Rattigan, the April 1, 1972 WT has an article called, They Shall Know A Prophet Was Among Them. The article defines THEM as a prophet. Know your history!
40 Years Ago Today: May 15th 1984 "1914 Generation" issue was released. False prophecy, thy name is WatchTower.
by WingCommander 49 Replies latest jw friends
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KalebOutWest
Ratigan350:
FYI, it is not a false prophesy because it was not a prophesy. IT was an interpretation of scripture. That's why people proclaiming the rapture is not a false prophesy as that also is an interpretation of scripture. That is a misinterpretation of scripture. 1914 is a valid interpretation of scripture. You all are just disappointed because it didn't result in what you wanted it to be.
The term "prophesy," as in a "prophet" from the Bible era does not refer to someone who can foretell the future. It refers to someone who speaks the words of God to the people of God or to people who God wants to speak to.
For instance, the prophet Jonah gives a prophecy that Ninevah will be destroyed due to their sins, but the people in Ninevah repent. Jonah's words do not come true. Jonah gets very angry because this is what he expected to happen in the first place. He doesn't want to talk to God after his prophetic warnings do not come to pass, even when God comes to him to converse about the situation.--Jonah chapter 4.
The entire Mosaic Law forbids "soothsayers" from existing among the people. (Deuteronomy 18:9-12) A "soothsayer" is anyone who can "foretell the future." The difference between foretelling the future, which is what a soothsayer does and uttering a prophecy, which is what a prophet does, is that the message of a prophet is not a foretelling of events or a forecast. It is often a message, a lesson, and sometimes, like in the case of Jonah and the people of Ninevah, a warning.
But warnings are just that, warnings. When parents warn you that something may happen, they are not telling you that it will happen. They are telling you it may happen. "If you keep walking too close to the edge, you may fall," or "if you play too close to the stove while I am cooking something, you might burn yourself." The choice in such warnings is yours.
This is why Jonah is not a false prophet. If you notice, God wanted Jonah to understand that the work of a prophet was not to bring judgment or foretell the future, but to offer a means of light, a way out, a road to repentance. God tried to teach that lesson to Jonah, explaining to him at the end of the book that he should be rejoicing that his message was heard, not that he is someone who is a foreteller of events.
It is in this light that the text in Deuteronomy 18:20-22 is written:
Any prophet who presumes to speak in My name an oracle that I did not command to be uttered, or who speaks in the name of other gods--that prophet shall die....If the prophet speaks in God's name and the oracle does not come true, that oracle was not spoken by God; the prophet has uttered it presumptiously: do not be in dread ot them.--RJPS 2023
A prophet is anyone who claims to speak for God. Oracles that foretell events or deal with forecasting the future on a timeline are what are specifically being warned about in the context of Deuteronomy chapter 18. Immediately before verse 20, the previous verses forewarn the people against the practice of foretelling the future via the dark arts, like soothsaying. The main type of "oracle" that is being spoken of here in verses 20-22 are those that claim to make forecasts of future events regarding dates in God's name. Here the Mosaic Law it is basically telling the Jews that no such prophet will ever rise that will have that ability whatsoever.
No one outside of the Watchtower religion thinks there is an invisible Jesus who has "returned to power" or whose "invisible parousia" has started around October 2nd, 1914. People don't believe that on their own. People outside the Watchtower religion don't come to those views spontaneously. They have to come into contact with Watchtower literature and people who have been taught by Watchtower leaders who teach these things.
So everything one learns about the Watchtower religion's expectations regarding 1914 is dependent not upon a personal expectation regarding 1914 but upon what is officially taught via official theology from official Jehovah's Witnesses theology.
The 1914 information disappoints because it fails. It doesn't fail because of what people believe about it.
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DisgruntledFool
"FYI, it is not a false prophesy because it was not a prophecy." - Rattigan350
Find a copy of WATCH TOWER PUBLICATIONS INDEX 1930-1960. Turn to page 202. There you will find the heading 1914. Go to subheading Kingdom's establishment and under that heading you will find the subsection : prophecies pointing to event. You may read to your hearts content the information cited by going to the website JW-Wayback(dot)org. Indeed the Governing Body DOES consider the year 1914 as being based on Bible prophecy and as I showed you in my previous post they feel that they are the "faithful and discreet slave" to whom Jehovah reveals prophecy as it is unfolding. Twist yourself into a mental pretzel and do linguistic gymnastics all you want to continue to defend the lies of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses. Just don't expect others to accept your viewpoint in the face of what the facts are.
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Duran
Find a copy of WATCH TOWER PUBLICATIONS INDEX 1930-1960. Turn to page 202. There you will find the heading 1914. Go to subheading Kingdom's establishment and under that heading you will find the subsection : prophecies pointing to event.
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Duran
The WT fulfills prophecy all right. Just not how we thought.
13 And the word of Jehovah continued to occur to me, saying: 2 “Son of man, prophesy concerning the prophets of Israel who are prophesying, and you must say to those prophesying out of their own heart, ‘Hear the word of Jehovah. 3 This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “Woe to the stupid prophets, who are walking after their own spirit, when there is nothing that they have seen! 6 “They have visioned what is untrue and a lying divination, those who are saying, ‘The utterance of Jehovah is,’ when Jehovah himself has not sent them, and they have waited to have a word come true. 7 Is it not an untrue vision that YOU men have visioned, and a lying divination that YOU have said, when saying, ‘The utterance of Jehovah is,’ when I myself have spoken nothing?”’
8 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said: “‘For the reason that YOU men have spoken untruth and YOU have visioned a lie, therefore here I am against YOU,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.” 9 And my hand has come to be against the prophets that are visioning untruth and that are divining a lie. In the intimate group of my people they will not continue on, and in the register of the house of Israel they will not be written, and to the soil of Israel they will not come; and YOU people will have to know that I am the Sovereign Lord Jehovah, 10 for the reason, yes, for the reason that they have led my people astray, saying, “There is peace!” when there is no peace, and there is one that is building a partition wall, but in vain there are those plastering it with whitewash.’
11 “Say to those plastering with whitewash that it will fall. A flooding downpour will certainly occur, and YOU, O hailstones, will fall, and a blast of windstorms itself will cause a splitting. 12 And, look! the wall must fall. Will it not be said to YOU men, ‘Where is the coating with which YOU did the plastering?’
13 “Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘I will also cause a blast of windstorms to burst forth in my rage, and in my anger there will occur a flooding downpour, and in rage there will be hailstones for an extermination. 14 And I will tear down the wall that YOU men have plastered with whitewash and bring it into contact with the earth, and its foundation must be exposed. And she will certainly fall, and YOU must come to an end in the midst of her; and YOU will have to know that I am Jehovah.’
15 “‘And I will bring my rage to its finish upon the wall and upon those plastering it with whitewash, and I shall say to YOU men: “The wall is no more, and those plastering it are no more, 16 the prophets of Israel that are prophesying to Jerusalem and that are visioning for her a vision of peace, when there is no peace,”’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.
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Rivergang
I don’t recall those 1984 articles causing a lot of excitement. Perhaps the group of JWs I was with had been through the fiasco of 1975, and had developed the attitude of “Oh, yeah - whatever!”
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Beth Sarim
DoC
😭 ROFL.
Good one.
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Ron.W.
Hilarious!👍
I was regular pioneering when that wt first came out. I remember it well.
My mother was first contacted by ones who came into the jw religion in the 1940's & 50's.
Yesterday she said 'I wish all the ones who first contacted me who are all long dead could be alive now, just to see how close to the end we are.'
I was so stunned by this absolute load of utter crap and twaddle I just said 'Thank you for sharing your thoughts mum.'...
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stephenlettclownface
@DisgruntledFool:
Thank you for that post about the Watchtower Society calling themselves "prophets" in print.
I am looking for similar articles in that vein if you can point to them. I know they were speaking of themselves as prophets as far back as Rutherford's day.
Not sure if Russel also spoke of himself as a prophet.
I am interested in articles on 2 subjects:
1. Articles dating as far back as possible in which they proclaimed that they were prophets or inspired or whatever other weasel words they used to make people believe that God was speaking through them.
2. All of the flip-flops over the decades on the subject of and the identity of "the faithful and discreet slave".
I'm sure I've seen these things posted in threads here in the past. If you or someone else here can point me to them I would be grateful.
Cheers