There are always "explanations", that is a given.
The thing is, IF a prophecy is pretty straight forward: case in point 1914 Generation or 1975, then the backpeddleing is easy to see it for what it is.
Ezekiel 29:12 - Prophecy of the Desolation of Egypt for 40 years
by VM44 104 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
-
alice.in.wonderland
"If you don't believe the Babylonian astronomical tablets can 'scientifically' fix a date, then you must believe that all those tablets were fabricated or are devilish deceptions and are all useless for establishing any BCE dates. If you have no verifiable BCE dates, you have no 'pivotal' dates upon which to hang the WTS chronological scheme! You can't have it both ways."
When it comes to making a notation of any date it's fairly simple: mark a calendar. The Babylonian astronomical tables can be used to reach reliable conclusions about specific dates but just because they are based on astronomy doesn't mean it meets the criteia of scientific evidence for any date.
-
bohm
Alice, i think you are contradicting yourself.
a) WHAT calendar should they mark their observations in?
b) Can you outline what evidence is used to fix the pivotal 539bc date?
-
AnnOMaly
When it comes to making a notation of any date it's fairly simple: mark a calendar.
As bohm said, how would they mark the date? What calendar method did they use to keep track of passing years and their history?
The Babylonian astronomical tables can be used to reach reliable conclusions about specific dates but just because they are based on astronomy doesn't mean it meets the criteia of scientific evidence for any date.
Either the celestial details on a tablet fit a year/date well or they do not. If they do not fit that year/date well, then there has to be a better alternative. Simple as that.
-
bohm
bttt, i am quite curious about the calendar question
-
alice.in.wonderland
Bohm, it is your choice. Astrology (an occult science) likely influenced Babylonian astronomical tables. The fulfillment of Bible prophecy clears up imperfect history and confirms the accuracy of dates Bible prophecy is based on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy#Astrology
The Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations.
Ptolemy's treatise on astrology, known in Greek as both the Apotelesmatika ("Astrological Outcomes" or "Effects") and "Tetrabiblios" ("Four Books"), and in Latin as the Quadripartitum ("Four books"), was the most popular astrological work of antiquity and also had great influence in the Islamic world and the medieval Latin West. It was first translated from Arabic into Latin by Plato of Tivoli (Tiburtinus), while he was in Spain (FA Robbins, 1940; Thorndike 1923). The Tetrabiblos is an extensive and continually reprinted treatise on the ancient principles of horoscopic astrology in four books (Greek tetra means "four", biblos is "book"). That it did not quite attain the unrivaled status of the Almagest was perhaps because it did not cover some popular areas of the subject, particularly electional astrology (interpreting astrological charts for a particular moment to determine the outcome of a course of action to be initiated at that time), and medical astrology, which were later adoptions.Egypt’s 40-Year Desolation: Only the 607 date allows for the full 40-years of Egypt's desolation by Nebuchadnezzar. Whereas the 587 date makes it impossible. Read this chapter...
What will you accept? The chronology of secular historians who mould the Bible to fit their chronology, making inspired prophecies fail? Or will you accept the complete and harmonious Biblical chronology, which gives us a time-line without contradictions, showing the total fulfillment of every prophecy Jehovah gave us? Will you judge the accuracy of secular chronology against the occasions where it agrees with the Bible, or will you only judge the Bible correct if the secular evidence happens to agree with it? -
bohm
Alice, i have no doubt the babylonians was heavily into astrology, and it seem plausible to me they may have adapted some tablets to fit those observations. I will also agree that some parts of the bible, in particular 2 kings, seem to support 70 years of desolations (rather than 70 years of servitude) most easily.
However, i am sure you will agree with me that in the same sence eg. Jeremiah seem to contradict the WT timeline; for example, when jeremiah write that "they will serve the king of babylon for 70 years" and after the 70 years is fulfilled, the king will be called into account, the most natural interpretation is that the 70 years will end when the king is killed (or before that point).
What is the most natural way to make those seemingly conflicting scriptures agree? Its an interesting and quite deep debate. I think the evidence best support 587bc for the fall of jerusalem, but its a whole other story.
What i want to establish before we go into all that is how dates are fixed and so on. You wrote:
When it comes to making a notation of any date it's fairly simple: mark a calendar.
What i wrote was quite a natural question: What calendar? How does such a 'mark' look like, and how does we make their calendar agree with ours?
I think we should agree on that basic fact before we go into a discussion that build on such calendars.
-
AnnOMaly
Astrology (an occult science) likely influenced Babylonian astronomical tables.
Alice, you're still missing the point. Astrology was the ominous significance or interpretation put on what the ancients actually saw in the sky. So what, if they thought that (say) because Mars was near Regulus on a certain date there could be a revolt in the land? It wouldn't alter the FACT that on that certain date, Mars was indeed near Regulus.
The Almagest is the only surviving comprehensive ancient treatise on astronomy. Babylonian astronomers had developed arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena; Greek astronomers such as Hipparchus had produced geometric models for calculating celestial motions. Ptolemy, however, claimed to have derived his geometrical models from selected astronomical observations by his predecessors spanning more than 800 years, though astronomers have for centuries suspected that his models' parameters were adopted independently of observations.
How would Babylonian astronomers/astrologers (centuries before Ptolemy!) manage to develop arithmetical techniques for calculating astronomical phenomena if their observations were not reliable? How could Hipparchus produce geometric models for calculating celestial motions if the Babylonian corpus of astronomical texts he used were consistently skewed by bogus data? How could the great scientific minds that came after them build upon, refine and further a knowledge that was already deeply flawed from its very foundations?
You're not making any sense here.
-
PSacramento
Or will you accept the complete and harmonious Biblical chronology
The bible has NO chronology without secular dates, you knwo that right?
The bible makes references to EVENTS and to find out when they happened you need secular ( archelogcal and scientific) data.
-
Leolaia
Ancient history cannot be proven, because there are no living informants.
This is quite misleading. Living informants are not a necessary condition for proving facts and depending on the circumstances they may even be unreliable. There are no living informants testifying to the effect that Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, but there are records showing that this is the case. There are no living informants that Christopher Columbus sailed to the West Indies in 1492, but the factuality of this date can be demonstrated through many independent sources. If someone wants to claim that Columbus actually sailed the ocean blue forty years later in 1532, the burden of proof is on the person to (1) provide evidence demonstrating that date, and (2) provide a credible account of why all the other sources pointed to 1492 instead.
Now when it comes to ancient history and chronology, the situation is often much more precarious, and often one must contend with a range of error and with uncertainty. But this uncertainty decreases the closer one gets to the common era, which alice.in.wonderland acknowledges by saying that "the farther back in dated history, the more obscure history becomes". The flip side of that of course is that the history becomes less obscure the less further back one goes into "dated history". Although alice.in.wonderland goes on to illustrate with an example from the Egyptian New Kingdom with respect to the Israelite exodus, we must not forget that we are here talking about Saite period almost a millennium later in the sixth century BC, which was contemporaneous with the Neo-Babylonian kingdom in the west and the Greek city-states to the north, and the chronology for each is known precisely. So not only is the chronology for the Neo-Babylonian period and the Saite period worked out precisely in each case, but we also possess synchonisms that show that these separate chronologies work harmoniously together. There is nowhere the kind of doubt on the chronology for the Saite period as there is for the New Kingdom. Inserting 40 years of Egyptian non-existence into that period, indeed within the reign of one particular king, is simply not possible on account of the records that were produced in the Saite period itself. The burden of proof again is on the person to (1) provide evidence demonstrating the existence of a 40-year hiatus, and (2) provide a credible account of of why every piece of evidence from the reign of Amasis indicates that no such hiatus ever occurred.
And of course, if no date could be proven, then this would apply equally to 539 BC and the 607 BC date that the Society derives from it.
Considering 1,610 years was involved in producing the Bible, it would be unreasonable to conclude historical accounts will not at times conflict with the Bible. If a person has solid reason to conclude the Bible was inspired of God, conflicting accounts are relative.
And of course they are "relative" no matter how well-established and credible they otherwise would be (and since the Bible is presumed "always right," it can never pass the criterion of falsifiability). As I have said many times in prior threads, if that is your position, you still need to explain why the records point to the "wrong" dates. You may say you don't care, but the facts still need an accounting. Every indication is that Egypt continued on without interruption following Nebuchadnezzar's campaign. There is absolutely no reason to suspect a 40-year hiatus in Saite history outside of Ezekiel's prediction. Why? The lazy way out is to simple say "Bible right, history wrong" and leave it at that.
The chronology of secular historians who mould the Bible to fit their chronology, making inspired prophecies fail? Or will you accept the complete and harmonious Biblical chronology, which gives us a time-line without contradictions, showing the total fulfillment of every prophecy Jehovah gave us?
You have this quite backwards. Historians follow the empirical evidence wherever it leads; they are not interested in making the history such that the biblical oracles would fail. The evidence concerning the reign of Amasis is incontrovertible as to whether there was a break of 40 years in the middle of his reign; you would have to throw out virtually every record and document from his reign in order to "mold" history to fit the Bible. What grounds would there be to do such a thing? Above you wrote that "when it comes to making a notation of any date it's fairly simple: mark a calendar". Well, in ancient Egypt, calendar dates were given in relation to the year of the present king's reign. If Ezekiel was right, there shouldn't have been any more years to Amasis' reign beyond Year 4, nor should there have been anyone in Egypt to leave records. Yet there are many documents and administrative records dating to Year 5, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, and 44; none of these documents should exist and none should give time spans across the reigns of Amasis and his predecessors that exclude a mystery period of "40 years". Yet, oddly enough, they exist. Why? Why do they show that life continued without change after Nebuchadnezzar's campaign?