Any discussion of 1914 is silly. If there was a justification for this date in the past, it is hard to extract meaning given that we are many generations beyond the date. Let's move on.
PUT YOUR THINKING CAPS ON...AGAIN! (Zeb's thread regarding 1914)
by redpilltwice 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
redpilltwice
NewYork44M > Any discussion of 1914 is silly.
A discussion about the concequences of using the Gregorian calender compared to the Jewish calender isn't. It goes beyond 1914, it involves the dating of ALL historical events from a biblical perspective. That perspective is needed to achieve accuracy.......(Jerusalem destroyed in 587 bce leading to TTATT?...anyone???)
-
Village Idiot
Back in the late 1800s, the doctrine - absurdly false as it was - had more consistency than its replacement doctrine after 1914. I'm referring to the version before today's were you had 1914 + a generation. Here's the reason:
- The end times were from 1799-1914.
- Armageddon was from 1874-1914.
- The Millennium was to start at 1914.
The inconsistency comes when they dropped the Millennium from 1914. If you recall the doctrine of Type/Anti-Type, Nebuchadnezzar was prophesied to go insane for 7 'times' then regain his sanity AFTER the 7 times were over. Back then, in the 19th century, that had some consistency since JW doctrine held that the nations would survive (somewhat) right into the (1914+) Millennium and be blessed by it.
But then they changed the doctrine separating 1914 from the Millennium and, more importantly, claimed that man-made disasters started intensifying since then.
So how would 'typical' Nebuchadnezzar, who regained his sanity after his 7 times, be compared to the 'anti-typical' nations (Which he prophetically represented.) who actually got worse after their 7 times?
-
Finkelstein
Really TTATT is that the ancients propagated the suggestion that a god like savior would come to earth and save mankind of its perils, those expressive suggestions came from other diverse ancient civilizations as well.
The Jesus Christi savior was one of these fictitious teachings, for example this savior named Jesus Christ by written scripture said he would return within the generation of that time, as far as history has shown that didn't happen.
One of the obvious mistakes religionists make is not understanding or accepting that ancient mythology is fictional and the bible is full of it from beginning to end.
When men get themselves absorbed in power, control and money they tend not to divert away from what they have personally achieved.
-
redpilltwice
Finkelstein > Really TTATT is that the ancients propagated the suggestion that a god like savior would come to earth and save mankind of its perils, those expressive suggestions came from other diverse ancient civilizations as well.
I appreciate your input finkelstein, and you're right about that, but if TTATT includes proof that WT used Gregorian instead of Jewish calender and therefore came to the wrong conclusion of 1914 (it should've been 1886 according to the OP), then I have the right to ask the same thing about the use of the Jewish calender regarding the calculations for the 70 years of desolation. That's all, no means to stir up any theological debate.
One of the obvious mistakes religionists make is not understanding or accepting that ancient mythology is fictional and the bible is full of it from beginning to end.
I get your point, but it's not about whether we consider the bible as myth, but about how we come to historical conclusions by use of calculations. We're not talking about talking snakes here and I can't help it that these numbers are from the Bible. I assume you don't consider the destruction of Jerusalem and the use of Jewish calenders to be myths, do you?
-
Finkelstein
I assume you don't consider the destruction of Jerusalem and the use of Jewish calendars to be myths, do you?
Of course not, the first Jerusalem destruction did in fact occur in 586 BCE, so by this acquired information we can assume that the desolation was only for 47 years.
The other pertaining fact is that the Israelites were indeed released from Babylon in 539 BCE.
I haven't come across any article by the WTS with information relating to the lunar cycle year of the Hebrews to are modern Gregorian solar year calendar.
Anybody ???
-
George One Time
A Jewish year had 12 months of 30 days, however sometimes an 13th month (Ve-adar) was added to make up for the difference with the solar year. So in the end it was almost the same year as we have now.
-
Phizzy
Of course, there is simply no justification for claiming that the writer of Daniel had anything more in mind than he explained in Chapter 4, i.e his "prophecy" that 7 years were to be the length of the Kings madness. Fulfilled by the end of the Chapter.
To extrapolate from this 2520 years is Millerite nonsense.
It seems to me that none of the Bible prophecies are meant to be taken as literal, 40 years and seventy years etc are devices beloved by the writers more for symmetry and reader familiarity than actually fitting historically, even though these "prophecies" were mostly written after the events portrayed, so the writers could have made them fit.
Bible writers were not concerned with accurate history, but with constructing a narrative.
For us to concern ourselves with trying to make these stories fit with our 21st century ideas is pointless, and ignores the genre, in my opinion you lose the beauty of much of Scripture with such a forensic approach.
-
doubtfull1799
None of it makes any sense because the numbers are arbitrary, not absolute.
It's like with the Pyramid measurements that Russell used. So you can make the number of inches mean something if you want to, but why use inches, why are they significant? Why are they any more prophetic than centimetres or handspans?
So its the same with trying to correlate Jewish years with prophetic years and then trying to overlay that on a Gregorian calendar. It's meaningless and arbitrary. Nothing reliable can come from it. It's all just superstition & numerology.