Personal Experience: Tom Cabeen


Are We Living in a Special Time?

by Tom Cabeen






Is Watchtower Chronology Sound?










When Did Jesus Begin to Reign?




















Are We Living in the “Last Days?”








What about the “signs” which Jesus’ predicted?























Entire contents ©2005 Thomas W. Cabeen



[Editor’s Note: Tom Cabeen contributed the above article and also provided the following background information which includes some of his own experiences relevant to the topic above. Below I quote from the additional information Tom provided with the article:]

Many years ago, in the late 1970s, Carl Olof Jonsson, a JW elder from Sweden, wrote a letter to the Watchtower Society in which he reported the results of some research he did in response to a challenge given to him by a man he contacted in the door-to-door work. The subject was chronology. My friend Raymond Franz, who had written the article on chronology in the WT book “Aid to Bible Understanding”, gave me a copy of the letter, which I still have today. Ray was on the Governing Body of JWs at the time, and he knew that I was struggling with some of the WT doctrines. I read the letter again and again. I could find no flaw in either the arguments or the conclusions. I ended up with serious doubts about WT chronology, which I understood to be foundational to much of the WT theology and heavily influential of their interpretation of other doctrinal matters.

That letter, more than any other factor, caused me to resign my position at the WT headquarters in Brooklyn. If the WTS was wrong about the end being very close, then my wife and I needed to get started on our family. We were both in our thirties at the time, and time was running out for us. We had postponed having children due to our belief (mine more than hers) that “the end” was very near. That belief was based heavily on my acceptance of WT chronology.

Attached [above] is an article I wrote several years ago. I wrote it partly to help JWs see the problems with WT chronology and the conclusions to which it leads, but I was also exploring the approach taken by JWs and other small sects with regard to the interpretation of Scripture. I have modified by views of some of the issues contained in the article, but it illustrates not only the problems with the WT approach, but those faced by any person or group claiming to base theological beliefs on the Protestant principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone).

I once thought that correct scholarship alone, or at least finding the correct approach, could produce accurate interpretations of Scripture. I finally concluded that there is simply not enough information in Scripture alone for anyone, on their own, to find the truth of Christianity in its fullness. There are just too many ways to understand words (literally, symbolically, figuratively, allegorically, etc.), which is why everyone who attempts to interpret Scripture ends up being influenced by others. Ultimately, they all end up just choosing the explanation that they like best. Christian truth, using this approach, finally boils down to personal judgment. I think it is fairly easy to see how this worked out in the case of Russell and his successors in the WT Society.

If Christianity is true, and if Christ is risen and actively in relationship with his disciples, I reasoned, there has to be some way to find truth that is independent of one’s personal resources. Ultimately, I ended up taking the historical approach. If Jesus was who he claimed to be, there should be a Church in continuous existence from the days of the apostles down to today. I began reading a number of the non-canonical writings of the earliest Christians, starting with those who knew the apostles personally or were contemporaries with them. I was impressed with the coherence and remarkable similarity of doctrine among writers that were separated by time and great geographical distance, during a period when there was neither the technology nor the capability for anything like the centralized publishing of teachings or instructions such as those given by WT leaders to JWs. Clearly (to me at least) these early Christian writers (most of them bishops or overseers) had been taught by persons who were committed to preserving what had been handed down to them, rather than in developing novel new interpretations.

[Some] know that I ended up accepting the Catholic faith. I am convinced that it is the same faith taught by the apostles, although developed and expanded since those days, of course. Earlier this year, I was ordained as a Deacon in that Church. My whole family converted, and we are very happy to be Catholics. We all believe in the truthfulness and authenticity of the Catholic faith.

5 thoughts on “Personal Experience: Tom Cabeen”

  1. “…Concerning the word “times” (from Aramaic ʽid·danʹ), as used in Daniel’s prophecy, lexicographers show it here to mean “years.”

    (See Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros, by L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, Leiden, 1958, p. 1106; A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 1980, p. 1105; Lexicon Linguae Aramaicae Veteris Testamenti, edited by E. Vogt, Rome, 1971, p. 124.)

    The duration of a year as so used is indicated to be 360 days, inasmuch as three and a half times are shown to equal “a thousand two hundred and sixty days” at Revelation 12:6, 14. (Compare also Re 11:2, 3.)

    “Seven times,” according to this count, would equal 2,520 days.

    That a specific number of days may be used in the Bible record to represent prophetically an equivalent number of years can be seen by reading the accounts at Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6.

    … applying the formula there expressed of “a day for a year” to the “seven times” of this prophecy … of Daniel chapter 4 …they represent 2,520 years….”

    1. You are right if you are saying that the Aramaic term “iddanun” can mean years. But you are wrong if you are saying that the word must mean years. In fact, you will notice that the book “Insight on the Scriptures” never shows you the quotation from the sources. It is not true that lexicographers have shown the word to mean years. If true, it should have been translated as years, not times. There are many good commentaries available that you can just link to, as you probably know. I would suggest you link here to see several of them for yourself:

      You will probably notice that most of the commentaries admit what those Watchtower references also admit, although the Watchtower doesn’t show the entire quote.

      After reading the three portions of online commentaries to follow, you will probably see that “years” is an interpretation, and might even be a very likely one. But some scholars see a matter of seasons or months to be just as likely or more so. In those places in the Bible where a year is intended to be the only possible meaning, the period of time is further identified with the number of months or days. The use in Daniel 4 does not include such a reference. Some would use this evidence to show a more general use of the term, or at least one that would not “force” a specific time period, perhaps to avoid unnecessary speculation about a fulfillment beyond Nebuchadnezzar himself.

      The period intended by “time” is very uncertain: from the use of the word in Judges 17:10 it has been inferred that “years” are intended. This is purely conjectural. It is more probable that the word is used to signify some definite period of time, which, as appears from the words “over him,” was in some way marked out by the heavenly bodies. The word “time” is used by Daniel in the same sense (Daniel 7:25). (Comp. Daniel 12:7, where, however, a different word is employed.)

      The word rendered “times” (עדנין ‛ı̂ddânı̂yn – singular, עדן ‛iddân) is an important word in the interpretation of Daniel. It is of the same class of words as the Hebrew יעד yâ‛ad – to point out, to appoint, to fix; and would refer properly to time considered as “appointed” or “designated;” then it may mean any stated or designated period, as a year. The idea is that of time considered as designated or fixed by periods, and the word may refer to any such period, however long or short – a day, a month, a year, or any other measure of duration. What measurement or portion is intended in any particular case must be determined from the connection in which the word is found. The word used here does not occur in the Hebrew scripture, and is found only in the book of Daniel, where it is uniformly rendered “time” and “times.”

      It is found only in the following places: Daniel 2:8, “that ye would gain the time;” Daniel 2:9, “till the time be changed;” Daniel 2:21, “and he changeth the times;” Daniel 3:5, Daniel 3:15, “at what time ye shall hear;” Daniel 4:16, Daniel 4:23, “and let seven times pass over him,” Daniel 4:25, Daniel 4:32, “seven times shall pass over him;” Daniel 7:12, “for a season and time;” Daniel 7:25, “until a time and times and the dividing of time.” In the place before us, so far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it might mean a day, a week, a month, or a year. The more common interpretation is what supposes that it was a year, and this will agree better with all the circumstances of the case than any other period.

      Seven times. The word ‘iddanun, “times,” is a matter of some difficulty; it means really “seasons” or “points” of time, as in Ecclesiastes 3:2, Targum, and Genesis 38:1, Targum Onkelos, “It came to pass at this time.” It is purely arbitrary to fix the meaning here as “years,” as is done by the Septuagint and by many commentators. Theodotiom keeps the indefiniteness of the original by rendering the word here καιροί. The Peshitta transfers the word. It may be” months” as suggested by Lenormant; it maybe “seasons,” in our usual sense of the word. Rendel Harris’s ‘Biblical Monuments,’ p. 73, says, “Summer and winter are the only seasons counted in Babylonia;” if so, seven ‘iddaneen would be nearly four years. From the fact that exposure to weather is the point of importance, Mr. Harris’s view is not impossible; but pathological reasons suggest “months” (see Excursus at the end of chapter).

    2. You quoted the following:



      You are probably aware that there is no such formula used in Daniel, so there is no reason to claim that it should be used except in those two places where the Bible said it should be used. There is a place in Daniel where every year represents seven years, but that is the only formula mentioned in Daniel. You probably know that the Watchtower doesn’t ever make use of this formula except here in Daniel 4. So it’s not really a formula even though there are plenty of other places where you might expect it. None of the places in the Bible that actually mention three and one-half times or 1260 days, or any similar period of 1290 days or 2,300 days are ever thought of as needing a formula. They are supposed to be just a day for a day.

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