Hello, Eric Wilson again. This time we're looking at 1914. Now 1914 is a very
important doctrine for Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a core doctrine. Some
might disagree. There was a recent Watchtower about core doctrines and 1914
wasn't mentioned. However, without 1914, there can be no
generation teaching; without 1914, the whole premise of us living in the last
days goes out the window; and most important, without 1914, there can be no
Governing Body, because the Governing Body takes its authority from the belief
that it was appointed by Jesus Christ as the faithful and discreet slave in 1919
and the reason they arrive at 1919 is another anti-typical application coming
from Malachi which derives from the start of Jesus' rule. So if Jesus began to
rule in 1914 as a king, then certain things went on, and we'll discuss those in another
video, but certain things went on which then brought him to choose Jehovah's Witnesses
out of all the religions on earth as his chosen people and to
appoint over them a faithful and discreet slave and that occurred in 1919
based on the chronology that gets us to 1914. So no 1914...no 1919...no 1919...no
faithful and discreet slave, no Governing Body. There is no basis for the authority
structure under which all Jehovah's Witnesses today function. That's how
important this doctrine is and those who disagree with the doctrine will attack
it by challenging the start date. Now, when I say start date, the doctrine is
based on the premise that in 607 BCE the Israelites were taken into exile in
Babylon and Jerusalem was destroyed and thus began 70 years of desolation
and of exile, and also began the appointed times of the nations, or the
appointed times of the Gentiles. This is all the understanding that Jehovah's Witnesses have.
Okay, so based on the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream
and an anti typical application of that, because there was a typical application
evidently or obviously from what we find in the Bible, but as witnesses we take
the position that there is an anti typical application and the seven times
in which Nebuchadnezzar was crazed, acting like a beast, eating the
vegetation of the field, those seven times correspond to seven years each year
measuring 360 days for a total of 2,520 years.
So counting from 607, we get to 1914, specifically October of 1914
and that's important, but we'll get to that in another video. Okay, so if 607 is
wrong, many reason then the application of this interpretation can be challenged.
I would disagree and I'll show you why in a minute, but basically there are
three ways in which we examine this doctrine. We examine it chronologically.
We examine whether the start date is valid. The second way we examine it
empirically; in other words, it's all well and good to say that something happened
in 1914 but if there's no empirical evidence, then it's just conjecture. It's
like me saying that, 'You know Jesus was enthroned
last June.' I can say that, but I have to give some proof. So there should be
empirical proof. there should be something that we can visibly witness
that gives us reason to believe that something invisible happened in the
heavens. The third way is biblically. Now of these three ways, as far as I can see
the only valid way to examine this doctrine is biblically. However since so
much time has been spent specifically on the first method, a chronology, then we're
going to deal with that briefly and I would like to
why I don't feel that is a valid method for examining the validity of this
doctrine. Now a lot of people who spend a lot of time researching it--as a matter
of fact one brother in 1977 submitted his research to the Governing Body which was
subsequently rejected and then published a book himself called "Gentile Times
Reconsidered". His name was...is Karl Olof Jonson. It's a 500 page book; very well
done; scholarly; but it's 500 pages. It's a lot
to go through but the premise is among other things
(I'm not saying that only deals with this but this is one of the key points in the
book) that all the scholars, all the archaeologists, all the men who devote
their lives to researching these things, having looked at thousands of cuneiform
tablets, have determined from those tablets (because they cannot do it from
the Bible...the Bible doesn't give us a year when this happened. it gives us only
a correlation between someone's rule as a king and the year he was that serving
and the Exile) so based on what they can determine in actual years everyone
agrees that 587 is the year. You can find that on the internet very easily. It's in
all the encyclopedias. If you go to museum exhibits dealing with Jerusalem
you'll see it there. It's universally agreed that 587 was the year that the
Israelites were exiled it's also widely agreed that 539 is the year that Babylon
was conquered by the Medes and the Persians. Witnesses say, 'Yes, 539 is the
year. So we agree with the experts on 539 because we have no other way of knowing.
We have to go to the world, to the experts, to find out what year Babylon
was conquered by the Medes and the Persians; but when it comes to 587, we
deny the experts. Why do we do that? Because the Bible says that they were
enslaved for 70 years and--at least
that's our interpretation of it--so the Bible can't be wrong
so therefore the experts must be wrong and we pick one date, say that's the
right date, and then we just discard the other date. We could just as easily and
probably it would have been more beneficial for us, as we'll see in the
next video, to have picked 587 and discarded 539 and said, 'That's wrong, it
was 519 when the Babylonians conquered...were conquered by the Medes and Persians,
but we didn't do that we stuck with 607. Okay, so why isn't that valid? It's not
valid because Jehovah's Witnesses are very good at moving the goalpost. For example,
we used to believe that 1874 was the start of Christ's presence. It wasn't until, I
think it was 1930--I'll see if I can get a quote for you--that we changed that and
said, 'Okay, it's not 1874 that Christ presence as king invisibly in the
heavens began it was 1914. We also at that time believed 1914 was the start of
the Great Tribulation, and we didn't stop believing that until 1969. I remember
being at the district convention when that was revealed that 1914 was not the
start of the Great Tribulation. It caught me by surprise because I never thought
it was, but apparently that was our understanding and had been for...what
would that make it...about 90 years. We also moved the goalposts with regard to the
generation. In the 60s, the generation would be people who were adults in 1914;
then it became teenagers; then it became children of only 10 years; finally, it
became babies. We kept moving the goalposts, and now we've moved them so
far that to be part of the generation you all only have to be anointed and
have been anointed at the time of someone else who was alive at that time.
So even though you didn't live anywhere near those years, you're part of
generation. The goalposts have moved again. So we could do the same with this.
It'd be so easy we could say you know you're right 587 is when they were
exiled but that doesn't change anything... but we probably do it this way: we'd
probably say, 'Others thought...' or 'Some have thought...' We usually do it that way. Sometimes
we'll just use the passive tense: 'It was thought...' Again, no one's taking blame for
it. It's just something that happened in the past, but now we're correcting it. And
we'd use the prophecy in Jeremiah where the 70 years is mentioned. That's found at
Jeremiah 25:11 and 12, and it says: "And all this land must become a devastated
place an object of astonishment and these nations will have to serve the
king of Babylon seventy years and it must occur that when the seventy years
have been fulfilled I shall call to account against the king of Babylon and
against that nation is the utterance of Jehovah their error even against the
land of the Chaldeans and I will make it desolate wastes two time indefinite okay
so you see how easy it would be they could say it actually says that they
would serve the king of Babylon so that service began when Jehoiachin the king
of Israel was conquered by the Babylonians and became a vassal king and
had to then serve them and of course it was also an initial exile. The king of
Babylon took the Intelligencia, the best and the brightest, including Daniel
and his three companions Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego--he took them to
Babylon. So they served the king of Babylon from 607, but they weren't exiled
in the second exile the one that destroyed the city and took everybody
until 587 which is what all the archeologists say. So. we're good with
archaeology, and we still get to keep our date 607. And you know, the reasoning is
actually quite sound, because the Bible says that the land must become
a devastated place but it doesn't tie the devastation of the place to the 70
years. It says the nations will serve the king
of Babylon these seventy years; not even just Israel, the nations--the surrounding
nations--because Babylon conquered all the surrounding nations at that time. So
the devastation doesn't pertain to the 70 years, they could say, but only the
servitude. And they could even use the reasoning found in the very next verse
which says that the king of Babylon and the nation would be called to account
and that God would make it desolate wastes. Well, they were called to account
in 539, and yet more than five centuries later, Babylon still existed. Peter was in
Babylon at one point. In fact, Babylon continue to exist for hundreds of years
after that. It was only some time after that that it finally became a desolated
waste. So God's words were fulfilled; they were called to account and the land
became desolated waste but not at the same time. Likewise, they served the king
of Babylon for 70 years and the Land of Israel became a desolated waste but the
two things do not have to be exactly concurrent for the words of Jeremiah to
have come true. You see, the problem with challenging the date is, even if you're
successful they can do just what I've explained, they could move the date. The
premise is that the doctrine is valid and the date's wrong, and that's the whole
problem with challenging the date. We have to assume the doctrine is valid.
It's like me saying, 'I'm not exactly sure when I was baptized. I know it was 1963
and I know was at the International Convention in New York...ah...but I can't
remember if it was the Friday or the Saturday or even the month. So I could
look it up in the Watchtower and find out when that assembly was, but then I
still don't know exactly what day of that assembly the baptism occurred.
I might think it was a Saturday and then someone else...which I think was the
13th of July...and someone else might say, 'No, no. I think it was the Friday...I think
it was Friday that they had the baptism. So we could argue back
and forth about the date but neither of us is disputing the fact that I was
baptized. But if during that dispute, I say, 'By the way, I was never baptized',
my friend would look at me, like, 'Then why are we discussing dates? That makes
no sense.' You see, if the doctrine of 1914 is a
false doctrine, it doesn't matter that we happen to stumble upon the right date
for something or other. It doesn't matter because the doctrine isn't valid. So
that's the problem with examining the chronology of it. In our next video, we'll
look at the empirical evidence. That gives us a little bit more meat but
still the real way would be in our third video when we look at the doctrinal
basis in the Bible. For now I'll leave you with that thought. My name's
Eric Wilson. thank you for watching.