I have barely seen a more stupid chart in my life

[Arauna]

On 5/20/2020 at 2:01 PM, JW Insider said:

A lot of us (Witnesses) have been forced into a corner on this one,

You show defeat when it comes to thinking things through much  too quickly.  I do not search through old material for someone else  to tell me what to think. As you said: be reasonable and then I add this to the mix:  also look at the reality. 

When reasonableness is followed through with  reality then one sees that a linear timeline for a generation was made much too simple at first. A staggered timeline is the reality on the ground.

I put in a wrong date above. To illustrate Russel's   generation.  The elderly who lived in his time .....  they could have been born any time from  1800...... to be able to read his literature and be influenced by him  in 1870.  However,  all those who had contact with his literature during his lifetime and even those born before his death still live in the times that are influenced by the same events....... such as Darwinism, industrial revolution, love of Egypt and artifacts, Mormonism, the trek from the east to California, and even WW1 AND Watchtower publications and lectures.  So anyone born  up to 1904 would read about the same things in the press and be part of Russel's generation - be influenced by the events.  These people born in 1904 would live through both wars until.........1980 or later.  So a generation is in reality not just one lifetime but a group of lifetimes.  So look at the first date of 1800 to 1980 or little later - this is Russel's generation...... and he was born in 1852. A staggered generation.

So those who experienced and were born just before 1914 or WW2 and even after WW2 (as the generation who saw these signs and were influenced by it) are getting older.... but they are still around.   

I recognise the signs without being anointed and have heard many stories from my grandfather and father who were in WW2 in Africa, Italy, Korea and Japan.  These things are etched in my memory and I lived in the era influenced by these wars....... entire structure of societies changed - especially the 60s in aftermath of WW2. 

The millenials are still influenced by what happened but do not care to read about this any longer - they love the new trend of technology and cyborgs.....  So the generation who saw these signs are definitely getting older.

But many signs are still here: the lockdown, epidemics, fires, floods, tsunamis, volcanos and we are getting so used to murder and conflict (al Shabaab, Syria, Israel versus Iran, Turkey, China, Russia...... that no-one bats an eyelid any longer.  Before the flood the violence was mega but it seems people took no note.  Same now.

So the answer is: to think about things. Something the GB is always telling us to do.  They can spoon feed us up to a point but we have to grow mature ourselves. We ourselves are responsible for learning to ponder.

Staggered or overlapping generations is not absurd at all - it was built in from the start but the GB oversimplified at first. ..... that is all.

Some would like like to say the GB were wrong..... I say.... wait and see.  We are close to the new world order that has satan's influence behind it. Things are going to change so rapidly now.  40 million without work in USA alone and some know they will never get their jobs back...... with the smallest spark they will riot- especially when their bellies are empty. Government is working (right and left working together) to get more police on streets and maybe the military.   Things are getting serious and people are still complacent about the generation........ lol.

[Srecko Sostar]

46 minutes ago, Arauna said:

Staggered or overlapping generations is not absurd at all - it was built in from the start but the GB oversimplified at first. ..... that is all.

This is err premise. Sorry.

What was built from the start (my start was in 1975) WT publication teaches how generation is 70-80 in length and is literally connected with the year 1914 as start point to be able to count when "signs" will culminate in Armageddon. 

Because of that JW's are/was put in "corner" with this. "Overlapping" invention is just try how to get out of the corner. 

 

[Witness]

9 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Because of that JW's are/was put in "corner" with this. "Overlapping" invention is just try how to get out of the corner. 

Sadly, they are put in a corner, over and over again.  This photo is spreading like wildfire.  Its  words were taught as FACT, as TRUTH.  It is amazing that truth can be viewed as a rubber ball bouncing high, then low, then high again, and in many different directions.

"You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should REMAIN; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you."  John 15:16

One must ask, if the WT leaders have prayed for scriptural understanding, but produce fruit that rots, are they being deceived by a another spirit?  (1 John 4:1; 2 Cor 11:4)  Jesus didn't make false promises.  If he said the Father would give understanding to his disciples, we have full belief that He would...to those fully devoted to Him (and not to an organization built with wood and stone)

Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
    be shocked, be utterly desolate,
declares the Lord,
13 for My people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken Me,
    the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
    broken cisterns that can hold no water.  Jer 2:12,13

 

https://4womaninthewilderness.blogspot.com/2014/11/generation.html

 

 

[Srecko Sostar]

Now is come to be clear from where S. Lett borrow his words about final part of last days, or last days of last days, or ... :)) it doesn't matter.

It seems how S. Lett reads very old WT publications and than get some ideas for new light, clarification and so on :))

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

This would have been when they were teaching the 7,000 year Creative days. And the 6,000th year of God's Rest day.  And dare i say teaching 1975 as the coming Armageddon. 

[Witness]

2 minutes ago, Srecko Sostar said:

Now is come to be clear from were S. Lett borrow his words about final part of last days, or last days of last days, or ... :)) it doesn't matter.

It seems how S. Lett reads very old WT publications and than get some ideas for new light, clarification and so on :))

Well, he was pushed into a corner and had to borrow some old light.  That's the way the ball bounces.🙂

[Witness]

5 minutes ago, 4Jah2me said:

This would have been when they were teaching the 7,000 year Creative days. And the 6,000th year of God's Rest day.  And dare i say teaching 1975 as the coming Armageddon. 

1 Thess 5:1-3

[JW Insider]

19 hours ago, Arauna said:

You show defeat when it comes to thinking things through much  too quickly.

You can judge that I thought it through too quickly, but I don't think it's true . I'm not saying that I ended up with the right answer, but I surely didn't think it through very quickly. I'm still thinking through it.

It's just a matter of perspective. I can just as easily judge that only those who finally gave in to a false definition of "generation" have been defeated. In fact, to be honest, I believe that Brother Splane was defeated by the perceived need to compromise with the earlier tradition that says we will still be in the generation of 1914 when the end comes, and he thinks there might still be a way to claim we were right, even after that generation has completely died out. 

19 hours ago, Arauna said:

I do not search through old material for someone else  to tell me what to think.

Again, it sounds like you are judging that someone searches through old material for someone else to tell them what to think. It doesn't sound like anything I have ever done, but perhaps you think that it is?

19 hours ago, Arauna said:

As you said: be reasonable and then I add this to the mix:  also look at the reality.

Again, a matter of perspective. For myself, I have to be reasonable using my own powers of reason, not someone else's, even if they have searched through old material to try to tell me what to think. And I have to use sensibility to look at reality. For me, that reasonableness and reality just happens to provide evidence for a different solution. 

19 hours ago, Arauna said:

I put in a wrong date above. To illustrate Russel's   generation.  The elderly who lived in his time .....  they could have been born any time from  1800...... [skipped] ... So anyone born  up to 1904 would read about the same things in the press and be part of Russel's generation - be influenced by the events.  These people born in 1904 would live through both wars until.........1980 or later.  So a generation is in reality not just one lifetime but a group of lifetimes.  So look at the first date of 1800 to 1980 or little later - this is Russel's generation...... and he was born in 1852. A staggered generation.

This is absolutely correct. Let's say that a man like Russell, for example, had made a prophecy in 1914, saying:

'As of 1914, the generation now alive at this time [THIS GENERATION] will see "Judgment Day" before this generation passes away completely.' 

• It is very true that this means that even someone who was born in 1800 MIGHT see it, if "Judgment Day" arrived by 1915 and they lived to be 115.
• It is also very true of someone born in 1852, as Russell was, that they MIGHT also see it, if "Judgment Day" arrived by 1967 and they lived to be 115.
• It is also very true of someone born in 1904, that they MIGHT also see it, if "Judgment Day" arrived by 2019, and they lived to be 115.

However, if Russell made this same prophecy in 1880, that THIS generation alive at that time will see judgment day before that generation passes away, then:

• It is very true that this means that even someone who was born as early as 1766 MIGHT see it in 1881, assuming they lived to be 115. 
• It is also very true that this means that someone born in 1870 MIGHT see it as late as 1985, assuming they lived to be 115.

So it's the same with Jesus. If he said that people in his audience who were part of that generation would live to see a judgement day in that generation, then:

• If Jesus said this in 33 then it means that even someone who was born as early as 82 BCE MIGHT live to see that judgment day, assuming it happened the very next year, and they lived to be 115.
• If Jesus said this in 33 then it means that even someone who was born in 23 CE MIGHT live to see that judgment day, even if was delayed as late as 138 CE, assuming they lived to be 115. (But that person would see it by 70 CE, of course!)

If you use your same logic for a generation alive in 1914, who had been born in 1904 so that they were about 10 years old, and could recognize the sign in that year. then we have the same thing. And if you think that people shouldn't have to live until 115 then your own point is more reasonable:

So if Russell made a prophecy anytime around 1904 that "Judgment Day" would arrive in the 1914 generation, then he would be right, as long as "Judgment Day" would have occurred before around 1980 at the latest. Some of that generation would still be alive around 1980.

But you can't stretch "this 1914 generation" much past that, using your reasoning above.

[ComfortMyPeople]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

the generation of 1914 even after that generation has completely died out. 

I think that all this of the generation could have, in fact, a very simple explanation: Jesus was only referring to the living people in his day, and that they would see the destruction of Jerusalem in 70.

What complicates it "a little" is the intersection between the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the prediction of His return, of His parousia.

The apostles, in their ignorance, MIXED both issues. So Jesus' response could lead us to MIX the fulfillments. Even more complicated if we look for TYPES and antitype between the first and second fulfillment ...

What I see less complicated is that the ONLY statements unequivocally referring to the parousia, on his return, are those of

(Matthew 24: 29-31).?.?. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30? Then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will beat themselves in grief, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. 31? And he will send out his angels with a great trumpet sound, and they will gather his chosen ones together from the four winds, from one extremity of the heavens to their other extremity.

All these followed by verses Mt.24: 36 and until the end of chapter 25

 

The fact that the statements about the "generation" appear in the midst of statements that ONLY will be fulfilled in the parousia could make us think that they CAN ONLY refer to the parousia

It happens that the biblical writers did not record the words of Jesus in a logical or chronological order, as we would do in our time. Many times they used a linguistic model called chiasm. This mix -apparently- the ideas forming an X (... topic for another day)

Thus, we find in the conversation of the Mount of Olives a mixture of events that had to do with the year 70, then for the parousia, and then back to the year 70.

(Luke 21:11, 12).?.?. And there will be fearful sights and from heaven great signs.	second coming
(Luke 21:12). “But before all these things happen, people will lay their hands on you and persecute you, handing you over to the synagogues and prisons.	year 70
(Luke 21:25) . . .Also, there will be signs in the sun and moon and stars. . .	second coming

(Luke 21:29-32) . . .With that he told them an illustration: “Notice the fig tree and all the other trees. 30 When they are budding, you see it for yourselves and know that now the summer is near. 31 Likewise also you, when you see these things happening, know that the Kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all things happen.

year 70

So perhaps the famous words about generation are some kind of interpolation between the 70 and parousia fulfillments, but related to the fist one. year 70 and the destruction of Jerusalem:

If we apply the generation statement to the period 33-70, the discussions of 1 / when it starts 2 / how long it lasts 3 / when it ends ...  IT ENDS! what happiness!

[Witness]

There must be a mound of WT paperwork a mile high,concerning "generation", and what Jesus meant. Add to that, every JW's opinion on what it means. Okay, a good 2 miles high.    Does it occur to anyone that Jesus was referring to its spiritual meaning and not the physical meaning?  

"Praise the Lord!

Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,
Who delights greatly in His commandments.

2 His descendants will be mighty on earth;
The generation of the upright will be blessed.  Ps 112:1,2

That generation began in Genesis.

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”  Gen 3:15

As did this "generation" - 

"His people have acted corruptly toward him; this is their defect* -- they are not his children but a devious and crooked generation."  Deut 32:5

The "righteous", "upright", "faultless", have God as their father.

"By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was approved as a righteous man, because God approved his gifts, and even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith."  Heb 11:4

The unrighteous, wicked, have Satan as their father.

so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world    Phil 2:15

 and said, “O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?"  Acts 13:10

"You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it."  John 8:44

We choose our spiritual father by our actions, our belief, and our desire to follow or not follow, Christ's teachings.   If we search the scriptures we see God's children weave through the entire Bible.   Jesus was speaking of generated "seeds" from either the Father in Heaven (the righteous), or those of Satan, the devil (the unrighteous)

It doesn't have to be difficult to understand.  The problem arises when leaders put literal application to spiritual timetables.  They constantly have to cover their butt for their failures.  

 

 

https://4womaninthewilderness.blogspot.com/2014/11/generation.html

 

 

 

[JW Insider]

7 hours ago, ComfortMyPeople said:

I think that all this of the generation could have, in fact, a very simple explanation: Jesus was only referring to the living people in his day, and that they would see the destruction of Jerusalem in 70.

Agreed. But possibly for slightly different reasons. And it's all based on this word "immediately" in Matthew 24:29. If only that word had been more associated with "soon" or "after that" or "next." I have seen other reasons not to think of this as any kind of measurable generation if it can be said to apply to the generation before the synteleia/parousia in 70.

We have good reason to see this part of the prophecy in Matthew 24 as applying to the final parousia, but there is very little reason to apply anything else in Matthew 24 to the final parousia, except for the lessons we are expected to draw from everything that happened to literal Israel*Judea*Jerusalem:

(Romans 15:4) . . .For all the things that were written beforehand were written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the comfort from the Scriptures we might have hope. . .

(1 Corinthians 10:11) Now these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for a warning to us upon whom the ends of the systems of things have come.

(2 Timothy 3:16, 17) All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be fully competent, completely equipped for every good work.

So for the final parousia, we will still need to be on the watch, but this time with no life-span measurable generation. We will still need to be careful not to be fooled by things we think are signs, like wars, earthquakes, food shortages, pestilence, etc. -- because this parousia is something we must always be ready for. We will still need to rely on the holy spirit when persecutions come and we need to defend our faith, or give a witness about the Kingdom to the entire earth. We still expect the faith of the greater number to cool off, etc. If it happened over a period of less than 40 years for THAT synteleia/parousia, then it will obviously happen in great measure over the 1000's of years that Christians might have to wait for the final parousia.

You already know that I love to weigh in on this topic, perhaps too much. I'll definitely continue this discussion later.

 

[Arauna]

20 hours ago, Srecko Sostar said:

WT publication teaches how generation is 70-80 in length and is literally connected with the year 1914 as start point to be able to count wh

As I said - they took the first simplified explanation..... of 70 or 80 years.

However, Noah's generation was 120 years.

And a staggered generation  can - as illustrated - be many more years..... even up to 180..... if one looks at the reality on the ground.

To outright dismiss this indicates a bias and unacceptance that staggered generations even exist- which I would say is illogical and unscientific..... and unyielding to even contemplate it - which is NOT a mature Christian quality because we are to "ponder over things and make our advancement".