I read lots of good posts on this thread. The points of problems for the Society have been identified. The prophetic failure that the Society needs to get out of now is the passing of the Jonadab class, aka, "great crowd".
The Society taught that the great tribulation had started and paused. The last of the Bible Students were still being purged, the name changed to Jehovah's witnesses, and the legal owners of the Watch Tower Corporation added doctrine that followed the assumption that WW I and Rutherford's prison term was the great tribulation.
They identified the non-religious people who didn't want to die as the "great multitude" that came out of the "great tribulation" that had just been put on pause. The two claims sort of fit until two things happened.
1. The timing of the great tribulation was moved from the past to the future.
2. The passage of time sees the Witnesses dying who were the members of the generation of 1931 - 1935, Jonadabs, who were not supposed to die. Any of those still living are close to 90 years old now.
The problem with the teaching of the "great multitude" is that they are not identified until AFTER the great tribulation. One of the changes of 1995 was that the sheep are not identified until AFTER the start of the tribulation.
The teaching of the anointed is up in the air. There can't be a great crowd class according to the Society and the Watchtower magazine says the sheep are not separated from the goats. They've got a complete mess.
Why are they going in "service" now? All they're taking to the doors now are articles of how bees reproduce and how whales talk. If those are lifesaving topics, I'd say National Geographic magazine had the right idea all along. If there's a God, he must be laughing his ass off at these bozos.
Confirmed! Watchtower Feb 15 08 brings the "generation" change
by observador 175 Replies latest watchtower bible
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garybuss
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cognizant dissident
Well, now Gary you certainly don't want to be getting your articles on bee reproduction and whale talk off the internet you know. They could be filled with all kinds of evil apostate lies! Best to get your information right from the horses
assmouth.Cog
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neverendingjourney
The prophetic failure that the Society needs to get out of now is the passing of the Jonadab class, aka, "great crowd".
Gary, I take it you're an "oldtimer." No offense. It's interesting that you mention the Jonadab class because this is something I never heard of growing up in the 80s. In fact, I remember taking a trip to Bethel in the late 90s. One of the society's buildings had this huge mural of the Jonadab scene. I asked several of the Bethelites what it meant, and my question was basically dismissed.
My point is that what you were indoctrinated with is not exactly what I was indoctrinated with. The Jonadab stuff you write about is almost a complete mystery to me. At least it was when I was growing up. The stuff that I was indoctrinated with like the generation teaching, the separation of the sheep and the goats, and so on, will soon be a mystery to the new converts and kids who are being brought up in the religion today.
This is how the Society's been able to weasel their way out of failed prophecies in the past. When they stop being repeated, they eventually become forgotten.
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cognizant dissident
That's a really good point neverending journey. It's up to the oldtimers who are in now and know damn well what the society used to teach, to stand up and make a fuss about it. Maybe the poster who said they just need to stop posting the numbers was right after all. If they do that and wait long enough, everyone who ever remembers that the society taught the 144,000 was a literal number and was sealed in 1935 will be dead or too senile to recall.
Silence on the part of those who know and who are too scared to say anything is their best weapon.
Cog
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cabasilas
So, has an English version of the Feb 15th Watchtower article on this been made available here yet?
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neverendingjourney
Maybe the poster who said they just need to stop posting the numbers was right after all. If they do that and wait long enough, everyone who ever remembers that the society taught the 144,000 was a literal number and was sealed in 1935 will be dead or too senile to recall.
I really hope that the internet and the information age will change this. It used to be that you had to take a trip to the library or a Christian bookstore to get any information critical of the Witnesses. Now it's all abundantly available online. If the JWs are successful in keeping r&f JWs away from the internet, exactly what you said will probably occur. If they're unsuccessful, I expect the number of JWs will slowly begin to decline. There's just too much information too easily available that proves the WTBTS has been consistently wrong and are not God's special people. The key is whether or not current JWs will even bother to look at the evidence.
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littlerockguy
One of the society's buildings had this huge mural of the Jonadab scene. I asked several of the Bethelites what it meant, and my question was basically dismissed.
Did you see the one in Stanley Theatre in Jersey City?
LRG
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neverendingjourney
Did you see the one in Stanley Theatre in Jersey City?
LRG
Yeah, I guess it was Stanley. I remember it being a beautiful mural. I believe there were three other murals there as well. One of the highlights of that trip was seeing the artwork. I tried to be an artist in my early years, but I simply lacked the talent. I honestly liked a lot of their art. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that I was at my JW peak when I took the trip.
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garybuss
The problem with a maniac who owns a printing business is he prints up all his mistakes. That's what the Watch Tower Corporation has done. All printed up and indexed for reading enjoyment. These guys can't get one single thing to pan out . . . ever . . . and 7 million suckers pay up to go for the ride. Anybody who'd follow the Watch Tower has to be an idiot . . . or dishonest and mean.
I was at my first door in 1951 at age 7 selling Watchtowers for a nickle apiece. Our study book was Let God Be True. I listened to Rutherford's rants on my parent's wind up phonograph.
The Watch Tower Society is so ridiculous they're laughable. They're just supplying the product in demand. They test the market and supply the product they have previously determined will sell. The Witness people make it all work. The ones I know are people of bad character. -
JCanon
It seems to me that we are not living now in the 1914 generation. Apparently, that was Pastor Russel's generation and all those people are dead. But, then again, I could be wrong
.The only significant info is: apparently and seems. THey do not know the meaning of the prophecy for sure.Nice, try though. Seemed to be right, apparently. I cannot accept these clever definitions. I think that generation simply means 80 to 100 years corresponding to the generation of Jesus and the generation of Jews in the exodus.
"AND THEN THE END WILL COME." If the "end" is really what Jesus was referring to as occurring within a "generation" of when the first sign began, which was a world war, i.e. "nation vs nation, kingdom vs kingdom", which we rightly begin in 1914, then the "END" should have occurred by 1954 if a "generation" is considered to 40 years in the minds of the Jews. That is, within 40 years of a world war, they would see the "end". Only thing is, the "end of the system of things" the Jews had in mind was synonymous with the end of the "appointed times of the nations", the end of Jewish domination in their promised homeland by foreigners. Thus the END did occur in 1947.
Remember, that "this good news" would have to be preached first world wide before the "end" would come. That means the JW temple sect, would have to go from a handful of people to an international organization by 1947 for this to be fulfilled. And it was!
So there is no problem with fulfilling the "generation" of 1914 from 1914-1954, a period of 40 years if what was included in the events of that "generation" was the "END of the system of things" of the gentile times and the appearance of the "sign of the son of man." But note, that the "great tribulation" occurs first. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days..." This "great tribulation" would thus occur before the "end of the gentile system of things" in Palestine. That "great tribulation" was the HOLOCAUST. Not Armageddon.
Because JWs are now in spiritual darkness, they don't understand this and thus are expecting all the wrong things, so of course, they have to revise their "last generation" issue because they are expecting Armageddon to occur within that generation. They think the "end of the system of things" is a reference to Armageddon and the "great tribulation" is a reference to Armageddon also, but that is not the case.
So the bottom line is, the incorrect interpretatio nof the "last generation" and the "end of the system of things" and the "great tribulation" is not fulfilled in connection with 1914. But the last generation of either 40 years or 80 years are fulfilled in reference to 1914 if the "great tribulation" is the Holocaust, and the "end of the system of things" is the "end of the gentile times", which ended in 1947. If the second coming is implied to occur within a generation, which we can date to 1992 per the Bible, then that "generation" is fulfilled by 80 years from 1914, which is by 1994. 1992 occurs before 1994. So all is well. The BIBLE is true, the WTS' "false prophet" is confused. It's just that simple.
JCanon