God's Kingdom Rules

[Guest]

Thank you for the extensive answer!

I see your point now although I disagree as to if this particular case falls under the w 15/3 2015. Therefore I still believe that there is a logical connection between the 7 times and the 42 months and that the gentile times were 2520 years and not 1260.

Anyways, chronology was never my forte and I don't care much about it. I'm more of a linguist than anything else in regards of my personal studies and research. ;-)

Thanks again for the time you dedicated to answer my question!

PS: I don't have access to the Bible Examiner. Is there an online version of it?

[JW Insider]

11 minutes ago, ThePraeceptor said:

I don't have access to the Bible Examiner. Is there an online version of it?

https://archive.org/details/1876BibleExaminer

The above link is only for CTR's article. The link below includes entire issues between 1843 and 1880:

https://archive.org/details/18431880BibleExaminerGeorgeStorrs

[Guest]

@JW Insider Wow! Thanks for the links! I downloaded it and will take a look in my spare time.

@Allen Smith I don't know who that Aquila guy was but you found his book! That is some research there. Thanks!

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

You're correct. What’s missing is honesty. That’s why I have zero respect for certain people here. They speak of showing the truth while being dishonest. We don’t need proof. But just in case, here it is again on the falsehoods that are being perpetrated here. But hold on to the spin this person is going to make, after being caught in a lie. They’re very good at that.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were not being dishonest when you presented a clipping from Even Tide as "proof." But even if not dishonest you are still perpetrating a falsehood, and when this is done recklessly, it still borders on dishonesty.

The page you offered says nothing about John Aquila Brown tying the 2,520 years to the Gentile Times of Luke 21. Here is one place where the point is made in the very beginning of Even Tide. Notice especially the words:

"... that "Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles till the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled," . . . The precise period or duration of those mysterious times, that divinely inspired prophet has defined as being twelve hundred and sixty days . . . twelve hundred and sixty years." (Even Tide, p.vii)

 

[Guest]

@JW Insider@AllenSmith I think your dispute over this matter can be summarized by this paragraph:

"The original calculations were mostly based on dates from John Aquila Brown, who in 1823 published The Even-Tide in which he claimed that the "seven times" of Daniel 4 were a period of 2520 years running from the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in 604 B.C.E. to 1917 C.E. While Brown never equated the 2520 years with the "Gentile Times," other writers soon did. Eventually Nelson H. Barbour picked up the torch and put the finishing touches on what became Charles Taze Russell’s (the founder of the Watchtower) chronology. Barbour published his final calculation of the Gentile Times in the September, 1875 issue of his monthly paper Herald of the Morning, starting them in 606 B.C.E. and ending them in 1914 C.E. In January, 1876 Russell read Barbour’s paper, got together with him, and apparently accepted all of Barbour’s time calculations, even becoming a co-editor of Barbour’s paper. These calculations included one that said Christ’s presence began in 1874 and the "day of the Lord" began in 1873. Shortly thereafter, Russell published a similar calculation in the October, 1876 issue of a publication called The Bible Examiner. This paper was published by George Storrs, who was generally influential on Russell and had been a major leader in William Miller’s movement. Storrs was active in Adventist related movements when Russell began publishing."

Source: http://www.truebiblecode.com/understanding120.html

You are both right in a way with the only difference that Allen is "canonical", if I may use the expression.

[JW Insider]

27 minutes ago, ThePraeceptor said:

You are both right in a way with the only difference that Allen is "canonical", if I may use the expression.

Not sure what you mean by "canonical." However, I agree with everything in the paragraph you quoted. But you will notice that there is only one point that is relevant to the discussion:

34 minutes ago, ThePraeceptor said:

While Brown never equated the 2520 years with the "Gentile Times," other writers soon did.

The only thing I said about Brown is that he never equated the 2,520 years with the "Gentile Times" but that he equated 1,260 years with the "Gentile Times." Allen believes this isn't true, but your quote is 100% in agreement with his book "Even-Tide."

[Guest]

@JW Insider By "canonical" I mean "in accordance with the current JW doctrine" in regards of the chronology.

Yes, that was the relevant part but I thought it would be better to quote the entire paragraph so as to include the contex too. From the little things I read about this I can say that he probably didn't equate directly the gentile times with the 2520 year period but he laid the basis for it. I haven't read the book though. I downloaded and added it to my "to read" list. When I do, I will probably have more comments. At the moment it seems to me that J.A.Brown started it all and that's the main reason I believe both of you are right in a way. ;-)

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, AllenSmith said:

That book references Daniel and Revelation in its proper context, then surmises it with the 2520 view. Why didn’t you show the Daniel portion?

I did show the Daniel portion. Perhaps you missed it. It said that the 1,260 days, which represented the Gentile Times, were predicted by Daniel as the "time, times and half a time" or 1,260 days (or years).

The latest quote that you just included makes the same point about Daniel that matches the quote I provided. I had intended to include the same quote you just presented, because it also provides evidence that John Aquila Brown saw Revelation 11:2 as the correct verse to cross-reference Luke 21:24. Thanks again, for showing how the book references "Daniel and Revelation in its proper context."

But saying that it "then surmises it with the 2520 view" does not appear honest now that you have seen two places where it shows that he thought the Gentile Times should be "surmised with the 1260 view." You found one of them yourself.

As I've said before, this doesn't really surprise me any more, because I just pointed out a few posts ago that you have often said that I was lying or spinning and you then provided your evidence. But your evidence often just shows that the original claim was accurate and that you were wrong to try to spin it another way. You are doing that again here.

It's one thing to do this once or twice, but I've seen it a dozen times with you. I think this might be why Witnesses on these forums have suspected that you were some kind of apostate trying to make Witnesses look bad. The only reason I'm convinced you are a real Witness, is that I've seen other Witnesses do the exact same thing.

3 hours ago, AllenSmith said:

So when you misrepresent the “Proclaimers” as someone in the research of it confirmed an error to you, is disingenuous since Brown does mention 2520 in his book.

Telling the truth is not "disingenuous." Correctly representing something is not "misrepresenting."

The reason for quoting the Proclaimers book is to show that this idea about connecting the Gentile Times with 1260 rather than 2520 is not a new idea. Anyone who had decided to look up the original sources from the Proclaimers book would have already noticed that J A Brown would have considered a 2520-year Gentile Times to be a mistake. 

 

[Anna]

On 10/6/2016 at 7:15 PM, HollyW said:

Anna, the spiritual food has already been dispensed---it's in the Bible.  There's nothing to add or take away from what has already been dispensed as food in due season.  The WTS has become an entity almost with a life of its own and with a will to survive, and it is dependent on its Word being taken as the Word of God (that's why it can say to listen to what it says as though you are listening to the voice of God).  JW Insider has posted an important point about the WTS claim to having heavenly authority from Jehovah and Jesus bestowed on it in 1919.  The extent to which JWs adhere to this concept is evident in the governing body being able to change what they had been teaching for decades about 1919 and still have JWs follow them.  

Of course everything we need is already in the Bible. No one is disputing that. We are talking about dispensing Bible truth though. The Bible itself, sitting on peoples bookshelves gathering dust, isn’t going to do much good at all. The Bible does not jump off the shelf and “dispense” itself in due season, someone has to do the dispensing. I have quoted this scripture before on here I am sure; Romans 10:15, but there is also the example of the Ethiopian eunuch at Romans 8:30-31 “Philip ran alongside and heard him reading aloud Isaiah the prophet, and he said: “Do you actually know what you are reading?”  He said: “Really, how could I ever do so unless someone guided me?” So he urged Philip to get on and sit down with him....." And of course there are scores upon scores of other verses in the Christian Greek scriptures regarding evangelizing.

As long as the WTS adheres to the Bible, then what they say is the word of God essentially, because it is FROM the word of God. Of course we can argue about interpretation, but so far, I cannot disagree with most things the WTS “interprets” . Even my Bible study understood that the WTS publications are not intended to replace the Bible, but are simply Bible AIDS. JWs do not follow the WTS, they follow Jesus, and cooperate with the WTS. Big difference.  If ever the WTS starts “teaching” contrary to the Bible then I will be among the first to exit. And in case you want to argue chronology, then I have to let you know, getting chronology wrong is not an indicator to me of “teaching contrary to the Bible” . Chronology is something non essential to me. I cannot see how one’s relationship with Jehovah would have to depend on dates.

On 10/6/2016 at 7:15 PM, HollyW said:

As you mentioned, the point was not that they were reading the Bible, the point was that they were reading the Bible exclusively, apart from the WTS publications.

No, that was actually not the point at all.

The quotation marks are rather important because as I am sure you are aware, in speech they indicate a kind of irony, same goes for written language. They are called sneer quotes.  In other words, the kind of ‘bible reading’ these people were doing was actually NOT independent or exclusive Bible reading at all, it was merely “so called” (such) Bible reading, whatever that entailed, regardless, or not including reading it apart from WTS publications. So that was the point the authors were implying. In other words they do not believe someone reading the Bible would come to the same conclusions as Christendom if they were totally ignorant of Christendom's ideas and teachings in the first place. Would someone reading  the Christian Greek scriptures with no prior knowledge of the teachings, customs and traditions of Christendom  think that God was three persons in one? Would they think that Jesus wanted us to celebrate his birth every year? Would they think God wants them to take up arms and fight? I don't think so.

On 10/6/2016 at 7:15 PM, HollyW said:

but it is saying that by reading the Bible exclusively they came to believe what Christendom has been teaching from the Bible for centuries.  In other words, don't read the Bible alone or you'll start believing what Christians believe!

OK. This is the funniest thing I have read on here! Thank you for the laugh. Now seriously, you are not being serious right? But if you are, then it proves my point above.

[Anna]

1 hour ago, AllenSmith said:

 

I’m also glad you finally admit you’re not what you claim to be, and ex-bethelite in good standing. Only and apostate or Df'd witness can make such outlandish claims and still think, the truth is on their side. I debate frequently with apostates and Df’d people to know, you have the same intention of discrediting the WTS with your misrepresentation, in this forum and other apostate sites where you make people think your and active witness as well. Just another wolf in sheep’s clothing. As I have said it since last year. Unfortunately, last year, you had the ability to “delete” me when your lies were challenged by me.

 

  

I am sure JWInsider is quite capable of defending himself but I am wondering why you insist on him being either an apostate or df'd? And why would he post on apostate sites, as a supposed apostate himself, posing as an active Witness?  Your reasoning makes no sense to me.....

[JW Insider]

16 hours ago, ThePraeceptor said:

Yes, that was the relevant part but I thought it would be better to quote the entire paragraph so as to include the contex too. From the little things I read about this I can say that he probably didn't equate directly the gentile times with the 2520 year period but he laid the basis for it.

 

I'm glad you quoted the context from the truebiblecode site. I don't know the site, but that portion sounds well-researched.

Reading Even-Tide is very entertaining due to the combination of wild speculation and "mock humility" so common to this genre. One of his major themes is that when decoding the mysteries of prophecy, we should consider not only the Papal system, but also the often-neglected "Mohammedism" whose 1,260 years run from  622 AD to 1844 AD. (The 1335 days end in 1917 AD.) The Mohammedan Empire was identified as the Gentiles that trampled Jerusalem and the Jewish people for the 1,260-year times of the Gentiles.

Another theme (also common to Miller, Barbour and Russell, etc.) is that there are several different prophetic time periods that can be synchronized so that each of them strengthens the evidence for the others. This is especially clear from the preface, page xxi through the heading "Synchronical Prophecies" on page xxxviii. So it's not surprising that he purposefully distinguishes the 1,260 period of the "Gentile Times" from the 2,520 year period of the "four tyrannical beasts" starting with Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar took the throne, dated from 604 B.C. (He dates the destruction and captivity of Judea from the first captivity, not the destruction of Jerusalem, about 20 years later.) He combines the images and beasts elsewhere in Daniel (and Hosea, etc) so that the tree in  Daniel 4 also represents the "4 beasts."

So based on the synchronizing of totally different time periods, he strengthens the evidence for 1917: Not only do the 1335 days end in 1917, so do the 2520 days of the 4 tyrannical empires. It's important to him that these are separate and independent lines of evidence. And this is also why he is careful not to identify the 2520 with the 1260 days of the Gentile Times. As Brown says on page 135:

"Commencing therefore the calculation of the "seven times" from the first year of Nebuchadnezzar . . . . 604 . . . the termination of these 2520 years will fall out in the year 1917. It has been seen that the expiration of the 1335 Mohammedan years, and the completion of the forty-five years of Daniel, beyond the elongated period of the 1290 years . . . take place in the same year 1917, and both these positions seem to mutually confirm and support each other."

By "both" he is referring to the 1335 and the 2520. He does not include the Gentile Times because they would end in 1844. (William Miller, and therefore even Nelson Barbour, for a while, taught that the Gentile Times ended in 1843/4, not 1914. Barbour evidently changed the ending of the time period in 1875, just prior to meeting Russell and shortly after his 1873 and 1874 expectations had just failed.)

Also then, J A Brown does not think of Nebuchadnezzar as a "type" of Jesus Christ as the Watchtower said in 1934, but as Brown puts it:

"Nebuchadnezzar was a type . . . of the kings of the tyrannical earth." (p.134)

Similar to an idea in the Watchtower however, Brown says that the 2,520 years would be marked by war, but the end of the period would be a time of the peaceful reign of the Messiah when there shall be no more war. This idea was adjusted in the Watchtower in 1904 so that several months of chaos and violence were expected to follow the end of the 2,520 years.

Brown expected the first crisis of several to begin shortly after the book was published, also typical of the genre:

"We have seen also, in deciding on the other chronological periods, that many proofs point out the year 1844 as a remarkable crisis. . . . I submit therefore as a memorable circumstance, that the 49th jubilee year, reckoning from the rise of the Babylonic monarchy, or the period of Nebuchadnezzar's ascending that throne . . . would take place January 1, 1845. . . . the commencement of an everlasting jubilee. . .  I conclude, therefore . . . from the rise of the four monarchies . . . to their final dissolution, there will be . . . 2520 years . . . and will terminate January 1, 1917." (p. 152)

The major periods Brown considered were:

• The "rise of the four monarchies" or the "four tyrannical empires" was a "week of years" or "seven times" or a 2,520 solar-year period, starting in 604 B.C. and ending in 1917 A.D.
• The "Gentiles Times" was "three and a half-times" or "a time, times and half a time," or a 1,260 lunar-year period, starting in 622 A.D. and ending in 1844 A.D. (It was only 1,222 solar-years.)
• The "2300" days also ended in 1844 A.D.
• The "1335" days ended in 1917 A.D.

From the 1100's through the beginning of hte 1800's there were about 30 or more Biblical commentators (who also doubled as prophetic prognosticators) who focused on the 1,260 year period and typically tied it to the Gentile Times. During that period, up to and including J A Brown, no one thought to use a 2,520 period for the "Gentile Times" as far as any evidence has been discovered so far. Shortly after Brown's work, however, several commentators began associating the 2,520 year period with the Gentile Times. This was clearly because people like J A Brown had realized that you can't reach far enough into the present time period with 1,260 year, or 1,290 year, or even a 1,335 year period, because there is nothing particularly Biblical to tie the beginning date to. If we wanted to tie 2017 for example to the Biblical period assigned to the Gentile Times in Revelation 11:3, we'd have to find some special event that happened in 757 C.E. 

So I'd agree with you that Brown laid the basis for it.

[Guest]

58 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I don't know the site, but that portion sounds well-researched.

I don't know it either. It was one of the first 3 results when I google-searched "John Aquila Brown" Last night. The site per se is of some religion of Lord's Witnesses that antagonises Jehovah's Witnesses. From what I saw on other subjects treated there I doubt the quality of the research being done there but that may be just me.

To be completely honest I personaly don't care at all who came up with the idea of the 2520 years etc. I don't care much about the chronology stuff. I simply try to follow the path that Jesus laid for all of us and to be of service to my fellow brothers and sisters in the congregation. As I have already stated in a previous post, the matter of the duration of the "generation", chronologies etc are not important to me because they are of no consequence to my life as a Christian Jehovah's Witness.

But... The fact that 1914 WAS a turning point in the human history and the fact that we ARE living in the final times (regardless of how many years these "times" last), as Matthew 24 and 2 Timothy 3 describe them, tells me something. Tells me that the organisation that dispenses these truths is the one blessed by Jehovah. From various of your posts I know that you have seen first hand how some things work behind the scenes. I have seen them too and continue to see them as part of my service. I am also seeing the love and peace that there are worldwide among JWs and all the good deeds our brothers and sisters are doing. And you know very well that to do the right thing and to please Jehovah is not always that easy in this world we are living.

So, given those things and in harmony with the principles of  James 3:11 and Matthew 7:15-18 I know for a fact that this is the organisation that God uses now.

Why am I writing all these things to you? Just to explain why I jumped into the conversation you have with Allen. I don't know him just as I don't know you and to be honest I don't agree with his abrassive manners even though I agree with his trying to defend our beliefs. I also don't agree with your trying to prove that WTS is wrong.

We are living in a period of time where we can look back in history and see and understand who was right and who not. In my view WTS was right and HAS Jehovah's blessing. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible to accomplish all that has accomplished (Acts 5:38). So to try and undermine teachings etc is something I would not do.

After saying all that I would like to add that I am really enjoying your posts because you are clearly a thinking person. I think everybody that reads your posts admire the effort and research you put into them. Sometimes though I personaly can't help but to question your motives because in my view are falling short of Filippians 4:8,9. Of course I don't judge you. I am just laying out my thoughts. If you think that I am wrong thinking this way please explain to me why.