DJeggnogg said: " What "promise" do you mean? No promise was made to anyone,"
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Generation Teaching - Everyone is speechless?
by Red Piller 443 Replies latest jw friends
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wasblind
DJ, we all know that God keeps his promise, so EVIDENTLY, that promise was made by man
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BluesBrother
Why the lack of an impact by the "generation" change?
IMHO , because the older dubs have been shell shocked already by doctrine changes, they have already said it all...so now they think "So what? It will come when it comes and I just hang on in here"
The ones I know do realise that the explanation is B/S so they don't bother trying to understand it
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Leolaia
As I indicated in my previous post, at Exodus 1:6, Joseph's generation is described there as including his contemporaries, so this 110-year period -- the Joseph generation -- had a beginning and an ending; it began with Joseph's birth and ended with his death, and those that were alive during "the Joseph generation" were contemporaries of Joseph. Similarly, the period of the 1914 generation -- the generation of the sign -- has a beginning and an ending; it began in the year 1914 and ended [?] at the conclusion of the system of things, and those of Jesus' anointed brothers that live during "this generation" are contemporaries of the sign....None of what you say here impinges upon the point I was making about "the Joseph generation," since, at Exodus 1:6, what is being described in this verse is a period of time greater than a generation of 40 years or even one of 20 or 23 years.
To the contrary, I was talking about a generation being equivalent to the span of a lifetime, so the reckoning of generations as periods of 40 or 20 years is not relevant to what I was talking about. My point, which I don't think was understood, is that the kind of generation discussed in Exodus 1:6 and Numbers 32:13 is not a period longer than a lifetime (such as spanning across two lifetimes, as the Society now has it). As you put it, the "Joseph generation" began with Joseph's birth "and ended with his death", and similarly the "Moses generation" of those who left Egypt in the exodus would have a definite end when the last person of that cohort dies (with Moses dying just before the Israelites entered the Promised Land). The Moses generation does not get to be extended because Joshua was alive at the same time as Moses, making him count as part of Moses' generation. It is the same situation with Amram (under Watchtower chronology); if Amram was alive before Levi (brother of Joseph, part of the "Joseph generation") died, it would be impossible for him to count as part of that generation AND for that generation to pass away before the birth of Moses if he indeed was Moses' own father.
This is to highlight the fundamental difference between the new "Watchtower generation" and the kind of generations referred to in Exodus 1:6 and Numbers 32:13: this newfangled understanding of the word "generation" extends the length of the generation well beyond that of a human lifetime, potentially embracing the full extent of the second lifetime. This would be equivalent to making the Moses generation include the full lifetime of Joshua, because he lived at the same time Moses did. Today in 2010, the "last days generation" has already exceeded the length of a human lifetime. This is because the generation begins with the "anointed who were on hand when the sign began to become evident in 1914" (4/15/2010 Watchtower, p. 10), and thus involved "Bible Students" who were already "anointed" in 1914, certainly not children. The Society thus gives the example of Fred Franz, who was baptized in 1913 at the age of 20 and who died in 1992. Today such a person would be 117 years old, and the oldest known person alive is 114, and most probably not an "anointed" JW. So people who are "anointed" today who got to live while Franz was still alive get to count as part of the "last days generation". They extend it beyond Franz' lifetime into our day. As the Society says: "Since Brother Franz lived until 1992, many present-day anointed ones were contemporaries of his and are part of the 'generation' that Jesus said would not pass away 'until all these things occur' ". This could be true with respect to a relatively young person who became anointed in the early '90s just before Franz died; such a person could then keep the generation going well into the second half of the 21st century. That would be equivalent to making Joshua part of Moses' generation (which was supposed to die off before Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan), which is quite alien to how generations are reckoned in the Bible.
But the Society justifies this by saying that present-day anointed are in the same boat as people like Franz because "these two groups whose lives overlap" both live in the "last days" and can behold the "sign" that (purportedly) became evident in 1914, and this is an ongoing situation that will continue until the great tribulation (whenever that will happen). That makes the present situation different from that of, say, Moses and Joshua because the generation that had to die before the Canaan conquest consisted of those who sinned in the wilderness in the period immediately following the exodus, not the generation that was born in the wilderness. But this just underscores the difference between the Society's strained concept of a generation and that found in Exodus 1:6 and Numbers 32:13. The situation that defines the "last days generation" is inherently a situation that exceeds the maximum length of a human lifetime; it would then naturally involve generations, plural. The supposed "last days generation" includes those who were alive in the early 1800s (such as an 80 or 90-year old Bible Student in 1914) and potentially someone who would be alive beyond 2050. And since it is the great tribulation which really brings the generation to an end (as you said above), then it could potentially span across more lifetime spans if the end doesn't come by then. It makes as much sense to talk about people under such a durative situation as a "generation" as it is to refer to "the generation of people living in the 'atomic age' ", which is going to continue indefinitely unless the human race has collective amnesia about nuclear technology or unless "Armageddon" (in whatever form) comes. It isn't going to end naturally when the people alive in 1945 (the year the first atomic bombs were detonated) die off, or even when those whose lives overlap with them naturally die from old age.
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wasblind
Hey DJ,
I see your back, come on in the house and sit a spell
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djeggnog
@Leolaia wrote:
djeggnog.....The thing about Exodus 1:6 is that it states that that particular generation did come to an end of its own accord. The way the 1914 generation is defined now, it is indefinite; it could technically go on forever.
@djeggnog wrote:
No, @Leolaia; I understand that this is what you believe, but one thing has nothing to do with the other. As I indicated in my previous post, at Exodus 1:6, Joseph's generation is described there as including his contemporaries, so this 110-year period -- the Joseph generation -- had a beginning and an ending; it began with Joseph's birth and ended with his death, and those that were alive during "the Joseph generation" were contemporaries of Joseph. Similarly, the period of the 1914 generation -- the generation of the sign -- has a beginning and an ending; it began in the year 1914 and ended at the conclusion of the system of things, and those of Jesus' anointed brothers that live during "this generation" are contemporaries of the sign.
@Leolaia wrote:
To the contrary, I was talking about a generation being equivalent to the span of a lifetime, so the reckoning of generations as periods of 40 or 20 years is not relevant to what I was talking about. My point, which I don't think was understood, is that the kind of generation discussed in Exodus 1:6 and Numbers 32:13 is not a period longer than a lifetime (such as spanning across two lifetimes, as the Society now has it). As you put it, the "Joseph generation" began with Joseph's birth "and ended with his death", and similarly the "Moses generation" of those who left Egypt in the exodus would have a definite end when the last person of that cohort dies (with Moses dying just before the Israelites entered the Promised Land). The Moses generation does not get to be extended because Joshua was alive at the same time as Moses, making him count as part of Moses' generation....
You've done it again. If we were to refer to those who were contemporaries of Moses as "the Moses generation" in the same way that I referred to those who were contemporaries of Joseph as "the Joseph generation," then the Moses generation would be a period spanning 120 years since Moses lived for 120 years, just as the Joseph generation would be a period spanning 110 years since Joseph lived for 110 years. Among the lives that overlapped the Moses generation were Aaron, Miriam, Zipporah, Jethro, Gershom and Eliezer, in addition to Joshua, who you mentioned, and among the lives that overlapped the Joseph generation were Joseph's 11 brothers, Reuben being the eldest and Benjamin the youngest, Dinah, and Joseph's sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.
In my previous post, I stated:
I understand the point you're making here, but you lost me. None of what you say here impinges upon the point I was making about "the Joseph generation," since, at Exodus 1:6, what is being described in this verse is a period of time greater than a generation of 40 years or even one of 20 or 23 years.
In response, you say that you were talking about a generation being equivalent to the span of a lifetime, but although Moses' lifetime was just ten years longer than Joseph's, Jesus wasn't at all referring to, at Matthew 24:34, the life span of the last of Jesus' anointed brothers to die, which is what Jehovah's Witnesses used to believe.
The purpose of the article "Holy Spirit's Role in the Outworking of Jehovah's Purpose" [w10 4/15, p. 10, ΒΆ14], was the make clear that when Jesus said "this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur," Jesus was saying that all of that which he had indicated would occur before the conclusion of the system of things -- remember he was responding to the question "what will be the sign of your presence and of the conclusion of the system of things" that he had been asked by his disciples at Matthew 24:3 -- would occur before this generation or the period of the sign of his presence would come to an end.
It was not unlike Jesus to indicate the absolute certainty that what things he had foretold would indeed occur using such language. For example:
Matthew 5:18
For truly I say to you that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one particle of a letter to pass away from the Law by any means and not all things take place.
Luke 16:17
Indeed, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one particle of a letter of the Law to go unfulfilled.
We were here discussing Matthew 24:34, but notice, in the very next verse at Matthew 24:35, Jesus uses the same words, "by no means pass away" in again urging his disciples to take the things he was saying to them on this occasion very seriously when he says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away."
At Matthew 24:34, Jehovah's mistakenly thought by Jesus' use of the word "generation" that he was there talking about the lifetime of people. He wasn't. What Jesus was talking about was the period during which the sign of his presence would occur. It is this span of years, this period of the sign of Jesus' presence, that would not pass away until Notice that Jesus is here talking about the generation of the sign as a period of time and not as the lifetime in which only a few of Jesus' anointed brothers would be alive, and it is this wrong viewpoint that moved us to conclude that we could calculate when the end would likely occur by noting how few of the anointed were partaking of the emblems used at Christ's memorial every year, which is rather macabre when you think of it. It's as if we were living in the hope that there would be fewer of Jesus' anointed brothers and sisters with the passing of each year. However, once we came to realize that Jesus was referring to the period during which the sign of his presence would occur, which period began in 1914, we then came to realize that we have no real idea when this period, when this generation of the sign of Jesus' invisible presence, will come to an end. Now we know that it was for ths reason that Jesus went on to say at Matthew 24:36, "Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father."
So, really, there is but one generation of the sign with the anointed that saw the beginning of this sign and the anointed that will not pass away when the great tribulation comes toward the end of the sign. There is no reason for anyone to be attempting to force two [generations] into becoming a single generation since Jesus only spoke of "this generation," not two generations, and now that this generation has begun, Jehovah's Witnesses are waiting in expectation for this generation of the sign to end, and we hope that this will be soon.
@djeggnog
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caliber
djeggnog.... Apparently you have a totally clear understanding of the new improved understanding of the term generation .
Seeing this is so clear and believable how in the world did it take over 100 years for the Faithful and Discreet Slave to figure out ?
It's all so simple and straight forward , just like the way Jesus always taught clear, simple, easy for the average man on the street to understand !
Do you feel that having 5 previous understandings is a wonderful example of how the light does indeed get brighter and brighter ?
Did you have this understanding figured out some time ago then "Wait on Jehovah " to reveal it to the Faithful and Wise Servant or is it through
recent study and mediation that you have reached your conclusion ?
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caliber
I'm guessing that if a person can believe that God chose JW's (Bible students )
in 1919 when their current light(The Finished Mystery ) taught that Christ
had already arrived in 1874 (.. 88 "proofs" that Christ's "Second Advent occurred in the Fall of 1874") (pp.68-71) ... then believing that
the generation understanding took six tries should be a piece of cake to believe ! http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/200103/1/How-credible-is-the-wt-claim-to-be-chosen-by-Christ-in-1919
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smiddy
Good points caliber
smiddy
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Gary1914
djeggnog wrote:
"At Matthew 24:34, Jehovah's mistakenly thought by Jesus' use of the word "generation" that he was there talking about the lifetime of people. He wasn't. What Jesus was talking about was the period during which the sign of his presence would occur. It is this span of years, this period of the sign of Jesus' presence, that would not pass away until Notice that Jesus is here talking about the generation of the sign as a period of time and not as the lifetime in which only a few of Jesus' anointed brothers would be alive, and it is this wrong viewpoint that moved us to conclude that we could calculate when the end would likely occur by noting how few of the anointed were partaking of the emblems used at Christ's memorial every year, which is rather macabre when you think of it. It's as if we were living in the hope that there would be fewer of Jesus' anointed brothers and sisters with the passing of each year. However, once we came to realize that Jesus was referring to the period during which the sign of his presence would occur, which period began in 1914, we then came to realize that we have no real idea when this period, when this generation of the sign of Jesus' invisible presence, will come to an end. Now we know that it was for ths reason that Jesus went on to say at Matthew 24:36, "Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father."
So, really, there is but one generation of the sign with the anointed that saw the beginning of this sign and the anointed that will not pass away when the great tribulation comes toward the end of the sign. There is no reason for anyone to be attempting to force two [generations] into becoming a single generation since Jesus only spoke of "this generation," not two generations, and now that this generation has begun, Jehovah's Witnesses are waiting in expectation for this generation of the sign to end, and we hope that this will be soon."
Convoluted Watchtower reasoning. You even managed to get the year 1914 in there. lol Did you defend the 1995 change this vigorously? No matter. Just reserve some of that vigor for the next generation change.
However, I've got to admire how they got around the fact that the number of annointed was actually increasing and not decreasing. Very clever. I wonder how many board meetings it took to come up with this new spiel?