Pivitol Date Stuff

by IP_SEC 67 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Honesty

  **** Thy Kingdom Come (copyright 1891) (1910 edition - Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 3) p. 342 ****

  So, then, if we measure backward down the "First Ascending Passage" to its junction with the "Entrance Passage," we shall have a fixed date to mark upon the downward passage. This measure is 1542 inches, and indicates the year B.C. 1542, as the date at that point. Then measuring down the "Entrance Passage" from that point, to find the distance to the entrance of the "Pit," representing the great trouble and destruction with which this age is to close, when evil will be overthrown from power, we find it to be 3457 inches, symbolizing 3457 years from the above date, B.C. 1542. This calculation shows A.D. 1915 as marking the beginning of the period of trouble; for 1542 years B.C. plus 1915 years A.D. equals 3457 years.Thus the Pyramid witnesses that the close of 1914 will be the beginning of the time of trouble such as was not since there was a nation -- no, nor ever shall be afterward. And thus it will be noted that this "Witness" fully corroborates the Bible testimony on this subject.

  I say, let's go to the original "Faithful and Discreet" slave and "Prophet" himself to find how the pivotal year of 1914 A.D. came to be calculated. The reader is then able to draw his own conclusion as to the validity of the WTBTS and its "end time prophecy."

  It only seems appropriate then, that the WTBTS's Queens, N.Y. Assembly Hall and the grave of Charles Taze Russell in Pennsylvania are adorned with images and monuments to the WT God.
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  TD

  I would have assumed you knew that the uncertainty here is solely due to the ambiguity of what the Bible reports, not due to "speculations of higher critics".

  Exactly. The same element of ambiguity applies to JW chronology as well. In the JW schema the date would either be 607 or 606 BCE depending upon whether one counts from Nebuchadnezzar's 18th (587/586 BCE) or 19th regnal year. (586/585 BCE) JW's opt for the former choice.
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  AlmostAtheist

  And the Society misquoting their boy Flava Jo. He says the destruction occured 50 years before the desolation? I got to check this stuff out for myself.

  Witnesses always tell new studies, "Go to the library and check out these references for yourself," but nobody ever does. Once I did start looking them up, I was genuinely shocked to see the frequent out-of-context quotations that the Watchtower uses, totally changing the meaning of the original author. This is even true when they quote their own older literature. (It makes it appear that they've always taught the same thing, e.g., "Even back in 1878, it was recognized that [something was true], as stated in the October 1st Watchtower...")

  That sort of dishonesty made me change my view of them from "wrong, but sincere" to "wrong, and willing to lie to prove it". Two very different things.

  Dave
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  AlanF

  Good observation, TD. What moronic JW apologists like unscholar ignore -- even though they're reminded of it constantly -- is that just declaring that there's no ambiguity doesn't solve the problem. It merely shuts the mouths of blind followers. These bozos ignore the fact that the Bible's statements about the length of Jewish kings' reigns are sometimes inconsistent, and so you need a great deal of interpretation to get close to a coherent chronology of these kings. Fine scholars such as Edwin Thiele have gone to great lengths to resolve ambiguities, consistently without complete success. C. T. Russell, J. F. Rutherford and Freddie Franz dealt with these problems by ignoring them.

  Another thing about JW "Bible chronology" is the history of the calculation of the 1914 date. Nelson Barbour calculated it by starting from his claim that Jerusalem was destroyed on 606 B.C., then moving forward 2520 years to 1914. He never realized that there was no zero year, and so he should have arrived at 1915. Russell was equally ignorant. In 1913, Morton Edgar published the 2nd volume of Great Pyramid Passsages, in which he listed 607 B.C. as the date of Jerusalem's destruction. In 1914 or so, P. S. L. Johnson pointed out the problem of the zero year to Russell, but he ignored it. In 1917 the Watchtower Society published The Finished Mystery, which also listed 607 B.C. as the date of Jerusalem's destruction. A Golden Age article in 1935 also pointed this out. All this time, the Society still published 606 B.C. in its main publications like The Watchtower and Rutherford's books and booklets. In 1943, not long after Rutherford's death, Fred Franz finally began the process of moving the events of 606 B.C. back to 607, in the book The Truth Shall Make You Free. His argument for doing so was unintelligible to normal people. But Freddie screwed up, only moving the beginning of the Gentile times back to 607. He never mentioned that he was "solving" the zero year problem, as that would have been an admission that Russell wasn't divinely directed after all. Unfortunately, he forgot to move the date of Jerusalem's destruction back by a year, so in the 2nd half of the book, you have the odd situation that the Gentile times was said to have begun some ten months before Jerusalem was destroyed in 606. This was fixed in the 1944 book The Kingdom Is At Hand, which listed the date 607 B.C. for Jerusalem's destruction. However, the book never discussed any reason for this, simply (and lyingly) claiming in a footnote that the change had been made in the previous year's book.

  The point here is that it's ridiculous to think that an organization whose leaders are so demonstrably incompetent, and even liars, can get a complicated thing like Bible chronology right. And they never have.

  AlanF
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  stillajwexelder

  I should have known that Scholar would make an appearance on a thread like this - my god Scholar and Brownnose do add so much life and humor to this board - what would we do without them?
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  IP_SEC

  Well I see now that there really is no discrepancy betwixt the 70 years and 587. That was what always bugged my about the whole 587 thing. I add this to the nonsense of a day for a year being applied for no reason and I see the whole chronology as nonsense. I?ll tell you what too: there are maybe 3 or 4 witnesses (I?m one of them) I know who can explain the society's teaching on how we get 1914. Ask any witness to 'splain it and they cant. Its because it isn?t logical, it makes no sense. Kind of like the question ?Who really is the FDS?? I guarantee you 6 out of 10 witnesses will say the GB. No class its all of the remnant on earth. *Next week* OK class ?who is the FDS?? No its all of the anointed left on earth, the GB are just its representatives. Well I guess lets study the Isaiah I and II books until you guys get it right. *Really? since when does a slave have representatives*
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  AlanF

  IP_SEC said:

  : since when does a slave have representatives?

  Excellent point!

  The answer: When it's not really a slave but a boss.

  AlanF
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  scholar

  IP-SEC

  I thought you were smart. If you have bothered to explore this issue further you should be alarmed that following the interpretations by apostates and atheists such as Alan F on the principal texts referring to the seventy years that there is much difference of opinion. Scholars and critics have their own views as to how those texts are to be interpreted and arrive at different conclusions. For example, they do not when when the seventy years began whether 605 or 609 and they do not know what the seventy years actually signifies. For example, does it refer to servitude only or to the exile, the first or second, or to the desolation of the land which has the popular view of fifty years. It seems that scholars because of these problems are beginning propose that the seventy yeras should be regarded only as a round number only as this would solve all of the problems and would easily fit into the traditional chronology. That is why that the seventy years has received scant attention in the literature beginning with Edwin Thiele who gives it no significance.

  WT chronology treats the seventy years as a valid time period as do earlier expositors and demonstrate this by the plain statements of scripture which say that there was a seventy years period of servitude, exile and desolation of the land. Jonsson and his devotees need to reconstruct this period as servitude to Babylon beginning in either 605 or 609 and having the land desolated for some fifty years. The Society;s position is simple consisting of a period of seventy years between the two most pivotal events in Biblical history namely the destruction of the temple in 607 and the return of the exiles home in 537. This is the only interpretation that works and sufficient for Christians to build their faith not in wordly wisdom but in godly wisdom.

  scholar

  BA MA Studies in Religion
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  M.J.

  Scholar,

  You still haven't answered the specific biblical problems with the WTS interpretation of the 70 years. You just criticized others for not dogmatically asserting a "final conclusion" on the matter to support an existing theological position. But that would hardly be scholarly, am I not right?
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  scholar

  M.J

  I simply explain that there are no biblical problems with the WT interpretation of the seventy years because it is directly based on Jeremiah, Chronicles, Daniel and Zechariah. These texts plainly state that the seventy years are of servitude, exile and desolation. Such events could only have been concurrent with an invasion of a foreign World Power namely Babylon under Neb and a succeeding Power under Cyrus with Jerusalem destroyed by Neb and things restored by Cyrus. Many give a number of interpretations which try to support secular chronology but fail miserably but a plain and direct reading of those texts sys otherwise.

  Gor example, there are two references to the seventy years in Zechariah which plainly refer to an elapsed period of seventy years but apostates want to interpret this period as being dulfilled right up to the present when the words were spoken. In other words that the period had not expire but was still being fulfilled. But the texts prove otherwise because that period was a fulfilled period of years which could only have been a historic event. The people remenered this chaotic event by annual fastings and needed cofort as to when the temple would finally be restored. The only period must have been when the people were in Babylon as exiles with no homeland and temple.

  scholar