Society once again teaches: Creative days were 7000 years each!

by sir82 49 Replies latest jw friends

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  sir82

  "Long time lurker, first time poster"

  Thought everybody would enjoy this snippet of an e-mail, from a friend of a friend who is in the current Gilead class:

  "...Brother Liverance gave a fascinating talk on Bible chronology. With one secular fixed date of 539 BCE we can go all the way back to the birth of Adam in 4026 BCE. Its interesting to see how Jehovah gave gave just enough information in the Bible to allow us to do that. He certainly is a GOD of economy - never too much but always just enough. We were reminded that a creative day was likely 7000 years and so Jehovah's rest day would begin with the last creation - Eve. We don't know the date of her creation but guess who does? The angels and the demons - especially Satan since he was likely in the garden when she was created. The last 1000 years of the rest period begins with the end of Armageddon and the start of the millenial reign. So, in effect Satan probably knows the time when Armageddon will end and the millenial reign will start he just doesn't know exactly when Armageddon will begin. "Nobody knows the day or the hour only the father." Therefore when Revelation says that when Satan was thrown down to the earth he KNEW his time was short - he likely knew from chronology when the final curtain would be. He just doesn't know when Armagedon will begin or how long it will last. Interesting eh?

  "Now we said we know the actual date of Adam's birth. Therefore we know that this year 2005, is 6030 years since his creation. That means at this point in time, Adam walked alone in the garden of Eden, talking with Jehovah for some 30 years or more. In 30 years of time you would think that he got to know Jehovah really well. But we can see something was lacking in his heart. He never really cultivated a strong love for Jehovah and when his wife came along (she likely sinned shortly after her creation) he chose her over Jehovah. This detail reminds me that just because we have deicated our lives to Jehovah and served him for years, it doen't necessarily prove that we love him from our heart..."

  (Typos and grammatical irregularities preserved from original text)

  So there you have it...creative days were "likely 7000 years", as taught to the "cream of the crop", the 2005 Gilead class. Suppose they will be amending the "Creator" book to use this more precise measurement?
• 

  TheListener

  Interesting. That would give the witnesses the ability to show chronologically, without specifying a date, how close we are to the end. That has been lacking since 1995s change to generation. I've heard older dubs hold to this thinking for since the 70s (remember 1975?). everyone can now start guessing when Eve was created and how long Adam was probably alone.

  I know the society mentioned this in talks and WT during the 1975 debacle but to renew it now, some 30 years later to serve the purpose of spurring the troops to more action would be evil and genius at the same time. Sound like typical WT style to me.
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  Bas

  I can see the "magic" in these numbers they're using, makes for great manipulation but I'm not buying the sh##. I wonder what they'll come up with next year.

  Welcome to the board sir82,

  Bas
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  doogie

  Praise be to Jah!!!

  modern science will be so glad to hear that the God of Economy has brought to light the fact that decades and decades of painstaking archaelogical/biological observation is all completely wrong. they've been barking up the wrong tree with all of their "facts" and "fossils" and whatnot. the answer was written clear as day by goat herders millenia ago!!! stupid us!
• 

  ballistic

  Jehovah's rest day would begin with the last creation - Eve.

  This is like saying my Sunday starts with the last email I send from work on a Friday. What actually substantiates the statement?

  We don't know the date of her creation but guess who does? The angels and the demons - especially Satan since he was likely in the garden when she was created. The last 1000 years of the rest period begins with the end of Armageddon and the start of the millenial reign. So, in effect Satan probably knows the time when Armageddon will end and the millenial reign will start he just doesn't know exactly when Armageddon will begin. "Nobody knows the day or the hour only the father." Therefore when Revelation says that when Satan was thrown down to the earth he KNEW his time was short - he likely knew from chronology when the final curtain would be. He just doesn't know when Armagedon will begin or how long it will last.

  This is strange reasoning, if you can call it "reasoning", My next question would be why did Jesus waste his breath saying "nobody knows" and specifically states "nor the angels". That would be like me saying that a dozen people were 1 minute late for the meeting becuase they had absolutely no idea when it was.
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  AlanF

  This talk doesn't reflect the Society's latest thinking (which is to waffle on the issue of the length of creative days), but the personal doctrinal conservatism of the speaker. Wallace Liverance is a WTS official and was/is the personal assistant to GB member Albert Schroeder. I know enough about the guy to say that he's among the more conservative of top Bethelites, and was giving his personal view in this talk.

  I find this very interesting because it further confirms my conviction that the reason the Society has waffled on this issue for so many years is that there are conservative and liberal contingents in Bethel, with the liberals more ready to accept modern science and the conservatives stuck in a mindset that solidified when they were children many decades ago.

  AlanF
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  jaffacake

  I never cease to be amazed at how many different interpretations of chronology these people come up with through their furtile imaginations.

  If it is information from God, why does the Watchtower have a zero success rate for all predictions they have ever made in their 125 year history. Except of course for the invisible and unprovable ones.

  By the way ...a Warm Welcome.
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  minimus

  Perhaps Witnesses will be studying the 1966 red book, Life Everlasting---Freedom In The Sons of God" book again.
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  Nathan Natas

  A brief history of "7,000 years":

  -- Some examples of the prevalence of the (completely unscriptural) 7,000 year creative day doctrine in JW literature from the 1940s and 1950s --

  7 The time had now come to start getting the earth ready for the animals and humans that would later live on it. So a period began that the Bible calls the "first day ." This was not a day of twenty-four hours, but was instead 7,000 years long."
  - FROM PARADISE LOST TO PARADISE REGAINED (1958), page 10

  "God's creative rest day 7,000 years long"
  - MAKE SURE OF ALL THINGS (1957) page 324

  "God's creative rest day 7,000 years long"
  - MAKE SURE OF ALL THINGS (1953) page 324

  "14 Similarly, with the six preceding creative days. They started out indistinctly but ended up with full light as to what had been purposed and accomplished each day. Since the Fourth Commandment about the weekly sabbath day is based upon the creative week as a pattern, and since the days of the week marked out by the Fourth Commandment are all equal, it argues that each of the days of the creative week were likewise equal in length, 7,000 years. Since the period described in Genesis 1 :1, 2 preceded the creative week, this, according to God's will, allows that period of original creation to be indefinite in length, much longer than the entire 49,000 years (7 X 7,000) of the creative week. The creative week itself began about 46,025 according to the Bible's timetable.
  - NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH (1953), page 43

  This seventh "day" on which God desisted from his work toward our planet is not to be understood as a 24-hour day . This seventh day follows upon the preceding six days of creation. The Scriptural evidence is to the effect that all those six preceding days were much longer than 24 hours each. In fact, they were great periods of time thousands of years long. Measured by the length of the "seventh day", on which God desists from work and is refreshed, each of those days was 7,000 years long. Man being created toward the close of the sixth day, he was put on the earth toward the end of 42,000 years of earth's preparation . So in course of time the grand cycle of seven "days" will add up to 49,000 years . The Bible time-schedule indicates that slightly more than a thousand years of this great cycle remains yet to be run ."
  - LET GOD BE TRUE (1952), page 168

  "21 That "seventh day" on which God desisted from work and which he consecrated was not a 24-hour day, but is of the length of the preceding six days. The Bible speaks of this "seventh day" as still continuing, because it is 7,000 years long."
  - WHAT HAS RELIGION DONE FOR MANKIND (1951), page 47

  "Measured by the length of the "seventh day" on which God desists from work and is refreshed, each of those days was 7,000 years long. Man being created toward the close of the sixth day, he was put upon the earth toward the end of 42,000 years of earth's preparation. So in course of time the grand cycle of seven "days" will add up to 49,000 years . The Bible time-schedule indicates that slightly more than a thousand years of this great cycle remains yet to be run."
  - LET GOD BE TRUE (1946) page 155

  "Genesis is the most ancient history in the world. The first verse reaches far back into time, saying with impressive simplicity : "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Twenty-six short verses later and 42,000 long years have elapsed. God's creative work in six 7,000-year days has been described. Day and night, descension of rings, the appearance of dry land and the gathering of seas, plant life, lights to rule by day and by night, animal life, followed by higher forms of land animals, topped
  finally by the creation of man and woman, all these miraculous events of 42,000 years pass fleetingly before the eyes."
  - EQUIPPED FOR FVERY GOOD WORK (1946), page 107

  "Note, too, that in describing this first day, as well as all following creative days, the Creator God puts the evening before the morning. He begins each creative day of seven thousand years with the evening period. At evening the final form of stable things to come is seen only in dim outline at first, if at all; and then it becomes clearer and, at last, fully distinct at the climax or "morning" of the day."
  - THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE (1943) page 62.

  In the 1925 publication "The Way To Paradise" by WTS Treasurer W. E. van Amburgh, the creative day is also absolutely defined as 7,000 years long.

  If anyone can shed additional light on the origin of this teaching - I suspect the WTS "borrowed" it from some un-named "false religious" source - I'd like to know more about it.
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  carla

  I thought they had actually set a date for the creation of Adam & Eve? Sorry, I'm just into the chronology of the wt at the moment. As a non jw it sounds so insane to me, it's hard to follow. They could have used some good fiction writers, at least it would be a better read. However, I am a bit fuzzy on just what the implications of this (yet again) new change is. Can someone fill me in? I'm amost sure I saw something where they already set the date for Eve anyway. Maybe all the way back to Russell's time. carla