The Reluctant Apostate: Leaving Jehovah's Witnesses Comes at a Price

by Lloyd Evans

Then I reached page 141, which discussed Daniel 7:25. In this verse, Daniel foresaw a wild beast (or world power) continually harassing the “holy ones” of the “supreme one.” Page 142 declared these holy ones to be, in essence, the forerunners to Jehovah’s Witnesses (or Bible Students) who were active around the time of 1914, which is the year in which Witnesses believe Christ became king in heaven and hurled Satan down to exile on earth. The book went on to claim that the “time, times and half a time” (three and a half years) in which the holy ones were “given into the hand” of the beast referred to an exact period corresponding with World War I, during which the Bible Students preached despite being persecuted by the combined nations of Britain and America (represented by the beast). However, on page 143, the book insisted that this three-and-a-half-year period commenced in December 1914, more than four months after World War I began on July 28, 1914, and two months after Christ supposedly began his Kingdom rule on the 4th or 5th of October the same year.[40] Why the delay? It felt like the writers were trying to make dates in history fit with scripture.[41] It was at this point that something very strange happened. I found myself consciously disagreeing with Watchtower’s explanation of something. This probably sounds like an unremarkable, even healthy thing to you, the reader. But to me, as a Witness raised in the faith who took it all extremely seriously, it felt very w...