607 wrong using ONLY the bible (and some common sense)

by Witness My Fury 492 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • thetrueone
    thetrueone

    2 Kings 25:8

    On the seventh day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, an official of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

    Here's some more problems for you bible wizards to chew on.

  • OUTLAW
    OUTLAW
    djeggnog, still has never provided a scripture from the Bible where it says,
    Jerusalem was desolated in King Neb. 18th year. And that's because he can't.....Alwayshere

    Even if were to provide such a scripture, you would still not believe Jerusalem was destroyed in Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year.....DjEggNogg

    You should have stuck with "Whatever".....Thats a WatchTarded post..

    You can`t provide a scripture that doesn`t exist..

    Saying: "But what if I could?" ..

    Only shows Further Proof,of how Desperate You Are..

    ................:-)...OUTLAW

  • thetrueone
    thetrueone

    Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires period

    You'll notice that 607 BCE has no significance to the actual siege and partial deportation of its inhabitants to Babylon.

  • jonathan dough
    jonathan dough

    Eggnog: The land of Judah lay desolate for seventy years

    Well, this is patently false and one of the main issues I address in great deal in the material you can find right here: http://144000.110mb.com/607/index.html

    Of the many dozens of issues discussed in this paper, you only address one or two of them, badly I might add, despite claiming to have read it thorougly, which I find difficult to believe. Accordingly, and until you choose to discuss these issues head-on, I'll let the lurker or genuinely interested reader read the paper on their own. Trust me on this, after a long year of research and writing on this topic, it is biblically impossible for the land of Judah to have been desolate, without a single inhabitant, for 70 years, according to the phrophecy at Jeremiah 25:11 and elsewhere.

    Eggnog: Jeremiah foretold that the land of Judah's would be made to lay desolate "until the land had paid off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years" (2 Chronicles 36:21). The fact that during this 70-year period, the Jews were exiles in Babylon for at least 68 of these 70 years. Actually Daniel had been an exile in Babylon for 11 years longer than 68 years, for he, along with his wives, his mother, his court officials and other "foremost men," became exiles at Babylon "in the eighth year" of Nebuchadnezzar's kingship when Jehoiachin's vassalage to Babylon ended. (2 Kings 24:12) This was when Daniel's name was changed to "Belteshazzar."

    The underlined sentence makes no sense whatsoever, and that which follows is immaterial to the issue and a calculated smoke screen intended to divert readers from Leviticus 26:32-35 whereby Moses prophesied that Judah would pay off its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolate while the exiles were in the land of their enemies, Babylon, and not after they returned.

    32 And I, for my part, will lay the land desolate, and YOUR enemies who are dwelling in it will simply stare in amazement over it. 33 And YOU I shall scatter among the nations, and I will unsheathe a sword after YOU; and YOUR land must become a desolation, and YOUR cities will become a desolate ruin.

    34 “‘At that time the land will pay off its sabbaths all the days of its lying desolated, while YOU are in the land of YOUR enemies. At that time the land will keep sabbath, as it must repay its sabbaths. 35 All the days of its lying desolated it will keep sabbath, for the reason that it did not keep sabbath during YOUR sabbaths when YOU were dwelling upon it.

    Again, you lack a couple of years and your 70-year theory is mere fiction. The Watchtower Society insists that the 70 years span exactly 70 years to the month, and to the extent that you repudiate your faith as you so casually do, well, thanks for proving our point that the Society is composed of false teachers, the same teachers that Christ and other Bible writers warned us about.

  • Alwayshere
    Alwayshere

    djeggnog, I agree there is no scripture in the Bible

    where Jeremiah refers to Neb. 18th or 19th "regnal" years.

    The word regnal is never used. When someone is made a

    King in Babylon, it is called his accession year and the

    following year is his 1st year.

    609 Josiah was killed and Jehoiakim began to rule.

    609-608 =1 year. 608-10=598.

    Zedekiah began to rule598. 598-597=1 year. 597-10=587 and Jerusalem fell.

  • djeggnog
    djeggnog

    @Witness My Fury wrote:

    Do the "seventy years" count from Jerusalems destruction or not?

    @djeggnog wrote:

    Yes.

    @Witness My Fury wrote:

    What does the bible actually say...?

    @djeggnog wrote:

    The Bible clearly does speak of 70 years of servitude to King Nebuchadnezzar, but Jewish servitude didn't begin until Nebuchadnezzar's seventh regnal year in 618 BC. (Jeremiah 25:11) More importantly though, it was during Nebuchadnezzar's 18th regnal year in 607 BC when Jerusalem was destroyed and Zedekiah, who had fled Jerusalem, was overtaken at Jericho, blinded and then led captive to Babylon.

    The 587 BC advocates cannot reconcile 587 BC with 539 BC, because it isn't possible to find 70 years between 587 BC and 539 BC, for one would be 22 years shy of fulfilling those 70 years that God declared the land must lay desolate to pay off its sabbaths.

    While Jeremiah 25:11 does speak of "these nations" being forced to serve King Nebuchadnezzar for "seventy years," it was not until 607 BC that Judah began to lie desolate just as Jehovah had foretold would occur by His prophet Jeremiah, some 11 years after the servitude of "these nations" in the Syria-Palestine region had already begun in 618 BC. It was only then -- in 607 BC -- that "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon" by the Jews began, during which "the land [would pay] off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years." (Jeremiah 29:10; 2 Chronicles 36:21)

    @Jonathan Dough wrote:

    This is false. According to the JWs, the 70 years lasted exactly 70 years to the month, not from Jerusalem's destruction.

    No, actually the 70 years would begin counting from the desolation of Judah. Solomon's temple was destroyed some two months before the desolation of Judah began, since Gedaliah had been appointed as governor in Judah in the fifth lunar month of Ab, only be assassinated two months later by Judean military chiefs in the seventh lunar month of Tishri, which caused the inhabitants of Judah to flee to Egypt along with Jeremiah and his secretary. It is then in this year -- 607 BC -- that Nebuzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar's chief of the bodyguard, went on to destroy Jerusalem and its temple.

    Now earlier in this thread, I indicated how 2 Kings 25:8 states that it was after Gedaliah's assassination that Nebuchadnezzar's chief of the bodyguard Nebuzaradan destroys Jerusalem and his temple during Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year, when I had intended to say that this event occurred before his assassination. It was some two months after Zedekiah's first year in exile that Babylon began to exercise totalitarian control over the Promised Land that God had given to the nation of Israel back in 1473 BC as the dominant world power.

    The Watchtower Society in its publication Let Your Kingdom Come....

    I am not going to respond to statements that might have been published in older publications produced by the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. As I stated in a previous message, this book you mention here was first published back in 1946 and then it was revised in 1952, and Jehovah's Witnesses do not recognize this book as containing information in it as reliable as the information found in our 21st century publications.

    @AnnOMaly wrote:

    The Bible actually says there were inhabitants living in Jerusalem's ruins after that time (Ezek. 33:21-24).

    @djeggnog wrote:

    No, it doesn't. You seem to be arguing just to be arguing with me, for none of the arguments you make here have any merit. Here's what the Bible does say about the desolated state of Jerusalem and the land of Judah:

    Jeremiah 33:10:

    "'This is what Jehovah has said, ‘In this place that you people will be saying is waste without man and without domestic animal, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolated without man and without inhabitant and without domestic animal....''

    2 Chronicles 36:20, 21:

    Furthermore, he carried off those remaining from the sword captive to Babylon, and they came to be servants to him and his sons until the royalty of Persia began to reign; to fulfill Jehovah’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days of lying desolated it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

    @Jonathan Dough:

    You are very much mistaken in this regard also, and Anne is absolutely correct. There were in fact inhabitants in all that land that the JWs argue was 100 percent uninhabited.

    Ok.

    The reference to the land paying off its sabbaths is a direct reference to Leviticus 26:32-35 which also should have been brought to the readers' attention.

    Why? Well, not the reference I made in this thread to "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon" by the Jews during which "the land [would pay] off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years" didn't come from Leviticus 26:32-35, but to Jeremiah 29:10 and 2 Chronicles 36:21.

    Third, in the book of the exiled prophet Ezekiel he reiterated Jehovah’s word which stated that the devastated places were inhabited.

    23 And the word of Jehovah began to occur to me, saying: 24 "Son of man, the inhabitants of these devastated places are saying even concerning the soil of Israel, ‘Abraham happened to be just one and yet he took possession of the land. And we are many; to us the land has been given as something to possess.’

    You are here quoting something from Ezekiel 33:23, 24, and you believe you understood what you were reading when you really do not. Jerusalem had not yet been destroyed when Ezekiel was given a prophecy from Jehovah as if what eventually did happen had already happened. Nebuchadnezzar had besieged Jerusalem for some 18 months before it finally fell to the Babylonians. You didn't quote Ezekiel 33:22, which states:

    "Now the very hand of Jehovah had come to be upon me in the evening before the coming of the escaped one, and He proceeded to open my mouth prior to that one’s coming to me in the morning, and my mouth was opened and I proved to be speechless no longer."

    This prophecy wasn't fulfilled until Ezekiel had received confirmation from the "escaped one" from Judah that Solomon's temple had been destroyed. Even so, despite the destruction of the temple, those "left over" (Ezekiel 34:18) as survivors in the land of Judah continued to eat unbled meat, still engaged in idolatry, still committed adultery, so they had no right to be in possession of the Land that God had given to Abraham and to his seed in which to live, which was the real point that you seemed to miss! (Ezekiel 33:25, 26) This is why the land of Judah was to become desolate with neither man nor animal living there for 70 years to pay off its sabbaths.

    Since these escaped ones were being hunted down and chased by the sword it is highly unlikely they waited to return seventy years later at the advanced age of 80 or 90 after Cyrus issued his famous decree allowing the Jews to return home. So, even though devastated, a ruin, a waste etc., Judah was inhabited after its destruction.

    Actually, I believe the Bible when it indicates that the land of Judah wasn't inhabited.

    There is no sound scriptural reason for implying that the devastated place of Jeremiah 25:11 was without inhabitant.

    What makes you say this? Is the Sovereign Lord Jehovah told his prophet Jeremiah that the land of Judah "must become a desolated place, an object of astonishment," and that nations like Egypt, Tyre, Moab and the Medes listed at Jeremiah 25:17-26, would have to drink from Jehovah's "cup" and "serve the king of Babylon seventy years," just as it states at Jeremiah 25:11, then I would consider this to be a very "sound scriptural reason" to conclude that the land of Judah became "a desolated place, an object of astonishment."

    Sixth, given the foregoing scriptural certainty, the phrase "a desolate waste, without inhabitant" or similar variant, was never meant to be taken literally.

    Is that how you see it? You may have your reasons to take Jeremiah's prophecy as being a figure of speech, but I take his prophecy to be literal. You can believe what you want to believe.

    @PSacramento wrote:

    607 has been beaten to death.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    It has? Ok.

    @PSacramento wrote:

    It has been shown over and over and over to be wrong.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    Ok.

    @PSacramento wrote:

    It has been shown via the bible, via history, via astronomy, via archeology.

    @djeggnog wrote:

    I may have referred to cuneiform tablets, but I have primarily referred to the Bible in making the case that the land of Judah began to pay off its sabbaths to fulfill 70 years in the year 607 BC.

    @Jonathan Dough wrote:

    You are actually weakening your case when you rely on Leviticus to prove that the land of Judah began to pay off its sabbaths to fulfill 70 years, and had you quoted the entire relevant verses instead of select portions you would clearly see that your theory actually disproves 70 years, an exact number to the month according to the WTBS, because it ended while the Jews were in Babylon, not when they supposedly returned. You fall one or two years short. This is a common trick used by the Jws with these verses.

    What "common trick"? When did I make a case here about something contained in the Bible book of Leviticus? About what exactly was this "case" of mine?

    I recall @AnnOMaly's making a reference to something in Leviticus, but I think you might be conflating my comments here with something you may have read in Setting the Record Straight, which you have characterized as being a recitation of de facto doctrines believed by Jehovah's Witnesses. I have told you and Im telling you again that "just because someone claims to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses does not mean that what that individual says accords with our viewpoint."

    @djeggnog

  • thetrueone
    thetrueone

    One real truth that one can obtain from all of this, is that the WTS. were deliberately counting on people to not have a bible based

    knowledgeable scholarship tucked into their pockets.

    In equal to this fudging of the numbers to suit themselves, the calculation reached to derive 1975 was another

    incalculable dating system, a pretentious deliberate fraud, that had much more damaging impact to the body of followers.

    Bullshitting in the publishing field even exists into the religious area, Harold Camping as a recent example.

    But if power and money can be perceived as something obtainable , why not ? ..... right djeggnog

  • jonathan dough
    jonathan dough

    @Witness My Fury wrote:

    Do the "seventy years" count from Jerusalems destruction or not?

    @djeggnog wrote:

    Eggnog: Yes.

    @Jonathan Dough wrote:

    This is false. According to the JWs, the 70 years lasted exactly 70 years to the month, not from Jerusalem's destruction.

    Eggnog: No, actually the 70 years would begin counting from the desolation of Judah. Solomon's temple was destroyed some two months before the desolation of Judah began, since Gedaliah had been appointed as governor in Judah in the fifth lunar month of Ab, only be assassinated two months later by Judean military chiefs in the seventh lunar month of Tishri, which caused the inhabitants of Judah to flee to Egypt along with Jeremiah and his secretary. It is then in this year -- 607 BC -- that Nebuzaradan, Nebuchadnezzar's chief of the bodyguard, went on to destroy Jerusalem and its temple.

    Now earlier in this thread, I indicated how 2 Kings 25:8 states that it was after Gedaliah's assassination that Nebuchadnezzar's chief of the bodyguard Nebuzaradan destroys Jerusalem and his temple during Nebuchadnezzar's nineteenth year, when I had intended to say that this event occurred before his assassination. It was some two months after Zedekiah's first year in exile that Babylon began to exercise totalitarian control over the Promised Land that God had given to the nation of Israel back in 1473 BC as the dominant world power.


    This is a splendid example of your confusion and contradictory viewpoints. Here, you claim the seventy years count from Jerusalem's destruction, and shortly thereafter you claim it does not and the count begins with the desolation of Judah, which followed Jerusalem's destruction. You can't have it both ways.

    The issue isn't what you believe because most of us don't care, but what the Watchtower Society teaches, and in their publication which you so easily discard, they claim the 70 years runs from October to October, exactly. But until you present us with a 21st century publication that specifically refutes that claim, the material in Let Your Kingdom Come must stand, and the burden has shifted to you to provide some concrete evidence that the Society has altered its views on this, which they won't because it would devastate even further their shaky theory.

    Furthermore, if you insist on arguing that the 70 years begins some time before October, which you gloss over by referring to that time period as "in this year," you should at least give us the exact month vis-a-vis the Society's chosen month of October. Additionally, if your 70 years commences before October of the year Jerusalem was destroyed, and especially if you claim it began upon Jerusalem's destruction, which you do above, you have two additional insurmountable problems. First, the land was inhabited by those Jews who eventually fled to Egypt because they didn't leave until after Jerusalem was destroyed. And secondly, your seventy years could never, under any circumstances, have ended upon the Jews return and repatriation in October of 537 because your pre-October claim pulls the 70-year period back too far in time.

    @Jonathan Dough:

    You are very much mistaken in this regard also, and Ann is absolutely correct. There were in fact inhabitants in all that land that the JWs argue was 100 percent uninhabited.

    Eggnog: Ok.

    Thank you for agreeing that the WBTS are false teachers in this significant regard. But here is another blatant contradiction of yours. Whereas you just now agree with me that in fact the land was not completely uninhabited, you also argue with Ann that it was in fact completely uninhabited, and changed your position with me again, stating "Actually, I believe the Bible when it indicates that the land of Judah wasn't inhabited," despite the overwhelming evidence presented above that it was.

  • Alwayshere
    Alwayshere

    Watchtower Society has speculated many times on dates.

    Awake 1998 5/8 says, "danger of listening to those who speculate

    about dates."

    This was 23 years after they speculated on 1975.

  • jonathan dough
    jonathan dough

    The reference to the land paying off its sabbaths is a direct reference to Leviticus 26:32-35 which also should have been brought to the readers' attention.

    Eggnog: Why? Well, not the reference I made in this thread to "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon" by the Jews during which "the land [would pay] off its sabbaths ... to fulfill seventy years" didn't come from Leviticus 26:32-35, but to Jeremiah 29:10 and 2 Chronicles 36:21.

    We understand completely why you want to ignore Leviticus 26:32-35 and pretend that it somehow does not refer to the same prophecy, that it is the exact same period of time referenced at 2 Chronicles 36:21. But it is the exact same period, and because Moses promised that paying off the Sabbaths would end while the Jews were in captivity, in Babylon, and therefore not upon their return to the Promised Land, the Society's 70-year Return Theory is proven utterly and completely false. Now, if you can prove to us that Moses in Leviticus was referring to another 70-year period when the Jews would pay off their sabbaths while they were in the land of their enemies, please, share that with us, preferably with specific verses to back up your point. The reference in Jeremiah and 2 Chronicles comes directly from Moses' prediction in Leviticus, and it harmonizes with all of the other verses which likewise claim that the fulfillment, or end, of the 70 years of the nations' collective servitude to Babylon ended while the Jews were in Babylon.

    http://www.144000.110mb.com/directory/607_bce_586_587_destruction_fall_desolation_jerusalem.html

    @Jonathan Dough wrote:

    You are actually weakening your case when you rely on Leviticus to prove that the land of Judah began to pay off its sabbaths to fulfill 70 years, and had you quoted the entire relevant verses instead of select portions you would clearly see that your theory actually disproves 70 years, an exact number to the month according to the WTBS, because it ended while the Jews were in Babylon, not when they supposedly returned. You fall one or two years short. This is a common trick used by the Jws with these verses.

    Eggnog: What "common trick"? When did I make a case here about something contained in the Bible book of Leviticus? About what exactly was this "case" of mine?

    It's a common trick, or ploy, because the Society doesn't show all of its cards and treats so much of this as a game. It's not complicated, and we're all rather used to it. They, and you, are essentially taking 2 Chronicles and Jeremiah out of context, but Leviticus puts it back into context, fleshes it out, so to speak, and proves quite forcefully that the 70 years ended while the Jews were captives in Babylon, not when they returned, and accordingly, you don't have 70 years and fall short at least one, and probably two, years.

    @Jonathan Dough:

    The issue isn't what you believe because most of us don't care, but what the Watchtower Society teaches....

    Eggnog: Is that right? If you have been imagining here that you have been discussing with me is what the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society teaches, then you aren't aware that the WTS is the just corporate publishing arm staffed by Jehovah's Witnesses that produces the literature, including Bibles and media items, that Jehovah's Witnesses use in their Christian ministry. If you have imagining here that you have been discussing with me what Jehovah's Witnesses teach in their ministry (which is what I had imagined you were doing), and you don't care what my views are, then maybe I should withdraw from this thread, at least I should withdraw from it to the extent that I stop exchanging posts with you since, as it happens, I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

    You're splitting hairs unnecessarily. When I speak of the Watchtower Society I include the ministry, although I wouldn't go so far as to call it "Christian" as the great majority of Christendom regards that term. As far as you withdrawing, by all means feel free to hit the road. I don't think you will be missed, necessarily. As for your views, it's impossible to tell what they are or whether they harmonize with the Society's because you repudiate so much of their teachings, walk your own path when you think it suits you and easily turn on your brothers, like those who wrote Setting the Record Straight who are actually on your side. Your cheap lawyer arguments are easily seen through. Confuse, deflect, ignore ... I suppose you can't help that.

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