How many left of 144,000?

annalice

I just saw a Feb 1, 2006 watchtower. there were 8,524 memorial partakers. Isn't that a bit high? What is the societies view on the 144,000? I always thought that in order to be one of the annointed you had to have been alive back in 1914 and able to understand the events unfolding at that time. Has the definition changed? there is no way over 8,000 people are alive still from back then . They would have to be over 100. Does anyone have the last dozen years totals on the partakers ? Shouldn't it be rapidley declining?

eyeslice

Hi Annalice
Ths topic is often broached on this board and you are quite right there shouldn't be any left. The idea that some of the '144,000' prove unfaithfull' and replaced by 'younger annointed' is just plain ridiculous.
However, the end hasn't come yet and so this strange doctrine still drags on.
Eyeslice

carla

I always thought that in order to be one of the annointed you had to have been alive back in 1914-----------------

Is that correct? I thought the doors to heaven were closed in 1935. which is correct? Didn't you have to be a jw in 1935 to claim to be an 'annointed'? But then they allowed others to make the same claim due to some becoming apostate? So the number is really fluid and there is no real way of knowing if someone claiming to be annointed today is replacing somebody or not.

1914 was associated with 'this generation' and not dying, meaning the 1914 generation would be alive for the big A (excluding accidents and disease of course)

M.J.

Yes, the number was considered complete in 1935. It had been considered complete a couple times in the 1880s or so but Armageddon didn't come so they re-opened them.

The number of anointed back in 1935 was purportedly somewhere around 50,000, according to recent WT articles. There is a discrepancy from earlier articles on this number though...could be an area for someone to research.

Most of them would be dead now. So the WTS explains that the anointed from 1935 that "fell away" from the "truth" are constantly being "backfilled" by younger people, and thus the numbers are still high.

By 2007 it's estimated that all the anointed will be backfills, since sufficient amount of time will have passed for the entire 1935 crop to have died off, statistically speaking.

Legolas

There will be 'new light' one of these days about the door being shut in 1935

They explained the 'generation' away and Ray told people in COC that they were trying to figure how to do it...and they came up with a way but they never, to my knowledge, said anything about the door being shut in 1935...so don't worry there will be 'new light' to change that as well.

mrsjones5

It's a jw myth.

New Worldly Translation

Yeah strange innit. Looking back at the yearbook totals of memorial partakers the number hasn't dropped for about 20 years. Seems like a lot of those old gimmers must have fallen away just before they pegged it and were backfilled by young upstarts cos the figures suggest none of them died faithful

It will be intersting to know what will happen to the org when all the so called annointed have died that are on the GB. The trouble is they keep the GB members so secret now that the JW proleteriat wouldn't have a clue.

greendawn

The point Carla raised is interesting, but as far as I can remember one didn't have to be born in 1914 or before to be of the "anointed" (and those born in 1914 were 21 in 1935). If the youngest baptised in 1935 were 15 that makes them 86 years old today if they are alive and not many will be.

As mentioned above all of these younger "anointed" JWs must have been failures if they had to be replaced and that doesn't speak well of their loyalty to their mother organisation and their Judaic God.

ballistic

It's quite absurd when you think about it isn't it.

drew sagan

I allways get a kick out of the fact that they do not publish how many people partake of the embelems from a particular country. To many JWs would think somthing is wrong when a country that was reached after 35 has partakers.

How many left of 144,000?

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