Posts by Justin

21

How did Rutherford do it?

by NanaR in

back at the time that rutherford revealed the "new light" regarding the great multitude as an earthly rather than heavenly class, how did he manage to convince people to stop partaking of the emblems?.

i have wondered about this for years.

my grandmother was born around the "turn" of the 19th century to the 20th century.

Justin

In Crisis of Conscience (First Edition, pages 238-39), Ray Franz relates the experience of Ed Dunlap, who stopped partaking when the Judge made the announcement in 1935 because he had felt that he was a member of the "great multitude" as a secondary heavenly class. Then, when the announcement was made, and the "great multitude" was understood to be earthly, he gave up his heavenly hope. So it may be that others (prior to 1935), after introspection and feeling that they were not making enough progress to be of the "little flock," but still entertaining a heavenly hope, ended up in the great multitude once it had become an earthly class.

Some may also have really desired to live on the earth, but decided to run for the only prize held out to them prior to 1935.

97

1874 a date the Lord chose?

by lovelylil in

this interesting statement was made on a bible student forum and sent to me by one of my friends.

i have copied it the same way he sent it to me.

here a bs is explaining how the lord himself chose the date 1874 as his "invisible return".

Justin

This is for those who wish an explanation of the 1874 date on historical grounds, irrespective of the truthfulness of the claims made for that date. Historically the early Adventists, Miller, Barbour, Russell - and even commentators of Christendom - had arrived at a method of interpretting the books of Daniel and Revelation known as the historicist approach. Using the day-for-a-year principle, periods of "days" were understood to refer to long periods of years - and the problem was to determine when any particular period began and ended.

Toward the end of his book, Daniel had been instructed: "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (12:4) In the time of the end, when the book would be unsealed, its understanding would be due to the providence of God - and any significant date arrived at by the proper method could be understood to be "God's date."

William Miller was on a boat ride, and a group of clergy on their way to a conference confronted him, wanting to know how it was possible to calculate the date for the return of Christ. Miller quoted the very last verse of Daniel: "But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." (12:13) He asked if that referred to the Second Coming. Yes, they answered, for Daniel's resurrection was expected to occur then. But when would "the days" end? Miller quoted the previous verse: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days," (12:12) that is, 1,335 days. Well, came the reply, that's all well and good - but how do we know when the 1,335 days began? That gave Brother Miller an opportunity to explain.

The vision of Daniel 7 concerns four great beasts, or empires, commonly understood to refer to Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. The fourth beast had ten horns (understood to be the remnants into which the Roman Empire was broken - the nations of Europe), and a little horn rose up after them and subdued three. This little horn has been understood by older Protestant commentators to be the Papacy. Concerning this horn it was stated: "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end." (7:25-26) The three and a half times are described in Revelation 12:6 and 14 as being 1,260 days. If we convert these into years, when did they begin and when did they end? A generation prior to Miller, something startling had occurred with regard to the Papacy. Napoleon had risen to power and his general had taken the Pope prisoner in 1798, the death of that pope occurring the next year, 1799. Thereafter, Papacy ceased to have the political power which it had previously held in Europe. Now it was a simple matter of counting backwards to arrive at the beginning of the 1,260 years.

Here, we must leave Miller behind and take up the chronology of Barbour/Russell, as our concern is with arriving at the 1874 date rather than Miller's conclusions. But, Miller got us off on the right track. We find that Barbour/Russell counted back from the year 1799 and arrived at 539 C.E. - the date that the Byzantine emperor Justinan had been reconquering the western territories of the Roman Empire and his decree went into effect that the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) be considered the chief bishop or head of the Catholic Church.

But the 1,260 years (days) are understood to be only a part of a longer period. The 1,260 day-years may have ended in 1799 (thus beginning the time of the end), but one of the angelic figures in Daniel's final chapter asks the question, "How long shall it be to the end of these wonders?" (12:6) The answer given by another figure was: "from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days," that is, 1,290 days. (12:11) The abomination that causes desolation is understood to have gone into effect in 539 C.E. with the ascension of Papacy. But further along the time line is the 1,335 days, another extension of the original 1,260 days: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." (12:12) That brings us 75 years beyond 1799, or 1874.

But Miller's original argument was that the end of the 1,335 days would bring the resurrection of Daniel, and would therefore involve the Second Coming of Christ. With the new theology that there are two classes, a heavenly and an earthly, and Daniel belonging to the earthly class would be raised sometime after Armageddon, this seems to fall apart. But if Daniel, as other Old Testament prophets, represented the Kingdom class, then those whom Daniel represented were invisibly resurrected shortly after the end of the 1,335 days. And so we have an explantion of the date 1874 as marking the invisible return of Jesus. For those who believe it is "God's date."

13

105 Years in the Watchtower Service

by concerbedbf in

has anyone viewed this video?

im considering purchasing it for my gf, who is a long term book study.

she is reluctantly reading coc not sure if it is helping or hurting.

Justin

You have to decide if its worth it to expose her to something that will attempt to convert her to another religion rather than simply presenting information regarding the one she's already getting involved with. I would think all the women will give their testimony as to how they finally saw the real truth - not simply relate their disagreeable experience with JWs.

38

Should Charles Russell be credited as the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses?

by slipnslidemaster in

this has been on my chest for a while and i would like to talk about it for a bit.

i've been reading this essay: "the successor problem" and it's sparked this thought that has been reoccurring to me for years.. .

i personally think that he should not.

Justin

The thing to remember about William Miller is that he was an orthodox Christian who differed from others primarily in his attempt to set a date for the Second Coming (originally 1843, then 1844). He did believe that the "saved" would live on a new earth (actually our own earth having been cleansed with fire), but he did not believe in two classes. Whoever would be approved would live there under Christ the King. He was an ordained Baptist minister, and believed in the Trinity. He believed in an intermediate state between death and resurrection, this despite the fact that George Storrs was already teaching conditional immortality during Miller's lifetime, and Storrs' view would become a tenet of most Adventists thereafter. The only relationship between Miller and Russell was chronology - the attempt to set end-time dates. In this respect, the link between them was Nelson Barbour.

No two situations are exactly alike, but I do not think the development of Jehovah's Witnesses under Rutherford is comparable to the breakaway of Protestants from the Catholic Church. Protestantism began with an actual rebellion against the Church of Rome, symbolized by Luther's nailing his 95 thesis to the church door in Wittenburg (though Luther himself did not realize the full significance of this at the time). Rutherford, on the other hand, changed Russell's teachings piecemeal and led the Bible Students to think they were advancing step by step into the light. He did not begin with a clean slate and construct a whole new theology at once. In fact, he couldn't without losing all of the Bible Students.

Identifying a definite founder aside, anyone relating the history of Jehovah's Witnesses has to begin with Russell and his teachings and then show how Rutherford changed matters. You can't have one without the other.

38

Should Charles Russell be credited as the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses?

by slipnslidemaster in

this has been on my chest for a while and i would like to talk about it for a bit.

i've been reading this essay: "the successor problem" and it's sparked this thought that has been reoccurring to me for years.. .

i personally think that he should not.

Justin

There has to be a better way of describing the origin of Jehovah's Witnesses than to simply identify them with either Russell or Rutherford. What is needed is a carefully nuanced statement. Certainly, Rutherford did a major overhaul on the tradition he received from Russell, but there is also a continuity between the JWs and Russell. We have a sort of parallel situation in Armstrongism, where Herbert Armstrong founded the Worldwide Church of God, yet the splinter groups which broke away after the original Church became another evangelical denomination are the ones that have really upheld the teachings of Armstrong.

So while it is overly simplistic to say that Russell founded the JWs, it is also simplistic to say that Rutherford founded them in the year 1931 just be giving them the name. In the 1920's the Bible Students who remained with the Society were in the process of becoming Jehovah's Witnesses. This did not happen overnight. If it had not been for the major changes that occurred in that decade, the adoption of a new name in itself would not constitute the founding of a new religion. Russell was the founder of the International Bible Students, who were forerunners of Jehovah's Witnesses; and, there are independent Bible Students to this day.

It is very difficult to explain matters to those who have no previous background, but I believe it is wrong to say that the Bible Students during Russell's lifetime were Jehovah's Witnesses. Were they Jehovah's Witnesses during the 1920's before the name was adopted? That's another matter. Some take offense when the WTS, in publishing an autobiographical article by an older person who remained loyal to the Society throughout the years, has them refer to "Bible Students, as Jehovah's Witnesses were then known," but how else can this be expressed? Certainly the author does not think they changed their religion by remaining with the same organization throughout the years. There is a problem, though, when the Society leaves its readers with the thought that "Bible Students" is merely the pre-1931 name for Jehovah's Witnesses, and that no other Bible Students currently exist.

19

JWs in white on bridge waiting 4 the Rapture in 1800s, anyone have quotes?

by jwfacts in

in about 1881 a group of russell's followers stood one night on a bridge in pennsylvania dressed in white robes waiting to be taken to heaven.

it was reported in a newspaper.

apparently russell later said he was not one of the people on the bridge.. does any one have any of the details, and links to where it may be reported?.

Justin

Yes, Russell had expected to be raptured in 1878, but the question under discussion has been: Was he waiting for the rapture in a white robe on the Brooklyn bridge? Is that a true story, or is it apocryphal?

By the way, Russell's early expectation, as he stated, was to be raptured or caught up just as fundamentalists expect today. It was the failure of this expectation that led him to the thought of being "changed" instantaneously at death which, as far as I know, is unique to Bible Students and Jehovah's Witnesses (in the case of the "anointed"). This differentiated the Russell tradition from that of the Adventists, who expect all believers to sleep in death until the resurrection. But according to Russell, while this was true prior to Christ's presence, it is no longer true from a certain point onward.

Hope you find a definitive answer to your question.

19

JWs in white on bridge waiting 4 the Rapture in 1800s, anyone have quotes?

by jwfacts in

in about 1881 a group of russell's followers stood one night on a bridge in pennsylvania dressed in white robes waiting to be taken to heaven.

it was reported in a newspaper.

apparently russell later said he was not one of the people on the bridge.. does any one have any of the details, and links to where it may be reported?.

Justin

I think that incidents, both rumored and actual, which were associated with the Millerite movement in the earlier part of the nineteenth century may have later been reappropriated and applied to Russell by his detractors.

William Miller's biographer, Sylvester Bliss, in The Memoirs of William Miller, writing shortly after Miller's death, notes reports of fanaticism in connection with the disappointment of October 22, 1844, when Christ's advent failed to occur. He states (emphasis added):

All reports respecting the preparation of ascension robes, &c., and which are still by many believed, were demonstrated over and over again to be false and scandalous.

Continuing, he admitted (emphasis added):

The most culpable incident, which had any foundation in fact, was in Philadelphia. In opposition to the earnest expostulations of Mr. Litch and other judicious persons, a company of about one hundred and fifty, responding to the pretended vision of one C.R. Georgas, on the 21st of October went out on the Daryby-street bridge, and encamped in a field under two large tents, provided with all needed comforts. The next morning, their faith in Georgas' vision having failed, all but about a dozen returned to the city. A few days later the others returned. That was an act the report of which was greatly exaggerated. It met the emphatic diapproval of Mr. Miller and the Adventists generally, and this folly was promptly confessed by the majority of those who participated in it.

What needs to be asked is whether there was a repetition of this sort of event 34 years later (in 1878), or did someone merely find it convenient to report what was by then history as a recent even involving another religious group.

23

Jehovah's Witnesses are not Fundamentalists

by JeffT in

http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/5doctrines.html.

the five basic doctrines.

1. the trinity: god is one "what" and three "whos" with each "who" possessing all the attributes of deity and personality.

Justin

Language changes over time. In the early twentieth century, when the term "Fundamentalist" was first coined and included five "fundamentals," JWs or Bible Students wouldn't have been considered fundamentalists. But today the meaning of the word has been broadened to include even members of non-Christian religions who believe in the inerrancy of their texts or authoritative teachings. Modern JWs are fundamentalists in this sense.

Fundamentalism is also considered a phenonmenon which came out of the conflict between traditional ways of thinking and modernity. Classical Christian fundamentalism may have points in common with Christian orthodoxy; nevertheless, to refer to a fifteenth century European Catholic as a fundamentlist would be an anachronism. It would be like referring to the same person as a creationist when there was no alternative worldview available at the time. A fundamentalist is a sort of anti-revolutionary, and you can't have one of those before the revolution has begun.

35

on the trinity

by drew sagan in

i was just wondering what the opinions those on this board regarding this topic.

i know some have moved towards more orthodox theology, others have not.

curious as to what the opinions are of this.

Justin

There is a form of trinitarianism which accepts the subordination of the Son to the Father. That is, while being fully divine and of the same substance as the Father, the Son (and also the Spirit) remains functionally subordinate to Him. The other Two are dependent upon the Father for their existence, but not in our world of space-time. Rather, they are what they are eternally - the Son being eternally begotten of the Father and the Spirit eternally proceeding (likened metaphorically to God's breath).

Arius found a Christian orthodoxy which accepted a degree of subordination, and then went a step further. He demoted the Son to the position of a creature. It was to counter this tendency that the Council of Nicea proclaimed the Son to be homoousios - of the same substance - with the Father. The Trinity doctrine, however, underwent further development. After Nicea there was a party of theologians who thought, since a nonbiblical term had been introduced, that homoiousios (of like substance) would be a better term for the relationship between Father and Son. This was not to deny that the Son was just as divine as the Father, but to safeguard the distinction between the Persons. The view which eventually won out was that of a Trinity of Persons in which there is complete equality in all respects, without a hint of subordination - and that is the view which led to a Christian devotion in which the Son, for all practical purposes, replaces the Father in the hearts of the people.

Finally, one must distinguish between theology and devotion. In practice, it is possible to hold to a view of the Trinity which is just as Father-centered as Arianism is, and this is what I prefer.

23

The irritating slant to almost everything negative I have seen on Witnesses

by free2beme in

jw
friends

when i left the witnesses, a person from work gave me a video about the witnesses that his church uses.

i thought it would be interesting, so i set down and watched it.

what i found was another example of one church taking about another, to then counter with points that support their way of thinking.

Justin

Much of the old "anti-cult" material written by Evangelical Christians was actually to protect their own people from being involved in cults, rather than to convert cultists, but it had to appear as an evangelizing effort. There is no telling how many Evangelicals might have become JWs if this campaign had not been waged.

As for materials that are written by Ex-JWs, I think they feel the need to justify their own departure from the organization, and the more crap they uncover the more justified they feel. We see this over and over again on this forum. We can see the need for such justification. Think of the consequences if we have been wrong to leave!

I agree that it's hard to find objective material about the JWs, and probably nothing is totally objective. But there are ex-JWs who have become well educated, and with the proper mentoring can be encouraged to distance themselves enough from their subject to present it fairly.