JW Insider

37 minutes ago, Thinking said:

If the person who runs this site is a witness then they really need to get their act together……if the person who runs this site does not like witness’s..then it makes sense.

I haven't checked for sure, but I think the actual owner of the site is not a Witness and doesn't really get involved in any discussions unless those discussions get flagged by someone. If no one complains (by "Reporting" a post) the owner will never know what anyone is writing. I think that The Librarian is a Witness, but I'm sure he is in the same situation of not having time to monitor thousands of posts in hundreds of threads, some going on for a hundred pages. The Librarian has offered moderator functions to a couple people here, including me, and maybe we are supposed to try to keep order. But I personally just don't see the point in trying to remove posts or try to get people banned. They will just come back under a different name, and act worse than before. NoisySrecko/Dmitar/WalterPrescott has been clearly been itching to try to embarrass Pudgy about his arrest and, as we've all seen, Walter will just get bolder and more brazen under a new name if anyone tries to call him out on his unchristian behavior.

If you tell Walter he has slandered, he will just say that it's everyone else doing the slandering.

3 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

They enjoy blaming one, instead of blaming themselves, how predicable!! They blind themselves to their own bad behavior ...

I know you weren't trying to be funny here, but I always found it kind of hilarious that all of your own accounts have been infamous for never admitting it when you are wrong: always blaming others instead of blaming yourself. I was surprised to find you finally admit to a typo as Dmitar, when someone pointed it out. But there were times when you would even defend an obvious simple typo and say it was on purpose for some far-fetched reason. (This is not a reference to "perils" vs. "pearls"; I think we all knew you really meant what you wrote: "perils." Pudgy, I assumed, was just highlighting your propensity for never saying anything positive about anyone here. )

In this case, I'm referring to this "gem:"

3 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

8 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I can't hazard a guess as to why WalterPrescott assumed that someone from Australia was from the same neck of the woods as someone from England.

Not to mention the British rule of Australia and its ancestry!!
The same neck of the woods, therefore, applies!

I'm always amazed at how you have never been wrong, and never, ever can admit to a mistake. How, did you put it? Oh, right:

3 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

and not accepting facts when given

3 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

Since you seem to follow people by their IP address or have messaging with them, it should have been obvious instead of making such a big production to impress!!

I do look at IP addresses, as everyone who has been given moderator functions can do that. But they are often meaningless depending on your ISP, or whether you use a VPN or service that replaces the IP address. Also, I have never given information out about someone's location based on IP address anyway. Especially if I only know it from an IP location or private conversations. "Outta Here" was very clear about the country he lived in, even identifying a local UK Assembly Hall as one he used to attend. "Thinking" has also mentioned her country/continent more than once. So has TTH, Arauna (if you can keep up with her moves over the last half-decade), and several others.

There was no big production to impress. I was just making use of information people have provided in order to explain my own observations and opinions.

On 5/19/2022 at 9:53 AM, Anna said:

Let us know what you find out that you already didn't know....in the closed club if you can 😊

As you might have guessed, I rarely pay attention to whether something is in the Open or Closed club. The Closed Club is definitely much more pleasant, many less distractions, but I'm sure it gives others the feeling that we have something to hide. The real reason, of course, is to stay away from persons who look for any reason they can think of to start fights, create dissension, highlight GB errors, and turn the subject to false predictions and child abuse. Come to think of it, that's a good enough reason.

There is one other consideration. I prefer to share opinions where they can be challenged from anyone, not just the dozen or so people who regularly participate in the Closed Club. There is also a better chance that someone else, who we don't know yet, is also reading the book and will come along to join in the discussion. That has happened before with discussions of God's name in the LXX, etc.

What I could do, also, is exercise my moderator powers and merely move any posts to a different topic if they are mostly unrelated. I think I'll try that. That goes for memes and pictures that are unrelated too, Pudgy. 😉 Actually, I'm always happy when I see a bunch of unrelated pictures from Pudgy, because it reminds me of how much quicker it is can be to read through a book that has lots of pictures --and they're usually funny! But I feel badly for those who start a serious topic, like Arauna just did, and it so quickly gets taken over by parody covers of children's books.

So, if I end up making a topic of comments on this book, I think I'll try just making a separate topic for the distractions. That doesn't mean people can't attack the book, or attack me for bringing it up. Those posts can remain, of course. But the little squabbles people want to bring up on the side will go to a topic made for that purpose. Assuming I can keep up. 😧

I just paid over $39 for a book. And even though it's well over 600 pages, I don't know what the author was thinking. It's $55 in softcover and $65 in hardback. It's the kind of price you'd pay for a book of academic research.

Anyway I'd have to say that, after about 60 pages that I read this morning, it is clearly the most comprehensive, thorough, well-referenced, and seemingly accurate account I have ever read. It is very balanced, so far, and doesn't try to create negative "drama" out of guesswork. I've seen other authors, even Witnesses, do this sometimes.

Even recently, I've tried to get hold of many of the resources he uses and was unable for many of them. I do have a few pages of resources, that Persson doesn't seem to know about (or doesn't use), but they would only confirm his own research, as far as I can tell. He mentions getting some research from collectors of Bible Student history, and a person named Mike Castro in Rhode Island. I don't know if anyone knows whether Mike Castro is a Witness, but someone pointed him out to me when I was looking for a rare document (special Wt supplement not in the bound volumes because it only went to some subscribers), and he sent it to me in PDF format immediately, no questions asked. I'm afraid to find out that he might be an apostate, so I didn't ask 😮.

Anyway, the whole book title is: Rutherford's Coup: The Watchtower Succession Crisis of 1917 and Its Aftermath

https://www.amazon.com/Rutherfords-Coup-Watchtower-Succession-Aftermath/dp/1778143016/ref=sr_1_1?crid=10XAMD6TVT7N3&keywords=rud+persson&qid=1652964472&sprefix=%2Caps%2C53&sr=8-1

So far, I'm impressed. But one should be warned that the author, Rud Persson (pronounced Rude Person 😁) is a former Witness. Don't know whether he was DF'd, but he does say that he worked with Carl Olof Jonsson on research in the past.

15 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

15 hours ago, Thinking said:

Who’s Elon Joyce?

It's a wild kitten just like you mate!! Comes from your neck of the woods!! <><

@Thinking, Eoin Joyce is the name of a person from UK (England) who contributed his comments here for several years. He indicated often that he was fed up with the lack of spiritual value in most of these discussions. (Which is all the more obvious lately.) He changed his account name from Eoin Joyce to "Gone Fishing" when he stopped commenting for a few months. Then he changed it to "Outta Here" when he got even more serious about leaving here for good. I believe that, by now, he has completely left the forum.

I can't hazard a guess as to why WalterPrescott assumed that someone from Australia was from the same neck of the woods as someone from England. But he has done this before, under several of his own previous account names, where he will make wild guesses about who is really the same as someone else. I think it is related to the fact that it's quite obvious to many of us when he tries to pass himself off as a different person, thinking perhaps that no one will notice that he is the same as AllenSmith/BillyTheKid/NoisySrecko/Dmitar and about 30 other different attempts to disguise himself under different account names.

For a while, he kept many of these identities simultaneously, and I could actually see the evidence for when he logged out from one name and logged back in with another. He tried to keep up the appearance of some intentional differences between some of those accounts, but he sometimes messed it up and used a characteristic of one account on another one.  For this new "WalterPrescott" account, he has borrowed a feature from @Cos, a Trinitarian, who often signed his posts with the fish symbol: "<><". Walter has already pointed this fish out as if it is evidence he isn't really "Allen Smith" but he probably doesn't realize that this kind of thing doesn't really work when there so many other giveaways, including a complete inability to "clothe himself with a new personality."

2 hours ago, Pudgy said:

In Missouri they gauge a man’s value by how many cars he has in his front yard, up on blocks …

So true. I just remembered that the engine was a 331 inch "hemi," but it was a '56 DeSoto, not a '57. Our main car and the "extra" were both '56's. Also, there was a short time when he added a '55 Chrysler to the yard, because it came with the same engine.

These were the years 1965 to 1968, when there were many fewer unique engines in cars. One of my favorite memories was when we were parked and my father would put the seat down and close his eyes and tell me what kind of car just went by just from the sound of it, especially if the car was made anywhere from the late 1940's up until about 1960.

Good times!

6 hours ago, Pudgy said:

If we are “little children” in the New System, on long trips at night do we get to lay down and ride on the car’s rear window deck?

Those were the days. The 1957 DeSoto had a great big rear window deck. That's how we'd take yearly trips out West between California and Missouri. Sometimes we'd take the Northern Route through KS, CO, UT, NV and usually we'd take the Southern Route ("66") through OK, TX, NM, AZ. My brother and I would argue over who got the back window.

My father, even though he was an electrical engineer by trade, would always keep an extra 57 DeSoto on the property for parts when the main one gave problems. Once we watched while he overhauled the engine and had a big engine pulley system and couple hundred pieces of "car" placed neatly on some extra sheets. I think it was this mini junkyard, more than anything else, that made fellow Missourians accept us Californians as true neighbors. (That, and the fact that he'd fix anyone's color TV for free.)

On 5/4/2022 at 1:23 PM, Anna said:

My hubby and me have finished the one docu series and now we have started another Netflix one called the Family, this time about a Christian group (you've probably seen that too).

I've seen it. The first I heard about the controversy surrounding the National Prayer Breakfast a few years ago from an author trying to reveal hypocrisy among conservative Republican leaders, especially G.W.Bush, but as much hypocrisy has been true of Democrats too, of course. Since the time of that book, there have been several more scandals related to the Family/Fellowship.

I thought it was a worthwhile documentary to watch. I like that they tried to get some balance in there by allowing the perspective of Family supporters. And to people who were still semi-supporters even after leaving.

Like you, it also made me question the supposed inevitability of governments or political entities turning against religion. After watching it, you'd think it would be more likely that the majority of governments would prefer turning against the lack of religion. But any ideology can become a catalyst to action where power is involved. And when we take into account the leading of demons, we don't expect the final events to be all that predictable anyway. So who's to say what will or won't happen? When referring to the lead-up of the end-times, C.T.Russell was always fond of the expression "God's strange work," basing it on Isaiah 28:21 (AV).

Speaking of Russell, I remembered something from the last episode where Trump says something about himself that reminded me of something Russell said about himself. I didn't want to start discussing any specifics until you have seen the whole documentary. Have you already finished it?

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Also, I don’t think it’s Russia that calls this missile "satan" anyway. I think that's a name that NATO has dubbed it.

10 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

R-36, R-36M, and SS-18 missiles (called Satan by NATO)

I wasn't absolutely sure that it was NATO that calls the missile "satan" (instead of Russia). Thank you for helping to verify this point, @WalterPrescott. I thought I had seen it somewhere.

And this point, too:

9 hours ago, WalterPrescott said:

Satirically, it is hard to beat—to give but one further example—the fact that Russian nuclear weapons are consecrated by Russian Orthodox high priests

I wasn't sure Russia was still doing this when I said:

16 hours ago, JW Insider said:

But I don't doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church has blessed the military missions, and this kind of thing has been done all over the place.

Thanks again. You often come up with very interesting material and sources.

18 hours ago, Anna said:

Is this a fact or fake news?

I didn't check it too closely, but I suspect it was fake for three reasons. So many anti-Russian, pro-Ukrainian items have been faked lately. Some images have even come from video games. But you'll also notice that the shadows are at a different angle than the heavy equipment. (And they are darker and crisper.) Also, I don’t think it’s Russia that calls this missile "satan" anyway. I think that's a name that NATO has dubbed it.

But I don't doubt that the Russian Orthodox Church has blessed the military missions, and this kind of thing has been done all over the place.

This was a real one. By Russell:

7 minutes ago, Thinking said:

I thought that was being built over here,,

I think it was the "set" --the scenery, the backgrounds, the landscape -- chosen from a brother's property over there. It would be used for the initial productions of the "Life of Jesus" videos. Probably will work for several more similar videos down the road, too. All the post-production on the video will likely still be done in NY. 

1 hour ago, WalterPrescott said:

the occasion of the 100th anniversary of cinema, the Vatican compiled a list of 45 "great films".

I didn't know that. Thanks. I just looked up the list on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican's_list_of_films

I have only seen 11 of them. One of my favorites on the list was "A Man For All Seasons" that they showed at Bethel in 1976. For a while, they would show one movie per month in the Brooklyn Heights Kingdom Hall at 107 Columbia Heights. This was the only one I got to see because of the time they showed them. Mid-Saturday morning, I think it was.

5 minutes ago, Arauna said:

This verse does not literaly imply we are saving anyone.

This is very true. (I never thought it did, either.) It occurred to me to include the scripture because it's a reference I had in mind when @Anna was speaking of those in Calcutta, for example.

19 minutes ago, xero said:

Your doing so is imperative as you are saving YOURSELF when you do so. You cannot save anyone else.

Unless you are Timothy:

(1 Timothy 4:16) . . .Persevere in these things, for by doing this you will save both yourself and those who listen to you.

Or Paul?

(1 Corinthians 9:22) ²² To the weak I became weak, in order to gain the weak. I have become all things to people of all sorts, so that I might by all possible means save some.

Or those who declare the good news?

(Romans 10:13-15) . . .. ¹³ For “everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.” ¹⁴ However, how will they call on him if they have not put faith in him? How, in turn, will they put faith in him about whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? ¹⁵ How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent out? Just as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who declare good news of good things!”

Of course, I will agree in advance with the explanation I would expect you could give.

(Romans 14:4-10) ⁴ Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for Jehovah can make him stand.. . . ¹⁰ But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you also look down on your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

I think he was dead when that was written….he cannot be blamed for what was written after his death

Blamed? Why do you think anyone is blaming Russell. Russell must have sincerely thought that he had personally been appointed to an awesome responsibility. And yet, he would only admit it privately, and never try to push others to accept it.

Still, he said he considered that it was a very important responsibility for only one individual, and he said that modesty made him reluctant to have to claim that the parable of "that servant" pointed to only one man. Would modesty make him reluctant to admit that some other person held the title? The way he managed this sincere belief so well makes him a rather more endearing person in my mind than for example, someone like J.F.Rutherford who gave himself the title "JUDGE" and printed it on his handbills and posters and billboards, yet he was never appointed as a judge, but was only asked to substitute at least once in a country courthouse in Missouri.

I have always thought of Russell's personality as displaying about the right mix of both modesty and conviction. I think of him as kind of an "ideal" gentleman Christian for his era. There are etiquette books for gentlemen from his era which give advice on such things, and which mix them with Christian values, like not trying to seat yourself at the head of the table, but allowing others to make that place for you. Speakers would not give their credentials in their own speeches, but would allow themselves to be introduced with their titles of honor and designations. I hate it when I see so many speakers today try to slyly work in their own resume and accomplishments when it's not appropriate to the theme of their speech.

I just read in one of those etiquette books (on Google) from 1876 that the right way for a gentleman to end a letter, in many cases, was to sign it: "Your obedient servant" even though you knew you were not really that person's servant. 

I believe that Russell did avoid personally and publicly the claim to this title, but he definitely believed that he was the one person who needed modesty because he was the one appointed with that title. He accepted the title from others, and there is no evidence that he ever would counsel them or try to stop them from using that title when referring to him. Since he believed it himself, why would he? It would seem dishonest. The best he could do is deflect a bit. And I believe there were times when he must have done that. I'm sure he knew the scripture where Jesus was called "good teacher" and Jesus said "Why do you call me good?"

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

from what I’ve read he admitted others applied that term to him personally ..I shall try to find it,

I agree that others applied that term to him. He admits as much in the same Watch Tower article when he speaks of his reluctance to publish the understanding that he must now say "that servant" no longer applies to individuals, plural, but to a single individual.

You might also be thinking of what A. H. MacMillan said about how Russell would answer the direct question:

That was from MacMillan's Faith on the March, p. 126-127.

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

And just WHO in the watchtower claimed he said that …..Rutherford????

Rutherford was not yet even one of the Society's officers. And Russell's will had not even appointed him to the initial 5 person Editorial Committee of the Watchtower. So I suspect that it could have been MacMillan himself, or one of the others on the committee. They all needed to approve what went into the December 1, 1916 Watch Tower, dated only 31 days after Russell had died. But MacMillan elsewhere says that Russell would also respond that he was "the servant," but not above others (rather than "a servant," but not above others). I don't think that was just a typo because MacMillan says it twice in the same book.

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

And even if he did….so what…

Exactly!!

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

thank the man for devoting his life as he came out of BTG…thank him for straightening out hellfire and standing strong and fighting against the trinitarian God….Thank him for being fearless in traveling the world and explaining about the kingdom….and the resurrection hope on the earth….
You know what you know because of one’s like him …instead of finding fault…get on your knees with some humility and Thank God Russell found him,,…sheesh talk about finding fault with a brother…..

I'm not finding fault, just giving my opinion about whether (and why) he claimed to be God's spokesman, and claimed to represent the one channel of truth, and accepted the title "the faithful and wise servant". This has a lot to do, I think, with why Russell could be hesitant or undogmatic about an idea, and yet, the other brothers around him would think that it was "an angel" who had given unerring truth. That's what this original topic is about. Russell didn't think that being individually appointed as the "faithful slave" made him unerring in speaking truth, or a prophet. Yes, he made errors, and was a sinful person. He lied (perjured himself) on the stand in court when asked about his business interests, and was forced to correct his perjury in a following court session. He was manipulative and dishonest in his divorce proceedings. I agree that this is completely forgivable when we consider his sincerity in publishing some of the most important Bible truths. Of course, we are thankful for that. But we must never put a man, or group of men, on a pedestal because it tends to create an idolatrous cult (per our own publications). Yesterday, I found a person on YouTube, for example, who calls Russell "an angel."

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

you always seem to sow seeds of doubt about Russell

It's my opinion that I am sowing seeds of truth about Russell, by telling the truth according to Russell's own words and those who knew him. I don't see where "doubt" comes in. It's not like we are supposed to have "faith" in Russell, is it?

5 hours ago, Thinking said:

I don’t doubt he did a lot of wrong…misunderstood heaps of things…and JWI..I will say this…you so quickly condemn the man….there is nothing humble about you in doing it.

Trying to get to know a man's thinking and personality a little better through his own writings is not the same as condemning him. And much of this, to be sure, is just an opinion formed about him. Just as the others around him formed opinions about him in his time. We still teach that Jesus himself formed an opinion about him, and this is a "current teaching" about Russell, not some relic of our past history. So I don't think it's wrong for us to keep learning more about this very intriguing and spiritually influential man.

As an example, we still learn about King David, and sometimes wonder about his great sins, and Jehovah's continued love for him. But it doesn't mean that learning about David's sins is a sign that we are not humble or that we are condemning the man for admitting things David said and did.

15 hours ago, Thinking said:

But Russell himself never claimed to be the one  and only faithful and discreet slave…do you agree with that.

No, I don't agree with that. The December 1, 1916 Watchtower says this with respect to the belief already held by thousands:

"that he filled the office of 'that faithful and wise servant' and that his great work was giving to the household of faith meat in due season. His modesty and humility precluded him from openly claiming this title, but he admitted as much in private conversation." 

So, was the Watchtower telling the truth when it said that Russell had admitted that he filled the office of that faithful and wise servant?

(Proverbs 27:2)  Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; Others, and not your own lips.

I think it's pretty easy to see that Russell had "staked the claim" to being the 'faithful and wise servant' by allowing others to make the claim publicly. This would start with his wife making the claim for him, beginning in 1895. Until then, Russell had taught that it was all Christians in the entire household of faith who needed to follow the example of such a faithful servant. But then in 1896, he said he was now changing that belief because the Scriptures gave him no choice. It was now no longer applied to individuals (plural), but just ONE individual man who would be providing spiritual food at the proper time ("meat in due season"). But notice that he added that he could not let modesty get in the way of making this doctrinal change.

"it would be wrong to allow modesty or any other consideration, good or bad, to warp our judgment in the exposition of [Matthew 24:45] . . . to which proposition we agree." -- March 1, 1896 Watch Tower

This explains why Russell claimed in the April 15, 1904 Watch Tower that the Lord would

"specially use one member of his church as the channel or instrument through which he would send the appropriate messages, spiritual nourishment appropriate at that time."

In 1906, Russell would claim that:

"the truths I present, as God's mouthpiece . . . were ... revealed . . . especially since 1870 and particularly since 1880. . . . and if I did not speak, and no other agent could be found, the very stones would cry out." -- July 15, 1906 Watch Tower

In 1911, Russell spoke at the Convention, where other speakers would say things like the following, and which the Watch Tower Society published in the 1911 Convention Report.

"... the Lord . . . has placed Pastor Russell in charge of the work. . . . We are glad therefore to recognize him as 'that servant,' spoken by the Lord . . . doing ... the work the Lord appointed him to do.

Russell also published letters in multiple issues of the Watch Tower which addressed him as "that Servant" and acknowledged that he was the one faithful servant providing "meat in due season" for the household of faith.

2 hours ago, Anna said:

It's not that religion per say will be destroyed, but organized religion will be.

Remember, there was a time when Rutherford hated even the term "religion" because by it he meant "organized" religion. It wasn't until Covington started arguing with him that they needed to use the term religion in order to get legal recognition in other countries that he softened a bit. In the booklet that Covington wrote, even as late as 1950, he had to explain to other Witnesses why it was going to be OK to use the term religion. Reminds me a bit of how L. Ron Hubbard also distanced himself from religion until his lawyers realized the tax trouble they were in. They even put a cross like symbol on their buildings now. Hubbard would be rolling over on his planet.

But, of course, Rutherford made us more organized than ever from a hierarchical top-down perspective. Can't hardly see how we'd function without such a high level of organization, with so many millions of us, so much coordinated activity, so many publications, so many updates (even new songs before the next songbook is printed), etc.

4 hours ago, xero said:

@JW Insider Where did the extra 2 years come from? 1943+100=2043. 2043-3960=1917 (adjusted no zero is 1916)

Good catch! The original dates that Russell used for the Abrahamic covenant would be 2045, and the "Thousand Year" book (ka) only explains the 100-year difference (giving us 1945 BCE), not the other two years (to make it 1943 BCE). There have been a few adjustments to account for minor year adjustments over the years. For example, see "The Truth Shall Make You Free" (1943), "The Kingdom is at Hand" (1944), "Life Everlasting in Freedom . . ." (1966), Watchtower 8/15/1968 p.498, etc., "Chronology" article in Insight or Aid Book, etc.

[There are actually quite a few of these one to two year adjustments (e.g. Russell had Jesus born, per Ussher, in 4 BC, and today we use 2 BC, etc.). I think we currently start the validation of the Abrahamic covenant when Abraham crosses the Euphrates, just after the death of his father, and we place this in 1943 BCE.]

But the basic difference started out with Russell's chronology from "The Time is at Hand" (SiS, Volume II):

Notice that the date from the end of the 70 years desolation was considered to be the decree of Cyrus, considered to be at the start of his first regnal year, 536 BCE. In the same book just quoted, p.79, Russell said:

the first year of the reign of Cyrus is a very clearly fixed date — both secular and religious histories with marked unanimity agreeing with Ptolemy’s Canon, which places it B.C. 536.

This is why both Russell and Rutherford said that 606 BCE was a date that could never be changed. They became part of the set of "God's dates, not ours." In Government, Rutherford said:

The date of the overthrow of Zedekiah is positively fixed by the Scriptures and also by profane history as 606 B.C.

The final (late) acknowledgement of the lack of a zero year meant that they would need to change the positively fixed date from 606 to 607 BCE.

But, then you will note that it was ALSO discovered that Russell had date wrong for the first year of Cyrus. Ptolemy's Canon actually had it right all along, but Russell had the destruction of Babylon in 537, and the first year of Cyrus, counting from Nisan 1, in 536. When forced to acknowledge that this was two years off, and it was really 538, the Society had the choice to change the date of Jerusalem's fall one more time, this time to 608 to match the 70 years. But the whole point was to make 1914 work, not to actually care so much when Jerusalem had really fallen. So the 536 day was corrected to 538, and since this was still a year off, we changed the date of the decree to sometime much closer to Cyrus' 2nd year, 537 BCE. After all, 536 is now known to be the THIRD year of Cyrus, not the FIRST year as Russell had calculated. Insight now agrees with Ptolemy here:

*** it-1 p. 577 Daniel ***
During the third year of Cyrus (536 B.C.E.)

4 hours ago, xero said:

=1917 (adjusted no zero is 1916)

To save space in the original post, I hadn't explained yet that I had purposely moved the date in the wrong direction to give 1914 instead of 1916. I think it was my fault therefore that I led you to say that 1917, adjusted for no zero year is 1916. It's actually 1918! But this is similar to the mistake made in the presentation of the original math in the 1907 Watch Tower, too. It was correct to point out that 536 BC is actually 536 years prior to AD 1 (instead of the non existent AD 0). But then the additional 1915 years should have been added to 1 to make 1916. No one seemed to notice this error. Not even the ultra-fastidious C. J. Woodworth, who wrote his famous "Theocratic Calendar" article in the Golden Age showing that he knew about the no-zero-year issue long before any other Watchtower publications acknowledged it.

@Pudgy, since no one is really all that interested in the specifics of the 1914/1915 angle of the original post here, I thought I would take note of something I found interesting in one of your posts. (And also acknowledge again how clever I found your leak/draft pun. Works on so many levels.)

What I found interesting is that potassium peroxide (K₂O₂) made a CAMEO^* appearance in your cartoon. ( https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/1374 )

At one time, I was intrigued by how some chemical reactions made liquids change their color. (In fact, one experiment we did in Earth Science when I was in Jr.High actually took two fairly clear liquids and mixed to change instantly into a bright yellow solid.) The three items on that chalkboard reminded me an experiment that could detect tiny levels of iodine in salt. In fact, if you mix those exact same 3 chemicals listed on the chalkboard, and add a splash of laundry starch, you can detect whether the salt (NaCl) was iodized or not. The iodized salt will turn the entire batch very dark (sometimes blue-black) while non-iodized salt will just continue to look like milky-white saltwater. You can add a crushed vitamin C tablet (ascorbic acid) to the mix and, because it's an anti-oxidant, the blue-black mixture turns milky white again.

* CAMEO is a database of dangerous chemicals and substances provided by the US Office of Emergency Management

18 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

How much of your boat’s DRAFT is leaking?

 I feel a draft, from fore to aft.

[I'm about to keel over laughing.]

Rutherford, as he did many times in the years 1916 to 1929, had to carefully acknowledge that Russell alone had been the one and only faithful and wise servant (faithful and discreet slave), and therefore the sole distributor of spiritual truths up until his death in 1916. Since Russell and/or the Watchtower was the one and only channel of truth in the minds of Watchtower readers, Rutherford had to be very careful when explaining how and why Russell got things wrong.

But it was all too obvious that Abraham had not inherited the land in 1915. Russell himself had already hinted that 1915 might be the new 1914. And after 1914, the Watchtower even began saying that the "end of the Gentile Times" was 1915, not 1914. After Russell's death in 1916, Rutherford even began emphasizing the "presence" of Jesus to a 40 year period that went, not from 1874 to 1914, but from 1878 to 1918, when Jesus would be fully "present" in his Temple. And by 1917, Rutherford had already gone ahead and started promoting a new date of 1925 for the "realized" end of the Gentile Times, i.e., when the Jewish (Hebrew) "ancient worthies" like Abraham would begin to rule, initially over fellow Jews who had migrated to Palestine. 

He very cleverly keeps the 3,960 years of the Genesis 15 "prophecy" intact, but he changes the starting date from 2045 BCE to 2035 BCE, ten years later. He uses the mention of something that appeared to happen 10 years later in Genesis 16:3 and says that this showed that the actual sacrifice of the animals had happened 10 years later, even though the context makes it appear that this had happened 10 years earlier. If Rutherford can redate the promise (covenant) to 10 years later, then this moves the 1915 date to 1925. Note especially the last two paragraphs below from the entire 1917 article on the topic.

6 minutes ago, TrueTomHarley said:

Did I mention that, inspired by current events

Inspired by other current events (like Anne's designation of me as "prophet" 🤣) I decided to jump out of a fishing boat and walk on water. The water was so shallow that I couldn't decide whether to "row versus wade."