How long is a "generation"?

by cameo-d 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • cameo-d
    cameo-d

    Moggylover,

    I appreciate the effort you put into your information. But I think as long as people still cite WT idiocy the truth of any matter will remain elusive.

    Going by the estimate of 25 years being a generation and 14 generations between Abraham and Jesus is what we need to work with first.

    So how many years have elapsed between Abraham and Jesus according to this? (Forget the change of the BC/AD as having anything to do with it.)

    And then we need to figure how many generations have elapsed between generation of Jesus and today's generation.

  • yesidid
    yesidid

    Hi Cameo-d,

    You asked by formula for arriving at the Biblical generation.

    Well......................................... you quoted Matt 1:17

    17 All the generations, then, from Abraham until David were fourteen generations, and from David until the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon until the Christ fourteen generations.

    So that makes 42 generations . The Google consensus seems to be that Abraham was born ABOUT 2000 years before Jesus.

    I divided 42 generations into the 2000 years and……………………. what was hidden has been exposed.

    47.619047619047619047618 years is a Biblical generation

    Give or take a few seconds, minutes, days, weeks or years.

    y

  • cameo-d
    cameo-d

    Yesided" The Google consensus seems to be that Abraham was born ABOUT 2000 years before

    Ok. Thanks. I think that was what was missing.

    quote:

  • Early Bronze Age (3100-2100) a period of Abram and his mystery genealogy.
  • Middle Bronze Age I (2100-1900 B.C.) would represent the coming of Abraham to Palestine and the Amorites from Syria.

    • http://www.mazzaroth.com/ChapterFour/DatingThePatriarchalAge.htm

    It seems that there was a great catastrophe around 2200 BC that has destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. The surface of the Dead Sea dropped suddenly by 100m around 2200 BC (Frumkin et al., The Holocene 1.3, 1991)

    and another speculation....

    It certainly LOOKED like ash! But what to do about this information was a puzzle. After all, these sites have been right out in plain sight since their destruction in about 1897 BC.

    It is said Abraham was about 99 at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So here we have varying dates for that destruction between 1897 BC and 2200 BC. So that's a few generations of discrepancy.

    I'd say 2000 BC as an approximation should be fine.

    So how many generations since Jesus until now using the 47 year calculation?

    And how many generations using the 25 years as a generation?

    I am just curious as to how close its been to one thousand generations.

    Gods contract with Abraham was only for one thousand generations.

  • trueblue
    trueblue

    Can someone give me an algebraic formula for this math problem? (with solution, of course.)

    How long is a "generation"? devided by Mathew 24:36 = Mathew 24:44 , Solution: John 5:28

  • Cadellin
    Cadellin

    In Exodus, the Israelites who resisted the encouraging report of Joshua and Caleb and who wanted to return to Egypt were condemned to wander in the wilderness until "they and all their generation" died out, the "they" being those of 20 years and up. How long before "all their generation" died out and the new generation was able to enter the Promised Land? 40 years. Ta-da!

    This fits nicely with some of the other posts here (sorry, I'm terrible w/remembering who posted what), in particular with Jesus' own words in Matt that the generation he was speaking to would not disappear b/f his prophecy re Jerusalem came to fruition. Which, of course, happened about 37 years later--within a standard 40-year generation.

  • yadda yadda 2
    yadda yadda 2

    The Society parallels Noah's world with the last days of this old system of things so perhaps they will come out and say that the "generation" could not be longer than 120 years. It's something they hinted at in 2003 - see below link. That's about the longest they could possibly stretch it using the scriptures. Watch this space in future Questions from Readers.

    http://www.jwfiles.com/2034.htm

  • yesidid
    yesidid

    The time from Abraham till Jesus, and from the birth of Jesus ‘till now is about the same, each 2000 years.

    If it was 42 generations in the first 2000 years, it would be reasonable to say 42 generations for the second.

    So altogether that makes 84 generations. Even if we say the generations from Jesus birth ‘till now are 25yrs long, it is still only 122 generations.

    Still a long way from the thousand promised.

    y

  • yesidid
    yesidid

    OK so do my figures add up?

    y

  • cameo-d
    cameo-d

    Yadda,

    The idea of manipulating a generation to encompass 120 years is lunacy. It could also be an idea they picked up from Hal Lindsey. (But he predicted Christ returning in '88.)

    quote:

    Hal Lindsey argued that prophetical information in Matthew 24 indicates that the “generation” witnessing the “rebirth of Israel” is the same generation that will observe the fulfillment of the “signs” referred to in Matthew 24:1-33 —and that would be consummated by the second coming of Christ in approximately 1988. He dated it from the “rebirth of Israel” in 1948, and took a generation to be “something like forty years.” [ 16 ] Lindsey later stretched his forty-year timetable to as long as one hundred years, writing that he was no longer certain that the terminal "generation" commenced with the rebirth of Israel. [ 17 ]

  • ziddina
    ziddina

    What Shamus, Nathan, and AK_Jeff said...

    But let us not forget good ol' Adam, Enoch, and those other characters from Genesis... Their "generations" lasted around 900 years...

    And I can just see/hear the WTBTS resorting to THAT definition of a "generation" when they miss yet another "Doomsday" date... Zid

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