Did Watchtower Really Teach That Armageddon Was Coming in 1954?

by Jerome56 20 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  vienne

  I called my grand uncle - I often refer to him as Uncle B - and asked about this. He would know, he was newly active in 1952. The short answer is, "No, the Watchtower did not teach this." However, private speculation circulated fairly widely. He recalled a couple who had been Witnesses since the early 1930s or late 1920s telling a young mother that her three year old wouldn't start kindergarten because Armageddon would occur in 1954. Apparently people reasoned that the 40 year periods in Moses life were prophetic, and since 1954 was 40 years anti-1914, judgment was at hand. To his personal knowledge some were 'counseled' over the speculation.

  What an odd bit of history.
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  Balaamsass2

  Before Mom died she recounted over a half dozen Armageddon dates many JWs speculated about in the 30s and before.. She said many thought WW2 was the beginning of the great tribulation.
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  blondie

  https://www.jwfacts.com/pdf/the-kingdom-that-never-came-joseph-wilting.pdf A document that talks about 1954.

  Or check this quote: This time can be called “Jehovah‟s day” because it is the day when he fights for his name. Already forty years of this generation that is doomed to feel the wrath of Jehovah‟s day have passed. Only a few years remain. In the most urgent sense, then, “the day of Jehovah is near upon all the nations.” (The Watchtower October 15, 1954, p. 615).
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  St George of England

  Like so many of my age, born in the 1940's I would never go to school in this old system. Well I did and by 1954 was well established in school and the rest is history as they say. I have never heard about 1954 as anything special.

  George
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  Jerome56

  Listener,

  Thanks so much for this research. I didn't remember that Ray Franz had something to say about this time period in their history.
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  Nathan Natas

  For an organization that condemns divination as "unscriptural" the Watchtower certainly maintains an armamentarium of special dates and special numbers. They may not have promoted 1954 with the vigor they lent to 1975, but they always put their special dates and special numbers on the play-room floor so "the kids" could experiment with combinations and permutations; then The Watchtower would deny responsibility for the wild conclusions the rank and file would come up with.
  
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  TTWSYF

  True or not, so many falsehoods in WTS prophesy history, what’s another one?

  ttwsyf
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  DesirousOfChange

  1941 was the release of the book "Children" at the convention in St Louis. The book has the scripted conversation which explains that youth of that day would never be able to marry or have children in the limited time remaining in this system of things. (However I know of no specific mention of 1954.)
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  SadElder

  "David Splane" me the overlapping generations, sees himself as the dub's seer of our time I think. Maybe he himself thinks that's what was believed in 1954 and he's covering it over.
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  finishedmystery

  I was only 4 years old in 1954, so I have no real time memory of it, but I remember my parents telling me about it a few years later. My parents were Gilead grads and missionaries before I was born. My Dad was a congregation servant back then so they were clearly in the know. They told me that it was a group of individuals not associated with the upper level hierarchy who promoted the teaching. I remember my Dad speaking of it rather sneeringly as he thought it was stupid, and that these people should not have gotten involved in it. Apparently a few in our local congregation had promoted it, but only a few. Today they would probably have gone up on charges of apostasy, but in 1954 they weren't as tight about these things as they are now. But my parents, to the best of my memory, were saying that this was a bottom up theory and was not a top down theory within the org, and apparently never had a widespread following. That's all I know about it. This was in one of the mountain states for us. Don't know how widespread it was through the country either. It had something to do with adding 40 years to 1914, like maybe coming out of 40 years in the wilderness, but I do remember my father thinking it was goofy theology.