I've brought this up in my comments over the
years starting in 2003. The WTS changed this around
1987 and updated in1989, changing the 7,000 year creative day to thousands of year creative
day, but never had a study article to explain. This meant almost 100 years of wrong
understanding, and eliminating one of the foundations of the 1975 doctrine.
There was no explanation, just a change in terms.
The reason I became aware of this is due to some jws not wanting
to part with their old book study copy of the book (CE-Creation book) then
being studied again. One older brother was such a person. The
conductor was a new jw in 1995. Missed the hidden change in 1987. Most
of his group were pre-1987 and more importantly, pre-1975.
(Also the pre-1989
Reasoning book was updated as well to take out 7,000 year reference. See pages 88, 125, 126
and compare to a pre-1989 version; note that in the WOL version of the 9/87 KM
that the WTS links other pages to the updated Reasoning book but not the 1987
reference to page 88, seemingly trying not to appear to be changing the wording
in that book as it was in 1987)
During the 9 years (1966-1975) when the WTS
started emphasizing the 7,000 year creative day, the WTS used the concept of
the 7,000 creative day as a linchpin for supporting their chronology end in
1975 doctrine. Of course, when that did not happen, the WTS had to
backtrack and re-invent their history.
This quote was used in the revised CE, Creation book (2006
now on WOL), preparing jws:
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1101985013#h=6:0-10:430
Day” as used in the Bible can
include summer and winter, the passing of seasons. (Zechariah 14:8) “The day of harvest” involves many days. (Compare Proverbs 25:13 andGenesis 30:14.) A thousand years are likened to a day. (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8, 10) “Judgment Day” covers many years. (Matthew 10:15; 11:22-24) It would seem reasonable that the
“days” of Genesis could likewise have embraced long periods of
time—millenniums.
Last mention of 7,000 year creative day in a WTS publication
per WOL (WT Online Library) searching with the phrase “creative day” and then sorting
results with “in same sentence” and by most recent date, going down and
starting with 1987.
1/1/1987 (this is the only reference to 7,000 years that
survives on the WOL, all other publications that contained it have been
re-issued under a new date, such as the Insight books)
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1987007?q=creative+day&p=sen
Second, a study of the
fulfillment of Bible prophecy and of our location in the stream of time
strongly indicate that each of the creative days (Genesis,
chapter 1) is 7,000 years
long. It is understood that Christ’s
reign of a thousand years will bring to a close God’s 7,000-year ‘rest day,’ the last ‘day’ of the creative week. (Revelation
20:6; Genesis 2:2, 3) Based on this reasoning, the entire creative week would be
49,000 years long.
Starting in 1989 (after the revision of the Reasoning
book came out), the WTS starting using “thousands of years” or the equivalent in its publications regarding
the length of a creative day. Few older
jws noticed the change, and newer jws never knew it had been a change.
Here is the first mention of a creative day not
being used as 7,000 years long since
the WTS makes no mention of that length of time between the 1st and the
6th creative days, as being 42,000 years but “thousands of years.”
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1994529?q=creative+day+years&p=sen
Many thousands of years went by
between the first creative day and the sixth, when Adam was created.