In the March 2025 JW Broadcast David Splane in his morning worship talk mentioned that "some thought" that Armageddon would come 40 years after 1914. Such statements are usually meant to shift the blame of their own false predictions on to their members for speculating. However, I was unable to find anything in print showing that such a thing was indeed taught by the society. Was this really a thing?
Did Watchtower Really Teach That Armageddon Was Coming in 1954?
by Jerome56 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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peacefulpete
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Diogenesister
I've never heard of that date, Jerome. But maybe some of our more senior or long time members may have heard of it?The only thing related to Watchtower and 1954 that I could find was the Douglas Walsh trial in Scotland, where Fred Franz was found to be unable to translate a Bible verse into Hebrew.
However I don't trust David Splane and I wouldn't put it past him to either arrogantly get the date wrong, but refuse to correct it, or use a false date to throw people off.
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HereIam60
Possiblty the "some" he was referring to were not the Witnesses themselves. No specific group was mentioned but a 4/1/1956 Watch Tower article 'Modern History of Jehovah's Witnesses Part 31. - Ending the Fourth, Beginning the Fifth Decade of Kingdom Operations' contained these statements:..."Jehovah's Witnesses knowing well the times and seasons of God's purposes approached and entered the Kingdom's fortieth year without joining in the dire predictions that some religionists were making about 1954 on the basis of their ideas of parallel time periods in historical events..." Also: "The exploding of two new models of hydrogen bombs in the Pacific Ocean by America in 1954 did not fill Jehovah's Witnesses with dread forebodings of the future. Undisturbed they went on to give a still greater witness to God's established kingdom by putting more preaching ministers in the field..." I did see Splane's talk but have already forgotten exactly what he said. Looking around I see that in 1954 a Chicago area housewife Dorothy Martin claimed to recieve messages from 'The Planet Clarion ' that the world would end that year which got some newspaper coverage , stirred up some commotion and was the subject of a 1956 book called 'When Prophecy Fails"
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Jerome56
I think that was the flying saucer cult wasn't it?
Here is what Splane said:
“In the late 40’s when the decision was made to expand world headquarters at 124 Columbia Heights a few of the brothers took a dim view. Why spend the time and the money so close to the end? Then in 1953 at the business meeting of the Watchtower society brother Knorr read a letter from a sister. Now just for context, this is 1953, and in those days as I well recall, some thought that Armageddon was going to come 40 years from 1914. We were doing a lot of counting back then. So this sister writes to brother Knorr and says why are we spending all this money on building projects when Armageddon could come in 1954? Well… if we had listened to her and others like her where would we be today? Still back at 124 Columbia Heights.”
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Listener
Ray Franz, in his book ‘Crisis of Conscience’ provides some information about this. At page 255 he says that in the 1940s the ‘view held’ was that the generation referred to a period of 30 to 40 years and publications referred to the generation time period as having begun in 1914. He says that this led to the insistence of the time left being extremely short.
Then at the start of the 1950s, the time period had elapsed and a new teaching was required. This occurred in the
Watchtower 1952 1st September and the QFR is quoted in full -
“● Your publications point out that the battle of Armageddon will come in this generation, and that this generation began A.D. 1914. Scripturally, how long is a generation?—G. P., Liberia.
Webster’s unabridged dictionary gives, in part, this definition of generation: “The average lifetime of man, or the ordinary period of time at which one rank follows another, or father is succeeded by child; an age. A generation is usually taken to be about 33 years.” But the Bible is not so specific. It gives no number of years for a generation. And in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32, the texts mentioning the generation the question refers to, we are not to take generation as meaning the average time for one generation to be succeeded by the next, as Webster’s does in its 33-year approximation; but rather more like Webster’s first-quoted definition, “the average lifetime of man.” Three or even four generations may be living at the same time, their lives overlapping. (Ps. 78:4; 145:4) Before the Noachian flood the life span was hundreds of years. Down through the centuries since, it has varied, and even now is different in different countries. The Bible does speak of a man’s days as being threescore and ten or fourscore years; but it assigns no specific number of years to a generation.—Ps. 90:10.
Even if it did, we could not calculate from such a figure the date of Armageddon, for the texts here under discussion do not say God’s battle comes right at the end of this generation, but before its end. To try to say how many years before its end would be speculative. The texts merely set a limit that is sufficiently definite for all present practical purposes. Some persons living A.D. 1914 when the series of foretold events began will also be living when the series ends with Armageddon. All the events will come within the span of a generation. There are hundreds of millions of persons living now that were living in 1914, and many millions of these persons could yet live a score or more years. Just when the lives of the majority of them will be cut short by Armageddon we cannot say.”
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Splane doesn’t say when the Sister wrote her letter, it could be possible that it was before this article or that she missed the New Light or was one of the few JWs who was still hanging onto the old teaching and making Splanes claim that there were only a few who believed 1954 would see the end at that time. It seems pretty much like the idea that some JWs were still holding into the idea that ‘this generation’ still meant within a persons lifetime, even though the GB had changed its meaning in the 1990s.
But it is interesting that the GB are once again making a mockery of their followers and blaming them for a teaching that they invented. Splane also chooses to use an example of a Sister who was then believing in something the Watchtower no longer taught but if she was up with their current teaching, at that time, it would prove to be just as absurd.
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Listener
Crisis of conscience page 255
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nowwhat?
I read somewhere once. The thought was WW2 was the great tribulation and after the war the UN, which would now be headed up by the pope, would declare peace and security, back in the 80''s a pillar in the the local area had talk that after he was released from prison after the war, he caught allot of grief for wanting to get married and start a family instead of pioneering because the end was "so close!'
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HereIam60
Thank you 'Listener' for the additional research and quotes. I think D. Splane is nuts. He seems to be the current go-to man for prophetic comment but he's made so many absurd statements. I was surprised that more wasn't made of the talk he gave where he questioned the intelligence of jury members and said something along the lines of 'In a court trial probably neither side wants the whole truth to come out". When the 'generation overlap' theory was presented in The Watchtower I thought I understood it but when Splanes video lecture on it with chart and pointer was played at the meeting it all fell apart, and now that whole teaching seems to have "evaporated" Reading the scriptures I always get the sense that Jesus' use of the word Generation just referred to whichever group of people he was talking to in his day. When it was the Pharisees and other opposers they were 'a wicked and faithless generation'. When it was faithful listeners they were a generation that would not pass away until they saw all his words fufillled. I don' t get the sense that he was designating any specific length of time. Also on another point. I know the "Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained" book of the 1950s presented the view that the present day Was the Great Tribulation, as "the great crowd" comes 'out of' the GT and they were being gathered for survival. This view cannot have been held for very long. When I came across it in the 1980s and asked elders about it, they were unaware of it.
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Rivergang
I have heard anecdotal evidence that this view was once commonly held.
For example, one family who began a "Free home bible study" with the JWs in 1953 were told "Why don't you 'come into The Truth' for the sake of six months".