Early Watchtower sources dealing with the identification in 1935 of the “Great Crowd”:
http://www.jwstudies.com/1935_in_Divine_Purpose_and_contemporary_publications.pdf
Doug
Source material on "1935"
by Doug Mason 1 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Doug Mason
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CharlieSmith1975
The parable of the vineyard workers confirm that the WTS would have a 2-class system. That is, the first-hour workers are promised the penny, meaning heavenly hope. But from the third-hour workers to the 11th-hour workers they are promised "whatever is fair" and thus work for less than the penny. Thus you have two groups of workers, those who know in advance they will get the penny and those who don't think they will.
3.5 years is a half hour so 1 hour is 7 years. So the vineyard work is a total of 77 years from 1914 to 1991 (1914 + 77 = 1991). The workers are paid during the 12th hour, from 1991-1998, from the last to the first. But as you can see, 21 years after 1914 is 1935, which is when the third-hour workers would have shown up. So 1935 is a valid, Biblical reference for the WTS.
What is sad is that the WTS didn't realize that after the work ALL the workers would be offered the penny. That is, all the "other sheep": become anointed and of the heavenly class. The faithful ones, that is. But that doesn't mean there will not be an earthly class.
As Isa 6:13 notes, there is a tree that is chopped down but the root is left remaining in it, which is a tenth. So the 144,000 are really that root, the remnant Jewish root of 144,000, with 12,000 from each tribe. That means the total number in the kingdom is 1,440,000. So there were more than enough seats in the kingdom to invite all the faithful other sheep between 1991-1998.
Anyway, that's for your information regarding 1935 and the two-class system. It's Biblical and fulfilled with JWs. The 144,000 are the natural Jews, one tenth of the whole. the entire heavenly class is 1,440,000.