When did the Watchtower first raise the idea of 1919?

by moggy lover 12 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  moggy lover

  With all the changes arising from the shifts in Watchtower "understanding" of its own prophetic ministry, I think we can discern a slow but detirmined interest in elavating the date 1919 to almost iconic standards - soon to displace the other date of significance, 1914.

  My question to those with access to Watchtower material is: When in fact did the Watchtower Leadership first mention this date as having any significance? Popular Watchtower mythology proceeds along the lines of Jehovah coming to his temple in that year, and on inspecting the then Watchtower leadership, chosing them to be his exclusive spokespersons on earth.

  Although this supposedly took place in 1919, it was certainly not in that year that there was any awareness that such was occurring. It was many years after when this first began to be pressed. My understanding is that this was not till the 1930s. Is that correct?

  Cheers.
• 

  Leolaia

  It was in the August 15, 1919 issue of the Watchtower where the antitype of Elijah-Elisha was reinterpreted. The older belief was that Elisha prefigured the great company class. The new view claimed that the harvest that ended in the spring of 1918 represented the "Elijah work" and the new work announced by Rutherford that year (see the August 1, 1919 issue of the Watchtower, p. 230) commenced the "Elisha work". So already in 1919, the year was viewed as of significance. Thus we have later references to 1919 as the start of the Elisha work (see the 15 March 1921 Watchtower, p. 93).

  I found this other curious reference to 1919 in a 1920 Watchtower:

  "As constructed, the Grand Gallery is narrow and steep, and its ascent must be made cautiously and circumspectly. The ascent has always been difficult, until recently. On entering it this time, we discovered that steps have been built the full length of the passage, with an iron hand-railing on either side, so that now one walks up it as he would up a staircase in a building, with supports on either side. The writer was interested to know when this was installed. There are men about the Pyramid who have acted as guides for years. Several of these were sent for and closely questioned. They all agreed that the material was brought there and the construction of this stairway and iron supports began early in July, 1919, and the work was completed about the first of October, 1919. Immediately the writer recalled that it was about the first of July 1919, that the idea was conceived of publishing THE GOLDEN AGE, the first issue of which appeared October 1, 1919. THE GOLDEN AGE announced, and continues to announce, that the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom is at hand, that the time of restitution is here, that the old world has ended and the new is beginning, and that millions now living will never die" (15 December 1920 Watchtower, p. 379)
• 

  Witness My Fury

  Well with sheer leaps of logic like that I'm astounded that billions of earths inhabitants are NOT Jehovahs Witnesses today...

  Why do people fall for this type of crap? I know it's done in small steps but still...
• 

  moggy lover

  Thanks Leolaia for that. The impression I am getting is that the 1919 doctrine was an evolving teaching with several nuanced edges that do not relate to each other.

  For instance, the above, although first acknowledged as early as 1919, did not recognize any particular relationship between the Watchtower Leadership and this Jehovah. Indeed, it was always assumed that CT Russell, and later Joe Rutherford, spoke in some unspecified way, for God.

  But that this deity actually intervened in some way, and manifested some sort of preference for these guys in 1919 specifically, was a quantum leap in the theological blueprint of the Watchtower.

  So, while slowly making its tentative appearance in 1919 itself, a fully rounded articulation of what that date signified would need to await some later, more audacious revelation.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  The significance of 1919 further developed "after 1922" (Rutherford said) with the 'realization' that Jesus came to the spiritual temple to inspect it in 1918. Rutherford saw spiritual/prophetic significance in the WTS officers being holed up in prison, being released, and the 1919 convention in Cedar Point, Ohio which hyped the BSs to renew their preaching activity. This is seen to be evidence that Jesus had chosen and commissioned them.

  In 1927, the idea that Russell was THE prophesied faithful and wise servant ruling over all the Master's goods, which some WT articles had been banging on about since Russell's death (especially used to squash dissent among the brethren in the early to mid-1920s), was officially dropped in favor of there being a faithful and wise servant CLASS.

  You can see it all starting to take shape from there.
• 

  Terry

  Let's not forget that the NUMBER ONE problem to be solved by Judge Rutherford was overcoming his own shaky status as heir apparent to the Watchtower Publishing Society's religious CUSTOMERS.

  These customers had gone from people who would trade money for titillating End Times gobblety gook to true believers hero worshipping the charismatic

  Pastor Russell who was secretly seen as faithful and wise servant.

  Rutherford's credibility was compromised because of his personality and rough handling of the tender feelings of sensitive loyalists.

  As a strategic consequence of this crisis, Rutherford took several clever tactical steps to shore up his status and power.

  1.Rutherford needed central control of independent congregations whose local services were under no obligation to read Rutherford's writings IN PLACE OF Russell's. So, Rutherford published many various pamphlets, books and tracts portraying himself as a plausible biblically pre-figured successor.

  2.Rutherford began sending official representatives to outlying congregations to "aid" their worship practices and services with the end goal of gaining "eyes and ears" on the ground. His reps made suggestions and twisted (gently) a few arms to get everybody on the same page. That page would be written on by Rutherford himself.

  3.Propaganda was funnelled to local bible study groups by replacing the actual study of the bible into study of official Watchtower materials. The bible was ancillary.

  4.A worldwide publicity campaign to focus attention on a pretended emergency would serve to solidify emotional enthusiasm on HIS leadership.

  5.Conventions, public discourses, radio speeches, debates and a propaganda blitz villifying ENEMIES turned away criticism and deflected from his own precarious surliness and magnified his personality into Strong Leader status.

  6.Cherry-picking any and every "transitional" stereotype from scriptures, Rutherford built an awkward theology of End Times urgency.

  7. The now (in)famous MILLIONS NOW LIVING WILL NEVER DIE campaign was directly serving to portray 1925 as the new Armageddon end date.

  Rutherford was a mover and a shaker with irrepressible energy toward furthering his own ambitions. He picked fights selectively. He is the main reason for the paranoia of Watchtowr style control issues. Rutherford threw "true believers" into the fire to create publicity for the central idea: WE ARE the true religion because we are PERSECUTED. He made everyone and everything the ENEMY: Government, Catholicism, Christendom, etc. He encouraged an Us vs Them mentality.

  So, it is always wise to think about Theological evolution in this religion as an outgrowth and reflection on the personal MENTAL STATE of whomever was the Leadership.
• 

  Phizzy

  I think this is the first instance where Rutherford outlines the idea much as it is today :

  (August 1st 1926 Watchtower explaining the evidence for 1918.)

  Page 229:

  "The Gentiles Times ended in the autumn of 1914.
  The evidence is quite conclusive that here the Lord
  Jesus Christ, in obedience to God's command, stood up
  and began to exercise his power. (Daniel 12: 1; Psalm
  110: 1, 2; 1Revelation 11: 17, 18; Matthew 24: 7, 8)
  If we are warranted in applying the rule of the parallels,
  then we should expect that the Lord would come to
  his temple three and one-half years thereafter, to wit,
  in the spring of 1918. If this is true then we should
  expect also to find some evidence that the Lord there
  began to cleanse the antitypical temple; and that
  shortly after that nominal Christendom, or spiritual
  Israel, would be completely rejected by the Lord."

  Notice that no real scriptural argument is presented, just the usual "The evidence is quite conclusive" for 1914 , (Oh yea?) and therefore using the "rule of parallels" , in other words making some supposed event in the bible fit as a fulfillment of what Rutherford considered a prophecy, Jesus cleansed the A/T temple etc etc

  This is typical Rutherfordian blather and claptrap, no proof of any sort is offered for this in 1926, EIGHT years after the invisible event is supposed to have occured, so the temple was cleansed but nobody connected with it knew anything about the clean-up !

  I think from this time on the 1918/9 thing became a "given", nowhere in the WT literature is there an in-depth study of this doctrine, hence modern day JW's are more hazy about the whole thing than we good ole poztates are !

  I guess that the WT will keep it that way too, once someone starts to analyse it, this teaching of the cleansing of the temple is inextricably linked to 1914 , which the WT knows is indefensible. Don't expect any WT articles explaining 1918/9 soon.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  These customers had gone from people who would trade money for titillating End Times gobblety gook to true believers hero worshipping the charismatic Pastor Russell who was secretly seen as faithful and wise servant.

  There was nothing 'secret' about it, Terry. The early/mid-1920s Watchtowers shouted it out loud and clear.
• 

  sd-7

  I would think the most obvious place it started is one the Society has in more recent times referenced quite often--the "Birth of A Nation" article in the, was it March 1, 1925 Watchtower? It's there that it's laid out that the two witnesses in Revelation 11 were to be seen as 'the officers of the Society', if I recall correctly. 1919 is clearly important to that idea as far as the timing.

  But I guess that's just me. I've not been staying abreast of 'the history of Jehovah's organization' lately...

  --sd-7
• 

  moggy lover

  So the light begins to dawn.

  1. From Leolaia we know that some nascent awareness of the significance of 1919 was present in that very year itself, through Uncle Joe's biblical importunings.

  2. But this was tentative at best and featured other aspects of the Watchtower's self proclaimed prophetic ministry which were unrelated to this inspection and selection process that is so explicitly pressed today. [IE, the "Elijah-Elisha work" which has gone the way of all fiction, into the scrapheap of Forgettable Literature]

  3. From Terry we can see that the period 1918-1925 was a period of JFR's bid for personal consolidation of power. What did the Communists of a previous age call it? Cult of Personality? By sucessfully destroying the cult of personality build around the revered figure of CT Russell, JFR succeeded in erecting the edifice of his own cult of personality. It appears that the irony was lost on him.

  4. From Phizzy we can detirmine that the first mention of an "inspection" of some bizarre entity called "the antitypical temple" by "The Lord Jesus Christ" in 1918 was made in the August 1, 1926 Wt magazine, a year after the 1925 fiasco.

  Significantly I think, one can see two propositions within this incredulous develpment.

  1. A relatively high Christalogical manifestation as in calling Christ the "Lord Jesus Christ" something that is fairly infrequent in later Watchtower theology.

  2. A corresponding minimalization of a certain deity, Jehovah, whose significance in Watchtower theology had not yet evolved.

  5. From Ann O'Maly we learn that a year later, in 1927, the final act in the devaluation of CTR when he was demoted from his position of the "faithful and wise servant" [KJV] and the corresponding elevation of JFR and his coterie of sycophants to that position was enacted.

  Oddly enough I must admit that I assumed that this theological development of the Watchtower leadership being chosen out of an exacting scrutiny made by Christ Himself would have taken longer to evolve. 1927 seems fairly early to me. I imagined that a clearer understanding of this deity, Jehovah and his significance in Watchtower theological develpment would have come first.