross. So, they were using dishonest means to get people to believe that Justus Lipsius supported an anti-cross teaching.

Well, Christian groups fell on the society like a thousand of brick. They called them on their lie and so the society had to change things. But how do they make a change to keep from being sued while still maintaining a false teaching? Easy, they make an updated KIT in 1985 and remove ALL references to Lipsius' work. All they really use is that same image of a man impaled on an upright stake with no reference to its source. They also never made the information about their shenanigans available to the rank and file jw's. They never counted on people actually ignoring their command to not delve into their past I guess.

So, here I have to share with you all is some scans I have from BOTH KITs and several of Lipsius' illustrations. They are graphic so if you are squeamish I advise against looking at them.
Enjoy!

Lorenzo

http://s429.photobucket.com/albums/qq19/Watchtower_Facts/Justus%20Lipsius/