Good ol' 1914

by MoodyBlue 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  MoodyBlue

  ok folks...I'm actually gonna stop lurking and post...

  I am currently being 'studied' with to rectify my doubts (I'm baptized but considered inactive) I brought up the 607/1914 thing and the sister said she'd research it and get back to me... she didn't know about the 587 date (surprise surprise)

  Anyway she came back to me saying something about just having to count back 70 years or something and voila! it was that simple... She also said the society had PROPHESIED about 1914 being the end of the gentile times...

  Now I KNOW that ain't so...there was prophecy yes, but it but it wasn't until after 1914 that the horn blowing started about the correctness of the date... 1874 immediately sprang to mind. I played dumb, though I knew she was obviously speaking a lie told to her by the society.

  A little bird told me I would probably get answers like this to my 1914 question. I was hoping it wouldn't be so...

  Sigh, so do i dare keep on asking about my 'doubts?' Decisions decisions...... I'm scared to be posting this cause I don't want to get "found out"
  So back into the shadows I go....

  Edited by - MoodyBlue on 28 December 2000 13:48:44
• 

  Simon

  The big thing that they attach to 1914 now is that the Gentile times ended and Christ returned 'invisibly'. These used to be separate events though - the gentile times ended at vaious dates from 1799 as did Christ (originally 1874). They only set them to the same date of 1914 as it was the only date that something dramatic happened on (although nothing like what they had foretold).
  Interestingly, The Harp of God published in the 1920's still claims that Christ returned in 1874 - they certainly didn't prophesy this as they now claim.
  The funnies thing is the list of 'proofs' they have that Christ had returned. These are (I kid you not - p.235 in the small edition):
  Aeroplanes, Aluminium (a few years later to be declared the work of Satan), Artificial Dye, Barbed Wire, Bicycles, Cash Registers, Escalators, North Pole (wasn't that already there?), Panama Canal, Railway Signals, South Pole (I guess they go together), Submarines, Sky Scrapers, Telephones, Typewriters, and Vacuum Cleaners.
  They don't make much fuss about that though do they !
• 

  RR

  Hi Moody,

  This subject was touched upon on another thread. Let me just say that what the Society teaches NOW is NOT what they taught THEN in regards to 1914.

  In Fact, the term "gentile times" has a totally different meaning. When C.T. Russell used the term, it was always in regards to the nation of Israel and their role in God's plan. The Society later redefined "Israel" to mean ... the Society.

  Originally, the thought was that Jesus returned in 1874, this was taught well into the 1930s, and that the presence would span forty years to 1914 with the ending of the gentiles and the battle of armageddon ending it all. Russell believed the dates were correct, but was not so adamant of the end result. Later the Society under Rutherford moved EVERYTHING to 1914, and reinterpretated everything to reflect a replacement theology, that they were the Jews.

  One thing you should know ... everything the Society believes and teaches is ALL hinged on 1914, destroy the date and you destroy the Society.

  "People in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones"
• 

  Pathofthorns

  In all honesty Moodyblue, i think the 607 thing is a difficult argument to win with witnesses who are closed minded. For one thing, the subject gets quite complex and you will simply keep getting referred back to the Kingdom Come book appendix and the simple "count 70 years from 539 BCE" explaination.

  If you are going to argue on this matter, you will have to pick up "gentile times reconsidered" (available online at www.chapters.ca). It becomes difficult because the only indepth reference work on the subject is by someone who is "apostate", quite simply because no authority on the matter considers 607 to be a legitamate date.

  Personally, i'd suggest you research these things for your own personal growth. You know the answers you will recieve from the person who studies with you. You can't change them or the system, and where you go with what you learn is entirely up to you.

  What is important is that you keep yourself free enough to ask the questions, if only to yourself and then let the answers guide you.

  If you find the 607 debate too complex, why not take a look at just what the Bible Students were doing in 1919 that merited the divine appointment to "faithful and discreet slave". What you will find is they have abandoned most of what they practiced and believed since then. And if that is the case, then why would they have been appointed in the first place then, especially considering one believing those things today would be disfellowshipped?

  Path

  Edited by - pathofthorns on 28 December 2000 14:24:21
• 

  Prisca

  I've got a copy of The Harp of God and as Simon says (!) they used all the "modern" inventions of that time, "some of those things that have come to light since 1874, as further evidence of the Lord's presence since that date".

  Napoleon is "clearly a fulfillment" of the prophecy about the "King of the south". Great Britain is regarded as the "king of the north" which is still believed today, as part of the Anglo/American world power.

  Interestingly, it refers to the date, 606BCE, not 607BCE, obviously fogetting there is no Year Zero.

  And in the whole chapter, "The Lord's Return", 1914 is only referred to in passing, as the date of the end of the worldly system of things. Whereas 1874 is given much more significance as the date for Jesus' second coming.

  So it amazes me, when the Society claims it has been publishing the date 1914 from the very beginnings with Russell, when this book, which was copyrighted in the year 1921, clearly proves them wrong.
• 

  Londo111

  I don’t know why, but I was curious to see what the earliest 607 thread on JWN was…and this seems to be it.

  However, this seems to be the earliest thread with anything sustentative: http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/2018/1/1914-Wrong-See-why