Watchtower Change On Origins from 42,000 Years to the "Day Age" Theory

by Sea Breeze 38 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Disillusioned JW

  Though some WT publications have said something to the effect that "the Earth might be as old as scientists say" and/or that "the universe might be as old as scientists say', at least one WT publication specifically said some undisturbed rock formations on Earth are billions of years old and at least another WT publication said the sun is billions of years old. Note the following examples.
  

  Paragraph numbered 13 on page 10 of "Life Does Have a Purpose" (copyright 1977) says "Yet for billions of years, with apparently little or no change, the sun has steadily produced light and heat.' Paragraph number 7 on page 8 of the same book says "The heavenly bodies have revolved in their vast orbits at tremendous speeds, with astounding precision, for untold millions of years." [The italics are that of the book, not mine.]

  The book "Reasoning from the Scriptures" (copyright 1985, 1989) on page 88 under the main heading of "Creation" says:

  "Was all physical creation accomplished in just six days sometime within the past 6,000 to 10,000 years?

  The facts disagree with such a conclusion: (1) Light from the Andromeda nebula can be seen on a clear night in the northern hemisphere. It takes about 2,000,000 years for that light to reach the earth, indicating that the universe must be at least millions of years old. (2) End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years." Regarding the word "day" used in Genesis chapter 1, the next paragraph says 'The term used allows for the thought that each "day" could have been thousands of years in length.'

  The WT brochure called "Was Life Created?" (copyright 2010) while denying evolution, does teach progressive creationism on page 27. There it says:

  "The Bible's narrative allows for the possibility that some major events during each day, or creative period, occurred gradually rather than instantly, perhaps some of them even lasting into the following days.*

  ACCORDING to their kinds

  Does this progressive appearance of plants and animals imply that God used evolution to produce the vast diversity of living things? No."
  

  BluesBrother, that you quote you gave from the Watchtower 2015 1st June is fascinating. I am surprised that the WT said such. It seems that in the print edition the quote appears somewhere within pages 3 - 5. It can be read online at https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2015402 . Besides saying the words you quoted the article also says:

  "Scientists estimate that the earth is about 4 billion years old and that the universe was born some 13 to 14 billion years ago. The Bible sets no date for the creation of the universe. In no place does it affirm that the earth is only a few thousand years old. The very first verse in the Bible reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) That general statement allows scientists to determine the age of the physical world according to sound scientific principles." [Note: Instead of about 4 billion years, the scientific estimate is more accurately stated as about 4.5 billion years old for the age of the Earth.]
  

  Sea Breeze, though Genesis 1:14 in the NKJV says "... for signs and seasons, and for days and years" and thus expresses the wording you stated of 'so that there could be "seasons, days, and years', some other Bibles (though ones less literal) express the idea of signs marking the time frames. Note that the REB (copyright 1989) says "... serve as signs both for festivals and for seasons and years." The HCSB (copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003) says "serve as signs for festivals and for days and for years." The NIV (1984) says "... let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years" and the TNIV of 2005 says the same The NLLT (1996) says "... will be signs to mark off the seasons, the days, and the years." The NAB (copyright 1970 for the Genesis), a Catholic Bible not to be confused with the Protestant NASB, says "... Let them mark the fixed times, the days and the years".

  Whether the passage means 'for signs, season, days, and years' or whether it means 'for signs of seasons, days, and years' I don't know for sure, especially since since I can't read/translate ancient biblical Hebrew and ancient biblical Septuagint Koine Greek. It would be helpful to know what the specific wording is in the corresponding Babylonian and Assyrian creation accounts since the ancient Jews/Israelites were in captivity in Babylonia for a time and later many lived in Persia for a time, and it appears that the the Jews/Israelites adopted the cosmology of those ancient civilizations.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Sea Breeze, while I think you are probably correct in thinking that the Genesis chapter one account of creation has in mind a literal 6 solar days of creation (followed by a day of rest for Yahweh Elohim [Jehovah God]), I am convinced that such an interpretation is completely incompatible with modern scientific evidence. I invite you to read and study the following two books since they both point out the major problems with the ideas of young earth proponents of creationism (so called 'creation science' and 'scientific creationism'). The two books also point out the overwhelming modern scientific evidence for evolution (both biological and cosmological). The books are:

  - "Science and Creationism" (copyright 1984), Edited by Ashley Montagu

  - "Scientists Confront Creationism" (copyright 1983), Edited by Laurie R. Godfrey

  The books also document how the young Earth 'creation scientists' don't come to their creationist views from scientific knowledge, but rather they start from a position of biblical faith and heavily distort/twist (mislead and sometimes even lie about) some cherry picked scientific evidence (often out of context) in an effort to support young Earth biblical creationism.

  Please see also the book called "Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" (copyright 2008) by Kenneth R. Miller (who is both a devout Catholic, a cell biologist and molecular biologist, and a biology professor who is convinced of evolution and who has written scientific papers). That author believes in the existence of the Christian God (at least a Catholic concept of it) and is a view I don't share, but the scientific evidence he provides for evolution and against intelligent design are excellent. Also please see the book called "Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design" (copyright 2006) by Michael Shermer. That author is a former born-again evangelical Christian and a former creationist who had accepted "... that the biblical story of creation was to be taken literally", but who know accepts evolution and who no longer believes the biblical god exists and he is a skeptic. He is also a former professor. He says as a result of studying evolution in graduate school that he discovered "... the preponderance of evidence from numerous converging lines of scientific inquiry--geology, paleontology, zoology, botany, comparative anatomy, molecular biology, population genetics, biogeography, embryology, and others--all independently converge to the same conclusion: Evolution happened." In the prologue of his book he says his book "is about how we know evolution happened, in the context of the challenges to evolution mounted by twenty-first century creationists and Intelligent Design theorists."
  
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  Sea Breeze

  Disillusioned,

  Many thanks for the research you did! It is VERY helpful to me.

  Every year in school we were taught "millions of years". When I went it university, my biology class taught this even more. All of the messages we get from the media prop up these ideas. Every book that we have ever read on the subject throughout our education presents this long age evolution paradigm as unassailable.
  
  When I was a youth and failed to progress to responsible positions in the organization, everyone continued to tell me that I had not studied enough. They would have me study with this brother and then that brother.
  
  The consensus was that I had some kind of "mental block" because I "just wasn't getting it". I was viewed by my father as mentally deficient. I built a multi-million dollar corporation at only 26 years of age which quickly grew to nearly 100 employees with offices in 5 states. I employed two elders and one of their wives at the home office. Instead of having to study with the elders, they worked for me now and did what I said. When I spoke, they jumped. Felt kinda nice for a change.
  
  Looking back, I know I did this to just prove to my parents that their common view "that he just doesn't get it" was a very wrong assessment of why I wasn't progressing as a teenager into a responsible JW member. Oh and BTW, I accomplished the above with an 8th grade education, GED and one semester of community college.
  

  
  I finally went to a decent university after building a multi-million dollar company and got bored with it at age 31. My parents told me that I and the business scared them.... they were not impressed. The ONLY thing that mattered to them was that I unquestionably accept the supposedly unassailable paradigm that WT presented.
  
  It makes no difference to me what people believe. I am for truth and against error wherever I find it. I'm not sure that we need to read more books on evolution and a millions of years paradigm to "get it" since that is the only point of view that most of us have ever been substantially exposed to.
  
  The internet has toppled many an ideology. It is a game-changer. Anyway, thanks again for your research. Great stuff. It is clear that the WT has prepared members for a secular worldview when they inevitably leave the WT. Training complete!

  For anyone willing to venture off the plantation, I recommend the following book as top on my list:
  
  
  
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  Vidiot

  Let’s be honest folks...

  ...the only reason the WTS doesn’t still teach that the “Creative Days” were a fixed 7,000 years each is because at this point, it’s so demonstrably wrong that they’d look like idiots.

  😏
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  Disillusioned JW

  Hi Sea Breeze. I think what you say is interesting. The WT definitely has some teachings which agree with atheism (such as no Trinity, no inherently immortal human soul, the human mind is a product of the human brain and thus when its brain dies its mind ceases, no hell in the sense of eternal torment after the human body dies, ghosts are not spirits of the dead and thus ghosts in the sense of spirits of the dead are not real, Rutherford's teaching that "religion is a snare and a racket", the universe is billions of years old, and organized non-JW religion has done much harm to humanity). As a result in some ways being raised as a JW prepared me for secularism and atheism.

  But I think had I been raised in a mainstream (theologically liberal) Christian church I would have been an atheist decades sooner. I also think that if I had been raised in a neutral manner in regards to religion (instead of as a third generation JW) I would have been an atheist decades sooner. That is because since my preteen years I have loved science, independent thinking, and critical thinking (and I have a natural tendency towards free thinking), and at least by age 12 I began to have skepticism/doubts about supernaturalism - it was hard for me to believe supernaturalism was real since my entire life was (and still is) completely devoid of supernatural experiences. But, the constant indoctrination by the WT literature (including it attacks on evolution, in numerous Awake! articles from 1979 - 1981) greatly dissuaded me from reading evolutionist literature prior to my baptism and it caused me to avoid taking college introductory courses in anthropology (especially physical anthropology), geology (especially historical geology), and biology. It deeply emotionally pains me that I let the WT convince to not take such courses (including philosophy of religion, including an analysis of philosophical arguments for and against the existence of a personal God and of any other type of god and regarding miracles) at university/college.

  Furthermore, both my high school physics teacher and my high school chemistry teacher made a joint statement to one of my classes saying they examined evolution and concluded it is false. If they hadn't said evolution was false I probably would have investigated it much more than I had prior to baptism and as a result I would have avoided becoming a baptized JW. In my high school biology class (which was only a one quarter course) my biology teacher told me I could not take the biology textbook home to study (saying there are not enough copies of the book for the classes if students take them home), as a result I retained little information of what I had read (in the classroom) from that book about evolution. When I was in grade school and high school there was very little mention of millions of years and of evolution in school - the only references to such I am aware of are from the high school textbook on world history (which said a little about evolution) and from the high school biology textbook (a few years ago I purchased a copy of each of those books, of the same editions I read in school). I wish that in school I had been I been exposed to the teachings of evolutionism (cosmological, chemical, and biological) as much as you had. I wish that prior to my baptism date that I had gone to the libraries and looked for and read books promoting evolution (similar to the ones I recommended to you), atheism, and critiques of the Bible and Christianity (such as done by parts I and II of Thomas Paine's book "The Age Of Reason"). From my current perspective my life would have been so much better had I done so.
  

  I think it was a part of my inborn nature to become an atheist and nonreligious, that in a sense due to my biology (made by nature, not by a god) I was born to become an atheist (due to the way I think and due to my natural love of reason and of science). It greatly saddens me that the WT's influence on my mind blocked me for so long from becoming what I was meant to become - an atheistic philosophical/scientific naturalist. I feel that becoming a JW and remaining a believing one for 20 to 26 years, instead of becoming an atheist by the time I graduated from university, ruined much of my life. I think that my having absorbed JW teachings since very early childhood severely impaired my critical thinking skills (much of the WT literature uses subtly craftily faulty logic) for decades, and as a result made me much less successful in life (outside of the responsibilities I received in the JW congregations) than would otherwise had been the case. After I finally became an atheist, I sometimes think of myself as having become, metaphorically speaking, 'born again' as an atheist.
  

  Though I have not read the book by Sarfati which you refer to, after I stopped attending JW meetings and before I became an atheist I purchased and read some Christian apologetic books, including McDowell's book called "The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict" and his book called "More Than a Carpenter" (in the edition which is bound with the book called "The Life of Jesus"), and Lee Strobel's book called "The Case for Christ". Years after I became an atheist and an evolutionist I purchased the book called "Scientific Creationism (General Edition), Updated and Enlarged" (Edited by Henry M. Morris) in order to challenge my conviction of evolution, as part of my effort to reevaluate my beliefs/ideas from time to time (and to remain open minded to evidence and reasoning that is new to me) to see where my current ideas might need modification. I still own the "Scientific Creationism" book.
  
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  Sea Breeze

  Give Sarfati a spin. His PhD is in Chemistry and he was the New Zealand Chess national champion and tied the world Champion Spassky. He has also played up to 12 games of chess simultaneously - BLINDFOLDED, and won.
  

  In reality though, thousands of scientists are skeptical of the evolution claim that mutations and natural selections can account for the complexity of life. The recent numbers based on known mutation rates alone, prove this is impossible.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQgOjHsMEeE&t=53s&ab_channel=DiscoveryScience
  
  
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  Jeffro

  They have never expressly changed the view that the ‘creative days’ are 7000 years each. They just don’t mention a specific period anymore. When they do refer to the total length of the ‘creative days’, they say they could have been “many thousands” of years, but never millions or billions. (However, they say that the creation of the universe ‘in the beginning’ up until the initial formation of earth before the ‘creative days’ was "evidently" billions of years, with unconvincing apologetics regarding the contradiction this creates with Genesis 1:16.) Their view remains a form of day-age creationism.

  It seems that 1987 was the last time they explicitly said the 'creative days' were each 7000 years. The Watchtower, 1 January 1987, p. 30:
  

  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.
  
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  Hotpepper

  I showed my JW dad the old "one day =7000 years =49000 years. He got so mad and got out the insight book. . With the new light. So I asked him what they taught me at the hall was bullcrap. Now you have to go and knock on 1000 doors and tell them you PREACHED , Something wrong . And ask each Householder for FORGIVENESS....
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  Sea Breeze

  Jeffro, The quotes provided by others above appear to prove otherwise:
  
  Paragraph number 13 on page 10 of "Life Does Have a Purpose" (copyright 1977) says "Yet for billions of years, with apparently little or no change, the sun has steadily produced light and heat.'

  Paragraph number 7 on page 8 of the same book says "The heavenly bodies have revolved in their vast orbits at tremendous speeds, with astounding precision, for untold millions of years."
  
  How can the sun be billions of years old and the earth less than that since Genesis says the earth was created before the sun?

  "Reasoning from the Scriptures" (copyright 1985, 1989) on page 88 under the main heading of "Creation" says:

  "Was all physical creation accomplished in just six days sometime within the past 6,000 to 10,000 years?

  The facts disagree with such a conclusion:.... End products of radioactive decay in rocks in the earth testify that some rock formations have been undisturbed for billions of years."
  
  The above statements demonstrate that the WT has been teaching billions and millions of years for decades.
  
  Notice the assumptions in the WT statement "undisturbed". There are three basic assumptions that radiometric clocks use. The assumptions are of course untestable. As a result:

  Many lava flows that have occurred in the present have been tested soon after they erupted, and they invariably contained much more argon-40 than expected.2 For example, when a sample of the lava in the Mount St. Helens crater (that had been observed to form and cool in 1986) was analyzed in 1996, it contained so much argon-40 that it had a calculated “age” of 350,000 years!3 Similarly, lava flows on the sides of Mt. Ngauruhoe, New Zealand, known to be less than 50 years old, yielded “ages” of up to 3.5 million years.4 So it is logical to conclude that if recent lava flows of known age yield incorrect old potassium-argon ages due to the extra argon-40 that they inherited from the erupting volcanoes, then ancient lava flows of unknown ages could likewise have inherited extra argon-40 and yield excessively old ages.

  Article
  

  Bottom line is the Wt. doesn't believe the bible. They believe that certain sources should interpret the bible for you. The sources that should interpret the bible for you include previous Wt. (but now deceased) teachers, could be the views of some scientists, could be the current governing body. could be the measurements of the great pyramid to come up with when Christ returned invisibly etc.

  
  

  
  
  
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  Jeffro

  Sea Breeze:

  Jeffro, The quotes provided by others above appear to prove otherwise:

  Incorrect. If you pay attention to what I said: “they say that the creation of the universe ‘in the beginning’ up until the initial formation of earth before the ‘creative days’ was "evidently" billions of years, with unconvincing apologetics regarding the contradiction this creates with Genesis 1:16.”

  Formation of the universe as well as the referenced geological formations come before what they call the ‘creative days’. They only refer to the ‘creative days’ in terms of thousands of years.