1975 – A Marked Date?

Please note: We have used this document to reference not only some teachings that some have about the coming of the Battle of Armageddon, but also to indicate some important Bible chronology and dates.

It is interesting that a possible date that was given for Armageddon by one religious group (Jehovah’s Witnesses) has fallen into disrepute, because they placed so much emphasis on it and then nothing happened. As the result, many of their members left that organization after 1975 (although it had seen phenomenal growth up until then), and the date was considered by most to be just another false prophecy. In fact, their own lack of mention of that date today indicates that they are likely embarrassed for proposing it. However, all serious Bible students should carefully consider their chronology, not to look for the date of Armageddon, but to see that here is one more indication that we are in fact living in the last days that will lead up to Armageddon. This is because their calculations appear to be Bible based and quite reasonable.

We are presenting their information here as excerpted from a 1966 Watchtower magazine article (published by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society), ‘Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975?’ not to promote that religion’s doctrines, but so that you may check the calculations for yourself.

However, you might also be interested in seeing the document The Problem with Setting Bible Historical Dates.

Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975?

What basis is there for saying Adam was created nearly 5,993 years ago? Does the one Book that can be implicitly trusted for its truthful historical accuracy, namely, the Inspired Word of Jehovah, the Holy Bible, give support and credence to such a conclusion?

In the marginal references of the Protestant Authorized or King James Version, and in the footnotes of certain editions of the Catholic Douay Version, the date of man’s creation is said to be 4004 B.C.E. This marginal date, however, is no part of the inspired text of the Holy Scriptures, since it was first suggested more than fifteen centuries after the last Bible writer died, and was not added to any edition of the Bible until 1701 C.E. It is an insertion based upon the conclusions of an Irish prelate, the Anglican Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). Ussher’s chronology was only one of the many sincere efforts made during the past centuries to determine the time of Adam’s creation. A hundred years ago when a count was taken, no less than 140 different timetables had been published by serious scholars. In such chronologies, the calculations as to when Adam was created vary all the way from 3616 B.C.E. to 6174 B.C.E., with one wild guess set at 20,000 B.C.E. Such conflicting answers contained in the voluminous libraries around the world certainly tend to compound the confusion when seeking an answer to the above questions.

In the previous article, we learned from the Inspired Writings themselves, independent of the uninspired marginal notes of some Bibles, that the seventy years of desolation of the land of Judah began to count about October 1, 607 B.C.E. The beginning of this seventy-year period was obviously tied to its ending, that is, with the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E. So with 607 B.C.E. as dependably fixed on our Gregorian calendar as the absolute date of 539 B.C.E. we are prepared to move farther back in the count of time, to the dating of other important events in Bible history. For instance, the years when Saul, David, and Solomon reigned successively over God’s chosen people can now be dated in terms of the present-day calendar.

At the death of Solomon, his kingdom was split into two parts. The southern two-tribe part, composed of Judah and Benjamin, continued to be ruled by Solomon’s descendants, and was known as the kingdom of Judah. The northern ten tribes made up the kingdom of Israel, sometimes called ‘Samaria’ after the name of its later capital city, and were ruled over by Jeroboam and his successors. By our applying the prophetic time period of 390 years found in Ezekiel 4:1-9 with regard to Jerusalem’s destruction the death of Solomon is found to be in the year 997 B.C.E. This was 390 years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 B.C.E.

‘ISRAEL’S ERRORS CARRIED 390 YEARS

Notice what is said on this matter by the prophet Ezekiel:

‘And you, O son of man, take for yourself a brick, and you must put it before you, and engrave upon it a city, even Jerusalem. And you must lay siege against it . . . It is a sign to the house of Israel. And as for you, lie upon your left side, and you must lay the error of the house of Israel upon it. For the number of the days that you will lie upon it you will carry their error. And I myself must give to you the years of their error to the number of three hundred and ninety days, and you must carry the error of the house of Israel. And you must complete them. And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given you. . . . And as for you, take for yourself wheat and barley and broad beans and lentils and millet and spelt, and you must put them in one utensil and make them into bread for you, for the number of the days that you are lying upon your side; three hundred and ninety days you will eat it.’— Ezek. 4:1-9.

This chapter of Ezekiel was not recounting past historical events, but was a prophecy of future events. It was telling of the time in the future when the glorious city of Jerusalem would be besieged and its inhabitants taken captive, all of which occurred in 607 B.C.E. So the forty years spoken of in the case of Judah ended in that year. The ‘error’ of the northern kingdom, said to be carried for 390 years, was nearly tenfold greater when compared with the error of Judah carried for 40 years. Then, when did these 390 years end?

They were not terminated in 740 B.C.E., when Samaria was destroyed, for the simple fact that Ezekiel enacted this prophetic drama sometime after ‘the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin,’ which would make the termination not earlier than 613 B.C.E., that is, 127 years after the destruction of Samaria by Assyria. (Ezek. 1:2) Since this whole prophetic drama plainly pointed forward to the destruction of Jerusalem, and since both the house of Israel and the house of Judah were in reality one inseparable covenant-bound people, the remnant of whom would not be a divided people upon their return from exile, there is only one reasonable conclusion, namely, the errors of both houses ran concurrently and terminated at the same time in 607 B.C.E. In this way the 70 years of desolation of the land of Judah ended 70 years after the termination of carrying the error of both houses, so that thus a remnant of both houses could return to the site of Jerusalem.

If the ‘error of the house of Israel’ ended in 607, its beginning, 390 years prior thereto, was in 997 B.C.E. It began the year that King Solomon died and Jeroboam committed error, yes, great error, in that Jeroboam, whose domain was ripped off from the house of David, ‘proceeded to part Israel from following Jehovah,’ causing them ‘to sin with a great sin.’ — 2 Kings 17:21.

DATE OF EXODUS, 1513 B.C.E.

Looking back into the distant past we see another milestone in man’s history, the never-to-be-forgotten exodus of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, under the leadership of Moses. Were it not for Jehovah’s faithful Word the Bible, it would be impossible to locate this great event accurately on the calendar, for Egyptian hieroglyphics are conspicuously silent concerning the humiliating defeat handed that first world power by Jehovah. But with the Bible’s chronology, how relatively simple it is to date that memorable event!

At 1 Kings 6:1 we read: ‘And it came about in the four hundred and eightieth year after the sons of Israel came out from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year, in the month of Ziv, that is, the second month, after Solomon became king over Israel, that he proceeded to build the house to Jehovah.’

With this information, one has only to determine what calendar year Solomon began building the temple, and it is then an easy matter to figure when Pharaoh’s army was destroyed in the Red Sea.

‘And the days that Solomon had reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel were forty years.’ (1 Kings 11:42) This means that his last full regnal year ended in the spring of 997 B.C.E. Adding 40 to 997 gives 1037 B.C.E., the year that Solomon began his peaceful reign. He did not begin the temple building, as the account says, until the second month of the fourth year of his reign, which means he had ruled a full three years and one month. Thus subtracting 3 years from 1037 one gets 1034 B.C.E., the year that the building work began. The time of the year was the second month Ziv, that is, April-May. This, the Bible says, was ‘in the four hundred and eightieth year’ after the Israelites left Egypt.

Anytime we put a ‘th’ on the end of a number, for instance on the number 10, saying 10th, the number is changed from a cardinal to an ordinal number. When one speaks about playing baseball in the tenth inning of the game, it means that nine full innings have already been played, but only part of the tenth; ten innings are not yet completed. Likewise, when the Bible uses an ordinal number, saying that the building of the temple began in the 480th year after the Israelites left Egypt, and when that particular year on the calendar is known to be 1034 B.C.E., then we add 479 full years (not 480) to 1034 and arrive at the date 1513 B.C.E., the year of the Exodus. It too was springtime, Passover time, the 14th day of the month Nisan.

HOW LONG SINCE THE FLOOD?

Already, with the help supplied by the Bible, we have accurately measured back from the spring of this year 1968 C.E. to the spring of 1513 B.C.E., a total of 3,480 years. With the continued faithful memory and accurate historical record of Jehovah’s Holy Word, we can penetrate even deeper into the past, back to the flood of Noah’s day.

Stephen, the first martyred footstep follower of Jesus Christ, referred to what Jehovah said would befall Abraham’s offspring. ‘Moreover, God spoke to this effect that his seed would be alien residents in a foreign land and the people would enslave them and afflict them for four hundred years.’ (Acts 7:6; Gen. 15:13) Stephen here mentions three of Israel’s past experiences: As alien residents in a foreign land, as people in slavery, and as people afflicted for four hundred years.

It would be a mistake to assume that all three of these experiences were of equal duration, or that they were separate individual experiences that followed one another in consecutive order. It was long after their entrance into Egypt as aliens that they were enslaved, more than 70 years later, and sometime after the death of Joseph. Rather, Stephen was saying that within the same 400-year period in which they were afflicted, they were also enslaved and were also alien residents.

Please note that, when Stephen said they were ‘alien residents in a foreign land . . . for four hundred years,’ he did not say and he did not mean to imply that they were not alien residents before entering Egypt. So it is a mistake to insist that this text proves the Israelites were in Egypt for four hundred years. It is true that, upon entering Egypt and being presented before Pharaoh for the first time, Joseph’s brothers said: ‘We have come to reside as aliens in the land.’ But they did not say nor did they mean that up until then they had not been alien residents, for on the same occasion their father Jacob, when asked by Pharaoh how old he was, declared: ‘The days of the years of my alien residences are a hundred and thirty years.’ And not only had Jacob spent his whole lifetime as an alien resident before coming to Egypt, but he told Pharaoh that his forefathers before him also had been alien residents.—Gen. 47:4-9.

Since the affliction of Israel ended in 1513 B.C.E., it must have begun in 1913, 400 years earlier. That year would correspond to the time that Isaac was afflicted by Ishmael ‘poking fun’ at him on the day that Isaac was weaned. At the time, Isaac was five years old, and this was long before the Israelites entered Egypt.—Gen. 21:8, 9.

Well, then, how long were the Israelites down in Egypt as alien residents? Exodus 12:40, 41 says, ‘And the dwelling of the sons of Israel, who had dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came about at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, it even came about on this very day that all the armies of Jehovah went out of the land of Egypt.’

Here verse 40 in the Septuagint reads: ‘But the dwelling of the sons of Israel which they [and their fathers, Alexandrine MS] dwelt in the land of Egypt AND IN THE LAND OF CANAAN [was] four hundred and thirty years long.’ The Samaritan Pentateuch reads: ‘IN THE LAND OF CANAAN and in the land of Egypt.’ Thus both of these versions, which are based on Hebrew texts older than the Masoretic, include the words ‘in the land of Canaan’ together with the word ‘Egypt.’

From the time that Abraham entered Canaan until Isaac’s birth was 25 years; from that time until Jacob’s birth, 60 more years; and after that it was another 130 years before Jacob entered Egypt. All together, this makes a total of 215 years, exactly half of the 430 years, spent in Canaan before moving in to Egypt. (Gen. 12:4; 21:5; 25:26; 47:9) The apostle Paul, under inspiration, also confirms that from the making of the Abrahamic covenant at the time the patriarch moved into Canaan, it was 430 years down to the institution of the Law covenant.—Gal. 3:17.

By adding these 430 years to the 1513, it puts us back to 1943 B.C.E., the time when Abraham first entered Canaan following the death of his father Terah in Haran, Mesopotamia. It is now only a matter of adding up the years of a few generations to date the Flood correctly. The figures are given in Genesis, chapters 11 and 12, and may be summarized as follows:

From start of Flood

To Arpachshad’s birth (Gen. 11:10) 2 years

To birth of Shelah (11:12) 35 years

To birth of Eber (11:14) 30 years

To birth of Peleg (11:26) 34 years

To birth of Reu (11:18) 30 years

To birth of Serug (11:20) 32 years

To birth of Nahor (11:22) 30 years

To birth of Terah (11:24) 29 years

To death of Terah in Haran, and Abram’s departure to Canaan at age of 75 (11:32; 12:4) 205 years

Total 427 years

Adding these 427 years to the year 1943 B.C.E. dates the beginning of the Deluge at 2370 B.C.E., 4,337 years ago.

6,000 YEARS FROM ADAM’S CREATION

In a similar manner, it is only necessary to add up the following years involving ten pre-Flood generations to get the date of Adam’s creation, namely:

From Adam’s creation

To birth of Seth (Gen. 5:3) 130 years

To birth of Enosh (5:6) 105 years

To birth of Kenan (5:9) 90 years

To birth of Mahalalel (5:12) 70 years

To birth of Jared (5:15) 65 years

To birth of Enoch (5:18) 162 years

To birth of Methuselah (5:21) 65 years

To birth of Lamech (5:25) 187 years

To birth of Noah (5:28, 29) 182 years

To beginning of Flood (7:6) 600 years

Total 1,656 years

Adding this figure 1,656 to 2,370 gives 4026 B.C.E., the Gregorian calendar year in which Adam was created. Since man naturally began to count time with his own beginning, and since man’s most ancient calendars started each year in the autumn, it is reasonable to assume that the first man Adam was created in the fall of the year.

Thus, through a careful independent study by dedicated Bible scholars who have pursued the subject for a number of years, and who have not blindly followed some traditional chronological calculations of Christendom, we have arrived at a date for Adam’s creation that is 22 years more distant in the past than Ussher’s figure. This means time is running out two decades sooner than traditional chronology anticipates.

After much of the mathematics and genealogies, really, of what benefit is this information to us today? Is it not all dead history, as uninteresting and profitless as walking through a cemetery copying old dates off tombstones? After all, why should we be any more interested in the date of Adam’s creation than in the birth of King Tut? Well, for one thing, if 4,026 is added to 1,968 (allowing for the lack of a zero year between C.E. and B.C.E.) one gets a total of 5,993 years, come this autumn, since Adam’s creation. That means, in the fall of the year 1975, a little over seven years from now (and not in 1997, as would be the case if Ussher’s figures were correct), it will be 6,000 years since the creation of Adam, the father of all mankind!

ADAM CREATED AT CLOSE OF ‘SIXTH DAY’

Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man’s existence coincides with the Sabbath-like thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah’s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly, not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh creative ‘day.’ Why not? Because after his creation Adam lived some time during the ‘sixth day,’ which unknown amount of time would need to be subtracted from Adam’s 930 years, to determine when the sixth seven-thousand-year period or ‘day’ ended, and how long Adam lived into the ‘seventh day.’ And yet the end of that sixth creative ‘day’ could end within the same Gregorian calendar year of Adam’s creation. It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.

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