K.I.S.S. Keep it simple (for the) STUPID! Considering 1914 anew

by Terry 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Mary

  TD said: Mary, I've followed B-Greek for many years. Conrad chaired the list, but opinions are often mixed. That's what I was driving at when I said that language is so darn slippery that there's usually somebody that agrees with an esoteric rendering.......But Burton is more than enough of an authority for a JW to hang their hat on and the conversation would degenerate into a "My expert" versus "Their expert" discussion.

  I hear ya hon......people hear what they want to hear. But this is why I love this site. We can actually do some research outside of what may be considered 'correct' and learn outside the box.
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  TD

  Yep. As I remember, Rolf Furuli posted a friendly rebuttal to Conrad and it was agreed that it was more a matter of interpretation than what grammar demanded.
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  moshe

  marked-
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  The Oracle

  excellent post Terry

  The Oracle
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  saltyoldlady

  Just to have some fun here AND still keeping it simple - ever so simple! If WTS lopped off 100 years from the beginning of Br Russell's calculations for 1914 - changed the beginning from 4126 to 4026 shouldn't EVERYTHING from then on be moved up 100 years - so that means 1914 is NOW 2014 guys - NUUUU Light. I'm all lit up. lol.
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  Terry

  Just to have some fun here AND still keeping it simple - ever so simple! If WTS lopped off 100 years from the beginning of Br Russell's calculations for 1914 - changed the beginning from 4126 to 4026 shouldn't EVERYTHING from then on be moved up 100 years - so that means 1914 is NOW 2014 guys - NUUUU Light.

  If Freddy Franz were still around he'd be smacking his lips over this idea!
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  Leolaia

  Hi Mary....I'm coming to this thread really late because I've been away from the forum. I think I disagree with Professor Conrad in regard to his third point. An indication of prior (or sustained) trampling may lie in the implicit intertextual allusion to Daniel: the trampling of Jerusalem by the Gentiles for a limited duration in Luke 21:24 recalls the "throwing down of the sanctuary" and the "trampling underfoot of the Lord's people" by the little horn in Daniel 8:11, 13 for a limited duration (v. 14). The trampling done by the little horn (Antiochus Epiphanes) is an extension of the trampling done by the he-goat symbolizing the kingdom of Greece: "The ram was powerless to stand against it; the goat knocked it to the ground and trampled on it" (v. 7), and ch. 8 in turn is a midrash of the earlier Aramaic vision of ch. 7 where the fourth kingdom "crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left" (v. 7), where fourth kingdom = he-goat = Greece. By the first century AD, the fourth kingdom was no longer identified with Greece but with Rome (a fact acknowledged in 4 Ezra which states that the Roman interpretation is not the original one given to the prophet Daniel), and the synoptic gospels draw on this identification. There is however another intertextual link in the verse that suggests that the reference to the "times of the Gentiles" is an allusion to the seventy weeks in ch. 9 of Daniel. This period is the duration of time decreed to "the city and the holy people" to atone for their sin before Jerusalem would be restored as prophesied. Until then the city would continue to be desolated although rebuilt when the exiles returned to their land (v. 2, 26-27), with the bulk of the time being "a time of trouble" (v. 25). The climax of this time of trouble in the final week is identical to the "trampling down" of the sanctuary by the "little horn" in ch. 8; the terminus is the same. The probable intertext for the terminus "until the times of the Gentiles are completed" in Luke 21:24 is Tobit 14:5, which similarly has a span of time between the return from exile and the final glorification of the sanctuary: " But God will again have mercy on them, and bring them back into their land; and they will rebuild the house of God, though it will not be like the former one until the times of the age are completed". So it seems feasible to me that the author here is thinking of the duration of Gentile domination of the city perceived as culminating in what would have been the near future from the POV of the author. It is also important to note that the author of Luke was consciously revising either Mark or (imo) Matthew, and the source material (= Matthew 24:15-21, Mark 13:14-19) has a direct reference to the "abomination of desolation" of Daniel 9:27, 11:31 , which the author of Luke identifies with the encamping of armies around Jerusalem (Luke 21:20), an interpretation informed by the events of the Jewish war. It is however still possible that the author limits the "trampling" to only the period of the little horn's trampling of the sanctuary in ch. 8 of Daniel (= the desolating of the city and sanctuary by the coming ruler in Daniel 9:26-27), which I think would be in agreement with the view Conrad is arguing for.
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  Bungi Bill

  "Intelligent JW Apologist"? Certainly on matters such as the finer points of Koine Greek, rather a mythical creature, I would have thought! This is not at all surprizing, though, given the WTS's anti-education hard line.

  To justify their date of 1914 does require a goodly measure of creative accounting. In particular, notice that Russell did not arrive at the date 1914 from counting forward "Seven Times" from 607 BCE:

  - rather, it was the other way around!

  This date of 1914 was borrowed from Nelson H. Barbour's Second Adventists - who arrived at it by a particularly nebulous bit of creative accounting, after their prophecy of 1873/1874 being the date for Armegeddon failed. Then, the psuedo-science of Pyramidology appeared to support this date.

  Bill.