by breakfast of champions 7 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Have been reading debates on several other threads as to whether or not 1975 was predicted as the end or not.
So go to Google News, type in "Jehovah's Witnesses 1975" or something to that effect, then narrow the results to 1970 - 1979.
Actual newspapers will come up with articles about witness predictions of 1975.
From what I see, they did a pretty good job of getting the word out a la Harold Camping (actually I think he did a better job)
Hope this settles the issue for all time.
Pauls got a pretty good run down on jwfacts as well . . . mainly from their own lit . . . but a few other sources as well
"We never said Armageddon would come by 1975. That was said by Some who were going ahead of the Organization."
I followed your suggestion, and found this.
What worked for me was typing in "Jehovah's Witnesses 1975", then clicking on "Archives" on the left hand side menu.
Thanks for the tip.
A real eyeopener for me was listening to the audio of the famous Fred Franz 1975 talk at the district assembly in the late 60's. He strings the audience along skilfully and the "knowing laughter" of the audience when he says "we aren't saying" is a classic.
Well, I was what they now call an "unbaptized publisher" (I got baptized 11 January 1976) back then so I don't need to reference the articles. I know the WTS was actively promoting 1975 as a "critical year". And while nobody came out and said that Armageddon would definitely arrive in 1975, Witnesses were told that if the end did not come in that year it would follow very shortly thereafter. The WTS hinged its teachings on the calculation that six thousand years of human history would end in September 1975. Since the belief was that each of the creative "days" discussed in Genesis was seven thousand years in length, and that all of human history had occurred in the seventh day, the last millennium of the seventh day would surely be filled by Christ and the anointed directly ruling over the Earth.
Actually, the teaching that the seventh creative day would span seven thousand years with its last millennium filled by the rule of Christ and the saints did not originate with the WTS. Fred Franz got it from reading the Ante-Nicene Fathers. But, in typical WTS fashion, that source was never acknowledged or given any credit. Instead, the doctrine was appropriated by Franz and other WTS writers and passed along as the result of their own original biblical research. But plagiarism of this kind is simply part of the modus operandi of the WTS.
Quendi
What Quendi said is exactly right: They promoted the 1975 date as "the start of the 1000 years" as surely as they taught that blood transfusions were evil.
They were also dishonestly clever enough to not exactly print the exact words "the end will come in 1975". But that is exactly what they taught - including public talks by Franz and others.
I think the clever avoidance of printing something that would be actual evidence shows that they cynically did not even personally believe their own teaching. It was done to stir up activity within the rank & file.
Harold Camping was equally wrong with his crazy date, but he was at least man enough to state it clearly and then admit he had it wrong.
KNOWSNOTHING - yeah if you play around with your search, try different things, you'll get all sorts of different articles...
SIZEMIK - I love jwfacts, he has done an outstanding job. I kind of liked the search through the google news archive because the sources ARE NOT from the literature, they are purely secular and it is pretty obvious what the message was. Can't fob it off with 'wiggle words' anymore...
QUENDI - I was 5 in '75 and had just celebrated the last birthday in my life when my mom got baptized. I really don't remember a whole lot from then. Actually, Ive blocked out a lot of my childhood...
Thanks to all for the comments. Try Jehovah's Witnesses Armageddon also, got some results that way.
Again, I am confident this will clear the whole mess up and not a single 1975 denier will be left on the face of planet earth.
