Insight on the News

New Army “Hymn”

● Military installations world wide are receiving the new “Book of Worship for the U.S. Armed Forces.” Until its removal was ordered on July 9, a “hymn” that many observers labeled “blasphemous” was included. In it one of the wrongdoers impaled next to Jesus supposedly says: “It’s God they ought to crucify instead of you and me, I said to the carpenter ahanging on the tree. To hell with Jehovah, to the carpenter I said, I wish that a carpenter had made the world instead.” Congressman John Myers of Indiana protested: “This hymn is in fact blasphemous in its references to God and has no place in a book of worship.”

Yet, the Armed Forces Chaplains Board had vigorously defended the hymn, saying that “the questions asked by the thief are ones many of our people still ask when confronted with the crucifixion.” But if such basic questions are still being asked by ‘their people,’ is it the purpose of clergymen to perpetuate their spiritual ignorance with blasphemy? In fact, do not such questions expose the failure of these religious leaders to provide satisfying answers?

Contrary to the blasphemous “hymn,” the Bible shows that the “carpenter” Jesus had indeed “made the world” in collaboration with his Father Jehovah during his prehuman existence. (John 1:1-3) And rather than blaming God for his impalement and for world distress, Jesus put the blame where it belongs, on Satan and his supporters.​—John 8:44-47.

Bible History Supported

● Two recent archaeological finds add interesting support to the Bible’s historical record. An ancient Judean fortress discovered in the Sinai desert had Hebrew and Phoenician inscriptions, reports the New York “Times,” that are “considered doubly significant because several refer to ‘Jehovah,’ the traditional name of God.”

Additionally, about 15,000 clay tablets were found at the site of the ancient Canaanite city of Ebla, now in northern Syria. They are conjectured to date from over 2,000 years B.C.E. The tablets contain many contemporary Biblical names and locations, including “Urusalima” (Jerusalem), which are said to predate other references to Jerusalem by hundreds of years. Investigators are amazed at the tablet’s similarities to ancient Hebrew.

Scholars also hope that the records will reveal something about why Israel’s religion was so drastically different from surrounding immoral polytheistic religions. University of Michigan archaeologist David Freedman notes that Hebrew worship was a “major mutation on all religions that had gone before it.” The explanation, however, does not lie in probing the history of polytheistic Canaanites. Israel’s was not just another acquired folk religion. Only a religion from an outside source could be so completely different. The Bible shows that source was God.​—Josh. 24:14, 15.

Marriage Without Divorce

● After noting that “there was almost one divorce for every two marriages last year” in the U.S., the New York “Times” recently observed: “Put another way, the number of divorces last year was twice as great as in 1966 and almost triple the number in 1950.”

Why the rapid increase? “There is no shortage of theories about why divorce is now so prevalent,” says the “Times” editorial. “They range from views stressing the decline of religious belief and the rise of new sexual mores to . . . excessively high and unrealistic anticipations of what marriage can and cannot provide.”

On the other hand, over half a million Americans are not caught up in this trend to divorce. News columnist George R. Plagenz notes in the Cleveland “Press” that “Jehovah’s Witnesses are another religious group which has a fine record of stable marriages.” Why? “Witnesses are Bible-believers. One of the most interesting wedding ceremonies I have ever attended was at a Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall recently. The service was made up largely of Bible passages and admonitions about how to achieve marital bliss which the minister . . . read to the young couple getting married.”

The Bible’s advice succeeds because it comes from the One who originated the marriage arrangement.​—Gen. 2:21-24.