WT Studied 22nd Jan 2017.
6 ...For many years, this journal suggested that God’s modern-day servants entered into Babylonian captivity in 1918 and that they were released from Babylon in 1919. However, for the reasons that we shall outline in this article and in the one following, a reexamination of the subject was necessary.
7 Consider: Babylon the Great is the world empire of false religion. Thus, in order to be subject to Babylonian captivity in 1918, God’s people would have had to become enslaved to false religion in some way at that time. The facts show, however, that in the decades leading up to World War I, God’s anointed servants were actually breaking free from Babylon the Great, not becoming enslaved to it. While it is true that the anointed were persecuted during the first world war, the tribulation they experienced was caused mainly by the secular authorities, not by Babylon the Great. So it does not really seem that Jehovah’s people entered into captivity to Babylon the Great in 1918.
Should WT now apologize to Babylon the Great for incorrectly saying that it was them, that were behind putting Rutherford and associates in jail back in 1918?
Here is another questionable thing to say:
14 .... At one point, he met with a number of local clergymen in hopes that these men would accept the truths that Russell and his associates had discovered from the Bible and teach them to members of their congregations. The clergymen were not interested.
I wonder why the clergy were not interested? If someone came up to me and tried to tell me that the world would end in 1914 and used pyramidology to prove it, I too would not be interested.