LYNCHPIN doctrine on 1914 NOT from "faithful and discreet slave"--stolen!

by Terry 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Terry

  Hillary_step says:

  I just do not think there is that much interest among Board members these days for the kind of work that Jan produced. Most threads these days are really just 'upmarket' chat logs, with the odd interesting thread thrown in. I suppose there are only so many ways that one can sing the same song.

  However, there are thousands of lurkers who need information, so your time is not wasted. Information, education is the key to emotional liberation from a cultic environment. I have noticed that some people who post here, despite not going to meetings etc, are still emotionally attached in many ways to the WTS. I think this is due to the fact that they have not 'informed' themselves out of the WTS but have just drifted in with a new style of 'friend'.

  Some of the most compelling essays written about the WTS were done in the early days of the Internet and are still out there ready for research for those who need them. Information is the only sort of support that really frees a person from the damaging emotional thinking that a high control religion, like the WTS, impresses on the mind.

  HS

  It takes a special kind of patience to wade through long essays crammed with bibliography, I'll grant you!

  I've tried to crack this obstacle, but, the length of the information is always daunting.

  I think it may be as simplistic as breaking it up into smaller chunks and introducing the material by a conversational style before and after the key points.

  Also, visually, if it all runs together into a paragraph the size of the Empire State Bldg. all is lost.

  I wish I had more patience to do this.

  I'm waiting for my 24 hour clock restriction to run out so I can post more.

  I find the details particularly interesting when they are laid out in a time line!

  I think Newbies benefit most from an historical revealing of what lay behind the ORGANIZATION that was hidden from them.

  It whets the appetite for more.
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  insearchoftruth

  Thanks so much for the historical perspectives, I would venture to guess that few if any of the active witnesses today know anything about the true history of the development of the faith, especially the roots in adventism and it really just being another Millerite movement. I am hoping to get a chance to ask some FDS questions of my wife, was given the opportunity to ask what it was after the bit of the assembly I attended with her. I hope to be able to spin this discussion on to the selection of the FDS in 1919 asking how to find that in the bible, which should then open up some 1914 discussion as well as discussion of 'what were the JWs like in 1919....", I guess this is somewhat the Captives of a Concept approach, but I have not had the opportunity to get her in this direction.

  Your latests posts have been great...keep them coming!
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  digderidoo

  This is interesting stuff.

  Do you know if the article of 1914 shown on the front cover of the Adventist magazine was written by Barbour or Russell?

  Paul
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  OUTLAW

  Terry..Another good thread..Breaking the information down,the way you do..Makes for an easier read..It is much more inviting and is very entertaining..I like it!.................OUTLAW
• 

  Terry

  Terry..Another good thread..Breaking the information down,the way you do..Makes for an easier read..It is much more inviting and is very entertaining..I like it!..............

  Outlaw, I'm trying different ways of making all this dense information more "bite-sized' and palatable.

  Experimenting with

  formatting,

  outlining,

  boxing,

  (bracketing )

  and coloration gives the eye relief and helps break it down into thought-sized chunks of information.

  Dense blocks of statistics are awfully hard to get anybody to read.

  My main problem is not being as pithy as I need to be. Still working on that one!
• 

  VoidEater

  While CTR did not originate "his" chronology nor the nature of the WTS parousia, he did seem to come up with one or two new ideas - granted, his "authorship" can more be attributed to the combining of ingredients, like a chef assembling a recipe:

  1) I believe assigning the FDS label to a religious movement was original.
  2) Discarding Hell.
  3) Universal salvation (though of a second class nature).

  Certainly the chronology and parousia were lifted from individuals in the Adventist movement (Barbour, and others), and this is what my great-grandparents found comfortingly familier when transitioning into the the Bible Students following the Great Disappointment.

  As we know, the WTS position today would be that there were "torchbearers" throughout history, that until Russell the FDS was represented by others that held and exposed "new" candlelight through the ages, so that the spiritual meat before us is what we now need. Just as Barbour can be conveniently discarded when no longer needed, Russell was almost immediately the victim of Rutherford's need to "hide the body" (though for different reasons) with the strategy of denouncing "creature worship".

  Today, it's just part of the JW trance - Jehovah used Russell as the stepping stone to get to where the WTS is now. Ruthrford's transition of loyalty to an organization is complete. Individuals at the top of the pyramid reaping the rewards of a publishing company are well hidden in the trance.

  Funny, one would think God would be able to more effectively deliver the "truth" without these dribs and drabs of evolutionary New Light.
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  BluesBrother

  Thank you Terry for these threads that have cast light on the origins of the core beliefs..The "Proclaimers" book does freely acknowlege the debt that Russell said he owed to other researchers, but somehow the spin they put upon it makes it seem OK..

  *** jv chap. 5 p. 49 Proclaiming the Lord’s Return (1870-1914) *

  **Then how did Russell perceive the role that he and his associates played in publishing Scriptural truth? He explained: "Our work . . . has been to bring together these long scattered fragments of truth and present them to the Lord’s people—not as new, not as our own, but as the Lord’s. . . . We must disclaim any credit even for the finding and rearrangement of the jewels of truth." He further stated: "The work in which the Lord has been pleased to use our humble talents has been less a work of origination than of reconstruction, adjustment, harmonization."

  *** jv chap. 5 p. 48 Proclaiming the Lord’s Return (1870-1914)

  ***C. T. Russell used the Watch Tower and other publications to uphold Bible truths and to refute false religious teachings and human philosophies that contradicted the Bible. He did not, however, claim to discover new truths.

  BTW I wonder he would make of the Armageddon doctrine today?, when he had said

  jv chap. 5 pp. 44-45 Proclaiming the Lord’s Return (1870-1914) **

  *Russell wrote: "We felt greatly grieved at the error of Second Adventists, who were expecting Christ in the flesh, and teaching that the world and all in it except Second Adventists would be burned up."
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  Sunnygal41

  I was flabbergasted after reading that information..........of course, as usual, none of it seemed to bother the somnolent others in the congo i was in.........in my opinion, it made a HUGE difference that Russell was NOT the originator......at first, I tried to justify that behavior, but, honestly, it made me look at him in a different light.........after being taught that he had special information from God and was a prophet........another reason why i'm where i am and the others are still sitting in their seats drooling at the KH.
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  M.J.

  Interesting fact:
  
  A book called "Foundations of the Seventh-Day Adventist Message and Mission" by P. Gerard Damsteggt, outlines William Miller's interpretations of prophecy. Very interesting.
  
  
  William Miller associated Luke 21:24 ("...the times of the Gentiles...") with Leviticus 26:28,33:
  
  "I will chastise you seven times for your sins...And I will scatter you among the heathen, and draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste"
  
  Thus, Miller stated that the 'times of the Gentiles' refers to a period of chastisement, and the length is indicated by the expression 'seven times'...Of course, Miller defined a "time" as a year of 360 days, which he called a "prophetic year". And of course, he applied the year-for-a-day principle, and thus, the "seven times" indicated a period of 2520 years! Does all this sound familiar?
  
  But...Miller counted the start of the "gentile times" from 677 BCE when the Israelites were first taken into captivity...and thus the ending was in 1843 (somehow Miller forgot there was no zero year between BC and AD though, which he later corrected...)
  
  See the reference to the 7 times, and 2520 years on Miller's "Chronological Chart":
  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Millerite_1843_chart_2.jpg
  
  So the later Adventists who applied the 7 times to Daniel 4 were hardly original!
• 

  Terry

  Thus, Miller stated that the 'times of the Gentiles' refers to a period of chastisement, and the length is indicated by the expression 'seven times'...Of course, Miller defined a "time" as a year of 360 days, which he called a "prophetic year". And of course, he applied the year-for-a-day principle, and thus, the "seven times" indicated a period of 2520 years! Does all this sound familiar?
  
  But...Miller counted the start of the "gentile times" from 677 BCE when the Israelites were first taken into captivity...and thus the ending was in 1843 (somehow Miller forgot there was no zero year between BC and AD though, which he later corrected...)
  
  See the reference to the 7 times, and 2520 years on Miller's "Chronological Chart":
  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Millerite_1843_chart_2.jpg
  
  So the later Adventists who applied the 7 times to Daniel 4 were hardly original!

  I'm currently reading a book about William Miller's "proofs" for the 2nd coming of Jesus in 1843.

  It goes in to much detail.

  I can see how humble farmers and ordinary grade-school educated people whose lives were filled with religious talk from cradle to grave could get all worked up over his message.

  But, you know what I can't get out of my head?

  HOW COULD ANYBODY continue to entertain these chronology fantasies AFTER THEY WERE REPEATEDLY PROOFED WRONG??

  Bull-headedness, I suppose.

  Obstinancy.

  Intellectual dishonesty.

  Ignorance.