"About 1914 CE"?

by Doug Mason 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Doug Mason

  I have no doubt that this has been raised here before, so please excuse my laxness.

  At pages 1766 and 1767 of the 2013 NWT, the WTS lays out God's "right to rule".

  I notice that it does not make any statement about God's kingdom starting to rule in 1914 CE. Instead the only comment regarding that year is that it says the serpent was hurled to earth "about" 1914 CE.

  Is this a shift, or not?

  By "about" do they mean before or after?

  What do they mean by "the serpent being hurled to earth"? Where was it living? Was it not on earth before?

  If the word "confining" is a key, where was the serpent able to go and live up to "about 1914"?

  I know this is fairy tale stuff that stretches credulity. I am simply wondering why they have a section on "God's rule" yet they appear to bypass their previous position on 1914, making only a glancing statement to something they think happened "about" 1914.

  Doug
• 

  Sapphy

  They do sometimes talk about Satan popping back to heaven to accuse the righteous, referencing Job where the Devil was said to have been wandering around the earth, observing Job.

  So apparently, Jehovh didn't disfellowship Satan, and continued talking to him, even though he didn't live with him (!) for nearly 6000 years, until 'about' 1914.
• 

  Sapphy

  Forgot to say, that the qualifier 'about' 1914 is to disguise the snafu whereby the 1st ww started in August, but previously the society claimed that the war in heaven didnt break out until october
• 

  Doug Mason

  Sapphy,

  Are you suggesting that when they write "about 1914" they actually meant: "about October 1914"?

  I also ask: if that section of their 2013 NWT is about "God's rule", why did they not mention God's kingdom rule beginning in 1914? The reference they do give to 1914 is quite oblique to the subject.

  Doug
• 

  Island Man

  That ommission could be very revealing indeed. It could be an indication that the governing body has already come to the decision of discarding the 1914 invisible presence doctrine sometime in the future. At the very least they have some doubt about the doctrine and don't want to risk putting it in the bible only to have to revise the bible again in the not too distant future. Maybe they're going to discard the whole 7 gentile times - 1914 nonsense but keep the year 1914 as only marking the time when satan was cast out, pointing to WWI as being the foretold woe that Revelation talks about.

  The fact that they say "about 1914 CE" reveals they are somewhat tentative about the date, or that they are aware that WWI broke out before the time that Jesus supposedly started to reign. Not stating too much about 1914 could also be due to the fact that they are thinking of the fact that the new bible will also be distributed to interested ones in the ministry, and you know how cults tend not to give potential new recruits too much info about their peculiarly outlandish doctrines.