The "Overlapping Generation" Revisited.

[ARchiv@L]

7 hours ago, ARchiv@L said:

even if we are students of the Bible in different years, and some of us not old, but young in years, 
we still understand of what happened in the past years, because of history proof and prophecies.
and althought we had not witnessed things with our own eyes, this does not stop us from believing of what is coming ahead of us!

 

Do All Faithful Christians Go to Heaven?
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011405
Is There Hope for the Dead?
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2011407
When Did God’s Kingdom Begin Ruling?—Part 1
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2014726
 

[ARchiv@L]

16 hours ago, ARchiv@L said:

read comments

(Sorry I do NOT mean your comments, specificaly the comments of this forum and this title / subject, thanks.)

[PeterR]

On 6/25/2017 at 8:06 PM, Eoin Joyce said:

Not at all. I just find it curious how widespread these views are. I used to think (back in the day of course), they were just the province of people who had been Jehovah's Witnesses .

 

My experience has been that people who reach these conclusions are simply people who read the Bible without preconception.

Nobody personally told me to read Matt 24 differently to how I'd always been taught it my whole life. As I both studied deeply (often as preparation to give talks), and listened to others giving the standard JW explanations,  I found questions emerging over certain timing issues involving "presence/parousia", "coming", and "generation". Pieces were starting not to fit too well. I prayed and read and prayed and read. Then the passage became much more clear. I compared other Bible translations and the Interlinear, and could see why confusion had arisen and the doctrines had become tangled. I'm not going to repeat everything JWinsider wrote about the passage here, but those were all conclusions I reached simply from reading the Bible carefully.

All of this was before the days of Google by the way. None of my initial research involved any material outside of the Bible itself, and a more thorough examination of what the publications were saying.

Then much later on (several years) I started coming across people who had gone through a similar process and reached the same conclusions. It was a strong indicator to me that there was substance to what I had learned.

Even later it was possible to start pulling more information from the Internet, and now things were really starting to make complete sense. I'm not saying that all questions were answered, but just that the scriptures were now harmonizing in a way that they never had before.

Since that time the GB has made substantial changes to official understanding of the passage. Some things like the meaning of "coming" brought that understanding in line with what I had learned. Other adjustments raised more questions than they answered.

 

Quote

Why? When do you think this takes place?

At the start of the "last days" which according to God's Word began in the 1st century. (Acts 2:17; 2 Tim 3). Just as there was a "pre-flood era" (of which we know relatively little), and a "post-flood-era" (during which Jehovah had a special relationship with the Hebrew nation), there is a "Christian era" which began in the first century. Since this is the last era before the millennial reign of Christ it can aptly be termed the "last days".

(I take it both of us believe that the term "days" in this context is talking about many years and not just a few days.)

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

I have often given thought as the MOST PROBABLE way to calculate time ... and it is ONLY my BEST EDUCATED GUESS, at the present time ...  is first realize that the PERSPECTIVE of the narrator in Genesis is of one standing on the surface of the Earth watching it's formation.

It is NOT a "view from Space".

Then ... we know from MOUNTAINS of very hard evidence (  no pun intended) that the Earth went from formless and void about Three and one-half BILLION years ago to a ball of molten rock from collisions with impacting and accretion materials, became an oblate spheroid (generally a ball...) and it took that long to become the Lovely Blue-Green-Tan Planet we have today., with the Moon in EXACTLY the right place, for the first time in the history of the Solar System, so that Earth observers can use it as a tool to wrestle the secrets from the Universe, as Einstein waited 18 or so years for a Solar Eclipse to verify his theory of relativity as being TRUE.

So ... if you take 3-1/2 billion years divided by six creative days, (and a day of rest ...), that is 3, 500,000,000 years divided by 7, which gives you each of the seven "days"  is about a half-billion years long.  

Time to have the entire Earth go through many changes, from a ball of super-heated steam covered incandescent rock in total darkness, to a lush jungle and ecosphere with hundreds of millions of frolicking dinosaurs and other critters swarming over the Earth.

My current BEST GUESS ... based on VERY hard evidence ... is that we are living in God's rest day now .... but where we are in that half-billion year long rest day would be wild guessing without any hard evidence.  (That means delusional fantasy, for those in Rio Linda...)

The entire Universe SCREAMS! ...  screams .... SCREAMS! ... of the existing time scale of all things .... stars, planetary formation, geological epocs,  climate variations , life .. extinctions ... life ... extinctions, etc., and of vast and widespread civilizations of proto-men, precursors to "Homo Erectus" , eventually leading to the direct creation of "Homo Theocraticus" ... the first sanctioned  humans ...by God.

             By the way ... this "theory" SOLVES the problem of  evolution's  billions of tons of hard evidence across all sciences being irrefutably true, and the Bible account of the first "Humans" being the direct creation of Jehovah God.          

IT FITS ALL KNOWN FACTS FROM BOTH SIDES .... WITHOUT ANY COMPROMISES OR OBFUSCATIONS OR COGNITIVE DISSONANCE.

If it takes more than one paragraph to explain ANY concept ... it probably is NOT true.

I am 70, now, and these things are for younger and smarter people to work out the details.  

As Kenny Rogers sang in his song "The Gambler" ....

"You gotta know when to hold 'em,

Know when to fold 'em

Know when to walk away,

Know when to run.

You can't count your money, while you're sittin' at the table ..

The'ill be time enough for countin' ...

when the dealings done."

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

49 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The entire Universe SCREAMS! ...  screams .... SCREAMS! ... of the existing time scale of all things .... stars, planetary formation, geological epocs,  climate variations , life .. extinctions ... life ... extinctions, etc., and of vast and widespread civilizations of proto-men, precursors to "Homo Erectus" , eventually leading to the direct creation of "Homo Theocraticus" ... the first sanctioned  humans ...by God.

THIS is the single paragraph I had in mind ......

BOOM!

[bruceq]

On 6/28/2017 at 8:12 PM, PeterR said:

I don't think this is objectively true at all.

Do a Google search on "the last days" or "the last days bible" (adding "Bible" focuses a bit better on what we're talking about).

That's not to say that JWs aren't doing a decent job of talking about it. I'm just trying to put some perspective on it.

Interesting never thought about doing google search on what people are searching for. I wonder what web site comes up first if you search not just "Last Days" but for "Prophecy", Armageddon", "God's Kingdom" and of course "Ransom Sacrifice"? Then after that search under :"God's Name", "Who go to heaven", "What happens when you die", "Why does God allow suffering" and so forth...I wonder which web site comes up first, second and so forth?  Matt. 24:14; 28:19,20.

“As for you, Daniel, keep the words secret, and seal up the book until the time of the end. Many will rove about,  and the true knowledge will become abundant.” Dan. 12:4.

 "And I saw another angel flying in midheaven,  and he had everlasting good news to declare to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation and tribe and tongue  and people." Rev. 14:6

So is this attributed to a "higher power - divine intervention"?   Well there are over 30,000 religions and hundreds of religious websites yet JW.ORG is first in these search words  and they are a tiny religion compared to the mainstream ones. Who are the ones preaching the "good news of the Kingdom in all the earth"? Well the search brings up JW.ORG. Mt. 24:14. And what website is translated into more languages than any other and would thus identity the true religion and fulfill prophecy?  I showed this to my doubtful Bible study last night and he is now convinced that Jehovah's Witnesses are the ones preaching about the Kingdom in "all the earth" {internet covers all the earth}  as the prophecy says!!!

[PeterR]

9 minutes ago, bruceq said:

Interesting never thought about doing google search on what people are searching for. I wonder what web site comes up first if you search not just "Last Days" but for "Prophecy", Armageddon", "God's Kingdom" and of course "Ransom Sacrifice"? Then after that search under :"God's Name", "Who go to heaven", "What happens when you die", "Why does God allow suffering" and so forth...I wonder which web site comes up first, second and so forth?  Matt. 24:14

Just as I say, the JW tech team has done some excellent SEO work on this. Or you might attribute the SEO to a higher power. I don't know.

However, it's also irrelevant to what was actually being talked about as I explained.

[PeterR]

BTW - who do you think is more likely to be influencing Google - the God of this system of things, or the God of the Universe who already gave us his Word?

I actually don't have a strong opinion on this, but one can be sure that if JWs were ranking low on these things the average JW would be blaming the other guy.

[Jack Ryan]

If Jesus meant two overlapping generations why did he say "this generation" and not "these generations."

 

[lentaylor71]

Did Jesus said anything about the overlapping generation??

[Evacuated]

4 hours ago, Jack Ryan said:

"this generation" and not "these generations."

'Cos there's only one?

All the talk around understanding what "this generation" really is seems to be really about "how long are the last days"? If we knew that, then we would be closer to knowing "that day and hour", which isn't going to happen.

Although many seem to use this fact to echo the sentiment of 2Pet.3:4: "Where is this promised presence of his?", Habbakuk's words still apply to this modern day of Jehovah: "it will not be late". (Hab.2:3).

So, unsettling as it might be for some,  we just will not know how long Jesus meant by "this generation"  until the end comes, and no amount of fancy footwork is going to change that. 

[JOHN BUTLER]

So, unsettling as it might be for some,  we just will not know how long Jesus meant by "this generation"  until the end comes, and no amount of fancy footwork is going to change that. 

So why do the GB pretend to know ?