BBC interview about 1975 - never heard this before..

by defender of truth 39 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  defender of truth

  For any lurkers who don't believe the Watchtower taught that the world would end in 1975..

  Rare Jehovah's Witnesses 1968 interview "Armageddon and 1975" London Watchtower rep speaks to BBC

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NPmT-ML-M-g

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  If you claim in their defense that the Watchtower representative did not actually mention 1975 himself, why did he not correct the interviewer? All he had to do was say ''We are not saying anything will happen in 1975".

  Remembering the year that this interview was held (1968), take a look at these quotes:
  

  "Does God's rest day parallel the time man has been on earth since his creation? Apparently so. In what year, then, would the first 6,000 years of man's existence and also the first 6,000 years of Gods rest day come to an end? The year 1975. It means that within a relatively few years we will witness the fulfilment of the remaining prophecies that have to do with the "time of the end"."

  Awake! 1966 Oct 8 pp.19-20
  

  "The fact that fifty-four years of the period called the "last days" have already gone by is highly significant. It means that only a few years, at most, remain before the corrupt system of things dominating the earth is destroyed by God."

  Awake! 1968 Oct 8 p.13
  

  "If you are a young person, you also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in this present system of things. Why not? Because all the evidence in fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicates that this corrupt system is due to end in a few years. Of the generation that observed the beginning of the "last days" in 1914, Jesus foretold: "This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur."-Matt. 24:34.

  Therefore, as a young person, you will never fulfill any career that this system offers. If you are in highschool and thinking about a college education, it means at least four, perhaps even six or eight more years to graduate into a specialized career.

  But where will this system of things be by that time? It will be well on the way toward its finish, if not actually gone!"

  Awake! 1969 May 22 p.15
  

  www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/1975.php
  
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  Village Idiot

  I was in the JWs in the mid 70s and I know for a fact that they stated that the Great Tribulation/Armageddon would occur within a few months or years of 1975.

  I distinctly remember going to a special talk given by Fred Franz in which he gave explicit detail to the 1975 doctrine. I was recording that talk and I now wish I knew were that tape cassette is at.
• 

  Bungi Bill

  Thanks for posting that recording.

  Such verbal remarks as these were very common place during those years 1966-1975:

  - so much so that, very quickly, a person hardly gave the 1975 thing a second thought.

  Immediately afterwards, though, it seemed like everybody had a collective case of amnesia!

  Bill
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  RichardHaley

  I was baptized in '73 @ 16. The '75 scam was putting tremendous pressure on parents to get their kids baptized asap or else they would be destroyed with the rest of the world. It was promoted at all levels, remember it well. My parents to this day deny it ever happened.
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  John Aquila

  We never said that, it was some of the presumptuous members that took it upon themselves to say such a thing.

  We have never predicted anything.

  
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  Crazyguy

  This is the subject that helped to wake me up. LEtt in a talk in Florida stated that everyone or most I should say of the people he was associated with at bethel in the early seventies thought 1975 was it. He stated that he did not and was viewed as an apostate. I thought to myself well if bethel never said it and it was some rogue elders and Co's, which was their story after 1975, then how did everyone at bethel think the end was going to be in 1975. The lights in my head came on.
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  defender of truth

  I distinctly remember going to a special talk given by Fred Franz in which he gave explicit detail to the 1975 doctrine. I was recording that talk and I now wish I knew were that tape cassette is at.
  

  Was this the one?..

  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yBwKX-5qXT0

  (Skip to 7:30 if you want to get to the 1975 reference)

  It's worth bearing in mind that Franz was Vice-president at this time, not some lowly CO or elder.
  

  He had previously served as Vice President of the same corporation from 1945 until 1977 and as a member of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses before replacing Nathan H. Knorr as president in June 1977.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_William_Franz
  

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  Great post, CrazyGuy. I'd give anything for a recording of that talk..
• 

  defender of truth

  They were crafty b*stards though..
  Listen here as Franz basically admits they wouldn't dare make an absolute and definite statement about 1975, so they don't make an ass of themselves like Rutherford did in 1925.
  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzwjaAGJsNQ
  (Skip to 7:40 if you want to hear this part)
  -------Also, just so they're all here on the thread:
  
  Watchtower's Charles Sinutko's Speech on 1975http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mzwjaAGJsNQ
  
  
• 

  defender of truth

  (Very sorry, I posted the wrong clip there. Let's try again)
  They were crafty b*stards though..Listen here as Franz basically admits they wouldn't dare make an absolute and definite statement about 1975, so they don't make an ass of themselves like Rutherford did in 1925.
  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqrb4e37KDc
  
  (Skip to 7:40 if you want to hear this part)
  
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  punkofnice

  I was a JW through the 1975 fiasco.

  Yes! They DID predict 1975 as armageddon(tm). I heard it with my own ears.

  To say they didn't predict armageddon in 1975 is a lie and a cop out.