JWs and 1914

[AVmetro]

Because I'm not well-versed in things of the WTS, I found the following (as posted on an email list) to be of great help to me. I thought I'd share it with this board for future reference.

The 1914 date in JW theology rests on a series of errors.

1. It is based on the theory that the seven years of
Nebuchadnezzar's madness in Daniel 4 (during which old Neb did NOT reign) represents a period of time during which the Gentiles DID reign (i.e., supposedly, they reigned in such a way as to dominate the earth unopposed by God's kingdom, or something along those lines).

2. It converts that period of seven years into 2,520 years (by
multiplying 7 x 360) with absolutely no basis in the Bible itself.

3. It wrongly begins the "times of the Gentiles" in Luke 21:24
during which Jerusalem would be trampled by the nations at the time of the destruction of the first (Solomonic) temple by the
Babylonians, instead of at the time of the destruction of the
second, postexilic temple by the Romans in AD 70.

4. It wrongly dates the destruction of the Solomonic temple to 607 BC, when essentially all biblical scholars date that event to 588-86 BC.

5. Ironically, Russell originally dated the above event to 606 BC
and arrived at AD 1914 as the terminal date by not realizing that
there is no year 0 (zero) between 1 BC and AD 1. Some editions of Russell's books actually have the terminal date as 1915, but
eventually the 1914 date was kept (I think they were basically stuck with it) and the beginning date for the times of the Gentiles was quietly changed to 607 BC to fix the chronological goof.

6. The JWs' 1914 theory must regard the beginning of the time of the Gentiles as referring to a trampling of the physical Jerusalem under Gentile rule but its end to the cessation of the trampling of
Jehovah's spiritual kingdom on earth (and how that is dated to 1914 is still beyond me!). This error became more egregiously obvious when the city of Jerusalem actually came under Jewish rule for the first time in centuries in two stages in 1948 and in 1967.

7. It erroneously views 1914 as the beginning of an invisible
PAROUSIA by Christ that would be preparatory for the apocalyptic
judgment on the world governments and on Christendom. The doctrine of an invisible PAROUSIA is itself an error.

8. The JW teaching for 80 years or so has regarded 1914 as the
*beginning* of the invisible PAROUSIA, but Russell's original theory was that the PAROUSIA began in 1874 and would culminate in the final judgment in 1914. The Watchtower tried to keep this idea by giving Jehovah some "extensions" (3 1/2 years gave him until 1918, then they gave God another 7-year extension, which is where they got 1925) but the passing of time forced it to overhaul the chronology and drop the 1874 date altogether (along with an even more obscure 1799 date that was part of Russell's theory).

9. The JW teaching from the 1920s until 1995 was that the generation that saw the events of 1914 would not all die before the apocalyptic judgment. In 1995 the organization issued a series of articles abandoning that claim--without ever acknowledging that they had been teaching error on the matter for decades.

10. The JW doctrine maintains (still) that Christ began ruling in
his role as mediatorial king over the whole earth in AD 1914. This
is supposedly "the good news of the kingdom." Biblically, Christ
started doing that in AD 33, a message of good news that the
disciples began preaching that same year (Ps. 2; 110:1-6; Matt.
28:18; Acts 4:25-27; 13:32-33; Heb. 1:3-5; 5:5; Rev. 2:26-27; cf.
Acts 2:36; 8:12; 20:25; 28:23, 31).

I'm probably leaving some problems out, but the above is enough. In order to save the JW claim that God's spirit led them to understand that 1914 was a date in Bible prophecy, one must refute *all* ten of the above points.

In Christ's service,
Rob Bowman

-AV

[barryrob]

Which point would you like to talk about first?
Barryrob

[Super Cow]

I feel compelled to discuss this since it is probably the catalyst which caused me to leave the JW religion, even though I still technically agree with 70-80% of their doctrines.

1.) Much of the JW doctrine applies old time parallels to modern times. Sometimes this feels justified, but I think it is often overused.

2.) Actually, it takes 7 times to be 7 years and 7x360 days to come up with 2520 days. (Revelation 12:6,14) This is entirely justified during the period of Nebuchadnezzar's insanity. The dubious claim that this translates into years is the problem in my opinion. Two scriptures are used to apply the rule "a day for a year". (Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6) But it is a real stretch in both scriptures to apply this to the 7 times prophecy.

3.) I'm not sure this is part is wrong.

4.) True, all conventional sources attribute the destruction of Jerusalem to 587 B.C., and there are even footnote references in old JW literature that admit this point, based on Berossus history. They have to use 607 B.C. though, because there is no room for doubt that Cyrus defeated Babylon in 539 B.C., and there is reasonable logic that Israel returned to their homeland in 537 B.C. I believe Jeremiah's prophecy of "70 years for Babylon" is misinterpreted to mean Israel's exile, instead of Babylon's reign as a world power. (Conventional timeline puts Babylon's defeat of Assyria at 609 B.C. which would make Babylon's undisputed period of world power at 70 years)

5.) I don't think this is relevant.

6.) The JWs totally ignore the relevancy of modern Israel. (Even though most Jews think their country's return is a fulfillment of some of the same prophecies) Everything that was physical Israel in the past, becomes "spiritual" Israel in the present. I have come to the conclusion that physical modern Israel is much more relevant to Old Testament prophecies. (Read Zechariah 12-14 and tell me that you can totally ignore the circumstantial parallels between modern Israel and it's Arab neighbors)

6.) If you really wanted to calculate the 2520 (Jewish lunar) years from the historical (accepted date range) of the destruction of Solomon's temple, you do find much more interesting parallels to prophecy than 1914. It would take you to around 1933. This coincides with the most earth shattering rise to power of one man than any other person in Jewish history. Adolph Hitler. His relentless extermination of the Jews caused the initial flight of the Jews to present day Israel, and also indirectly forced the allies to consider a Jewish state 12-15 years later.

7.) I haven't decide on this one yet.

8.) Most of this is a ridiculous attempt to try to match their growth to Daniel 12. (For which I have yet to see a decent interpretation of)

9.) True. But to be honest, I'm kind of more interested on what happens on Dec. 23/2012. (The Mayan apocalypse - Mostly because they are the only culture that dates the prior destruction to Noah's flood chronology within the margin of calculation error. <-- Using Septuagint chronology)

I think it's more likely (and 100% accurate if interpreted this way) that "the generation that saw the events of [the Messiah's rise from the dead] would not die at all before the [Roman destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.]"

10.) I am skeptical of this as well.