607 to 1914 calculation question

by bluebell 43 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  I would assert that had it not been for 1914 corresponding (more or less, depending on how you view it) to world events that eventually became known as the "World"War I the bible students, Russellism and subsequent Jehovah's Witnesses would have been further marginalized.

  So many guess over so long a period of time ended up putting some buckshot into an elephant and bringing it down. WWI is the only trophy on the JW wall.

  They got it completely wrong, of course. 1914 was supposed to be the END and not the beginning of the end.
• 

  Doug Mason

  JeanV,
  
  Here is one statement by CTR that might be of interest. He wrote the following in the Watch Tower of December 1, 1912, page 377, “The Ending of the Gentile Times”.
  
  Coming now to a very critical examination of the date 536 B.C., there is an open question: Shall we call it 536 full years to A.D., or 535 full years? The difference in time between October 1st and January 1st would be the fourth of a year; hence our query is respecting 536-1/4 or 535-1/4 years B.C. What is the proper method of calculation, is in dispute. If we count the first year B.C. as 0, then the date 536-1/4 B.C. is the proper one for the end of the seventy years of captivity. But if we begin to reckon it by counting the first year before the Christian era as B.C. 1, then evidently the desolation ended 535-1/4 years B.C.
  
  As to the methods of counting, Encyclopaedia Britannica says, “Astronomers denote the year which preceded the first of our era as 0 and the year previous to that as B.C. 1--the previous year B.C. 2, and so on.”
  
  Whichever of these ways we undertake to calculate the matter the difference between the results is one year. The seventy years of Jewish captivity ended October, 536 B.C., and if there were 536-1/4 years B.C., then to complete the 2,520 years’ cycle of the Times of the Gentiles would require 1913-3/4 years of A.D., or to October, 1914. But if the other way of reckoning were used, then there were but 535-1/4 years of the period B.C., and the remainder of the 2,520 years would reach to A.D., 1914-3/4 years, otherwise October, 1915.
  
  Since this question is agitating the minds of a considerable number of the friends, we have presented it here in some detail. We remind the readers, however, that nothing in the Scriptures says definitely that the trouble upon the Gentiles will be accomplished before the close of the Times of the Gentiles, whether that be October, 1914, or October, 1915.
• 

  Narkissos

  Leolaia,

  the loss of days is only to bring the calendar back into alignment with the seasons since the Julian calendar was devised in 46 BC. Since the Society is reckoning the "seven times" from a point many centuries prior to this, I don't see any relevance with the seasonal drift of the Julian calendar. No days were literally lost.

  Pardon a candid question.

  If (as you and AlanF pointed out on another thread last week) the Julian calendar instead of the Gregorian is used backwards for the period before 46 BC, and assuming that the difference is null in 46 BC but amounted to 11 days in 1582 AD, does that mean that the difference grows again as we look farther back from 46 BC? Wouldn't that imply a nearly 4-day difference between the two calendars used retroactively in 587/6 BC, to be taken into account for a period extending both sides of the shift?
• 

  Leolaia

  Good point. You would probably be correct, as B.C. dates are reckoned via the Julian calendar, even going back to 10,000 BC or whatever. Tho if I am not mistaken, I think Fred Franz at least was explicit on reckoning the dates from the Hebrew lunar calendar month in 607 BC to the lunar calendar month in AD 1914.
• 

  AlanF

  I'm not sure what your point is, Narkissos. Given consistent date systems that express dates uniquely, any calendar date in one system can be expressed in the other.

  For example, both the Julian and Gregorian systems are based on the elapsed number of days from a given starting point. They differ only in how they reconcile the fact that the average length of a day does not exactly fit the average length of a year. So the two systems inevitably diverge from one another in either direction from the given starting point, since the Gregorian calendar drops the insertion of three Julian leap days every 400 years, making the Gregorian year slightly shorter than the Julian year (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_calendar ).

  The Egyptian calendar is similar to the above two, but since it uses a 365 day year, the approximately 1/4 extra day is not accounted for, and so the calendar sort of rotates with a 1460 year period.

  In contrast, the Jewish lunar calendar is not a uniquely determinable system because month lengths were adjusted based on observation of the first appearance of the moon, and the number of months in a given year was adjusted based on observation of how the year lined up with the equinoxes.

  AlanF
• 

  theMartian

  "I'd never thought about it when I was a dub because you're not supposed to think! lol"

  MFM replies: Looks like you STILL don't.

  
• 

  wolkje

  I was a JW from 1961 till 1985 and very interested in the WT chronolgy untill it became clear that it was untenable. I learned that bible chronology is like puty in the hands of dispensastionalists and/or advetists, you can calculate anything. L. Froom a SDA devoted 4 volumes to speculations on chronology about 4000 pages in "The Prophetic Faith Of Our Fathers." The 7 times were calculated by Miller from 677 BC ( supposed capture of Manassa) till 1843 CE. of course leading to 1844 a date still pivotal for SDA. Clarence Larkin a dispensasionalist and contemporary of CT Russell also calculated the 7 times from 606 BC. till 1914 CE. If you look him up on the internet you can see his prophetic charts similar to Russell's. Another dispensasionalist J.F. Walvoort starts the 7 times in 605 BC with the ascension of Nebudcadnezar which makes them end in 1916 when England was fighting the Turks over Jerusalem which they captured in 1917 ending their 'gentile' domination.

  All these people claim insight in God's plan but it leads nowhere, mostly to disappointment for those who put a stake in it. Of course for exJW it is important because the WT has put their credibility on the line for 1914 an ill-made choice, it puts them on the level of the Flat Earth Society.

  I'm amazed and greatfull that such knowledgeable people are on this board that can dispell the arguments of the WT. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.

  Wolkje
• 

  Narkissos

  AlanF,

  My point was simply: to calculate, in the current Gregorian calendar, the exact "anniversary" of a pre-46-BC date expressed in the Julian calendar, one would have to take into account the (minor) difference between the two calendar at the starting point. I was just trying to make sure I had understood the implications of using the Julian calendar backwards (for dates earlier than 46 BC) correctly.

  However, as Leolaia pointed out, the WT avoids this problem by using the lunar calendar at both ends of their "Times of Gentiles".

  -- So that we don't miss the forest for the tree, perhaps it is helpful to summarise again some of the real flaws in the JW doctrine and put things into perspective:

  - the "times of Gentiles" in Luke 21:24 is (from Jesus' perspective in the narrative) a future unspecified period starting with the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in 70 AD (it has nothing to do with the past fall of Jerusalem to the neo-Babylonians 6 centuries earlier).
  - the dream in Daniel 4 was about Nebuchadnezzar, not the Davidic dynasty in Jerusalem. It was fulfilledon Nebuchadnezzar, i.e. within his lifetime. Nothing indicates a secondary interpretation making the "seven times" "years of years" so to say and extending over millenia.
  - there is no such thing as a 360-day "prophetic year". The lunar calendar was about 354 days long, the Enochian solar calendar (which had 30 x 12 = 360 regular month-days) was actually 364 days long.
  - any consideration of a longer period would have to include harmonisation with the actual astronomical year of (approximately) 365 1/4 days.
  - Jerusalem did not fall to the neo-Babylonians in 607 BC but twenty years later, by the same chronological sources which indicate the fall of Babylon in 539 BC.
  - Only some of the OT texts (2 Chronicles 36:21f; Jeremiah 25:11a) may be interpreted as referring to a 70-year desolation of Judah; other texts definitely rule that out (Jeremiah 29, the 70 years starting before the final fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians; Zechariah 1; 7, the 70 years continuing after the return of the exilees).
• 

  AlanF

  Thanks for the clarification, Narkissos. I found an interesting calendar calculator here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar/ . It has the Gregorian, Julian, Hebrew, Islamic and a bunch of other calendars, and you can easily enter a date in one of them and have the webpage convert it to all the others.

  I learned something new and rather odd here (assuming the programming was done correctly): BC dates are expressed with a minus sign (46 BC = -46), which is reasonable, Julian dates have no zero year, but Gregorian dates do have a zero year. For example, 46 BC Julian is entered as -46; 1 BC Julian is -1; 45 BC Gregorian is entered as -45; 1 BC Gregorian is -1; -1 Julian = 0 Gregorian. Hence, 46 BC Julian = 45 BC Gregorian, according to this calendar converter.

  The webpage gives as a reference the excellent book Astronomical Algorithms by Jean Meeus, which I've referred to for many years as a calendar Bible. When I get home later, I'll have to look up this business of how the Gregorian seems to be numbered differently from the Julian for BC dates. Whatever, I think it's a non-issue in practice since no one uses the Gregorian calendar for BC dates anyway.

  Nice summary of the flaws in the JW Gentile times doctrine!

  AlanF
• 

  NewYork44M

  Is there any culture that actually used years of 360 days length?

  Accountants use 360 days for some calculations (i.e. days sales outstanding). I could never quite figure out why. Except that it makes the calculation easier and you can assume five holidays that no business generally takes place. Although, it is a streach to equate accountants with a "culture."