CREATIVE "DAYS" - What do JWs believe?

by Bloody Hotdogs! 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Bloody Hotdogs!

  Hi all,

  A few weeks ago, I asked you to critique my website article on Dinosaurs (http://www.jwbeliefs.com/what-do-jehovahs-witnesses-believe-about-dinosaurs/). It was pointed out that much of what I wrote depends on the creative "days" being relatively short - something I believe JWs teach.

  After being prompted to review my conclusions/research, I was more convinced than ever that JWs promote relatively short creative “days”. The nail in the coffin was the teaching that “day” seven is indicative of the length of the other six “days” (i.e.: about 7000 years).

  “ The fact is, the Bible reveals that the creative “days,” or ages, encompass thousands of years.
  
  A person can see this from what the Bible says about the seventh “day.” The record of each of the first six “days” ends saying,‘and there came to be evening and morning, a first day,’ and so on. Yet, you will not find that comment after the record of the seventh “day.” And in the first century C.E., some 4,000 years downstream in history, the Bible referred to the seventh rest “day” as still continuing. So the seventh “day” was a period spanning thousands of years, and we can logically conclude the same about the first six “days.” ”

  - Creator book, 1998

  But then I thought: What if JWs no longer subscribe to that idea? I can’t find anything in print that would indicate as much…

  So, do JWs teach that the creative “days” were all different lengths, or all the same length? Have they published anything that would conclusively reverse their previous teaching?

  FYI: I have outlined my research and conclusions about the creative “days” here: http://www.jwbeliefs.com/jehovahs-witnesses-believe-creative-days/ Again, it is a work in progress and I appreciate any suggestions/corrections/comments.
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  sir82

  "Officially" they have not printed anything within the past 25 years giving a length of time of a "creative day" as anything less vague than "thousands of years".

  My very first post on this forum was a recap of something I heard from a relative of someone attending Gilead. In 2005, the "official" teaching given to the "elite" at Gilead was that each creative day was, indeed, explicitly and exactly 7000 years in length.

  I.e., even though they haven't printed anything explicit on the subject for the past 25 years, as of 9 years ago was still an official (albeit unpublished) doctrine. The same guys who were around in 2005 are still pretty much around now, so it is still likely held as true at the top levels.

  They probably don't print anything explicit now because they must be aware that it is demonstrably and irrefutably false that there was no animal or plant life on the planet 50,000 years ago.

  Which is kind of puzzling if you think about it, because it is equally demonstrably and irrefutably false that the entire globe was under water for an entire year just 4400 years ago, but they go right on publishing that particular nugget of claptrap without qualm.
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  OneEyedJoe

  Sir82 hit the nail on the head. The 7000 year "day" teaching has been quietly retired and they've backed away from it. I suspect that they didn't want to upset the oldtimers by publishing a QFR on the matter, and now they just go with "thousands of years" instead. This is clearly their trying to have it both ways. When old timers read "thousands of years" they think "7000 years." When younger or more scientifically literate JWs read that they read it as being much longer to coincide with their scientifically accurate understanding of the age of the earth/universe.

  The other thing I'd add is that even COs seem to have the idea that the 7000 year "day" is "old light." I don't know how much of it was in the outline, but I distinctly remember a couple years back a CO gave a long talk in which he talked about how Jesus had been hangin' out with Jehovah for at least 13.8 billion years since that's the age of the universe and jesus was around before that.
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  blondie

  The 7,000 creative day was the foundation (or one of them) for establishing 1975, 6,000 days determined by bible chronology plus the 1,000 year reign of Christ. (of course ac cording to WTS numbering). When 1975 was a bust and saying that Adam was 30 years old when Eve was created, there was nothing left to push the date out. They have to wait for all the jws that trusted that to leave or die.

  How many knew about the 1925 date? I didn't until the Proclaimers book came out. Silence was the key.
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  Bloody Hotdogs!

  Thanks for your replies! I can see that the heading of my post is probably misleading...

  What I'd realy like to know is if all seven creative "days" were the same length. As far as I can tell, that is what JWs teach. If so, they would all be about 7000 years...
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  OnTheWayOut

  Hey, my mother is still a die-hard believer in the excuse for 1975. She actually believes the end is coming based on 6000 years of God's Rest Day passing after Eve was created. The 6th creative day must have ended before her sin, so that God could proclaim- It was good.

  I did this math before and stretched that to the absolute limits to make it work "Freddy Franz Style." The Bible directly states that Adam was 130 when Seth was born, and that the whole sin and being thrown out of Eden and the birth and raising of Cain and Abel happened before the birth of Seth. So there is no backing out on that. And we won't try to second guess the remaining Watchtower math that brought us to 1975. Assuming Cain was born nine months after Adam sinned (the earliest possible time to have an imperfect baby born of sin), and assuming he was just a teenager when he murdered his brother- we arrive at about 110 to 115 years from Adam's creation to the maximum time period before the 6th creative day must have ended. (Unless we cheat a bit more and assume Seth was already alive when Cain slew Abel, but the scriptures don't really allow for that.) So that allows Cain to be short of 15 years old when he killed Abel and there's still time to have Seth be born when Adam is 130 years old.
  
  NOW- add that to 1975, and we arrive at 2090. Eve could have been created nearly 115 years after Adam was created and got Adam into trouble with the fruit in the garden right away, and 6000 years later gets you 2090. You see why they don't need to abandon this yet. That's right- the teaching that the Millenium rule would start in the beginning of the last 1000 years of a 7000 year "day" of Rest was never abandoned.

  Watchtower could revive the old Fred Franz stuff about 1975, the 6000 years, and the whole shebang and relate it to the overlap generation. They could start the members to believing that Adam probably lived on his own in the garden about 40 to 45 years before Eve was created, so the end must be imminent by now, 39 to 40 years after the anniversary of 6000 years of creation. They can insist that the math is sound and "from Jehovah" to the GB so that they know how close we are to the end. Then they can hammer the imminent end for quite a few more decades simply by suggesting that Adam was a wee bit older than 45 or 50 before Eve was created. "Naming all the animals must have taken decades."

  Or they can combine this nonsense with the 120 years of Noah and shoot for 2034 as the absolute limit.
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  Apognophos

  I distinctly remember a couple years back a CO gave a long talk in which he talked about how Jesus had been hangin' out with Jehovah for at least 13.8 billion years since that's the age of the universe and jesus was around before that.

  Yes, but remember, we established that the creation of the universe is not part of the seven days according to Witnesses (and other fundamentalists). So if scientists say the universe is 14 billion years old, then fine, it can be, because Genesis 1:1 is outside the creative week. But they can still believe the specific creation acts in Genesis 1 starting with light in verse 3 (which is said to refer to the appearance of light from the surface of the Earth, not the creation of light or stars) were 7,000 years.

  I was forced to think more carefully about this when Hotdogs made his last topic, and I've been wondering if they really do mean to hide the fact that they still believe each of these days is 7,000 years. sir82's anecdote is very interesting in this regard. I guess now we need to see if anyone can come up with a quote from the Society about whether the days were necessarily the same length or not. In a way this whole exercise is extremely silly since, as far as I know, nobody's been able to figure out where 7,000 years even came from in the first place. But we have to be prepared to deal with silliness when discussing Watchtower teachings, right?

  OTWO: Interesting math exercise. Just another number for you, the current overlapping teaching has a maximum limit of 2067 if you imagine that someone in the "second group" was anointed at age 25 in 1992 right before Fred Franz died, and that person then lived to 100. Of course the proverbial lifespan of "70-80 years" gives us 2037-2047 A.D. as the end date.
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  Apognophos

  You've probably seen this before, right Hotdogs? This is the most recent mention I can find of the days being even in length:

  *** w70 2/15 p. 120 The Days of Creation from God’s Viewpoint ***

  Just how long, then, were these “days” of creation? The Bible gives us a clue as to the length of the seventh day. Since these “days” were all part of one ‘week,’ it would be reasonable to conclude that all these “days” were of the same length.
  [...]

  This accounts for 6,000 years. Is that the length of the seventh day? No, because we read that “God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred.” Its outcome must be “very good,” and that is not true of present world conditions; so the “day” must still be continuing. Actually these six thousand years have been, as it were, man’s workweek, in which he labored by the sweat of his face. But he will get rest during the coming thousand-year reign of Christ, which Bible chronology and fulfillment of Bible prophecy show is to begin very soon.—Gen. 2:3.

  The seventh one thousand years of the seventh “day” will thus in itself be a sabbath. During it Satan and his demons will be bound. Christ and his anointed followers will rule with him as kings and priests. With what result? That all God’s enemies will be put beneath Christ’s feet. By means of this sabbath the seventh day will truly be sacred, for it will cause righteousness to flourish.—1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rev. 20:1-6; Psalm 72.

  Thus we find the seventh “day” of the creative week to be seven thousand years long. On the basis of the length of the seventh “day” it is therefore reasonable to conclude that each of the other six “days” also was a period of 7,000 years. This length of time would be ample for all that the Bible tells us took place on each of the six days of creation.

  This passage also touches on the circular reasoning surrounding 7,000 days, which seems to be "Well, 6,000 years have passed so far, and the Thousand Year Reign must occur within this final day, so that makes 7,000", with no consideration of the possibility that maybe the day is 10,000 or 1,000,000 years long instead.
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  leaving_quietly

  From Insight Vol 1 p. 545:

  Length of Creative Days. The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods. Yet all six of them have ended, it being said with respect to the sixth day (as in the case of each of the preceding five days): “And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a sixth day.” (Ge 1:31) However, this statement is not made regarding the seventh day, on which God proceeded to rest, indicating that it continued. (Ge 2:1-3) Also, more than 4,000 years after the seventh day, or God’s rest day, commenced, Paul indicated that it was still in progress. At Hebrews 4:1-11 he referred to the earlier words of David (Ps 95:7, 8, 11) and to Genesis 2:2 and urged: “Let us therefore do our utmost to enter into that rest.” By the apostle’s time, the seventh day had been continuing for thousands of years and had not yet ended. The Thousand Year Reign of Jesus Christ, who is Scripturally identified as “Lord of the sabbath” (Mt 12:8), is evidently part of the great sabbath, God’s rest day. (Re 20:1-6) This would indicate the passing of thousands of years from the commencement of God’s rest day to its end. The week of days set forth at Genesis 1:3 to 2:3, the last of which is a sabbath, seems to parallel the week into which the Israelites divided their time, observing a sabbath on the seventh day thereof, in keeping with the divine will. (Ex 20:8-11) And, since the seventh day has been continuing for thousands of years, it may reasonably be concluded that each of the six creative periods, or days, was at least thousands of years in length.

  I recently read something similar, but can't recall where, but it basically implied that each day was of varying length. About the only thing they stick to is that Adam, the first human, was created a little over 6,000 years ago.
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  Ucantnome

  I think they still believe the chronology yat gave them 4026 for Adams creation and they believe the end is near and Christ reigns for a thousand years which makes approx 7000 year ;7th day nd would think that days would be the same length or wa call rgem days

  either my phone is playing up or I've had mirec tequila than I thought