truthsetsonefree,
:Of course a dub would say that things like the calendar differences only introduce a small deviation, so their 1914 thing, even if off, isn't off by that much.
But there is a big and sticky problem with that. If the 1914 "Last Days and Jesus' INVISIBLE PRESENCE (oxymoron!)" date is off, then the 1919 appointment of the "Faithful and Discreet Slave CLASS" has to be off, too. 1919 is directly tied by the WTS to 1914. If one falls, both fall. "Time, times and half a time" = 3 1/2 years = 1919. If that is true, then not only their claim they were picked as that "Slave CLASS" is highly suspect, the fact that they couldn't even predict WHEN they were picked as that "Slave CLASS" makes that claim idiotic. If they cannot get the "picking" date right, then their claims to that "picking" falls into the toilet where it belongs.
Let them try to argue THAT one!
Farkel
time=360 days 7-times=2520 days 2520 days=2520(365 day per year)years?
by still_in74 49 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Farkel
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Farkel
still_in74,
:
(Ezekiel 4:4-7) . . .And as for you, lie upon your left side, and you must lay the error of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you will lie upon it you will carry their error. 5 And I myself must give to you the years of their error to the number of three hundred and ninety days, and you must carry the error of the house of Israel. 6 And you must complete them. "And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given you.7 And to the siege of Jerusalem you will fix your face, with your arm bared, and you must prophesy against it.
I wrote quite a bit about this topic some years ago.
I called it "A Day For a Year. I Need a Beer.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/18573/1.ashx
Farkel
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blondie
This question was "answered" in 1951. Notice the circular statement at the end.
*** w51 6/15 p. 383 Questions From Readers ***
In establishing the length of the seven times of the Gentiles, a time or year of 360 days is used, to give 2,520 days, which become 2,520 years when Ezekiel 4:6 is applied. Yet when we figure from 607 B.C. down to A.D. 1914, the 2,520 years are solar years of 365 1/4 days each, and not lunar years of 360 days each. Is this proper?—N. N., New Zealand.
The Bible records ignore the solar year of 365 1/4 days as far as measuring natural time and prophetic time. The moon was used for fixing the months, and then the spring growing season for determining the beginning of the year in relation to the moon, making necessary 7 times every 19 years the addition of an intercalary month or Ve-Adar month, a thirteenth month. So since the length of the Jewish year was not stabilized to 365 days plus a leap year of 366 days, prophecy fixed a system of measurement of its time periods at 360 days for a year or time, calculating 30 full days to a month instead of the actual 29 1/2 days to a lunation. Genesis 7:11, 24; 8:3, 4 shows Noah calculated 30 days roughly to a month. Further confirmation of this unit as a prophetic norm of time is given us at Revelation 11:2, 3, where 42 months are run parallel with 1,260 days, making a year of 12 months equal 360 days. Note also that when Revelation 12:6, 14 parallels 3 1/2 years or times with 1,260 days it takes each time or symbolic year as equal to 360 days, and not 365 1/4 days by saying that the 3 1/2 times equal 1,278 and a fraction days. In 3 1/2 years or times there would be at least one and possibly two intercalary months, as explained by TheWatchtower, March 15, 1948, pages 91, 92; yet Revelation ignored such intercalary months in giving the days of the 3 1/2 times. So we figure according to God’s Biblical way and are on firm foundation in saying that the symbolic seven times equal 2,520 years. And these 2,520 years should be counted as solar years, because the Jewish lunar years of 360 days, over long periods of time, kept pace with the solar years by means of the intercalary months added at set intervals, thereby always maintaining the necessary harmony between the year’s beginning and the seasons.
That this method of calculating is correctly used to bring us to A.D. 1914 from 607 B.C. is confirmed for us by the physical facts that have become manifest from that year 1914 on, in fulfillment of Matthew 24 and 25, Mark 13, Luke 21, and other prophecies concerning Christ’s second presence, in the time of the end.
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WTWizard
First, the whole system of calculating is at least as faulty as [poster name omitted]. To begin with, "a time and times and half a time" does not have to mean 3 1/2 times. "A time" does mean one. "Half a time" does mean half a time. But "times" means two or more; I don't understand where they got the ridiculous idea that it always means two.
Now, there are 365 1/4 days to a year. That is going to result in an error of 36 3/4 years when running the computation. However, if "times" is actually more than two, that could result in errors in the order of centuries or even longer--just imagine if "times" actually meant a few billion or more!
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Leolaia
The Bible records ignore the solar year of 365 1/4 days as far as measuring natural time and prophetic time. The moon was used for fixing the months, and then the spring growing season for determining the beginning of the year in relation to the moon, making necessary 7 times every 19 years the addition of an intercalary month or Ve-Adar month, a thirteenth month. So since the length of the Jewish year was not stabilized to 365 days plus a leap year of 366 days, prophecy fixed a system of measurement of its time periods at 360 days for a year or time, calculating 30 full days to a month instead of the actual 29 1/2 days to a lunation. Genesis 7:11, 24; 8:3, 4 shows Noah calculated 30 days roughly to a month. Further confirmation of this unit as a prophetic norm of time is given us at Revelation 11:2, 3, where 42 months are run parallel with 1,260 days, making a year of 12 months equal 360 days. Note also that when Revelation 12:6, 14 parallels 3 1/2 years or times with 1,260 days it takes each time or symbolic year as equal to 360 days, and not 365 1/4 days by saying that the 3 1/2 times equal 1,278 and a fraction days. In 3 1/2 years or times there would be at least one and possibly two intercalary months, as explained by TheWatchtower, March 15, 1948, pages 91, 92; yet Revelation ignored such intercalary months in giving the days of the 3 1/2 times. So we figure according to God’s Biblical way and are on firm foundation in saying that the symbolic seven times equal 2,520 years. And these 2,520 years should be counted as solar years, because the Jewish lunar years of 360 days, over long periods of time, kept pace with the solar years by means of the intercalary months added at set intervals, thereby always maintaining the necessary harmony between the year’s beginning and the seasons.
This is all nonsense. There was no such thing as a lunar calendar of 360 days -- how can there be if lunar months are an average of 29.5 days? Nor was the 360-day calendar a "prophetic calendar" or "a system of measurement fixed by prophecy". The Society here is simply ignorant of what was already known in scholarship at the time -- that the Priestly 360-day calendar found in Genesis is the same schematic solar calendar described in detail in 1 Enoch and Jubilees. This was known for quite some time; if the WT writers were "WT scholars" they would have known such articles as Benjamin W. Bacon's "The Calendar of Enoch and Jubilees" in Hebraica, Vol. 8, 1892 or J. Morgenstern's "The Three Calendars of Ancient Israel" in The Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol. 1, 1924. Here is a little excerpt from Bacon:
"We have now to consider the bearing upon this question of two important works of the Pharisean period largely devoted to the rectification of the calendar, in each of which it is plainly intimated that the Law of Moses contains just such a perpetual calendar as we have concluded P [i.e. in the Flood account] both must have presented, and actually considered himself to have presented. That one of them in particular which makes the rectification of the calendar its most especial aim goes back to the very passages which we have considered to afford the calendar-system of the priestly legistlation, viz., the chronology of the Flood-account in P, as the infalliable and divinely revealed basis of the calendar. These two books are the Samaritan [sic] book of Enoch, circ. 144-106 BC [sic], which we will speak of simply as 'Enoch', and the book of 'Jubilees' already referred to, dating from circ. 50 A.D. [sic]. Both advocate a purely solar calendar, and fall back upon Genesis as the infallible authority. Both wish to introduce an invariable month of 30 days with for intercalary hemerai epagomenai, making thus an invariable year of 364 days. Of course both attack the current practice of their day, which determined the month by what 'Jubilees' considers the corrupting, 'Gentile' practice of 'observations of the moon.' " (p. 125) .... It cannot therefore be successfully questiond that 'Enoch' and 'Jubilees' both find in the chronology of the account of the Flood a year of exactly 364 days, consisting of 12 even (sidereal) months of 30 days each + 4 hemerai epagomenai at the beginning of each quarter of the year" (p. 129).
And Morgenstern wrote:
"For a calendar that approximated very closely what Calendar I must have been is presented in considerable detail in both Enoch and the Book of Jubilees. There the year consists of three hundred and sixty-four days, i.e. of twelve months of thirty days each, plus four additional days. These four additional days are added, at four different moments in the year, on the 1st of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth months respectively, i.e. at the two solstices and the two equinoxes.... The Priestly Code, it seems, was also not unacquainted with this calendar. For it tells that the flood began on the 17th of the second month of the six hundredth year of the life of Noah, and that it ended completely on the 27th of the second month of the six hundred and first year of Noah....The Montanists, an early Christian sect, it seems, also employed this same calendar and reckoned the Passover according to it" (pp. 65-66).
To be fair, it was not until 1953 when Annie Jaubert published her massive and hugely influential study on the solar calendar, and I don't think Bacon nor Morgenstern made the connection with the calendars of Daniel and Revelation. But certainly by now these facts are widely published and appreciated (particularly since the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the studies of James VanderKam), and yet I don't think the Society has ever adjusted their position in light of these findings. Of course, it would totally ruin their calculation of 2,520 years, as they would have to add in the four non-monthly days in the calculation of 7 years.
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civicsi00
It doesn't make sense, no matter how hard they try to justify or explain that stupid date. None of their prophecies have been fulfilled since 1914 (or prior to that date) and NONE will be fulfilled.
The current GB needs to face the fact that they've inherited a very ludicrous religion.
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still_in74
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT - I have never thought of that before - that is stunning logic
yes i was impressed by that too!
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still_in74
Therefore, it is easy for even a fool to see that "7 times" REALLY means "7 years" but which really means "7 years of days", but which then really means "7 years of days which aren't really days, but years", or simply stated "7 years of days of which days are really years". To put it even so a child can understand it, it means that the "times" aren't "times" at all, but are "years", which aren't "years" at all, but are "years of days", which aren't "days" at all, but are "years" AFTER all, even though they were originally CALLED "times"!
well why didnt they just say that 7 Times are actually just " 7 years of Lunar-year-day-years!" ????
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still_in74
Watchtower said....
***w831/1p.11TheKingdomIssuetotheFore!***
Here we turn to Daniel’s prophecy, chapter 4, and find that the number of "the times" would be seven. The years contained in each time would amount to the number of days in a prophetic lunar year, namely, 360 days.Each day would stand for a year, according to the way in which Gentile nations reckon time.Leolaia said:
should also point out that there is no such thing as a 360-day lunar year. The Jews did have a schematic solar calendar which had 360 monthly days...........
The actual Hebrew lunar calendar had only 354 days in a year (not counting the extra intercalated month every several years).So Leolaia is smarter than Freddie Franz??????????? Oh wait a minute, He said a "prophetic" lunar year just to cover his ass.... that guy thinks of everything! He doesnt actually need to prove a prophetic year, just keep the JW's heads spinning so they dont notice.
Oh, by the way.....
reckon???? uhm, references here? oh yeah, there wasnt any!! Anyone have anything on such a statement?
Multiplying 360 by 7 does not give you a continuous stretch of 7 years in the calendar that Daniel used, as it would omit all the solstices and equinoxes that were not reckoned as belonging to the months of the year
did you put this in there just to confuse me even more???
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Mickey mouse
There's always something new to learn here.
