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Doctrine changes · Claim record

In The Watchtower of 15 March 2015 the organisation stopped assigning prophetic “antitypes” except where the Bible itself does so, conceding that “Humans cannot know which Bible accounts are shadows of things to come and which are not.”

Claim ID claim-doctrine-chg-antitypes-2015Concerns 15 March 2015Organisation's explanation
Organisation's explanation · 15 March 2015 Verified

In The Watchtower of 15 March 2015 the organisation stopped assigning prophetic “antitypes” except where the Bible itself does so, conceding that “Humans cannot know which Bible accounts are shadows of things to come and which are not.” The Watchtower, 15 March 2015

The organisation’s position or later explanation: The organisation presents this as caution rather than correction and does not list which earlier applications are now withdrawn.

Show the evidence (1 source)
Primary JW publication Verified

The Watchtower, “Questions From Readers”

15 March 2015 · pp.17-18 · pars. 4, 9 · Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society

“Many years ago, our publications stated that such faithful men and women as Deborah, Elihu, Jephthah, Job, Rahab, and Rebekah, as well as many others, were really types, or shadows, of either the anointed or the “great crowd.” … The clearest course is this: Where the Scriptures teach that an individual, an event, or an object is typical of something else, we accept it as such. Otherwise, we ought to be reluctant to assign an antitypical application to a certain person or account if there is no specific Scriptural basis for doing so.”

The answer explains why the publications had stopped assigning prophetic “antitypes”, conceding that “Humans cannot know which Bible accounts are shadows of things to come and which are not.”

Official source

Provenance and verification note

Confidence note. Document opened on wol.jw.org on 19 September 2026; the wording was read in full and the page number taken from the library's own page markers.

Accessed. 19 September 2026 · Source ID. src-chg-d-w-2015-0315-qfr-types

Claim page

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