Since the Watchtower leadership and its anonymous writers regularly and pointedly speak with forked tongues in all their major doctrinal pronouncements there is always a measure of truth mixed with falsehood in those pronouncements. Take all their statements with a pinch of salt, and seek confirmation from more objective sources.
The truth is far more prosaic, and ironically more complex that that found in Watchtower literature.
1 Originally the Watchtower deity told his lackey, CT Russell, that:
a. Jesus came invisibly to earth in 1874.
b. There would then follow one generation of forty years when the "harvest" would be garnered, and the footstep followers of Christ would be selected. At the end of that generation, which would be in 1914, Christ would begin his reign, the Gentile nations would topple and the world would end.
2 By 1925 this teaching had obviously become too absurd to maintain so Rutherford discovered that either this same deity who spoke to Russell, or another one, approached him and revealed a new "truth" This was that: a Jesus came invisibly in 1874, and
b Jesus had only just begun to rule in 1914. Hitherto Jesus' taking up His rule signaled the end of Gentile rule and the end of the world, now it was discovered that it signalled the beginning of the end of Gentile rule. Now there was evidently a hiatus discovered, and rather than destroy the Gentile nations immediately, a generation would again be allowed to pass, before this destruction would occur.
c. Rather than predicting the 1914 War beforehand, the significance of this conflict was only recognized in hindsight. Up to 1925, the Watchtower "explained" Matt 24:7 by pointing to the various conflicts that occurred in the 19th C, such as the Napoleonic wars, that began the century, the US Civil War, The Franco-Prussian War, etc. Now they conveniently had one central conflict to focus attention on. Their deity must be a slow learner. Took him eleven years to see this significance.
3 1929 was the last time we hear about the dreaded date of 1874. In the book "Prophecy" [an oxymoron if ever there was one] on page 65 we have this sage remark: "The Scriptural proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ began in 1874"
4 In 1932, in a brief, almost innocuous remark, the date 1914 is linked, not only with the rule of Christ which like his "presence" began "invisibly that year, but also with his second presence. If you blink you'd miss this remark. It is tucked away in a largely forgettable little booklet called "What is Truth"
5 In 1943, Freddy Franz tidied up much of the tardy Watchtower theology that Rutherford bequeathed to the leaders as his unwanted legacy. Now, officially, Christ came invisibly in 1914, His rule invisibly began in that year, and the last generation, the "1914 generation" was given its genesis.
