Sorry, another 607 question? I'm confused.

by lost_light06 68 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Jeffro

  It is you that doesn't get it! It is not your business to decide what methodology the celebrated WT scholars should employ. It is their business and they have decided that 539 BCE is a adequate pivotal date for the reconstruction of OT chronology. If you prefer another date then you go with that and reap the futility of doing so. Certainly, 539 is a derived date but so are all dates derived from established data so you are merely stating the obvious. There is no evidence that Freedman was misquoted by the writers of the Appendix as this was a claim made by the apostate Jonsson which in fact was quite mistaken and erroneous. The very fact that Freedman admitted that there was some controversy about 586 or 587 proves that such methodology is faulty and is unreliable. It would have been preferable if scholars followed the lead of the celebrated and very wise WT scholars.

  The hypocrisy does not lay in the fact that 539 is a derived date, but in the way the Society elsewhere rejects the exact same methods by which 539 is derived. Freedman is quite specific that the only doubt is whether it 586 or 587, and there is no allowance for the larger variance suggested by the Society. That is hardly admitting to a 'controversy proving faulty and unreliable methods'. Further, Freedman notes that the exact dates are known for the events in 597.
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  Jeffro

  Your last few posts have explained nothing as I am quite familiar with the line of argument used by apostates in order to uphold their secular chronology. As I have nicely explained you favour a regnal based approch which ignores the biblical 'seventy years' wheras the celebrated WT scholars favour an event based approach which fully utilizes the biblical 'seventy years' and thus fine tunes regnal based chronology eliminating the problematic twenty year gap between sacred chronology and demonic secular chronology.

  Again 'scholar' uses the ad hominem ill-defined term 'apostates' to identify anyone who points out the secular evidence that disproves the Society's dogma. 'scholar' also makes the delusional claim that the 'twenty-year gap' problem is somehow a problem of anyone's but the Society. Elsewhere scholar has claimed that 539 and 537 are based on secular dates (though 537 is completely speculative in Society publications, and not at all supported by any secular evidence), but here he says that such secular chronology is demonic. The Society's pivotal date is therefore invalid.

  Apostates are experts when it comes to the power of the mind, the power of imagination ov er reality because they are victims of their own deceit and treachery having found no true religion to replace the belief system that they abandoned.

  Another tiresome ad hominem reference... 'scholar' needs to learn the defintion of 'apostate' beyond the narrow and incorrect use applied by his religious leaders. Any person who leaves another religion to become a JW is equally an apostate, looking in vain to find a "true religion to replace the belief system that they abandoned".
• 

  ozziepost

  Any person who leaves another religion to become a JW is equally an apostate

  Exactly! Most dubs are actually apostates, yet find nothing dishonourable in that state.

  Perhaps scholar should correctly refer to himself as "the apostate scholar" ?
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  toreador

  Apostate Scholar! Thats a good one and true. Jethro what "simple diagram" did you lay out for Scholar?

  Tor
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  Jeffro

  Toreador:

  Apostate Scholar! Thats a good one and true. Jethro what "simple diagram" did you lay out for Scholar?

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/115181/2019159/post.ashx#2019159

  Who is Jethro??
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  toreador

  Oops, sorry Jeffro.

  Thanks for the link.

  Tor
• 

  Hellrider

  Hey Scholar, try this one on for size:

  Fact: Your 537-date (correct or not, we will leave that side for a second, although I know also this date is disputable, as Jeffro has showned), which is crucial to your "chronology" is derived from secular chronology in the following way:

  1) Nebuchadnezzars 37th year was fixed by an astronomical tablet to have been in 568/567. The Bible (!!!) says that Nebuchadnezzar ruled for 43 years. Correct? This means that Nebuchadnezzar started his reign in 605 BC, whether you like that or not. Now, you can of course try to argue against that, by claiming that the astronomical tablets are wrong/tampered with/incomplete or whatever, but in that case, you won`t get to 539 and 537. This is because it is secular chronology that gets you from Nebuchadnezzars reign (which ended in 562) to 539, as secular chronology sets the reigns of the kings:

  Amel-Marduk 562-560 BC

  Nergal-Sharezer 560-556 BC

  Labashi-Marduk 556 BC

  Nabonidus 556-539 BC

  ...landing us nicely in 539 BC. Now, the question is: Which of the lengths of the kings of these reigns is it you want to change? Changing either one of them takes you away from 539, not closer to it! So no, you can`t change any of the reigns of the kings after Nebuchadnezzar, at least not without also changing Nebuchadnezzars reign (which is what the WTS wants to do, but they don`t realise that they then have to change the entire chronology that got them to 539 and 537 in the first place). You can of course claim that the astronomical tablet that set the date of Nebuchadnezzars 37th year to be in 568/67 to be 20 years off! Move Nebuchadnezzars reign 20 years back in time. By doing that, you have (the infamous) 20 missing years, the 20 years of a hypothetical king noone has heard of, or some terrible errors in the length of reigns of the kings following Nebuchadnezzar. Now, this would be pretty miracolous in the first place: That the entire academic community would both have missed an entire king, or the length of reigns of one or several kings, and misplaced Nebuchadnezzars reign by 20 years. You can of course claim that this is the case (even though it isn`t), but guess what: Then your "pivotal date" of 539 and 537 are just guessing! You will no longer have any secular backing for your theories! You cannot use the same chronology to both establish AND dismiss a date! Or in other words: You can`t use one chronology to establish a date, and then dismiss that entire chronology because you want to establish another date (within the same timespan) that is in conflict with the (first) chronology! WTF!? Are you RETARDED!?!?! Don`t you see that? What the hell is wrong with you? Even a 12-yearold should be able to see that!
• 

  Jeffro

  Hellrider:

  Unfortunately, what you have said won't have much affect on 'scholar', because facts don't matter much to him. He is a Watchtower Society lackey, and bases 537 on what he has been spoonfed:

  *** it-1 p. 453 Chronology ***
  A Babylonian clay tablet is helpful for connecting Babylonian chronology with Biblical chronology. This tablet contains the following astronomical information for the seventh year of Cambyses II son of Cyrus II: "Year 7, Tammuz, night of the 14th, 1 2/3 double hours [three hours and twenty minutes] after night came, a lunar eclipse; visible in its full course; it reached over the northern half disc [of the moon]. Tebet, night of the 14th, two and a half double hours [five hours] at night before morning [in the latter part of the night], the disc of the moon was eclipsed; the whole course visible; over the southern and northern part the eclipse reached." (Inschriften von Cambyses, König von Babylon, by J. N. Strassmaier, Leipzig, 1890, No. 400, lines 45-48; Sternkunde und Sterndienst in Babel, by F. X. Kugler, Münster, 1907, Vol. I, pp. 70, 71) These two lunar eclipses can evidently be identified with the lunar eclipses that were visible at Babylon on July 16, 523 B.C.E., and on January 10, 522 B.C.E. (Oppolzer’s Canon of Eclipses, translated by O. Gingerich, 1962, p. 335) Thus, this tablet establishes the seventh year of Cambyses II as beginning in the spring of 523 B.C.E. This is an astronomically confirmed date.
  
  Since the seventh year of Cambyses II began in spring of 523 B.C.E., his first year of rule was 529 B.C.E. and his accession year, and the last year of Cyrus II as king of Babylon, was 530 B.C.E. The latest tablet dated in the reign of Cyrus II is from the 5th month, 23rd day of his 9th year. (Babylonian Chronology, 626 B.C.–A.D. 75, by R. Parker and W. Dubberstein, 1971, p. 14) As the ninth year of Cyrus II as king of Babylon was 530 B.C.E., his first year according to that reckoning was 538 B.C.E. and his accession year was 539 B.C.E.

  It doesn't matter to him that these dates are established relative to other known dates in the Neo-Babylonian period. It doesn't matter to him that the date is established using an astronmical diary, which the Insight book explicitly states are unreliable. It doesn't matter to him that the Society accepts without dispute that Cyrus reigned nine years because the latest known tablet suggests a nine year reign, though they staunchly refuse to accept that Neo-Babylonian kings reigned for their secularly accepted years on the same basis. Nor does it matter to him that the period of Cyrus' first year it gives directly contradicts the notion of the Jews returning in 537 when comparing with Ezra chapter 3.

  'scholar' isn't about facts. He is about clichés, rhetoric, ad hominem attacks, and dogma.
• 

  Hellrider

  568/67

  Jeffro, ok, thanks. I guess I hadn`t learned enough about the Societys juggling with numbers, tablets and dates. So basically, they dismiss the astronomical tablet for 568/67 but accept the one for 522. The arbitrariness in that should be evident to everyone, even Scholar himself. And I guess they don`t even care that these two tablets confirm eachother, and confirm the chronology that Scholar wants to dismiss.

  But Scholar: Don`t you see that even though you have the tablet for 522, you still have to rely on Babylonian chronology, and the lengths of reigns set by the secular chronology?Yes, the tablet for 522 gets you back to Cambysses II first year in 529, but no further than that! It is this secular chronology that sets the reign of Cyrus II to be from 539 (accession year) to 530. This means that the tablet for 522 in itself doesn`t set the date for the fall of Babylon to have occured in 539 BC! - this date is still set by the entirety of the secular chronology, which sets the length of Cyrus IIs reign to have lasted 9 years! The date 539 still relies on the chronology that is established by using both the 522-tablet and the 568/7 -tablet, as well as the tablets that established the length of reigns of the kings! You want to dismiss the chronology that sets the length of reigns, ok. What if secular chronology suddenly decided "holy moly, we made a mistake, Nabonidus reign lasted 4 years longer than we thought, setting the fall of Babylon to 535, and Cyrus II only reigned from 535 to 530". That wouldn`t be so cool, would it, celebrated scholar jw? So whether you like it or not, the Society have to rely on secular chronology, the same chronology that they so eagerly dismiss, when it suits them. You have no case, celebrated scholar jw. Both you and the celebrated watchtower-scholars of the Watchtower Society suck!