Help with 1975 please

by jhine 68 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Just4Real

  A lot people don't know particularly JWS that the 6000 years of mankind's existence propagated by the Watchtower was used as far back as the early 1900's, so in other words they just reworked that doctrine to keep people tentatively on edge and working.

  Was this dating system even valid or achievable ?

  Hardly not, it was most likely originally derived from the IBSA (C Russell) of the late 1800's , rooted in the dispensational era dating theology which was associated with Pyramidology .
  

  Did it work ?

  Unfortunately yes.
  
• 

  Iamallcool

  J4R, Welcome to the board!
• 

  Simon

  I remember JWs being on the radio talking about it, and the whole family gathered round listening to it and nodding, certainly not saying "What is this rubbish? We haven't been told this?!"

  Their own figures show the "bump" they got from this teaching as, like most doomsday cults, publishing a real date once in a while can focus the minds of people who were maybe on the fence.
• 

  Rivergang

  It was never said that armageddon would happen in the fall of 1975.

  True enough, as far as it goes - but ONLY as far as it goes!

  The thought was certainly left hanging there, and it was obvious even to Blind Freddie that this was the conclusion the WTS wanted its readers to deduce from their writings. This started with the 1966 book Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God - on page 29 of which the term "appropriate" was used to link 1975 with Armageddon. It then continued over the next several years with a series of magazine articles, which got more and more pointed. One article was even entitled Why are you looking forward to 1975? That one was very explicit, talking about it being only "weeks or months" rather than "years" between the end of 6000 years of human creation and the "end of the system". It also effectively debunked the cautionary statement of Matthew 24:36, (i.e."no one knows the day or the hour"). This magazine article told its readers that it was not the time to "hide behind" those words - talk about the Watchtower being more important that the Bible!
  

  So, yes, you are correct that the WTS didn't straight out say that Armageddon would happen in the fall of 1975:

  - BUT they also made it plain that the event could easily occur within "weeks or months" of that time; and that furthermore, this would be quite "appropriate".

  Most readers of these works of propaganda drew the conclusion that the writers intended them to arrive at!
• 

  Just4Real

  You have to hand to people like F Franz of the Watchtower for he was truly a prolific sensationalist with information. It should be realized he was also a key player within the writing department of the Watchtower Corporation .

  The organization's top theologian at one time who also happened to be on the panel of men who were the active executive editorial writers for the Watchtower Corporation.
• 

  Fisherman

  That Eve was created and God's sabbath began less than a year after Adam's creation.

  According to JW back then, the sixth creative day ended after the creation of Eve but because the Bible does not say when Eve was created, at first it was believed that Adam and Eve were created very close together so 1975 was the awaited date for something to happen. Later it was believed that Eve must have been created some years later after Adam and everyone waited for Eve to be created. What WT did in the publications back then was to show how it was logical for the Millennium to start 1000 years before the end of the 7th creative day. Everything added up and made sense although the publications did not actually declare that the end would come in 1975 but JW came to that conclusion from reading the printed information and it was believed by all although not actually stated in print. However, the faith of the JW about the Millennium does not rest upon whether or not its date can be extrapolated by WT. They still believe it will come.
  
  
• 

  smiddy3

  I believe Rivergang has summed it all up very well ..... Well said.
• 

  jhine

  Waton , no probs . I am amazed at the conversation that my question has generated. It's interesting to see .

  Jan
• 

  TD

  Fisherman
  

  Later it was believed that Eve must have been created some years later after Adam and everyone waited for Eve to be created.

  Yes.

  After 1975 came and went, the time interval between Adam's creation and Eve's creation began to stretch like a rubber band.

  But definitive statements to the contrary had already been put into print in multiple publications. The JW Bible Encyclopedia Aid To Bible Understanding in the article "Eve" had even gone so far as to state that she had given birth to Seth at the age of 130, which was the exact same age that JW's' believed Adam to be at the time. (They actually still do teach that Adam was 130 when Seth was born.) That publication was not replaced in any official capacity until the late '80s.

  So JW's today who say that that it was all just speculation; that people had gone beyond what had actually been printed; had read too much into the publications, yada, yada yada, either were not alive at the time or have developed selective amnesia.
  
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  The real question is:

  
  Why did it take us (at least me) over FORTY YEARS to see thru all this BULLSHIT?