Where is the second witness? (Russell and 1914)

by DT 11 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  DT

  I have been doing some reading about the Millerites and the "Great Disappointment" of 1844. I cant help but to notice some similarities between the Millerites and Russell.

  The Millerites also used a prophecy of 2,520 years, but chose a different starting point. They also appear to have initially forgotten the zero year, but later corrected their mistake.

  I think it's interesting that the Millerites had two prophecies that they thought pointed to 1844 (one dealing with 2,520 years and another with 2,300 years).

  This kind of makes sense (if you try to relate to their world view), because the Bible says that you need two witnesses to establish something. A person can shuffle numbers in the Bible all day, but it's not likely to mean much. However, if you find two prophecies that seem to point to the same time period, then you might have something. It would make sense to ignore numerical speculations, unless there was some kind of confirmation. You wouldn't expect God to provide a lonely prophecy that would just get lost among an endless stream of idle speculations.

  Russell followed this same model when he used a prophecy in Daniel and pyramidology to point to 1914. The JWs still accept the prophecy in Daniel but have renounced the pyramidology. That leaves only one witness to testify to 1914. They can't claim that the fulfillment is the proof because their expectations about 1914 failed. There current understanding came after the fact.

  It seems that even if the other problems with 1914 were overcome (Jerusalem not being destroyed in 607 BCE, no mention of a second fulfillment of the prophecy, uncertainty about the number of days in seven times, and so on), there still wouldn't be a Biblical basis to accept the prophecy as anything more than idle numerical speculations.

  Some might point to Jesus' prophecy about the last days, but this gives no way of predicting the date 1914. There also isn't any Biblical indication that Jesus' words and the prophecy in Daniel are talking about the same thing.

  So where is the second witness?
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  NOLAW

  What do you imply?

  So are you the second Witness? Or you refer to another prophecy?

  NOLAW
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  DT

  "What do you imply?

  So are you the second Witness? Or you refer to another prophecy?"

  I'm implying that there isn't a second witness. Russel said that the Great Pyramid in Egypt was a witness written in stone and pointed to 1914. He may have realised that his prophecy about 1914 may not have made much of an impression if it didn't have some kind of confirmation from another source. It's ironic that his prophecy is still taken seriously by some even though the confirming witness is now regarded as a fraud.
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  Band on the Run

  I did not realize there was a sophisicated playbook with detailed rules on how to compute prophecy dates. Why not five or seventeen sources? I note most people go with round figures.

  The author of Revelation wrote for the present. How could he know the future?

  Remove the legitimacy from the soothsayer and all calculations fail.
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  Vidqun

  Depending on one's interpretation of the Scriptures (e.g., whether Michael = Jesus Christ), there are different lines of arguments one can follow. From the following one can pick out a few "witnesses":

  So when would the “[the] end time” (= time of [the] end) start? If one examines the course of modern history, one notices that one date, the year 1914, stands out. The period during which the visions of Revelation will unfold is called “the Lord’s day” (cf. Rev. 1:10). This period will start in 1914. How can we know for sure?

  The first line of evidence is circumstantial. Revelation 12 indicates the birth of the Messianic Kingdom (Rev. 12:1-5). Jesus Christ would be enthroned in heaven as Jehovah’s appointed king (Dan. 7:13, 14, 26, 27). Under his heavenly name Michael, his first task would be to evict Satan (Rev. 12:9, 10; cf. Dan. 12:1, 2).

  The fourth beast, Rome, would eventually sprout an eleventh horn, the British Empire. It would humiliate three horns, Spain, France, and the Netherlands. At the beginning of the end time, this horn would grow large, turning into the Anglo-American world power, later called King of the South (cf. Dan. 7:7, 8, 17, 19-21, 23; 11:27-29). During this time the life of the rest of the political beasts (Babylon = Iraq; Medo-Persia = Iran; Greece) would be prolonged (cf. Dan. 7:4-6, 12; Rev. 17:12, 13).

  Those nations under the King of the North and South would become enmeshed in vicious wars over supremacy (cf. Ps. 2:1, 2; 110:1, 2). The prophet Isaiah (19:2) predicted that Jehovah “will goad Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will certainly war each one against his brother, and each one against his companion, city against city, kingdom against kingdom” (cf. Matt. 24:7, 8; Mark 13:8; Luk. 21:10).

  Within a biblical context, Egypt could be viewed as the first world power (cf. Rev. 17:10). But here the term “Egyptian” would take on a wider meaning. These kingdoms would fight for the right to rule, in other words for “the scepter of Egypt” (cf. Zech. 10:8-12). The significance of the term “the land of Egypt” will be discussed later.

  To confirm the above, we are introduced to four horseman of the Apocalypse. The first horseman, a conquering Christ (cf. Dan. 12:1; Rev. 12:7; 19:11-16), is followed by three horsemen, accurately portraying the conditions on earth since the outbreak of the First World War (cf. Rev. 6:1-3).

  *

  The second line of evidence, pointing to 1914 as the beginning of “[the] end time”, is chronological. This is somewhat controversial, because secular chronology, dealing with the Babylonian monarchy, differs from Bible chronology. The Nabonidus Harran Stele and Ptolemy’s Canon, amongst others, point to 587/586 BCE as the date of the first destruction of Jerusalem. Bible chronology pinpoints the date as 607 BCE. The seven times of Dan. 4 (7 x 360 = 2520 years), otherwise known as the Gentile Times, bring one to 1914 CE (Num. 14:34; Ez. 4:6; Dan. 4:23; Luk. 21:24).
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  diamondiiz

  The Pyramid pointed to several events, if you read Thy Kingdom Come, you will see that the pyramid pointed to 1874, 1878 and 1914, there might have been others like 1799 that the passages pointed to. But not only did the pyramid help with 1914, Russell also pointed to the 40 year of preaching (harvest work) from 1874 to 1914 which was supposed to refer to the time between Jesus' baptism in 30AD to Jerusalem's destruction in 70AD. There were some other calculations that supported 1914 as the end based on the original 1874 which I don't remember at this time, but Thy Kingdom Come book goes into detail.

  Modern witnesses have hard time explaining 1914 let alone trying to remember all the other wacky calculations that Russell used to get various dates. And then we have 1918 confusion and a flip flop between 1919 date.
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  AnnOMaly

  There isn't even one witness!

  But looking at it from the JW POV, I would think that chronology was witness #1, and the 'signs of the times' replaced the pyramid and became witness #2.
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  Vidqun

  I think AnnOMaly is right, to put it in a nutshell. That goes for today. Not sure how many of above arguments were current in Russel's day.
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  Phizzy

  Good point, well spotted DT !

  I remember some years ago sitting down for some hours and talking to a very old JW Elder, he was born before 1914, in the religion from the 1920's

  He candidly said that much of the WT stuff was conjecture, and he said to us young JW's "Do not base a doctrine or belief on just one scripture".

  Those were wise words, one "witness" is not sufficient, of course as has been said, the WT does not even have one "witness" for its 1914 drivil.
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  breakfast of champions

  And weren't there 6 signs of the times, the sixth being the ever-dwindling number of Annointed "partakers"?

  I think we're down to 5 signs now. Unless I'm mixing my signs up.