Telling the truth means you don’t need to remember what you've said before is a valuable expression to note as it can help us to separate the lies from the truth. The Watchtower is famous for the vast amounts of literature and information it pumps out to its members. In recent years the number of written items has reduced, being replaced by visual media mostly on JW Broadcasting, but the sheer volume seems to be remaining the same. This can sometimes result in slip ups in what pronouncements are made by the Governing Body.
During the recent 2024 Annual Meeting of the Jehovah’s Witnesses (available for viewing on JW Broadcasting) an announcement was made, by the Governing Body member Gerrit Losch, that two new members were being added to the Governing Body. Those new members are Jode Jedele and Jacob Rumph who are both somewhat younger than most of the present members of the body, Rumph now being the youngest at 52.
Why is it a ‘slip’? Well, a key and fundamental teaching of the Watchtower since its earliest days is that the generation that saw the start of World War one in 1914 (or, more precisely, Jesus’ invisible presence) would not die out before the end of things. This is taken from Jesus’ words in Mathew 24 v 34. The Watchtower originally taught that Jesus was referring to the time between His Parousia (or presence) in 1914 and Armageddon, though later the end point became less clear as either 'the end of things' or 'the start of the great tribulation'. It has been the impetus behind their frenetic evangelising that the end was always not far away as those of that generation started to die off.
Over the years there have been a number of changes made to eke out that period. These include, amongst others; changing the start age for ‘this generation’ from those who were old enough to understand what was going on at the time (18 years old?) to those who simply saw it (10 years old) and then to those who were actually alive at the time (babies). It soon became clear that these band-aids were not going to be enough as even the 'babies' were now heading for 100 years old!
So, in April 2010 a new ‘understanding’ of what Jesus meant by the term ‘generation’ came as ‘new light’ for Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is what has become known outside the organisation as the ‘overlapping generation’ teaching but, technically, it is more accurately an 'overlapping lives' teaching. The Governing Body decided that one definition of a ‘generation’ is any two lives that overlap; if two persons lived at the same point in time then they were of the same generation; this is how they defined it in that article.
Where they get this definition from is difficult to say as dictionaries I have checked do not use this, so it can hardly be said to be the ‘usual’ use. But, using this ‘definition’, meant that they could push back the end of ‘this generation’ to the time of death of the last ‘anointed’ person who was born before the death of the last member of the ‘anointed’ who was alive in 1914 (shown as Fred W Franz in the picture above who died in 1992, though some 'anointed' have lived longer).
We can now see why Geritt Losch’s statement is a slip up; he talks of the ‘next' generation of younger members which, under normal usage makes sense, but, in Watchtower terms, denies their own definition of a ‘generation’.
Both these new Governing Body members commenced their time at Bethel before Franz's death and so, by their own definition, would evidently be in the same 'generation' as all the other members of the Governing Body, including Losch, not the 'next'. You can’t have it both ways.
There’s no evidence that Jesus meant a different meaning for a ‘generation’ to the normal usage. Matthew himself tells us what a ‘generation’ is in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 v 17 and it is as you would expect; a father and son are two different generations. Either way, it would appear that the Governing Body does not believe its own definitions so, perhaps, neither should we.
Police sometimes ask a suspected criminal the same question but in a different way to see if they will change their story and so reveal themselves; Losch has done this for us! If you speak the truth you don’t need to remember what you said as the truth doesn’t change. Un-truths are caught out when they change.
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