NEW GENERATION DEFINED -- April 15, 2010 Watchtower

by Ultimate Reality 385 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  tenyearsafter

  Has anyone talked to Ray Franz about what his take of all these "generation" changes is? It would be very interesting to hear his viewpoint...
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  OnTheWayOut

  They won't do it now, they will let us believe that it is a single overlap, but as mentioned they can overlap again and again using the 2008 article.
  Joseph's "brothers" all had something in common just as Christ's "brothers" have something in common.

  I imagine the 2075 study article will include the illustration of the shingles on a roof. "Although a single shingle is only 10 inches wide, it overlaps 5 inches with the shingle above and 5 inches with the shingle below to form a single roof. The generation of the anointed in the last day is like that overlapping roof."

  D'oh.... Did I give them an idea?
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  isaacaustin

  I emailed this to Ray earlier today. He is a bit slow at responding, he is 87 yrs old.
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  ThomasCovenant

  As On The Way Out said on another post, this makes me as angry as the 1995 change.

  Those men at Brooklyn wouldn't know their own arse if it bit them.
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  peacedog

  Thanks for posting.

  This change makes the recent increase in the number of partakers that much easier to understand. With this latest generation change, the WT$ has bought themselves (potentially) a lot of years. But it would all be for naught if there were no "anointed" left alive; no "faithful and discreet slave" to run the show. For this latest generation change to work, the WT$ flat out needed more anointed; they had to get out from under the 1935 cutoff date. So what do they do? They publish an increase in the number of partakers, then they point to that published increase as evidence that the 1935 cutoff mustn't have been the cutoff after all...

  And all of a sudden they've got a bunch of freshly minted "anointed" in place to support their "new light" on the "1914 generation". Not bad, Watchtower.

  Now I'm going to go vomit.
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  isaacaustin

  OTWO, my point exactly. They worded it as such that it does not say 2 generations overlapping but the reader will come to that conclusion, and it may well be taught as such. But it allows for endless overlapping.
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  Doubting Bro

  wow. The 08 definition uncoupled "this generation" from the last days since my understanding of the WTS definition of generation was simply "the annointed". So as long as there are JW "annointed" left (which shouldn't be a problem given the huge increase this year) then they were ok. While this worked well from the standpoint of explaining why the end hadn't come yet, it was even worse from the standpoint of creating any urgency. Really, the 95 change took the air out of the movement although not as bad as the 75 debacle.

  So, I think what this new definition does is attempts to put another deadline for the end. I swear I think they are attempting to set up a new end date of 2034 (comparing Noah's "preaching" for 120 years prior to the flood with the 120 anniversary of 1914). They've already hinted at comparing Noah's 120 of preaching to JW activity today.

  Still, I think they would have been better off with the 08 definition because it was flexible enough to spin away.
• 

  Emma

  "I love the line He evidently meant?!? Why are you putting words and exagerated convoluted meaning into what Jesus said? "

  Amen. This is lukewarm swill; when will the members get sick of swallowing?
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  neverendingjourney

  The next problem on the horizon, assuming they keep this "overlapping generations" nonsense in place for a few decades, is that eventually the number of anointed that have existed throughout the history of the WT organization will exceed 144,000.

  Every JW was anointed until roughly the 1930s. At that point there were tens of thousands of them. Since then, the number has hovered in the 5 digit range. What happens in 2060 or so when it becomes possible to go back and count the number of anointed throughout WT history and the figure exceeds 144,000? Do they discard 144k as a literal number? Do they imply that many of the anointed were illegitimate? Do they simply ignore the elephant in the room and hope nobody notices?

  I guess that's a problem for down the line. The WT has bigger issues on its hand right now.
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  tenyearsafter

  Thanks Isaac...I hope Ray feels up to commenting...I look forward to your posting his response.