by nowwhat? 60 Replies latest watchtower bible
My Dad is still an active JW. He told me back around 2002 or so that there was a rumor going around that the new King of the North was going to be Islam.
I heard speculation that it was going to be Iran or Iraq. Shows how bad JWs are at geography.
Besides, we all know that the King of the North is Santa.
I think the King of the South might be that Dos Equis dude.
All the kings of the north - from the first Selucid up to Antiochus IV - were individuals. And the last one descibed in Dan 11:36-45 is also spoken of as an individual.
The WT introduced the idea that this king is a national/governmental entity. Not Daniel.
The USSR had some of the characteristics of the final king of the north - it was officially atheistic and very militaristic. Yet it wasn't an individual and it came to an end differently than is described for the last KoN in Daniel. Therefore, just using Daniel as a guide, the USSR can not be that king. It could have been associated with that king, but not that king himself.
Islam is steeped in the religion of its forefathers. Therefore it also cannot be that king (besides not being an individual).
Also the USA cannot be that king for the same reasons. (Sorry Lars)
And Santa has a wife. Thus, he doesn't fit the description of eschewing the "love of women." And there are no gun turrets on his slay. (He had them removed.) And I don't remember anything being said about the KoN and chimneys in Daniel.
We started the Babylon book in 1964 or 1965. Yikes. Can that be almost 50 years, 1/2 of a century ago?
They made it sound so important and only Watch Tower Society was letting "us" know this privileged information.
Just Lois
They called off the war and decided to make peace but forgot to tell Jayhoover about and so that New Light is not yet been beamed to the GB. It never made sense in the first place...
Inside Information said "China replacing Russia" but that information turned out to be false. We are at a point in Time where the Governing Body has nothing to point to, no temporal markers to indicate where in Bible Prophecy we are. I think they are afraid they might have called the "End Times" Five hundred years too soon? It might be the End, It might not be for another fifty years. Right before I took a hiatus from meetings, I was not really shocked by the amount of die-hard Witnesses who said with open frankness, "I don't think the End is coming in my life-time!" These were not 60-80 years, these were people 35-45 years old. What is making people in the 35-45 year old age group, think the Society is crying Wolf?
Anyone: Remember Queen Septimia Zenobia of the Roman colony of Palmyra?
I've previously posted elsewhere (server no longer available):
In the Daniel's Prophecy book (1999), they claimed the 'king of the north' was Russia until 1991 and that the 'king of the south' was the USA. In that book, they claimed that the identify of the 'king of the north' is unclear since the end of the Cold War. They have not since claimed any specific identity for the 'king of the north', and have only mentioned the 'king of the north' at all six times (in four articles) and the 'king of the south' four times (in two articles and one book), since the release of the Daniel's Prophecy book.
Appearances in The Watchtower:
Decade | Mentions | Mentions |
2000-2009 | 3 | 6 |
1990-1999 | 36 | 74 |
1980-1989 | 76 | 127 |
1970-1979 | 38 | 53 |
1960-1969 | 95 | 237 |
1950-1959 | 59 | 86 |
Appearances in Awake!
Decade | Mentions | Mentions |
2000-2009 | 0 | 0 |
1990-1999 | 2* | 3 |
1980-1989 | 8 | 11* |
1970-1979 | 8 | 13 |
*Not counting appearance as crossword answer or unrelated context
Appearances in Insight on the Scriptures (never claims any modern identity):
North: 27, South: 10
Appearances in other JW books:
Isaiah's Prophecy I (2000): North: 2, South: 1
Daniel's Prophecy (1999): North: 172, South: 101
All Scripture (1990): North: 7, South: 6
Revelation Climax (1988): North: 2, South: 1
World Government (1977): North: 3, South: 3
Paradise Restored (1972): North: 4, South: 0
It would appear they've lost interest since the ambiguity of Daniel's (misapplied) Prophecy.
The story of the 'kings of the north and south' in Daniel chapter 11 are about Greek and Egyptian rulers up to the second century BC, which coincides with when the chapter is believed to have been written. The identification of verses 5-19 (by JWs and other scholars) with the Seleucus (I-II), Antiochus (II-III) and Ptolemy (I-V) lines is accurate enough. Unremarkably, the continuing verses can be attributed to their immediate successors without a great deal of effort:
Verses | Identification | King | Notes - See linked Wikipedia article for details |
20 | Seleucus IV Philopator | North | Attempted to raise funds, sending his prime minister, Heliodorus, to Jerusalem to confiscate the temple's treasures. ('Believers' instead attempt to connect this verse with Caesar Augustus as a 'Messianic prophecy') He was murdered by Heliodorus, "not in anger or in warfare", but for his throne. |
21-39 | Antiochus IV Epiphanes | North | v.21: Took throne claiming to be co-regent, later killed the other |
25-26 | Ptolemy VI | South | v.25: At war with Antiochus IV |
The attribution of more recent identities is entirely fictitious. Even the connection with Aurelian and Zenobia was made up (it first appeared in December 31 1924 Golden Age, though claimed that the king of the south after that was Napoleon) let alone the ludicrous leap to the modern age. It is of course unsurprising that an 'end times' religion seeks to tenuously identify these 'mysterious' kings with the present day.
Depends on how you view Daniel and the rest of the Bible. Three options to choose from:
1) If you view the book of Daniel as an imperfect history book, produced by a misguided Jew, then it's a joke. You can safely ignore it.
2) If you are interested in apocalypticism and view the writer(s) of the book of Daniel to have been sincere, perhaps producing the book as a teaching aid, then you should study the book to get behind the psychology of the writer(s) and compare the writing in it with similar apocalyptic writings.
3) If you view Daniel or parts of it as being divinely inspired, even though having indergone a drastic editing process and multiple revisions, then it would be worth your while studying the book.
I personally believe the book, or parts of it, to have been written by a Jewish exile, called Daniel. The majority of it contains prophecy and is definitely worth my while to study.
I personally believe the book, or parts of it, to have been written by a Jewish exile, called Daniel. The majority of it contains prophecy and is definitely worth my while to study.
Not a particularly good example of the application of Occam's Razor. Explanations that require 'a magic thing' are 'usually' wrong (still waiting for solid proof of any genuine example of a magic thing that actually happened). And even if Daniel was a magical prognosticator, sheer mathematical probability alone makes relevance to our time pretty much zero.
Depends on how you view Daniel and the rest of the Bible. Three options to choose from:
There is, of course, a fourth option. The author of Daniel compiled Jewish folklore and other historical records from a Babylonian perspective as a literary device, as a framework for accounts of the political environment in the 2nd century BCE.
Jeffro, yes, I do go for Occam's Razor in this case, the simplest explanation is often the truthful one. Nevertheless, I do find Dan. 2 & 7 interesting if not remarkable, even if written by a 2nd century Jew.
