6000 / 7000- Numbers Without a Scripture

by OnTheWayOut 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  OnTheWayOut

  Freddy Franz working as the main writer/oracle under the Knorr administration, came up with these very magic numbers.
  He said that Mankind would be 6000 years old in 1975, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary. More importantly- Somehow, he made people believe that 6000 was a magical number, necessitating the destruction of more than 99% of mankind that year even without a single scripture in his new Bible (which he wrote).

  Oh, you may say there's scriptures that say 1000 years is as a day to God, but we aren't talking about a day or 1000 years. We are talking about 6000 being six-sevenths of the single day of rest, and the millenium rule of Christ being the last seventh, creating the other magical number- 7000. Not a week, but a single day of God's. Without a single scripture, Franz convinced perhaps millions of people that God created everything in 6 periods of 7000 years described as the "days" of creation in the book of Genesis. He convinced them that all life on earth was less than 48,000 years old.
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  simon17

  6000 was a special number because given that Babylon was destroyed in 537 BCE, the chronology of the lengths of kings rules and patriarchs lives can be added all the way back to the year that Adam was born. Of course they originally messed up the numbers but adding wrong somehow but in general there is about 6000 years of human history according to simple counting of Bible chronology. 6000+1000 year reign (again clearly mentioned) = 7000. Then from that he made up the nonsense about lengths of creative days and blah blah blah but the numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere (Biblically speaking)
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  OnTheWayOut

  but the numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere (Biblically speaking)

  Oh, I beg to differ. There may be Biblical reference to ONE thousand, there may be about six thousand years of man's history.
  But there is nothing in the Bible about 7000-year creative days and there is nothing in the Bible about what 6000 years of history means.
  Whether the math is right or wrong is a good subject, but even if they were right, the Bible doesn't indicate anything special about it.
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  lrkr

  " Bishop James Ussher was able to use the ages of famous pre-flood personages in the Bible to estimate the number of years between creation and the flood. In 1650 CE, he published his book "Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti" ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world.") He calculated that God had created the Earth in 4004 BCE. A decade earlier, Dr. John Lightfoot, (1602 - 1675), an Anglican clergyman, rabbinical scholar, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge had already arrived at an estimate of 4004-OCT-23 BCE, at 9 AM. (We assume that this was either Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or Jerusalem time)."

  Crazy people tried to figure out the "creation date" of the earth for a long time- but by the 20th century only Franz and a few other loons still believed that- since geology had proven that the earth was 4.5 Billion years old. (I crack up at the 9AM thing!!)
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  OnTheWayOut

  Crazy people tried to figure out the "creation date" of the earth for a long time

  If the Bible is plain as day in it's chronology, there should be no disagreement about the age of man. I see where Genesis is pretty upfront about how old everybody was when they had a son. It seems to add up for awhile.

  But get out of Genesis, and you are relying on history from outside the Bible to make it all work.

  Don't miss the point, though. Even if it can be figured out, the Bible doesn't identify the length of a creative day as 7000 of man's years, nor does it say anything about when this millenium rule must start. That's all Freddy's magic numbers.
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  lrkr

  OK- so "crazy" may be a bit of a mischaracterization- People who lived before geology and biology and paleontoloy were developed to the level that they were in the 1800's- is probably better. Most of the scientists in the 1800's chuckled at the 4000 BC date- because they had found fossils and sediment layers, etc that were older than that.

  Its interesting that 7 is the number of things that a person can easily remember (if its a field of interest- if not- usually only 2 or 3) How many state capitals, canadian cities, brands of tvs, etc can a person name- hard limit usually at 7. So marketers remember 7 as a magic number. I gotta believe the bible's master marketers figured that out at some point.
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  OnTheWayOut

  He said that Mankind would be 6000 years old in 1975, despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.

  lrkr, your points are well-taken and do fit with this part of the opening comment. Thanks.

  I personally think it's leaning toward crazy to ignore all that scientific evidence and point to 4004 BCE or 4026 BCE as the point in time where there was fully developed MAN that year, but not the year before. But the reason I don't want to debate that is because it's getting into faith and creationism vs. evolution.

  I suspend that for this discussion and say that Freddy and the WT ran with numbers that are not in the Bible. So, if they could prove that man was 6000 years old using the Bible, could they find any scriptural evidence that it means anything special? Why not 10,000-year creative "days" or why wasn't 5000 (a nice round number of five fingers, five toes, five thousands) years of man's existence the time when the old system should come to an end? No scriptures support what they did. They can do fuzzy math to come up with 1799, 1874, 1914, YADDA YADDA. They can even come up with 1975 using the same type of math, but nothing in the Bible indicated that 1975 meant anything.

  This leads to an examination of their need to an end date. After 1975 came and went, why did the mags always say the end would come in the "20th century" ? They were leaning on the 1914-generation understanding, yes. But why was any specific attention paid to the 20th century? It was simply that they needed an end-date.

  I think about these things as I read JWN and reflect how they haven't had an end-date since 1995. They are drifting and people are bailing. They will have to come up with more magic numbers. The next number will have no more scriptures than did the 6000 / 7000 thing.
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  wobble

  Exactly what I said on another thread,they have never before 1995 had to operate without an end date to whip up enthusiasm and contributions

  Since 1995 they have been relying on your average brain-dead Dub still feeling that as 1914 is so well proven (?????WTF????)

  that the end must still be linked to that,the problem is 2014 is looming,and how to explain that a reigning king has sat on his hands and done nothing for a whole centuary,they have painted themselves into a corner and need a new spurious date,ho hum 2034 anyone?

  Freddies 6000 years was pulled out of his arse,the new date will be of similar quality, absolute s**t !

  Love

  Wobble
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  leavingwt

  They need another Freddy, to stir up some good, old-fashioned cult URGENCY!

  Their End Times cult prophecies need a shot in the arm!
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  villabolo

  I don't have Russells books to give a citation but I believe it was him who came up with the 7,000 years = 1 creative day.

  villabolo