There in fact was a talk delivered at a convention some 20-25 years ago (man! do I at times have a great memory!), where the speaker - a CO - mentioned that there COULD be a large scale salvation at the very end, so that The Big Battle would not be fought. What then about all the prophecies made? He pointed to Jonah and said that all the prophecies would then be the sory of what WOULD HAVE happened if not people or mankind had repented and been saved. It was just a few sentences, and I think most of the audience never paid any attention to it, but in my mind it stuck. Never mentioned before or after. But I jardly believe "free2think"'s scenario is VERY likely to emerge.
Did you know the End started in 1799?
by jwfacts 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Doug Mason
I wonder how many JWs have any consciousness of the significance of 1914, 1918 or 1919 for the organisation? I suggest the answer is "very few".
If 1914 is no longer explained by the organisation, then their underlying neo-Babylonian chronology and their misinterpretations of Daniel 4 and Jeremiah (etc) are even further from the people's consciousness.
This means that to demolish the organisation's positions, we first have to teach JWs what they believe, and supply them with the organisation's explanations. How bizarre.
If few JWs have any consciousness of these matters, this means there are other reasons for acceptance of the "package", including fear of the effects of disfellowshiping and shunning.
If people are still "coming in" (rather than being born into it), there must be something else that attracts, or is it purely repulsion from a different ethos?
The GB's apparent strategy of shying away from any attempt to prove 1914 (etc) might indicate a shift in intent or it might be tacit admission that its errors have been exposed and cannot be defended.
When the organisation does create a new dating system, the 1914 debacle can then be swept into the dustbin marked "past mistakes", along with 1874, etc., etc.
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oompa
does anyone know when WT last printed any methods of arriving at 1914 as end of the gentile time/beginning of the last days?.....when was there last a talk about it?...........oompa
somebody once posted info about how the use of the date has dropped every year in the wt for the last ten years or so....wish i could find it
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OnTheWayOut
1799 was left in place for quite awhile, yet today nobody in the JW's hardly knows about it.
I didn't know about it, did you?
I imagine 1914 is so entrenched that they will keep it for another generation or two. I see 1914 staying as the "beginning of the last days" until at least 2034, the 120 years comparible to the limits set in the days of Noah. When that fails, then they will reboot their theories. There won't be that many JW's then anyway (less than a million).
That's when you change the doctrine, when you lose the lion's share of the members. I hope they lose them sooner, then this change will come about sooner.
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civicsi00
They can't drop 1914 without detaching all other significant (albeit invisible) events that define the Watchtower religion. Simply put, 1914 IS the religion. Unless another Freddie Franz comes along to come up with some new and exciting [false] prophecies, this religion is as good as dead. I believe there's no life left in it, and it has exhausted all of its false prophetic power.
This may be way out of line, but:
What if another religion comes along, is similar enough to the JW's, predicts that something will happen in a particular year, something does happen, and then all the JW's defect to that religion? Is that plausible?
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jwfacts
OnTheWayOut - I didn't know about 1799 until I was well on the way out. Because I had doubts I started to read Studies in the Scriptures during the Watchtower Study. I was in shock to read all the failed dates.
Reniaa, interesting link, showing all the other bizarre cult predictions for Armageddon. I am not quite sure why as a Watchtower Apologist you would include it as it must make you somewhat embarrassed to support one such cult. The Witnesses and Russell even get a mention on page http://www.armageddononline.org/failed_armageddon4.php
1914/1919 is critical to the concept that the Watchtower GB were picked at that time - the awakened virgins. But they also say that there have always been an F&D slave so they could phase out the date and still claim there is only one group of leaders on earth to follow. It will become harder to be convincing that the Watchtower alone is the way to salvation and harder to keep an urgency without some pivotal date.
I personally feel 120 or so years after 1914 and the date will just not sound logical or relevant at all. In the 2030's it will be hard for any new JWs to think 1914 has any credibility.
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passwordprotected
This year's DC specifically mentions 1914 and the 'fact' that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607.
This flies in the face of their recent reluctance to even fart the words 1914.
My question is - "when will saying that the Time of the End started in 1914 start to sound ridiculous"? In what year do you predict the Watchtower will drop that year?
If they are going to drop it, it will need to be before or shortly after 2014. It already seems ridiculous.
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jwfacts
Oompa - interesting question. I just did a search on the 2006 Watchtower library for the term Seven Times. There still are articles mentioning the phrase about once a year. There is an couple of paragraphs on calculating the Seven times in the watchtower 2006 7/15 p. 7
Interestingly, the term 1914 is significantly less mentioned these days. In the noughties (2000's) it is appearing about 20 times a year in the Watchtower where as in the 1990s it was about 50 times a year. In the 1980's it was even higher at around 70 times, appearing 178 times in 1984.
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TheOldHippie
2006 - one WT article (7/15). 2007 - one small paragraph in a WT article (9/1). 2008 - none.
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wantingtruth
I knew that !
in fact , it is the "way of reasoning" about prophecies which is "responsible" for all the datas ... the same reasoning...
...aplying one year for every day of some "periods" found in Bible ,
and then finding some historical events from where to start to count these numbers of years ,
and we have had "plenty" of datas...