Anna

Actually, I have never insisted. Are you saying that if he himself claims to be a JW that you might not believe him? By the way, I did just get a response from him, and he preferred that I only use only one particular article of his when discussing 587/6 BCE. He says:
"To avoid any controversy on this controversial subject you can quote my article 'Basic astronomy for historians to get a chronology' . . . [link] . . . which was validated by Professor Hermann Hunger who is a reference in Babylonian astronomy." [Thanks to the person who gave me his most recent email address. I had tried the same one before without a response, but it is still correct. I received the above response a few minutes ago.]

Uh oh

Yes. Now is cleared up a great mystery.
 

Yes, I understand the all-important emphasis that you and opposers put on "higher education." But Gerard Gertoux DOES have formal higher education. How can we explain his agreement with COJ with regard to chronology?

I don't see any problem with the Watchtower's rendition of known facts. The Watchtower has never addressed the arguments that some scholars bring up with respect to Elohim as it has been related to a Divine Council. I thought you were saying you had addressed this with scholars, so I was interested. What you responded to above is not the same issue. I suspect we agree on all most issues related to God's name -- assuming you agree with the Watchtower's general view on the topic.
Probably the only area where we might differ is how we defend the inconsistent method of the NWT using Jehovah for kyrios in the Greek when it is not a quote or direct allusion to the Hebrew Scriptures.

Sooooooo! 
"You must see it, TrueTom. Did you see it yet? How bout now?
"Well, when you gonna see it? C'mon! Prove that you're a spiritual man. See it!!!"
And now it turns out it's so dull you couldn't plow through it yourself!  I'm even going to like my own comment!

I'm for 2333. It has a lot of 3's in it, my favorite number.

We've got to remember though that we are not swinging the hammer, that's left up to the Slave. All the dates we've ever had were put out there by the Slave. We just either agree with the dates or not...

Waiting at the bus stop and the bus doesn't come because you misread the schedule or your copy was blurred is a downer. There is no way to spin it as a good thing. But there is no need to overdramatize it as some great tragedy, either - not unless you've decided that you don't know or care whether the bus comes or not since you've come to like it right where you are.
If the bus doesn't come when expected, that is a pain, but if you busy yourself in the general vicinity and speak to passerby the time seems to move on quickly. When it comes, the five virgins who took top jobs at Exxon and are no longer around have nothing on you.

That would be the day! No, for some reason when you accidentally tap quote, instead of edit you can't remove it, so you have to leave it there, blank.

I think the issue is not that people are taking the lead. That's understandable. The issue is that the GB has total, unchallenged control over scriptural interpretation. What scriptural basis can be used to defend that? Is there evidence that the apostles behaved this way?

I know what you mean. I mean, I feel the same way about me, lol

Some are disappointed  because they have been waiting, and waiting, ....and waiting for the paradise, and now they feel they have wasted their life, because they think they could have got an excellent education, made lots of money, and had a good time, instead of devoting their life to teaching others about God's Kingdom and denying themselves the "good" things the world had to offer.  I am  sorry for not making it  clear.
So my question was, what could have made them disappointed? It was not being able to do those things I mentioned, which are selfish things. On the other hand,  ones who gave their life in pursuit of doing God's will unselfishly, have not regretted anything.....and they are still waiting, and will wait for however long it takes.

Good one JWI !

Tomorrow?
I certainly hope not. Even our most current explanations have begun to admit a less dogmatic perspective: "The angel gives no clues as to when this period begins or ends." (Daniel's Prophecy book, quoted above.) This is a far cry from 1977's comments on the same time period:
*** go chap. 8 p. 133 par. 27 Marked Days During the “Time of the End” ***
The fact that the once secret and sealed “words” are now unsealed and brought out of secrecy adds to the abundance of proof that, since the end of the Gentile Times in 1914, we have been in the exciting “time of the end.” We see how the “appointed time, appointed times and a half” of Daniel 12:7 have fitted into this “time of the end.” I fully expect an update in 2021, when we'll have 2020 hindsight.

I think you are right that the basic idea here is more likely a set of time periods from the same starting point. If I were to tell someone that they are going to have to wait 1260 days for something, but that they might really have to get to 1290 before seeing it, and that they will be truly happy if they wait for 1,335 days, then I don't think it's likely that anyone would guess that I meant 3,885 days in total. And yet this is something like the Watchtower's view. I also think that if such a specific number of days were intended for us today that they would match to a specific number of days in a calendar. I agree, too, that the 1,260 of Revelation 11 & 12 is key. (And of Daniel 7:25; 12:7) The Watchtower also generally agrees on this point, even though they move the 1,290 as a completely new time period away from the 1,260.
The explanation given in the Watch Tower publications, as you say, are "greatly rounded." None of them can even reach back as far as October 1914, the most important date/event in modern history according to the new "God's Kingdom Rules" book. The best they can do is start it near the end of December 1914, just a few days from January 1915. In fact, since they end it around June 21, 1918 it must start around December 21, 1914. To even catch this little piece of the tail-end of the all-important year 1914, they must end this period with the sentencing, rather than the actual imprisonment. In the scheme of things, the sentencing was just another part of a process that had begun in the "scheming" that began back in March 1918 when the FBI was building a case based on the Finished Mystery book.
*** dp chap. 9 p. 142 par. 28 Who Will Rule the World? ***
God’s witnesses would preach dressed in sackcloth for 42 months, or 1,260 days, and then be killed. When did this time period begin and end? . . . Hence, beginning in December 1914, that small band of witnesses preached “in sackcloth.” . . . Harassment of God’s anointed ones climaxed on June 21, 1918, when the president, J. F. Rutherford, and prominent members of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society were sentenced on false charges to long prison terms. Intending “to change times and law,” the “small” horn had effectively killed the organized preaching work. (Revelation 11:7) So the foretold period of “a time, and times and half a time” ended in June 1918. The start of the next period 1,290 days does not even attach to the first period without a several month gap. And again, even to get it as close as possible they used the "proposal" of the League of Nations rather than the actual start of the League of the Nations:
*** dp chap. 17 p. 300 pars. 22-23 Identifying True Worshipers in the Time of the End ***
The League was officially proposed in January 1919. At that time, then, both conditions of Daniel 12:11 were met. So the 1,290 days began in early 1919 and ran until the autumn (Northern Hemisphere) of 1922. During that time, did the holy ones make progress toward becoming whitened and cleansed in God’s eyes? They certainly did! In March 1919 the president of the Watch Tower Society and his close associates were released from prison. They were later exonerated of the false charges against them. Aware that their work was far from over, they got busy immediately, organizing a convention for September 1919. In the same year, a companion magazine to The Watch Tower was first published. Originally called The Golden Age (now Awake!), it has always supported The Watchtower in fearlessly exposing the corruption of this world and in helping God’s people to remain clean. By the end of the foretold 1,290 days, the holy ones were well on the way to a cleansed and restored standing. In September 1922, right about the time when this period ended, they held a landmark convention at Cedar Point, Ohio, U.S.A. Notice again that the periods do not work out. 1290 days is about 17 months, so that a starting date in January would have to end in August, and the convention wasn't until September 1919, which is why it ends at a time when they were only "preparing" for this assembly.
And the next period of 1,335 days is even looser in terms of anchoring to any specific occasions. Note:
*** dp chap. 17 pp. 303-304 pars. 24-26 Identifying True Worshipers in the Time of the End ***
“Happy is the one who is keeping in expectation and who arrives at the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days!” (Daniel 12:12) The angel gives no clues as to when this period begins or ends. History suggests that it simply follows on the heels of the preceding period. In that case it would run from the autumn of 1922 to the late spring of 1926 (Northern Hemisphere). Did the holy ones come to a state of happiness by the end of that period? Yes, in important spiritual ways. 25 Even after the convention in 1922 (shown on page 302), some of God’s holy ones were still looking longingly to the past. The basic study material for their meetings was still the Bible and the volumes of Studies in the Scriptures, by C. T. Russell. At that time, there was a widely held view that pointed to 1925 as the year for the resurrection to begin and for Paradise to be restored to the earth. Thus, many were serving with a fixed date in mind. Some proudly refused to share in the work of preaching to the public. This was not a happy state of affairs. . . . The issue of March 1, 1925, carried the historic article “Birth of the Nation,” giving God’s people a full understanding of what had happened in the 1914-19 period. After 1925 passed, the holy ones no longer served God with an immediate, explicit deadline in view. . . .  At the convention in May 1926, the book Deliverance was released. (See page 302.) This was one of a series of new books designed to replace Studies in the Scriptures. No longer were the holy ones looking to the past. They were looking confidently to the future and the work ahead. As prophesied, the 1,335 days therefore ended with the holy ones in a happy state. If Daniel had spoken of the 1,335 days as culimating in the most unhappy time period ever for God's people, then this could have made more sense. It would have been very easy to show why this was the most UNHAPPY time period in our organization's history. 1925 had been hyped since 1918 as one of the most important prophecies that the "prophet" -- the Watchtower -- had ever proclaimed, and it turned out to be a miserable failure: a false prophecy. People were now leaving in larger numbers, even those who had hung on past the 1917 organizational debacle. In 1926 Rutherford began to systematically throw away all the old foundations for the time prophecies of Russell. More people were upset. Although Rutherford claims that he had been fighting against Russellite creature worship all along, this was actually the time when Rutherford himself stopped making great claims for Russell and began pushing against Russell's teachings almost "en masse."   Rutherford was beginning to fight with colporteurs and pioneers because they no longer wanted to sell Russell's books if they were pushing doctrines that were now considered "from Satan" (pyramids, etc). But Rutherford still had large stockpiles of these books and insisted that the Lord wanted them sold to the public. The "Bulletin" (Later Informant, later Our Kingdom Ministry) claimed that anyone who balked at this particular edict by Rutherford was going against the Lord himself. More people left the organization over this, and from 1926 to 1932 the campaigns to sell Russell's books continued.
We could go on and on comparing this particular period of sadness and gloom with the periods before and since, but there is definitely enough to make us wonder why these particular time periods were chosen for the 1260, 1290, and 1,335 days. I think there are enough weaknesses in it, that the Society will revisit it -- especially if they realize that more and more Witnesses are looking at the prophecy more closely.
If I get a chance, I'll explain more of the problems I have with the primary solution that is being promoted from the original post in this topic. I think there is a much simpler solution -- it's one we already have used in the publications on a closely related set of time periods related to the half-week (3.5-year period) in the final 70th week in the week-of-years prophecy. I don't doubt there are other possibilities that might seem more exciting, but some of those ones here imply that we can currently predict the times and seasons, and this particular period is one in which Jesus said the end events would come like a thief in the night.
I admit that this is more boring than tying current events to Daniel and Revelation, but there are some excellent reasons to look at it this way (I think) starting with the "two witnesses" and the "olive trees" in Revelation 11. Paul explains the two olive trees very well in Romans 11, and we had already used this tie-in to a 3.5 year period in the discussion of the "keys of the kingdom." Note:
*** w79 10/1 p. 23 pars. 1-2 “The Keys of the Kingdom” and the “Great Crowd” ***
IN THE year 36 C.E. a marked event in Christian history took place in Caesarea on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Whether Philip the evangelizer had settled there by that year we do not know for certain. If he had done so, then why was he not used in connection with a certain army officer of the Italian band of soldiers then stationed there? Philip had preceded the apostle Peter in Christian activity in Samaria, so why not now in Caesarea in 36 C.E.? The inspired Scriptures give us the answer. The Law covenant that Moses had mediated between Jehovah God and Israel at Mount Sinai in Arabia was abolished on the basis of the impalement of Jesus Christ, the descendant of Abraham and King David. That was three years and a half from the water baptism and spirit-anointing of Jesus back in 29 C.E. Nevertheless, Jehovah continued to give preferential treatment to the natural Jews and Samaritans also during this period for three years and a half more, to fulfill the prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27a. This “week” or period of seven years terminated in the seventh lunar month (Tishri) of 36 C.E. From then on the Israelite descendants of Abraham would be put on the same spiritual level as the people of the non-Jewish nations, the uncircumcised Gentiles. After that no more preferential treatment to the Jews by the God of Abraham! How was this demonstrated in 36 C.E.? From here, we already have a Biblically consistent tie-in between the two witnesses (the witness to the Jews, and the witness to the Gentiles) and the two olive trees (natural Jewish olive tree and the grafted Gentile olive tree) the 42 months or 1260 days. If we look at a few other events with respect to the week of Pentecost of 33, Christ's ascension, etc., we can attempt to work out the differences between a simple 1260 and 1290 and 1335, but I don't even think this is necessarily the answer here.

Sensible comment this. But probably not unanimously applauded. I would say though, still necessary, even at this late date.
Once these time periods are properly understood, I have a feeling there will be no ambiguity at all, and a lot of people will be saying "There. I always said it was something like that!".
That time isn't now however............ 
But, don't know about you, but these are issues that are SOOOO not a reason to have shaky faith over. And what is all this about:  
???? What on earth for????

And as I understand my reading the scriptural account of how things began, Jesus was the one having insight, correct? He then taught ones who would go and teach others. He chose 12 close associates who had intimate knowledge, that the others did not have, and even among this group there were some who knew things that the rest did have privy to. Yet they were in union with the love that Jesus stated would be the identification mark of his true followers. These chosen ones, were given certain responsibilities of leadership, trained to do so from the beginning. We all know there has to be such leadership. Are theses ones, the 7 the only ones with this insight? No, by my last count, there were over 8 million of us in that unity of love as Jesus stated at John 13:34,35. We are all on the same page. Yet remember when the fish and bread was fed, how was it done? A run up on the baskets by the hungry people, or organized? Did not Jesus give it to these 'leader' and they passed it out among the people? Would you have turned it down because it came to you this way? Or are you humble enough to accept and let our imperfections take a back seat, because we are trying our very best to leave this plane of existence, either Heavenly or in the new world after the dust settles.
I for my part want this food, I am hungry and if theses 7 men are the ones with the responsibility to feed us let's eat. If they have squandered the responsibility, who will hold them accountable, us? Where have you read in Bible accounts that the people have successfully changed what was wrong theocratically in Jehovah's service? Did not He take care of things always? Patience, my friends. Love and patience. Eat and take in the spiritual food being served. Our studying of the Bible will show us if there is such deviation that many are searching for. This is Jehovah's organization, not theirs, they are custodians while here on earth. Jesus is the head, correct? If that is correct, then he is aware of all the misgivings everyone here sees! That is what humors me. Many forget that variable many times when the debate things having to with things that do not belong to them! We are not stockholders, we have no dog in that fight. Our own personal salvation is at stake, not theirs. What happened to Korah? I and my family are trying to serve Jehovah and his Son is set up as King. I pray to be among the many who will be there. The sanctification and vindication of Jehovah's name is what is paramount, even for Jesus. Nothing else matters! Comsider and pray about this. Good day, my friends!

But then so is reading the comment in the first place

It is to be noted that both Rolf Furuli and Gerard Gertroux are both Jehovah's Witnesses.
 

From the teachers of course, and as you say, those who are taught themselves become teachers. I don't think that is a problem. What is being questioned here I think is that there is one group of teachers , 7 at present, who have the final say and also who make adjustments to their prior teachings. It is to be noted though, that there are many who have already understood some teachings to be "wrong" even before the 7 have made adjustments. This would indicate that others CAN interpret the Bible correctly by themselves. How I understand the arrangement is that although others have insight too, it is only those who are classed as the Faithful and Discreet Slave who distribute this knowledge to others. After all, they have the means to do it, (publications, talks etc.) whereas we do not.

That's good. I'm interested in how you understand it, since we already have several people's take on it. Of course you need to be fair and unbiased, and there is no need to be diplomatic and defensive, since this is not from the society. Not officially anyway.

I am assuming your husband would let you know ("consult") if he was going to send money to his relatives and not just do it without telling you, and not do anything that you are not aware of, it's called communication.  Marriage is a partnership, where both are equal but only one makes the final decision.
Unfortunately many husbands are quite happy to abdicate their responsibility as heads, as a lot of men can be quite lazy, and so it's easier for them Then there are others who think that the only way to exercise headship is to be a tyrant.  As for women, I would say they are much cleverer than men in matters of the emotions. Men (in general) want to please a woman (and I’m not talking about sex) and feel fulfilled as men when they succeed.  Women can take advantage of that and wreak havoc with men’s minds (Eve, Delilah, Cleopatra, etc. etc.)This is where women wield a lot of power over men and this can be misused much to the detriment of both sexes. A woman can make or break a household, that’s how much power they have, regardless of whether the man acts as the head or not. When the scriptures talk about a woman having respect for her husband, it goes both ways of course. When they respect each other’s God given positions, and respect each other as human beings, only good can come out of that.
Well, that's Anna's wisdom for today. Exhausted myself

That might be so, but I believe it would help if sisters knew how to use their feminine qualities (not necessarily physical) to attract brothers. Spirituality should of course play a big role, but if a sister warns a prospective brother she is interested in, that when she has her monthly days she has to lock herself in her room, eat chocolate and breaks out in pimples is not an attractive visual. This honestly happened to a friend of mine. Needless to say he struck her off his list, despite the fact they were both pioneers and she was physically attractive AND had a job.  If she had kept this to herself, I am sure he would have never noticed had they got married. Some sisters just don’t seem to know that too much information is just too much information.

I'm not surprised since you give out likes like they were an endangered species! And then you go and like an enemies comment....
Of course, just because someone is opposed to most of what we do and say, doesn't mean we have to dismiss everything they say, even when it's true. Why should that stumble someone if we don't? As we've said on here before: "Truth is truth no matter who says it".  I think it's good to be fair...