Is WTS chronology flawed?

by cultswatter 89 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  M.J.

  There are some statements in the Isaiah's Prophecy book which backs up what Leolaia reported on Jeremiah's 70 years:

  Isaiah's Prophecy, p. 253
  "Jehovah, through Jeremiah, includes Tyre among the nations that will be singled out to drink the wine of His rage. He says: “These nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years.” (Jeremiah 25:8-17, 22, 27) True, the island-city of Tyre is not subject to Babylon for a full 70 years, since the Babylonian Empire falls in 539 B.C.E. Evidently, the 70 years represents the period of Babylonia’s greatest domination—when the Babylonian royal dynasty boasts of having lifted its throne even above “the stars of God.” (Isaiah 14:13) Different nations come under that domination at different times. But at the end of 70 years, that domination will crumble. What will then happen to Tyre?
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  jeanV

  MAD, Neo Babylonian chronology is fixed.

  Cultswatter, COJ work, "Gentile Times Reconsidered" is a must read.

  I started a search like yours quite a while ago and contacted scholars and got plenty of books. I tried to make it independently so as not to have biased opinions. You quickly understand why the WTBTS basically avoids mentioning secular sources and, in recent publications, does not name the documents in favour of 587 (which they did in the appendix of Let Your Kingdom come). The evidence is so massive that anyone without prejudice cannot but conclude that 607 could not possibly be the year of Jerusalem's destruction.

  I strongly advise you to look at http://www.607v587.com/

  For a rebuttal of Furuli's work (JW apologist that published a book in favour of WT chronology, and will soon publish a second one) and other info on chronology look at: http://user.tninet.se/~oof408u/fkf/english/epage.htm
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  cultswatter

  I'm puttin together a fake WTS list of babylonian kings
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  Doug Mason

  And there is nothing that says the 70 years of "serving Babylon" finished when the Jews returned to Jerusalem.

  The servitude to Babylon (by all of the nations listed) finished when Babylon fell in 539 BCE.

  It is not possible to be positive that the Jews actually returned in 537 BCE.

  I have a photocopy of a page from the Jewish historian Flavius Jospehus where he says, after describing the period from 605 BCE to 539 BCE: "These accounts agree with true history in our books; for in them it is written that Nebuchadnezzar, in the nineteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years." (Book 1, verse 21, Whiston's translation)

  Doug
• 

  M.J.

  I'm puttin together a fake WTS list of babylonian kings

  Don't forget King Nevawuzza!
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  cultswatter

  I'll try to fit king NEVAWUZZA in somewhere!!
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  cultswatter

  Looks at the icon again ... OH .... 576-556 ... Well there are no business documents relating to NEVAWUZZA for the time period specified . but did HE EXIST??. The whole WTS chronology depends upon HIM

  		May 3, 2007
• 

  jeanV

  Doug I guess it is from "against Apion".

  Jeffro makes some interesting comments about the society claiming that to be a scribal error: http://jeffreyd.no-ip.com/wordpress/index.php/jehovahs-witnesses-and-1914/
• 

  Jeffro

  For brevity, the part of my article that jeanV is referring to is below:

  While the Society’s reasoning on these quotes may seem reasonable, Against Apion, Book I, chapter 21 pointedly states: “Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius,” (formatting added). The Witnesses suggest that this reference to 50 years is a scribal error, however, the introduction to Antiquities of the Jews, Book X, states “Containing the interval of one hundred and eighty-two years and a half. From the captivity of the ten tribes to the first year of Cyrus.” This can only be harmonized if 50 years are allocated for the period between the destruction of the temple and Cyrus’ decree to rebuild it.

  See also http://jeffreyd.no-ip.com/kings.pdf for a complete tabulation of the period.
• 

  scholar

  Doug Mason

  Post 140

  The scriptures most definitely state that the 'seventy years of Jeremiah' ended with the Return of the Exiles not at the Fall of Babylon in 539 BCE but at the Return of the Exiles in 537. This accords with Ezra's history as stated in 2 Chronicles 36:20: to wit "until the royalty of Persia began to reign". This unambiguous statement does not and cannot coincide with the Fall of Babylon and its ruling dynasty which ended in 539 BCE.

  Further, the immediate context deals with the first year of Cyrus that Jeremiah's prophecy of the seventy years would be fulfilled and no mention is made in this context of Babylon, its Fall and her last ruler. So, the evidence is quite clear that the hypothesis of the seventy years ending with Babylon's demise is plainly false. Josephus makes many reference to the fact of the seventy years as a fixed historic period which ran from the Fall of Jerusalem to the Return of the Exiles under Cyrus and he shows in agreement with biblical history that the seventy years was a period of Exile-Servitude-Desolation.

  The seventy years is the subject of widespread disagreement within scholarship and the 'wiley poztates and such controversy arises when higher criticism and secular chronologies are preferrred over plainly stated scriptures such as those in Ezra, Daniel, Jeremiah and Zechariah. The understanding of the seventy years as advanced by celebrated WT scholars promoted in WT publication and made known to all by Jehovah's Witnesses works whereas the other views fail.

  I acknowledge the contents on chronology posted on your website and your research over many years published in the now defunct SDA Witness periodical as I have much contact with its edittor, Bruce Price on matters of chronology. I will give further comments on your published comments on our chronology and wish to contact you by telephone and e-mail.

  scholar JW