Eschatology of Jehovah's Witnesses

The group's doctrines surrounding 1914 are the legacy of a series of emphatic claims regarding the years 1799,[4] 1874,[4] 1878,[5] 1914,[6] 1918[7] and 1925[8] made in the Watch Tower Society's publications between 1879 and 1924.

Claims about the significance of those years, including the presence of Jesus Christ, the beginning of the "last days", the destruction of worldly governments and the earthly resurrection of Jewish patriarchs, were successively abandoned.

Watch Tower publications also say that unfulfilled expectations are partly due to eagerness for God's Kingdom and that they do not call their core beliefs into question.

[16][17][18] Jehovah's Witnesses teach the imminent end of the current world society, or "system of things" by God's judgment, leading to deliverance for the saved.

They do not currently place their expectations on any specific date, but believe that various events will lead up to the end of this "system of things", culminating in Armageddon.

[21][22] They believe that after Armageddon, based on scriptures such as John 5:28, 29, the dead will gradually be resurrected to a "day of judgment" lasting for a thousand years.

[26] Watch Tower Society publications teach that Jesus Christ returned invisibly and began to rule in heaven as king in October 1914.

They believe the Greek word parousia, usually translated as "coming", is more accurately understood as an extended invisible "presence", perceived only by a series of "signs".

[29] Witnesses base their beliefs about the significance of 1914 on the Watch Tower Society's interpretation of biblical chronology,[30][31] which is hinged on their assertion that the Babylonian captivity and destruction of Jerusalem occurred in 607 BC.

[35] They believe that when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem, the line of kings descended from David was interrupted, and that God's throne was "trampled on" from then until Jesus began ruling in October 1914.

[37][38] Jehovah's Witnesses teach that since October 1914, humanity has been living in a period of intense increased trouble known as "the last days", marked by war, disease, famine, earthquakes, and a progressive degeneration of morality.

[39][40] They believe their preaching is part of the sign, often alluding to the text of Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world as a witness to all nations.

"[55] Watch Tower Society eschatological teachings are based on the earliest writings of Charles Taze Russell, but have undergone significant changes since then.

When the rapture failed to occur, Russell admitted they "felt somewhat disappointed", but decided there would be an additional 3½-year period "making the harvest seven years long".

Russell credited him and Scottish writer Robert Menzies for the view "that the Great Pyramid is Jehovah's 'Witness', and that it was as important a witness to divine truth as to natural science.

[74] A special edition of the first volume of Studies in the Scriptures was also published, which was re-titled The Divine Plan of the Ages and the Corroborative Testimony of the Great Pyramid.

[87] Similarly, the 1924 publication The Way to Paradise refers to the Great Pyramid as "the Bible in Stone" and concludes: It is quite probable that Shem, son of Noah, a faithful servant of God, was in charge of its construction.

The pyramid also outlines in its own peculiar way the same plan of God that we find in the Bible, and it dated beforehand some of the most notable events that have occurred in the history of mankind.

Basing his interpretations on a concept of parallel "dispensations", Russell taught that while Jesus was invisibly present on earth, he was also made its king in 1878.

In 1918–1919, Joseph Franklin Rutherford, second president of the Watch Tower Society, inaugurated a worldwide lecture series entitled "Millions Now Living Will Never Die!

[144][145][146] During the 1960s and early 1970s, Witnesses were instructed by means of articles in their literature[147][148][149] and at their assemblies that Armageddon and Christ's thousand-year millennial reign could begin by 1975.

[150] The booklet The Approaching Peace of a Thousand Years, which was the text of the keynote address to major assemblies of Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the world in 1969,[151] stated about that promised reign (which would begin at "God's fixed time"): For Godfearing students of the Holy Bible containing both the ancient Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Greek Scriptures, there is a more important millennium that compels their attention.

"[155] In a lecture[156] in early 1975, then vice president Fred Franz selected sundown on September 5, 1975, as the end of 6000 years of human history, but cautioned that although the prophecies "could happen" by then, it looked improbable.

[164] After the passing of 1975, the Watch Tower Society continued to emphasize the teaching that God would execute his judgment on humankind before the generation of people who had witnessed the events of 1914 had all died.

[172] In 1980 the starting date for that "generation" was brought into the 20th century when the term was applied to those who had been born in 1904 and therefore aged 10 and able simply "to observe" when World War I had begun.

[174] Former Governing Body member Raymond Franz claimed members of the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses debated replacing the doctrine with a markedly different interpretation and that in 1980 Albert Schroeder, Karl Klein and Grant Suiter proposed moving the beginning of the "generation" to the year 1957, to coincide with the year Sputnik was launched.

Rather than a literal lifespan of 70 to 80 years, the definition of "generation" was changed to "contemporary people of a certain historical period, with their identifying characteristics," without reference to any specific amount of time.

"[180] In 2008, the "generation" teaching was again altered, and the term was used to refer to the "anointed" believers, some of whom would still be alive on earth when the great tribulation begins.

[187] Jehovah's Witnesses believe that periods of seventy years mentioned in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel refer to the Babylonian exile of Jews.

They also believe that the gathering of Jews in Jerusalem, shortly after their return from Babylon, officially ended the exile in Jewish month of Tishrei (Ezra 3:1).