I have been out for 40 years now. Just the other day, I was thinking about something that was burned in my brain. It has been a long time so, I might not it get all right. If I am wrong on any point, please correct me.
I am referring to Daniel 5: 25 - 28. I was taught that the hand writing on the wall was a prediction of 1914. Well, let us take a look see at the scriptures.
The WT wrote that the writing on the wall, Mene Mene, Tekel, Peres. Meant time, times and half a time. Well already we have a problem Mene is written twice, so that adds up to two - well, that is what I learned in school. Tekel, meaning times is an undfined term. Does it mean two times or 22 times? Who knows. I am fine with Peres as a half a time.
OK, let's suppose that the WT has it nailed down correctly, which is unlikely. They say that we have to multiply 3 and half by 2 to get 7, because 7 is God's number. Then we have to take seven and turn into years. However, they are not solar years of 365 days, but lunar years of 360 days, hence the number of 2520.
Does it get any goofier than this??????
1914 - who is in charge
by larc 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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larc
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Narkissos
I don't remember this WT interpretation connecting 1914 to Daniel 5...
At face value (that is, before Daniel's interpretation), the Aramaic words mene' mene' teqel upharsin/peres sound like a calculation of weight or money: "(one) mina, (one) mina, (one) shekel and halves/half". The obvious point is decrease, and it has been interpreted in a number of ways in Daniel's pseudo-historical perspective (e.g. Babylon > Media > Persia, or Nebuchadnezzar > Evil-Merodak > Belshazzar). The structural parallelism with "time, times and half" ('iddan, we'iddanin uphelag iddan, 7:25, which obviously refers to Antiochus' "persecution") is flawed yet interesting...
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larc
I find your analysis of the events to very interesting.
However, your first statement is just wrong. If you read my words, I stated very clearly that this concept was burned in my brain. It is something that I remember 40 years later. I am right and you are wrong on this issue. -
coffee_black
I remember that too, Larc....but I was just a kid at the time, so some of the details are a little vague at this point. On a lighter note, my mother, when she was little thought that mene' mene' teqel uphersin...was: "meanie, meanie tickle the parson" I think of that every time I hear that scripture quoted.
Coffee
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xjw_b12
larc. I read your post earlier, and it was a trigger. I was a voracious reader by the time I turned 5, thanks to my mom, and somewhere down there I recall that reasoning, the multiplication thing.
Going have to consult with Donald (dad) on this one to help you lead credence to this.
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larc
exjw,
After you consult with Dad, I sure would like to know what he has to say.
A lot of his answer will depend on how long he was a JW, and how much he remembers about this subject.
I don't think that they talk about things like this any more at the book study, since they have have dumbed down the religion. -
onacruse
Does it get any goofier than this??????
No, it doesn't.
We can argue ad infinitum with such folks as scholar and proplog and Bibleman and buh-du-bu-du-bu-duh...and the responses are always the same.
However, I would like to add that, here and there, and not infrequently , there are some who, after much difficulty, and with much personal anguish, find a way to the answers.
Not the easy way, to be sure.
For my own part, to the issue at hand: Escatological interpretrations of the OT and NT (and most all other religons, to be sure ) have been so rampant over the last 3 millenia as to have become almost innumerable; I dare say that no single human being could keep track of them.
Craig