Can someone please explain to me...

by MrFreeze 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  MrFreeze

  ... what Joseph's brothers have to do with generations overlapping? In the final DC talk they use Joseph's brothers to indicate overlapping generations. Does anybody have any clue what that has to do with the generations in Matthew? I've looked at it every way and I just don't see where it's coming from. It's not like Joseph's children were included in the generation mentioned in Exodus. It was only his brothers.

  Yes I know this subject has been beaten to death but I just don't get where they are even pulling it from. At least with most things you can make the WT reasonings fit if you try really hard and bend the pieces to fit your way. I just don't see how the two are even REMOTELY connected.
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  moshe

  Of course, The WTs new generation overlap is just a convoluted explantion that gives the 1914 generation another 30 years of life. The end justifies the means, because the JWs would be very upset, if the WT told them the truth about the fake 1914 generation. Now all the brothers and sisters can keep singing songs about the coming paradise earth for another generation.
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  MrFreeze

  I get that, but how exactly do Joseph and his brothers being called a "generation" even relate to generations overlapping? I'm just trying to see where their reasoning comes from.
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  miseryloveselders

  I just got back home from the District Convention. I was standing in an area behing where there was designated seating for handicapped and elderly. When the speaker mentioned "this generation", an elderly brother tapped a woman who wasn't sitting in front of him. He did it in a manner that suggested to me it was something very important to both of them. Driving my folks home, the conversation at one point went into the generation subject again. They were elated to say the least. They finally understood it. I explained it to them several times prior to the WT study that focused on the very subject. They didn't even realize that lesson was a change from previous understanding. Being honest, had I not been on this board, I might not have noticed the importance of it. So to hear them discussing the subject again and being so happy kinda irritated me. Two months from now, I'll probably have to explain it to them again.

  Personally speaking, the Joseph & Co. strategy doesn't seem like a bad way to illustrate it. The audience today ate it up, hook, line, sinker. I spoke to a woman with the most adorable children,in the parking lot about it, and she made the statement, "it's new light I guess", "I'm glad they made it clearer for people!" I couldn't help but think, she might be a poster on here, or another board. The way she said what she said, and the way she stared at the pavement while discussing that point. She seemed somewhat uncomfortable about it. I started to engage her, but decided to hit the road. Been a long three days.
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  miseryloveselders

  I get that, but how exactly do Joseph and his brothers being called a "generation" even relate to generations overlapping? I'm just trying to see where their reasoning comes from.

  In the sense that they were all from a specific time frame. Joseph was what the 10th, or 11th of them I believe? He wasn't the youngest, nor the eldest. They used Exodus 1:6, "eventually Joseph died, and also all his brothers and all that generation." What the GB is attempting to get across is that "this generation" isn't indefinate. It has an ending. In the text from Exodus, it mentions Joseph and his brothers and those from their time, I'm guessing within the same age demographic as the 12 of them. The setting for the next generation of Israelites was after those from the era of Joseph and his brothers had passed the scene. But there were 12 brothers, all of different ages. The same as the annointed who were on hand to recognize the significance of the events in 1914 onward. Also, those who may have been too young to recognize 1914's importance, or not even born, but nonetheless who had the heavenly calling while those who originally recognized the events of 1914 were still alive.

  They specifically used Fred Franz as one of the original annointed who recoginized the importance of 1914. Those with the heavenly calling after him, who although younger than Franz, and weren't around nor recognized 1914 as being important, where still contemporaries of Fred Franz being alive with him in the same era.
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  NiceDream

  It doesn't make any sense, but 2 scriptures used were Ex 1:6 and Gen 50:24. The first was about Joseph and his brothers being a "generation", and the second was that 2 of Josephs brothers lived after his death, but they were still 1 generation. Their lives overlapped, but they were one generation and contemporaries.

  This generation issue is what raised a red flag and led me out of JWland.
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  MrFreeze

  Okay their reasoning makes a little more sense. Even though it doesn't because the whole idea is just idiotic. At least now I can see where they are pulling their delusions from.
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  Hadit

  They are trying to use Generation with Contemporary interchangeably. Joseph and his brothers were of the same generation by birth - they were of the same mother. It would not matter how long or short any of them lived - they would always be of the same generation. Just because our lives overlap with others does NOT mean we are of the same generation - it means we are alive AT THE SAME TIME which means we are contemporaries. If someone is around the same age as me then she is BOTH of my GENERATION and my CONTEMPORARY. If someone is 90 and I am 40 then they are my CONTEMPORARY only. They are about ONE generation older than I am. People's lives overlap others all the time. If we change the meaning of generation then we change the English language and it becomes meaningless. They are very good at changing meanings. It is very deceptive.

  I hope that makes sense.
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  jamiebowers

  I wonder what my jw mom is thinking about the example of Joseph and his older brothers. She is the youngest of 11 children. She was born the same year that many of her older brothers were fighting in WWII. She was younger than many of her nieces and nephews. I know that she never considered herself to be of the same generation as her older siblings. Too bad she shuns me..guess I'll never know.
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  wobble

  Of course the whole concept is bollocks anyway, Jesus words simply applied to the guys he was talking too.

  We do not know for sure that he ever uttered anything like this, the Gospels that contain the thought being written some time after the 70CE destruction of the temple.

  Even if he did say it, the idea that a"Greater Fulfilment" would occur some 2000 years later is preposterous.