"The Finished Mystery" - William Miller, a member of the "little flock" (page 2)

gingerbread

I've made the history and sources of WT beliefs and doctrines a bit of a hobby for the past two years.

Russell and Barbour are direct "descendants" of Miller and the resulting Second Advent movement. Doctrines borrowed or refashioned from Adventist theology include : Biblical chronology based dating to predict the Second coming of Christ, "soul sleep " (the dead being conscience of nothing), a "remnant" of Christ's annointed followers rising during the final days and proclaiming the Second Advent, the "remnant" being raised to heaven before Jesus cleanses the earth of wickedness, after the "cleansing" all the dead would be resurrected and taught by the "remnant", those resurrected ones that are redeemed will live forever on a paradise earth, Jesus uses one channel of communication (the "remnant") to communicate with the world before the Advent, the "remnant" receive special understanding of bible prophecy by holy spirit, and more...

barry

The SDA church still holds to the date of 1844 but when jesus didn't come they then believed in the Shut Door in which probation was closed to all exept the little flock or the Adventist believers. They held to this for seven years and then decided it didn't promote church growth. This seven years was also referred to the tarring time .

The 1844 was later about the 1860s reinterpreted as the cleansing of the heavenly santuary [Daniel 8.14] where Jesus moved from the holy place to the most holy as the high priest does once a year on the day of atonement. This according to Adventists also marks the final atonement in heaven and is the start of the investigative judgement where the records in heaven are investigated to see who is worthy of the benefits of christs atonement.

The Adventists have never said Jesus came to earth invisibly this is a second Adventist construct.

Of course these theorys are not biblical and most Adventist theologians know this and many church members do also. I know a few Adventist ministers who don't believe the investigative judgement when they teach it they just teach it as church history. The German Adventists don't even teach it they believe its just an American thing.

Funny with many Adventist you can believe in evolution, disagree with the trinity and disagree with th evirgin birth but belief in the investigative is manditory because it is the one doctrine other churches don't have and identifys the Adventists as special. Barry

Julia Orwell

The hard thing is to convince JWs it's their own teachings of the past because unless you have a hardcopy of the book there's no other way to get it thru official channels. None of that early stuff is on the wt library, and if it's not there or in original hardcopy you're never gonna convince a Jw it's not an apostate forgery. Boy would I love to get a hardcopy of something by Rutherford but I wouldn't know where to begin.

AndDontCallMeShirley

If a JW reads the "Proclaimers" book, a current publication, and sees the information for what it is, it becomes all too obvious that when CT Russell began the WT, he was an Adventist.

His heroes and good friends, his mentors, were primarily Adventists and Russell accepted their views on scripture and integrated them seamlessly into his own sect.

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Julia: None of that early stuff is on the wt library, and if it's not there or in original hardcopy you're never gonna convince a Jw it's not an apostate forgery

It still makes no difference to a JW. I've read info. DIRECTLY from the WTL cd-rom or the hard copy of the WT literature, and if the JW doesn't like what it says, they've actually replied, "well, you must have gotten a copy that an apostate at Headquarters slipped into the pile". Or, they'll just laugh it off and say we've moved beyong the "silliness" of some of the past teachings, not realizing that JWs are currently expected to believe things just as absurd.

There is no winning. No amount of proof will convince a JW who does not want to hear the facts.

designs

The Proclaimer's Book and the Revelation Grand Climax Book have so much revisionistic history it boggles the mind. The Proclaimer's Book makes the claim of a Truth succession, sort of like a Apostalic succession, now that's all scrapped for the latest revision ala David Splane's light bulb moment lol

AndDontCallMeShirley

The Proclaimer's Book makes the claim of a Truth succession, sort of like a Apostalic succession, now that's all scrapped for the latest revision ala David Splane's light bulb moment

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Ray Franz commented on this in CoC.

He said that the Library at Bethel contained dozens of "Christendom's" Bible commentaries. Ray said he was often jealous of those commentaries, because, despite some being over 200 years old since they were first published, are just as true now as the day they were written. They have not changed because they don't need to change.

In contrast, WT literature has a very short shelf-life, sometimes only a few months, before it is changed for another flash of "new light".

blondie

Russell hooked up with Barbour because Barbour's adjustment to Miller's prophecy to make it invisible. Little of what Russell was original but borrowed and edited from others.

Refriedtruth

AndDontCallMeShirley sez It still makes no difference to a JW. I've read info. DIRECTLY from the WTL cd-rom or the hard copy of the WT literature, and if the JW doesn't like what it says, they've actually replied, "well, you must have gotten a copy that an apostate at Headquarters slipped into the pile". Or, they'll just laugh it off and say we've moved beyong the "silliness" of some of the past teachings, not realizing that JWs are currently expected to believe things just as absurd

That's it my ancient JW elder grandfather was THERE when the Divine plan of the ages pyramid teahings were current,he would say how 'Jehovah is using this organization no matter what'.

He gave them all his money too!

"The Finished Mystery" - William Miller, a member of the "little flock"

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