by ithinkisee 7 Replies latest watchtower bible
The world powers in Daniel
There was a thread somewhere about how the Society "picked and chose" the empires they wanted to include to make the prophecy about the statue in Daniel make sense.
The thread I am thinking of (or maybe it was a link to another website) gave a list of all kinds of other empires that were around before, after, and in-between the other world powers.
Does anyone recall this or am I on crack?
-ithinkisee
I'm sure others have better answered but here is my comment a while back and a link: Re: The statue in Daniel
I think I remember the post you mean, although I can't find it. It listed some of the Empires between the Roman and the British which are simply ignored. I've pasted this from Wikipedia which summarizes some of these 'world powers'.
Although the term superpower is a recent one, the word has been retrospectively applied to previous military powers. The oldest superpower on the planet, and one which maintained this at various points in history, were the civilizations in Mesopotamia, with their unrivalled wealth, antiquity and cultural domination of Asia and beyond. The Roman Empire covered most of Europe, North Africa & Asia Minor. Imperial China once had the world's largest navy, a record not broken until early 19th century. The Mongol Empire spanned from southeast Asia to Eastern Europe. In 16th and 17th centuries the Ottoman Empire stretched from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Persian Gulf and challenged the nations of Europe in its advances along its southeastern border. During its Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of Italy, Germany, Portugal, The Netherlands and many colonies in America, Africa, and Asia. After gaining independence from Spain the Dutch Empire were able to establish territories all over the globe. At various times during its history France had the largest military in the world, with colonies in western Africa, North and South America and southeast Asia. At its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British Empire covered a quarter of the Earth's land area and comprised a third of its population. It was said "The sun never sets on the British Empire." Not as clearly in this category are nations that gained unquestioned hegemony over a large neighborhood at a time before global travel was a reality. Nations such as ancient Egypt, the Aztec Empire, the Persian Empire, and the short lived Greek/Macedonian empire under Alexander the Great could in one sense be considered early superpowers, at least for a time when an understanding of what is meant by "the world" was much smaller than it is today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpower#Superpowers_in_history
As I recall, the Society gets around this by saying that the 7 world powers were the ones that "had a direct impact on large numbers of Jehovah's worshippers" or some such language. So sure, there was a Mongolian world power, but how many "Jehovah's Witnesses" were affected by it?
Of course, how well does this teaching line up with the idea that "Jehovah has always had an organization on the earth, there have always been Jehovah's Witnesses"? I've never seen an attempt to reconcile that.
The society states that there has always been true worshippers on the earth. Perhaps very few at any given time, but always someone. Although they always stop short of stating who they were. You can get an idea by reviewing old WT/AW and seeing what older (meaning dark ages and pre-1870s) religious organizations they highlight.
The world powers mentioned by the society are those that affected Jehovah's people, whether Jewish or Christain, depending upon the time period.
Listener, better check this link (the same I offered in above post) and find that even the governments and empires that controlled Palestine need to be ignored to squeeze the words in Daniel into a AdventistJW mold.....HISTORY- Foreign Domination
Thanks PeacefulPete. I went back and read the link. I liked it.
My only concern would be when discussing this with a dubbie (yea, like that's gonna happen). They would say that the Byzantine empire is covered by the Roman Empire and that the Arabs, Mamluks and Crusaders weren't really world powers. They were just regional powers.
Perhaps there is a place to find some historical concensus on what the major world powers were throughout history. That would be useful if the subject ever came up. To show several quotes from real historians that list the world powers and see if any of them affected God's people but are not in the dubbie list.
bttt
