conveniently in astronomy 1 parsec is ~3.26 light years=1/2 of 7;-- so perhaps wt adherents can scan the heavens for an imaginary border,--- 2000 parsecs away, wether
the 7000 year 'stop the work' idea is a local or universal thing.?
Where does the Bible mention 7000 year long Creative Days?
by tim hooper 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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BluesBrother
We ought to make clear that the WTS abandoned the 7000 year creative day , years ago. They never said that it was altered, just started talking about the days in vague terms . The latest offering appears to be this :
Was Life Created? brochure 2010 p24
How long, then, were the creative days? The Bible does not say; however, the wording of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 indicates that considerable lengths of time were involved.
I was interested to learn that the 7000 year plan and the final millenium's coinciding with the 1000 years of Christ's kingdom is not a WTS original teaching. It goes way back in Church theology. Perhaps everybody knew that but gullible young BluesBrother didn't.
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jam
Yes they abandoned the 7000 year creative day years ago but
each JW that come your door will tell you we are in the last days,
the scriptures makes that clear. LOL
Question; What other religious group preach 7000 years end times
today? Are JW's unique in scaring the bejesus out of folks today????
I realize at the turn of the century there were many dooms day cult,
but today I think most have learn a lesson except our friends..
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undercover
Abandoned the doctrine, yes. Recanted, no.
When discussing creation, they no longer give definite lengths for the creative days, other than calling them great lengths of time. They do however, give a glimpse of that old official doctrine by saying that each day could be 'thousands of years each'. Why not just say 'millions', and align more closely with science?
They've even gone so far now as to say that the earth is millions of years old, but that the creative days did not start until much later (Too bad this new doctrine doesn't agree with the Bible - Exodus 20:11) This keeps their doctrine alive, though never specifically calling out the creative days as 7000 years each. They also still claim that Adam was created 6000 years ago, keeping us in the last thousand years of day six.
It's obvious that the WTS doesn't want to be associated with creationists, so they waffle in their creation doctrine, which in fact aligns much closer with creationists than it does scientific fact. The difference between 49,000 years and 6-10,000 years is microscopic when compared to the actual age of the universe - 13.8 billion years.
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Apognophos
Thanks for the link, BB, I had no idea there was an article on this concept. Yes, it's pretty amazing that there is no clear foundation for this old teaching. I think the WP article goes as far as possible in explaining how, if you line up a bunch of different unrelated scriptures, it can make it sound like Jesus should return after 2,000 years, or that we are supposed to consider each creative day to be 1,000 years, but there's still no basis for a 'day" equaling 7,000 years.
Moreover, since the Society now seems to accept the age of the Earth as being in the billions of years, that brings up the question, "What is the reason why only the 7th day would be 7,000 years long?" There isn't one, which is why they don't talk about this anymore. Did I hear somewhere that the 7,000 years came from a (post-OT) Jewish tradition?
On a sidenote: that WP article mentions that Jesus is expected by some to return in the "third day" of Hosea 6:1, 2, meaning 2,000 years after he left Earth. Couldn't the Society use this as the basis for a new end-time prophecy? Think about it, if Jesus is believed by the Society to have died in 33 C.E., then the "end" would be in 2033 C.E. This could tie into the suggestion of some others that adding the 120 years of Noah to 1914 would lead to an end time of 2034....
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myelaine
For God, a creative day is the evening and then the morning...nowhere in the bible is a creative day said to be 24 hours, a year or 1000 years. the "lights" were for signs and seasons, and for days and years...surely not for the convenience of God's timekeeping as He had 3 evenings and mornings before the earth had a sun, moon and stars. So, there really is no scriptural motivation to be dogmatic about how long a "creative day" is.
Jesus said the "world" is presently in darkness (seventh evening)...malachi 4:2...
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28
love michelle
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cantleave
The bible makes no sense and the Watchtower takes its senslessness to new extremes.
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jam
One day a group of scientists got together and deciced that man has
come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one
scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God we've decided
that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone
people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you go and
get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the
scientist was done talking, God said, "very well, how about this?
Let's say we have a man-making contest. "To which the scientist
replied, "Okay, great!"
But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did
back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed
himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own
dirt!"
As a Agnostic I thought it was funny.
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bigmac
going back to the mid/late 60's--the watchtower was soo hyped up on 1975 they were only to happy to cobble up any bits of bible verse to help prove their prophecy---the 7000 year day was central to it.
1975 is now dim history---so any connection with counting years is now quietly swept under the carpet.
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HowTheBibleWasCreated
7000 year days were a HUGE basis for the Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained Book.
However recently the WT is moving slowly. The lastest creation Awake actually admited to animal evolution to some degree.
The next step will be to acknowlege evolution and to say man didn't have conciousness until Adam. (Jews and many liberal Christians teach this)