Generation clarification

by zound 25 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • zound
    zound

    Just wanted to clarify something.

    "we do well to keep in mind several things about the word “ generation ” : It usually refers to people of varying ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period; it is not excessively long; and it has an end."

    Now you and I know that generation does NOT usually refer to overlapping lives (just open a dictionary) - but is there something I am missing here? Did they expand on where they got this reasoning from or is this one sentence it?

    Any basis whatsoever for that statement?

  • Rob Crompton
    Rob Crompton

    The idea of an overlap comes from the fact that generation is not precisely defined in terms of beginning and end. But the way that the WT has used this to drag out the "this generation will not pass" idea is clearly a misuse. We do not belong to our parents' generation or to our children's generation.

  • Sapphy
    Sapphy

    Jesus has currently 'evidently' meant about 5 different things when he said 'generation'.

    I predict the next thing he will evidently have meant was people living in a certain 'age', ie the generation that will by no means pass away will refer to the people living in the 'age of the last days'.

    You heard it hear first folks!

  • zound
    zound

    Reason I'm asking - just want to cover my bases in writing a letter to the society. Here is what I've written. If they have pprovided additianal info in pubs could someone direct me that?

    ""

    "Although we cannot measure the exact length of this generation, we do well to keep in mind several things about the word generation: It usually refers to people of varying ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period; it is not excessively long; and it has an end. (Ex. 1:6) How, then, are we to understand Jesus words about this generation? He evidently meant that the lives of the anointed who were on hand when the sign began to become evident in 1914 would overlap with the lives of other anointed ones who would see the start of the great tribulation. " Watchtower 2010 April 15 th page 10.

    To be perfectly honest, I struggle to understand ‘it usually refers to people of varying ages whose lives overlap during a particular time period’. Even a cursory look at the definition of the word ‘generation’ in a dictionary states otherwise. If you could provide me with additional information as to how this new understanding was arrived at that would be greatly appreciated.

    ""

  • Vidqun
    Vidqun

    Zound, perhaps you should read through the thread, "Is the Watchtower shy about repeating their new "generation" teaching?" I know it's long and arduous, but it'll give you a good idea what's at stake.

  • Terry
    Terry

    The very satisfying nature of events which are behind us is that they EXIST as history.

    There is nothing provisional or speculative about occurances that have already taken place.

    We have written records in black and white as to how the word "generation" was manipulated over the years by the Watchtower.

    The GB was looking into the future each time they employed "generation" in order to leverage the readers of their publications into

    activity.

    There is no better way to prove the dishonesty of Watchtower leaders than to examine the entire history of the "generations" teaching!

    When 1925 turned the President of the Watchtower Society into a "jackass" all credibility should have ended for him.

    He was the new leader with wrong predictions. The old leader with wrong predictions, C.T. Russell was dead.

    That was a score of 0-2.

    "Millions Now Living Will NEVER Die" was a package deal ending in 1925.

    1925 was empty of fulfillment.

    But, cycnically--the idea of using "generations" alive in 1914 who would live to see Armageddon proved too tempting to discard.

    The carrot at the end of the stick was a kind of weird PROOF JW's embraced with great emotional enthusiasm.

    As the 1914 "generation" grew older and older their aging process served as a terrifically dramatic COUNTDOWN CLOCK to doomsday!

    The only other weird "proof" was the diminishing number of the "elect" or anointed who slowly evaporated toward Armageddon as well.

    You looked at the old folks hobbling into the Kingdom Hall who were connected to the Watchtower's phony 1914 scam and you were looking at

    living "proof" there was very little time left!

    But, the intellectual dishonesty of Watchtower leaders began to show itself clearly over time.

    As those telltale geriatric faithful began dropping like flies the GB started to sweat a little. Just a little...

    They began to hedge their bets and insert weasel words into articles about END times "signs".

    Awareness of guilt by liars signals itself when the story changes ever so slightly. New versions are dissonant with older tellings!

    The guilty GB squirmed under the ever-shortening fuse leading to a full exposure of a feckless teaching!!

    They backed off by increments growing less specific and more general.

    RE-defining a word is the work of the propagandist and a cult leader!

    What the Watchtower had been emphatically teaching was clear enough and dramatic enough in the early days--but---less and less so over the years.

    As 2014 loomed large, how many of the 1914 "generation" deathwatch could remain?

    The NEW "understanding" was a desperate ploy full of cynical weasling in FULL VIEW of the old JW's who had hung on for years and years hoping against hope it all wasn't a pile of steaming shit!

    Worst fears were realized as the definition of "generations" was stretched into a meaningless deconstruction of semantics.

    The secondary teaching that the anointed would be fewer and fewer was also a nightmare of obviously ridiculous disproof!

    The ranks grew larger and larger until an amazing declaration of "mental illness" was necessary to rescue the sacred ranks from infiltration!

    How cynical this is---judging the anointing of the very Elect--just to escape being made the public liar on the part of Watchtower leaders!!

    We can all learn from this. All of us.

    These facts aren't tenuous at all. They are, as I said at the first, IN BLACK AND WHITE a matter of record.

    Follow the trail and we can all see that Judge Rutherford wasn't the only "jackass" leading the Watchtower religion on a merry chase of ignorance and lies until exposure renders them all FOOLS.

  • DesirousOfChange
    DesirousOfChange

    Zound: They have public stated (in print) that they do not welcome letters from the R&F anymore.

    1) Do your own research.

    2) Ask the Elders.

    3) Wait on Jehovah.

    The Society doesn't have time to respond to every little question from out there in JWLand.

    Doc

  • Billy the Ex-Bethelite
    Billy the Ex-Bethelite

    For their current definition, it would appear that they took the exact opposite explanation in Insight "Generation".

  • Oubliette
    Oubliette

    Evidently ... the ONLY "evidence" to support this assertion is that Armageddon has not yet come.

  • caliber
    caliber

    Now you and I know that generation does NOT usually refer to overlapping lives (just open a dictionary) - but is there something I am missing here? Did they expand on where they got this reasoning from or is this one sentence it?

    Any basis whatsoever for that statement?

    Thus the words of the Lord here simply asserted that within thirty or forty years all he had been particularly detailing would be fulfilled. Now, the burden of his prophecy had been the destruction of the city and temple, and the signs they were to look for as immediately preceding this great catastrophe.
    Arndt and Gingrich note that the term means "literally, those descended from a common ancestor," but "basically, the sum total of those born at the same time, expanded to include all those living at a given time, generation, contemporaries" (W.F. Arndt and F.W. Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957, p. 153).

    Thus, a limit is given within which the prophecies are to be fulfilled. It should be noted that these "tribulations" were not fulfilled in the events of the years 66-73 C.E., the period of the First Jewish-Roman War. Jesus' own statement shows that the culmination of the "tribulation period" was to see the parousia, the second coming of Jesus (Mark 13:26; Matthew 24:3, 30), which certainly did not occur during the war nor subsequently.

    Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you and you shall be hated of all nations for my names sake" (Matthew 24:9).

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