607 bce or 587 bce (page 2)

KW13

celebrated WT scholars

You and the guy above.

no no sorry scholar. no hard feelings.

glitter

Arguments for 587 BCE are scripturally flawed, causing four Bible prophecies to fail.

Golly.

Hellrider

Arguments for 587 BCE are scripturally flawed, causing four Bible prophecies to fail.

That`s what jws wants everyone to believe, of course, that this is a case of the Bible vs. secular history. And that suckss jws in doubt right back in. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Secular history is no threat to the "70 years", it is only a matter of determining what these 70 years actually were. JWs want them to be for Israel (because then they can count back from 537 and arrive at 607). But the Bible is in conflict with the JW-view, because the Bible says 70 years for Babylon. And there goes the 607-date, their wacko interpretation of the 2520 days, 1914 and the rest of that nutcase religion. Congrats, celebrated scholar jw.

Narkissos

Excellent material and well done for presenting this material as it certainly vindicates the sacred date of 607 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem rather than the demonic date of 585 or 587 BCE promoted by the Devil, higher critics and apostates. I will certainly use this material along with my other files on chronology to uphold and defend our illustrious Bible chronology developed by the celebrated WT scholars using God's Word and Holy Spirit.

Perfect summary of what your "scholarship" is really about.

Honesty

So, if 607 B.C. is correct for Jerusalem's fall and the destruction of the first temple that means Jesus returned in 1914 according to the celebrated WT scholars.

If that is accurate knowledge then why do you Jehovah's Witnesses still commemorate Jesus' death with a celebration on Nisan 14 if He has already returned when the Bibe teaches differently on the subject?

At 1 Cor 11:26 the Bible says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

scholar

Narkissos

Exactly, biblical chronology is useless without biblical history which comes alive by means of biblical theology and prophecy all interwined as God's Revealed Word of Truth which apostates have nothing to offer as a substite but lies, trickery and empty words.

scholar JW

parakeet

"Arguments for 587 BCE are scripturally flawed, causing four Bible prophecies to fail."
And arguments for 607 BCE are historically flawed. To sway anyone to your opinion, you must reconcile the biblical AND the archeaological evidence. Trying to convince someone solely from your interpretation of biblical scripture is like trying to bake a cake using instructions from a motorcycle maintenance manual. Open your eyes! Examine ALL the evidence, not just the WTS version, keep an OPEN mind, then maybe you can make a rational conclusion.

moomanchu

Acts 1:6,7

Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?

It is not for you to know the times or dates the father has set by his own authority.

It is not for you, Not even the celebrated watchtower scholars to know.

Just stop! you don't know and your not supposed to know, now find something constructive to do.

AlanF

One of the supposed prophecies that the author of the website worries about is found in Ezekiel 29:12. The website explains:

There is a third prophecy that totally and utterly fails in the 587-centered chronology of Christendom and the apostates.
One year before Jerusalem was destroyed, Jehovah said through the prophet Ezekiel, "I will make the land of Egypt a desolate waste in the midst of desolated lands; and its own cities will become a desolate waste in the very midst of devastated cities for forty years; and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations" -- Ezekiel 29:12
Yes, Egypt was to become a "desolate waste" with "devastated cities", and this would last for "forty years".
. . .
As you can see from our chart, in the 607-based chronology, Ezekiel makes his prophecy in 590 BCE, and Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year is two years later in 588 BCE when he attacks Egypt. We can assume the Nebuchadnezzar Inscription is correct on this point, because it agrees with our Biblical chronology. So Egypt's 40-year desolation begins in that year.
Counting 40 years hence, we come to the year 548 BCE as the end of Egypt's desolation, when Jehovah would "bring back the captive group of the Egyptians" for them to become a "lowly kingdom". Indeed, secular chronology also records that the last Babylonian King Nabonidus held an alliance against the Persians with Amasis II, the King of Egypt, in addition to the Lydian Empire. So far from being a competing world power, Egypt is now a "lowly Kingdom" just as the Bible said, resorting to military alliances with its previous opponent.
We can see from the chart that the Bible chronology provided more than enough time for all of these events. Egypt has 40 full years of desolation, with more than enough time afterwards to be repatriated and to forge an alliance with Babylon as the secular records claim.

There many problems with taking Ezekiel literally here. For one thing, there is very good secular evidence that Egypt was continuously occupied during Nebuchadnezzar's reign and all the way down through the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. According to Herodotus and Plato, it engaged in trade with other nations and in wars. It left continuous records of its normal activities, such as via the stelae that record the births and deaths of the sacred Apis bulls, which are among the best evidences of Egyptian chronology. A complete desolation of Egypt for 40 years would necessarily have left a 40-year gap, and there is no such gap in the history.

For example, Nicolas Grimal, writing in A History of Ancient Egypt (Translated by Ian Shaw, Blackwell Publishers, 1992, p. 361) speaks of the continuity of Egyptian history during the Saite period:

When [Necho II] died in 595 BC he left behind a son and three daughters. His son, who ruled under the name of Neferibre Psammetichus II, enjoyed only a short reign before dying in 589 BC, but in that brief period he was able to demonstrate sufficient dynamism to justify the parallels between his names and titles and those of his grandfather, Psammetichus I. The brevity of his reign, however, means that no real comparison can be made between his internal policy and that of his namesake. He made sure that Ankhnesneferibre (`Neferibre lives for her'), his daughter by Queen Takhut, was adopted by the Divine Adoratrice Nitocris, eventually succeeding her in 584 BC. Ankhnesneferibre managed to hold this office until the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525 BC, thus perpetuating the Saite administration of Thebes; the splendour of this period can be appreciated at the magnificent tombs of the Stewards of Amun, Shoshenq son of Harsiese ([Theban Tomb] 27) and Padineith ([Theban Tomb] 197), in the el-Asasif region.

Then there is the problem of what to do with all those Egyptians. Egypt was a very populous nation, being able to host upward of a couple of million Israelite slaves a thousand years earlier, according to Watchtower calculations. By the time of the 6th century B.C, Egypt certainly must have still had a million or more inhabitants. Just where would these people have been taken captive to? It simply makes no sense. This is especially true in view of the fact that king Croesus of Egypt, Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt, king Nabonidus of Babylon, and the Spartans of Greece allied together to fight against Cyrus the Persian sometime between Cyrus' ascension to the kingship in 559 B.C. and the death of Croesus in 547 B.C.

Note how the JW-apologist website dates the "40-year desolation of Egypt" in the above quotation: 588 to 548 B.C. According to this claim, Egypt was desolate in 548 B.C. -- yet just a year later its king, Pharaoh Amasis was back in power along with a million or more subjects, and powerful enough that long-established power such as Babylon, Greece and Lydia would ally with it. Egypt was no mere "lowly kingdom".

Accepted secular dating, which is all but unchallenged by the Watchtower Society, puts the 44 year reign of Pharaoh Amasis from 570-526 B.C. Yet the author of the pro-607 website would have readers believe that Amasis defeated his predecessor Pharaoh Apries (Hophra; 589-570) in a battle and long political compaign, and then began to reign in 570 B.C., smack in the middle of the desolation of Egypt!

The above apparently puts Bible believers in a bind. But is it really a bind? Not if one takes the Bible less than literally. And there is absolute proof that sometimes, the Bible cannot be taken literally.

For example, Jesus is supposed to be the greatest of all prophets, and so every word that he uttered in prophecy ought to come true. Yet one of his prophecies was demonstrably false -- if taken literally. In Matthew 24:1, 2 Jesus clearly tells his disciples of the temple and its surroundings, "by no means will a stone be left here upon a stone and not be thrown down." Yet a substantial piece of the wall of the temple complex remains standing today. It's known as "the Wailing Wall", or the Western Wall (cf. the Wikpedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wailing_Wall ). There is no way around it: if Jesus' words are taken literally, then he was a false prophet. The only alternative is to interpret Jesus' words as figurative, or as hyperbole. And the words of the greatest prophet of all must be taken as figurative or hyperbolic, then it follows that the words of lesser prophets such as Ezekiel must also be taken that way. Thus, there is no problem with interpreting Ezekiel's "prophecy" of Ezek. 29:12 as figurative or as hyperbole. Otherwise it is simply false, and irrelevant to any discussion of real history.

Some years ago, I found an example of how some Bible believing Christians reconcile the above problems. Unfortunately, the website ( http://www.trustthebible.com/prophecy.htm ) is defunct, but here is what it said:

Note: In Ezekiel 29 especially verses 2, 13, 19-20 and Jeremiah 43:10-13 God says he will give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar. I've read critics who say Nebuchadnezzar never conquered Egypt. However, a word search for Nebuchadnezzar via the Blue Letter Bible project website revealed quite an interesting writeup in Easton's Bible Dictionary. It seems there is a clay tablet, which says Nebuchadnezzar went to Egypt to make war in his 37th year. It also mentions Amasis' Egypt's king. in his commentary on Ezekiel, A. R. Faussett says Nebuchadnezzar did conquer Egypt. How so? Faussett thought he may have conquered Egypt in one or two ways. 1st) According to his commentary on Jeremiah 43:13 there is a tradition, among the Arabs, that Egypt was conquered by Nebuchadnezzar. There is a reference to Josephus, Antiquities, 10.9,7. 2nd) Faussett believed Nebuchadnezzar was responsible for engineering Amasis' overthrow of Pharaoh Apries/ Hophra. The new Pharaoh Amasis owed his benefactor or Master Nebuchadnezzar, so he paid him tribute. In this way, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt and was rewarded. This is in The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary, specifically "The Book Of The Prophet Ezekiel" Commentary by A. R. Faussett. Click on chapter 29.

A. R. Faussett is a fairly well-known and respected Bible commentator, and so his comments ought to have some weight among Bible believers.

A lot more could be written about the Ezekiel prophecy about Egypt, but the above should suffice to give a flavor for the many problems that the JW author of the website has simply missed, or some cases, deliberately ignored. Scholars have been well aware of the problems of this prophecy for centuries, and have shown many ways to get around the obvious fact that, if taken literally, the prophecy failed. Bible believers who respect solid historiography have no problem with any of this.

AlanF

Alwayshere

JW, EVERYONE HAS BEEN THROUGH THIS 607 AND 587 SO MANY TIMES. WE ALL KNOW THE WATCHTOWER SOCIETY IS FULL OF CHIT

607 bce or 587 bce

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