Hi Candidlynuts: the thing that we need to remember is that the WTS position on the date 607 BC is arrived at through a unique INTERPRETATION of theirs, and NOT from a historical analysis of the text of scripture. In this respect the crucial text is Jer 25:11. JWs are only permitted to read this text through the tinted glasses provided by the FDS. However, when we actually read the text for ourselves, we discover that TWO facts [and not one as the WTS insists] are spoken of. Here is the text [NWT]:
1 "And all this land must become a devastated place, an object of astonishment"
2 "And these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years''
We are now in a position to ask the following questions:
1 How long was the land [of Judah] to be a devastated place? 70 years? Where does it say that? As you can plainly see, the time period for the devastation is left undetirmined! Yet when you read WTS literature, for ex from Legolas' post the Society ALWAYS, ALWAYS places the 70 years at the period of the devastaion of Judah. Never underestimate the vital importance to the WTS of this misapplication. Time and again they have fooled their own people, and by extension us, with this interpretation.
2 Then what does the 70 years apply to? Well, just read the text. As you can see the 70 years applies to the nationS [note the plural] who were to be in servitude to Babylon.The context is thus showing that more than just Judah was involved in the prophecy of Jer 25:11.
As you yourself have noted, the folly of the WTS is simply to add 70 to the year 537 BC to arrive at 607. Their "logic" goes something like this: We know that the desolation ended in 537, and we know from Jer 25:11, that the desolation was to last 70 years [ WRONG! WRONG!], so the desolation must then have begun in 607. See how, from a false premise, one gets a false conclusion?
CO Jonsson has sucesfully shown that the first of the nations to come into servitude to Babylon was Philistia, adjacent to Judah, when Ashkelon, one of their principal cities fell in 604 BC, in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, not in his 19th as the WTS contends.
Cheers