WW1 was not. predicted in bible prophecy yet the org spins it as if it was.
1914—The Turning Point in History - Really?
by berrygerry 52 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Finkelstein
C T Russell was well absorbed into the Adventist theology teaching of that time and era.
He wasn't exactly original in his teachings or what he wrote and published.
Pyramidology was something he probably picked up attending Freemason Halls since Eastern Egyptian mysticism is partially ingrained in that organization.
Christ had originally returned in 1874 and from there the goal posts got moved forward as there was no actually physical appearance to support that but it was still propagated and used to allure attention to the talks he gave and the literature he published.
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Beth Sarim
Come to think of it. I remember at the Book Study years ago how they would keep on talking about 70 weeks of years and such to wind up at the year 1914. Just didn't seem to add up from how they would get that year from millennia ago to get to that 1914 date. I remember to they would go by an entire year being 360 days and not 365 days. Strange. -
Lieu
Kinda easy when post 1880, you say every year is "the year".
First an foremost, they have NO business trying to guess a date they're already told no one is to know. Since its Adventists roots, they have been trying to predict the time of "rapture". Considering the "rapture" didn't happen as Russell falsely prophesied, they switched it to an unscriptual INVISIBLE enthronement. Where the hell is that in the Bible again!?!
As for WWI, it may have been a terrible war in modern times, but it isn't the worst war or even the first worldwide war. It was nothing but another war between Europeans. Greece and Rome went all over the known world warring. Before them, the Assyrians and Egyptians. After them the European conquests of the Continents.(Now these were actually worldwide)
Also, too, the Gentiles Times have not ended or are the GB members Jews? The most powerful nation on Earth today Israel or the Gentile USA?
The problem with trying to interpret Biblical knowledge is European thought. It's a Middle Eastern text. Those were not Europeans in it or writing it.
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fulltimestudent
Lieu: As for WWI, it may have been a terrible war in modern times, but it isn't the worst war or even the first worldwide war. It was nothing but another war between Europeans.
True, The Jws continually try to paint WW1 as the worst in history, and certainly a terrible time. But as Lieu says, it was essentially a European war, and was only extended to the rest of the world through the imperial colonies held by the protagonists. Even WW2 is misnamed, though it is more deserving of the tag, world wide war, than WW1.
The wikipedia gives a total for deaths as
The total number of military and civilian casualties in World War I was over 38 million: over 17 million deaths and 20 million wounded, ranking it among the deadliest conflicts in human history.
Though some give a higher number.
For sheer bloody butchery though, its hard to go past the mid-nineteenth century civil war that raged for something like a decade within China, as the Christian Taiping attempted to defeat the ruling Qing dynasty. A recent Chinese study places the death toll as fifty seven million.
A Muslim revolt occurred at the same time, and I'm unsure whether the above figure includes the death toll from that war in the southern (Yunnan) and western (Xinjiang and Gansu) provinces. If they are NOT included the death toll must be around 65 million.
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kaik
Other issue with WWI is that it was trench warfare where most of the destruction happened there. Core of the states were not destroyed. In European war theater, it meas that devastation occurred in northern France and Belgium, Venetia region of Italy, Serbia, Poland and Galicia. While material and human toll was huge, there was little physical destruction in Germany and Austria-Hungary, or provinces outside the trench warfare -
Malachi Constant
WW2 seems to have been a more important turning point than WW1 in determining what the world was going to look like for a long time,. As a conflict WW2 was a really global one. It was the beginning of the Eastern bloc in Europe and of the nuclear threat. The collapse of the Eastern block was another big turning point, including the quite peaceful retirement of the "King of North. The WT socitey was, of course, unable to "foretell" these, as it had been in foretelling what actualy happend in 1914.
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Nathan Natas
Half banana said, "it could not be said that the WT "always" said that the Kingdom was going to be invisible in the heavens..."
I didn't say that.
I said that "The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society has always claimed that what made the year 1914 significant were the events that were taking place in "the realm invisible.""
There is a difference that is perhaps too subtle for you. Stick with it, your reading comprehension may improve.
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Beth Sarim
I agree that the 1939-1945 period of time and the beginning of the Cold War Era had a much deeper impact on Human History. Yes, arguably and very agreeably the Nuclear Age began. The 1914 time period pales in comparison to the conclusion of the ww2!! -
Half banana
Nathan Natas, you're right I should stick with it, I might improve my comprehension. I had no intention of diminishing your statement only to add that the conventional Watchtower viewpoint of 1914 as an invisible heavenly event only began after that date (1927?) and hence not "always".
Russell's earlier idea of invisible heavenly events was applied to 1874 (and 1878) and that by 1914 visible evidence of the Kingdom rule would have been experienced world-wide. All bunkum anyway.