So, where DID the 1914 timeline go awry?

by Xander 163 Replies latest watchtower bible

Earnest

Farkel,
There are a number of problems when you derive a date using biblical chronology. You first have to have an absolute date for an event which is also referred to in scripture. That would be the year 539 for the Fall of Babylon, which is the "limited secular support" I referred to. I am not entirely convinced it is absolute as the Nabonidus Chronicle does not support it but am happy to defer to those who are more knowledgeable on the subject. Then you have differences in the manuscripts themselves for various time-periods given. That is why 1874 was 100 years too early. There is also ambiguity as to what the time-period refers to which is true of the seventy years.
With all this uncertainty I am very reluctant to base an entire theology on unseen events in heaven derived from these dates. I wouldn't be too concerned about the BA MA nonsense. In my opinion it is a form of intellectual one-upmanship and would only be used by someone insecure about the truth of what they say. Even Isaac Newton, who took a great interest in the bible and eschatology, wrote with the wisdom of a true scholar that "the folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets" (Observations upon the Prophecies, p. 251).
Earnest
JosephMalik

Anyway,evidence for the Gentile Times can be adduced from journal articles listed in the Bibliography at page 999 in Luke 1:35-24:53, Vol.3, Word Biblical Commentary, John Nolland: Word Books, Dallas Texas, 1989.
Scholar,
Is this the inspired source you use for your revelations? The way you attempted to dismiss good information provided by Onacruse about the 7 times of Nebuchadnezzar was nothing but bluster since you did not respond to the problem it presented.
To understand the Gentile Times Luke spoke of it is only necessary to stay with the discussion our Lord had with His disciples about the end of the world (second coming of Christ). The answer to this question is given in this very same discussion using the very same scripture texts on this Jerusalem encompassed with armies by including the comments provided on it by Matthew and Mark. They all discussed the same thing but in different words. The disciples did not always quote our Lord word for word. They interpreted His message as they did here at times since they wrote for their audience which would be Jews in this case. These verses are all about the coming of Christ the day and hour nobody knows when the sign of the sun of man appears not 70-73CE . Thus we learn:
:20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 21 Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.
22 For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. 25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; 26 Mens hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. 27 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

We know these Gentile times will not end until after this sign in the sun and moon and the stars along when all this distress is finished. Jews are still captive in all the nations and Jerusalem is still trodden down fighting for its existence. The Gentile Times end with the Coming of Christ as the text shows. But when did they begin? Matthew discussed this very thing on this same subject this way.
:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: 17 Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: 18 Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.
19 And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 20 But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: 21 For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. 22 And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened.
This is the very same discussion. But now instead of Gentile times we learn that our reference for the Gentile Times or mans inhumanity to man is since the beginning of the world which takes us back to Adam and Eve. This is when they began and this can be illustrated with the event where Cain killed Abel. It is not necessary to say the words Gentile Times to express sinful mankind but it is all the same anyway. And Mark stated it this way:
:14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains: 15 And let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take any thing out of his house: 16 And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. 17 But woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! 18 And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. 19 For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. 20 And except that the Lord had shortened those days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elects sake, whom he hath chosen, he hath shortened the days.
From the beginning of the creation Mark said: This is when such affliction began, this is when the Gentile times began and they do not end until he hath shortened the days when the Gentile Times are fulfilled. So they did not begin or end in the years 70 to 73CE. No! They began with the creation of man and end when our Lord returns for the sake of the elect living at that time we also call the end of the world.
Matthew 13:49 So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
It is that simple. Throw all those books away Scholar. The Bible is all you need. Anyone that insists on using Jerusalem in the 70's for a reference should now be able to see that at best it is only a little speed bump in a much larger prophecy regarding Sin and Redemption.
Joseph
onacruse

Just a little historical aside here:
Uriah Smith was a major player in 19th-century Seventh-day Adventism and "He is best remembered for his book generally known by the short title Daniel and the Revelation. It received the warm endorsement of Ellen G. White and had an unrivaled influence on SDA prophetic teaching." (http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/clt4/smithbio.htm). I expected to find that he would support a symbolic interpretation of the "seven times," and so was surprised to read the following remarks (Daniel and the Revelation, 1897, pp. 94-5, 784-5):
In the events here narrated, several striking points may be noticed...An important key to prophetic interpretation. Verse 16. "Let seven times pass over him," said the decree. This is plain, literal narration; hence the time is here to be understood literally.
Almost every scheme of the "Plan of the Ages," "Age-to-come," etc., makes use of a supposed prophetic period called the "Seven Times;" and the attempt is made to figure out a remarkable fulfillment by events in Jewish and Gentile history. All such speculators might as well spare their pains; for there is no such prophetic period in the Bible...The expression in Dan. 4:16 is not prophetic, for it is used in plain, literal translation. (See verse 25.)
Millerites calculated 1843 based on the 1335 days of Dan 12:11, and didn't use Dan 4 at all.(http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/HERITAGF/Issuenos/chl028.shtml)
Craig
AlanF

Hi Earnest,
: There are a number of problems when you derive a date using biblical chronology. You first have to have an absolute date for an event which is also referred to in scripture. That would be the year 539 for the Fall of Babylon, which is the "limited secular support" I referred to.
That's too "limited" to support the 607 date. It equally supports the 587/6 date.
: I am not entirely convinced it is absolute
The notion of "absolute date" is outmoded because there is no such thing as an "absolute" in something as tenuous as ancient history. Good scholars always characterize their description of dates with terms such as "astronomically confirmed", to avoid giving the impression that anything is "absolute". One can properly speak of "pivotal" or "well-established" dates, and astronomically confirmed dates are usually well established because they are astronomically confirmed.
: as the Nabonidus Chronicle does not support it
The Nabonidus Chronicle provides no direct support, but it provides indirect support in that the events it describes, and what little chronological information it contains, are consistent with standard secular chronology. We know from this Chronicle, for example, the exact day of which month Babylon fell, but we do not know the year. The year is established through several lines of evidence, working backward and forward from various well-established dates.
: but am happy to defer to those who are more knowledgeable on the subject. Then you have differences in the manuscripts themselves for various time-periods given. That is why 1874 was 100 years too early.
So far as I know, the differences in the manuscripts you're talking about are Bible manuscripts, not ancient Babylonian or Persian manuscripts. As for the 100-year error that led Nelson Barbour to decide on 1874, there was no excuse for it. Yes, the King James Version used an incorrect form of the original Greek text, but by the time Barbour began publishing material on Bible chronology (1869 is the earliest I'm aware of) there were several good Greek manuscripts available. Tischendorf had published his material around 1857, I believe, and other well-known manuscripts contained the correct rendering. Furthermore, Barbour used Benjamin Wilson's The Emphatic Diaglott to justify his claim that the Greek word parousia meant "presence" in certain critical NT passages such as Matt. 24:3. He jumped on this incorrect rendering in 1874 or so to excuse his failed end-of-the-world prediction for 1873. The Emphatic Diaglott actually contains a footnote that refers the reader to manuscripts that contain the correct rendering (I believe it's a verse or two in 2nd Peter; I'm at work and can't remember), which would have led Barbour pin his chronology on 1974 rather than 1874. So neither Barbour, nor Russell who adopted Barbour's wrong ideas, had any excuse to continue to rely on the KJV, when better manuscripts were available. Naturally, the fact that correct information was at hand, yet Russell got it wrong, is absolute proof that God had nothing to do with Russell's chronology. I believe that the reason both of these men used the wrong information is that they very much wanted "the end" to come in their day, so that they could go to heaven, and so they let this desire warp their thinking so that they marshalled everything they could find to justify their emotional desires.
: There is also ambiguity as to what the time-period refers to which is true of the seventy years.
Only if you ignore the unambiguous scriptural passages. Please read my challenge to "scholar" with respect to my hypothetical statement about when I finished college, respond to it yourself, and I will prove it to you.
: With all this uncertainty I am very reluctant to base an entire theology on unseen events in heaven derived from these dates.
You are sensible. Most Jehovah's Witnesses and people like Barbour and Russell are not. They let their desire to get a reward cloud their thinking.
: I wouldn't be too concerned about the BA MA nonsense. In my opinion it is a form of intellectual one-upmanship and would only be used by someone insecure about the truth of what they say.
Which is obviously characteristic of "scholar".
: Even Isaac Newton, who took a great interest in the bible and eschatology, wrote with the wisdom of a true scholar that "the folly of Interpreters has been, to foretel times and things by this Prophecy, as if God designed to make them Prophets" (Observations upon the Prophecies, p. 251).
Newton had the right idea. Unfortunately, some of his writings on prophecy have been used to support nonsensical predictions.
AlanF
Earnest

Hi Alan,
Thanks for your comprehensive reply.
Earnest : Then you have differences in the manuscripts themselves for various time-periods given. That is why 1874 was 100 years too early.
AlanF : So far as I know, the differences in the manuscripts you're talking about are Bible manuscripts, not ancient Babylonian or Persian manuscripts. As for the 100-year error that led Nelson Barbour to decide on 1874, there was no excuse for it.
Yes. I should have made it clear I was referring to bible manuscripts. In the article "Erroneous Chronology and False Conclusions" in Zion's Watch Tower of May 15, 1896, pp.112-113 it has a footnote discussion of Acts 13:19,20 :
"He (God) divided their land to them by lot; and after that he gave them Judges about (during) the space of four hundred and fifty years...until Samuel the Prophet (inclusive)...
Footnote :
The record of 1 Kings 6:1 is evidently a transcriber's error, 480 being stated instead of 580. The latter agrees perfectly with the Apostle's statement [above], and is in accord with the lapping and broken periods of the Judgeships and captivities recorded in the Book of the Judges.
The Emphatic Diaglott has the following foot note on Acts 13:20:- "A difficulty occurs here which has very much puzzled Bible chronologists. The date given here is at variance with the statement found in 1 Kings 6:1. There have been many solutions offered, but only one seems entirely satisfactory; i.e., that the text in 1 Kings 6:1 has been corrupted by substituting the Hebrew character daleth (4) for hay (5), which is very similar in form. This would make 580 (intead of 480) from the exode to the building of the temple, and exactly agree with Paul's chronology."
As it happens it was Acts 13:20, not 1 Kings 6:1, which was at fault as 'Insight on the Scriptures', Vol. I, p.462 explains:
At Acts chapter 13 the apostle Paul reviewed Gods dealings with Israel from the choosing of the forefathers on through the period in Egypt, the Exodus, the wilderness wandering, the conquest of Canaan, and the distribution of the land, and then stated: "All that during about four hundred and fifty years. And after these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet." (Ac 13:20) Considerable misunderstanding has resulted from the King James rendering of this text, which reads: "And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet." However, the most ancient manuscripts (including the Sinaitic, Vatican Manuscript No. 1209, and the Alexandrine), as well as most modern translations (such as JB, Kx, and others; vss 19, 20, AS, RS, AT), all favor the previous translation, which shows the period of the Judges coming after the 450 years. Since the period of "about four hundred and fifty years" had its start with Gods choosing the forefathers of Israel, it would seem to have begun in the year 1918 B.C.E. with the birth of Isaac, the original "seed" promised to Abraham.
I think you are a bit harsh to suggest there was no excuse for their mistake. In "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament" (UBS, 1971, pp.406,407), Bruce Metzger discusses these two texts of Acts 13:20 and indicates the UBS Translation Committee had a high degree of doubt in selecting the older reading as the more accurate. The fact that Josephus agrees almost exactly with the Textus Receptus (i.e. the King James rendering) likely gave it greater weight at the time. Just as an aside, I also found it interesting that the (Dimbleby-Totten) chronology criticised by the Watchtower article had the period of the Judges correct and expected 6000 years to end in 2002 !! Welcome to the millenium.
However, I agree with you that a desire for it to be in their time likely influenced their chronology. In this respect Newton was truly remarkable. He considered the Second Coming to be centuries away from his time and one of the dates he postulated was that the "time, times & half time" does not end before 2060 nor after 2344. Of this he said :
"I mention this period not to assert it, but only to shew that there is little reason to expect it earlier, & thereby to put a stop to the rash conjectures of Interpreters who are frequently assigning the time of the end, & thereby bringing the sacred Prophecies into discredit as often as their conjectures do not come to pass. It is not for us to know the times & seasons which God has put in his own breast."
(Never At Rest - A Biography of Isaac Newton, CUP, 1996 reprint, p.816)
Further in your reply you said:
Earnest : There is also ambiguity as to what the time-period refers to which is true of the seventy years.
AlanF : Only if you ignore the unambiguous scriptural passages. Please read my challenge to "scholar" with respect to my hypothetical statement about when I finished college, respond to it yourself, and I will prove it to you.
Your question was : "If I told you that I attended college in Massachusetts until June, 1980, and you later learned that I actually attended until June, 1982, would you consider my statement true or false? Why?"
I would consider your statement false because you imply that you stopped attending in June, 1980.
I await your proof and am sure you won't disappoint.
Earnest
Edited by - Earnest on 6 January 2003 19:16:53
AlanF

Hi Earnest,
Assuming you're going to be looking at the board fairly soon, I'll comment on the last part of your response first:
: Your question was : "If I told you that I attended college in Massachusetts until June, 1980, and you later learned that I actually attended until June, 1982, would you consider my statement true or false? Why?"
: I would consider your statement false because you imply that you stopped attending in June, 1980.
Correct. Not only did I imply that I stopped attending in 1980, my phraseology is a direct statement of that. That is the way English speakers say things when they mean that a process continued to a specific point in time, and no further.
Now, to make my point, when I finally make it, crystal clear, let me ask another question: If I told you that my two brothers came to be employees of IBM's hard drive design division until Fujitsu bought the division, could my statement in any way be taken to allow that my brothers were employed by IBM after Fujitsu took over? This time, please explain your reasoning.
Thanks for playing along; this really has a good point.
I'll do some reading with respect to your other comments, and respond later.
AlanF
Edited by - AlanF on 5 January 2003 23:32:7
aChristian

Scholar,
You have implied that since all who have thoroughly studied this subject matter cannot agree on whether Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon in 586 or 587 BCE there exists reason to believe that the Society's 607 BCE date for this event might be correct. In other words, since some serious students of history and scripture are obviously off by one year in dating Jerusalem's fall you think we should believe they may all be off by about twenty years. That is ridiculous.
The only reason there is any question at all on this matter is because the Bible itself is a bit unclear about the exact time of Jerusalem's fall. But not so unclear as to allow for more than a one year disagreement among serious students of history and scripture. To begin with, as Alan F has already pointed out, the Bible seems to date the fall of Jerusalem in both Nebuchadnezzar's 18th and in his 19th year as king. Compare 2 Kings 25:8 to Jer. 52:29.
On top of this bit of confusion we do not know for sure what system of reckoning the Bible writers were using when they wrote of the year of Jerusalem's fall. Historians know that the ancient Babylonians used the "accession year" system of reckoning, where a kings first full calendar year of rule was counted as the "first" year of his reign. But we are not sure what system of reckoning the writers of scripture employed when they recorded the year of Jerusalem's fall. Maybe they were using the nonaccession year system, where a king's first partial calendar year of rule was counted as his "first" year. The system of reckoning the writers of scripture were using when recording the year of Jerusalem's destruction could change the BCE date we now assign to that event by one year, but by no more than one year.
We also do not know what calendar the writers of scripture were using when they recorded the year of Jerusalem's destruction. We know that the ancient Babylonian calendar began in the spring. But the ancient Hebrews used two different calendars, one which began in the spring and another which began in the fall. We do not know for sure which of these two calendars the writers of scripture were using when they recorded the year of Jerusalem's destruction by Babylon. This information is also necessary for us to have in order to say with absolute certainty whether Jerusalem fell in 586 or 587 BCE.
But readers of this board should make no mistake, historians now have absolutely no doubt about the years in which Nebuchadnezzar ruled Babylon. True, the ambiguities in the biblical record I have here referred to have given serious students of history and scripture a tough time in determining with absolute certainty whether Jerusalem fell in 586 or 587 BC. But no one who seriously studies this subject matter today, outside of the strong influence of the Watchtower Society, ever concludes that Jerusalem may have been destroyed by Babylon in any year other than 586 or 587 BC.
You also appeal to the fact that no one has yet published a chronological reconstruction of the reigns of all of the kings of ancient Israel and Judah which manages to establish full harmony between all existing biblical and extrabiblical synchronisms for this period of time. Evidently your point is that since the Bible's and ancient Israel's and Judah's neighboring nations' historical records pertaining to the time of the divided kingdom have not as yet been fully understood our understanding of the Bible's and ancient Babylon's historical records pertaining to the time of Nebuchadnezzar's rule might also now be greatly misunderstood. Baloney! That's like saying that unless a person fully understands algebra, trigonometry and calculus he cannot possibly do simple math.
However, so long as you have raised the subject, it should be pointed out that your appeal to the often confusing chronology of the divided monarchy actually damages your case for assigning a 607 BCE date to Jerusalem's destruction. For the fact is that those who have come closest to making complete sense out of all of the Bible's apparently conflicting chronological information pertaining to the reigns of Israel's and Judah's kings are those who have accepted as accurate all of the findings and datings of secular historians for this period of time, including 587/6 BCE as the date for Jerusalem's destruction by Babylon. The Watchtower Society's 390 year long chronological reconstruction of the divided monarchy either ignores or rejects all the findings and datings of secular historians for this time period. In the process the Watchtower's chronology for this time period completely fails to deal with, let alone reconcile, many apparent Bible contradictions. On the other hand, those whose chronological reconstructions of this time period are anchored by a 587/6 BCE date for Jerusalem's destruction, and other dates for other events during this time period which have been provided to them by secular historians, have managed to show that many so-called "Bible contradictions" are not really contradictions at all.
AlanF

Hi Earnest,
Having done some homework instead of posting off the top of my head, I realized that my comments in my previous post about a footnote in The Emphatic Diaglott were wrong. The footnote contains no comments about other manuscripts.
Awhile ago I did some research into this, and here I'll present some results. So that we know what we are talking about, here are parts of Acts 13:19, 20 from the three Bible translations of interest to JWs on this subject:
19 And when He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, He divided their land to them by lot. 20 And after that He gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet. (KJV)
And having cast out seven Nations in the Land of Canaan, he distributed their LAND to them by Lot. 20 And after these things, he gave Judges about four hundred and fifty Years, till Samuel the PROPHET. (Emphatic Diaglott 1864 edition)
After destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed the land of them by lot: 20 all that during about four hundred and fifty years. And after these things he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. (New World Translation)
Apparently it was the transposition of the phrase "four hundred and fifty years" from a position after the phrase "after these things he gave them judges until Samuel" to a position before it that caused the incorrect rendering based on the older NT manuscripts.
However, as I said, the NT texts used for the KJV and Emphatic Diaglott were not the only ones available to obtain an accurate rendering of Acts 13:20 when C. T. Russell first published Nelson Barbour's Bible chronology in 1877 in Three Worlds, and certainly not by the time the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was founded. By 1881, when Westcott and Hort published their authoritative revised Greek text, several other texts more correct than the old Textus Receptus used by the KJV had been around for quite some time. At the website at http://www.bible-researcher.com/acts1-14.html , which is titled "Textual Criticism of the Greek New Testament", the following information can be found at various links:
English Guide to the Various Readings. A complete collation of Greek readings adopted by Stephens, Beza, Elzevir, Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Wordsworth, Westcott & Hort, Nestle-Aland, and Hodges & Farstad, compared with the text underlying the King James Version.
Acts 13:20. Transpose "by lot. (20) And after that he gave [unto them] judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years" to "by lot (20) about the space of four hundred and fifty years. And after that he gave". L T Tr W WH N NA
The Format of the Collation
Citation of Editors. The editions represented in the collation are referred to by the following abbreviations. For detailed information on these editions see the corresponding articles in the Bibliography.
S Stephens 1550 (Estienne 1550)
E Elzevir 1624
G Griesbach 1805
L Lachmann 1842
T Tischendorf 1869
Tr Tregelles 1857
A Alford 1849 as revised in 1871
W Wordsworth 1856 as revised in 1870
WH Westcott & Hort 1881
NA Nestle-Aland 1979 (Aland et al. 1979)
Konstantin Tischendorf published as early as 1862. In any case, here we find that five different NT texts (labeled L, T, Tr, W and WH) were published by 1881 that contained the corrected reading of Acts 13:20.
Based on the above manuscripts, here are some of the earliest Bible translations that came out based on these revised texts:
Rotherham's New Testament, 1872, based on Tregelles' text
The English Revised New Testament, 1881, various
The American Standard Version, 1901, various
Now, Russell was certainly a serious student of the Bible and a collector of Bible translations and Greek texts. For example, the Society wrote:
*** w97 10/15 11 How the Bible Came to Us-Part Three ***
In 1881 a small but earnest band of Bible teachers and students formed what later became the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. At first, they distributed Bibles produced by other Bible societies, including Tischendorfs Greek Scriptures.
The Society even distributed a version of Rotherham's and American Standard Version.
It is on the basis of the above information that I state without reservation that more than enough solid Bible scholarship was available to Russell that God, if he so chose, would surely have caused this supposed representative of his, whom the Society today claims was the first example of the modern "faithful slave", to take advantage of. In view of this, I must disagree with your statement:
: I think you are a bit harsh to suggest there was no excuse for their mistake.
You presented some comments on this from Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. I, p.462. Because the Society's writers certainly know all of the above information, especially that Russell distributed Bibles with the correct rendering long before they corrected the 100-year chronological error in 1943, I state without reservation that the discussion in Insight is deceitful.
: In "A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament" (UBS, 1971, pp.406,407), Bruce Metzger discusses these two texts of Acts 13:20 and indicates the UBS Translation Committee had a high degree of doubt in selecting the older reading as the more accurate.
I don't get that sense from what this reference says. It speaks of difficulties "both textual and exegetical", but I see no comments to the effect that the Committee had any "high degree of doubt" about their selection. Can you tell me what they said that leads you to this conclusion?
: The fact that Josephus agrees almost exactly with the Textus Receptus (i.e. the King James rendering) likely gave it greater weight at the time.
Possibly, to the Bible scholars of the time. But on the other hand, if Russell were delving into translational details to this extent, while claiming that God was working exclusively through him to teach mankind "the truth", surely he must have also dealt with the above-mentioned Greek texts and complete translations that render Acts 13:20 properly. We are left with only two possibilities: Russell was incompetent as a scholar; and/or Russell deliberately suppressed the textual problems so as to lend a false sense of solidity to his chronological claims in the minds of his readers. As far as I'm concerned, it's a combination of both, such that Russell was so confident that God was guiding him that he just ran with whatever evidence jibed with the conclusion he wanted to reach, and ignored all other evidence, and so deceived himself and his readers.
: Just as an aside, I also found it interesting that the (Dimbleby-Totten) chronology criticised by the Watchtower article had the period of the Judges correct and expected 6000 years to end in 2002 !! Welcome to the millenium.
Interesting.
: However, I agree with you that a desire for it to be in their time likely influenced their chronology.
Russell and Barbour were no different from their contemporaries. Their spiritual forebear, William Miller, suffered from the same problem. The same is true of today's JW leaders.
: In this respect Newton was truly remarkable. He considered the Second Coming to be centuries away from his time and one of the dates he postulated was that the "time, times & half time" does not end before 2060 nor after 2344...
Newton was remarkable in many ways. To his credit, he did not indulge in some fantasies. Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned, he tried to interpret the Bible and come up with a future timeline in which prophecies would be fulfilled. Such endeavor has been entirely unsuccessful. "When will the every learn?"
AlanF
AlanF

Hi aChristian,
Long time no see!
I've said almost exactly what you've said to "scholar" before. It falls on Orwellian-deafened ears. Because the JW Governing Body -- which is divinely directed in all its ways -- endorses JW chronology, JWs like "scholar" accept the word of 'God', and no amount of information or logical discussion will sway them. Until, of course, the GB sees the error of its ways. Then a new version of "truth" will take hold in the minds of the "scholars" of the JW world, and hold sway until the next change.
I'm preaching to the choir just to be facetious.
AlanF
Room 215

Reminiscent of the hapless fellow in Proverbs who's holding the ears of a rabid dog, the Society faces a simlar dilemma with regard to the 1914 dogma and its undrelying basis; on the one hand they fear the consequences of jettisoning what has for them been their central doctrine while at the same time recognizing that the inexorable passage of time has all but destroyed its credibility.
What's clear is that the WTBTS has already cut back to the point of elimination of any published references to the relevant chronology. Ask yourself: just how many younger JWs are able to `do the drill" that once was the universal mantra of an salf-respecting mid-20th century dub, i.e. 2,520 minus 607 plus non ~~zero year" equals 1914? Do they really believe that if they stop mentioning something, the dubs will quiescently forget about it? Yup; such is Bethel's contempt for the collective intelligence of the rank and file.

So, where DID the 1914 timeline go awry?

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