@garyneal wrote:
Where's Scholar?
@undercoverwrote:
Personally, I think he got a clue and [realized], despite his defense of 607, that he can't defend the WTS for their generation stupidity and he's regained his senses and is working his way through the early stages of fading from the organization. Of course, his ego won't let him come here and take his lumps, so he'll join back up under another name.
I do not know @Scholar, but I do know the truth, and I can and am able to defend the year 607 BC as being the year when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the same year when Nebuchadnezzar's appointee, Gedaliah, was assassinated, two months after Jerusalem's destruction, after which the 70-year desolation of Judah began to undergo fulfillment. Jehovah, by means of Jesus Christ, has committed to me and to all Jehovah's Witnesses the word of the reconciliation, so [..] my ego is ok with folks 'appraising me as being a subordinate of Christ and steward of the sacred secrets of God.' (2 Corinthians 5:19, 20; 1 Corinthians 4:1)
@sabastious:
DJ, you ask for "real" evidence of a prediction of the end of the world?
I did, yes, real prediction of a real prediction.
You quoted from a WT article entitled "1914, the generation that will not pass way."
I did.
You don't need to even go into the article to get the WT's clear prediction of the end of the world, you just need to know their doctrine.
If that's how you learn, my judging a book by its cover or by drawing conclusions based on the pictures, ok. But my preference is reading.
We all know the Witnesses believe the end of the world is coming and that we are in the End Times.
True. This is what all Jehovah's Witnesses believe. Even if you should no longer be one of Jehovah's Witnesses, do you think that by your not believing that the end of the world is imminent that the word will not end?
So when the Witnesses compose a persuasive essay called "1914 - the generation that will not pass way" they are giving their conclusion of the essay in the title.
Oh, is that what we're doing? Ok.
They are essentially saying that the generation of 1914 will not pass away before the end of the world, hence predicting the timespan of when the end of the world will happen: somewhere between 1914 and when the generation of that 1914 passes away.
That's not what we're saying at all. What we're saying is that the end is so very close that there are just too many things in the Bible that would make it foolhardy for any one of us to treat them with disdain. The phrase, "the 1914 generation" was coined to represent those that were alive in 1914, and in 1984, it was said that the babies of that 1914 generation were 70 years or older. Do the math; this was a true statement. We prefaced these statements by saying "if Jesus used 'generation' in that sense and we apply it to 1914," then thus and so. We were not making any predictions; we were just speculating as to when the end of this system of things might occur.
Which is why the WT is knee deep in semantics about the word "generation" because their original prediction fell flat on [its] face.
If this is what you choose to believe, there is nothing that I can say that can dissuade you from holding such an opinion.
There would be no need to alter the definition of Jesus "this generation" statement if their original prediction was still true. If it their prediction is not true and needs to be dramatically altered, then it is false. A false prediction of the end of the world it indeed is. It's that simple.
Ok.
I'd love for you to stand before God with these logical tomes of semantics and pretzel logic, he would laugh at you I would guess.
No, Jehovah would laugh in derision over your lack of humility.
@djeggnog wrote:
If Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BC, prove it without contradicting the Bible!
@Joey Jo-Jo wrote:
The thing is it doesn't contradict the bible, because it did occur 70 years of servitude not destruction, all the references in Jeremiah and Daniel point to 587BCE and 607BCE is impossible to [reconcile].
@djeggnog wrote:
The "good word" that Jehovah gave to Jeremiah was that He would turn his attention to His people after "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon," and I believe the land of Judah lay desolate just as Jehovah had foretold by the prophet Jeremiah "until the land had paid off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years," whose prophecy Daniel recounts. (Jeremiah 29:10; 2 Chronicles 36:20, 21; Daniel 9:2) You are free to believe that this 70-year period began in 605 BC as do those who hold to the year 587 BC as the year when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, knowing that historians all point to 539 BC as being the year when Babylon fell to the Persians, when Cyrus freed the Jewish exiles from captivity and let them return to Judah to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.
Now I realize, @Joey Jo-Jo, that you were repeating something you either heard or read somewhere without realizing what it was you were saying -- kinda like those folks that were caught up in the ruckus at Jesus' trial and shouted "Impale him!" without giving any thought whatsoever as to whether the man upon whom they were urging Pilate to condemn was deserving of death [(John 19:6)] -- because it isn't possible to find 70 years between 587 BC and 539 BC since you would be 22 years shy of fulfilling 70 years, but let me continue since, to be fair, you did mention the servitude of the Jewish exiles in Babylon.
@Joey Jo-Jo wrote:
DJ: I didn't elaborate because I didnt have much time, but putting words in my mouth is just childish, most of my reasoning comes from the book Insight Of The Scriptures and Gentile Times Reconsidered. Scripture proves that 587BCE was the date, without any secular dating (with the exception of 537BCE which is in harmony with also the WT teaching of 537BCE).
It occurs to me that neither you nor @wasblind here in hindsight ought to have been given a copy of the Insight book nor the Reasoning book, because neither of you knew how these books were designed to be used. The Reasoning book, for example, is an aid, but not a Bible study aid. It was designed to be used to refresh our own recollection of Bible doctrines when such discussions should come up in our field ministry. Even if you weren't cognizant in discussing these doctrines, the book could be used to explain things that might be hard to explain by those publishers unfamiliar with the topic.
On the other hand, the Insight book is like an encyclopedia that contains facts that can serve to help us to understand some of the things that the Bible mentions that are not necessarily doctrinal in content, but of historical interest or that we don't quite understand from our own study of the Bible. The Insight book specifically states that "[t]he objective of this publication is to help you to acquire insight on the Scriptures."
I wont elaborate now but I will say that the Gentile rule began about 20 years before Jerusalem was destroyed because the bible spoke of 70 years of servitude (to the king) and not 70 years of exile. I will comment on what you posted in a later time.
Feel free to elaborate later, but keep in mind that while the Bible does speak of 70 years of servitude to King Nebuchadnezzar, Jewish servitude didn't begin until Nebuchadnezzar's seventh regnal year in 618 BC. (Jeremiah 25:11) More importantly though, it was during Nebuchadnezzar's 18th regnal year in 607 BC when when Jerusalem was destroyed and Zedekiah, who had fled Jerusalem, was overtaken at Jericho, blinded and then led captive to Babylon.
While Jeremiah 25:11 does speak of "these nations" being forced to serve King Nebuchadnezzar for "seventy years," but it was not until 607 BC that Judah began to lie desolate just as Jehovah had foretold would occur by His prophet Jeremiah, some 11 years after the servitude of "these nations" in the Syria-Palestine region had already begun in 618 BC. It was only then -- in 607 BC -- that "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon" by the Jews began, during which "the land [would pay] off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years." (Jeremiah 29:10; 2 Chronicles 36:21)
Scripture does not prove that 587BCE was the date when Jeremiah's prophecy regarding the 70 years of the Jewish exile in Babylon (2 Chronicles 36:21), nor is 587 BCE the date when the 70 years of servitude by the nations (Jeremiah 25:11) began either. Put another way, the reason you will be unable to reconcile 587 BC with 607 BC is because (1) these two dates cannot be reconciled with one another and (2) you are confusing Jeremiah's prophecy at Jeremiah 25:11 with Jeremiah's prophecy at 2 Chronicles 36:21. There are just three(3) other points I want to make here, and the first is this: @Alleymom is just like you, clueless. That's point #1.
Whether you add an additional 20 years, which would take us back to 607 BC, you would still be completely overlooking the fact that 607 BC was not Nebuchadnezzar's accession year, but was his 18th regnal year, or don't you get that yet? If 607 was Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year, this means that he had already been king of Babylon since his victory over Pharoah Necho at Carchemish in 625 BC, or for an additional 18 years, or don't you get this? This being the case, you would essentially be saying that Babylon only ruled for 70 years, when the fact is that Babylon had been a world empire for 86 years until 539 BC, when Babylon fell to the Persians. That's point #2.
Last point: You stated that "Scripture proves that 587BCE was the date, without any secular dating." My impulse is to ask you where in Scripture -- book, chapter and verse -- would one find this date, 587 BCE? But I'm not asking you this question. I know you can figure that out all by yourself, but I'm telling you so that there is no misunderstand: This was an unintelligent thing for you to say. Learn from me: I know what I'm talking about here.
What I will say though is that there is this rock that was discovered in Baghdad, Iraq, back in 1879. This stone is called the "Nabonidus Chronicle." Maybe you've heard of it. In the event you have never heard of it, this particular stone document is of historic significance in that it memorializes the date when Babylon was captured by King Cyrus of Persia. Nebuchadnezzar was Nabonidus' father-in-law’s, and Nabonidus was Belshazzar's father, Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, and Belshazzar is the one to whom Daniel refers at Daniel 5:22.
According to "Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles," pp. 109, 110, the Nabonidus Chronicle that is written in Babylonian cuneiform script states concerning the night of Babylon's fall that "[i]n the month of Tashritu, ... [t]he 16th day, Gobryas (Ugbaru), the governor of Gutium and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon without battle." Consequently, we know the exact date when Belshazzar was killed by the Medo-Persian forces (Daniel 5:30) that came against Babylon that night: October 5, 539 BC.
It is by means of this date and other secular dates, along with Scripture, that we are able to easily and accurately calculate and verify the dates when various events recorded in the Bible occurred, dates such as the date when the flood occurred (2370 BC), the dates when Abraham was born (2018 BC) and died (1843 BC), the dates when Solomon's temple was built (1027 BC) and destroyed (607 BC), the date when Zerubbabel's temple was built (516 BC) and the date when Herod's temple renovation work was commenced (around 18 BC), and then destroyed (70 AD).
If one has an accurate knowledge of the Bible, an aptitude for math and some knowledge of when certain secular events occurred in history, one can deduce many of the dates to which the Bible refers, such as the date when "the [seven] appointed times of the nations" that Daniel mentions at Daniel 4:25 and to which Jesus refers at Luke 21:24 would undergo fulfillment, which date is 1914, some 2,520 years after Solomon's temple was destroyed in 607 BC. This is easy when one stops resisting what the holy spirit says.
@djeggnog wrote:
But what you have failed to do,@lisaBObesa, is [to provide] evidence that we have ever made a prediction as to when the world would come to an end. All of this bluster on your part doesn't make your case. Where's your evidence that we've done more than just speculate on when the end of this system of things might occur? Where is it, @lisaBObesa?
@wasblind wrote:
Under the Heading of Dates, on page 97 in the Reasoning Book it States....
Please take a moment to read what it was I wrote to @Joey Jo-Jo in my latest response to his message, since what I said in that response applies equally to you. You really do not know enough to be having this discussion with me. You may be smart as far as the world is concerned, but when it comes to spiritual things, you're an illiterate. To be honest, I do believe you have a reading comprehension problem, too, which may well be because you never finished high school. I'm not sure that you really understand what things I have been saying to you in this thread.
@Ding:
"The Time Is At Hand," 1911 edition, ... Pastor Russell's Sermons, 1917, The Finished Mystery, 1917 edition, ... Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1920....
You're off topic. BTW, you've posted at least two messages since you wrote the following:
Others can do what they want, but from now on I intend to ignore his posts and spend my JWN time conversing with posters who want to have meaningful conversations.
Why don't you stop posturing and do what it is you said you were going to do?
@wasblind:
I would like to remind DJeggnogg that they specifically built Beth Sarim for the prophets of old to live in. If that ain't a testament of a false prophecy I don't know what is.
What Rutherford may have had in mind for Beth Sarim was zany, but was not a prophecy. Get a dictionary and find someone to help you understand what the words used to define the word mean, ok? You clearly do not know what a prophecy is. One way of viewing a prophecy is that it is a forecast about some future event. A meteorologist (a weather person) forecasts or predicts the weather, whether it will be cold or not, wet or sunny, or just cloudy.
Scheduled events, on the other hand, do not constitute prophecies, for, in the US, presidential elections occur every four years on the first Tuesday in the month of November. Unscheduled events aren't prophecies either, for I might plan to use my income tax refund check to weatherize all of the windows in my home or to buy Los Angeles Dodgers baseball season tickets for two on whatever day after the check arrives.
Now someone might be zany enough to furnish a room in their home with a crib, a bassinet, a baby tub and a dresser, and even clothes for a newborn baby, even though he or she is not yet married nor has made any effort to seek a spouse or adopt a newborn. However, no one that should be zany enough to do any of these things is guilty of making a prophecy. This is not what the word means. You have here been using a word thinking you understood its meaning when you have no real idea what it means. Hopefully, you will understand this message and stop using the word "prophecy" until you have finally come to learn what the word actually means.
@djeggnog wrote:
Let me put it this way: Anyone that listens to you will die. There is no one that refuses to listen to us that will be saved. Period. By our paying constant attention to ourselves and to what we teach, and living our lives in accord with these things, Jehovah's Witnesses have faith that we will save not just ourselves but those who listen to us. (1 Timothy 4:16)
@3dogs1husband wrote:
So needless to say when I read your reply ... I say to you: YOU ONLY HOPE TO SAVE YOURSELF!
@djeggnog wrote:
You are free to believe whatever it is you wish about my intentions, but if you refuse to listen to us, you are probably going to perish.
@3dogs1husband:
I've said it before and I'll say it again...I'm done with EggNogg.
He just told me I'll probably [perish] anyways.....that would be tragic if Jesus hadnt already died for my sins.
That's not what I said at all to you! I said that if you refuse to listen to us -- that is, to Jehovah's Witnesses -- you are probably going to perish. Am I supposed to understand your response to mean that you have no intention of listening to us?
It is true that Jesus died for your sins, your sins, my sins, the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2; Hebrews 2:17) However, unless one exercises faith in Jesus' ransom sacrifice, you cannot receive the benefits of his sacrifice. I might assume that you knew this already, but I'd rather tell you this in the event you don't know this. Here's the scriptural text:
"For the undeserved kindness of God which brings salvation to all sorts of men has been manifested, instructing us to repudiate ungodliness and worldly desires and to live with soundness of mind and righteousness and godly devotion amid this present system of things, while we wait for the happy hope and glorious manifestation of the great God and of the Savior of us, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us that he might deliver us from every sort of lawlessness and cleanse for himself a people peculiarly his own, zealous for fine works." (Titus 2:11-14)
It is by means of God's grace, by means of His undeserved kindness, that the salvation of Jesus Christ has been made known to us, but if you don't repudiate ungodliness and worldly desires, if you are not living with soundness of mind with righteousness in view and with godly devotion, if you are not spiritually clean and zealous for fine works, you will not be saved. God has no plans to save the entire world of mankind. He sent His son to minister as well as "to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many." (Matthew 20:28) These are the ones for whom Christ died, for not everyone will accept the things he taught in his ministry.
So, then, if you are not about finishing the work that God has, through Jesus, given those for whom he died to do, then you cannot be exercising faith in Jesus, and to you his ransom would not apply, and you will not be saved. (Matthew 28:19, 20; John 6:29; 17:4) For a certainty, "faith without [godly] works is dead," and for anyone to even think that they could say what things you have said to me here to any of Jehovah's Witnesses without getting called on those things smacks of ignorance. (James 2:26)
It would be delusional on your part to believe that you are going to be saved while teaching others to this effect, when absolutely no one can be saved by pursuing their own selfish works of righteousness. That you do not know that one disowns God by such works is incredible. (Titus 1:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9) Personally, @3dogs1husband, I think it to be rather tragic for someone to be delusional.
@Listener:
I was so young at the time and do not recall all this hype of 1975 and certainly not the articles or meetings in 1968 that put a great significance to the year 1975 and the indications that Armageddon would occur anytime up until 1975.
Then why do you feel competent to comment on something about which you admit you know very little?
Ex-JWs and [observers] will swear that by 1975 Armageddon was supposed to have happened. JWs still in the faith after that date will swear that the org never said such a thing.
This is a lie. You are repeating something you've heard that isn't true at all.
Without a doubt there was much confusion and that would have started occurring from 1968 right up until 1975 and yet there was not proper clarification during this time to clearly point out what the situation was and so the problem and expectations slowly started to fester....
What are you are talking about. No one was in any doubt pre-1975 as to the fact that Jesus had stated at Matthew 24:36 that "concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father." Jehovah's Witnesses had not dedicated their lives to serve Jehovah until 1975 or any particular year. There was no problem back then, but greed on the part of those that thought they could get something for nothing, wanting to believe that if the Armageddon was coming in 1975 that they would not have to pay off the debts that they were incurring pre-1975, and many at the time were lost due to greed.
This would have delighted the org at the time as it promoted an idea of great urgency and that suited them very well. They didn't consider the future, past 1975, when they had to reign in their stray [sheep] who they personally had let wander off with wrong understandings.
Jehovah's organization didn't promote any great urgency beyond what we are promoting today, and the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses were not driven by greed, and when we came to learn about those who had proved themselves to be greedy persons, many were rebuked and some even disfellowshipped from our ranks. (1 Corinthians 5:11-13)
In 1975 the org decided to then take some action - purely as damage control. They could have done this much sooner but in their Discretion chose not to, they were happy with the idea that it would help weed out those who had lost their confidence in the org.
There was no such action taken as "damage control" at all. For someone that claimed at the very beginning of your post to have been "so young at the time" so that you "do not recall all this hype of 1975," you seem to want to make it appear that you know more than can possibly know.
Instead they held a short emergency convention globally on this very issue and again they chose not to publish a proper clarification, acknowledging that the misunderstanding stemmed from there very publications. They did not want to point to themselves as being the cause of the confusion.
This is a lie. There has never been "a short emergency convention" held globally on any issue in our organization. What does this even mean?
As it was the year 1975 they could not have been calling them apostates for pushing forward the idea that Armageddon was going to occur by 1975 so I can only assume that it was due to murmurings and the false illusion that many JWs had been given.
You're mistaken. Apostates have been around since the first century AD, and after a first and second admonition, it they persist in their apostasy, they are removed.
They now didn't want JWs in the religion who would recall events and statements that were obviously now proven false as this would result in a mass exodus and would continue to do so into the future. As there was a serious problem [occurring] high up in the organisation they turned the tables on those ones and decided they must go, they were causing a fuss.
You cannot possibly be referring to those apostates that would gather outside of our conventions holding signs of protest, could you? Of course not.
@djeggnog
*********** "The TRUTH that leads to ETERNAL LIFE" page 94 and 95 "Jesus said: 'This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.' (Matthew 24:34) Which generation did he mean? "Jesus had just referred to person who would 'see all these things.' 'These things' are the events that have taken place since 1914 and those yet to occur down to the edn of this wicked system. (Matthew 24:33) Persons born even as much as fifty years ago could not see "all these things. " They came on the scene after the foretold events were already under way. 