The ZERO Year.....red herring? (page 2)

VM44

Now I don't know on which thread to post! --VM44

rassillon

VM,

I feel like I am having a brain fart.
-r

VM44

It is OK, this subject can become complicated. I always have to put the years down on paper when thinking about it.

I looked up page 239 from the 1943 book, The Truth Shall Make You Free, and here is the relevant portion. Notice how year counts only start at the beginning of the official "fiscal" year!

That is so they can pick up an extra few months they needed for the calculation to give the desired end date, the fall of 1914. --VM44

In Nebuchadnezzar's time the year begain counting from the fall of the year, or about October 1, our time. Since he destroyed Jerusalem in the summer of 606 B.C., that year had its beginning in the fall of 607 B.C. and its ending in the fall of 606 B.C.

Inasmuch as the count of the Gentile "seven times" begain its first year at the fall of 607 B.C., it is simple to calculate when they end. From the fall of 607 B.C. to the fall of B.C 1 is exactly 606 years. From the fall of B.C. 1 to the fall of A.D. 1 is one year, do not forget, Hence from the fall of B.C. 1 to the fall of A.D. 1914 is 1,914 years. Add now 606 years and 1,914 years, and the sum total is 2,520 years, ending in the fall of A.D. 1914.

Atlantis

AlanF

Ok, rassillon, let me work up to the explanation using dates that Russell more or less used. Russell did almost all of his Gentile times related calculations based on October 1 of whatever year he was interested in.

The simplest thing to start with is to note that the one-year timescale from October 1, 1 B.C. to October 1, 1 A.D. is exactly one year. That's because there is no zero year. If there were a zero year, you would calculate thusly: Oct. 1, 1 B.C. to Oct. 1, Year Zero to Oct. 1, 1 A.D. would be exactly two years.

Now add one year to each end of the one-year timescale:

2 B.C. + 1 year gets you to:
1 B.C. + 1 year gets you to:
1 A.D. + 1 year gets you to:
2 A.D.

That spans exactly three years, because you've added two years to the one-year timescale we started with.

Now extend that again this way:

606 B.C. + 605 years gets you to:
1 B.C. + 1 year gets you to:
1 A.D. + 1913 years gets you to:
1914 A.D.

That spans exactly 2,519 years, because you've added 605 + 1913 years to the one-year timescale we started with.

Now go to the Society's modern 607-based calculation:

607 B.C. + 606 years gets you to:
1 B.C. + 1 year gets you to:
1 A.D. + 1913 years gets you to:
1914 A.D.

That spans exactly 2,520 years, because you've added 606 + 1913 years to the one-year timescale we started with.

I hope that clears things up.

Now to really fuzz things up, consider what Fred Franz did in the 1943 book The Truth Shall Make You Free to make the date change. VM44 and Atlantis referenced the exact material of interest from that book.

Franz wrote a bunch of gibberish to confuse his readers. Thus, it is not possible to make sense of it, because it is designed to be nonsensical. Remember that Russell had begun the Gentile times on October 1, 606 B.C. What Franz tried to do was move that date back by exactly one year to October 1, 607 B.C. But because stating that outright might well have been too much even for the most braindead of JWs, he tried to pretend that he was moving the date back by only part of one year, from January 1, 606 to October 1, 607. He implied this without actually saying it. This was fairly easy since almost all JWs would never notice the verbal sleight of hand. It's a lot easier to pretend to move a date by three months than one full year, no?

But this left Franz with a problem. Up until page 239 in The Truth Shall Make You Free, Franz had used 606 B.C. for both the beginning of the Gentile times and the fall of Jerusalem. It appears to me that much of the book was typeset by that time, and couldn't be changed. Now, historians by the late 19th century knew that Jerusalem fell in the summer, although there was some uncertainty about the year. Various historians generally used 585 to 589 B.C., but Barbour and Russell chose 606. Thus, the timeline was: Jerusalem falls about August 1, 606, then the Gentile times begin the following October 1, 606 B.C. Franz's problem was this: throughout the 1943 book, he stated that Jerusalem fell in 606 B.C. Thus, after page 239, he was claiming that the Gentile times began October 1, 607 B.C., and that Jerusalem fell 10 months later in August, 606 B.C.!

Someone must have noticed this problem, because in the next year's book, The Kingdom Is At Hand, Franz included a time chart which showed the date of Jerusalem's destruction as 607 B.C. On page 171, he 'explained' in a footnote that this change had been explained on page 239 of the 1943 book -- which was a flat-out lie, which anyone can see for himself via Atlantis' scan.

But Franz was not through with the lies required to accomplish the date change. These books were soon published in various non-English languages, but by then the Society was using 607 instead of 606 for the above events in its other publications, especially in The Watchtower. Therefore, in the non-English editions of The Truth Shall Make You Free, what was "606" in the English edition up through page 239 was changed to "607", and what was "607" on and beyond page 239 was changed to "608". This, of course, was even more nonsensical than the English edition, but since most JWs really don't pay attention to such things, apparently the nonsense went unnoticed. So far, I've confirmed that this is so in the following language editions: Spanish, French, Danish, Swedish, Arabic. These were all published about 1945 or later.

For an in-depth look at the above date changes, look here: http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/evolution-of-606-to-607-bce-in.html

AlanF

Stephanus

The WBTS needs to do is find a missing "zero century". With 2014 coming up, it might help with their recruitment drive...

jayhawk1

Wow, the fog has lifted a bit on the non-year zero. Thanks guys!

Frank75

jwfacts

Apparently in 1912 Russell came to realise that there was no year zero and was not sure whether to change the end date from 1914 to 1915. When the end did not come in 1914 the publications started to state that the end of the Gentile times was 1915. For example the 1915 edition of the Time is at Hand

The Time Is At Hand (1889) 1915 ed. p.242

“The "Gentile Times" prove that the present governments must all be overturned about the close of 1915 A.D.”

When nothing happened in 1915 the Watchtower went back to using 1914 due to World War One making it seem a more monumentus year than 1915. It was not until 1943 that the Watchtower Society explained once more that there is no year zero. However this time they did not use 1915 as Russell had done. The Watchtower decided to retain 1914, and was able to do so by changing the date for the destruction of Jerusalem from 606 B.C. to 607 B.C.

jwfacts

Actually it was 1904 the Russell realised there was no year zero. I have copied this from http://www.freeminds.org/history/proclaimers.htm

The discussion was in the context of a question about Russell's chronology that came up as early as 1904 -- what about the "zero year"? Was the length of time from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D. one year, or two? Russell discussed this, as well as summarizing its application to his chronology, in the December 1, 1912 Watch Tower, pages 377-8. He was evidently rather confused about it, and said that the end of the times of the Gentiles could come in either 1914 or 1915.

Since this question is agitating the minds of a considerable number of the friends, we have presented it here in some detail. We remind the readers, however, that nothing in the Scriptures says definitely that the trouble upon the Gentiles will be accomplished before the close of the Times of the Gentiles, whether that be October, 1914, or October, 1915. The trouble doubtless will be considerable before the final crash, even though that crash come suddenly, like the casting of a great millstone into the sea. (Rev. 18:21) The parallel between the Jewish harvest and the present harvest would corroborate the thought that the trouble to the full will be accomplished by October, 1915.

Many of our readers will recall our reference to this subject in a sermon preached at Allegheny, Pa., January 11, 1904, and published in the Pittsburgh Gazette. We make an extract from that sermon as follows: --

"We find, then, that the Seven Times of Israel's punishment and the Seven Times of Gentile dominion are the same; and that they began with the captivity of Zedekiah, and, as will be seen from the Chart, they terminate with the year 1915. According to the best obtainable evidences on the subject, synchronized with the Scriptural testimony, Zedekiah's captivity took place in October, 605 1/4 years before A.D. 1. If we will add to this 1914 1/4 years, we will have the year, October, 1915, as the date for the end of Gentile supremacy in the world -- the end of the lease of 2,520 years, which will not be renewed. Instead, he whose right the kingdom is, shall take possession of it. This, therefore, marks when the Lord himself shall assume control of the world's affairs, to end its reign of sin and death, and to bring in the True Light."

There surely is room for slight differences of opinion on this subject and it behooves us to grant each other the widest latitude. The lease of power to the Gentiles may end in October, 1914, or in October, 1915. And the period of intense strife and anarchy "such as never was since there was a nation" may be the final ending of the Gentile Times or the beginning of Messiah's reign. [See Vol. 2, SCRIPTURE STUDIES.]

The ZERO Year.....red herring?

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