Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society publications have made a series of predictions about Christ’s Second Coming and the advent of God’s Kingdom, each of which has gone unfulfilled. Almost all the predictions for 1878, 1881, 1914, 1918 and 1925 were later reinterpreted as a confirmation of the eschatological framework of the Bible Student movement and Jehovah’s Witnesses, with many of the predicted events viewed as having taken place invisibly. Further expectations were held for the arrival of Armageddon in 1975, but resulted in a later apology to members from the society’s leadership.
English researcher George D. Chryssides has argued that although there have been some “unrealized expectations,” changes in Watch Tower chronology are attributable more to changed chronological schemes, rather than to failed predictions. The Watch Tower Society has acknowledged errors, which it said helped “sift” the unfaithful from its ranks, but says adherents remained confident that “God’s Word” had not failed.
Since its formation in the 1870s, the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has claimed that God has chosen the organization from among the churches to fill a special role in the consummation of prophetic history. Charles Taze Russell, a prolific writer and founder of the Bible Student movement, viewed himself as a “mouthpiece” of God and later as the embodiment of the “faithful and wise servant” of the parable of Matthew 24:45-47. The Watch Tower Society is now the legal and administrative arm of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Its representatives assert that they have been given insight into the true meaning of the Bible and the unique ability to discern the signs of Christ’s second coming.
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Author: Wikipedia
Keywords: 1914, Charles Taze Russell, Russell, Charles Tazz Russell, JW, Jehovah, Jehovah's Witness, Jehovah witnesses, Jehovah's witnesses, Watchtower, Watchtower organization, world translation, Student movement, Joseph Rutherford, Rutherford, Judge Rutherford, Watchtower society
Bible reference(s): Matthew 7:15, Matthew 24:11, Matthew 24:24, Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:22, 2 Peter 2:1, 1 John 4:1
Source: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Watch Tower Society unfulfilled predictions,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.
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