So really just how long is a generation in regards to the length of human life ?

by thetrueone 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  thetrueone

  The recent topics covering over the new overlapping generation doctrine being put out by the WTS. stirred up some research

  by myself on the meaning and use of the word generation.

  Here's some interesting things I found out .

  Most interpretations reveal that a generation if no longer than 30 or 40 years in length.

  Nowhere have I found that the meaning of a generation is an entire length of a human life span.

  On the other hand the WTS has their own interpretation of the word, they contend that

  young children and the very old are of the same generation.

  Here's what Wiki has to say about the word generation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation
• 

  Soldier77

  I am having a serious issue with this new generation intrepretation myself. I mean that coming from my "active JW" self. My other self knows its bullshit, anyway, on topic...

  After reading several different dictionaries, they all have a line item definition of 30-40 years make up one generation (I should say most not all). So if that's the case, and taking the WBTS new understanding of the "overlapping generations", using 1914 as a reference point (just picking a specific year to count) then we are in the 3rd-4th overlap of the generation already....

  What issue I have is that they insult my basic level of intelligence, I mean, surely, they know that I have access to a dictionary or two...
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  straightshooter

  I always thought that a generation was a lifetime for one group, not multiple overlapping groups.
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  PSacramento

  Well, I think that, if you take the HIGHEST max lifespan, that is probably the MAX you are gonna get for any generation.

  Someone that is 100 years old this year means they were born in 1910 and as such they belong to quite a few generations:

  The great depression generation, the spanish influenza gen, the WW1 Gen, the WW2, the nuclear, the Korea, the Nam, the landing on the moon, the hippes, the 80's 90's, the yuppies, the pepsi-gen, ALL of them.
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  OnTheWayOut

  One generation is from the time someone is born until he/she has a child of their own, typically from 20-40- years. A dictionary says that a generation is all the people living at the same time of about the same age.
  
  People are classed together as a generation when they are about the same age. Several different generations are going on at the same time, so pop history tends to group people together by the decade in which they were born or the one in which they finished their teen years on into adulthood. Some pop culture is a wee bit broader with the age groups. We have Generation X, those born after the baby boom years. Some put people born from 1961 to 1981 within that one generation (comprised of the years with a very low birth rate).

  The writer who claims that Jesus said that "this generation will not pass away until all these things occur" was not trying to be some deep thinker. He meant that people who were considered adults at the time of his speaking, perhaps young adults, would not all pass away before those things happened. We could give him a break if it was a bit later and assume he meant all babies born just before Jesus said those words was the generation Jesus spoke of. But that would be it.
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  PSacramento

  No matter what one defines as a generation or the span it can be ( max like mine or typical like OTWO posted), the thing is that generations that overlap are NOT the same generations.

  And Jesus said THIS GENERATION, he was specific and not generalizing.
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  Soldier77

  OTWO: Excellent explanation, that's how I understand it.
• 

  Leolaia

  Nowhere have I found that the meaning of a generation is an entire length of a human life span.

  The meaning of the biblical genea "generation" is not that it refers to a period of time with a certain length, but that it refers to a defined group of people; in this case the group is those people alive at the time of Jesus' preaching ("this" generation). Matthew 24:34 refers to the eventual passing away of this group, so the generation does not exceed the length of a human lifetime. But it is not the meaning of the term as if it refers to the length of a human life span. The expectation was that those who heard Jesus' words would live to see the parousia (see Matthew 10:23, 16:27-28, Mark 8:38-9:1, 14:62; cf. Revelation 1:7, and the rebutting of the expectation in John 21:23 and 2 Peter 3:9).
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  JWoods

  But, the issue here is not so much what the original bible writers meant about the "generation" (because they obviously did NOT mean 1914), but rather what the Watchtower meant when they kept saying it.

  The watchtower meant people alive and old enough to comprehend what they were teaching in 1914 would not pass away before the end came.

  This failed - hence, the watchtower is now dredging up any way they can to keep from admitting the false prophecy.

  And, it is getting more and more ridiculous - for example, having to make 3 changes now since 1995 on it.
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  undercover

  So really just how long is a generation in regards to the length of human life ?

  In regards to WT theology, does it really matter? The WTS said that the generation that was alive in 1914 would not pass away. Any way you cut it, the generation that was alive in 1914 is, for all practical purposes, gone. Dead. Passed away. There are some straggglers, but the generation is gone.

  The WTS can try to define the word generation any way they want to, but their own words from the previous 50 years come back to haunt them. Not only their words but their pictures too:

  

  This whole generation thing is just amazing to me. It's more damning than any other prophecy or teaching. As bad as 1975 was, they were always able to weasel out of it because they never came out, in print, and declared the end of the world by 1975. But this one they did. Multiple times, over decades. You can pull out any number of publications and find the teaching still there. So for them to come out and try to pass off this overlapping shit takes major balls or stupidity. I can't quite figure out which...maybe stupid balls, I dunno.

  As plain and simple as this is, I'd like to think that many JWs will sit up and take notice, like many did after 75, except more. But will they? Are they too indoctrinated? Too lazy? Too scared? Maybe that's the amazing part. It's so obvious to an outsider how full of shit this religion is, except those on the inside can't see it.