Please explain 607 B.C.E. to me as if I were a 5 year old

by God_Delusion 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Disillusioned Lost-Lamb

  Um it's the wash-towel, there is no explaining anything, duh; you're just supposed to believe it or else.

  Sheesh, even a five year old gets the old "because I said so" explanation.
• 

  shamus100

  omg!!! WHAT ABOUT LEAP YEARS EVERY FIVE YEARS??? " 7 years ago. 7 x 360 = 2,520 days. A day for a year and, bingo!" So that would be 2,521 years, not 2520 years.

  It's still bullshit, though... ;)

  Truly I say to you a prophet was amongst you this day...
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  WTS stuff is toxic to me, so I won't look it up. Fill in the gaps by doing so yourself.

  There was a man named William Miller who thought that Jesus Christ would come to earth in 1844. When that didn't happen, so many people were disappointed that they named that wrong idea, The Great Disappointment.

  In 1870, sixteen year old Charles Taze Russell heard another man named Jonas Wendell who believed what Willima Miller taught, but he changed the idea to say that Jesus would come in 1873 or maybe 1874. That didn't happen either.

  The math is unimportant in either case because there are so many different events and numbers in the Bible, that anyone thinking they have a hidden meaning can come up with a different date. The main point was that a huge idea among people of Christianity was that Jesus died for the sins of all people and that Jesus was supposed to return to earth from heaven one day.

  Charles Taze Russell and his father took an interest in making money via religion. Eventually, Charles was publishing a paper that later became The Watchtower Magazine. When Wendell died in 1873, Russell still believed that Jesus would come in 1874, or at least wanted to keep selling those papers that indicated belief.

  When Jesus didn't appear as expected, Russell changed a few of his teachings because being wrong ruins a preacher's business. He denied being wrong and he taught that Jesus must have returned invisibly, meaning that Jesus was ruling over earth from Heaven starting in 1874.

  NOW, HERE'S HOW IT GOT TO 1914. Russell taught that 40 years later than 1874, a literal application of how long a "generation" was, in 1914, Jesus would take power on the earth. That would mean an end to the Gentile Times in 1914 and an end to the last days- destruction and death and stuff.

  Because World War One (coincidentally) started in 1914, Russell used that as a sign that he was correct in his complicated doctrines. He was already good at reinventing understanding rather than admitting he was wrong.

  There are some rules you will have to look up. "A day for a year" and "the Seven Gentile Times" and how a year was sometimes 360 days in the Hebrew calendar. You will have to look up the scriptures and Watchtower articles that discuss the beginning of captivity for Jews in Babylon and how many scriptures (and Watchtowers) explain that their captivity would last 70 years.
  
  BUT...... all the rest is just calculated backwards- the stuff about 607 BCE and the 2520 years and the Seven Times.
  All of it was just made to fit that understanding. When things didn't work out as planned (again) the people in charge just reinvented the understandings and adjusted the math to fit whatever they wanted it to fit to sell more pamphlets/magazines/books. The end of the last days became the beginning of the last days. 1874 was forgotten. They just kept changing the end-date. They even made terrible errors and just changed the math to fit- they forgot there was no "Year Zero" and changed their original idea of 606 BCE to 607 BCE.
  
  They kept 1914 because it was so well-known to the followers and they already said "See, we were right" when World War One started. Everything about Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction/building of the temple was just made to fit the math. You can find anything if you work backwards. It's like writing a Sherlock Holmes story. Just work backwards from what a great detective would expect to find and make him look like a genius in discovering those things.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Oh, to explain to a 5-year old:

  People think the Bible has secret hidden messages about when Jesus would return to earth to kill people. Every time people have figured out the time when that would happen, it didn't happen. They were wrong. That seems to mean that the Bible does not have any secret hidden messages. It seems to mean that God did not write the Bible, but a bunch of lying or mistaken men wrote it.

  Jehovah's Witnesses used to teach different dates when Jesus would return. Even though they were wrong, it's just like when Daddy asks you if you did something bad and you lie and say "No." People don't like to be wrong and they don't like to get in trouble, so they lie or pretend they are not wrong. Jehovahs' Witnesses taught that Jesus would start killing people in 1914, that was 98 years ago. They were wrong. So they said that Jesus did come to kill people, but he remained invisible. They said he is standing around waiting for Jehovah's Witnesses to get people to join their religion before he starts killing people. They say that Jesus will kill everyone who is not a Witness. That includes all the good people you know, Grandma and Grandpa, your teacher and all your friends, your mom and dad. They really make their religion and the Bible look bad.

  Just be good and think for yourself.
• 

  glenster

  Please explain 607 B.C.E. to me as if I were a 5 year old.

  It's the year after 608 BC. You know what a year is, right? Well, this was
  thousands of years ago, a way far away, all the many long years ago--back when
  the mighty clamasaurs roamed the seas spearing anything in their paths with
  their mighty tusks. (Demonstrate with a pillow and sound effect.)

  And the biggest clamasaur wanted them to live in a place where they'd have to
  kill people like Elmer John (who has a little baby Elmer that he would always
  love) and not be able to go around Elmer Pelmer or Elmer Costelmer, and have to
  eat crummy bread and meat with no flavor. And no clams. They wanted a place
  like Iran. That wasn't very good.

  After hundreds of years, there was a little futzabean named Clamso, and a
  mutzafutza named Clamsoti, and a li'l mouse. Awww! A li'l mouse.

  One day they were out in their boat and the big Clamasaur came by. The little
  mouse jumped to hide in a mouse hole and it fell right into the clamasaur's
  blowhole. And the clamasaur went Ulf! Ulf! Ulf! And Clamso and Clamsoti caught
  it in their nets, and out came the little mouse, who made some delicious clam
  sauce, and everyone was very happy.

  And from that day on, some people still want things to be clammy and even
  send people all over the neighborhood, door to door, to put their clam in your
  face. But others always remembered the li'l mouse that fed the multitudes with
  one clam, and changed their soup into delicious clam sauce. And that's why
  we're going to a restaurant for supper tomorrow. And having breaded clams.
  Now have a good sleep.

  "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
  ? Albert Einstein
  http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/19421
• 

  Phizzy

  Dear 5 year old,

  "The year 607 B.C.E has no importance at all, shall we look it up on Google ? Oh look, it is the year when absolutely nothing of importance happened, see the years around it ? things happened that are important for us to remember, 607 is not like that, just remember that if anyone tries to tell you different".

  That should do for the 5 year old.

  As for someone older, the WT gets it's 1914 nonsense from insisting that the 7 years of Daniel 4 are seven years of 360 days each, that these days in turn represent years, so = 2520 years, they then insist that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 607B.C.E , and therefore "The Gentile Times" when no King sat on David's throne in Jerusalem began in that year, and that the "prophecy" takes us to 1914.

  The whole doctrine, the basis of the WT's claim to be God's Org, falls not just on the ludicrous claim for 607, but falls at the first hurdle, there is no basis for the 7 "Times" of Daniel 4 to be taken as anything more than what the chapter claims for them, 7 years of Lycanthropy ( or similar mental problem) for the King of Babylon, the chapter tells of the fulfillment.

  So, no 607, no 1914, no 1919 means that the GB are nothing more than self appointed men, whose appointment is based on a lie, or three, or more.
• 

  MidwichCuckoo

  You know what maths is..? To reach an answer, we also have to show how we reach that answer.
• 

  Black Sheep

  Start here

  http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0140238301/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

  Come back when you are ready for step two...... Maths.