In an earlier post entitled “When Prophetic Speculation Flops,” I noted that when someone’s “end of the world” prophecies fail, their disappointed followers demand an explanation and threaten to leave.
When that happens, they have a number of options. Continue reading
In last week’s post, I showed how the Watchtower arrives at its 1914 date for the end of the Gentile Times.
As I noted, its calculations are dependent on its claim that Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 607 B.C.E.
If that date is wrong, then the 1914 date is also wrong. Continue reading
The 1914 date is critical to the Watchtower’s claim that its leadership is the “faithful and discreet slave” spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24:45.
If Jesus didn’t return invisibly in 1914, then he didn’t inspect the world’s religions in 1918-1919, name the Watchtower organization as his “faithful and discreet slave” and give it worldwide authority as the only true religion.
But since the number “1914” doesn’t appear in the Bible, did the Watchtower just pull that date out of thin air? Continue reading
Many—perhaps most—Jehovah’s Witnesses have no idea that passageway measurements of the Great Pyramid of Egypt had anything to do with the Watchtower’s end times predictions.
But it did.
In fact, there were three contradictory stages in Watchtower pyramidology. Continue reading
In the early 19th century, Adventists began speculating about when Christ would return.
Baptist preacher William Miller believed the return would occur between 1843 and 1844. A “great disappointment” came on October 22, 1844 when Jesus failed to appear. Miller’s followers split into several groups and the Adventist movement began.
Millerite Nelson H. Barbour did his own study and concluded that Christ would return in 1873, which he later changed to 1874.
When Jesus failed to appear, he concluded that the date was correct but that they had been expecting the wrong thing. Jesus did return in 1874—invisibly—and would soon become visible to judge the world. He started a magazine, Herald of the Morning, to publicize his views.
This is where Charles Taze Russell entered the picture. Continue reading
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