Will the men of sodom be resurrected?

[Jesus.defender]

Will the men of Sodom be resurrected?

Yes....Watchtower 7/1879 page 8
No.....Watchtower 6/1/52 page 338
Yes....Watchtower 8/1/65, page 479
No.....Watchtower 6/1/88, page 31
Yes...Live Forever (old Ed.) page 179
No....Live Forever (new Ed.) page 179
Yes...Insight, vol. 2., page 985
No...Revelation book, page 273.

These changes are more like flashing lights, on and off again. How can they be trusted?
 

[JW Insider]

I don't think any of us are really that worried about it. If they are resurrected, and we are too, then I think we'd all be pretty happy and welcome them, just as they might welcome us. If they are not, and we are, we will become more and more sure of the correctness of Jehovah's judgments over time. Remember the trouble that Abraham had in coming to grips with the correctness of Jehovah's judgments. (Genesis 18:25) [Brother Klein, at "morning worship" at Bethel, told us the joke Genesis 18 was the first case of someone trying to "jew down" God. -- not his first or last "politically incorrect" joke, btw.]

The very first Watchtower in 1879 was from a time that we (via Russell) taught a version of universal salvation. That included salvation for Adam, Eve, and others we consider "wicked," making exceptions only for people like Judas, and perhaps some of those who come to a full appreciation of the "high calling" but turn against it. (If I remember right.) Even Armageddon was a destruction of wicked institutions, not necessarily a lot of wicked people. 

This first changed under Brother Rutherford, but without a specific change on the men of Sodom. Fred Franz was the first person to begin speaking of the 0.1% of the population that could potentially survive Armageddon back in the 1950's, and this led to speculation that hundreds of thousands of anointed from the first centuries who died faithfully under persecution might also not be resurrected because they had not proved true to their anointing, by not taking the preaching work seriously, even if eaten by lions for their faith. (Otherwise the 144,000 number would be overbooked, and we didn't allow for "other sheep" or the "great crowd" between the death of John the Baptist and 1935. Actually we did have the "great crowd" but they were also anointed, and also went to heaven under Russell's teachings -- it's just that only 144,000 were of the "high calling" to also become heavenly Kings as the bride and body of Christ.)

This was a serious position to take [by Franz] and I'm guessing it had a lot of influence on the view on the men of Sodom. It's my opinion that whenever the Governing Body had allowed that they might be resurrected, it was Brother Franz who insisted we go back to the harsher position. Currently we accept that his position was right all along.