Certainly is a total lack of scriptures to support their new reinvention.
"Although they were anointed by holy spirit, the apostles and other first-century Christians were not “the faithful and discreet slave” prophesied by Jesus."
Why not? There was a governing body in the first century, why doesn't WT call it the Governing Body (with caps) and "the faithful and discreet slave"? These were people that knew Jesus personally and supposedly responsible for the New Testament, but they aren't the FDS? How do some bozos in New York better qualify to lead the Christian congregation?
"Jesus’ apostles had miraculous gifts of holy spirit, so there was scant reason to raise that question in the first century C.E."
Few of the apostles had any miraculous gifts. Examining the early Christian history, even many of the divisions Paul spoke of, clearly there were questions about the leadership and direction of Christianity in the first century. Their reasoning doesn't add up at all.
"The evidence points to the following conclusion: “The faithful and discreet slave” was appointed over Jesus’ domestics in 1919."
What evidence? Where in his description of the fds does Jesus say it wouldn't appear for nearly 2000 years? Quite the contrary, the scriptures clearly state that Jesus does the appointing over the domestics at the time he leaves, not somehow after a time he returns invisibly in 1914 but before a time that he returns visibly an overlapping generation after 1914. If anything, Jesus words in the parable parallel his later instruction to Peter to feed his little sheep. WT should have stuck with their story about this beginning at the time of Christ. Jesus certainly never appeared to Rutherford with such an appointment.
"Happy is that slave if his master on arriving finds him doing so!"
With their revision, they no longer can say that they are truly "the faithful and discreet slave" since the context clearly shows that the slave is judged as either faithful or wicked, not at the time they would supposedly be appointed in 1919, but at the time of his arrival, which WT has now moved into the future. It wouldn't be until after the big A, an overlapping generation after 1914, that JC would judge whether they were faithful or wicked.
As much as WT would just like to say the FDS is only the GB, they have to backtrack on a lot of history and context. This is as much a mess as their overlapping generation crap.
