Introduction

THE DISILLUSIONING and sometimes dramatic process that ended up in the decision to publish this treatise could fill a whole book. Due to considerations of space, however, that background can be only touched upon briefly here. Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught to put great trust in the Watch Tower Society and its leadership. Toward the end of my twenty‒six years as an active Jehovah’s Witness, however, the signs indicating that such trust was mistaken had mounted. To the very last I had hoped that the leaders of the organization would honestly face the facts respecting their chronology, even if those facts should prove fatal to some of the central doctrines and unique claims of their organization. But when at last I realized that the Society’s leaders – apparently for reasons of organizational or “ecclesiastical” policy – were determined to perpetuate what, in the final analysis, amounts to a deception of millions of persons, doing this by suppressing information which they regarded and continue to regard as undesirable, no other course seemed open to me but to publish my findings, thus giving every individual who has a concern for truth an opportunity to examine the evidence and draw his or her own conclusions.

We are each responsible for what we know. If a person has information on hand that others need in order to get a correct understanding of their situation in life – information that furthermore is withheld from them by their religious leaders–then it would be morally wrong to remain silent. It becomes his or her duty to make that information available to all who want to know the truth, however this may appear. That is the reason why this book has been published.

Few people are fully cognizant of the very central role played by chronology in the claims and teachings of the Watch Tower Society. Even many of Jehovah’s Witnesses are not fully aware of the indissoluble connection between the Society’s chronology and the message they preach from door to door. Confronted with the many evidences against their chronology, some Jehovah’s Witnesses tend to downplay it as something they somehow can do without. “Chronology is not so important, after all,” they say. Many Witnesses would prefer not to discuss the subject at all. Just how important, then, is the chronology for the Watch Tower organization?

An examination of the evidence demonstrates that it constitutes the very foundation for the claims and message of this movement.

The Watch Tower Society claims to be God’s “sole channel” and “mouthpiece” on earth. Summing up its most distinctive teachings: it asserts that the kingdom of God was established in heaven in 1914, that the “last days” began that year, that Christ returned invisibly at that time to “inspect” the Christian denominations, and that he finally rejected all of them except the Watch Tower Society and its associates, which he appointed in 1919 as his sole “instrument” on earth.

For about seventy years, the Society employed Jesus’ words at Matthew 24:34 about “this generation” to teach clearly and adamantly that the generation of 1914 would positively not pass away until the final end came at the “battle of Armageddon,” when every human alive except active members of the Watch Tower organization would be destroyed forever. Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses of the “1914 generation” fully expected to live to see and to survive that doomsday and then to live forever in paradise on earth.

As decades went by, leaving 1914 ever farther behind, this claim became increasingly difficult to defend. After 80years had passed, the claim became virtually preposterous. So, in the November 1, 1995, issue of the Watchtower (pages 10 through 21), a new definition of the phrase “this generation” was adopted, one that allowed the organization to “unlink” it from the date of 1914 as a starting point. Despite this monumental change, they still retained the 1914 date – in fact they could not do otherwise without dismantling their major teachings regarding Christ’s “second presence,” the start of the “time of the end,” and the appointment of their organization as Christ’s unique instrument and God’s sole channel on earth. Though now recognizing “this generation” as defined by its characteristics rather than by a chronological period (with a particular starting point), they still found a way to include 1914 in their new definition. They accomplished this by including in the definition an arbitrarily added factor, namely, that the “generation” is composed of “those persons who see the sign of Christ’s presence but fail to mend their ways,” resulting in their destruction. Since the official teaching continues to be that the “sign of Christ’s presence” became visible from and after 1914, this allows for the date’s continuing to form a key part of the definition of “this generation.”

1914 – The Generation That Would not pass away!

All these factors, then, bear testimony to the highly crucial role that 1914 plays in the teaching of the Watch Tower Society. Since the date itself obviously is not stated in Scripture, what is its source?

That date is a product of a chronological calculation, according to which the so‒called “times of the Gentiles” referred to by Jesus at Luke 21:24 2,520 years, beginning in 607 B.C.E. and ending in 1914 CE.³ real basis of the principal message of the movement. Even the Christian gospel, the “good news” of the kingdom (Matthew 24:14 closely associated with this chronology. The gospel preached by other professed Christians, therefore, has never been the true gospel. Said The Watchtower of May 1, 1981, on page 17:

Let the honest‒hearted person compare the kind of preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom done by the religious systems of Christendom during all the centuries with that done by Jehovah’s Witnesses since the end of World War I in 1918. They are not one and the same kind. That of Jehovah’s Witnesses is really “gospel,” or “good news,” as of God’s heavenly kingdom that was established by the enthronement of his Son Jesus Christ at the end of the Gentile Times in 1914. [Italics mine.]

In agreement with this, The Watchtower of May 1, 1982, stated that, “of all religions on earth, Jehovah’s Witnesses are the only ones today that are telling the people of earth this ‘good news’.” (Page 10) A Jehovah’s Witness who attempts to tone down the role of chronology in the Society’s teaching simply does not realize that he or she thereby radically undermines the major message of the movement. Such a “toning down” is not sanctioned by the Watch Tower leadership. On the contrary, The Watchtower of January 1, 1983, page 12, emphasized that “the ending of the Gentile Times in the latter half of 1914 still stands on a historical basis as one of the fundamental Kingdom truths to which we must hold today.”⁴

The hard reality is that the Watch Tower Society views rejection of the chronology pointing to 1914 as a sin having fatal consequences. That God’s kingdom was established at the end of the “Gentile times” in 1914 is stated to be “the most important event of our time,” beside which “all other things pale into insignificance.”⁵ calculation are said to incur the wrath of God. Among them are “the clergy of Christendom” and its members, who, because they do not subscribe to that date, are said to have rejected the kingdom of God and therefore will be “destroyed in the ‘great tribulation’ just ahead.”⁶ Witnesses who openly question or discard the calculation run the risk of very severe treatment. If they do not repent and change their minds, they will be disfellowshipped and classified as evil “apostates,” who will “go, at death, ... to Gehenna,” with no hope of a future resurrection.⁷ they still believe in God, the Bible, and Jesus Christ. When one of the readers of The Watchtower wrote and asked, “Why have Jehovah’s Witnesses disfellowshipped (excommunicated) for apostasy some who still profess belief in God, the Bible, and Jesus Christ?” the Society answered, among other things:

Approved association with Jehovah’s Witnesses requires accepting the entire range of the true teachings of the Bible, including those Scriptural beliefs that are unique to Jehovah’s Witnesses. What do such beliefs include? . . . That 1914 marked the end of the Gentile times and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in the heavens, as well as the time for Christ’s foretold presence. [Italics mine]⁸

No one, therefore, who repudiates the calculation that the “Gentile times” expired in 1914, is approved by the Society as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In fact, even one who secretly abandons the Society’s chronology and thus may still formally be regarded as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, has, in reality, rejected the essential message of the Watch Tower Society and, according to the organization’s own criterion, is factually no longer a part of the movement.

For one of Jehovah’s Witnesses to question the validity of this basic prophetic calculation is, then, no easy matter. To many believers, especially in a closed religious system such as the Watch Tower organization, the doctrinal system functions as a sort of “fortress” inside which they may seek shelter, in the form of spiritual and emotional security. If some part of that doctrinal structure is questioned, such believers tend to react emotionally; they take a defensive attitude, sensing that their “fortress” is under attack and that their security is threatened. This defense mechanism makes it very difficult for them to listen to and examine the arguments on the matter objectively. Unwittingly, their need for emotional security has become more important to them than their respect for truth.

To reach behind this defensive attitude so common among Jehovah’s Witnesses in order to find open, listening minds is extremely difficult – especially when so basic a tenet as the “Gentile times” chronology is being questioned. For such questioning rocks the very foundations of the Witness doctrinal system and therefore often causes Witnesses at all levels to become belligerently defensive. I have repeatedly experienced such reactions ever since 1977 when I first presented the material in this volume to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It was in 1968 that the present study began. At the time, I was a “pioneer” or full‒time evangelist for Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the course of my ministry, a man with whom I was conducting a Bible study challenged me to prove the date the Watch Tower Society had chosen for the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, that is 607 B.C.E. He pointed out that all historians marked that event as having occurred about twenty years later, in either 587 or 586 B.C.E. I was well aware of this, but the man wanted to know the reasons why historians preferred the latter date. I indicated that their dating surely was nothing but a guess, based on defective ancient sources and records. Like other Witnesses, I assumed that the Society’s dating of the desolation of Jerusalem to 607 B.C.E. was based on the Bible and therefore could not be upset by those secular sources. However, I promised the man I would look into the matter.

As a result, I undertook a research that turned out to be far more extensive and thoroughgoing than I had expected. It continued periodically for several years, from 1968 until the end of 1975. By then the growing burden of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date forced me reluctantly to conclude that the Watch Tower Society was wrong.

Thereafter, for some time after 1975, the evidence was discussed with a few close, research‒minded friends. Since none of them could refute the evidence demonstrated by the data I had collected, I decided to develop a systematically composed treatise on the whole question which I determined to send to the headquarters of the Watch Tower Society at Brooklyn, New York.

That treatise was prepared and sent to the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1977. The present work, which is based on that document, was revised and expanded during 1981 and then published in a first edition in 1983. During the years that have passed since 1983, many new finds and observations relevant to the subject have been made, and the most important of these have been incorporated in the last two editions. The seven lines of evidence against the 607 B.C.E. date presented in the first edition, for example, have now been more than doubled.

In 1977 I began to correspond with the Governing Body concerning my research. It soon became very evident that they were unable to refute the evidence produced. In fact, there was not even an attempt made to do so until February 28, 1980. In the meantime, however, I was repeatedly cautioned not to reveal my findings to others. For example, in a letter from the Governing Body dated January 17, 1978, the following warning was given:

However, no matter how strong the argumentation may be in support of those views, they must, for the present, be regarded as your personal viewpoint. It is not something that you should talk about or try toadvanceamong other members of the congregation.⁹

And further, in a letter dated May 15, 1980, they stated:

We are sure you appreciate that it would not be appropriate for you to begin to state your views and conclusions on chronology that are different than those published by the Society so as to raise serious questions and problems among the brothers?¹⁰

I accepted such advice, as I was given the impression that my spiritual brothers at the Watch Tower headquarters needed time to reexamine the whole subject thoroughly. In their first reply to my treatise, dated August 19, 1977, they had stated: “We are sorry that the press of work here has not allowed us to give it the attention we would like to up to the present time.” And in the letter of January 17,1978, they wrote:

We have not had the opportunity of examining this material as yet, as other urgent matters are occupying our attention. However, we will look into this material when we have the opportunity. . .. You can be assured that your views will be examined by responsible brothers.... In due course we hope to look into your treatise and evaluate what is contained therein.

Judging from these and similar statements, Watch Tower officials at the Brooklyn headquarters seemed prepared to examine the data presented to them honestly and objectively. In a very short time, however, the whole matter took quite a different course.