Apostles, Judas, GB, Raymond, Satan, Holy Spirit

[JW Insider]

On 2/3/2019 at 2:59 AM, FelixCA said:

Just like the obsession you have with the 6000 years. Maybe if you look at it by someone else’s perspective.

I have absolutely no obsession with the 6,000 years. Pointing out that F.Franz had an evident obsession with something unscriptural, is not the same as having an obsession myself.

I see that the only support you offered about the 6,000 years was not from the Bible, of course, but from "HA 1423." (For anyone who is not aware, this is from Horae Apocalypticae, an infamous source of several of Nelson Barbour's chronology mistakes, that he passed along to a chronologically naive Charles Taze Russell.)

HA1423

Similarly the pseudo- Barnabas, a very ancient though Apocryphal writer: "Consider, my children, what that signifies, He finished them in six days. The meaning is, that in 6000 years the Lord will bring all things to an end," &c.
The same expectation as to the six days of creation typifying 6000 years, as the term of the present world's duration,
continued, as we have seen, (see p. 230, &c, supra) even among the anti- premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. Only they explained the sabbatical seventh day as typical, not of a seventh sabbatical Millennium of rest, but an eternal Sabbath: - - a view generally adopted afterwards.

An apocryphal writer, from the era of apostasy, as @Outta Here has elsewhere pointed out, had an obsession with numerology and gematria. He clearly misinterprets scripture by claiming that the words "he finished them in six days" means that in 6,000 years, the Lord will bring all things to an end. I'm not saying that Barnabas did not get some things right, or that the anti-premillennarian fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries did not get some things right. But it's never a good idea to depend on a non-Biblical, apocryphal misinterpretation to impose an idea on scripture when absolutely no support for anything like it is found anywhere in the Bible.

It's actually a good thing that you pointed out that this is ultimately where the Watch Tower Society got this unscriptural idea from.

[Evacuated]

7 hours ago, JW Insider said:

He clearly misinterprets scripture by claiming that the words "he finished them in six days" means that in 6,000 years,

Without getting too bogged down in this matter, I presume the discussion is around the length of the creative epoch/age/day we now find ourselves in?

Discussions on this apect of speculative chronology indeed have their fascinating side, (if you are in the mood for it), and there is no shortage in the contribution made by various Bible Students to the debate, even if it does venture into realms of reminiscent a Pyramidology type mentaliity at times. But as far as JWs are concerned officially , we do not seem to have ventured very far from the statement made in the old 1971 Aid to Bible Understanding, on page 392:  "The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods ."

[Witness]

22 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Jesus with the organization that he leads results in persons of developing lands possessing modern Bible translations that, if need be, are free.

You might want to do some research to see just how many organizations offer free Bibles all around the world.  

[JW Insider]

On 2/9/2019 at 3:45 PM, Outta Here said:

Without getting too bogged down in this matter, I presume the discussion is around the length of the creative epoch/age/day we now find ourselves in?

I recalled a comment from last year where you commented positively on the new way of referring to these days as aeons or epochs, rather than literal days, and then added the following comment:

On 8/12/2018 at 11:37 AM, Outta Here said:

By that old reckoning it appears that we are 43 years in to Adam's settlement/cultivation/animal naming/no helper period and still counting.

1975+43=2018 (last year). This old reckoning might seem ridiculous now, especially after the Watchtower once argued that this period could be a matter of weeks or months, but could not go beyond 2 years. But there are still some Witnesses who haven't kept up and believe there must be some validity to the 6,000 year theory. (A partial salvage of the theory, without any reference to 6,000 or 7,000 years, was rewritten in a much better way in a 2011 Watchtower:

*** w11 7/15 p. 24 God’s Rest—What Is It? ***
God’s Rest—What Is It?

During the time that Fred Franz was still alive and still working on his last prophetic book "Revelation -- Its Grand Climax at Hand" an article was written dealing with the Jubilee year and how the 49th year was related to the 50th:

*** w87 1/1 p. 30 Questions From Readers ***
Second, a study of the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and of our location in the stream of time strongly indicate that each of the creative days (Genesis, chapter 1) is 7,000 years long. It is understood that Christ’s reign of a thousand years will bring to a close God’s 7,000-year ‘rest day,’ the last ‘day’ of the creative week. (Revelation 20:6; Genesis 2:2, 3) Based on this reasoning, the entire creative week would be 49,000 years long. . . . According to Romans 8:20, 21, Jehovah God purposes to liberate believing mankind from this slavery. As a result, true worshipers on earth “will be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.”—See also Romans 6:23. . . . While the small group selected to be taken to heaven have had their sins forgiven from Pentecost 33 C.E. onward and thus already enjoy the Jubilee, the Scriptures show that the liberation for believing mankind will occur during Christ’s Millennial Reign. That will be when he applies to mankind the benefits of his ransom sacrifice. By the end of the Millennium, mankind will have been raised to human perfection, completely free from inherited sin and death. Having thus brought to an end the last enemy (death passed on from Adam), Christ will hand the Kingdom back to his Father at the end of the 49,000-year creative week.—1 Corinthians 15:24-26.

So although the 1969/1971 Aid Book, as you pointed out, had said that we don't know the length of the creative days, this probably came from the idea that a Bible Dictionary should not contain esoteric beliefs that are not actually based on the Bible, but are just a traditional interpretation. R.Franz must have recognized this fact, while preparing the Aid Book, but apparently there was a faction that thought this "reasonable" approach was very dangerous. It admits that we don't know everything. I have personal anecdote that let me know that this is exactly what at least two brothers (Greenlees and Schroeder) thought would, initially, be the way to get R.Franz removed, by exposing the non-dogmatic approach in the Aid Book style that tends to erode dogma. I'll save the anecdote for another time, but I think it is easy to recognize that this kind of approach to the Bible takes a lot of power away from the interpreters. (The anecdote did not concern the length of the creative days.)

Even in the lead-up to 1975, there was a need, probably influenced by the Aid Book, to start using words like "evidently" rather than just speaking dogmatically:

*** w73 2/1 p. 82 Will Your Days Be “Like the Days of a Tree”? ***
Since each of the creative “days” or periods was evidently seven thousand years long, the whole creative “week” takes in 49,000 years.

Compare that with the dogmatism in the previous decades:

*** w51 1/1 pp. 27-28 The Christian’s Sabbath ***
Since the sabbath was a part of the law and the “Law has a shadow of the good things to come”, of what was the sabbath a shadow? Of the grand rest day for all mankind, the 1,000-year reign of Christ, the seventh 1,000 years of God’s rest day. For six thousand years mankind has been toiling and suffering under “the god of this world”, Satan the Devil. In that antitypical sabbath Christ will free men from the bondage of Satan and his demons . . .

*** w63 8/1 p. 460 par. 14 Religion and the Nuclear Age ***
We could continue verse by verse through the entire period of the six creative days, periods of time that other Bible passages show to have been each 7,000 years in length.

Of course, no other Bible passages were shown to indicate this, just a footnote to see the book by F.Franz, Let God Be True, 1943.

Hebrews 3 & 4 does connect Psalm 95:11 to Genesis 2:2, but without any connection to a certain number of years and without any reference to the millennium of Christ's reign.

[Evacuated]

3 hours ago, JW Insider said:

we don't know the length of the creative days

All the "evidently"s, "reasoning"s, "understanding"s etc that are postulated with regard to a 49000 year creative week theory remain firmly in the realms of imagination in the light of the 1971 statement  "The Bible does not specify the length of each of the creative periods ."

I don't have a problem with the idea of Jehovah' having a rest day into which we can figuratively "enter" as Paul describes. No problem either with the notion that this rest "day" commenced after the creation of Eve. And also no problem with the idea that this period will of necessity include the 1000 year millenial reign of Christ. This reign, among other things, will oversee successfully the populating of planet earth and the bringing of it into a condition that Jehovah can judge as "very good" when the seventh creative epoch ends.

All the rest of the chronological surgery that goes on regarding the "time of the end" is quite simply "playing doctors" with time. Our Leader, Jesus, helped us to appreciate that when he stated clearly that "“Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father." Matt.24:36.

It seems that individuals get very "precious" about their own sepeculations about when this day or hour will be, or not be. The emotional ranting around this I do not really understand. For me it is interesting, even fascinating, to consider the many views on this matter, including the 49000 year idea, but to be honest, none of them do I loose any sleep over. In fact, since I have had it confirmed from the Holy Scriptures (or the Bible depending on your language) that we are in "the last days" and that there is something that we can do to work along with Jehovah and Jesus at this time, I have enjoyed my sleep infinitely better than ever before, knowing that my future is safely in the hands of the one who says: 

From the beginning I foretell the outcome, and from long ago the things that have not yet been done. I say, ‘My decision will stand, and I will do whatever I please.’  Is.46:10

[JOHN BUTLER]

However in the 1960's the 'teaching' was that each creative day was 7,000 years long. I know as I was having a study at the time and that is exactly what i was taught in my Bible study.. That was part of the foundation of my learning about God and Christ and Creation. 

I don't care who denies it, but that is what was taught. Creative days =7,000 years. Rest day 6,000 years then Armageddon, then 1,000 years of Christ's rule. Then Christ hands it all back to God ( possibly for a Jubilee year ? or some such).. 

That is what I was taught. 

[TrueTomHarley]

On 2/7/2019 at 12:54 PM, JOHN BUTLER said:

And you need an OUTLINE to give a talk at a funeral ?  ...But they want you to stick to an outline to give a funeral talk and they much prefer you to be an Elder or M/S ? 

You are confusing JWs with those churches in which everyone gets up and gives his ‘testimony.’

Were it at a funeral home, I could do anything I wanted, without regard for being elder or MS. But it is not a free-for-all at the Kingdom Hall, so my giving the talk there was not a given. 

As it turned out, it was okayed, doubtless because people there know me well & I was a very close friend of the deceased.

[Evacuated]

5 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

what was taught

What Bible teach not what men teach many times. Motto? Better to know what Bible teach.

[JOHN BUTLER]

1 hour ago, Outta Here said:

What Bible teach not what men teach many times. Motto? Better to know what Bible teach.

Yes I agree with you. But my point was that Jehovah's Witnesses were given that information to teach others when they were taking a Bible study. And that information was lies. So Jehovah's Witnesses were teaching lies to their students. 

[TrueTomHarley]

10 minutes ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

But my point was that Jehovah's Witnesses were given that information to teach others when they were taking a Bible study. And that information was lies. So Jehovah's Witnesses were teaching lies to their students. 

No more than Isaac Newton taught lies.

Forgive me for saying so, John, but I think you have a basic disconnect with the way that God operates towards humans. Continually we read of Bible characters who propagate things that later turn out to be wrong.

[JOHN BUTLER]

23 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

No more than Isaac Newton taught lies.

Forgive me for saying so, John, but I think you have a basic disconnect with the way that God operates towards humans. Continually we read of Bible characters who propagate things that later turn out to be wrong.

And in your opinion that makes it Ok for the JW Org to teach lies does it ? 

Showing your true colours I think. Gives you more to write about probably  

[TrueTomHarley]

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

And in your opinion that makes it Ok for the JW Org to teach lies does it ? 

On the contrary. It means that if anyone mentions Isaac Newton in my presence, I make them wash their mouth out with soap.