@Jonathan Dough wrote:
This is not an all-encompassing list of the kings of Babylon which the nations served seventy years. Even 607- defenders in Setting the Record Straight are of the same view:
In fulfillment of Jeremiah 27:7, the exiled Jews did in fact literally serve Nebuchadnezzar’s son (Evilmerodach) and Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson (co-regent Belshazzer, whose mother was reportedly Nebuchadnezzar’s daughter, Nitocris). However, the captive Jews also served other kings of Babylon, including Neriglissar, Labashi-Marduk and Nabonidus, none of whom bore any blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar. Thus, the words at Jeremiah 27:7, though indisputably true, were obviously not meant to be an all-encompassing list of rulers whom the Jews would serve during the seventy years.
@djeggnog wrote:
I do not agree with the view of the author of Setting the Record Straight as to Nabonidus not being a "blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar." I believe Nebuchadnezzar reigned as king of Babylon from 625/624 BC for 43 years, and was succeeded by his son, Evil-Merodach (Amil-Marduk), as king of Babylon from 581 BC for two years. Evil-Merodach was assassinated by Neriglissar (Nergal-sharezer), his brother-in-law, who succeeded him as king of Babylon from 579 BC for four years, and when he died, his son Labashi-Marduk succeeded him as king of Babylon in 575 BC for three months when he was assassinated.
Nabonidus, who, like Neriglissar, was one of Nebuchadnezzar's sons-in-law, became the king of Babylon after Labashi-Marduk's assassination in 575/574 for 35 years along with his son and crown prince, Belshazzar, for at least 17 years (I believe Belshazzar became coregent of Babylon with Nabonidus during the third year of his father's reign in 572 BC), who, where he lived in Babylon, was considered the king of Babylon, whereas Nabonidus lived primarily in Arabia, until 539 BC when the Medes and Persians under Cyrus deposed Babylon, bringing the Babylonian Dynasty to an end.
Evil-Merodach was, in fact, a blood relative of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar's eldest son, and since Nabonidus was Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law, this means that his eldest son, Belshazzar, was also a blood relative of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson. In fact, this is exactly what Jeremiah 27:7 prophesied as to "him" (Nebuchadnezzar), "his son" (Evil-Merodach) and "his grandson" (Belshazzar).
@AnnOMaly wrote:
Nabonidus was thought to have come from a different dynasty and thus, as son-in-law, would not have been blood related to Nebuchadnezzar. 'In-laws' are very often not blood related to each other - did you know that?
This is not the first time I've told you that I find you to be petty and also someone that relishes the ability you've no doubt perfected in the art of faultfinding. It was a typo, actually a misstatement on my part, to have not more clearly indicated to @Jonathan Dough to what it was I disagreed in Setting the Record Straight, which @Jonathan Dough regards as stating what are the de facto doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses, when, as I pointed out to him, it cannot be such considering the number of erroneous statements I've discovered from @Jonathan Dough's piece on his website, statements with which I cannot agree as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Before I try to make the point I feel I need to make, not so much for you, @AnnOMaly, but for the lurkers that I believe are reading my posts with interest, I'm going to digress here just to make the point to @Jonathan Dough that he may be accustomed to discussing or debating Bible-related topics with others based on statements published in Bible-study aids published by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society (WTS) or by Jehovah's Witnesses that do so independently of the WTS, but my remarks here are typically not cut-and-pasted from WTS publications since over time many of the statements found in our publications become faulty and require adjustments from what they indicate was our viewpoint in the month and year of publication.
I am not like the many Jehovah's Witnesses that cannot defend their faith without making a trip to the home library they maintain of older WTS publications which might go back some 50, 60 years (or more!), which library serves as a crutch for them, or, nowadays, the Watchtower Library cdrom on which books in retirement like Let God Be True first published in 1946 and then revised in 1952 aren't included, and are no longer needed due to what our progressive understanding of the Bible is today, and which is likewise a crutch.
Personally, I use WTS publications to find articles on select topics that I believe will be of benefit to those seeking answers that I do not have the time to give them, just as I do offer many of our publications to folks in my field ministry that express interest in certain Bible topics, but who, because of their busy schedules, aren't able to discuss such topics at length with me in person during the day when I make myself available (although I do speak to many of these folks on the phone or via email until I can arrange for someone to visit them at their homes or business in person).
While I would have no problem reporting an hour per month for Bible-related discussions had with disfellowshipped persons using one of our publications, there is currently no arrangement in effect for reporting the time one might spend on websites like this one with folks that may or may not be disfellowshipped or the time spent in having such discussions via email (although any time spent on the telephone may be reported), so there is no real "upside" to my having Bible-related discussions here on JWN, except to the lurkers that read these threads.
The material contained in such libraries can be a very good resource when conducting research, but if one does not learn anything from whatever it is they are reading, including the significance of what was learned through such research to the scriptural passage that prompted the research in the first place, then he or she is really a cripple tied to the resource itself, as are many Jehovah's Witnesses today that become like the cripples that taught them. When I teach, I primarily use the Bible, so anyone "perfectly instructed" by me will not become a cripple. (Luke 6:40)
But there are those among us (or who were once among us!) that will cut-and-paste here on JWN from something they read in a volume of Studies in the Scriptures or read in the Vindication book or in a Watchtower from, say, 1978, in order to prove a point that they do not know is no longer a viewpoint held by Jehovah's Witnesses!
Now this is not unlike quoting on May 21, 2011, something that was printed in WTS publications after February 18, 1930, and before August 23, 2006, that refers to Pluto as if it were still a planet! It is hard for me to take seriously someone that would posit a faulty argument of any kind without realizing the foolhardiness of their hiring a taxi for a 20-minute trip to the airport at 7:15 pm in order to catch a flight scheduled to leave at 7:30 pm that actually departed the gate on time at 7:30 pm when one hasn't even purchased a ticket for the flight.
While the ability to think and reason on the Scriptures isn't a prerequisite for baptism, many of those that become Jehovah's Witnesses do not know how to do either of these things well, and many leave our ranks thinking they understand the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses, but the very fact that they leave us for this reason or for that reason is proof that they really do not know the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses as they ought to know them. This is one of the main reasons why I do not always respond to your posts, @AnnOMaly, because you often sound clueless to me since you do not really know what the Bible teaches, and it seems that you are totally unaware that when you are attacking the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses that you are really prosecuting a war against the Almighty since the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are based on the Bible!
Because I typically dictate to my PC what things I post here, I have no use for cutting-and-pasting anything contained in WTS publications, so if I should post something from one of our publications, I will do so only when my doing so serves as a correction to some statement in one of them that may have been taken out of context, and so when I am quoting from one of our publications, I will so state! But I will, for the most part, just use the Bible here on JWN, and I have studied the Bible long enough to be able to respond to any Bible-related question, including the unfounded statements that @Jonathan Dough has been making in his attempt to use the Bible book of Ezekiel to do so, to whose messages I intend to respond, but later in another message due to time constraints that prevented me from completing it at this time. (End of digression.)
I have said that I have found you to be a petty individual, and I said this not to be unkind, but because were you to have actually read what I wrote in context, I believe, despite the imperfect statement I made in disputing something contained in Setting the Record Straight as to these "other kings of Babylon, including Neriglissar, Labashi-Marduk and Nabonidus, none of whom bore any blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar" to whom the Jews became subject during their years as exiles in Babylon, I believe you knew, or should have known, that my intent wasn't to suggest that Nabonidus was a "blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar," since I had made the point that Nabonidus and Neriglissar were "Nebuchadnezzar's sons-in-law," did I not?
Your pettiness, @AnnOMaly, served to prevent you from reasoning on how any of what I had stated was consistent with my statement about Nabonidus not being a "blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar." Once you came upon the words, "Nabonidus, who, like Neriglissar, was one of Nebuchadnezzar's sons-in-law..., then my error should have been apparent to you for unless we're talking about incest, a son-in-law will never be anyone's "blood relation," would it? Anyway, in the very next paragraph, where I refer to Nabonidus' "eldest son, Belshazzar," as being "a blood relative of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar's grandson.
The point that I had been attempting to make is that in fulfillment of Jeremiah 27:7, Evil-Merodach was "Nebuchadnezzar's eldest son" and Belshazzar was "Nebuchadnezzar's grandson," for since Nabonidus (Labynetus), Belshazzar's father, was Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law (see Nabonidus and Belshazzar (1929) by Dougherty, Raymond P., at p. 63), this would mean that he would have become related to Nebuchadnezzar by marriage to one of Nebuchadnezzar's daughters. It was through his marriage to Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, Nitocris, that Nabonidus became Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law, and the son born to this marital union was Belshazzar, Nabonidus' firstborn, and also Nebuchadnezzar's blood relative, his grandson. I even ended by stating:
In fact, this is exactly what Jeremiah 27:7 prophesied as to "him" (Nebuchadnezzar), "his son" (Evil-Merodach) and "his grandson" (Belshazzar).
But it's clear that although I do admit writing that "I do not agree with the view of the author of Setting the Record Straight as to Nabonidus not being a "blood relation to Nebuchadnezzar," there is no legitimate excuse for your making the argument, "'In-laws' are very often not blood related to each other - did you know that?" to me. I cannot take anyone seriously that would make such a bogus argument and I don't take you seriously, @AnnOMaly. I may make yet more typos and mistakes in the future, but I'm honest about them, but the argument you made here is dishonest, and the reason I responded to this comment of yours is because I felt you were entitled to a response (even though I would rather have ignored your post altogether!), and to make the point I had sought to make (but totally missed!) as to the relationship of Belshazzar to Nebuchadnezzar clear to the lurkers here on JWN.
@djeggnog