any problems with this 607 response from Elder PO

by besty 42 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Leolaia

  Utilising yet another method of calculation, the Seven Times are explained as 'lunar' days converted to 'solar' years. Taking a 'time' to be equal to a 360 day lunar year, seven times are 2520 days, which become 2520 lunar years. However, from 607 B.C. to 1914 A.D. is 2520 solar years, so this prophecy is worked out as 1 lunar day equalling 1 solar year.

  1) There is no such thing as a 360-day lunar calendar. The Jewish lunisolar calender was 354 days in length, with an intercalated month every several years.

  2) The Jewish 360 +4 calendar was solar/schematic, not lunar. It consisted of 360 monthly days (twelve 30-day months divided into four seasons), with an extra day lying in between the seasons as a marker of the seasons (i.e. the equinox or solstice). Eventually by the middle of the second century BC, this extra day eventually came to be reckoned as belonging to the months, with one 31-day month every season (as it is in Jubilees and the Qumran calendrical texts; the Book of Luminaries in 1 Enoch has the older system).

  3) Even though the older reckoning omitted the solstices and equinoxes from the months, such that 12 months would contain 360 days, it still counted them in the yearly reckoning as they were essential to make the sabbatical aspect of the calendar work (as 364 is divisible by 7, allowing every year to begin on a Wednesday -- the day the sun was created in Genesis). The calendrical texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls contain detailed, complicated schemes intended to synchronize the two calendars (the solar/schematic with the lunisolar).

  4) So among other absurdities in the Society's interpretation of Daniel 4, it doesn't realize that the 360 +4 calendar counted the solstices and equinoxes in the yearly reckoning, such that "seven years" would yield 360 monthly days and seven years' worth of solstices and equinoxes. The error is quite apparent in the use of Revelation 11:2-3, for the 1,260 days are explicitly "forty-two months," and thus don't count the days that may lie in between the months. So this means that the JW reckoning of the "seven times" is off by 28 years if it were to use the actual calendar that the 1,260 (3 1/2 years), 1,290 ( 3 1/2 years + one more 30-day month), and 1335 (3 1/2 years + 2 1/2 30-day months) periods pertain to.

  5) The solar/schematic calendar still fell a day short per year, so it is unclear whether it had its own system of intercalation or whether it's synchronization with the lunisolar calendar was imperfect.
• 

  Jeremy C

  From reading the excerpt, I gather that he is using the same method of reasoning that the Watchtower uses to bolster it's claim that mankind is only about 6,000 years old (despite archeological proof that shows otherwise). The Watchtower has it's own unique standards by which Biblical passages are interpreted. And thus, their methodology becomes the litmust test by which overyone else must read those passages also.

  Case in point: the Watchtower discounts overwhelming archeological evidence that mankind has been on earth longer than 6,000 years. They claim that they "follow the Bible, rather than secular ideas". Yet why do they reject Genesis' clear statements that the heavens and the earth was created in seven days? Since they cannot retain any credibility by adopting the literalist view of the seven creative days, they have conceded that those "days" are undisclosed "periods" of time. But, that is not what Genesis says. And other fundamentalists have jumped on the Watchtower for arbitrarily picking and choosing what they will view as literal and what they will not.

  The Watchtower is more than happy to accept the various archeological dating methods when those estimates confirm the historical accuracy of a certain Biblical accounts (conquer of Babylon, etc). But when those very same methods reveal human remains and dwellings that are much older than 6,000 years, they quickly reject it as "unreliable". They fall back on their same pious platitude that they "rely on the Bible instead of secular ideas". They want to have their "archeological cake" and eat it too. They clearly want to have it both ways.

  We can see that the Watchtower has displayed a rank intellectual dishonesty over and over again with it's Biblical interpretations. Why should we believe them about the 587/607 issue? Are they not the ones with the most to lose if 607 is not correct? Emotional investments do not render the most sober minded analysis.
• 

  jwfacts

  We give primacy to the scriptures that the exile was 70 years

  There are other ways to reconcile the 70 years, such as when Daniel was taken exile. Alternatively they could be an approximation as with the 70 years of Tyre which the Watchtower claims were not 70 years.

  everyone agrees with 539 BCE for the fall of Babylon, and 537 BCE as the date of the return from exile.

  As AG said, not everyone agrees the return was 537, the exact date for the actual return is unknown. The Watchtower used to say it was 536, until they realised that there was no year zero.

  My brother has a Mensa tested IQ of 151

  And you?
• 

  besty

  very interesting Leo

  4) So among other absurdities in the Society's interpretation of Daniel 4, it doesn't realize that the 360 +4 calendar counted the solstices and equinoxes in the yearly reckoning, such that "seven years" would yield 360 monthly days and seven years' worth of solstices and equinoxes. The error is quite apparent in the use of Revelation 11:2-3, for the 1,260 days are explicitly "forty-two months," and thus don't count the days that may lie in between the months. So this means that the JW reckoning of the "seven times" is off by 28 years if it were to use the actual calendar that the 1,260 (3 1/2 years), 1,290 ( 3 1/2 years + one more 30-day month), and 1335 (3 1/2 years + 2 1/2 30-day months) periods pertain to.

  So IYHO what would be the most honest way to multiply out 7 times? and why have the JW's settled on 360 as the multiplier?
• 

  besty

  My brother has a Mensa tested IQ of 151

  And you?

  My brother and I were pretty competitive as kids so we decided to settle the intelligence question it by getting the full Mensa supervised classroom style IQ test. I scored 150 and we were both invited to join - both late teenagers or early 20's at the time. Neither of us did. It is a tribe I guess, but not one we felt any affiliation for. (and then there's the whole debate about what is being tested, emotional and physical intelligence etc etc I don't set much store by it and it hasn't done anything for me)

  But thanks for asking - it feels better putting a nice fat score up here :-) although I did give an apologist on here a hard time for blowing her trumpet about Mensa once too often....
• 

  jwfacts

  lost by 1 point, that must hurt. No wonder he does not value your opinion. It has been quite a surprise to me that intelligence does not necessarily help a person see through false rhetoric. It is one of the great thingsabout faith, it allows a person to ignore logic. I have a theory that since god and immortality are described as infinite we accept them as beyond understanding as we accept infinity beyond human comprehension. For this reason people dismiss questions about god and their faith as beyond comprehension, therefore excusing discrepencies in their beliefs. (possibly off topic but I think related somehow.)
• 

  scholar

  besty

  Post 953

  Your brother's response concerning the validity of 607 BCE is entirely correct for it is validated by the Bible and secular evidence. The other candidates such as 587 and 586 BCE are problematic because these dates cannot be harmonized with the 'biblical' seventy years. Also, 607 BCE works because it is integral to the interpretaion and fulfillment of prophecy in relation to the Gentile Times, the Parousia of our Lord and God's Kingdom.

  scholar JW
• 

  stillajwexelder

  circular reasoning scholar
• 

  stillajwexelder

  BTW Scholar - a CO recently confided to me "I wish we were not so obsessed by chronology"
• 

  Number1Anarchist

  There's Scholar with the Gentile Time BS.

  Once again the Wactower and there addiction to trying to predict the End of the world and when Jesus started reigning in Heaven.This is all a continuation of this crazed adventist Millerite movement.

  George Storrs

  To understand the significance of Storrs to our story, we need to quickly review the history of the Millerite movement and the origins of the Seventh-day Adventist church. As students of American church history know, Millerism, the parent of Adventism, was like Anglo-Israelism in that both grew out of a fascination with biblical prophecy. Because both arose at about the same time, it was inevitable that students of both movements would read the works of each other.

  Millerites believed that Jesus would return sometime in the period of 1843-45. Believers should warn others and prepare themselves for the coming Judgment. The movement began with William Miller, a poor and reluctant Baptist preacher from rural New York state. Miller’s message was almost ignored by the public until Joshua Himes accepted it. Himes used his extensive advertising and publishing skills to spread the word.

  Millerites first proclaimed the autumn of 1843, then the spring and later the autumn of 1844, as God’s appointed time. When their predictions failed, their humiliation became known as the Great Disappointment.

  Millerism had penetrated Great Britain by 1840, the same year Our Israelitish Origin was published. There the Disappointment delayed a year because many British Millerites thought 1845, not 1844, was the expected year. In Britain, converts to Millerism usually came from smaller, prophetically-oriented churches on the fringes of British Christianity. These believers generally took a literalistic approach to Scripture. Often their prophetic views were bookish, lacking any social impact. By 1845, British Millerism had attracted offshoots of the Anglo-Israelite movement. 8

  In America, Miller encouraged his followers to read British books on biblical prophecy. It seems there was some communication between American Millerites and various British prophecy buffs. Thus, Millerism helped set the stage for the introduction of Anglo-Israelism into the United States. That would explain how George Storrs, a former Millerite, came to recommend Our Israelitish Origins. It may also be one reason why the book sold so well in this country.

  Before Anglo-Israelism reached America’s shores, the Great Disappointment had led to the collapse of Millerism and the discrediting of its leaders. Most Millerites returned to their former churches. Those who did not, because they continued preaching Jesus’ imminent second advent, became known as Adventists. At first, their numbers included only a handful of seventh-day Sabbatarians.

  After the Great Disappointment, George Storrs continued working for the Adventist cause. Storrs’ most important contribution to Adventism came the day he started teaching that the dead were unconscious. Storrs believed the dead are not in heaven, nor are they in hell. They are asleep in their graves. People, he said, do not have immortal souls. They must be given eternal life through Jesus Christ at the resurrection of the saints.

  Storrs discovered this doctrine while riding in a railroad car. He literally picked it up off the floor, where he had found a tract on the subject written by an independent Sunday-keeping preacher. Storrs popularized the teaching among Adventists. "Soul-sleep" thus became an identifying tenet of most Adventist sects.

  Although many Adventists opposed sect-formation — on the grounds that churches immediately became Babylonian when formally organized — most Adventists came to see organization as better than no organization. Thus, groups began to coalesce around sets of doctrines that distinguished them from other groups. Their differences often revolved around the Sabbath, the nature of the millennium, the state of the dead, church government and the prophetess Ellen G. White. Her teachings led directly to the founding of the largest of these new groups, the Seventh-day Adventist church.

  Coalescence among Adventists continued until the 1920s, a period of about 80 years. In this century the tendency has been to divide rather than to coalescence. Since the First World War, dozens of offshoots have sprung from these parent groups.

  Storrs was a part of the coalescence. In 1863 he helped found the smallest of the Adventist bodies, the Sunday-observing Life and Advent Union. In 1964 the Life and Advent Union merged with the larger Advent Christian Church. Although the Life and Advent Union represented an extremely small branch of Adventism, Storrs' influence far exceeded its meager numbers. Every branch of Adventism, including the Seventh-day Adventists, the Church of God (Seventh Day), Jehovah's Witnesses and the Worldwide Church of God owe their doctrines of conditional immortality to him. 9