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Predictions and dates · Claim record

Rutherford's Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1920) said 'we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel from the condition of death' and 'we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old', and derived the book's title from that date.

Claim ID claim-predictions-1920-millions-1925-resurrectionConcerns 1920Explicit statement
Explicit statement · 1920 Verified

Rutherford's Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1920) said 'we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel from the condition of death' and 'we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old', and derived the book's title from that date. Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1920Millions Now Living Will Never Die, 1920

The organisation’s position or later explanation: Proclaimers p.78 quotes the sentence and says 'The year 1925 came and went. Some abandoned their hope.'; Yearbook 1975 p.146: 'The faithful men of old times... had not been resurrected'.

Show the evidence (2 sources)
Primary JW publication Verified

Millions Now Living Will Never Die, “The Jubilee / Earthly Rulers sections”

1920 · pp.88-90 · J. F. Rutherford · International Bible Students Association

“we may expect 1925 to witness the return of these faithful men of Israel from the condition of death, being resurrected and fully restored to perfect humanity ... Therefore we may confidently expect that 1925 will mark the return of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the faithful prophets of old”

Seventy jubilees of fifty years from 1575 B.C. are said to end 'in the fall of the year 1925, at which time the type ends and the great antitype must begin'.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Both scans' OCR opened; running headers '88', '90' visible around the passage.

Scan provenance. Internet Archive (daveignatius) scan; also Library of Congress Harry Houdini Collection copy at https://archive.org/details/millionsnowlivin00ruth. Public domain.

Corroborated by. src-jv-1993-00-p78-1925

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-mnl-1920-00-p88-90-1925

Primary JW publication Verified

Millions Now Living Will Never Die, “Concluding argument”

1920 · p.97 · J. F. Rutherford · International Bible Students Association

“that 1925 shall mark the resurrection of the faithful worthies of old and the beginning of reconstruction, it is reasonable to conclude that millions of people now on the earth will be still on the earth in 1925. Then ... we must reach the positive and indisputable conclusion that millions now living will never die.”

The book's title claim is explicitly derived from the 1925 expectation.

Scan of original

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Wording confirmed in scan OCR; page 97 is the standard citation (not read from a header). Page 97 is confirmed by the following "98" page header in the scan.

Scan provenance. Internet Archive (daveignatius); public domain.

Corroborated by. src-mnl-1920-00-p88-90-1925

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-mnl-1920-00-p97-millions

Claim page

A direct link to this claim is https://jwtruth.org/evidence/claim-predictions-1920-millions-1925-resurrection/. Every source above opens the original document or the best available copy. If you believe the wording, date or context is wrong, report an error.