The Year 1914

It does not belong to you to get knowledge of the times or seasons which the Father has placed in his own jurisdiction, but you will recieve power when the holy spirit arrives upon you and you will be witnesses of me (Jesus) both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the most distant part of the earth." - Acts 1:7

Attending the Kingdom Hall one Sunday morning, a talk is given by a brother, who lives many states away and is a relative of some of the witnesses in the congregation. Every week a different brother will give a talk, following one of the 200 or more outlines that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society supplies for the speakers. They must follow the outlines with some room to bring in additional articles that are published by the Watchtower Society or in agreement thereof.

This particular Sunday, the speaker was eleguent. His style of speaking was clear and understandable. His voice fluctuations, accents and speed were extremely skilled and impressive. It was clear this brother was a fine public speaker and enjoyable to listen to. Not only was the talk of good speaking quality, but this talk contained hard to understand, numerical information, containing dates, figures, calculations and many scriptures, all smoothly conveyed by the speaker.

The only problem was, the information was a completely manmade interpretation, it was untrue. To many bible scholars it is clear that the prophesy of 69-70 weeks of Daniel chapter 9, applies to the Christ and was fulfilled in the years 29, 33 and 70 CE, with the baptism, the execution of Christ, the destruction of Jerusalem and later, the preaching to Gentiles. However this type of prophesy does not have any application to the prophecy of Daniel chapter 4, where King Nebuchadnezzar dreams that 7 times must pass over him. These accounts in Daniel chapter 4 and Daniel chapter 9 are completely separate and are not connected in any way.

The account of the 69-70 weeks in Daniel chapter 9 was clearly a prophecy for the distant future, that was eventually fulfilled, with Jesus Christ, however the account of the "7 times to pass over", spoken against king Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel chapter 4, was a curse spoken for him and his kingship only. Nowhere does it mention or allude to a second fulfillment in the distant future, or the year 1914, as the Watchtower Society interprets. The book of Daniel clearly shows that this dream of Nebuchadnezzar was directly fulfilled by him, in 7 years of insanity, and then restoring his kingship, thus ending this prophecy. There is absolutely no future fulfillment to be calculated and estimated using the book of Revelation to figure out what a "time" equals. And to put Ezekiel 4:6 and Numbers 14:34, "A day for a year" and actually label this as a "prophetic recipe", as the Watchtower Society calls it, is to go far "beyond the things written."

Not discussed in this page, but linked here, is also evidence that the year the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem was Not in the year 607 BCE, the year used by the Watchtower Society to support the 1914 invisible presence of Christ. There is also evidence showing that there is not an invisible presence of Christ, before his coming, linked here. But even without this evidence, it is clear from simply reading the book of Daniel, that chapter 4 was not meant for our time period, but was fulfilled with King Nebuchadnezzar. To put a modern day meaning into this is to misinterpret the scriptures, adding manmade teachings, which make God's word null and void.

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