Celebrated WT scholars? :)

by Augustin 184 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Jeffro

  (deleted)
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  Jeffro

  There is sufficient evidence for 607 because there is secular evidence for 539 and 537 and 607 is a date derived from biblical sources in harmony with contemporary secular evidence.

  Actually, no there isn't secular evidence for your supposed 537 date, as the evidence actually points to 538. Also, the bible squarely ends the 70 years of Jeremiah 25:12 in 539, so you are doubly wrong. You know very well that 607 is not in harmony with any contemporary secular evidence at all. The only thing 607 is based on is an interpretation, and a flawed one at that.

  There is no biblical evidence for 586 or 587 because of a twenty year gap and the negation of the seventy years by scholars in order to squeeze in 586 or 587. However, there is secular evidence for these competing dates according to current modes of interpretation but there is also much variation in the data so the secular evidence is a 'dog's breakfast' at the moment.

  I have previously demonstrated how the bible account is completely compatible with 587, but you have chosen to be wilfully ignorant. You attempt to employ an error in logic with the 'twenty year gap' problem, which in actuality is only caused by the Society's flawed interpretation, and otherwise is completely non-existant. The only 'problem' with the secular evidence is that it disproves your 607 dogma. 'dog's breakfast': Another 'scholar' cliché.

  Our chronology is simple and in complete harmony with Jeremiah, his prophetic statements and his overall theology. Your view is incompatible with Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra and Zechariah. If the experts cannot determine 586 or 587 then that means that the methodology is faulty and a fresh approach should be undertaken just as celebrated WT scholars have dolne by using an event-based chronology rather than a regnal- based chronology.

  You can repeat over and over again that your chronology is in harmony with Jeremiah, but the simple and demonstrable fact is that it is not. Jeremiah indicated to exiles several years prior to Jerusalem's destruction that the 70 years had already begun. Jeremiah stated that the 70 years were explicitly of all of the nations in the region being subject to Babylon. Ezra indicates that the Jews were servants to Babylon only "until the royalty of Persia began to reign". Daniel explicitly indicates that Babylon's days had been numbered and that its king was being called to account. Zechariah identifies a 70-year period which is still ongoing in his time, which is a separate period to Jeremiah's 70 years; specifically it is a period during which the temple - still incomplete in 519 - was being 'denounced'. The bible is completely irreconcilable with the Society's interpretation.
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  ozziepost

  Without having to delve into your vast postings of the past would you please supply me with your surname? I believe your first name is Neil. Thank you!

  Ian:

  Don't hold your breath waiting! This cat and mouse stuff has been goiing on these past two years or more. As someone else has aptly stated, scholar tends to be one-dimensional on the 607 argument and nothing much else.

  Now that the BA Deakin and MA Sydney have been used as some kind of imprimator I must point out that downunder an Arts degree is not viewed as a very scholarly degree. In the field of theology and religigious studies, it seems that scholar could have (or needs to) enrol in some more applicable courses.

  Still, when scholar and I meet up in the library at Moore Theological College, we might be able to gain a clearer insight.

  I would be most happy to invite his congregation's elders to join in the discussion.

  Cheers, Ozzie
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  slimboyfat

  Leolaia wrote:
  

  I once did linguistic study of the literary dependence between the Appendix and Jonsson, showing how the former was a concealed response of the latter.

  
  

  Have you made this work available for others to read?

  Slim
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  Forscher

  You hang on before you make an ass of yourself. Read Furli's website and you will informed about his scholarship, qualifications etc.

  
  I am not the one head down that road Scholar. Funny you mentioned his site but didn't provide a link to it. While I was doing my research on Mr. Furuli I googled him, yahooed him, Jeevesed him, and just about everything else I could do to find that site with no luck. I even went on Oslo university's web site and searched through the Norwegian pages there for anything on the man. All with no luck. I did find an Italian website with a letter written in 2003 By the head of the department outlining his credentials. It can be found here.
  http://www.testimonidigeova.net/Furuli_TNM.htm
  So I think I am reasonably informed as to Mr. Furuli's qualifications. He is well qualified to translate the documents, but that still doesn't mean he is qualified to evaluate Jonsson either. What I would have to go with is what those who are qualified to evaluate Jonsson's work and Furuli's critique say about them. You have not presented any evidence as far as I know that you have the academic qualifications to do so. At least I admit that my B.S. does not put me in that elite crowd!
  If you have opinions by qualified scholars whose credentials I can verify to bring to the table, I am sure that we will all be willing to see them.
  Forscher
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  outoftheorg

  Scholar, even if these celebrated scholars you refer to, are having their efforts printed in the wbts publications. If their identity is not revealed, they can not be refered to as "celebrated" scholars.

  If they do not put their works up for the world to see and open them for criticism and comments, they are not going to be looked upon as scholars either.

  A true scholar puts his or her works up for criticism and expects to be made aware of subtle or obvious mistakes. They recognize these and correct them as they see needed.

  Any scholar that hides his or her identity is not worth the time of others to examine and possibly learn from that scholar. Also the nameless scholar never benifits from the efforts of others because they can not and will not fit into the same world as true celebrated scholars.

  The so called scholar that hides his or her identity is better identified as a story teller. Using various publications of little or no worth and trying to use them to tell a story using other stories as their source.

  They fit in well with political groups and religious groups. Not the source I would want for or live my life according to their teachings.

  Outoftheorg
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  AlanF

  scholar pretendus goatus buggerus wrote:

  : It appears that you have stumbled over the expression 'celebrated WT scholars'

  "Stumbled"? A typically meaningless Watchtowerish expression.

  : by denyiong the impossibility of their existence

  Yet again you demonstrate such complete stupidity that you cannot understand what I wrote. Here, let me number the points:

  (1) A "Watchtower scholar" is a man who has sufficient knowledge, training and experience to qualify in some sense as a "worldly" scholar, and who has been specially appointed by the Watchtower Society to do "scholarly" work.

  (1) There once were a handful of men who could be termed "Watchtower scholars".

  (2) These men are all dead. They included Fred Franz and John Albu.

  (3) There are no men today who qualify as "Watchtower scholars".

  (4) Since there are no "Watchtower scholars", there are no "celebrated Watchtower scholars".

  (5) Even if there were alive today men who qualified as "Watchtower scholars", they cannot be called "celebrated Watchtower scholars" because no one can celebrate anonymous men.

  DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

  Of course not.

  : just as you have stumbled over the existence of the NWT Commitee.

  "Stumbled". LOL!

  The NWT committee members are all known today. Only one qualified in any sense as a "Watchtower scholar", Fred Franz. Now, Franz was indeed celebrated within the JW community as a "JW scholar", but he was certainly not known for his being a NWT committee member, because that knowledge did not become publicly known until the 1980s.

  : However, the research and writings of the above has long been published in the publications of the Society

  So what? Anonymous authors, no matter their qualifications, cannot be, by definition, "celebrated". One can at best "celebrate" the information they write.

  : and the continuing policy of anonymity ensures that the integrity of the above is preserved.

  Actually the policy of anonymity ensures that the lack of integrity of Watchtower Writers is hidden under the cloak of anonymity. These men have made so many gross errors of scholarship, and engaged in such massive deception, that they would be laughed at if their names were made public. A great deal of what they write wouldn't pass muster in a beginning junior writing class.

  : I can help you no further except to say that Holy Spirit plays a most important part but as you are an atheist such a fact would be nonsensical to you.

  Actually, I'm an agnostic. But I don't think you can understand the distinction.

  So you're actually saying that Holy Spirit has guided what these dishonest men have written. Well then, I guess that either the Holy Spirit is extremely dishonest, or your claim is false.

  How could an honest Holy Spirit have done the following? Claimed in the footnote on page 171 of the 1944 book The Kingdom Is At Hand that the date for Jerusalem's destruction was changed from 606 to 607 B.C. in the 1943 book The Truth Shall Make You Free, when all of the earlier book's discussions of that date put it at 606?

  I won't hold my breath waiting for your answer, since you have quite a number of my challenges to your lies waiting for an answer.

  : The writing of the Appendix is more than slick it is brilliant but is no more decptive as you claim than the mush paraded as scholarship in the Jonsson hypothesis.

  The fact that the Appendix deliberately leaves out much critical information proves that it is deceptive. The way in which it marshalls the selected evidence to deceive the reader is brilliantly slick.

  When are you going to admit that you've been caught with your pants down vis a vis my posts 4466 and 4468?

  When are you going to admit that Josephus blows away the Society's claim about 537 B.C.?

  When are you going to back up your claim that there is secular evidence for 537 B.C. with actual source references?

  Face it, scholar pretendus: You're much better at buggering goats than at making arguments about ancient chronology.

  AlanF
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  Leolaia

  (5) Even if there were alive today men who qualified as "Watchtower scholars", they cannot be called "celebrated Watchtower scholars" because no one can celebrate anonymous men.

  I am reminded tho of the following scripture:

  "For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you" (Acts 17:23).

  Since the Society terms what pseudo-scholar is doing as "creature worship", and since pseudo-scholar ebuliantly celebrates his anonymous Watchtower "scholars" at every chance he gets, my mind's eye pictures Neil knealing at the altar inscribed "TO AN UNKNOWN SCHOLAR" with his offerings of insipid praise...
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  scholar

  Leolaia

  7261

  It is just as well Furuli wrote that piece and not that stupid, blithering pseudo- scholar. For this reason Furuli is scholar -emeritus whereas pseudo-scholar is a nobody.

  scholar JW
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  971

  There is evidence for the 537 BCE but you choose to ignore it for have you not heard of Ezra and the Cyrus Cylinder? Does not such evidence permit a calculation of the precise year of the return of the Exiles lor does one just guess a year as is the want of apostates. The date of 538 is simply impossible because it does not give sufficient time for the rertuirn unless the Jews travelled by Qantas.

  There is no way exegetically to reason that according to Jeremiah 25:12, the seventy years ended in 539 BCE. Have you bothered to check the matter with leading commentaries? The date of 607 is clearly based upon secular evidence because there is evidence for 539, 537 BCE and one could quite properly utilize current whimsical Neo-Babylonioan chronology with the proviso that such a paradigm falls short of twenty years and thus combined with the application of the seventy years provide a correction for the existing data leading to the corrected date of 607 BCE. Nice and easy.....

  The twenty year gap is real because there are two competing methodologies for the Fall and there is a difference of twenty years, that is a fact. WT chronology compared with secular chronology yields a twenty year difference. That is a fact. But scholar, clever as he is can use that error as an advantage to support 607 BCE because scholar in his genius recognized that the error occurs because the seventy years is noty factored into the computation. Hence, using the Neo-Babylonian chronology as constructed by the Jonsson hypothesis simply needs fine tuning or correction because the stupid Babylonians ignored the seventy years. So, inserting the seventy years corrects the pagan Babylylonian by some twenty years with a precise date of 607 for the Fall and the 18th regnal year of Neb uchadnezzer. Scholar is brilliant!

  Our chronology is based upon a careful understandin g of the theology and history of Jeremiah which is avoided and trivialized by apostates and higher critics. Besides, the said scholar has paid careful attention to leading commentaries on Jeremiah and is fully aware of the issues raised. Have you bothered to consult any commentary on Jeremiah or are you relying relying on your own opinion which is rather foolish and stupid. Jeremiah nowhere indicated that the seventy years had begun prior to the actual Fall of Jerusalem for what Jeremiah simply prophesied that the seventy years would be experienced even when writing to earlier exiles. Jeremiah proves this is the case because the seventy hyears was not just some exile but was a period of desolation of the land and that did not occur until the last year of Zedekiah's reign.

  During that period of seventy yhears of exile, servitude and desolation would also see other natiolns come under the domination of Babylon as Jeremiah prophesied. So What?

  Ezra clearly states that the seventy years would last until the royalty of Persia began to reign and this was not 539 because in that very same context Ezra explained the matter to the first year of Cyrus when he issued that famous decree which led to imminent ending of that seventy years in 537 BCE. You have been hoodwinked by apostate argument. Daniel and Zechariah both treated the seventy years as a finite historical period which ended with the Return of the Jewry in 537 BCE and other so-called explanations are simply fallacious, disagreeing with both Jeremiah and Ezra.

  scholar JW