Thanks Peacedog. :)
Challenge to DJeggnog Regarding his Lies.
by Essan 209 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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bohm
que djeggnog trying to weasel out, change subject, go into irrelevant details in a 6 page reply where he declare himself winner...
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TD
Having already seen that Russell ends the Gospel Age in 1914, both from the quotes above and those in previous posts which show Russell dated the successive Millennial reign, the Millennial Age, as beginning from 1914
A minor pedant point here, Essan: Under Russell's system, the Millennial Age and the Gospel Age overlapped each other by a period of 40 years called the 'Day of the Lord' or the 'Day of Wrath.'
In other words, while Gospel Age was supposed to end in 1914, the Millennial Age had actually begun 40 years prior to this in 1874.
This period of overlap can be seen in the Chart Of The Ages (Frontispiece in The Divine Plan of the Ages) as the chord marked 'Harvest' spanning points 7 to 10, which Russell believed corresponded to the period from the start of Jesus' ministry to the destruction of Jerusalem.
(cf. The Divine Plan of the Ages pp. 219-237; The Time is at Hand pp. 104; 149-150; 196; Thy Kingdom Come p. 125)
Expressed yet another way, Russell taught that the thousand years of restitution had actually begun in October of 1874. This tied directly to another line of his reasoning that was every bit as important to him as the 2520 years derived from Daniel, which was Israel's double and the antitypical Jubilee.
The 50th or 'Grand Jubilee' was to occur 2500 years (50 X 50) from the Jubilee immediately preceding the Babylonian captivity. By Russell's calculations that Jubilee occurred 19 years before the desolation and he dated that event to 625 B.C. Counting 2500 years forward with no zero year gets you to the year 1875 which Russell believed technically began in the fall of 1874. Earth's 'Grand Jubilee' was to be 1000 years in length and correspond identically with the millennium of Revelation
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Essan
Hi TD. Thanks.
Yes, those details are essentially indicated in the quotes above if you review them. Russell did teach that the Christ's Millennial reign on earth would begin in 1914 and that the Gospel age fully ended in 1914. Any notion of an overlap of Ages doesn't really affect this and certainly doesn't change anything with regard to DJ's claims, which were that Russell predicted nothing for 1914 and that he in no sense predicted Christ's coming in any capacity in 1914, visible or invisible. DJ's original emphasis here was in refuting the idea that Russell ever made predictions, while ours was in proving that he certainly did make predictions - spectacular ones - and that most of them centered on 1914, including the "manifest but unseen" coming of the Kingdom and it's King to execute judgement and rulership on earth. I don't want this main point to get lost in the convoluted and ever-changing details of Russell's labyrinthine interpretive chronology which may not be directly relevant.
""There was a sense in which the Jewish Age ended at the cross and another sense in which it was extended 37 years. So, we believe, there is a sense in which the Gospel Age ended in 1878, and another sense in which it is extended 37 years, or until 1914 ." - Watchtower May 1880 "The Sign of His Presence" p 3."
And
"""The final overthrow of present governments... will be followed by seven years of socialism and anarchy, to end with 1914 by the establishment of Christ's Millennial government" - Watchtower Reprints August 15th 1892. p239.
"...the establishment of the Millennial Kingdom, October 1914" - Watchtower Reprints July 1st 1899 p 172.
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TD
Essan,
You're right. This doesn't detract from your argument. If anything, it makes the disconnect between IBSA and JW beliefs more apparent. It was, as I said, a 'minor point' and the only reason I mentioned it is because I formally studied with the Bible Students many years ago.
In the same vein, the full glorification of the church; the dawn of the Millennial Kingdom and the joint reign of the bride with Christ was not supposed to start until 1914 as you note. Christ's Millennial Reign commences earlier and corresponds with the 7th millennium and Millennial Age.
Russell drew parallels with everything and even saw a connection with the Jewish custom of a day beginning in the evening and a period of darkness before sunrise.
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Essan
Hi TD.
Thanks for the verification. I dearly wish I had been born a Bible Student rather than a JW. While I don't agree with either groups doctrine, the Bible Students are infinitely more tolerant of free thought and differences of opinion. I don't imagine being a Bible Student is the soul crushing, hellish cult experience that being raised a JW is.
Although I have noted that the Bible Students do suffer from the same tendency to rewrite history and deny earlier teachings of Russell as the JW's do, although perhaps not to the same extent. They seem to follow a version of Russell's writings and his teachings that was put together shortly after the disappointments of 1914 and which omits many references to his earlier predictions regarding that year. Which is to say that, as far as I have observed, the Bible Students are using the same post-1914 altered and edited versions of Russell pre-1914 writings as DJ is using.
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notverylikely
Chart Of The Ages
For some reason, TD, when I was skimming I read that as "Taint of the Ages"
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Essan
That's your intuitive subconscious rendering it's judgement NVL.
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notverylikely
That's your intuitive subconscious rendering it's judgement NVL.
I think you might be on to something...
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djeggnog
@Essan wrote quote:
If you take all of page 76 and page 77 of the The Time is At Hand in the original text, rather than the doctored text you quote, then it's perfectly blatant that Russell was predicting Christ would come in 1914. How can the Kingdom come on earth without [its] King coming?
@Essan also wrote quote:
I presented you with countless quotes besides this proving it. Russell proclaimed Christ to be "Present" from 1874 but he is clear that in 1914 he "will then be present" in a new capacity "as earth's new ruler". Thus, Russell predicted that, like the Kingdom Christians long prayed for, it's King would come in 1914. A Kingdom on earth coming without [its] King coming? I think not.
In both of these quotes, you contend that a kingdom cannot come without its king, correct? Well, tell me this what happened when, in the year 1914, invisible to human eyes, the kingdom of God became established in the heavens, with Jesus actually coming into his kingdom, which event has been discerned by Christians? You well know that from the beginning until January 1, 1939, the Watchtower had changed its banner from "And Herald of Christ's Presence," since Russell had, since 1874, considered Jesus' presence as having begun in 1874, to "Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom," in March 1, 1939, in acknowledgment of the fact that Jehovah had taken His "great power and begun ruling as king" representatively through His Son, Jesus Christ, in fulfillment of Revelation 11:17 when Jesus came into his kingdom in 1914.
Due to a misunderstanding, Russell had miscalculated the beginning of Jesus' presence as taking place two years after 4128 BC, when sin had entered upon the human family, or in the year 4126 BC. The beginning of the world had been wrongly calculated to be 4128 BC or AM 0 ("AM" meaning "Anno Mundi," the "Year of the World"), and so when moving forward 6,000 years from 4126 BC, we arrive at the year 1874, when Russell and his associates believed the seventh millennium would began.
What this meant here is that the year for the beginning of Jesus' reign, the year of Jesus' return as well as the beginning of Jesus' invisible presence or _parousia_ had been established in their minds as having been 1874. Not a few Jehovah's Witnesses are familiar with the history of Jehovah's Witnesses as it existed in the 1800s when Russell was the president of the WTS until his death in October 31, 1916, but the reason why on the front page of Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence from the July 1, 1906 issue through the September 15, 1928 issue appeared "July 1, A.D. 1906-A.M., 6034" and "Anno Mundi 6056—September 15, 1928," respectively. At the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, the anticipated glorification of the remnant of the church in the heavens did not occur, which disappointed many that had believed Russell's calculation as to when the seventh millennium would begin to be correct.
Russell had based his Bible chronology on what he described in The Time is at Hand book, at page 53, in referring to the reference, "the four hundred and eightieth year" at 1 Kings 6:1, as "possibly the mistake of a transcriber," and relying upon a footnoted suggestion in The Emphatic Diaglott on Acts 13:20, which indicated that "the text in 1 Kings 6:1 has been corrupted, by substituting the Hebrew character daleth (4) for hay (5) which is very similar in form. This would make 580 years (instead of 480) from the exode to the building of the temple, and exactly agree with Paul’s chronology"; thus, The Time is at Hand book says that "the Hebrew character "daleth" (4) very much resembles the character "hay" (5), and it is supposed that in this way the error has occurred," so it was concluded that 1 Kings 6:1 "should read five hundred and eighty, and thus be in perfect harmony with the other statements."
By the insertion of 100 years into the Bible chronology during the period of the Judges, man's creation was pushed back 100 years to 4128 BC, which meant that 6,000 years ended in 1872, and with an additional two years added for the entry of sin into the world, or 4126 BC, 6,000 years of sin would therefore terminate in 1874 BC, when the seventh millennial reign was expected to begin.
In 1943, the WTS published the book, The Truth Shall Make You Free," where in chapter 11, entitled "The Count of Time," the 100 years that Russell had inserted into the period of the Judges was rejected as an error that had been made in order to coincide with the oldest and most authentic reading of Acts 13:20, so this adjustment impacted Russell's teaching that the beginning of his invisible presence or _parousia_ had begun in 1874, since it then became clear that this 6,000 years would instead end in the year 1975. Consequently, on page 215, paragraph 22, of the Watchtower dated July 15, 1949, the statement is made that "the Son of man ... came into Kingdom power A.D. 1914" and that this date constituted Jesus "second coming and the beginning of his second parousía or presence."
These miscalculations that were based on a misunderstanding of how 1 Kings 6:1 should rightly be rendered would have undoubtedly caused Russell to have come to very different conclusions that the ones he reached back in 1879 as to the significance of the year 1874 had he known, which, as it turns out, was not a significant year at all. However, Russell's calculation based on 1914 being when "the appointed times of the nations" (the "Gentile times") to which Jesus refers at Luke 21:24 would end was correct, and so Jehovah's Witnesses today teach that Jesus' invisible presence began in this year -- 1914 -- the same year in which the visible sign of Jesus' presence became evident with the outbreak of World War I in fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy at Matthew 24:3, 7, 8, which Jesus described as being "a beginning of pangs of distress."
What I believe with all of this quibbling you and others here are doing with respect to what Russell believed or didn't believe before his death is that you have failed to appreciate the fact that God's kingdom is now ruling over Jehovah's Witnesses, for all Jehovah's Witnesses recognize God's established kingdom, and the authority of the one that God has anointed as king, whose rulership now "in the midst of his enemies" represents Jehovah God's sovereignty over the entire inhabited earth during the last days of this wicked system of things. (Psalm 110:2)
One other point I would make here:
In response to a question I was asked in another thread, if the year 1975 does mark the end of 6,000 years, then one would expect the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ to begin at the end of "the Gospel age," to use Russell's terminology, at the beginning of the last 1,000-year period of God's seventh rest day. But even if our calculation of 6,000 years should be 100% correct, what don't we know? Genesis 1:31 indicates that it was "after" the human pair had been created that God saw everything that he had made was very good, and only then did the sixth creative day come to an end.
So while we might be able to calculate when Adam was created -- 4026 BC -- what we do not know is when Eve was created. I'll tell you one thing that we do know in view of the fact that the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ has not yet begun: We know that in 2010, if 1975 accurately marks 6,000 years, that Eve's creation could not have been occurred any earlier than 35 years after Adam's creation, but how many years was it?
In saying what he did at Mark 13:32, Jesus Christ knew that we would not be able to calculate the "day and hour" because of one vital piece of information unknown to us and not revealed anywhere in the Bible: The date of Eve's creation. However, since Jesus would know when Eve was created, the reason he did not know the "day and hour" is apparent: Jehovah had decided not to reveal this information to His only-begotten son for some reason.
Therefore, we logically know in the year 2010 that Eve could not have been created any earlier than 35 years after Adam's creation, but what if Eve was created, say, just five years later or 40 years after Adam's creation, then that would logically mean that the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ will not occur until the year 2015. What if the Millennial reign of Christ Jesus should begin in the year 2015? Or earlier, like in the year 2012? We will see.
@djeggnog