Article

Generation After Generation

In Matthew 24:34 the generation is the people Jesus was speaking to. About forty years later, in 70 CE, Jerusalem and the temple fell. The same sentence was later used as a clock. That clock starts in 1914, and 1914 only works if Jerusalem fell in 607 BCE. When the people who could still be counted from 1914 grew old and died, the meaning of the word moved. 1914 stayed.

Two sayings

Two promises get remembered as one. They are different verses.

Some standing there would not die before they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom: Matthew 16:28, Mark 9:1, Luke 9:27. The next scene is the transfiguration, six days later (Matthew 17:1). The Watch Tower has read that saying as that preview. The 1914 lifespan was built on the other verse.
This generation will not pass away until all these things happen: Matthew 24:34, Mark 13:30, Luke 21:32. In the Watch Tower reading, that generation is a group alive when the last days began, and the last days began in 1914.

The people in front of him

He was speaking to his own generation. Matthew 24:3 sets the discourse on the Mount of Olives, with the disciples, just after he left the temple and said that not one stone would be left on another (Matthew 24:1–2). A chapter earlier he had already said that all these things would come upon this generation (Matthew 23:36). Matthew uses that same phrase for the people of his own time (Matthew 11:16; 12:41–42; 23:36). The generation is the people he was talking to.

What he said about that order did happen. In 70 CE a Roman army took Jerusalem and burned the temple. The sacrifices stopped. That was the end of the Jewish system of things as it then stood. Luke 21:20–24 names the armies around Jerusalem and the people led captive into the nations, and Luke 21:32 repeats the generation saying.

His death is dated to 30 or 33 CE. The discourse belongs at the end of his ministry, so the span to 70 is forty years, or thirty-seven. Someone who was twenty when he spoke was about sixty when the temple fell. The generation he addressed was still alive.

From the saying to the fall of Jerusalem

He spoke	Jerusalem fell	Years
About 30 CE	70 CE	40
About 33 CE	70 CE	37

70 − 30 = 40. 70 − 33 = 37. Either count sits inside one lifetime. The two dates are the usual range for his death, not two different falls of the city.

He was an apocalyptic prophet. Prophets of that kind say the present order is about to end, and that God's kingdom will be set up. He was right about the end of that order. It came while his hearers were still living. A kingdom standing on the earth is the hope that kind of preaching carries. The sentence he used still names one generation, the one in front of him.

Jesus spoke Aramaic. The line was written down in Greek, and the Greek is "this generation." He could have said that this generation and the generations coming after it would not pass away. Aramaic can say that, as Greek can. Those further words would have left the saying open for a time far ahead, or for a second fulfillment long after the first. The saying does not contain them. It is one generation, the generation he was addressing.

The table below is what was done with that sentence afterward. The generation in it was moved from the people on the Mount of Olives to the people alive in 1914.

What the word was made to mean

Each reading, and the issue that printed it

Year	Reading of "this generation"	Printed in
1951	An ordinary lifetime. The people alive in 1914.	The Watchtower, July 1, 1951, p. 404
1968	Old enough to understand 1914, about fifteen, and by then nearly seventy.	Awake!, October 8, 1968
1969	Young people would never grow old in this system.	Awake!, May 22, 1969, p. 15
1984	Babies of 1914 still count. They were seventy or older.	The Watchtower, May 15, 1984, p. 5
1982–1995	A new world before the generation that saw 1914 passes away.	Awake! purpose line, through October 22, 1995
1995	Contemporary people. Not a rule for measuring time.	The Watchtower, November 1, 1995
2008	Anointed disciples, not the wicked.	The Watchtower, February 15, 2008, pp. 23–24
2010	Anointed lives that overlap, from 1914 to the great tribulation.	The Watchtower, April 15, 2010, p. 10
2014	A second group, anointed while the first group was still alive.	The Watchtower, January 15, 2014, pp. 30–31

An ordinary lifetime

In 1951 The Watchtower took the words in the ordinary sense: the people living at the time, as a generation is used at Mark 8:12 and Acts 13:36. Applied to 1914, that is the people who were alive when the last days were said to have begun. A human lifetime from that year was already well along.

By 1968 the youngest person allowed into the generation was someone about fifteen in 1914, and so nearly seventy. Awake! said that only a few years, at most, remained. The next year it told young people to face the fact that they would never grow old in the present system, because the generation that observed the beginning of the last days in 1914 would not pass away until these things occurred.

Babies, then the purpose line

The boundary then moved toward the younger end of 1914. The May 15, 1984 Watchtower applied the word to the babies of that year. They were seventy or older. Others alive in 1914 were in their eighties and nineties, and some had reached a hundred. Many millions of that generation, it said, were still alive. A baby of 1914 can outlive a fifteen-year-old of 1914 by about fifteen years. The clock was the same clock.

From 1982 through October 22, 1995, the purpose line of Awake! said the magazine built confidence in the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away. That sentence was on the title page. The November 8, 1995 issue dropped both the year and the generation. The new line spoke of a new world about to replace the present wicked system.

The time limit comes off

The November 1, 1995 Watchtower took the lifespan out of the word. "This generation" was the contemporary people who see the sign of Christ's presence and do not mend their ways. The term, it said, was not a rule for measuring time. It named people of a period, with their characteristics. The people who saw 1914 no longer had to remain alive until the end.

Two groups that overlap

In 2008 the reference moved back from those wicked contemporaries to the anointed. The February 15, 2008 Watchtower said Jesus was referring to his disciples, who were soon to be anointed with holy spirit, not to the wicked.

The April 15, 2010 Watchtower put a length on that class again. The lives of the anointed who were on hand when the sign began to become evident in 1914 would overlap the lives of other anointed ones who would see the start of the great tribulation. The generation had a beginning, and it would have an end. The length could not be measured exactly. It was not to be excessively long.

The January 15, 2014 Watchtower, in "Let Your Kingdom Come"—But When?, named the two groups. The first was on hand in 1914, and anointed in or before that year, not merely alive then. The second was anointed while the first group was still on earth, not merely alive during those lives. Not every anointed person today is included. At least some of that generation, it said, will not pass away before the great tribulation. Those in the second group were already advancing in years.

In the September 15, 2015 JW Broadcasting program, Governing Body member David Splane explained the same two groups with Frederick W. Franz as the example of the first. The talk is "Close to the End of This System of Things." Franz was born in 1893 and died in 1992. He was alive in 1914. On that explanation the second group had to be anointed while such a person was still alive. The drawing below is ours. It follows that explanation. It is not the chart from the broadcast or from the 2014 article.

David H. Splane, Close to the End of This System of Things

JW Broadcasting, September 15, 2015. Watch on JW Stream.

Overlapping generation, anchor 1914

Group 1 is anointed in or before 1914. The bar ends in 1992 because that is Franz's death, the example Splane used, not because the publications name him as the last of the group. Group 2 starts while that bar is still running. The publications require the anointing to fall in those years. They do not date the start of the second bar to a year, so the drawing does not either. The faded end means the teaching gives that bar no closing year.

What the overlap still requires

Picture a bench that opened in 1914. Anyone in the second group had to sit down while someone from the first group was still on it. When the last person from that first group dies, no one else can sit down. The bench is still fastened to 1914.

The second group can be younger than the first. Someone anointed while Franz was still alive can live long after 1992. The first group cannot be restocked. It is anointed ones who were on hand in 1914. When the last of them dies, no one else can join the second group either, because the second group had to be anointed while the first was still on earth. Both bars are still hung on 1914.

Synopsis

Matthew 24:34 names the people Jesus was speaking to. Jerusalem fell about forty years later. The Watch Tower moved that sentence to 1914 and redefined it as those people died.

Sources

Matthew 11:16; 12:41–42; 23:36; 24:1–3, 34. Mark 9:1; 13:30. Luke 9:27; 21:20–24, 32. "This generation" is the people of Jesus' own time. Luke 21:20–24 names the siege of Jerusalem, and Luke 21:32 keeps the saying on that generation. The taste-death saying is a different verse. Mark 8:12 and Acts 13:36 are the ordinary-sense parallels cited in 1951.
Josephus, The Jewish War, book 6. The temple was burned in 70 CE. His death is placed in 30 or 33 CE, so the span is 70 − 30 = 40 years, or 70 − 33 = 37.
The Watchtower, July 1, 1951, p. 404. "This generation" taken in the ordinary sense, the people living at the given period, and applied from 1914.
Awake!, October 8, 1968. Youngsters of about fifteen in 1914 treated as the youngest of that generation, then nearly seventy. Only a few years, at most, remain.
Awake!, May 22, 1969, p. 15. Young people told they would never grow old in the present system. The generation that observed 1914 will not pass away until these things occur.
The Watchtower, May 15, 1984, p. 5. Babies of 1914 included, then seventy or older, with many millions of that generation still alive.
Awake! purpose line, 1982 through October 22, 1995: a new world "before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away." From November 8, 1995, the line no longer names 1914 or that generation.
The Watchtower, November 1, 1995. Generation as contemporary people who see the sign and do not mend their ways. Not a rule for measuring time.
The Watchtower, February 15, 2008, pp. 23–24. The saying applied to anointed disciples rather than to the wicked.
The Watchtower, April 15, 2010, p. 10, "Holy Spirit's Role in the Outworking of Jehovah's Purpose." Anointed lives that overlap, from 1914 to the start of the great tribulation.
The Watchtower, January 15, 2014, pp. 30–31, "Let Your Kingdom Come"—But When? First group anointed in or before 1914. Second group anointed while the first was still on earth.
David H. Splane, "Close to the End of This System of Things", JW Broadcasting, September 15, 2015. Splane explains the two groups with Frederick W. Franz (1893–1992) as the example of the first.
607 and 1914. Why 607 is required for a 1914 end, and why 587 reaches 1934 and 586 reaches 1935. Years from year A BCE to year B CE, with no year 0, are A + B − 1.

Author's prediction

What they do when a date lapses

This is a guess. It is not a change the organization has published. It reads the repairs above and asks what a new date would look like the next time the old one cannot be kept.

When a date fails, the organization does not drop the clock. It changes the piece that is in the way and keeps the rest. In 1914 the end year was the piece that had to stay. There is no year zero, so 606 BCE reaches 1915. The start was moved to 607, and 1914 stayed. The past was re-dated so the future date would still fall out of the count.

When the people of 1914 grew old, the year was the piece that stayed again. Who counted was renegotiated: old enough to understand 1914, then the babies of that year, then no lifespan at all, then two anointed groups whose lives overlap. Each step was published as a clearer reading. Each step left 1914 where it was.

The guess is that the next repair creates a new end year, because 607 is the piece that can no longer be kept. The dated fall of Jerusalem is 587 or 586. That case is 607 and 1914. From 587 the same 2,520 years land in 1934. From 586 they land in 1935. The stated reason will be that archaeology has settled the reigns, or that Jeremiah's seventy years have been read more carefully, so 607 is no longer required. "On hand when the sign began" will mean on hand in 1934 or 1935. The overlapping rule can stay. Only the anchor moves. A person born in 1934 is about ninety in the mid-2020s. Under the 1984 reading, babies of the anchor year still counted. Moved forward twenty years, that reading still has a living remnant, and the overlap runs past them.

The same bars, if the anchor moves to 1934

1914 is left on the scale so the slide is visible. Group 1 now begins in 1934. The bar ends in 2012 because that is 1992 plus twenty years, the same length as the Franz illustration. It is not a prediction about a particular death. From 586 the anchor would be 1935 instead of 1934. One year, the same move.