Since everything about the origins of the Watchtower magazine were proved wrong, what legitimacy can its inheritors claim?

by Half banana 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Half banana

  The original aim of CT Russell in starting the Watchtower magazine in 1879 was to announce to the world his pet idea that Jesus had come to rule in the heavens five years earlier back in 1874. For the young entrepreneur this new magazine looked like a commercial runner and it was!

  Most of us know how profoundly false the prophecy was but if you don't mind I'll give a brief overview for newbies:

  1874 was the failed Adventist prediction year for the return of Christ in the heavenly glory, which Russell was now saying was the right year after all. He said that Jesus did arrive that year, not visibly but instead invisibly as king of the kingdom. One significant evidence which Adventists had been relying on was the scripture in Daniel based on 607 BCE as the date when Jerusalem was destroyed by Cyrus. Russell said that this date 607 BCE was the pivotal date for predicting the end of god’s enemies on Earth. Working out and projecting forward “seven times” by Biblical fancy footwork and corroboration by pyramid measurements, he taught the very latest time by which the planet would be rid of Satan's influence was to be by 1914. Given a Biblical forty years from 1874 to make 1914 the time it would take this new heavenly kingdom to destroy God's enemies and restore the world to paradise purity.

  The Watchtower magazine got every detail wrong. . . as wrong as wrong can be. Remember too that this prophecy was the very reason for its existence!

  I hardly need remind you that 1914 was anything but paradise. How can invisible heavenly events ever be proved anyway? No academic historian concludes 607 BCE to be the year of Jerusalem’s final destruction by Cyrus, this being critical in pinpointing 1914, Daniel (who could not have written Daniel) wrote his prophecies in around 165 BCE, centuries after the events foretold! Nice move ‘Daniel’ whoever you were! And what have pyramids got to do with anything here?

  Since ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING about Russell’s predictions were wrong; therefore the foundations of JW beliefs were also wrong: - what legitimacy for their very existence do the inheritors of the Watchtower have?
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  Finkelstein

  what legitimacy for their very existence do the inheritors of the Watchtower have?

  Good point Half Banana
  

  The WTS by its own description was practicing false religion and worst was doing so commercially. $$$
  

  I think after the 1874, 1914, 1925 fails the leader(s) of the organization (Rutherford) went on to try and legitimatize itself against main stream Christendom, particularly Catholicism.

  The WTS/JWS buy virtue of it still proselytizing 1914, is very much a false practicing religion.
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  A Believer

  http://defendingjehovahswitnesses.blogspot.com/2014/03/1925-did-jehovahs-witnesses-really.html

  For reference on 1925. The org is a follower of Jehovah, not Russell or Rutherford. It is different today than back then. They had a hand in helping restore true religion, but they aren't the be all.
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  TD

  The target date of Miller's Second Advent movement was 1843/1844. When the fall of 1844 came and went uneventfully, a few of the more prominent leaders within the movement "spiritualized" the prediction, teaching that Christ had in fact, arrived right on schedule, except that instead of descending to earth, he had entered into the most holy of the heavenly temple. Since this was an invisible, spiritual event, it was impossible for any human to either prove or disprove. Those that accepted this explanation went on to become the Seventh Day Adventists we know today.
  

  Not everyone accepted it though. Nelson H. Barbour who had joined the Millerites at the age of 19 lost his faith completely, left the U.S., and became a miner during the Australian gold rush. It was during his voyage home that he found what he believed to be the critical error in Miller's reckoning. Barbour reset the date to 1873/1874, publishing his findings in both the Advent Christian Times and World's Crises. (Two leading papers of the Advent Christian Association.) In 1873, he started a monthly of his own, titled, The Midnight Cry and Herald of The Morning.
  

  When the fall of 1874 passed uneventfully, B.W. Keith, a reader of Barbour's periodical noticed that Benjamin Wilson's, Emphatic Diaglott (An interlinear translation of J.J. Griesbach's recension of the New Testament) rendered parousia as "presence." Based upon this rendering, he suggested that perhaps Christ really had come in the fall of 1874 after all and that this had been an invisible event. Barbour, who was unwilling to abandon his intricate chronology found this solution attractive, so for a second time, the prediction was, "spiritualized."
  

  All of this happened before Russell ever met Barbour
  

  Russell, who had soundly rejected Adventist calculations and date setting up until this point, stumbled across Barbour's prediction via Herald of the Morning and was so intrigued by it that he paid the latter's expenses to come to Philadelphia and meet with him. Russell subsequently accepted Barbour's 1874 date for the parousia as well as his prediction that the next forty years would be a period of ingathering, culminating in 1914, at which point God's kingdom would be established on earth.

  After Russell's death, the prediction was "spiritualized" for a third straight time, into the form Jehovah's Witnesses are familiar with today. The one single element from this whole time period that Jehovah's Witnesses today still accept as valid is the belief that the seven times of Daniel correspond to a 2520 year period ending in 1914. (aka The Gentile Times)

  --And that was the work of Barbour.
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  TheOldHippie

  "Daniel (who could not have written Daniel) wrote his prophecies in around 165 BCE, centuries after the events foretold! Nice move ‘Daniel’ whoever you were!"

  And this you of course know for a fact and need no reference for your assumption?
  
  
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  sir82

  And this you of course know for a fact and need no reference for your assumption?
  

  Reference requested? Here's one, there are dozens or hundreds more:
  

  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/explanation/bdaniel.html

  Pretty lazy, TOH.
  
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  Fairlane

  A building must stand on solid foundations to justify its purpose. The foundation for the watchtower, hence jws has long since crumbled even by their own admission. The subsequent years have given rise to false doctrine and predictions time and time again. To date they are constantly in a process of 'shoring up' their ever crumbling building. Those who cling on or newly associate are entitled to do so if they wish, but will always be aligning themselves to a structure which will never have a solid foundation. The precedents are there if they care to investigate. .....don't throw pearls before swine.
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  Finkelstein

  The org is a follower of Jehovah, not Russell or Rutherford.

  Wrong A Believer, the Org follows the men who run this religoius publishing house.

  That's why when your baptized as a JWS you have to make personal vow of devotion to them. GB / FDSL

  Since this religoius publishing house has gone beyond what is written and was directly disobedient toward Jesus in his instructions in preaching the Gospel, Jehovah would never have channeled his holy spirit to it or had solemnly chosen it either.
  
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  alcyone

  http://defendingjehovahswitnesses.blogspot.com/2014/03/1925-did-jehovahs-witnesses-really.html

  It is funny how JW apologists distort the truth. Maybe you would like to check what the org really said on 1925:

  http://www.quotes-watchtower.co.uk/1925.html
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  anointed1

  The best they can do is to renounce their seriousness. Seriousness is of the ego whereas laughter is egolessness. Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life. (Philippines 4:4) The serious person is handicapped: he creates barriers. He cannot do this or that …... A man burdened by theories becomes serious and will not admit mistake because he feels it will spoil his image.

  But here is where they can be practical—they can think, ok, mistake is mistake, it happens with anyone. This will add to the image, and this thinking will unburden them. An unburdened man starts laughing. The play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it.