There was no change in understanding related to Jehovah's Witnesses being His prophets to this generation by 1952. What did this generation mean, according to the prophets?
w52 9/1 pp. 542-543 Questions from ReadersQuestions from Readers
• Your publications point out that the battle of Armageddon will come in this generation, and that this generation began A.D. 1914. Scripturally, how long is a generation?--G. P., Liberia.Webster's unabridged dictionary gives, in part, this definition of generation: "The average lifetime of man, or the ordinary period of time at which one rank follows another, or father is succeeded by child; an age. A generation is usually taken to be about 33 years." But the Bible is not so specific. It gives no number of years for a generation. And in Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30 and Luke 21:32, the texts mentioning the generation the question refers to, we are not to take generation as meaning the average time for one generation to be succeeded by the next, as Webster's does in its 33-year approximation; but rather more like Webster's first-quoted definition, "the average lifetime of man." Three or even four generations may be living at the same time, their lives overlapping. (Ps. 78:4; 145:4) Before the Noachian flood the life span was hundreds of years. Down through the centuries since, it has varied, and even now is different in different countries. The Bible does speak of a man's days as being threescore and ten or fourscore years; but it assigns no specific number of years to a generation.--Ps. 90:10.
Even if it did, we could not calculate from such a figure the date of Armageddon, for the texts here under discussion do not say God's battle comes right at the end of this generation, but before its end. To try to say how many years before its end would be speculative. The texts merely set a limit that is sufficiently definite for all present practical purposes. Some persons living A.D. 1914 when the series of foretold events began will also be living when the series ends with Armageddon. All the events will come within the span of a generation. There are hundreds of millions of persons living now that were living in 1914, and many millions of these persons could yet live a score or more years. Just when the lives of the majority of them will be cut short by Armageddon we cannot say.
So, what do the prophets say, Scholar? Why did this definition of generation, held to be correct until 1984 at least, change without warning or explanation in 1995?
Was this Truth or a lie? Oddly, they state that the definition of generation would be "the average lifetime of man." But they also state, "But the Bible is not so specific. It gives no number of years for a generation."
What do they think Psalm 90:10 was talking about? A number of years for a generation. 70 or 80 years, to be exact. If someone was BORN in 1914, they are over 90 now. That generation is dead.
But the texts are clear, as the prophets stated until 1984, "the texts here under discussion do not say God's battle comes right at the end of this generation, but before its end. To try to say how many years before its end would be speculative. The texts merely set a limit that is sufficiently definite for all present practical purposes. Some persons living A.D. 1914 when the series of foretold events began will also be living when the series ends with Armageddon. All the events will come within the span of a generation." Only a tiny fragment remains.
"Just when the lives of the majority of them will be cut short by Armageddon we cannot say." I can say, authoritatively, as of September 1, 2005 the majority of those who saw 1914 that were still alive in 1952
Did the prophecy prove false, or was it the prophets?
