by awakening 66 Replies latest jw friends
Landmark in what way? WWI started in late July of that year. The 2,520 years didn't end until October. If Jesus was enthroned as King in October and threw Satan out of heaven then, how could it be said that WWI was related to that event?
A few years ago an elder told me the reason why...He said that even though WWI began in July, it wasn't until October that there were 10 nations involved. And the number "10" is a complete number. I believed him at the time.
Very interesting improvisation by that elder, Bonnie_Clyde. Depends on how you want to count.
From the book, A World Undone: The Story of The Gret War 1914-1918, by G.J. Meyer, we have a handy little timeline which I quote in part below, along with a running tally of belligerents.
July 28: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia (2)
Aug. 1:Germany mobilizes, declares state of war with Russia (4)
Aug. 2:German troops enter Luxembourg (5, but no actual declaration of war)
Aug. 3:Germany declares war on France (6)
Aug. 4:Germany declares war on Belgium (7)
Aug. 12:Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary (8)
Oct. 29:Turkey enters war on side of Austria-Hungary and Germany (9)
Of course, Monenegro and Japan declared war during this time period. Making the number 11, if you count Luxembourg.
So, maybe drop Luxembourg, since there was no official declaration of war. So, you get 10 again! On the other hand, The Ottoman Empire actually declared war in November (or had it declared on them), not in October. So, now we are back down to 9.
Well, 9, 10, or 11 are all very close to 10. So prophetic completeness is confirmed!
Thanks for all your research, Sulla. I wondered who those 10 nations were--9 or 11 rounded off to 10.
The explanation for the mismatch between WWI's start and Oct. 1914 that I was familiar with was that the Devil had simply started trouble before getting cast down to Earth, possibly as a side effect of the heavenly war, or possibly to distract from Christ's coming (because goodness knows, how could we have missed his invisible coming otherwise...). But of course since Satan would have had control over Earth already before being cast down, this seemed like a plausible suggestion that couldn't really be disproven, like specific dating (607-1914) can be.
1914 was wrong. CT Russell said it would bring the END the world's systems, that it would be the END of earth's problems.
He couldn't have been more wrong, even by the WT Society's own revisionistic telling. Rather than letting the 1914 date die out, JF Rutherford pegged the start of the end times to that date. Yes the START of the end, not the end of the end as Russell proclaimed in the pages of Watchtower magazines.
Yes a major war started in 1914, and a historic one. Was it the beginning of the end of the world? Not necessarily. But even if we admit for the sake of argument that it was the "beginning of the end", it was nothing more than a coincidence. The Watchtower has thrown so many darts at the dartboard of dates, they were bound to hit something one time. Even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.
Funny aditional point. The French philosopher René Giriard, who has spent a lot of time writing on sacred violence, wrote a book recently, Battling to the End. Much too much to summarize, but I thought this passage was worth a laugh:
If we had been told 30 years ago that Islamism would replace Cold War, we would have laughed. If we had said 30 years ago that military and environmental events were foretold in the Gospel or that the apocalypse had begun at Verdun, people would have taken us for Jehovah's Witnesses.
Actually, from accounts of the action at Verdun, I think maybe they're right. Anyhow...
coincidence which unfortunately hasn't helped them our since then. After all nothing momentous happened in 1975.
