I took Nathan Natas chart for numbers of memorial partakers since 1935. I worked out that on average 823 new partakers have been added every year since 1936, whilst on average 716 have been dying each year. What is especially interesting, is that when the TOTAL of new partaker numbers almost exactly matches that given in w96 15/8 p31 for 1935, is in the year 1995 - they year they began to deliberately create the fog around the "Generation" teaching. (I used actual figures, not averages here) I am now convinced that they have been paving the way for the Feb 15 2008 NOOLITE since then. I disregarded the figure for 1935 itself, since the Witchtower gives two figures for partakers - w88 gives 27 006, and w96 52 465 (the figure I used to work out the "equality date" of 1995. The smaller figure gives an equality date of 1941) So the total memorial partakers living and dead since 1936 is almost 110 000. However the partakers given in Natas chart gives: 1935 - 52 465 1936 - 24 850, which means 27 615 either died or left. I calculated a 5% death rate per annum in my working so gave the deaths for 1935 (not used in my reckoning) as 2623. Even so this smaller number still bumps the total since 1935 to 112 623. Notable jumps in new partakers were 1937; 11 564: 1946: 6375 and 1997: 785. How many Babble Students left the Borg after Rutherford took over? If this figure is high enough, it means that by implication the WT is actually denying the high numbers of Christians accepting the faith in the first century given in the Bible. They are also denying that Christ was able to save anybody for over 1800 years. Kind of scuppers their claim that the slave has always been on earth as claimed in the "Generation" change of Feb 15th 2008 I did this calculation four years ago. Since then another almost 4000 partakers have emerged. HB. |
New Light About FS--question
by DarioKehl 35 Replies latest jw friends
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hamsterbait
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hamsterbait
I did the entire calculation again using an average life of 70, which gives an expected death rate of 1.43% each year.
The final figures I came up with were:
14 707 dead annointed from 1936 -2007. Over the period 52 312 started taking the emblems.
In 1936 there were 24 850 partakers, which means that more began taking the emblems after 1935 than all those in 1935.
So the "door closing "in 1935 was a complete myth all along and the WT knew it.
Assuming a drop of 1.43% for 1935, the total taking the emblems in the 71 years is 68 123. If the drop of 27 615 in 1935 -1936 is dead partakers then the total is 94 989. Mary did point out at the time that several thousands stopped partaking in 1936, as they realised they were of the "Great Crowd"
What is remarkable is the huge numbers being called after 1935.
HB
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hamsterbait
The point I wanted to make was that even crude calculations like mine showed the Society's claim that the calling was largely finished after 1935 was obviously quite wrong as more started taking the emblems in the period after 1935 than the Society's own published number of 27 006 for the 1935 memorial.
The figure of 64 000 suggested by GermanXJW comes very close to the 67 374 which i got by factoring OUT the 27 000 who stopped after 1936 because they were told they were "other sheep", and using the projected deaths for 1935 based on the WT own figure in the 1988 Watchtower of 27 006.
HB
Perhaps the Society gives the higher figure in w96 15/8 because they were privy to information unavailable to us. In any event the contradiction is quite striking.
Why are the two figures in the literature? Without re reading the articles concerned, I can only conjecture that the numbers are deliberately used to back up some point being made at the time. Yet it is a damning indictment of the Society's contempt for the rank and file witness, that they are confident such flagrant misinformation will go unnoticed. -
Terry
Whatever the source of Fox’s information, manifestly little of this account is truly historical
Wow! Such sharp skepticism! Interesting how cynical they become when it serves their own venue.
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Pterist
Basically they need to get away from failed dates.....
.so CTRussel is dropped.
No FDS in the first century, No FDS in 1919 either ...the FDS did NOT or will NOT ? Appear until the great trip ! ......looks like they are looking to the future.
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wha happened?
ok here's a good one. The 7/1 WT 1972 starts to address the numbers problem. Of course they have to contradict their own publications, but after 20 years, there was too many annointed. Take a look:
• Large numbers of Christians are said to have been put to death during the Roman persecution in the first few centuries of the Common Era. How, then, is it possible for thousands in this century to have been called to become part of the body of Christ composed of only 144,000 persons?—U.S.A.
There are historical indications that many Christians were bitterly persecuted, even killed, in the first few centuries. However, it should be remembered that, in itself, a martyr’s death did not give a person merit before Jehovah God nor did it guarantee membership in the heavenly kingdom. Many persons, even in recent times, have been willing to die for a cause, religious or otherwise. A person’s claiming to be a Christian and even dying for his belief does not in itself mean that he is an approved servant of Jehovah God. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “If I give all my belongings to feed others, and if I hand over my body, that I may boast, but do not have love, I am not profited at all.” (1 Cor. 13:3) It is not death, but faithfulness to the very death, that determines whether an individual will receive “the crown of life.”—Rev. 2:10.
Thus the fact that today there is still a remnant of the 144,000 on earth would show that down to this twentieth century fewer than 144,000 finished their earthly course in faithfulness.
While some persons may be inclined to think that more persons must surely have been involved even as far back as the early centuries of the Common Era, actual proof to this effect is completely lacking. Today it is impossible even to establish how many persons were killed, much less the number of those who proved faithful to death. “We have practically but few facts to go upon,” writes Frederick John Foakes-Jackson in the book History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge. He further states: “The testimony to the persecution by Nero is recorded by two Roman historians, Tacitus and Suetonius, both of whom were very young when it occurred, and wrote in mature life. There is no contemporary Christian document describing it, though it may be alluded to in the book of Revelation. . . . Tertullian at the end of the second century is our authority that Nero and Domitian, because they were the two worst emperors in the first centuries, persecuted the Christians.” Early in the third century C.E., Origen (a Christian writer and teacher) observed: “There have been but a few now and again, easily counted, who have died for the Christian religion.”
Much that has been written about Christian martyrs is embellished by tradition and therefore unreliable. For example, the martyrdom of Polycarp of the second century C.E. is described in Fox’s Book of Martyrs as follows: “He was . . . bound to a stake, and the faggots with which he was surrounded set on fire, but when it became so hot that the soldiers were compelled to retire, he continued praying and singing praises to God for a long time. The flames raged with great violence, but still his body remained unconsumed, and shone like burnished gold. It is also said, that a grateful odour like that of myrrh, arose from the fire, which so much astonished the spectators, that many of them were by that means converted to Christianity. His executioners finding it impossible to put him to death by fire, thrust a spear into his side, from which the blood flowed in such a quantity, as to extinguish the flame. His body was then consumed to ashes, by order of the proconsul lest his followers should make it an object of adoration.”
Whatever the source of Fox’s information, manifestly little of this account is truly historical. Nevertheless, if the allusion to the adoration of the remains of Polycarp is to be viewed as indicating the existence of relic worship among professed Christians of the second century C.E., this would be additional evidence that many at that time were not faithful worshipers of Jehovah God. Christians were under command to “worship God,” not relics. (Rev. 19:10) In fact, idolaters are among those specifically named in the Scriptures as unfit to inherit the Kingdom.—1 Cor. 6:9, 10.