TTE, I posted this regarding Russell, Newton, and Milton on another thread. I don't know if you saw it or were interested...
They rewrote and revised the history of the beliefs of "the organization". When I actually read Studies in the Scriptures, it became quite clear that what CT Russell believed was very different than what Watchtower Craporation says that he believed.
As for Newton, he was a brilliant scientist, but not so good a theologian. I did a face-palm when someone commented that Newton believed the same as we do and would be a JW today. Um, he denied the existance of Satan and the demons. And his occult studies included many non-JW activities. Newton was particularly influenced by the Rosicrucians and their ability to communicate with spirits, produce gold with The Philosopher's Stone, and...
...they believed they could LIVE FOREVER... using elixir vitae! A magic potion!
Just as Chuck Rustle was gaga over pyramidology using pyramid-inches to determine historic chronology. Newton was nuts over measurements of every other historic structure. He wrote extensively about the temple measurements and their sacred geometry detailing the history of the Jewish nation.
He said the world would not end before AD 2060... take that Watchtower, you are off big time according to Newton. At that, he seems to have only spoken of a new world to replace the old one, not so much billions dying in the big A cataclysm as dubs are forced to believe.
Milton was a politician and poet, not so much a Bible scholar. His religious views were anti-trinity and mortality of the soul. Other than that, I haven't found much to go on, certainly nothing about him believing the JW promise of living forever on a paradise earth. His Paradise Regained only dealt with Jesus resisting temptation, not about his ransom sacrifice. I don't think he mentioned anything about billions of non-JWs being destroyed in the 21st century and surviving kids all getting pet tigers... unless I missed something in his work.
This was the third in a series of Botchtower studies "proving" the paradise earth belief. I think last week summed it up when they basically said, "since the Bible doesn't say anything about there NOT being a paradise earth where a "great crowd of other JW sheeples" will live forever in perfection, they must have believed the same way that the Governing Badly of Jehovah's Witnesses, Inc. believe today!"
