The deadly wound

The interpretation of the deadly wound of Revelation 13:3 changed several times between 1877 and 1988. In 1877, during Russell's period, the wounded head represented Papal Rome, and its wound was associated with the loss of papal political power in 1798, followed by a restoration of the papacy in a different form. In 1882, the explanation shifted toward the Protestant Reformation, identifying the wound with the attack on Papacy by reformers using God's Word. This interpretation was repeated in 1887, 1891, and 1902, with the healing associated with the reformers' failure to continue their reforms and their adoption of church-state arrangements. Under Rutherford, the Papacy interpretation continued in 1918 and was repeated in 1922. In 1930, the interpretation changed substantially: the wounded head was now Germany, representing the sixth head of Satan's political wild beast. The wound was identified with Germany's defeat in World War I, and its healing with Germany's postwar political, economic, and military recovery. This interpretation was repeated in 1931, 1939, 1940, and 1941. Under Knorr, the World War I interpretation continued in 1942 and 1962. In 1969, the explanation explicitly identified the seventh head, the Anglo-American World Power, as inflicting the death stroke upon the sixth head, the Roman World Power represented in modern times by Germany. In 1988, under Franz, the interpretation changed again: the wounded head was identified as the seventh head itself, the Anglo-American World Power. World War I remained the death stroke, but its significance was now the devastation suffered by Britain and the worldwide political system, followed by the system's recovery and the emergence of the United States as a dominant power. No separate verified statement explaining the deadly wound was found in the Governing Body period from 1992 through 2000.