The 1914 Doctrine and The Threat of the Egibi Business Tablets

by VM44 349 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Jeffro

  The facts of modern history most certainly confirm with the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 that this marked the end of the Gentile Times and the birth of God's Kingdom as foretold by our Lord. The events that soon followed marked the Lord's presence as set forth in His Olivet Discourse.

  It is unclear how a war beginning in June 1914 is proof of an event that was to suddenly occur without warning in October of that year. And as usual you provide absolutely no refutation or demonstration to back up your points.

  The original language at Like 21;24 certainly shows that the Gentile Times has already commenced and were in a present state with a future fulfillment.

  No, they simply do not. The Gentile Times had not begun at Jesus' time any more than the the other events in the same verse employing the word esomai, and it is simply ignorance to suggest otherwise.
• 

  Jeffro

  Yes, I am fully aware that both sides of the Babylonian Gap debate advocate that Judah was partially populated during the Exilic period but the point is that scholars are at least talking about this crucial subject so the debate is moving, moving perhaps to the scriptural statement that the land was totally devasted without an inhabitant.

  LOL... funny stuff. Scholarship indicating more strongly that the land was indeed partially populated means it is moving closer to saying that it was not??? Utterly rediculous.
• 

  atypical

  Yes, the answer is yes, the corporation will most definitely survive if they discard the 1914 doctrine. There will always be new idiots, the population is growing, there are plenty of people looking for an answer, and they will always have adherents, in my opinion. I think that's why people like us have been so expendable. there is always someone to fill our spot. The business model is successful and they will not throw it away.
• 

  scholar

  Jeffro

  Scholarship in respect of chronology is indeed in a state of flux as shown by Tetley's recent work and published journal articles on methodology which in total contribute to the further wobbling of 586/7 for the Fall of Jerusalem. It is my opinion that 607 will be fully vindicated.

  The verses 8-11 in the Jeremiah 25 are directed at Judah but also have reference to the other nations as a consequence of Babylon's subjugation of Judah but the entire focus of the his chapter from the opening verse through to the end of verse 11 is Judah as recognized by the leading commentaries.

  scholar JW
• 

  scholar

  Jeffro

  I find it it rather amusing too that scholarship is slowly recognizing that when the Scriptures state in no unclear terms that the land would be desolate that scholars say the opposite, that the land was only partially populated. But at least it is an improvement when prior scholarship ignored the matter entirely. However, it is similar to apostates who once believed the truth including 607 rather fervently and then after some time they reject such beliefs and return to the darkness. Apostates ar like scholars and higher critics, the blind leading the blind.

  It may be unclear to you concerning the outbreak of the Great War being synchronistic with events in Heaven but their other Scriptural examples of such synchronisms, Also, events on the earth after 1914 provide visible proof of the heavenly things such as the Last Days, Birth of the Organization and the Global preaching campaign.

  Regarding Luke 21:24 you should parse the verbal form as shown in the KIT 'will be' ' being trampled' which shows both future, present and an action beginning in past time. If something is 'being trampled the that actions must have had a prior commencement so a past verbal aspect.

  So, do the parsing before you say like a little girl: No! No! No!

  scholar JW
• 

  jgnat

  Here a parse, there a parse, everywhere a little parsley. Let's parse your scholarship, dear scholar, in the interests of clarity for the dear readers? Bolding and highlighting all mine.

  "I find it it rather amusing too that scholarship is slowly recognizing that when the"

  Please identify. Who are you referring to?

  "Scriptures state in no unclear terms that the land would be desolate that scholars say the:

  "no unclear terms" - which scriptures? How do you verify their clarity? Is there any history that can be unclear, since none of us can yet travel back in time?"scholars" Please identify. Who are you referring to?

  "opposite

  , that the land was only partially populated. But at least it is an improvement"

  Is "partially populated" the opposite of "desolate"? I would think that "packed in like sardines" would be the opposite of desolate.

  "when prior scholarship ignored the matter entirely. However, it is similar to apostates who"

  "prior scholarship" Please identify. Who are you referring to? I am fairly certain that few scholars, being individuals, agree on anything, you being a prime example.

  "once believed the truth including 607 rather fervently and then after some time they reject "

  How can a date be a "truth"? The only people who know the truth of the matter were there, and they are all dead. All we can do many years later, is pick up the shards of the records and make the best sense of them we can.

  "such beliefs and return to the darkness. Apostates are like scholars and higher critics, the blind leading the blind."

  I thought we were talking about scholarship. Knowledge of history will always be vague, by definition. Are you wandering from "scholarship" now and speaking of faith? Are you saying that scholars cling to their beliefs on faith rather than objective study? If so, they are no longer scholars. How can you be an apostate scholar? By refusing to believe what you read any longer?

  "It may be unclear to you concerning the outbreak of the Great War being synchronistic with events in Heaven but their other Scriptural examples of such synchronisms, "

  As a scholar, do you have access to documents from heaven itself? You have obviously diverted from pure scholarship altogether here.

  "Also, events on the earth after 1914 provide visible proof of the heavenly things such as the Last Days, Birth of the Organization and the Global preaching campaign. "

  Evidence, please, as a good scholar?

  "Regarding Luke 21:24 you should parse the verbal form as shown in the KIT 'will be' ' being trampled' which shows both future, present and an action beginning in past time."

  A pure example of straining the gnat and swallowing the camel. You do not distinguish pure faith from pure scholarship. Separate these two and your comments may start making sense.

  ....
• 

  ackack

  Wow, Tetley's work sounds a lot like yours...

  From this review:

  In the end I cannot recommend Tetleyi´s work. While it is the result of much diligence in attempting to align the reigns of the various kings of the divided kingdoms, it is beset with so many difficulties arising from questionable assumptions that are never adequately defended or even explored. Its call for radical redating not only of biblical chronology but also of many aspects of ancient Near Eastern chronology is based upon conjectured regnal data for Judean and Israelite kings and is at best ill-advised and at worst foolhardy. This is unfortunate, because good work in Near Eastern chronology of this period could serve to clarify any number of problems. Unfortunately, Tetleyi´s work will not contribute clarity to the chronological enterprise.

  ---

  Seriously though, what does this work say about the Babylonian kings and fall of Jerusalem?

  ackack
• 

  a Christian

  Ackack,
  You asked: Seriously though, what does this work say about the Babylonian kings and fall of Jerusalem?
  Tetley expresses no disagreement with modern scholarship when it comes to their unanimous acceptance of the fact that Jerusalem fell to Babylon in either 587 or 586 BC. Tetley also expresses no disagreement with any of the dates which historians now assign to the reigns of the kings of Judah, Assyria, and Babylon after Samaria (the capital of the ten-tribe kingdom of northern Israel) was captured by Assyria. Tetley concerns herself only with dating the reigns of the Hebrew kings who ruled before the fall of Samaria and after the death of Solomon, during the time two rival kingdoms existed in ancient Palestine, the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south. In other words, Tetley's work is devoted only to dating the reigns of the kings who ruled during the time of the "Divided Kingdom."
  The interest in Tetley's work is solely due to her "controversial" (read that as "outlandish") contention that the kingdom was divided about fifty years earlier than nearly all modern historians now believe that it was. (Tetley says 981 BC while Thiele and nearly all others who have thoroughly studied this subject matter say about 931 BC.)
  A couple years ago I corresponded with Tetley at some length on this topic matter. I came to the conclusion then what one reviewer has recently stated, that for a variety of very good reasons her work is most certainly "doomed for rejection."
  To begin with, Tetley's reconstruction of the divided kingdom conflicts with several very well established facts from the history of the ancient Near East. But even more unacceptable to most of us who have an interest in this subject matter is that she maintains that the words of the books of Kings and Chronicles as they appear in our Bibles today cannot be trusted and are in fact full of errors. As one of her reviewers points out, her reconstruction of the chronology of the divided kingdom is "based primarily on that of the Greek witnesses," which she believes "to be superior in Kings to the MT’s," from which our Bibles have been translated. Basically her response to my questions and comments went something like this: Since it is, in her opinion, absolutely impossible to fully harmonize all of the ancient witnesses - biblical and secular - which provide us with testimony bearing in some way on this subject matter, all serious students of scripture and history are, according to her, forced to determine for themselves which of these ancient witnesses are most likely to be providing us with accurate information and which of them are most likely to be providing us with inaccurate information. She went on to say that we must then attempt to fully harmonize only the sources of information which we have determined to be the most trustworthy. However, if we find that even establishing harmony between the witnesses which we have determined to be "the most trust worthy witnesses" is not possible, we must then accept the fact that, in a few cases, all ancient witnesses pertaining to the time of a particular king's reign may have been corrupted. In such cases, we must then try our best to determine how the relevant data may have become corrupted, and use that understanding to help us determine the likely content of the original data before it was corrupted. And then, if we find that what we have determined to be the "original uncorrupted data" fits neatly into our chronological reconstruction, we should have no aversion to using it to replace some chronological information which we have determined had been corrupted in all witnesses. The biggest reason Tetley sees so much "contradictory" chronological information in the scriptures and elsewhere is because, for some odd reason, she will not accept a fact which, as her critical reviewers point out, the Bible itself makes quite clear several times. That fact is this: co-regencies were quite common among the kings of both Israel and Judah. The fact of the matter is that Bible chronologists who have accepted this fact have been able to harmonize nearly all of the apparently "contradictory" biblical and extra-biblical synchronisms pertaining to the reigns of the Hebrew kings. However, these same synchronisms have caused Tetley (who refuses to acknowledge these co-regencies) to produce a chronological reconstruction of the divided kingdom which we find is at odds with both the scriptures and secular history several times on nearly every page of her book. Of course, according to Tetley every time such a conflict exists, it's always the scriptures which are wrong or the historians who are wrong and never her own rogue interpretations of scripture and history which might be wrong.
  How Tetley ever managed to get her book published I have no idea. Well maybe I do. "Dog Bites Man" does not sell newspapers. "Man Bites Dog." Now there's a story!
  Mike
• 

  ackack

  Interesting comments a Christian. Thanks for the perspective. I just gotta get through the Jesus Puzzle, maybe I'll take a look at this one after :)

  ackack
• 

  Jeffro

  Scholar, if you haven't read jgnat's reply, I suggest you do that first...

  I find it it rather amusing too that scholarship is slowly recognizing that when the Scriptures state in no unclear terms that the land would be desolate that scholars say the opposite, that the land was only partially populated. But at least it is an improvement when prior scholarship ignored the matter entirely. However, it is similar to apostates who once believed the truth including 607 rather fervently and then after some time they reject such beliefs and return to the darkness. Apostates ar like scholars and higher critics, the blind leading the blind.

  You dogmatically assert that words that are subject to interpretation (such as "desolate") concretely mean 'completely uninhabited', however you ignore the quite definite meaning of stated orders of events (Jeremiah 25:12). It is just rediculous! Your likening the scholars to supposed 'apostates' is also flawed. Many who were Witnesses had only read what the Society spoonfed them, so of course they wouldn't know any different until they looked into the independent facts on their own.

  It may be unclear to you concerning the outbreak of the Great War being synchronistic with events in Heaven but their other Scriptural examples of such synchronisms

  The point is that the claimed events simply are not synchronistic. The events that were supposed to occur "with great suddenness" in October of 1914 simply did not occur, and the war that started several months prior is not synchronized with anything. Moreover, there is no evidence whatsoever of events that supposedly occurred in heaven.

  Also, events on the earth after 1914 provide visible proof of the heavenly things such as the Last Days, Birth of the Organization and the Global preaching campaign.

  These supposed proofs you mention are all self-proclaimed ideas of the organization about itself, and are therefore meaningless.

  • The things that would supposedly happen in the "last days" have been happening for millenia, though there are greater population densities, so numbers are naturally higher, but percentage-wise, conditions are better for most people, not worse.
  • An organization claiming it is directed by Jesus is no less crazy than a person saying they are Jesus themself. The "Organization" was around prior to 1914, so it was hardly 'born' at that time anyway.
  • Many (possibly most) Witnesses are involved in the 'preaching work' out of a sense of slavish obligation to the Society. Mormons also have a "Global preaching campaign". Other religions have their own ministries by their own definitions. And all of them claim that theirs is the true faith. The 'Witnessing' work is summed up in Matthew 23:15 (though the end result is more like simply time-wasting).

  Regarding Luke 21:24 you should parse the verbal form as shown in the KIT 'will be' ' being trampled' which shows both future, present and an action beginning in past time. If something is 'being trampled the that actions must have had a prior commencement so a past verbal aspect.

  Applying your rule to the exact verbal form in question renders the verse as follows: "and they will (and are) falling by the sword and they will (and are) being led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be (and is being) trampled on by the nations until what will be (and are) the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled." (It should be noted that the last will does not appear in the NWT but is in the original text.) Your supposed rule would invalidate the application of the verse to the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD and the warning would have no context or significance.