DJ:
@TD:
The concept of a generation as a single human lifespan is threaded through several other JW teachings including their understanding of the Great Crowd of Revelation 7. No amount of word play is going to change that.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not deny and would never deny the fact that we once understood the words "this generation" at Matthew 24:34 to mean something other than what we now understand these words to me. Why do you say "word play"?
That comment was made in reference to a sentiment expressed here on JWN and even within some JW circles that the most recent adjustment to the understanding of Matthew 24:34 could move the "End" 60 to 80 years in the future.
To me, taking an understanding of one scripture and stretching it to the point of incompatibilty with an understanding of a different scripture is "Word play." --Something that is only possible if one does not care for the integrity of the belief system as a whole.
@TD:
You can't even be a "prospective" member of the "Great Crowd" if you don't live to see the "Great Tribulation" because you have an absolute zero prospect of surviving an event you don't live to see.
I agree with you in this respect: Only those of the "other sheep" that are also survivors of Armageddon would constitute that "great crowd."
Indeed. No one could have been a member of the "great crowd" even in theory in the year 1700 because the proximity of the end is one element that makes identification of the "great crowd" possible. That in turn, ties the understanding of the "great crowd" to a considerably shorter time period than the current understanding of Matthew 24:34 could (In theory) include.
Therefore the instant that group is identified, the clock starts ticking. If the "Great Tribulation" does not occur in the lifetime of the target group, something is wrong. I don't think the perspective in the vision allows for any squirming around this at all.
This is just nonsense and makes no sense. There is no "ticking clock." Either one is one of the Armageddon survivors and not, and if he or she is, then he or she would be a number of the "great crowd."
It is a logical corollary to formally recognizing the "Great Crowd" prior to the "Great Tribulation" that has been observed in JW literature:
"God's infallible word depicts this group as 'coming out of the great tribulation,' being survivors of it, living right on into God's New Order without ever having to die. (Revelation 7:9, 10, 14; John 11:26) The early members of this group are now in their 60's or 70's or older. Jehovah did not allow the ingathering of this group to begin too soon. The "great crowd," including many of the earliest members thereof, will survive into the "new earth." (Survival Into a New Earth p. 185)
The writer wasn't looking at the "Great Tribulation" as a future event and describing a "generation" of people who survive as a class
Which "writer." The writer of Matthew's gospel (the apostle Matthew) or the writer of the Revelation (the apostle John)? John doesn't mention a generation at all, but Matthew refers to both the "generation," not of people who survive as a class, but the period that began in 1914 when the presence of Jesus Christ began, which ends at the conclusion of this system of things.
I was referring to the writer of Revelation -- whomever that may have been.
The writer is on the "Other side" looking back at the "Great Tribulation" as a past event and describing a group composed of individual survivors
I suppose you could say that John was "looking back," but I believe he was looking forward to the future, which future began "in the Lord's day" (Revelation 1:10), during which he say the ride of four horsemen (Revelation 6:2-8) and a group of folks "that come out of the great tribulation" wearing white robes. (Revelation 7:9, 14)
It's a matter of which perspective we're talking about. If you are carried away in vision to see things in the far future as if you're actually there, then you have been given a temporary pespective apart from that which a third party would normally associate you with. It would be difficult to record that vision in the first person without assuming that future perspective for the sake of clear writing.
I think this can easily be shown by comparison with more conventional prophecy:
"And the wolf will actually reside for a while with the male lamb, and with the kid the leopard itself will lie down and the calf and the maned young lion and the well-fed animal all together, and a mere little boy will be leader over them."
"After these things I saw, and look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands. And they keep on crying with a loud voice, saying: "Salvation we owe to our God, who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb."
For the "Great crowd" of Revelation, the "Great Tribulation" is clearly a past event --else they would not speak of their salvation in the present tense. The are not a group of people hoping to survive. They are a group of people who have survived.
The point to all this is that an extension to the "Time of the End" on the order of 60 to 80 years would make 1935 look ludicrous, given the fact that people were asked to stand up and be recognized as the "Great Multitude" of Revelation at that time.
