Sunday's public talk about 1914 mentioned 586

by GBSJG 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  GBSJG

  The public talk of last sunday was about 1914, the last days and the prophecy of Daniel.

  So the speaker explains how we get to the 2520 years and that Jerusalem fell in 607. But after that he must have talked about the 586 date for 5 minutes. He said that some say the Jerusalem fell in 586 instead of 607. But then you would not get to 1914 but 1934 and nothing special happened then. Then he says that JW have published convincing material about why the date must be 607 without mentioning what that material exactly is (he actually said this several times). The other point he tried to make was that WO I was proof of the 1914 date calculation quoting some historians who said that it was a turning point in history.

  I'm wondering if the part about 586 is also in the script/schema of the talk? It's the first time that I heard someone talking about 586 from the platform. He failed to mention that not one scholar in the world or encyclopedia agrees with the WTS and that the evidence for 586 is overwhelming. And mentioning historians about WO I doesn't proof a thing because there are also a lot of historians who say the same thing about the french revolution.

  The WT study afterwards had a paragraph about apostates. So one sister gave an answer that some apostates fiddle with the date calculation for 1914 and we should not listen to them. I couldn't help thinking about how much fiddeling the WTS does with dates and also has done with the 1914 calculation (606 -> 607) etc. So it was a frustrating meeting to attend again...
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  yaddayadda

  I can't recall ever hearing 586 mentioned from the platform.
  
  It's great the speaker mentioned it though because it may plant seeds of doubt. Some may think "Heck, I didn't know there was an alternative date for the fall of Jerusalem....I think I'll hop on the internet when I get home and check it out!"
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  geevee

  Funny, as we were getting ourselves ready to stop being an elder, I had been reading heaps of stuff the gentile times reconsidered and Crisis of conscience as well as the four presidents, when i had to give talks, i used to like to carefully weave a few subtle points into the information.
  Maybe this guy is reading some "apostate" stuff and coming to terms with it, whilst still trying to tow the company line and excuse the wt line of thinking?
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  Sirona

  Sounds like he definately is reading "apostate" stuff. He may be trying to convince himself that the WTS is correct, but it is a slippery slope to waking up...

  Sirona
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  AlmostAtheist

  Plenty of cool stuff happened in 1934. A small sampling from a huge list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934

  January 1 - Nazi Germany passes the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring."

  February 6, 1934 French political crisis. The French far right leagues rally in front of the Palais Bourbon, an attempted coup against the Third Republic

  February 9 - Gaston Doumergue forms a new government in France

  February 12 to February 16 - Austrian Civil War

  March 20 - All the police forces in Germany come under command of Heinrich Himmler

  March 3 - John Dillinger escapes from jail in Crown Point, Indiana, using a wooden pistol (and go on to rob a bank and shoot their way out of an FBI ambush. He is finally killed by FBI agents on July 22)

  May 11 - Dust Bowl: A strong two-day dust storm removes massive amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst dust storms of the Dust Bowl.

  June 12 - Political parties banned in Bulgaria

  June 30 - The Nazi SA camp Oranienburg becomes national camp, taken over by the SS.

  June 30 - Night of the Long Knives - Nazis purge the SA

  August 2 - Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany, becoming head of state as well as Chancellor.

  And that's just the first half. There's plenty of cult-fodder in 1934. It's a shame they didn't wait before grabbing 1914 so fiercely!

  Dave
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  jayhawk1

  Almost,

  That's a good list, especially Hitler becoming Fuhrer of Germany. That would be a great one for a cult to lock onto.
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  dedpoet

  Then he says that JW have published convincing material about why the date must be 607 without mentioning what that material exactly is (he actually said this several times).

  I wonder why he said that? I'd have been tempted to ask him for references to this "convincing" wts evidence regarding 607, so I could check it out for myself. Maybe he has been reading about 586 on the internet, and wanted to drop a few subtle hints, without blowing his own cover.

  Almost Atheist

  That was an interesting list of events in 1934, but I hope it doesn't give the jws ideas, they have to be looking for a loophole to get them out of the 1914 idea soon, if they aren't already.
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  GBSJG

  I don't think it was in the script for the talk. I was thinking why he did mention it.

  Perhaps as an elder he was part of a judicial commite sometime where this subject was discussed. When I did a search in the WT CD I found an article in the Awake 1972 that talks about the difference between the two dates so it's not something that the WTS hides. But that article is rather old and as far as I know nothing recent has been published about it.

  So it's still strange for him to mention this.
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  garybuss

  They can say 1934 was the year the anointed were sealed and the great multitude was identified and the information was preached at the next district assembly in 1935.
  
  
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  moshe

  I,too, think this elder has been looking at the chronology of this date. It could be that someone got reprooved for talking about this to others and this is a warning from the elders to stop talking about this subject-- final warning!

  Nip it, nip it in the Bud!