by Terry 90 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Great essay Terry!
Considering what a big part Miller had in causing my birth religion to come into existance, I now find it odd that I never heard of him until I was well into my 40's and just happened to be watching the History Channel when is story was mentioned.
Ditto! (from another Californian)
Excellent post Terry, very informative, thankyou
.Millerites began characterizing other churches (who did not embrace their end time speculations) as members of Babylon the Great!2.Eventually ALL other Christian Churches were seen has clinging to Satan's old world instead of preparing for the New World to come.
3.Christendom was attacked as the whore of Babylon who rejected the only true religon.
4.Followers began divesting themselves of personal possessions, dropping out of schools and selling their houses in preparation of the Great Day to come.
The Millerites remind me in some ways of a publishing company I used to do voluntary work for
According to Juan Baixeras at the next link: "The idea of applying years to
days can be traced back to Jewish rabbis in the first century CE. In the ninth
century more rabbis applied it to Daniel’s prophecy in connection with the time
periods of 1,290, 1335, and 2300 days in reference to when the Messiah would ap-
pear. Among Christians it first appears in the twelfth century by a Roman Cath-
olic abbot named Joachim of Floris. As time passed, an incredible amount of
dates were arrived at by different interpreters. Dates were regularly changed
as one date after another passed without the predicted event taking place."
http://www.geocities.com/athens/olympus/5257/1914.htm
1823 "In the early 1800’s a man named John Aquila Brown published an explanation of
the 2,300 days of Daniel in chapter 12, showing these as ending in 1844. This
view was also adopted by William Miller, the pioneer of the Second Advent move-
ment."
(Miller predicted the 2nd coming would happen in March 21, 1843 to March 21,
1844.)
"John A. Brown also developed another explanation that is intimately related
to the year 1914 as that date figures in the teachings of JWs. Brown was the
real interpreter of the 'seven times' of Daniel chapter four, the interpretation
that produces the 2,520 years by means of the day-year formula. Brown first
published this interpretation in 1823 and his method converted the 'seven times'
into 2,520 years in exactly the same way found today in Watch Tower publica-
tions. This was twenty-nine years before Charles Russell was born, more than
half a century before the book 'The Three Worlds' (co-authored by Russell, which
is where most JW think that this teaching originated) appeared.
"Brown however used 604 B.C.E as his starting point and so arrived at 1917.
After the failure of the expectations of 1844, a split of various Second Advent
groups resulted. One of these groups centered around a man called N.H. Barbour.
Barbour studied Brown’s work and adopted much of his interpretation, but changed
his starting point to 606 BCE and arrived at the year 1914. Actually this is a
miscalculation since that would be only 2,519 years. This would have the end
date at 1915."
You might click around at the web site at the link above to see another way
possible for a believer to play with some of the same numbers and come to other
conclusions. I don't recommend playing prophet about it, though.
GARBAGE IN = GARBAGE OUT.
Thanks for this Millerite history lesson- very interesting indeed. Thw WT society is still trying to make something taste good out of 100+ years worth garbage.
That's an interesting piece of history, it shows that the JWs are nothing but a Millerite group, an adventist off shoot who are in the mold of the Millerite mentality. The lay preaching, the denouncement of all christian churches as Babylon, the desperately soon to come end of this world.
Very interesting!
I think he should be resurrected just so that each of us can have the opportunity to take him out back and beat the shit out of him.
Okay, now this made me laugh!
There are a lot more very interesting background tidbits about the history of this time period I'm tempted to write about.
I just didn't go very far into much detail because I've written things at length before only to have only one or two people even stop and read it.
Thanks for the kind words!
Miller wasn't the only Christian who concluded the "return" would occur in the mid-19th century. There were others in Europe who shared the same enthusiasm for the exigetics adumbrated by Miller. Couriously, other religions also had eschatological renderings that converged with Millers' time frame. The year 1260 AH in the Muslim lunar calendar falls exactly on 1844 and that is 1000 years after the dissapearance of the child Imam, who was to "return" as the Quim (sp?). The return of the Buddha and Chrisna are interestingly enough to take place with similiar stories.... Curiouser and curioser... carmel
Miller wasn't the only Christian who concluded the "return" would occur in the mid-19th century. There were others in Europe who shared the same enthusiasm for the exigetics adumbrated by Miller. Couriously, other religions also had eschatological renderings that converged with Millers' time frame. The year 1260 AH in the Muslim lunar calendar falls exactly on 1844 and that is 1000 years after the dissapearance of the child Imam, who was to "return" as the Quim (sp?). The return of the Buddha and Chrisna are interestingly enough to take place with similiar stories.... Curiouser and curioser... carmel
The mind can link any two ideas. Any two at all.
Secondly, the mind can attach significance to the linking.
Thirdly, the mind can find a "Eureka" moment in discovering the linkage and the attached significance.
It is as though the mind is smelling its own farts and liking them.
