How Will They End 1914 Teaching?

by EmptyInside 282 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • scholar
    scholar

    Fisherman

    Regardless of mistaken conclusions about the proximity of the end, the eyewitness testimony and the events believed to fulfill Bible prophecy substantiate 1914 —as JW see it. What to say now, nothing happened in 1914? The date is written in stone for JW.

    ---

    Absolutely. The outbreak of the Great War, a fact of modern history which marked the end of the 'Gentile Times' and inaugurated God's Kingdom along with the fulfilment of the Sign of the Parousia confirm the Bible as God's written Word and can properly be termed as 'cast in stone' as a venerable witness.

    scholar JW

  • TD
    TD

    Scholar,

    That was nearly 88 years ago and those people who stood up were not children.

    It is clear in retrospect that they were not the great crowd as JW's understand the term. The great crowd comes out of (i.e. survives) the great tribulation and those people did not even live to see it.

    You can call it bright flash of light if you want. I would call it a rip in the fabric of JW theology that must needs be fixed. The idea that the proximity of the end justified the identification of the great crowd in 1935 might have made sense 50 years ago, but it just doesn't work anymore.

    Salvation, the Ransom and the two Christian hopes are not trivial doctrines and modifying the significance of 1914 might actually be easier than tinkering with them.


  • TonusOH
    TonusOH
    Jeffro: That change only reduced the significance of the amount of time that has elapsed 1914.

    The impression I have is that they made the allusion to the year and its significance more vague. It looked like a first step towards ultimately abandoning the teaching, as they had done in the past when the significance of certain years became untenable. I wonder if the issue is that the newer members of the GB are lacking in imagination, or courage.

  • Fisherman
    Fisherman

    The great crowd comes out of (i.e. survives) the great tribulation and those people did not even live to see it.

    How does that debunk 1914? And how does mistaken interpretations of the Bible by JW falsify the Bible or disqualify JW as God’s agency?

    How would you explain to a survivor of Auschwitz that what they were told in 1935 was wrong?

    In Rev, Jesus told the congregations back then that he was coming quickly but they died and he never showed up. When they were faced with persecution and death did they suffer from amnesia? And how about Peter and the other Apostles, did they lose faith? JW don't need WT to validate the reality of their relationship with God and the conviction that the promises about eternal life are true whether or not WT interpretations about timing are mistaken. The 1935 was a flash of light nevertheless because it clarified the two destinies.


  • enoughisenough
    enoughisenough

    " And how does mistaken interpretations of the Bible by JW falsify the Bible or disqualify JW as God’s agency?" Mistaken interpretations don't disqualify the Bible, but if JW is really God's agency, there would not have been all of these false prophesies that you are calling interpretations.

  • TD
    TD

    Fisherman

    How does that debunk 1914?

    It doesn't, at least not directly. Like I said, quibbling over exegeses and chronology will not remedy the passage of time or undo the damage its done. The remedy is going to require adjustments, which could include the significance of 1914 itself.

    In Rev, Jesus told the congregations....

    I don't think you're coming to grips with the question. Anointed Christians were willing to endure the horrors of the arena for the crown of heavenly life. Paul said, "...he pummeled his body and led it as a slave." Without that hope in Christ, they would have been men, "most to be pitied."

    How would you explain to a Bibelforscher that the end wasn't going to come in their lifetime anyway and that they were simply going to grow old, die and await resurrection just like everyone else? How would you explain that the Purple triangle was unnecessary?

  • scholar
    scholar

    TD

    You can call it bright flash of light if you want. I would call it a rip in the fabric of JW theology that must needs be fixed. The idea that the proximity of the end justified the identification of the great crowd in 1935 might have made sense 50 years ago, but it just doesn't work anymore.

    Salvation, the Ransom and the two Christian hopes are not trivial doctrines and modifying the significance of 1914 might actually be easier than tinkering with them.

    ----

    No, it is a validated doctrine of Biblical Theology rightly espoused by Jehovah's people in keeping with the inspired utterance in Rev.1:1. Despite the passage of time our understanding is validated by the passage of time consistent with the nature of the fulfilment of biblical prophecy so the Lord's people are nourished by faith and the Christian hope for a New World.

    ---

    Salvation, the Ransom and the two Christian hopes are not trivial doctrines and modifying the significance of 1914 might actually be easier than tinkering with them.

    ---

    Indeed, such key doctrines have always from the time of the Bible Students been taught by God's people as no other group has done in conjunction with prophecy or eschatology inaugurated by the events of 1914 CE.

    scholar JW

  • waton
    waton
    And how does mistaken interpretations of the Bible by JW falsify the Bible or disqualify JW as God’s agency? Fm.

    Among the characteristic, qualification of the F&DS by Jesus is listed , that food has to be given at the proper time. If it is one thing that wt is guilty of, it is dragging the holy name they have appropriated into disrepute by their total failure in their timing of prophecies, (spiritual food to be distributed by the few to the many, in their the worldwide campaigns. ).

    1914 was wt's year of shame. The world did not end, they were not elevated into heaven.

    Babylon the great ( wt's "Empire of False Religion" ) did not have a fall in 1918, but is stronger than ever,

    In just one country of 275 millions citizens, in T.E.o.F.R., aka B.T.G., made the government have adultery declared a nationwide punishable crime. That is 34 times more than all of wt land, doing the right thing.

    May be it is the invisibly reigning king of 1914 working in strange ways?

  • TD
    TD

    Neil,

    No, it is a validated doctrine of Biblical Theology

    I've listed to you for a long time (Here, Channel C and elsewhere) and I know you grasp the problem, as the math is really quite simple:

    "God’s infallible Word depicts this group as ‘coming out of the great tribulation,’ being survivors of it, living right on into God’s New Order without ever having to die. (Revelation 7:9, 10, 14; John 11:26) The early members of this group are now in their 60’s or 70’s or older. Jehovah did not allow the ingathering of this group to begin too soon. The “great crowd,” including many of the earliest members thereof, will survive into the “new earth.”"

    Fast forward the clock 40 years and it is clear that an adjustment is on the horizon.

  • scholar
    scholar

    TD

    Fast forward the clock 40 years and it is clear that an adjustment is on the horizon.

    --

    How so? An adjustment to What?

    scholar JW

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