RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Trial of Bible delayed again

COURT IN LENINGRAD PROVINCE POSTPONES CONSIDERATION OF CASE OF "EXTREMISM" IN BIBLE DISTRIBUTED BY JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

Portal-Credo.Ru, 10 August 2017

 

On 9 August the Vyborg city court postponed consideration of the case of the application by the transport prosecutor's office to prohibit the Bible in the translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses because it contains "extremism." As a correspondent for Portal-Credo.Ru reports, the next session will occur on 16 August.

 

Radio Echo of Moscow recalls that two years ago a Bible was seized by Vyborg customs in which it was thought that the text of Sacred Scripture in the translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses must contain "extremism."

 

The court appointed its own expert analysis, which was ordered from the Center of Socio-Cultural Expert Analysis. As Radio Liberty reports, experts of this structure are infamous for their "stamping in batches the necessary expert analyses with the result ordered." In particular, these experts found in the Bible "extremism" in the story of how God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone (this story does not fundamentally differ in the Jehovah's Witnesses' translation from the Synodal translation). In addition, the experts found "extremism" in the very name of God in the form of "Jehovah." "Extremism" was even found in the fact that the Old Testament is called in the publication "Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures" and the New Testament, "Christian Greek Scriptures."

 

In the spring the Russian Supreme Court found Jehovah's Witnesses to be an "extremist organization" and prohibited its activity on Russian territory. At the same time, since last year a law has been in effect in Russia that prohibits finding the Bible and several scriptures of Islam and Buddhism to be "extremist materials." (tr. by PDS, posted 10 August 2017)


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