Back in May 2007 I got this response from my brother who later acted as chief witness for the prosecution at our kangaroo court. In fact he travelled 1000 miles round trip to do so. He was motivated :-)
Anyway prior to that I had mentioned to him the issues we had one of which was the overwhelming secular evidence for 587.
This is his response:
The date 607 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is arrived at from within Scripture itself. That the exiled Jews would spend 70 years in Babylon was prophesied in many places – 2 Chronicles 36:21; Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 29:10; Daniel 9:2. 539 BCE is a pivotal date – both Scriptural chronology and secular history point to 539 BCE as the date for the fall of Babylon. Scripture then shows that the Jews returned to Judea in 537 BCE. We give primacy to the scriptures that the exile was 70 years, thus the destruction of Jerusalem must have been in 607 BCE. So, when deciding when we think Jerusalem was destroyed, we can either accept the Scriptural chronology (with 1914 following from this evidenced by dramatic and irrevocable change in the world situation i.e. “the last days”) or go with uncertain secular sources of evidence which are often subject to change, revision and new archaeological discoveries. The Scriptures will never change that the exile would be 70 years and everyone agrees with 539 BCE for the fall of Babylon, and 537 BCE as the date of the return from exile.