Gregorian Calendar

by NeverKnew 39 Replies latest jw experiences

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  AnnOMaly

  He suggested later that pdf files couldn't be trusted for you never knew the intentions of those who created them...

  They were scans, right?

  [Quendi] One must wonder how Russell’s followers felt about this because if he knew what historians and archeologists believed, then some of them must have as well.

  We have an idea how they felt.

  Dear Sir,--Since you have changed your views respecting Gentile Times let me suggest the possibility of still another error. You count the seventy years Babylonian captivity of the Jews as beginning with the overthrow of Zedekiah, Judah's last king, but I notice that "Bishop Usher's Chronology," given in the margins of our Common Version Bibles and based on "Ptolemy's Canon," begins that seventy-year period nineteen years earlier--namely, in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, when he took captive Daniel and other prominent Jews and laid the Jews' country under tribute. Now if this, the common reckoning, be correct, it would make the Times of the Gentiles to begin nineteen years later than you estimate, namely, in B.C. 587, instead of B.C. 606;--and this in turn would make those times end nineteen years later than you have reckoned,--in October, A.D. 1933, instead of October, 1914. What do you say to this? Are you humble enough to acknowledge that I have struck some new light, and that you and all DAWN readers have been "all wrong," walking in darkness?

  - ZWT, Oct. 1, 1904, p. 296 [R3436]

  And after Russell died, there was more unrest from the Bible Students which Rutherford had to beat down:

  QUESTIONS DISCUSSED YEARS AGO

  About a year ago there began some agitation concerning chronology, the crux of the argument being that Brother Russell was wrong concerning chronology and particularly in error with reference to the gentile times. More than fifteen years ago these questions were raised and thrashed out, and so clearly did Brother Russell set forth the facts in Volume II of Studies In The Scriptures and in The Watch Tower, that it seemed a waste of time and space now to further discuss the matter in this journal; and the subject was dismissed on that ground. ...

  ... Agitation concerning the error in chronology has continued to increase throughout the year, and some have turned into positive opposition to that which has been written. This has resulted in some of the Lord's dear people becoming disturbed in mind and causing them to inquire, Why does not The Watch Tower say something? Is not its silence tantamount to an admission that our chronology is wrong? ...

  ... Our opinion is that the Lord has permitted the delay in the reviewing of the question of chronology ... [blah, blah, faith tested, blah, blah] ...

  ... [retrenching old ground, opposers faithless, wrong, repudiate Russell as the chosen FDS and thus repudiate the Lord, blah, blah].

  - WT, May 1, 1922, p. 131f.
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  Splash

  What was the name of that ancient family which had a business (banking?), and cuneiform transactions have been found dating all of the kings according to secular opinion?

  I just can't remember their name.

  Splash.
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  AnnOMaly

  House of Egibi.
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  Splash

  Thankyou AnnOMaly,

  I had in my mind EnGedi, and googling that really didn't help!

  I'll make a note of this somewhere so I don't forget again - I found it extremely convincing.

  Splash
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  Quendi

  Thanks, AnnOMaly, for your research. It figures that both Russell and Rutherford preferred to embrace error rather than repudiate it. We know that three-quarters of the Bible Students who had followed Russell abandoned the religion after his death. Some because they disliked Rutherford. Others had come to realize that Russell himself was a false prophet and that his brand of millennialism was as false as any of the others that arose in the nineteenth century.

  I never saw this letter written to Russell back in 1904 nor Rutherford’s acid reply to critics years later. Naturally, the WTS has swept both under the rug and never discussed them since. These “lost pages” of WTS history are being rediscovered thanks to the Internet and the labor of people like you.

  If these facts were made known to rank-and-file Witnesses today, what would be the effect? Would we see the mass exodus which hit the Bible Students of 95 years ago? Somehow I doubt it. Witnesses today have chosen to dull their senses, abandon their power of reason, numb their consciences, and blindly follow those who only seek to control and exploit them. When this cult ends up on history’s ash heap, you wonder what its followers will then do.

  Quendi
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  AnnOMaly

  It figures that both Russell and Rutherford preferred to embrace error rather than repudiate it.

  ... as did/do the ones who have come after. The leadership has been shown and shown and shown throughout the decades (over a century!) by those within the organization and non-JWs that they are wrong on this, but they will not budge from their erroneous position.
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  leaving_quietly

  Fun with Excel (or Google Docs Spreadsheet)

  In A1, put =(70*360)/365.25 This is the number of solar years, not lunar years.

  In B1, put =-537-A1 This is the date Jerusalem was destroyed (by WTS math, using the date 537 B.C.E... ignoring historians for this exercise) (note the minus sign in front of 537)

  In A2, put =(2520*360)/365.25 This is the number of solar years the 2520 years equates to. Why use 360 to get to 2520 in the "seven times" prophecy, but use 365.25 for the actual number of years. Let's do lunar years instead.

  In B2, put =B1+A2 This is the Gregorian date the 2520 lunar years ended.

  This all assumes my conversion is correct, which is:

  Take number of years, multiple by 360 days per year. This gives the total number of days in the time period.

  Divide by 365.25 solar years to get the total number of solar years in the time period.

  That could be wrong, but it seems a reasonable and simple conversion to me.
• 

  jgnat

  How's this?

  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0At35nTnsuFeCdEVhbWNPYlJGQ25JX0Zmc3VYcXZ5c3c&output=html
• 

  Quendi

  I appreciate the calculations both leaving_quietly and jgnat have made on this question. Certainly, the WTS way of calculating the length of the Gentile Times is in error. However, as I pointed out earlier, there is no completely accurate way of measuring a solar year. The figure of 365.25 days is itself a mistake.

  That number was the length of a Julian solar year and as the centuries rolled by it created all kinds of problems. The biggest concern that arose with the Julian calendar was when to celebrate Easter. Astronomers noted that its date began drifting to a point earlier in the year and that left unchecked, Easter would actually fall before the spring solstice. This was unacceptable so the Gregorian calendar was ensconced in its place.

  There are seven ways of measuring a year. One is the old lunar calendar with is 354.372 days. A second is the sidereal year which is 1.00003878 solar years. The other five are measuring from the points of both solstices and both equinoxes as well as an average of these. None of these years can be reconciled with the others. As for the WTS’ assertion that a “prophetic year” is 360 days, there is absolutely no passage in the Bible which can be called upon to support that conclusion.

  As for the vision in Daniel 4 about the tree-dream of Nebuchadnezzar, all these speculations would be moot if the readers would accept what Daniel said about the vision and its fulfillment. Daniel explicitly told the king that the tree he saw was Nebuchadnezzar himself. He left no room for a second or “antitypical” fulfillment. Yet the WTS and others choose to believe otherwise.

  Quendi
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  leaving_quietly

  jgnat: you got it (though you rounded up, i see)

  Quendi:

  As for the WTS’ assertion that a “prophetic year” is 360 days, there is absolutely no passage in the Bible which can be called upon to support that conclusion.

  Rev 12:6: And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and sixty days.

  Rev 12:14: But the two wings of the great eagle were given the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place; there is where she is fed for a time and times and half a time away from the face of the serpent.

  WTS' take is that "a time and times and half a time" is three and a half times. 1260 / 3.5 = 360

  I don't necessarily agree that this applies to all timekeeping, but this is what WTS uses.

  As for the vision in Daniel 4 about the tree-dream of Nebuchadnezzar, all these speculations would be moot if the readers would accept what Daniel said about the vision and its fulfillment. Daniel explicitly told the king that the tree he saw was Nebuchadnezzar himself. He left no room for a second or “antitypical” fulfillment. Yet the WTS and others choose to believe otherwise.

  Totally agree. However, in the spirit of being non-combative with die-hard JW's, it may be extremely useful to point out that since the "seven times" uses the day for a year, and that the reference for how long a year is in Revelation is 360 days, why isn't a 360 day calendar used to compute the actual years instead of a Gregorian calendar of 365.25 days? Then, have them go through the exercise in a spreadsheet on their own. It would make a whole lot of sense if the prophecy given in lunar years was actually calculated in lunar years (or so the reasoning could go.) It's hard for us who can see through this to even go here, but this would actually be pretty non-combative, I think.