The Gentile Times Reconsidered (page 31)

AnnOMaly

Hold on! You can't have it both ways, Spade.

You can't declare, "ancient history in itself cannot be proven" as if to say sound conclusions cannot be made based on it, and then assert, "there's enough secular data that has been preserved to our time to come to conclusions." Anyway, all the secular data that have been preserved lead to the conclusion that Jerusalem was demonstrably NOT destroyed in 607 BCE! You really are a joke. Have you 'met' Neil who posts under the misnomer 'scholar'? You two would get on famously. (Where is he? P. 16 of the thread and he's still not showed! He must be ill.)

villabolo

Spade, playing the reviled martyr:

"I'm perfectly happy to let them go their way and keep posting trashy pictures if it makes you feel better. That comes simply because I support Jehovah's Witnesses and other reasons not related to this thread. "

Go ahead, become one

What's stopping you?

Villabolo

Spade

And consider this: Jer. 51:28, 29, 37.

"Sanctify against her the nations, the kings of Me′di·a, its governors and all its deputy rulers and all the land of each one's dominion. And let the earth rock and be in severe pain, for against Babylon the thoughts of Jehovah have risen up to make the land of Babylon an object of astonishment, without an inhabitant. ... And Babylon must become piles of stones, the lair of jackals, an object of astonishment and something to whistle at, without an inhabitant."

The context is clearly about God's retribution on Babylon at the hands of the Medes - understood to have happened in 539 BCE, yes? And the same language is used as in Jer. 9:11 so must have been a favorite expression. Did the Medes and Persians strip the land of Babylon of its inhabitants when they conquered it? You know the answer. Ever heard of poetic or prophetic hyperbole? Or "artistic poetic rhetoric" (C.J.H. Wright's expression in The Message of Ezekiel)?

Jeremiah 9:11 obviously had a literal application to the Jewish nation even narrowing the Jews taken in exhile to a specific number.

These are the people whom Neb·u·chad·rez′zar took into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews. Jeremiah 52:28

In the first year of Da·ri′us the son of A·has·u·e′rus of the seed of the Medes, who had been made king over the kingdom of the Chal·de′ans; in the first year of his reigning I myself, Daniel, discerned by the books the number of the years concerning which the word of Jehovah had occurred to Jeremiah the prophet, for fulfilling the devastations of Jerusalem, [namely,] seventy years. Daniel 9:1-2

What was stated in Jeremiah 51:36-37 was stated because of the parallel prophecy regarding Babylon the Great.

Therefore this is what Jehovah has said: "Here I am conducting your legal case, and I shall certainly execute vengeance for you. And I will dry up her sea, and I will make her wells dry. And Babylon must become piles of stones, the lair of jackals, an object of astonishment and something to whistle at, without an inhabitant. Jeremiah 51:36-37

re chap. 33 pp. 238-239 par. 10 Judging the Infamous Harlot

Ancient Babylon sat on many waters-the Euphrates River and numerous canals. These were a protection to her as well as a source of commerce producing wealth, until they dried up in one night. (Jeremiah 50:38; 51:9, 12, 13) Babylon the Great also looks to "many waters" to protect and enrich her. These symbolic waters are "peoples and crowds and nations and tongues," that is, all the thousands of millions of humans over whom she has dominated and from whom she has drawn material support. But these waters are also drying up, or withdrawing support. -Revelation 17:15; compare Psalm 18:4; Isaiah 8:7.

And the sixth one poured out his bowl upon the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings from the rising of the sun. Revelation 16:12

Spade

Hold on! You can't have it both ways, Spade.

You can't declare, "ancient history in itself cannot be proven" as if to say sound conclusions cannot be made based on it, and then assert, "there's enough secular data that has been preserved to our time to come to conclusions." Anyway, all the secular data that have been preserved lead to the conclusion that Jerusalem was demonstrably NOT destroyed in 607 BCE! You really are a joke. Have you 'met' Neil who posts under the misnomer 'scholar'? You two would get on famously. (Where is he? P. 16 of the thread and he's still not showed! He must be ill.)

I didn't go from one extreme to the other. While world history outside the original Bible canon is necessary to arrive at conclusions, discretion and objectivity should be used before arriving at foregone conclusions. If and when secular history conficts with the complete and harmonious Biblical chronology, which gives us a time-line without contradictions, showing the total fulfillment of every prophecy Jehovah gave us, I don't accept it.

OUTLAW

Ancient history cannot be proven, because there are no living informants......Spade/AliceInWonderLand

We're dealing with a fine time line here. Add the fulfillment of the 1914 prophecy. 2,520 years from 1914 pinpoints

the date for Jerusalem's destruction on 607 B.C.E. (the beginning of the Gentile domination). 70 years added

to 607 B.C.E. = 537 B.C.E. There's enough secular data that has been preserved to our time to come to conclusions.....Spade/AliceInWonderLand

Sooooooooooo.Which is it?..

Ancient history Cannot be Proven, because there are No Living Informants..or..

Ancient history Can be Proven,as long as everyone Agree`s with You..

?..

Spade/AliceInWonderland

Is the Winner of the JWN..

........................... ...OUTLAW

villabolo

One more time!

Never mind the fact that everything predicted for 1914, by the Studies in the Scriptures, was stood on its head. Since you say it fulfills Bible prophecy, then tell us what significance does this prophecy have for the next 100 years? 200 years?

And please don't tell me that this "system of things" will not last that long, because nothing in the re-conditioned Watchtower prophecy (Its eternally elastic "generation".) gives a time frame from 1914 to Armageddon. Therefore, any statement you make about the end being near will be your own understanding and not the Bible's.

Villabolo

AnnOMaly

Moving the goalposts again, Spade? You focus on Jer. 51:36-37. But that is all part of the same prophecy continuing through from verses 28 and 29 which is talking about literal (not spiritual) Babylon. Or are you suggesting that Jer. 51:37 isn't discussing literal Babylon?

AnnOMaly

While world history outside the original Bible canon is necessary to arrive at conclusions, discretion and objectivity should be used before arriving at foregone conclusions. If and when secular history conficts with the complete and harmonious Biblical chronology, which gives us a time-line without contradictions, showing the total fulfillment of every prophecy Jehovah gave us, I don't accept it.

But secular history doesn't really conflict with biblical chronology for the NB period, so I don't know what you mean. Sure, secular chronology conflicts with the WTS' idea of Bible chronology for that time, and what you're really saying is that if secular history conflicts with the WTS' idea of Bible chronology, then you are going to go with the WTS' time-line.

Quite a turn-around for someone who, only a few months ago, said:

"For starters, I don't believe in a higher power, so whatever adverse consequences a person experiences as a result of blind faith in intangible, invisible beings isn't resolved by exchanging one religious ideology for another or being born again into another religion and engaging in illterate religious psyche warfare."