scholar pretendus here seems to think that readers of this forum are as morally stupid as most JWs. My disproof, using Josephus, of the Society's 537 date is a good illustration of this. The proof is extremely simple and can be illustrated with an analogy of the sort found in basic intelligence tests:
(1) John says he bought a Honda in February, 2005.
(2) George says he bought a Toyota in September of the year before John bought his Honda.
Question: In what year did George buy his Toyota?
The answer is trivally obvious: 2004. Most any six-year-old that is not mentally challenged can figure it out. However, if an adult whose entire life hinged on believing that George bought his Toyota in 2005 were given this question, he would probably do everything he could to avoid answering it.
This is precisely the reason that scholar pretendus refuses to acknowledge that Josephus' information disproves the Society's claim that the Jews returned to Judah in 537 B.C.
Now, it might be argued that Josephus' claim is wrong, i.e., that the Temple foundations were not laid in Cyrus' 2nd year. Indeed, I am not aware of any independent confirmation of his statement. But if scholar pretendus were to make this argument, it would follow that he acknowledges that Josephus' claims that are not backed up by independent information are sometimes unreliable. But because he has often argued that some of Josephus' claims -- in particular those that seem to support Watchtower chronology -- must be taken as gospel, it would follow that this argument is specious, and therefore the Watchtower could not use anything Josephus said to establish any date unless it were backed up with independent data.
Thus we see the sort of feral intelligence at work that results in the massive Orwellian doublethink practiced by JWs, the same doublethink that can be called moral stupidity -- an outright refusal to acknowledge simple facts when such facts are inimical to one's beliefs.
AlanF