In bethel Splayne from the governing body explained it this way, "without question Fred Franz was of the first generation because he was alive when the sogn of Jesus presence began in 1914. Now an annointed that was born later on, but was alive while Franz was alive, in other words a contemporary of his would belong to the OVERLAPPING generation." Does it sound complicated enough? How anyone can believe Jesus meant this I don't know but it sounds like a complete fabrication, it has to be one of the most idiotic ideas I have heard! Like I said in a prior post Splayne was literally drawing diagrams because no one could make sense of it.
Who Knows The Exact Current Interpretation of "Generation" Please!
by Bubblegum Apotheosis 75 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Freeof1914
DJeggnog you have way too much time on your hands please go back to employing your time to convince people who do not know better that the watchtower is the truth, or go back to the writing department where you perhaps work. It seems like you fit right in with that arrogant bunch that have their heads stuck up their asses. Furthermore please do not write posts that are even longer than sunday study article, especially when it serves no purpose but bring to light all of the fallacies in the watchtower.
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nicolaou
Why don't you all f-fade away
And don't try to dig what we all s-s-say
I'm not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation
I'm just talkin' 'bout my g-g-g-generation -
Vidqun
Good example Freeof1914. That explanation should warrant a new dictionary write-up.
And Niolau, I love it.
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Ucantnome
Here's the skinny: In referring to the death of Joseph, Exodus 1:6 not only refers to all of Joseph's brothers, but to "all that generation." Based on Joseph's age when he died -- he was 110 years old when he died -- then Joseph's contemporaries would have been "all [of] his brothers," whose lives overlapped Joseph's, as well as Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were both living when their father died, whose lives also overlapped Joseph's, making them Joseph's contemporaries.
Thank you Djeggnog for your explanation
The point I was having difficulty with was that Joseph's contemporaries would have been "all [of] his brothers," whose lives overlapped Joseph's.
They overlapped Joseph's life. "Joseph life" was the event and in this case it is "the sign". It seems to me that anything that goes beyond a life time as the sign has it is difficult to call a group contemporaries because the event "Josephs life" was limited to his lifespan whereas the sign isnt. Surely to say it is limited to two people overlapping and being contemporaries is arbitrary. But maybe I'm wrong.
Like in my life I had a good friend who died many years ago. I have a neighbour now who I am friendly with. She was born after my friend died. Both people were in my life my comtemporaries I think. But they didnt overlap each other. But both are in my life and limited to my lifespan. If I should live for 150 years there maybe many more contemporaries of my life who died long before the other was born.
A person or thing living or existing at the same time as another, (Definition from the internet)
So I am wondering is there a need for the anointed who see the beginning of the sign to overlap with those who see the end to be called contemporaries? Contemporaries of what? Each other or the sign? If it's the sign then to me it seems as long as the sign is there it will have contemporaries.
i'm probably misunderstanding something here and look really stupid I'll blame it on the wine. Thank you once again for your help.
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00DAD
djeggnog: "I will say that interpreting scripture requires a willingness to go beyond what one reads in a publication and beyond what one hears in a Kingdom Hall" - Post #559 of 560
Learn the [rule]: “Do not go beyond the things that are written,” in order that YOU may not be puffed up individually in favor of the one against the other. - 1 Corinthians 4:6
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djeggnog
@Witness 007:
As I said: "Now the [Generation] that KNEW the 1914 generation is "the generation" DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE?....."
No. There is no such thing as a "1914 generation" any more. Jehovah's Witnesses have since 2010 needed to abandon this terminology and we have.
Before the 2010 article, Jehovah's Witnesses had believed there to be such a thing, but that interpretation has been abandoned in favor of what we now understand to be the generation of the sign, during which those of the anointed living when aspects of the composite sign are being discerned (starting with WWI and ending with the great tribulation) would be contemporaries. As indicated in my response to @Ucantnome below, it makes no difference if anyone of the anointed that bears witness to the composite should die as the result of a heart attack, car accident, plane crash or natural causes, that individual would be a contemporary of the generation of the sign.
@Vidqun:
Djeggnog, I am glad you are proficient in languages. Not all of us are. When there is doubt or misunderstanding of a word, then it is time to bring in the dictionaries, like in this case. Etymology would be handy in the case of the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek word, not so much the English equivalent. In addition, the NWT is an American Bible, translated in the US of A, thus my use of Webster. I would say it is very relevant, or did they use the wrong English word for Greek genea?
There too much going on here in your logic that it's difficult for me to decide how to respond to what you say here, @Vidqun. I don't want to be hurtful, to say anything that would make you feel insulted or hurt your feelings. There does seem to be a question in your mind as to the scholarship of those who translated the NWT from "Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek" into its "English equivalent," and specifically as to the NWT translators word choice with respect to the Greek word genea, and it's clear that you believe the NWT to be an American Bible because the English translation work was done in the US, despite the fact that the NWT has also been translated here in the US from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Japanese, Slovak and Swedish, and, in part, is now available in some 34 languages.
Your reasoning here seems to be that you are of the belief that one would need a German dictionary to determine if the word choice used to translate the Greek genea at Matthew 24:34 is correct for the German word Geschlecht. If so, then you would also believe that one needs a French dictionary to determine if the word choice used to translate the Greek genea at Matthew 24:34 is correct for the French word génération. However, this kind of reasoning would describe what an interlinear translation provides, but an interlinear Bible isn't a Bible translation at all. Try reading the text in the Kingdom Interlinear Translation and you'll see realize that if forming coherent sentences in English were the goal, it totally misses.
There is no one-to-one correspondency when translating the Bible from Hebrew to English or, in the case of translating the Greek text of Matthew 24:34, from Greek to English. A good Bible translation should consider linguistic content, literary context and historical and cultural environment. An English language dictionary, like Webster's, defines words in the US English lexicon, but such would be totally incapable of defining words like the Greek word genea.
You be the judge. I know for a fact that the new "generation" interpretation of the Society is unique and unparallelled in the literature. That means they have created a novel and new interpretation that should be added to the list of standard English interpretations (e.g., those by Webster) or even those used by the Oxford dictionary, if you prefer to use that one.
I have judged and I do not agree with you. You want to make this discussion about the definition of the word "generation" as it is defined in an English language dictionary, when this discussion is about the interpretation of the word "generation" used at Matthew 24:34.
If it is as [straightforward] as you say, why is it so difficult to understand?
Perhaps the problem here is that you do not understand that I have not been discussing with you here how the word "generation" might be defined in an English language dictionary. I've been pointing out here that since 2010, Jehovah's Witnesses now interpret the meaning of the word "generation" used at Matthew 24:34 based on how this same word is used at Exodus 1:6.
Quick lesson on the beasts according to JW theology....
Before I respond to any of what you wrote here, I would like you to take a moment and respond to the two questions I put to you in my previous message. For your convenience, I'll repeat it here:
(@Vidqun:)
Another telling example is the Society’s identity of the beast "ascending out of the abyss" of Revelation 11:7. At Rev. 17 it is clearly identified with the League of Nations and the United Nations (Revelation Climax-book, Chapter 34, p. 248).... But at Rev. 11:7 it is identified as the great political beast of Revelation 13:1 "ascending out of the sea" (Revelation Climax-book, Chapter 25, pp. 167, 168).
(@djeggnog:)
So that I might understand the point you are making here better, I have two (2) [questions]:
(1) Are you saying here that you believe the "scarlet-colored wild beast" at Revelation 17:3, the beast on whom the harlot sits, is also the beast described at Revelation 11:7?
(2) Are you saying here that you believe the "scarlet-colored wild beast" at Revelation 17:3, the beast on whom the harlot sits, is also the beast described at Revelation 13:1?
@Freeof1914:
In bethel [Splane] from the governing body explained it this way, "without question Fred Franz was of the first generation because he was alive when the [sign] of Jesus presence began in 1914. Now an [anointed] that was born later on, but was alive while Franz was alive, in other words a contemporary of his would belong to the OVERLAPPING generation." Does it sound complicated enough?
I don't see a complication. What is the "OVERLAPPING generation"? If someone of the anointed should be born after Franz, but while Franz is still living, his or her life would overlap Franz' life, but what if the life of someone born in 1890 should not overlap the life of someone born in 1922, because the one born in 1890 dies two years earlier in 1920? Splane's explanation fit the point of view he wished to put across at the time, but I'm now going to take a more expansive view than Splane took.
If we were to fit their lives of Franz and "an anointed that was born later on" in the explanation that Splane provided into a 50-year time frame, say, from the years 1920 to 1970, then both of their lives would overlap during that time frame. The reason the focus should not be on Franz' life though is because Jesus didn't focus on the life of any one of his anointed brothers. We believe he was referring to the generation that would discern the composite sign of his presence, the generation of his anointed brothers that would be alive as contemporaries of the generation of the sign, the generation of his brothers that would be alive during the generation of the sign and who would live to see certain aspects of the sign.
What if someone of the anointed born in 1880 should die in 1920? His or her life would not overlap the life of someone of the anointed that was born two years later in 1922 would it? But if one of the anointed that was born in 1880 who died in 1920 should have been alive to witness the outbreak of WWI and the earthquakes that occurred in Italy, China and Japan, in 1915, 1920 and 1923, respectively, which were part of the composite sign, while the other one of the anointed that was born in 1922 and is still alive today in 2012 should have lived through the pestilences like cancer, tuberculosis, polio and malaria and AIDS, and earthquakes like the Magnitude 9.0 earthquake that occurred in the Indian Ocean causing the tsunami that struck Indonesia back on December 26, 2004, like the more recent Magnitude 7.0 earthquake that occurred in southern Haiti back on January 12, 2010, and like the other earthquakes that occurred during his life (Turkey, 1939; Peru, 1970; China, 1976; Armenia, 1988), which things were also part of the composite sign? The lives of these two anointed Christians do not overlap one another, but they are still contemporaries of the generation of the sign.
How anyone can believe Jesus meant this I don't know but it sounds like a complete fabrication, it has to be one of the most idiotic ideas I have heard! Like I said in a prior post [Splane] was literally drawing diagrams because no one could make sense of it.
Ok.
@djeggnog wrote:
Here's the skinny: In referring to the death of Joseph, Exodus 1:6 not only refers to all of Joseph's brothers, but to "all that generation." Based on Joseph's age when he died -- he was 110 years old when he died -- then Joseph's contemporaries would have been "all [of] his brothers," whose lives overlapped Joseph's, as well as Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who were both living when their father died, whose lives also overlapped Joseph's, making them Joseph's contemporaries.
Those of Jesus' spiritual "brothers" that were alive contemporaneous with the "sign" that were born or became manifest in 1914 would correspond to those that became contemporaries of Joseph at his birth. These contemporaries of Joseph's generation would correspond in a similar fashion to the Jesus' anointed brothers, who from 1914 until now became contemporaries of the generation of the sign, for their lives overlapped during the generation of the sign and they could all bear witness to aspects of the composite sign that became manifest in 1914.
@Ucantnome wrote:
The point I was having difficulty with was that Joseph's contemporaries would have been "all [of] his brothers," whose lives overlapped Joseph's.
They overlapped Joseph's life. "Joseph life" was the event and in this case it is "the sign". It seems to me that anything that goes beyond a life time as the sign has it is difficult to call a group contemporaries because the event "Josephs life" was limited to his lifespan whereas the sign [isn't].
Ok
Surely to say it is limited to two people overlapping and being contemporaries is arbitrary. But maybe I'm wrong.
I believe you are wrong, but that is because the way Jehovah's Witnesses now interpret the word "generation" used at Matthew 24:34 hasn't a thing to do with the lives of any "two people overlapping," but with the lives of those related to Joseph that were alive during his lifetime. Just as Joseph's generation would include all of his brothers, his generation would also include Joseph's two sons, as well as Joseph's nephews, the sons of Joseph's brothers assuming that they are "all that generation," meaning that they were all born during Joseph's lifetime. The lives of some of Joseph's relatives might overlap the lives of some, but not all of Joseph's relatives -- maybe a bull gored to death Reuben's 12-year-old son or Simeon's 14-year-old son before those who would have been their first cousins were born -- but all of these folks would be contemporaries, not of one another, but of Joseph, for they would all be part of Joseph's generation as defined at Exodus 1:6.
Like in my life I had a good friend who died many years ago. I have a neighbour now who I am friendly with. She was born after my friend died. Both people were in my life my [contemporaries] I think. But they didnt overlap each other. But both are in my life and limited to my lifespan. If I should live for 150 years there maybe many more contemporaries of my life who died long before the other was born.
Right.
So I am wondering is there a need for the anointed who see the beginning of the sign to overlap with those who see the end to be called contemporaries? Contemporaries of what? Each other or the sign?
The sign?
If it's the sign then to me it seems as long as the sign is there it will have contemporaries.
Correct.
i'm probably misunderstanding something here and look really stupid I'll blame it on the wine.
You seem fine to me.
@00DAD:
djeggnog: "I will say that interpreting scripture requires a willingness to go beyond what one reads in a publication and beyond what one hears in a Kingdom Hall" - Post #559 of 560
Learn the [rule]: "Do not go beyond the things that are written," in order that YOU may not be puffed up individually in favor of the one against the other. - 1 Corinthians 4:6
This scripture you quoted -- 1 Corinthians 4:6 -- shouldn't be applied and has no application to anything that one might read in one of our publications or to anything that one might hear at any of our meetings held at the local Kingdom Hall. This scripture applies solely to God's word, the Bible.
@djeggnog
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JeffT
No. There is no such thing as a "1914 generation" any more. Jehovah's Witnesses have since 2010 needed to abandon this terminology and we have.
You needed to abandon the terminology in use before 2010 because it was demonstrably false. When I became a JW in 1973 there was a very clear understanding of what "this generation" referred to. It was the people who were old enough in 1914 to have understood the difference between the world before the last days began, and the world in the last days. That understanding proved to be wrong and was abandoned for the the current inexplicable understanding.
The society teaches that the trinity doctrine -- three overlapping personalities within the unity of the Godhead-- is unscriptural, not understandable and not rational, therefore false. You should apply that logic to the current understanding of a generation.
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agonus
So very many paragraphs devoted to the exposition of one little word. Hasn't the Society said in the past that The Truth should be clear, simple, and easy to understand and explain?
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Freeof1914
On another note Djegnog why would someone with such a CLEAR understnding of watchtower doctrine, not biblical, be on an apostate website. An action that is clearly condemned by the watchtower? Just curious as to why you are completely disobeying the watchtower? Apparently your understanding is not complete because thet society has clearly stated it is a reprehensible action what you have done?