Period of 6,000 years

[Guest Nicole]

Why the Watchtower Study Edition,  January 2018, page 26, says: 

 

"Satan’s world has made humans suffer for some 6,000 years."? How do they get that calculation?

 

HOW TO BE HAPPY

19. Who can never be really happy?

19 Satan’s world has made humans suffer for some 6,000 years. Now, in the last days of this system, the earth is full of people who focus on themselves, money, and pleasures. They think of what they can get and make their own desires the main thing in life. But people like that cannot be truly happy! In contrast, the Bible says: “Happy is the one who has the God of Jacob as his helper, whose hope is in Jehovah his God.”—Psalm 146:5.

https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/402018246

[AlanF]

Nicole wrote:

Quote

 

Why the Watchtower Study Edition,  January 2018, page 26, says:

"Satan’s world has made humans suffer for some 6,000 years."? How do they get that calculation?

 

They add up the various "begats" in the Old Testament, and make their own version of the chronology of the entire Old Testament, including the chronology of the Jewish kings, then estimate what year in our modern date system to attach their OT chronology to, and presto! about 6,000 years.

The current teaching is that Adam was created in 4026 BCE. Roll forward to 2018 and you have 6,043 years. The Insight volumes, under "Chronology", lays it all out. But much is left unsaid, and some key claims are demonstrably wrong.

In the 17th century, Irish Archbishop James Ussher made a similar calculation that has appeared in the margins of many Bibles since then: Adam was created around 6 pm on 22 October 4004 BCE ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ussher ).

Most JWs are unfamiliar with anything to do with the subject of "6,000 years of human history" for a variety of reason. The WTS says little about it today. For most JWs, the subject is too esoteric to be of interest. Of course, the notion was the basis for the WTS's ridiculous claim that the world would end by 1975, and so today it has incentive to play down the ideas that the failed prediction was based on.

AlanF