U2K,
How do you explain the number of anointed back in the first few centuries? There were hundreds of thousands if not millions, so why do you believe that 144,000 weren’t filled until 1935? Here is a quote from the Watchtower:
(Watchtower 1951, 1 September, p. 516)
“Nero saw to it that the first of these terrible persecutions set the pace for the rest. At once he caused Christians to be rounded up, summarily condemned and put to death in the most barbaric manner conceivable. Some were thrown to the fierce beasts in the public arena, others were sewed in animal skins and left to the fury of wild dogs, many were crucified, and still others were garbed in combustible materials and ignited to become human torches lighting the gardens of Nero by night. It was in this persecution that the apostle Paul was martyred.
“Brief respite followed the death of Nero, but by the latter years of the first century the second great persecution, under Emperor Domitian, flared up. It is said that in the year 95 alone some 40,000 suffered martyrdom . . . Diocletian assumed the crown A.D. 284. At first he seemed friendly to the Christians, but in the year 303 he gave in to persuasion and opened the tenth persecution, probably the most ferocious of all. Suffocation by smoke, forcible drinking of melted lead, mass drownings and burnings, breaking on the rack of men and women alike ran the empire with blood. In a single month 17,000 were slain. In the province of Egypt alone, 144,000 such professed Christians died by violence in the course of this persecution, in addition to another 700,000 who died as a result of fatigues encountered in banishment or under enforced public works . . . The Devil’s vicious assaults by violence against Christianity continued through the Dark Ages, the Reformation and right into the present days. Only the hand of the persecutor, not the basic reasons for persecuting, has changed . . . But for all of this, it is noteworthy that many pagans, even officers in the army, were converted to Christianity by the unwavering faith of the Christians while enduring the cruelest torture . . . The Christian stand of complete separateness from the world and its systems stood out in refusal of military service as in the case of the young Christian Maximilian, who protested that he had taken the badge of Christ and could not as well accept that of the world.”
There are 901,000 listed just in this article, there must have been hundreds of thousands more who are not mentioned here, so why on earth do you take number 144,000 to be literal, as it would have clearly been filled many centuries ago?