by jwfacts 73 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The WTS tell all kind of lies when it come to 1975 and blame the sheep
I say hold on hard and heavy when they try to ditch 1914 any way you can
the Reasoning book is a good place to start to remind them of this false prophecy
It don't matter if the JW's stop usin' the book
what matters is you have evidence that the WTS would love to
snatch out of your hand
.
Very interesting question. If the GB guys share 1/2 a brain between them, you can bet they've given this lots of consideration. (And according to Ray Franz in CofC they were talking about this very subject way back in the days of Knorr and Crazy Freddie).
That being said, they evidently still haven't been able to come up with anything better than the ridiculous "Overlapping Generation" nonsense.
Interestingly, when I started associating with JWs back in the early '80s they had completely ditched any pre-1900 dates even though Russell was still oft spoken of in fond, reverent tones.
Fast forward to today and it's obvious that the WTBTS are trying to distance themselves from their modern day founder. Recent articles are deliberately written to toss ol' Charlie to the wayside. How convenient was it that the latest "New Light" puts the appointment of the FDS after his death! Bye, bye Charlie!
To put it bluntly, 1914 is already irrelevant. In fact it has been since its very inception, at least in reference to Bible prophecy. The religion fondly known as Jehovah's Witnesses and its leaders are just too stubborn to admit it.
Obviously, some--maybe even many--of the R&F question or even doubt its relevance. I know I did. The last few years I served as an elder I completely avoided the subject of chronology in any of my talks or presentations in the ministry, specifically refraining from mentioning the year 1914 as having any significance in Bible prophecy.
You wanna' know the craziest thing? No one seemed to notice!
Now I'd been an elder for about two decades and, as many elders do, I gave public talks about once a month in my own congregation and others within about 100 mile radius, I had weekly meeting parts, conducted the Book Study and so on and so forth. For the last few years I was an elder I deliberately and scrupulously avoided the subject of 1914 and no one even noticed; or if they did they didn't say anything, at least not to me.
00DAD
I think they are wanting to distance themselves from it, but at present, as Sulla rightly says, are lumbered with it to give themselves justification and rulership of 7million plus drones.
1799 &1874 were allowed to fade in to oblivion as start dates for the Time of The End. They have to hang on to the ToTE concept to get any money and action out of the JW's, and logically that "Time" had a start date.
I think they will be brave and admit that funny little formulas i.e a day for a year+2520 years, read into Scripture, are not proper exegesis, but they will heavily lean on the "Signs of the times" stuff to bolster the End Time thingy and therefore keep the JW's at it.
1914 will fade from consciousness as did 1799 and 1874, the choosing of the GB will be based on more nebulous criteria than at present, and 1918/9 will fade too.
That is what I reckon they hope to do, it is up to us to make sure they don't get away with it.
we are taught that a day for Jehovah is literally - and exactly - 1000 years.________Gingerbread
Yea, The WTS tell the sheep the end will come any day, don't waste time gettin' an education and such
and when it don't come they tell you How long a day is to jehovah
Think of all the things a person can do in thier life in only one day of Jehovah's
.Life stealin' Hucksters
Perhaps the "admission" of giving incorrect dates for the end - in the current public WT - is the start of a distancing from 1914...?
All of their counsel to work hard in the ministry and save lives is based on a sense of urgency because the end is so close. That urgency is crucial for motivation. Who would bother to drag themselves out of bed on a Saturday morning or donate generously to the "worldwide work" if the end is a hundred years off?
My guess is that the suits in Brooklyn are sweating trying to come up with a way to keep the sense of urgency while quietly shelving 1914.
Don't you think, Phizzy, that the crucial difference between 1874 (and all the reest) and 1914 is that 1914 delivers the idea of an established church to the JWs? I mean, prior to this idea of an established church, the JWs / Bible Students were a fairly loose association. Russell had famously talked about the idea that, as important as he was, he was still presenting hypotheses and ideas. People would be more-or-less free to disagree with these in favor of some other hypotheses.
Which is to say, JW-ism was a sort of an Arian Evangelical church, with association being something like the current Evangelical churches, yeah? With 1914/1918 and all that, we have the claim of direct selection of this particular church as the only path of survival through the End. That's a different critter.
The most sophisticated JWs I have ever spoken with are committed to the idea that the thing they believe in is that church, and they can explain 1914 all day long -- hell, a great many of them have 1914 built into their e-mail addresses, the address of homes they buy, and whatnot.
For this type of JW, doctrinal changes are not a problem. This is not because they don't know better, it's because they know exactly what they are about. They are about 1914.
I could be wrong, but I don't think 1914 ever goes the way of 1874 or all the rest. It's crucial
I just had an intriguing thought: It's likely that there are many active JWs that doubt the accuracy of 1914, but they're afraid to say anything for fear of being labeled an apostate and subsequently disfellowshipped.
Recent doctrinal changes have proved that the GB can come up with any illogical and incoherent change and very few will leave over it. They're just too emotionally invested in the religion to protest over a little thing like nonsensical beliefs.
I think that if the GB came up with a fresh interpretation of Bible chronology and End Times prophecy that moved the date of Jesus' Invisible Presence to a more recent year, the majority of JWs would view it as a breath of fresh air and issue a huge, collective sigh of relief saying something like:
"That's what I already believed anyways! This proves we have 'The Truth!' Praise be to Jehovah and his Governing Body, the wise 'Faithful and Discreet Slave!'"
Obviously it doesn't have to make sense or even be that plausible. But it would be a little easier on the brain if "the beginning of the end" wasn't quite so long ago. Also, it would add to sense of urgency.
They did it in the '30s and they can do it again. I hereby nominate 1984 as the New Beginning of the End. (Nods to George Orwell.)
1984 is the New 1914!
Whaddya' think?
00DAD
I get the feeling they're going to do a semantic tap-dance and alter not the date, but the meaning of the date - perhaps as soon as 2015. They did the same thing with "the generation" in 1995 - the 80 year generation ran out in '94 and WHOOOOSH! a change in the generation definition.
There's going to be some crazy stuff invented in those eight cushy office chairs at the North Pole!
Perhaps the "admission" of giving incorrect dates for the end - in the current public WT - is the start of a distancing from 1914...?____Gingerbread
" If someone says_____
' My minister said that Jehovah's Witnesses are the false prophets '
" ( If a householder refers to some claimed " predictions " that did not come to pass, use the material on page 134." )________Reasoning book page 137
LIKE
" Nathan the prophet encouraged King David to go ahead with what was in his heart regaurding the building of a house for Jehovah's worship. But later Jehovah told Nathan to inform David that he was not the one who would build it . Jehovah did not reject Nathan for what he said earlier but continued to use him because he humbly corrected the matter when Jehovah made it plain to him."_________Reasoning book page 134
What the WTS fail to tell the sheep is that
Nathan wasn't punished because he never claim
Jehovah or the holy spirit guided him to tell David to build a house of worship
Nathan only gave a suggestion
Ain't no way the WTS can compare themselves to Nathan
Like Hananiah the false prophet the WTS caused people to believe
in a falshood
.
