On the ref... it's 1972 Awake (not even considered fit for the WT) and it's 5/8 and pages 27/28 It has a LOT of archealogical refs, but when you actually read it properly, they are not substantiated. Here are a couple of quotes...
"SECULAR historians usually give the year 586 B.C.E. as the correct date for the desolation of Jerusalem. Why, then, do Jehovah’s Christian witnesses speak of this event as occurring in 607 B.C.E.? It is because of confidence in what the Bible says about the duration of Jerusalem’s lying desolate"
"Various attempts to harmonize the date 586 B.C.E. with what the Bible says are therefore unsatisfactory. None of such attempts fit the Bible’s testimony that Jerusalem and Judah lay desolate for seventy years"
Opposed to Ptolemy’s Canon and "VAT 4956" stands the unanimous testimony of Jeremiah, Zechariah, Daniel and the writer of 2 Chronicles, that Judah and Jerusalem lay desolate for seventy years. Thousands of ancient manuscripts of these writings contain the identical testimony. So, because of the problems inherent in Ptolemy’s Canon and "VAT 4956," it takes more faith to accept them than it does to accept the Bible’s testimony, which would place the desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 607 B.C.E.
Underlining mine.
From what I understand of this, it means that 607 must be correct otherwise it throws out the whole of the rest of the prophecy... derrrr.
