# *Is This True or Not?

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Posted by AF [AF] on October 27, 1999 at 21:50:00 {dPkPwxsNJE1EwaxRomAMdaOt1gg/Zk}:

In Reply to: Is This True or Not? posted by YetMoreLinks on October 27, 1999 at 19:00:38:

Yeah, it's true. The book Larry refers to, God's "Eternal Purpose" Now Triumphing for Man's Good has the subheading on page 51:

> "EVENING" OF SEVENTH CREATIVE "DAY" BEGINS, 4026 B.C.E

This is a new one on me. Let's examine some related ideas and WTS statements.

If the 7th creative day began in 4026 B.C.E. and would end 7,000 years later, then it would end in 2975 C.E. If Christ's millennium were to be 1,000 years and coincide with the last 1,000 years of the 7th creative day, then it must begin in 1975 C.E. That is exactly what the above book taught.

That marked a bit of a change from the Society's earlier position that the 1975 date was only tentative. As time passed from the somewhat cautionary introductory remarks in the 1966 book Life Everlasting in Freedom of the Sons of God, the Society became bolder in its statements about how certain the date was. The Watchtower, May 1, 1968, gave a somewhat mixed message but really abandoned all caution when it said on page 271, paragraph 4:

> Thus, Adam's naming of the animals and his realizing that he needed a counterpart would have occupied only a brief time after his creation. Since it was also Jehovah's purpose for man to multiply and fill the earth, it is logical that he would create Eve soon after Adam, perhaps just a few weeks or months later in the same year, 4026 B.C.E. After her creation, God's rest day, the seventh period, immediately followed.

The study question for this paragraph then asked, without any indication of tentativeness, "When were Adam and Eve created?" Paragraphs 5 and 6 then said:

> After [Eve's] creation, God's rest day, the seventh period, immediately followed. Therefore, God's seventh day and the time man has been on earth apparently run parallel. To calculate where man is in the stream of time relative to God's seventh day of 7,000 years, we need to determine how long a time has elapsed from the year of Adam and Eve's creation in 4026 B.C.E.

> The seventh day of the Jewish week, the sabbath, would well picture the final 1,000-year reign of God's kingdom under Christ when mankind would be uplifted from 6,000 years of sin and death. (Rev. 20:6) Hence, when Christians note from God's timetable the approaching end of 6,000 years of human history, it fills them with anticipation. Particularly is this true because the great sign of the "last days" has been in the course of fulfillment since the beginning of the "time of the end" in 1914.

This is similar to what C. T. Russell mentioned some 85 years earlier in the 1889 book The Time Is At Hand (p. 39). He admitted that the idea that the "sabbath day" pictures the 7th 1,000 year period was a venerable tradition even in his day:

> And though the Bible contains no direct statement that the seventh thousand will be the epoch of Christ's reign, the great Sabbath Day of restitution to the world, yet the venerable tradition is not without reasonable foundation.

So it's pretty clear that the Society's late-1960s revival of this idea was nothing but a repackaging of a "venerable tradition".

The above-mentioned Watchtower article added a cautionary note on page 272:

> Does this mean that the year 1975 will bring the battle of Armageddon? No one can say with certainty what any particular year will bring.

But this business of pretending to be cautious was quickly abandoned, as is shown by the October 8, 1968 Awake!, which stated on page 14 and with no hint of tentativeness:

> According to reliable Bible chronology Adam and Eve were created in 4026 B.C.E.

The 1969 book Aid to Bible Understanding (the Insight volumes replaced this in 1988) also indicated that Adam and Eve were created in the same year. On page 333, under the subject "Chronology," it said that the time from Adam's creation to the birth of Seth was 130 years, and on page 538, under the subject "Eve," it said that at the age of 130 Eve gave birth to Seth. Thus the book taught that Adam and Eve were created in the same year. The Society has taught since 1944 that Adam was created in 4026 B.C.E., so this is again consistent with the above mentioned statements. Since the Aid book was published as an authoritative, encyclopedia-like reference, these comments assured the reader that the Society was certain that Adam and Eve were created in the same year, and that all of the corollary ideas were true.

All of the above references implied that it was certain that "everything would be over" by 1975, in the eyes of JW leaders. Therefore when JWs claim that the Society had nothing to do with the buildup of expectations in the JW community about 1975, either they're ignorant or they're liars.

Thus we have yet more proofs that the Watchtower Society officially taught that Armageddon would be all over by 1975, contrary to what various ignorant apologists have claimed.

AF

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