Is the information on JWfacts.com accurate?

by Nobleheart 34 Replies latest jw friends

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  Hoffnung

  Hello Nobleheart,

  As Blacksheep already suggested, please draw a list of all the Neo-Babylonian Kings with the years they reigned. Your WT Lib Cd-Rom has this information available. The last king will be Nabonidus, the 1st one Nabopalassar, Nebuchadnezzar's father. count all these years together. You know the moment the Babylonian empire ended, 539 BCE. Calculate the 1st year of Nabopalassar. Please find now in your WT-Lib the moment Babylon attained its supremacy status. in the Insight book you will find under 'Assyria' that it was in the 17th year of Nabopalassar. calculate what year this was. Now take your bible and read Jer 25:12. Here you find bible prophecy confirmed that between the 17th year of Nabopalassar and 539BCE there are exactly... 70 years, as foretold in the bible. Jer 25:11 confirms that NationS (plural S) will have to serve the King of Babylon 70 years. Now you can take any bible verse that states in which year Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem. Depending on the verse it was his 18th or 19th year (depending on the viewpoint of the writer). please calculate now in which year BCE this took place. The math really is straightforward.

  The most quoted verses by the organization are 2Chron36:20, 21 and Daniel 9:1,2. Both refer directly to the verses in Jer 25, and thus can only be used together with Jer 25.

  To top it up, both verses in Zecharia (1:12, 7:5) say the jews were fasting already for 70 years at that time. As Zecharia wrote his book around 515-520 BCE, and 70 years before 515-520 BCE, brings us to 590-585, it confirms what you found above.

  the only real difficult one is Jer 29:10. Because Hieronymus ('Jerome' in french), used 'in' instead of 'for' in his Latin Vulgate, and this error was copied in the english King James version and all its descendants, quite a few bibles use the same word incorrectly. However, the specialist in the use of this word, a professor in Switzerland, who spent his entire oeuvre on this, stated that the Akkadian 'le' cannot be translated as 'in' in this particular verse. I am quite sure you will be able to find translations in your own languages whith the correct translation.

  the simple logic above blew me and my wife away. Please do not hesitate to reply if you cannot agree with what I wrote above.

  I am also living in Europe, and English is not my 1st language either. Maybe I can give you a hand with the language issue. Please check your PM.

  keep your hope alive, you are getting closer to finding truth, and truth will set you free.

  Best Regards,

  Hoffnung
• 

  Is this it?

  ...I found this video from WTComments very helpful. Shows how you can use the WT publications to match the chronology of the kings with dates to arrive at 587.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrCleOXkYu0
• 

  jwfacts

  GaryNeal

  I am not aware of Russell saying Angels directed his thoughts, but Rutherford did, particularly in the book Preparation.

  "In recent months the Lord has revealed to his people a clearer understanding of the Devil's organization, and of his purpose to wreck that wicked system that the people may have complete deliverance. This message he has been pleased to permit to appear in a book entitled DELIVERANCE. Has not God provided this instrument in the hands of the anointed class? Let those who so believe carefully study the message therein and be prepared to use it" Watchtower 1926 August 15 p.248
  
  "God uses angels to teach His people now on earth." The Golden Age 1933 Nov. 8 p.69
  
  "Certain duties and kingdom interests have been committed by the Lord to his angels, which include the transmission of information to God's anointed people on the earth for their aid and comfort. Even though we cannot understand how the angels transmit this information, we know that they do it." Preparation (1933) pp.36,37,
  
  "Enlightenment proceeds from Jehovah... and is given to the faithful anointed.... the remnant are instructed by the angels of the Lord. The remnant do not hear audible sounds, because such is not necessary. Jehovah has provided his own good way to convey thoughts to the minds of his anointed ones." Preparation (1933) p.64
  
  "No man can properly interpret prophecy, and the Lord sends his angels to transmit correct information to his people."Watchtower 1936 Feb. 15 p.52
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  dozy

  Bear in mind that for years , up to the 1940s , the WTBTS used to teach that Jerusalem was destroyed in 606 BCE. Then they realised about the zero year and instead of moving the projected year (1914) to 1915, they moved the destruction of Jerusalem back a year to 607 BCE. There was no rhyme or reason in doing this - it was just a case of picking a date to keep 1914 alive.

  rechap.18p.105EarthquakesintheLord’sDay Providentially, those Bible Students had not realized that there is no zero year between “B.C.” and “A.D.” Later, when research made it necessary to adjust B.C. 606 to 607 B.C.E., the zero year was also eliminated, so that the prediction held good at “A.D. 1914
• 

  sd-7

  This morning, I just read in the Insight book under 'Daniel' that the Society claims Daniel was taken captive in 618 B.C. 'likely as a teenager', in the 'third year of Jehoiakim's vassalage to Nebuchadnezzar'. But Daniel says, not the third year of Jehoiakim's vassalage, but the THIRD YEAR of Jehoiakim's REIGN. The NWT says at Daniel 1:1: "In the third year of the KINGSHIP of Jehoiakim the king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem and proceeded to lay siege to it." Daniel makes no mention whatsoever of Jehoiakim's vassalage, only his kingship, his regnal year. This 'third year of Jehoiakim' ties to Jeremiah 25:1, which says that the fourth year of Jehoiakim was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (which, as I said earlier, ties to what the Nabonidus Chronicle says about Nebuchadnezzar's first year). The Babylonian system of reckoning doesn't count the first year of a king's reign, so what Jeremiah describes as Jehoiakim's fourth year of reign, Daniel describes as Jehoiakim's third year of reign.

  The Society also adds in the Insight book that Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the second year AFTER 607 B.C., which would be eleven years after Daniel was presumably taken captive, by the Society's reckoning. Daniel 2:1 says nothing to indicate that Daniel's counting of time is so arbitrary that he would fail to clearly delineate what he meant in both this instance and in Daniel 1:1 when talking about these kings. Here's what he says: "And in the SECOND YEAR OF THE KINGSHIP OF Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams; and his spirit began to feel agitated, and his very sleep was made to be something beyond him." Daniel does not say, "In the second year after Jerusalem was destroyed" or "the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's kingship over Jerusalem". He says, "In the second year of the kingship of Nebuchadnezzar." If the Society's reckoning were correct, the year Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream was actually Nebuchadnezzar's 20th year as king, as we know he conquered Jerusalem in his 18th regnal year. Why would Daniel refer to Nebuchadnezzar's 20th year as his second without making that clear in his writings? Why would he use such an odd reckoning of the regnal years that has not appeared in any of the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures, ever?

  No one on the face of the earth who reads these verses without the use of the Watchtower will conclude that Daniel is referring to the second year after Jerusalem's destruction as the timing for the events of Daniel 2:1. You would have to read into his statements something that is not even remotely suggested in any of the context to draw that conclusion. The Insight book presents the aforementioned notion about Dan. 2:1 being the second year after 607 without any supporting evidence at all.

  I've read on one website the suggestion that Daniel, since he had to go through three years of training before he could stand before the king, according to Daniel 1:5, could not have interpreted the dream in Nebuchadnezzar's second (that is, third) regnal year. This would seem to be a contradiction, but only if you assume that Daniel's training and his interpreting of the dream had to be mutually exclusive events. Why do they have to be? Daniel was obviously intelligent, and the situation in Daniel 2 in which he interpreted the dream was an emergency--the lives of the wise men of Babylon were on the line. He found out what was going on and intervened. At the very least, he would've been educated enough to do that after a year or two of training (which must've been pretty intensive since the training was only three years), so it's not implausible to think that he could have done that.

  Also, Daniel chapter 1 points out in its concluding verse that Daniel continued serving until Cyrus' reign. This concluding thought could suggest that Daniel is giving a broad summary of his circumstances, a bird's eye view of how it got started before he goes into more detailed anecdotes. I may be wrong.

  The bottom line, in the face of this clear distortion of what Daniel says, is that the Society needs to force the square peg (607 B.C.E.) into the round hole (what Daniel actually says). The only way to do that is to basically rewrite what Daniel says, to say, "He didn't really mean what he said. He really meant what we want/need him to say." I don't need Daniel to say anything beyond what he actually says, since this set of verses is hardly the only evidence against 607 B.C., and it's not even a relevant date to anyone but Jehovah's Witnesses because it is the starting point for the 1914 doctrine. If it were correct, so what? That wouldn't prove 1914 as correct, because it still rests upon several other assumptions and leaps over logic. But if it's wrong, it definitely proves 1914 is wrong. Either way, objective reading of Daniel's account does not point to 607 B.C. in any way, shape or form.

  -sd-7