JWD
____________________________________________________________________ The fact of the matter is that for the first 50 years the WT made a
huge deal out of the 1874 date. Yet, when they dropped it nobody seemed to say `boo..` No doubt dropping 1914 would have a huge impact on the older JWs, but most of them wouldn`t quit anyway.
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That’s an excellent point. I’d like to add something. If I remember right, they started to hint about 1874 in the mid 1920’s but did not outright change the start of the presence of Christ to 1914 until about 1942. But this major change was accompanied by Freddie’s revelation that Russell was mislead by the King James Translation into a 100 year chronology mistake. This mistake we were told did not affect the 1914 date but affected the 6000 years of mans history. This 6000 years was one of Russell’s means of arriving at 1874. But with this 100 correction we were given 1974/75 to look forward to for the first time. The point is it is easiest to discard a sacred date when it is replaced with something new to look forward to. Now it is not an admission of error but heroic “new light” from Jehovah.
Here is my fear. Russell fooled around with the Jubilee calculations until he could make them fit 1874 to conform to his 6000 year calculations. If we don’t mess with the 49 year vs. 50 year jubilees as Russell did, the society’s math presently arrives 2025 for the beginning of the 70th Jubilee. After all these mistakes could it still be too tempting for the boys to resist dropping 1914 by refocusing on 2025?
Jst2laws