path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
Does the Bible say that God's rulership began to be "trampled on by the nations" in 607 BCE, or is that the JW interpretation of that verse? Does the Bible state a particular year?
Are you quite certain that no other has legal right? How do you justify that interpretation?
Yes, sometimes, and sometimes not. How do we know if the tree meant rulership in this case? Isn't that interpretation rather than what is plainly in the Bible? Of course, it could be a metaphor, but then metaphors do not plainly state what their meaning is.
So, logically, either the prophecy didn't mean what they thought it meant. Or a "time" in Daniel was different from a "time" in Revelation. Which is plausible to me, given the span of time in between the two authors and the lack of explanation of what is meant in Daniel.
Evidently? Not really. That would mean there is solid evidence for all of this. What I see is a lot of interpretation and leaping around in the Bible, piecing stuff together out of context to make it mean what people want it to mean. First, a "time" means X number of days. Then, you take another passage from somewhere else (that isn't even talking about the same thing, or in the same manner- read it in CONTEXT) and voila, we'll say it means X number of years.
This is where it all falls apart to me. Well, more than the earlier issues. I don't see where it clearly says when the "appointed times of the nations" ended that it coincides with Jesus being installed as God's heavenly King.
Actually, we've had war, famine, earthquakes, and pestilences since the beginning of agriculture. (Well, actually before that, but it was really marked at the beginning of agriculture.) If you study world history, you'll find that we actually have LESS of some of these problems than we did before. When the Plague swept Europe, fatalities were sometimes as high as 60%. When Smallpox hit the Americas, some areas saw fatalities of 90%. By comparison, today we have excellent vaccines for most diseases. In fact, most of the world's deaths are preventable with modern medicine. It isn't more pestilence, it's that we haven't gotten modern health care out to everyone yet, and much of the world lives in poverty.
We have more than enough food for everyone in the world. There are not famines based on lack of food. There are famines based on political problems and lack of equal distribution. But in fact, the average person has less risk of starvation than ever before.
As for war, check out what happened in the Dark Ages, when most people's villages were routinely trampled over and torture was frequent. Yeah, we have wars and they are awful. But we've had wars for thousands of years and they've been awful. Even the OT is full of wars.
I'd have to search out some geology reports to see if earthquakes have increased. But you see, it isn't like this stuff happened yesterday, or even got worse yesterday. Blaming it all on non-fixable causes also just abdicates our responsibility to make a better world.
No offense, but I've heard this all before from other JWs. And it still sounds like a whole lot of leaping around, taking passages out of context to mean whatever you want, and interpretation of metaphorical passages. It takes, in short, a lot of manmade thinking to get from point A to Z. Otherwise, you would not have had to even explain all this-- it'd be in the Bible in the first place.
I'll just stick to the basic text and following Jesus' example. But I thank you for putting out what is up with the 1914 belief.
