Jeffro
https://jeffro77.wordpress.com/2022/11/17/586-or-587/
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A contrivance with pretty coloured charts along with a flawed methodology disproved by the historical fact of the Jewish Exile of 70 years. Plain and simple!!!
scholar JW
How Will They End 1914 Teaching?
by EmptyInside 282 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Jeffro
The fact that you think my ‘methodology’ is ‘complex’ only demonstrates your own inability to comprehend quite simple deductive reasoning. There was no 70 year exile. No source mentions an exile of 70 years. 🤷♂️ 😂
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scholar
Jeffro
You can pontificate all you like about 587 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem but your charts simply prove that the biblical/regnal data combined with the selected secular data that you use does point most likely to 587 BCE. However, the biblical data alone cannot fix with certainty a date for the Fall of Jerusalem as it simply lists the reigns of the Judean kings so this alone partially constructs a scheme of Chronology for that period of Jewish history. The chronologist must then take into consideration other historical realities such as the Exile of 70 years which then fine tunes the chronology which shows a gap of 20 years. Now, the Chronology can be corrected which anchors the Fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE then with the known biblical data for the respective Monarchs whose reigns can then be properly adjusted.
The problem with your opinion and charts comes down to Methodology and that has now been recognized by Chronologists such as Rodger Young who first introduced the term into scholarly journals in his advocacy of 587 BCE by means of the use of Decision Tables Analysis. But again Young fails to account for the Jewish Exile even though he has produced studies on the Jewish Sabbaths and Jubille.
In short, your Chronology fails on two counts: An inadequate Methodology and a failure to accommodate the Jewish Exile. WT scholars have adopted a very different Methodology in their schemes of Chronology beginning with Charles Russell who even in those earlier times considered the historical reality of the Exile of 70 years.
scholar JW
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scholar
Jeffro
The fact that you think my ‘methodology’ is ‘complex’ only demonstrates your own inability to comprehend quite simple deductive reasoning. There was no 70 year exile. No source mentions an exile of 70 years. 🤷♂️ 😂
Perhaps you should read the Bible and such books as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra, and Ezekiel and then you can read Josephus .scholar JW -
Jeffro
😂
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Fisherman
Then it has nothing to do with the question I asked.
I don’t know what you mean. I was responding to your implication about the faith of German Bible Students when they realized or if they realized as you assert that they didn’t have to go through all of that and when the end didn’t come when expected. I’ve implied that it more than a JW belief struggle with government
I'm afraid you're going to have to do a little homework..
I don’t know what is your point here.
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TD
Scholar,
Just provide the 1984 quote that concerns you as you have not given specific information and then the said scholar will help you for scholar likes to help the little people.
I did provide it. Scholar seems to have missed it somehow.
I will provide it again in response to your second question:
Let us cut to the chase and you provide your understanding of the 'great crowd'
My understanding is of no consequence here. We’re talking about a teaching peculiar to JW’s and they are free to believe and teach it in any fashion they please. And I’m willing to accept whatever explanation(s) offered in official JW publications as what they believe.
Fair enough?
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This particular teaching has been taught officially since 1935. There was a convention in Washington DC and those known at the time as “Jonadabs” were invited to attend. On Sunday, during the discourse, The Great Multitude, J.F. Rutherford explained that the “great multitude” of Revelation 7 was actually an earthly class. He subsequently invited the Jonadabs to stand up and identified them as that group. "Behold, the great multitude" were his exact words.
This new teaching was summarized thus:
"The great multitude or Jonadab company manifestly are those whom Jesus called his “other sheep”. To the faithful disciples, the remnant, Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine [the remnant]; . . . and other sheep I have, which are not of this fold [members of the royal house] : them also [the earthly sheep class] I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be [and they shall become, RV.] one fold [one flock], and one shepherd.“-John 10: 14-16"
(The Watchtower August 15, 1935 p. 250)At the time, it was thought that the “great tribulation” had already started and those people had "come out of it" by joining the “remnant” of “Christ’s brothers” just as Jonadab had joined Jehu.
Here are early and late examples of that teaching:
“To “come out of the great tribulation” (R.V.) not alone means to survive that trouble as ‘flesh that shall be saved’ (Matt. 24: 22) but primarily means that the great multitude come out from Satan’s organization and take their stand on the side of Jehovah during the period of time that elapses from stopping the World War until the day of Armageddon, that is to say, during the time that the “days should be shortened”, and during which time period this gospel of the kingdom is preached” (The Watchtower August 15, 1935 p. 246)
"They have come out since the “beginning of pangs of distress,” seeking salvation from the enthroned God of heaven and earth and through the once-sacrificed “Lamb,” Jesus Christ. They acknowledge Jehovah God as the rightful Ruler of heavenly angels and earthly men. They do not accept any longer the moral and religious standards of this worldly system of things. Instead, as pictured in Revelation 7:9-15, they confess that they are sinners, and they seek to get rid of their dirty appearance. So they wash their robes in the shed blood of the “Lamb,” to take away the unsightly stain of sin." (The Watchtower December 15 1965 p. 754)
As Rutherford understood them, the terms “other sheep” and “great crowd” were virtually synonymous:
“The great multitude is that same class which Jesus describes as his "other sheep". “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd." (John 10: 16)”
(Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses for 1936 p. 17)
"These honest and sincere ones who thus flee to the Lord the Scriptures designate as the "other sheep" of Jesus Christ, and they are otherwise called Jonadabs and the great multitude."
(1937 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses p. 360)
“Those who will compose the Lord’s “other sheep” are not limited as to the number, but are called the “great multitude” without number, and they come “of all nations and kindreds, and people and tongues”, and they rejoice and joyfully acknowledge that salvation belongeth to Jehovah God and is ministered through Christ Jesus, the King. (Revelation 7: 9, 10)
(Salvation (1939) p. 61)This terminology continued into the Knorr era and beyond:
“The members of this "great multitude" are the present-day companions of the remnant….Jesus Christ spoke of them as his "other sheep" who are not of the same fold as the remnant of the church or "body of Christ" because the remnant have a heavenly eternity ahead of them whereas the "other sheep" of the "great multitude" have an earthly eternity in human perfection ahead of them”
(The Watchtower November 1, 1947 p. 325)"Incidentally, this Washington convention proved to be outstanding for the new flash of truth as to the “great multitude” of Revelation 7:9, proving that its members are not a secondary spiritual class destined to go to heaven but that they are an earthly group identical with the “sheep” of Matthew 25:31-46, made known in 1923, and the “Jonadab” class revealed in 1932 with the release of Vindication, Volume 3."
(The Watchtower July 1 1955 p. 394)“It is further true that in the following year at the spring convention held in Washington, D.C., capital of America, the prophecy in Revelation 7:9-17 was explained and the “great multitude” (AV) therein described was declared to be made up of present-day “other sheep” with earthly hopes, this startling explanation being later published in The Watch Tower as of August 1 and 15, 1935.
(The Watchtower December 15, 1969 p. 755)
In 1970, the JW’s decided that the “great tribulation” was not in progress after all, and the “great crowd” had therefore not actually “come out” of it yet. JW’s with the earthly hope were now viewed as “prospective” members of the great crowd inasmuch as they had the prospect of surviving it.The adjusted understanding was summarized thus:
“Since the “great crowd” is to survive the “great tribulation,” it is obvious that they would be gathered from among people living in the time just prior to the end of this present system of things….This selection and gathering are taking place now, and will evidently be completed during the lifetime of one generation. Some of that generation will survive into the period of Christ’s thousand-year reign.—Luke 21:32.”
(Life Does Have A Purpose (1977) p.146)
“Especially beginning in 1935, when the identity of the “great multitude,” or “great crowd,” was clearly understood, large numbers of these began to manifest themselves. At first there were hundreds, then thousands, later hundreds of thousands, and now there are millions spread around the globe. God’s infallible Word depicts this group as ‘coming out of the great tribulation,’ being survivors of it, living right on into God’s New Order without ever having to die. (Revelation 7:9, 10, 14; John 11:26) The early members of this group are now in their 60’s or 70’s or older. Jehovah did not allow the ingathering of this group to begin too soon. The “great crowd,” including many of the earliest members thereof, will survive into the “new earth.
Survival Into a New Earth (1984) p. 185 (This is the quote I provided for you earlier)
“Hence, though Revelation 7:9 is describing this crowd after the tribulation, we may apply the term “great crowd” to all with earthly hopes who are rendering Jehovah sacred service now, just before the great tribulation breaks out with the nations’ attack on false religion.”
(The Watchtower April 15, 1995 p. 31)More time has passed. Simone Liebster, whose name might be familiar to you, turned 90 in 2020, which means she was only 5-years-old in 1935. --Much too young to know whether she was of the anointed or earthly class.
Given the fact that a 15-year-old in 1935 would be 103 today, It is clear that the post 1970 explanation with its dependence upon a chronological understanding of a generation is no longer viable from a mathematical standpoint and is in need of an update.
This brings me to the point I entered this thread. An adjustment to the great crowd teaching is not going to be easy to make, else it would have been made already. (So don't shoot from the hip here)
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Fisherman
TD,
What is your point about tge application of the ransom that you alluded to in your comment?
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TD
Fisherman,
What is your point about tge application of the ransom that you alluded to in your comment?
The first response out of people's mouths when quotes from 1935 to the present are laid end-to-end is to say, "Oh that's easy! The Jonadabs in 1935 were actually "other sheep"" (Or something to that effect.)
Problem is, the JW's have applied other teachings, including the Ransom itself in ways that exclude all but the anointed and great crowd
Three quick examples:
With consciences cleansed, anointed Christians render “sacred service to the living God.” And so do the great crowd. Having cleansed their consciences through “the blood of the Lamb,” they are in God’s great spiritual temple, “rendering him sacred service day and night.”—Revelation 7:14, 15.
(The Watchtower, February 1 1998 p. 21)"Having suffered to the point of death, Jesus was able to provide the sacrifice needed to help others acquire a righteous standing. To whom does this righteous standing come? First, to his anointed followers. Because they exercise faith in Jesus’ sacrifice, Jehovah declares them righteous with a view to adopting them as sons and making them joint heirs with Jesus. (Romans 5:19; 8:16, 17) Then, “a great crowd” of “other sheep” exercise faith in Jesus’ shed blood and enjoy a righteous standing with a view to being friends of God and survivors of Armageddon.—Revelation 7:9; 16:14, 16; John 10:16; James 2:23, 25.
(Isaiah's Prophecy Vol. II (2001) p. 211)In his letter to the Colossians, Paul explains that God saw good through Christ to reconcile to Himself all other things by making peace through the blood Jesus shed on the torture stake. Paul also explains that this reconciliation involves two distinct groups of individuals, namely, “the things in the heavens” and “the things upon the earth.”...The things upon the earth” are those individuals in line to enjoy perfect life in Paradise on earth. Revelation 7:9-17 describes them as “a great crowd” who will survive the coming “great tribulation.”"
(Draw Close To Jehovah (2002) p. 146)JW literature therefore continues to teach that the two groups are virtually synonymous.
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waton
TD great summary, so,
what prevents future members of the great crowd, slated to be in the courtyard of the temple, from also being in overlapping groups, if the the anointed remnant, future king priests destined for the most holy , are said to be in that questionable configuration now? wt could say:
The anointed (peter paul and mary) are assembling in heaven since 1918, prospective "0ther Sheep" potentially since 1935. --- no 1914 there!.