-
No Spiritual “Energy Crisis” for Discreet OnesThe Watchtower—1974 | August 15
-
-
In 1877, Russell joined Nelson H. Barbour in publishing the book Three Worlds, and the Harvest of This World. It indicated that the end of the Gentile Times in 1914 would be preceded by a forty-year period to open with a three-and-a-half-year harvest beginning in 1874 C.E. According to Bible chronology thereafter adopted, it was understood that 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth ended in 1872, whereas six millenniums of human sin concluded and the seventh millennium began in 1874. Christ’s presence was thought to have begun in October 1874, at the start of the great antitypical Jubilee.—Lev. chap. 25; Rev. 20:4.a
-
-
No Spiritual “Energy Crisis” for Discreet OnesThe Watchtower—1974 | August 15
-
-
a Man’s creation was placed in 4128 and sin’s entrance in 4126 B.C.E. Such chronology followed an incorrect manuscript rendering of Acts 13:20 in The Emphatic Diaglott, which said that God gave Israel judges “about four hundred fifty years, till Samuel the prophet.” A footnote stated that this was at variance with 1 Kings 6:1, where the Hebrew letter daleth (thought to represent the number 4) supposedly had been mistaken for the similar character he (5). Hence, it was suggested that 580 (not 480) years elapsed between Israel’s exodus from Egypt and the time that Solomon began building Jehovah’s temple. But the oldest manuscripts spell out all numbers. So a transcriber’s visual error could not have occurred at 1 Kings 6:1, which gives this period correctly as 480 years. This harmonizes with a correct reading of Acts 13:20, which indicates that the period of “about four hundred and fifty years” there mentioned preceded the era of the Judges.
In 1943 the Watch Tower Society’s book “The Truth Shall Make You Free” did away with the nonexistent extra 100 years in the period of the Judges and placed the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence in the 1970’s. It also fixed the beginning of Christ’s presence, not in 1874, but in 1914 C.E.
-