Aholah

No verified interpretive statement was located in the Russell period (1879–1916). In 1918 Aholah was identified with the Roman Catholic church, contrasted with Aholibah as the Protestant church. In 1931 this was stated more precisely in terms of Samaria foreshadowing the Roman or Holy Roman Empire, the Catholic branch of Christendom, and the 1932 Year Book repeated the Catholicism-and-Protestantism application of the two sisters. From 1946 through 1955 publications also explicitly identified Aholah in the immediate setting of Ezekiel 23 with the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel, a historical identification rather than a new modern antitype. In 1971 the modern application was broadened: Christendom as a whole was called the present-day counterpart of the two symbolic sisters, Samaria and Jerusalem. The Watchtower repeated this collective application in 1973. No verified statement was located in the Franz period within the requested 1977–1980 range.