WTS: creative days took aeons - WT Feb 15th, 2011 (page 4)

Awen

I knew of the 7k creative day and just like now I dismissed it then as being fallacy. To me, the entire creation account in Genesis was to tell a very complex story in simplistic terms that any child could understand. Much like Jesus saying that if you have faith the size of a mustard grain, then you can move mountains. Not literal mountains, but mountainous problems. So goes Genesis. I never trusted the GB, after all they're just men. Even the Apostles admitted they didn't have full knowledge of everything and wouldn't have that knowledge until Christ returned (which still hasn't happened).

I have never been able to fathom why people take the GB's every word as gospel and throw out their own good sense in the process. Jeremiah 10:23 has been a constant source of comfort to me when issues such as these have arisen. "I well know O Lord that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his own step."

Then again, I was always one of the black sheep witnesses who was never fully in step with the Borg. I don't fault people who did believe everything that came out of Bethel, I just don't understand it considering the Apostles constantly warned Christians against deifying people.

St George of England

So IF the WTS has abandoned the 7000 years creative day length, then all they need to do is:

Abandon the global flood idea
Scrap the 'No Blood' doctrine
Stop shunning
Forget Armageddon

...and they will be left with an almost acceptable main stream religion

George

designs

Even during Fred Franz's heydays of the 1960s when he was publishing his 7000 Year Theories the Aid Book came committee was trying to buffer things- see Creative Days. We know who won that argument back then. Seems like now they are trying to straddle the middle ground between Creationists and Science.

Scully

Well, if that's the case, then it could possibly be preparing for the abandonment of the 1914 generation thing, and the 1000 year reign of Jesus. Because I certainly remember the conversations around the 1000 year reign being the fulfillment of the Jubilee year Prophecy™ in the old testament.

designs

Scully, one of the many things facing Literalist Religions like our former religion is the Time factor. Literalists are always trying to pigeon hole the Bible and its prophecies into some time frame and it always backfires. And sadly people, like us, had decades of productive time sidetracked by these cults.

LUKEWARM

Is this another flip-flop from the goons that told us to preach that "The Bible indicates that Jehovah created the heavens and the earth in six days, each 7,000 years in length"?

***w511/1p.27TheChristian'sSabbath***Then the days mentioned in Genesis chapter 1 were not 24 hours long? No; remember that the sun did not shine upon the earth until the fourth day and it is the sun that gives us the 24-hour day. Besides, from such sciences as geology it appears that both plant and animal life have been on this earth far more than 6,000 years. Note too that the entire period of creation is referred to as "the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven". (Gen. 2:4, AS) A day in the Bible is not always 24 hours long; 7,000 years for each of the creative days as well as the rest day is consistent with the Scriptures.-2 Pet. 3:8.

***w548/1ThePurposeofYourWitnessing***[Footnotes]Each creative day was 7,000 years in length. See "NewHeavensandaNewEarth", pages 40-43

***w552/1p.95QuestionsFromReaders***According to Genesis 1:24-31 Adam was created during the last part of the sixth creative-day period of 7,000 years.

***w616/15pp.378-379TheSeventhDay-ASabbathofRest***Thus we see God's use of the perfect number seven. The creative week consisted of seven days that were made up, not merely of hours, but of 7,000 years each. This means that each creative day was, within itself, a week of 1,000-year days.

***w638/1p.460par.14ReligionandtheNuclearAge*** 14 We could continue verse by verse through the entire period of the six creative days, periods of time that other Bible passages show to have been each 7,000 years in length
***w677/15p.427par.5FestivalsofPraisetoJehovah***The Bible indicates that Jehovah created the heavens and the earth in six days, each 7,000 years in length

***w685/1p.268par.17UnderstandingTimeaHelptoTrueWorshipers***This refers to the creative periods of time, each of which, judging by the seventh, appears to be 7,000 years long.

***w702/15p.120TheDaysofCreationfromGod'sViewpoint***Thus we find the seventh "day" of the creative week to be seven thousand years long. On the basis of the length of the seventh "day" it is therefore reasonable to conclude that each of the other six "days" also was a period of 7,000 years. This length of time would be ample for all that the Bible tells us took place on each of the six days of creation.

***w7011/1p.645ItIsNotintheBible!***So, if the other six of this group of seven great creative "days" are as long as the last one, then each one must have been 7,000 years long!

***g8211/8p.7ScienceandtheBible***True, the account goes on to say that huge steps in the development of the earth took one day each. But, in the Bible, "day" can mean more than a twenty-four-hour period. It can mean a thousand years or even longer! (Genesis 2:4; Psalm 90:4) The Bible record, together with verifiable history, indicates that the seventh day of that creative week covers a period of 7,000 years. Hence, each of the six preceding "days" would be of the same length.

***g833/22p.15Evolution,Creation,orCreationism-WhichDoYouBelieve?***CreativedaysofGenesischapter1: "a first day," "a second day," and so forth, 7,000 years each.

***w871/1p.30QuestionsFromReaders***Second, a study of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and of our location in the stream of time strongly indicate that each of the creative days (Genesis, chapter 1) is 7,000 years long. It is understood that Christ's reign of a thousand years will bring to a close God's 7,000-year 'rest day,' the last 'day' of the creative week. (Revelation 20:6; Genesis 2:2, 3) Based on this reasoning, the entire creative week would be 49,000 years long..

dmouse

Looks like they are hedging their bets (having it both ways) These are not 24-hour days but are epochs.

World English Dictionary

epoch ('i?p?k)

— n
1.	a point in time beginning a new or distinctive period: the invention of nuclear weapons marked an epoch in the history of warfare
2.	a long period of time marked by some predominant or typical characteristic; era
3.	astronomy a precise date to which information, such as coordinates, relating to a celestial body is referred
4.	geology a unit of geological time within a period during which a series of rocks is formed: the Pleistocene epoch
5.	physics the displacement of an oscillating or vibrating body at zero time

designs

Maybe one of the Writing Dept. staff went to the Grand Canyon and started counting the Geological layers and had the 'Oh my Gawd!' moment.

Listener

Thanks Lukewarm. There isn't a year stated against the publications you quoted from but it would seem that the org hasn't been claiming each day is 7.000 years long for many years now. In the Insight into the Scriptures they do not state how long a day is under the topic of creation. It would seem they have been rather quiet on the matter as I do believe it opens up a can of worms.

It is interesting to note in the quotes you gave that they had been committed to the idea that the 7th day is 7000 years long and have assumed that the first 6 days are of the same length.

A lot of their beliefs are centred around the concept that the 7th day is 7000 years long. This includes the idea that Jesus' millenium rule will be in the last 1000 years of the 7th day and 1975 ended the first 6000 years since the creation of Adam (who was created in the 6th day) but coming to the conclusion that we don't know how far into the 7th day we already are.

OnTheWayOut

Good catch, UC. WTS has waited years and years until most of the people who would be disturbed by their abandoning the 7000-year creative days are dead or too old to really protest. They did indicate that the lifeless earth (and the heavens) could be billions of years old, but that the creative process of life started according to a Fred Franz time scale. Now, they sneak up on abandoning that.

Virtually none of the JW's pays attention or knows what to believe anymore. So to point this out, the average dub would simply shrug their shoulders and say "This is consistent with what they have always taught."

WTS: creative days took aeons - WT Feb 15th, 2011

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