thirdwitness and other pseudo-scholars: Let's discuss the Hillah Stele (page 12)

jgnat

That is very fine, Fisherman, that you have come to this elegant conclusion. Care to back it up?

AnnOMaly

Hey Fisherman. You post on aimoo H20, don't you?

Would you please point up the things in 3w's arguments that you considered strong points? I didn't see any points in his detractions that had any bearing on the Hillah Stele whatsoever, so I would appreciate your pointing them out to me. Thank you.

Respectfully,
AuldSoul

AK - Jeff

I don't get into this discussion too deeply - since (1) I do not feel qualified, and (2) a logical reading of the evidence since I left the borg has always made it clearly obvious to me that 607 is a fabrication. That includes the arguments made here by AS and others.

But I will say this much, from a non-scholarly position - I don't see how 20 years can get misplaced with no evidence of their ever having existed. Why is there no record of those years?

For 3W to answer if he can; Here is another question that I have never seen successfully plied by WTS supporters in this matter at hand; Who told us to apply 2520 years to the Gentile times matter to begin with? And who decided that it started with the destruction of the Temple? My reading of the scriptures do not give me any indication of the formula used 7 x 360 days = 2520 years. Does any other scholar [real ones outside of the WTS] ever try and make such a ludricrous stretch of imagination to get a date for the founding of the heavenly kingdom? True one can take the words and bend and twist and conjure up most anything - but the entire idea of a formula to show the date for something the Lord said that no man would know the day or hour of seems arrogant to an order beyond belief.

Jeff

AnnOMaly

Fisherman's the hit-and-run type. Says '3W's great,' then when you press him, he disappears. Right, Fisherman?

AlanF

Fisherman wrote:

: All of 3w arguments have not been shown to be red herrings and what ifs. For my opinion to be worth anything, I don't have to be able to list concisely exactly what I think shows that the hs does not disprove the 607 date.

Ah, I knew it. You're a JW.

AlanF

Thirdwitness' arguments on the Hillah stele:

Thirdwitness' cronies seem to think that he actually made good arguments showing that the Hillah stele does not disprove the Watchtower Society's 607 date. They also claim that none of these silly 'arguments' have been refuted. In this post I will list thirdwitness' arguments and the refutations given. I'm summarizing his claims in the first person.

First off, I will observe that in his last post #189 on this thread, thirdwitness said:

"You should take note that all my answers come from the Bible. You do not see me quoting WT's to prove my points but you see me quoting the Bible."

That this is simply not true can be seen by looking at the many non-biblical sources thirdwitnesses quoted, and by the fact that not one of his arguments involved the Bible at all. Cronies are welcome to dispute this with references to the post numbers where thirdwitness took his answers from the Bible.

Claim:

The writer of the Hillah stele might have changed the number 74 to 54, thus misleading his readers.

Refutation:

This is nothing but wishful thinking and pure speculation backed up by zero evidence.

Claim:

BM 21901 only says that the Ehulhul temple was looted in the 16th year of Nabopolassar, not destroyed or ruined, so it is only an assumption that it was ruined. The Hillah stele says that at the beginning of Nabonidus' reign, the Ehulhul temple had been lying in ruins for 54 years because of its devastation by the Medes who destroyed the sanctuaries. Counting back 54 years from Nabonidus' 1st year gets us to Nabopolassar's 16th year (609 B.C.) using secular dating. However, counting back 54 years using Watchtower chronology gets us to about Nebuchadnezzar's 16th year (610 B.C.). I don't know if the Ehulhul temple was destroyed then or not. So the temple was apparently destroyed during Nebuchadnezzar's reign about 20 years after Nabopolassar looted it. Therefore the Hillah stele does not disprove 607.

Refutation:

(1) The Hillah stele uses language translated by the words "devastated, ruined, destroyed, laid waste", and so forth, to describe what the Medes did to Harran and the temple in 609 B.C. Thirdwitness agrees with this date.

(2) BM 21901 states that the Babylonian army "carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple." This is a formulaic expression for "stole a lot of stuff and did a lot of damage". Just as the Babylonians carried off "the vast booty" of Jerusalem and the temple at the destruction in 587 B.C., and when they sacked Nineveh in 612 B.C. they "carried off the vast booty of the city and the temple and turned the city into a ruin heap", so it is logical that they would do the same thing to the final bastion of the Assyrian empire -- its final capital, Harran -- after many years of fighting to destroy the Assyrian empire. After all, after the Babylonians sacked Nineveh, the last Assyrian king Ashur-uballit ran for his life and ended up in Harran. This is a strong indicator that the city and temple were destroyed as well as looted.

(3) Other ancient texts prove that the temple of Ehulhul was ruined to the point of desolation in Nabopolassar's -- not Nebuchadnezzar's -- 16th year. The Addad-guppi stele states that in Nabopolassar's 16th year, the city of Harran "and the people in it became desolate" or "went to ruin". The Sippar Cylinder states: "(Sin) became angry with that city [Harran] and temple [Ehulhul]. He aroused the Medes, who destroyed that temple and turned it into ruins."

(4) Putting (1), (2) and (3) together, and making the reasonable conclusion that the Babylonians and Medes completely destroyed Harran just once -- since there is no evidence whatsoever that these allies destroyed Harran twice, or that the Medes were even capable of allying themselves with Babylon much before 612 B.C. -- proves that it was in Nabopolassar's 16th year that the temple Ehulhul was destroyed, and this was in 609 B.C., exactly 54 years prior to Nabonidus' 1st year.

(5) Thirdwitness' argument amounts to claiming that Harran and its temple were destroyed by the Babylonians and the Medes twice -- once around 629 B.C. and another time around 609 B.C., using Watchtower chronology. Because there is absolutely no evidence for this, it is another case of wishful thinking and pure speculation.

(6) Thirdwitness gave no hard evidence whatsoever that Harran and its temple were looted in 629 B.C. His comments were speculation.

(7) The last part of thirdwitness' argument goes like this: "The Watchtower Society's dates are correct; therefore the destruction of the Ehulhul temple must have occurred 20 years later than secular chronology shows. Therefore the Society's dates are correct." But this is pure circular reasoning, backed up by no evidence.

AlanF

OUTLAW

FisherMan will never debate you AlanF..Like 3rd Witness he simply wants to be right,regardless of facts..The problem is,Fisherman can`t grasp what your saying..I would have a hard time,if it was`nt for you explainng it point by point..Can you imagine what it must be like for someone with only one brain cell?..LOL!!...OUTLAW

iCeltic

This is a very interesting read.

Band on the Run

iF you are a Babylonian, the Bible is pagan. God is supposedly the God of all. The Bible has not been shown to be accurate or consistent. I don't understand the fascination with this small, incosequential nation-state called Israel. YHWH comes from so-called pagan sources.

thirdwitness and other pseudo-scholars: Let's discuss the Hillah Stele

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