Helloooo people
So. I was under the impression that the witnesses didn't have any belief in an earthly class until 1935-ish.. and yet in 1925 (?) they built Beth Sarim in San Diego to house the faithful men of old when they returned to earth.
So what WAS the JW's hope for the future back in 1925? When did the earthly hope come into play, and does anyone have the early references to this change in belief?
Thank you..
x
Does anyone know? Question about early JW beliefs.
by hotchocolate 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
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hotchocolate
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garybuss
You wrote: "So what WAS the JW's hope for the future back in 1925?"
Rutherford's hope for his future was that his scam would last till he died. It did. The belief that dead Jews would be recreated in a perfect replica body and live in the United States happened to coincide with Rutherford's desire for a winter mansion in California. Nice coincidence, huh?
Think how good a salesman Rutherford was to sell that. -
blondie
Actually starting with Russell there have been at least 3 groups,
1) 144,000 rule in heaven with Christ
2) Great crowd in heaven but not rulers
3) Rest of humanity to live on earth through 1,000 Year Reign to be tested at the end to see if qualify for everlasting life on earth.
As Gary points out, Rutherford evidently felt that the 1,000 Year Reign would start in 1925 and that the "ancient worthies" would rule on earth in Jerusalem, meaning OT followers of God, such as Abraham, Isaac, David, etc.
There is quite a lot under Google and the Bible Students literature as well as Rutherford's Millions book.
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MissingLink
That's a good question HotChoc. They were apparently expecting the prophets to return to earth just for a little while I guess. I don't have specifics of when the earthly hope "new light" came. I'm sure lots of the smart folks here do though.
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hotchocolate
Garybuss... "happened to coincide with his desire for a winter mansion" heh heh..
I never thought about the fact it was presumed they'd live in the US. I wonder if they thought to prebook flights from JRS to SAN... :-) -
AnnOMaly
Hellooo hotchocolate!
To add to what Blondie said, you may find it verrry interesting to see what Classes there were thought to be in the 1917 Finished Mystery book.
http://www.strictlygenteel.co.uk/finishedmystery/fme40-48.html - scroll about a third of the way down till you get to p.575-6.
The Vindication books of the early '30s honed those classes into 3 basic ones (2 heavenlies and 1 earthly - 'people of goodwill,' but not as yet classed as JWs - only the heavenly classes were JW).
At the 1935 convention, the secondary heavenly class merged with the 'goodwill' class and became earthly (2 became 1). The 144,000 elite remained the royal heavenly class.
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JCanon
The idea that ancients would come back to be "princes" in the earth comes from Ps. 45 :16
16 In place of your forefathers there will come to be your sons,
Whom you will appoint as princes in all the earth.This is combined with the specific chronology date of 1925 which was when they thought the millennium might begin based upon the 70 jubilees. That is, the Bible implies implies a period of 70 jubilees, meaning 70 x 50 years. The WTS calculated this to be 3500 years. They dated it from when they believed at that time the Jews divided the land, 50 years after the Exodus. At the end of this period they believed the millennium was set to occur. The end of those 3500 yeras was 1925. They have sense abandoned that dating. Basically they discovered they were about 100 years off. Right now they date the Exodus in 1513 BCE (a wrong date still, but whatever). 3500 years from 1925 is 1576 BCE, later considered ridiculously early for 50 years after the Exodus, so they dropped it.
This had little to do with the emergence of an earthly class though, just that everybody would go to heaven in 1925. There's an insider JW joke sa well about how the brothers would hang around tall buildings expecting to be taken up.
Per the Bible's reference to the beginning of the second class within the witnesses organization, which is the 3rd through the 11th-hour workers who don't know in advance they will receive the penny, the appearance of the "earthly class" would be present 21 years after 1914, since an "hour" is 7 years. But that also implies that the 1st and 2nd-hour workers basically knew they would be of the anointed and thus up until 1927 all the Bible Students would have considered themselves of the heavenly class. So I don't think there would have been a truly large number or very developed concept of an earthly class in 1925.
ACTUAL EXPLANATION: But just to note what the advanced and correct understanding of Moses and others being princes in the earth. Yes, they become part of the anointed, which is possible because the first resurrection is back into the flesh. Another scripture in Matthew is quite clear as well that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would have seats in the kingdom. The WTS do not understand this. This is partly because of the reference about John the Baptist being greater than all of these and yet one anointed in the kingdom being greater than he was. But that just constrasted the glory of being anointed to the former glory of being a prophet of Jehovah. It did not mean that John, Abraham and others wouldn't become part of the Bride Class later on. In fact, all that was required was that they be resurrected back into the flesh to be anointed sometime after Jesus had died and Pentecost in 33 CE. So since the first resurrection is back into the flesh anyway, since they must rule on the earth for 1000 years, no problem with them getting sealed into the kingdom after their resurrection.
As noted in another post, though, the nature of the resurrection is to bring them back into the bodies of modern anointed ones, this taking place before the second coming, as Christ does this when he is Michael the archangel (1 Thess 4:15). This explains, the other reference in Psalms though, how "fathers will become sons" since some of the modern bodies into which some of the ancient ones are resurrected into are their own descendants, their own sons! In other words, Moses might be resurrected into the body of his own gx. grandson. So in a way, they are resurrected back into some aspect of their own flesh/DNA! Interesting! But in this way, during the millennium, some of the forefathers will appear as sons.
Neato, heh?
As far as the 70 jubilees goes. The corrected application is that the jubilees occur in the first year of a new 49-year period, thus the jubilees occur every 49 years and not every 50 years. So the entire corrected period is 3430 years rather than 3500 years; that is 70 x 49 vs 70 x 50.
This period of weeks begins when Moses was 30 in 1435 BCE and ends in 1996. It does not begin the millennium, but the 70th jubilee of this week is celebrated by the Jews by their final restoration to Palestine in 1947. That is, the 70th 49-year period is the last and would be fro m1947-1996. So that was fulfilled in relation to the Jews specifically. It is called the Jewish Covenant Week, and is the 1925 dating based doctrine, though incorrect.
http://www.geocities.com/siaxares/jcovwk1996G.GIF (Jewish Covenant Week Chart)
JCanon
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hotchocolate
Thanks for the info... so cool having this forum, this would have taken me forever to work out.. I'll be looking at this tomorrow.. xxx
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Cheetos
That stupid place they built was under the leadership of (Uncle Joe) it was the Witnesss's not the Bible Students" the Bile Students had more sense.
http://www.biblestudents.net/food4jws/faq/ibsa.htm
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Carmel
Oh that El Al existed in 1925! Abraham and his ilk could have flown nonstop to New Jersey, hopped a flight right to down town LA.
too bad, too sad!
