[For the original treatise on the whether 1914 was
the start of Christ's presence, see this post.]
I was talking with a long-time friend a couple of days ago who served with me many years back in a foreign assignment. His loyalty to Jehovah and his organization is well known to me. In the course of the conversation, he admitted that he didn't really believe our latest understanding of "this generation". That emboldened me to broach the subject of the many date-related prophetic fulfillments we hold to have occurred in the years following 1914. I was quite surprised to learn that he didn't accept most of these interpretations either. His only holdout was 1914. He did believe 1914 marked the beginning of the last days. The concurrence of the start of World War One was just too enticing for him to dismiss.
I confess that it took me a while to overcome that bias. One doesn't like to believe in coincidences, assuming it even was a coincidence. The fact is, we are constantly bombarded with reinforcement for the idea that 1914 is prophetically significant; marking, as we believe, the beginning of the presence of the Son of Man. So I thought it was wise to revisit our position on 1914, this time from a slightly different viewpoint. I figured it might be useful to list all the assumptions we have to make before we can accept our interpretation involving 1914 as true. As it turns out, there is quite a litany of them.
Assumption 1: Nebuchadnezzar's dream from Daniel chapter 4 has a fulfillment beyond his day.
The book of Daniel makes no mention whatsoever of any fulfillment beyond his day. There is no indication that what happened to Nebuchadnezzar is some type of prophetic drama or minor fulfillment to a major future antitype.
Assumption 2: The seven times of the dream are meant to represent 360 years each.
When this formula applies elsewhere in the Bible, the year-for-a-day ratio is always explicitly stated. Here we are assuming that it applies.
Assumption 3: This prophecy applies to the enthronement of Jesus Christ.
The point of this dream and its subsequent fulfillment was to provide an object lesson to the King, and mankind in general, that rulership and the appointment of a ruler is the sole prerogative of Jehovah God. There is nothing to indicate that the enthronement of the Messiah is indicated here. Even if it is, there is nothing to indicate that this is a calculation given to show us when that enthronement takes place.
Assumption 4: This prophecy was given to establish the chronological extent of the appointed times of the nations.
There is only one reference to the appointed times of the nations in the Bible. At Luke 21:24 Jesus introduced this expression but gave no indication as to when it began nor when it would end. He also made no connection whatsoever between this phrase and anything contained in the book of Daniel.
Assumption 5: The appointed times of the nations began when Jerusalem was destroyed and all the Jews were taken into exile in Babylon.
There is nothing in the Bible to indicate when the appointed times of the nations began, so this is pure speculation. They could have begun when Adam sinned or when Nimrod built his tower.
Assumption 6: The 70 years of servitude refers to 70 years in which all the Jews would be exile in Babylon.
Based on the wording of the Bible, the 70 years could refer to years in which the Jews were under the rule of Babylon. This would include the servitude when the nobels, including Daniel himself, were taken to Babylon, but the rest were allowed to stay and pay tribute to the King of Babylon. (Jer. 25:11, 12)
Assumption 7: 607 B.C.E. is the year in which the appointed times of the nations began.
Assuming assumption 5 is correct, we have no way of knowing with certainty that 607 B.C.E. was the year in which the Jews were taken into exile. Scholars agree on two years: 587 B.C.E. as the year of the exile, and 539 B.C.E. as the year in which Babylon fell. There is no more reason to accept 539 B.C.E. as valid then there is to reject 587 B.C.E. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate the year the exile started nor ended, so we must accept one opinion of worldly authorities and reject another.
Assumption 8: 1914 marks the end of the trampling of Jerusalem and therefore the end of the appointed times of the nations.
There is no evidence that the trampling of Jerusalem by the nations ended in 1914. Did the trampling of Spiritual Israel end in that year? Not according to us. That ended in 1919 according to the Revelation Climax book p. 162 par. 7-9. Of course, the trampling has continued on through the 20th Century and right down to our day. So there is no evidence whatsoever that the nations have ceased trampling upon Jehovah’s people nor that their time has ended.
Assumption 9: Satan and his demons were cast down in 1914.
We contend that Satan cause the First World War out of anger for being cast down. However, he was cast down in October of 1914 according to our interpretation, and yet the war began in August of that year and preparations for the war had been going on for a considerable time before that, as early as 1911. That would mean he had to get angry before he was cast down and the woe to the earth began before he was cast down. That contradicts what the Bible says.
Assumption 10: The presence of Jesus Christ is invisible and is separate from his coming at Armageddon.
There is strong evidence in the Bible that the presence of Christ and his arrival at Armageddon are one and the same. There is no hard evidence to indicate that Jesus would rule from heaven invisibly for 100 years before manifesting himself visibly prior to the destruction of this old system of things.
Assumption 11: The injunction against Jesus’ followers getting knowledge of his installation as king as stated at Acts 1:6, 7 was lifted for Christians in our day.
This statement of Jesus would mean that the apostles of his day had no right to know when he would be enthroned as king of Israel--spiritual or otherwise. The meaning of Daniel's prophecy of the 7 times was supposedly hidden from them. Yet, the significance of the 2,520 years was revealed to William Miller, the founder of the Seventh Day Adventists in the early part of the 19th Century? That would mean the injunction was lifted for Christians in our day. Where in the Bible does it indicate that Jehovah has changed on this position and granted us foreknowledge of such times and seasons?
In Summation
To base the interpretation of a prophetic fulfillment on even one assumption opens the door for disappointment. If that one assumption is wrong, then the interpretation must fall by the wayside. Here we have 11 assumptions! What are the odds that all 11 are true? If even one is wrong, everything changes.
I put it to you that if our start year of 607 B.C.E. had been instead 606 or 608, giving us 1913 or 1915, the interpretation of that year marking the end of the world (it later morphed into the invisible presence of Christ) would have joined all our other failed date-specific interpretations on the dust heap of history. The fact that a single, albeit major, war broke out that year shouldn’t be cause for us to lose our reason and base so much of our prophetic understanding on an interpretation founded on the sand of so many assumptions.
Archived Comments
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Comment by apollos0falexandria on 2012-09-13 15:23:49
Another interesting examination of this subject Meleti.
I cannot help but wonder what the situation would have been if some significant historical event had occurred in 1874. Would Russell's successors (including us) ever have been able to let it go?
Even well into the 20th century it was still being taught that the Lord's presence began in 1874.
The evidence that was being presented in support of that? Consider the following extract from the 1927 book "Creation".
------------------------------------------
It was in the year 1874, the date of our Lord’s second presence, that the first labor organization in the world was created. From that time forward there has been a marvelous increase of light; and the inventions and discoveries have been too numerous to mention here.
But mention is made of some of those things that have come to light since 1874, as a further evidence of the Lord’s presence since that date, as follows: Adding machines, aeroplanes, aluminum, antiseptic surgery, artificial dyes, automatic couplers, automobiles, barbed wire, bicycles, carborundum, cash registers, celluloid, cream separators, disc plows, electric railways, electric welding, elevators, escalators, fireless cookers, gas engines, harvesting machines, illuminating gas, induction motors, linotypes, monotypes, motion pictures, pasteurization, radium, railway signals, Roentgen rays, skyscrapers, smokeless powder, submarines, subways, talking machine, telephones, television, typewriters , vacuum cleaners, wireless telegraphy and wireless telephony.
Creation [1927]
---------------------------------------------
One day I imagine that we will collectively realize that we were also looking at 1914 with a strong preconception, and that so called 'evidence' was being filtered accordingly.Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2012-09-13 16:16:42
Thanks for sharing that insight with us, Apollos. It proves that for at least 50 years, and well past 1914, we believed that the second presence started in 1874. I wonder for how many more years we continued to have that idea. What good is a sign if it doesn't identify the epoch in question until decades too late? Officially, we still believe that the signs in Mat. 24:3-31 are there to help us see his invisible presence. There have often been wars, famines, and pestilences occurring together. Only the additional feature of the sign occurring simultaneously testify to its fulfillment. So until we have seen everything he spoke of, including the worldwide preaching work, we cannot know for sure that we are in the last days, and therefore we can only be sure of his alledged invisible presence retrospectively.
That just adds another paragraph to the case you have often made for the sign indicating, not an invisible presence, but the approach of the presence of the Son of man--his revelation at Armageddon. After all, a sign that warns you something is about to happen is much more advantageous than one that alerts you to something only long after the event has passed.Reply by Anonymous on 2016-01-10 15:17:58
How about Rutherfords book Prophecy written in 1929? "The scriptural proof is that the second presence of the Lord Jesus Christ began in 1874 AD" (page 65)
Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2012-09-13 23:17:55
I was so shocked by the fact that as late as 1927 we still believed the presence of Christ began in 1874 that I completely missed the main thrust of your comment.
I see is now and it calls to mind the inspired words of 2 Peter 3:5 "For, according to their wish, this fact escapes their notice..." This shows that we believe what we want to believe. To believe truth, we have to want to believe in truth. Otherwise, we are very susceptible to this all-too-human tendency to believe our pet theories are true and to find evidence for them everywhere we look. How's that saying go? "To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
Still, it almost passes belief that we could stoop so low as to consider that things like "barbed wire, smokeless powder, and vacuum cleaners" would constitute evidence of Christ's invisible enthronement in the heavens.
Comment by Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence Was Heralding Which Presence? « Beroean Pickets on 2012-09-14 00:15:21
[...] comment that Apollos made to our post, 1914—A Litany of Assumptions, shocked me. (If you haven’t read [...]
Comment by Shahida on 2012-11-15 23:12:03
Thank you for the article...very interesting and informative...this core belief is based purely on speculation and yet taught as a fact.
Comment by miken on 2013-04-17 11:11:09
"The seven times of the dream are meant to represent 360 years each".
In Dan 4: 16, 24 the Aramaic word for "times" is Iddan . In the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (2900) Iddan is defined as time (general), period, span, year, era. Two basic meanings are equally a "point" in time or a "span" of time. So we cannot say with certainty how long the "seven times" were. The NASB translates seven times more accurately as "seven periods of time". The same would also apply to Dan 7:25 with reference to "time, times and one half of a time".
At Dan 4:34 "end of the days". the Aramaic is Yom "time" which is the equivalent to the Hebrew Yowm meaning day, or period of time. So to insist that the seven times of the dream are meant to represent 360 years each does not have a secure scriptural foundation. Clearly In Dan 4 the dream and it's fulfillment scripturally are seen to apply just to Nebuchadnezzar with the intent of demonstrating that , as he acknowledged in verse 37 that "those who are walking in pride he (God) is able to humiliate" among other things he also acknowledges.
With reference to Jesus words recorded at Luke 21:24 "Jerusalen will be trampled on by the nations" the "will be" in the Greek is esomai, meaning will be or shall come to pass, future tense, not a continuation of an already existing condition. So this can have nothing at all to do with the "seven times" of Dan 4 as believed by the WBTS.Reply by apollos0falexandria on 2013-04-17 11:25:14
Indeed, this is a point that I have raised with Meleti previously. It is also one of the points that I shall be including in the forthcoming discussion on the doctrine of 1914. Meleti is moderating an offline exchange which will subsequently be published in one or more articles.
Comment by Feeding Many Through the Hands of a Few | Beroean Pickets on 2013-04-28 00:26:51
[...] number 1 to work in support of 1914, we have to accept eleven distinct and unproven assumptions. For [...]
Comment by smolderingwick1 on 2013-05-03 13:10:20
In your Assumptions 5 & 6, and particularly “The 70 years of servitude refers to 70 years in which all the Jews would be exile in Babylon.” Whereas the 70 years were fulfilled toward “all these nations” given to the king of Babylon as foretold in Jeremiah 25:8-12 and to which Ezra says Jerusalem was “lying desolated” until it had “paid off its Sabbaths”—did it in fact pay off its Sabbaths? (2 Chronicles 36:21)
In all of our illustrations depicting the evacuation of Jerusalem in 607, we see the temple burning and in ruins. If that had been the case, why does Zechariah record a full 17-18 years after Babylon’s destruction, an angel pleading to Jehovah in Zechariah 1:12, “O Jehovah of armies, how long will you yourself not show mercy to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah, whom you have denounced these seventy years?” Were not "these years" those spoken of to Nebuchadnezzar in 609 BCE, almost 90 years before?
And what about the answer given? “Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When YOU fasted and there was a wailing in the fifth [month] and in the seventh [month], and this for seventy years, did YOU really fast to me, even me? And when YOU would eat and when YOU would drink, were not YOU the ones doing the eating, and were not YOU the ones doing the drinking? [Should YOU] not [obey] the words that Jehovah called out by means of the former prophets, while Jerusalem happened to be inhabited, and at ease, with her cities all around her, and [while] the Neg?eb and the She·phe?lah were inhabited?’” (Zechariah 7:5-7)
Had not Jehovah warned Jeremiah that “this very people has come to have a stubborn and rebellious heart?” (Jeremiah 5:23) Had not their rebelliousness delayed their servitude in Babylon so that Babylon’s 70 years ceased to coincide with that of Jerusalem—extending their own 70 years into Zechariah’s day?
Comment by Kyp on 2013-08-21 12:02:16
Regarding assumption 1 and 3: "Nebuchadnezzar’s dream from Daniel chapter 4 has a fulfillment beyond his day.", "This prophecy applies to the enthronement of Jesus Christ."
Well, no, there is one: The basest of men. This seems to point to Lord Jesus.Reply by apollos0fAlexandria on 2013-08-21 12:22:04
Personally I have never disagreed that the kingship of Jesus is alluded to be the dream. After all the whole of the Hebrew scriptures in some way shape or form point to the sacred secret as revealed in Jesus Christ. The very statement "and that to the one whom he wants to, he gives it", which immediately precedes the quote you gave, has only one answer in the big picture. We know who He ultimately wanted to assign over mankind, and that being His purpose He carried it out. What is in question is not whether this tells us about God's right to choose his kingly representative, but whether there is an esoteric chronology included in the passage. As I've mentioned elsewhere I don't have any problem with the idea that seven times does represent the full extent of man's dominion over the earth. What I do contend is the assertion that this period ended in 1914.
Comment by Feeding Many Through the Hands of a Few | Beroean Pickets on 2013-09-20 19:16:32
[…] number 1 to work in support of 1914, we have to accept eleven distinct and unproven assumptions. For […]
Comment by Love Kindness | Beroean Pickets on 2014-02-06 10:58:34
[…] of the core teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses are false. We teach that Christ began to reign in 1914, which we have shown in this forum to be untrue. We teach that the majority of Christians have […]
Comment by Karen on 2016-01-10 18:48:43
It's not enough that we must face the betrayal of sexual assault, it would now appear that everything we have been taught and lived by poses a question... I was not prepared for the depth of this betrayal... I remember researching so thoroughly when first I studied with the witnesses.. My one stumbling block, was .... 'was the Bible in fact from God' When the witnesses proved that and I proved that with so much study, I believed and accepted everything else.. Meleti I admire your stamina and research ability and I thank you for your continued articles... I'm absolutely astounded!!! Thank you all for your clear and honest comments..
Comment by Jehovah Guides His People in the Way of Life | Beroean Pickets - JW.org Reviewer on 2016-05-24 19:45:05
[…] that is open to interpretation. As for Satan being cast down, we’ve already proven that 1914 is false, so while we can’t be sure when this occurred, there is no basis for assuming it was in that […]
Reply by Neil on 2016-05-27 07:28:57
NWT has an Incorrect translation of John 12:31: Berean Literal Bible says-"Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out." New Living Translation -"The time for judging this world has come, when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out." No other translation I know of puts this event off into the future like the NWT does but refers to the time Jesus was there. Compare Lu 10:18. A wave of persecution followed Jesus death which could relate to Satan being cast out having great anger. Why would God allow Satan to have access to Heaven anymore since Jesus death was really the death knell for Satan.
Reply by Meleti Vivlon on 2016-05-27 08:23:41
Thanks for bringing that to our attention, Neil. I've come to believe that both Scripture and historic events support the idea that Jesus was thrown out of heaven in the first century. It may even have taken place immediately following the death of Christ, which would explain why Michael is taking the lead in that war. Whatever the case, we'll know when we meet Christ. For now, it's good to know that one more Scripture can be added to the list of forensic support to that understanding. More and more I'm learning not to trust the NWT, but to check out alternate translations together with the interlinear.
Reply by Anonymous on 2016-05-27 20:30:51
I think you meant Satan instead of Jesus. In regard to point 1, this should be a major awakening for many witnesses as new light tells us we ought to be reluctant to assign an antitypical application to a certain Bible account or "person" if there is no specific Scriptural basis for doing so.(w15 3/15 Questions from Readers) So what is left to prove 1914? Perhaps we should revisit the great pyramid of Giza! Ha Ha ?
Reply by Anonymous on 2017-03-27 14:07:45
Great point!
Comment by “Let Endurance Complete Its Work” | Beroean Pickets - JW.org Reviewer on 2016-06-06 08:49:18
[…] already shown that the presumptive presence of Christ in 1914 is based on false assumptions. It follows that subsequent events said to occur in 1918 and 1919 would also be false, since […]
Comment by Our Christian Life and Ministry Review – Oct. 10-16 | Beroean Pickets - JW.org Reviewer on 2016-10-10 13:16:52
[…] 1914 is the start of Christ’s invisible presence. […]
Comment by Exercise Your Faith in Jehovah’s Promises | Beroean Pickets - JW.org Reviewer on 2016-12-18 16:54:34
[…] established in 1914 is really true. Which brings us to the second problem with this statement. The kingdom of God was not established in 1914. So they are asking us to put faith in a thing, not a person, which turns out to be a fiction of […]
Comment by Is the Governing Body Knowingly Deceiving Us over 607 BCE? (Part 2) - Beroean Pickets - JW.org Reviewer on 2020-02-09 14:31:07
[…] (For a thorough analysis of the 1914 teaching, see 1914 – A Litany of Assumptions.) […]
Comment by ¿Está el Cuerpo Gobernante engañándonos intencionadamente acerca del 607 a.E.C.? – Parte 2 | Los Bereanos on 2020-02-12 12:02:24
[…] (Para mayor análisis de la enseñanza sobre el año 1914 vea el artículo en inglés 1914 – A Litany of Assumptions). […]