For your research: Chart for 70 Years for Babylon

by Lady Liberty 26 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Doug Mason

  G’day Scholar,

  Yes, there is a 20-year gap between the neo-Babylonian chronology and the Watchtower’s interpretation. The following is the Watchtower’s “Chronology”, from Awake! March 22, 1960. This is what they call a “chronology”.-------------------The question: “Then how is the date 607 ascertained?

  (WTS Step #1) “Using 539 BC, when Babylon was overthrown, as a starting point, since it is a proved and generally accepted historical date and one that pinpoints the year of a specific event mentioned in the Bible,

  (WTS Step #2) “We count two years to the time when a band of Jewish exiles returned to their homeland, having been freed by King Cyrus. This brings us to 537 BC and is in agreement with the rest of Bible chronology.”

  (WTS Step #3) “Since at Daniel 9:2 we read of the seventy years of desolation foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, it follows that the desolation of Judah and Jerusalem began seventy years before, or in 607 BC.”--------------------Let's briefly consider this "chronology".

  (Response to WTS Step #1)
  So we see that the WTS accepts 539 BCE from secular sources because they agree on that date. The WTS has to do this because the Bible does not provide any BCE dates.
  Never mind that every one of the same sources that the WTS stakes its reputation on also agree that Jerusalem was destroyed 20 years after the Watchtower’s date.
  And never mind that when these secular sources arrive at that date of 539 BCE, they are using dates and chronologies that the WTS does accept.

  (Response to WTS Step #2)
  The WTS counts forwards two years to the time that some of the Jewish exiles returned (or was it when they met at the site of the Temple? They can never quite make up their mind about that).Why do they go forwards two years?Where is their “agreement with the rest of Bible chronology”? It’s what you and I call a “Furphy”, others might say a red herring hidden in a smoke screen.Why pick on that moment, does the Bible explicitly say so?Prove that they returned in 537 – can’t be done.

  (Response to WTS Step #3)
  Neither Jeremiah nor Daniel said that the destruction of Jerusalem was the desolation.
  Even after proclaiming that Judah and all surrounding nations (MT) were to serve Babylon for 70 years, Jeremiah still pleaded with Babylonian appointee Zedekiah to save the city from destruction by willingly serving Babylon, just as King Jehoiachin had done years before. Little wonder that Jews and Jerusalem and at Chaldea, as well as the Babylonians, still considered Jehoiachin to be the legitimate king of Judah.

  Doug
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  scholar

  isaacaustin

  Post 3832

  My response to your responses is as follows:

  1. Scholarship does not agree that 609 BCE correleates the beginning of the Babylonian World Power at the demise of the Assyrian World Power. The date is to 'fuzzy' historically speaking/

  2. Neb's absence from the throne for seven years and the seventy years pertaining to Judah.

  3. The lack of any precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem proves that the methodology behind secular chronology is inferior to that of biblical chronology that does arrive at precise dates for notable events.

  4. The Bible proves the fact of a 20 year gap and this has been substantiated by Furuli's ground breaking research. Josephus in numerous references refers to the seventy years as servitude-desolation-exile from the Fall to the Return in agreement with the chronology of the celebrated WT scholars.

  5. All of Jeremiah affirms that the seventy only ended after the Decree of Cyrus with the Jews returning home after the Fall of Babylon AND AGAIN THIS IS CONFIRMED BY jOSEPHUS

  scholar JW

  scholar JW
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  isaacaustin

  Scholar, your reply is almost word for word what you told me months ago on this...And you are wrong on Josephus again. The 70 years clearly are stated in Jer 25:12, among other places, to have ended upon Babylons fall to Medes/Persians. The lack of precise date for Jeru's fall is no issue, as it is unclear of the 18/19th yr. The 20 years is resolved by realizing that Jeru was not empty for 70 years...but 50 as Josephus states.

  Open your eyes and looks at the facts 'scholar"
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  PSacramento

  The WT doesn't seem to have a problem with secular history in regards to 539- 537/6 BC, does it?
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  Doug Mason

  Scholar,

  Sorry, I missed a word in my previous post. It should read:

  "And never mind that when these secular sources arrive at that date of 539 BCE, they are using dates and chronologies that the WTS does not accept."

  Doug
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  scholar

  Doug Mason

  Post 696

  Step 1. The matter of determining any Absolute Date for the purposes of chronology is simply methodology and it is up to the chronologist or scholar to determine what methodology is to be followed. This expalins why it is that no chronology of the OT is in agreement. Celebrated WT scholars have selected a methodology and that is their prerogative whether others like it or not.

  Step2. The calculation that the Return of the Jews was in Tishri,537 BCE is certainly proven in the WT publications and has the endorsement of not a few scholars. There is nothing 'fuzzy' about the events of that period and in fact it is only in WT publications that carful historical attention is paid to that period from the Fall of Babylon until the Return.

  Step 3. Both Jeremiah and Daniel are in perfect agreement that the seventy years was a period of desolation and they both go further in describing the seventy years as also a period of exile as well servitude to Babylon. Daniel's life experience and career in Babylon testifies to the truth of this matter.

  scholar JW
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  isaacaustin

  PSac, it is a baseless assumption to say that the Jews returned in 537BCE...538 being more likely...but irrelevant anyway. the 70 years ended with Babylons fall, not the Jews release.