Is the Watchtower shy about repeating their new "generation" teaching?
by slimboyfat 245 Replies latest jw friends
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Ucantnome
Djeggnog,
Ezekiel chapter 4 was as the Watchtower of 1968 in the article "Why are you looking forward to 1975" page 495 says,
"This chapter of Ezekiel was not recounting past historical events but was prophecy of future events. It was telling of the time in the future when the glorious city of Jerusalem would be besieged and its inhababitants taken captive, all of which occurred in 607 B.C.E."
When we go to the book 'The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah'—How? 1971 Chapter 6 "The Days of Christendom are Numbered" Which covers Ezekiel chapter 4 and 5. on page 112 it says concerning Christendom.
"She will be destroyed as surely as was Jerusalem back in 607 B.C.E Any associatiates of Christendom who survive her destruction in the "great tribulation" will not come through to any improved, long lived future,... They face only further hardship and eventual destruction in the further and concluding part of the "great tribulation,"
Going back to the 1966 Watchtower regarding the good news on page 216 it says under the subheading "A second reason christians should listen"
"That reason is that there is a judgment message that accompanies the good news"
it goes on to show that "Satan has used Babylons religion to infiltrate even Christendom" and that Babylon the Great would be judged and put out of existence. All part of this good news.
The Modern day Ezekiel, "composed of those dedicated, baptised proclaimers of God's Kingdom, who have been anointed with His spirit for their work" (The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah'—How? 1971) said this,
"Unmistakably, the Bible pinpoints 1914 C.E. as the time when the "kingdom of the world" became the kingdom of the Lord God and of his Christ. Before the generation that was then alive passes off the scene, the "great tribulation" will strike." The Watchtower January 15th 1974 page 51?
There was this time frame of the generation of 1914 in the good news.
Speaking of Ezekiel the prophet they said,
In the Watchtower April 1st 1972 magazine "They shall know that a prophet was among them" on page 200 it says talking of Ezekiel.
"Jehovah would confirm him as a prophet then by causing what Ezekiel prophesied to come true"
As far as I can see Djeggnog, Jehovah didn't do the same for the Modern day Ezekiel. The generation teaching had to be changed and so maybe they are shy to repeat it I don't know. (so I'm not off topic and also Djeggnog I don't have a high school eduction)
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breakfast of champions
"Jehovah would confirm him as a prophet then by causing what Ezekiel prophesied to come true"
Disconfirmation is a bitch. -
mP
perhaps 1914 is not a year but a generation count until armagddeon. with a few words the wts keeps the number but it is no longer wrong !
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djeggnog
@Black Sheep:
When the study conductor asks you for your comment, what will you say?
Why do you ask? Is there something you want to teach me here? Why would you be quoting anything to me from the Watchtower? I know you cannot still read the Watchtower, do you? You read this "Question 13" and believed what the paragraph said was addressed to me, which explains that you read without discernment.
@Ucantnome:
This is what I meant. It was 1971 the period of time of the book and Watchtower that I quoted from. A time that we were told the generation of 1914 would not pass away.
In the 1966 Watchtower....
Why would you be quoting something you read in an old 1966 Watchtower and in an old 1971 Watchtower article as if what you quoted were current? I suppose you could find in our literature reference to Pluto when we used to consider it to be the ninth planet in our solar system. Do you remember this? If you quoted something printed by the Society that referred to Pluto as a planet, does that mean that Jehovah's Witnesses today must believe Pluto to be a planet even thought back on August 23, 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted in the Prague to strip Pluto of its status as a planet, so that we consider it today to be a dwarf planet?
I dont think I was wrong Djeggnog.
Ok.
Ezekiel chapter 4 was as the Watchtower of 1968 in the article....
I don't care to discuss with you something you read in a 1968 Watchtower article? Jehovah's Witnesses do not defend obsolete interpretations since our understanding of the Scriptures is progressive, which means that what things we might understand a certain way today may change six months, even six weeks from now.
@djeggnog wrote:
Whatever, but many of the articles that appear in our publications that contain misleading statements in them weren't intentionally designed to mislead anyone, but just weren't caught by the proofreaders before they were published. If you must, I'd agree that many of the interpretations that we have published in the past could be described as conjecture for we might not realize at the time that that a conclusion we have reached is based on incomplete facts. In the English language, there is no such thing as "speculative facts."
@ziddina wrote:
So, what does that say about the Governing Body members who review, approve of and sign off on each and every article???
This says that those that sit as a governing body aren't responsible for the errors and omissions of those that previously sat as members of the governing body (like Knorr and Franz) and this also should make crystal clear to you that they are men that failed to carefully proofread the articles that were eventually appeared in some of our publications, and that they are not infallible. What do you think the fact that some articles contain things in them that they really should not contain?
@djeggnog
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Ucantnome
Djeggnog,
Why would you be quoting something you read in an old 1966 Watchtower and in an old 1971 Watchtower article as if what you quoted were current?
I was talking about the time period and the teaching at that time that's why I used the word "was"
This good news of the kingdom spoken of in Matthew 24 was that the sign of Matthew 24:30 had been seen along with the composite sign and the generation that saw this would see the start of the tribulation. But it didn't happen. Or am I wrong Djeggnog?
Paul warned at Galatians 1:8
"However, even if we or an angel out of heaven were to declare to you as good news something beyond what we declared to you as good news, let him be accursed." (NWT)
And Jesus warned of false prophets. So I feel I need to be careful I don't listen to the wrong good news and put my faith in something other than Jesus Christ.
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THE GLADIATOR
@djeggnog wrote: “ Jehovah's Witnesses do not defend obsolete interpretations since our understanding of the Scriptures is progressive, which means that what things we might understand a certain way today may change six months, even six weeks from now.”
In other words, the Governing Body, assisted by the ‘faithful & discreet slave,’ haven’t got a clue. They are just fallible men, stumbling in the dark and trying to guess where the door is. Their claim to be spirit appointed and led by spirit is humbug. Their claim to be Jehovah’s mouthpiece is pure fiction.
The Bible warns that if a blind man follows a blind man, they will both fall into the pit. That is what the Watchtower Society's has always been, from its earliest days; a pit, a stumbling block for people to trip over.
Admitting this shows humility, but supporting the Watchtower Society's deception is not a smart move.
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slimboyfat
I don't recall a statute of limitations clause in the false prophecy passage in Deuteronomy. "If the false prediction was made more than forty years ago it doesn't count and shouldn't be held against anybody."
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Vidqun
Djeggnog, I recall you (and the Society) used Hebrew “dor” of Ex. 1:6 as an example of the two groups equalling a “generation.” The Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol. III, p. 174, has an interesting write-up concerning the meaning of the word “dor”.
For Hebrew dor, “generation” is by far the most common meaning, and less specifically “age.” With this meaning dor becomes a measure of time or a period of time. Like other ancient peoples, the early Hebrews dated long periods by lifetimes. They divided long periods of time into segments corresponding to the life-span of a generation. This is the meaning of dor in Gen. 15:16. The difficulty came in attaching numerical values to a generation, and ’arba` me’oth [400] in Gen. 15:13 were reckoned as 400 years (4 generations of a 100 years each). The idea that four generations equals 400 years, which lies behind Gen. 15:13, is undoubtedly based on an artificial scheme which assigns 100 years to a generation.
It seems to me that this would come closest to your understanding of “generation”. However, take note, above scriptures do place a 100 year limit on the word. It is also an open question to what extent this word would have influenced Greek koine usage.
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Ucantnome
Djeggnog,
I don't care to discuss with you something you read in a 1968 Watchtower article? Jehovah's Witnesses do not defend obsolete interpretations since our understanding of the Scriptures is progressive, which means that what things we might understand a certain way today may change six months, even six weeks from now.
A few weeks ago a Witness said to me they felt they were bible students always learning. In some ways they felt it would have been better if they hadn't taken the name Jehovah's Witnesses.
I agree with you that our understanding is progressive. Many things I understood in the past now I find my viewpoint has changed. One of them is my baptism. My dedication to God. I was baptised in the early 1970's about the same time that we studied the 'The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah'—How? book in the weekly bookstudy.
My view is that it is different when you take the position of being the modern day Ezekiel the mouthpiece of God as opposed to being a student of the bible a slave of Christ.
The way I understand it is that the commission to this position came in 1919 with the message of the book of Ezekiel applied to today which is the message contained in the good news that the modern day Ezekiel has preached.
When I was baptised the message that I joined in preaching with the modern day Ezekiel contained the teaching that the generation of 1914 would not pass away before the great tribulation came. It was an integral part of it. When the Watchtower on the word "tote" was studied in 1994 the elder taking the study in our hall made a comment before it started that we would look back at this Watchtower study as a land mark issue something we would look back at as the start of the changes. I had to agree with him. It was the start of the changes, the progression. We knew the generation change was inevitable and sign that the modern day Ezekiel class had claimed to see in spoken of in Matthew 24:30 they now realised they hadn't seen. It altered the viewpoint of the separating of the sheep and goats, as one brother commented there was no point if the tribulation doesn't come in a life time.
In my view there is nothing wrong with progression. It's good. But I can no longer see that the commission was given in 1919 as the modern day prophet. This then calls into question for me the message that is preached that is in my view "something beyond what we declared to you" Galations 1:8
Maybe I'm wrong Djeggnog and I mean no disrespect toward any of the Witnesses in saying these things or in quoting from the publications.