Start and end of the "Seventy Years" according to the WTS

by Doug Mason 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Doug Mason

  The WTS says that the “Seventy Years” started when a group of Judeans, including Jeremiah, crossed the border into Egypt. This, they say, was required since the land had to be absolutely and totally depopulated, without a human or a beast on the land.

  One would thus expect that the WTS would end the Seventy Years when the first Captives crossed the border into the province of Yehud. That would mean that once again there were people on the land.

  But no, the WTS does not do that. The WTS lets each Returnee settle into their own house, village and community, but the Seventy Years continues.

  Then, after having settled down, each person makes the journey to Jerusalem, and yet the Seventy Years is still continuing, even though the land is now populated, settled with man and beast.

  Not until people perform a ceremony at the temple site (surrounded by opponents), does the WTS end the Seventy Years. Does the Bible say this event marked its ending?

  If the Seventy Years could not start until the “last person” had gone to Egypt, if the Seventy Years required the land to be without a person living in it, then how could it continue for such a long time after people had returned?

  If the Seventy Years did not start when the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed, why did the WTS make the end relate to the temple?

  Or is it significant that the time from the destruction of the temple to its rebuilding was 70 years?

  Doug
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  Bungi Bill

  Just like "The Generation" of 1914, it would seem that the boundaries of the Seventy Years of Desolation are rather elastic. This time period begins when the WTS says it does, ends when the WTS says it does, with its boundaries set to conform to WTS theology.

  It is easy to see how a person could get themselves badly hurt by taking any of this stuff seriously!

  Bill.
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  Doug Mason

  The WTS rabbits on about the need for the land of Judah to be totally devoid of people and beasts for the full 70 years, even waiting until a group enters Egypt before allowing the period to start, yet it does not terminate the period when people return. The WTS waits until after the Returnees have settled into their communities, made their journeys in the land to Jerusalem, and then held a ceremony at the temple site. Even when, for the WTS, the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem did not mark the start of the 70 Years.

  Doug
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  Bungi Bill

  So desperate is the WTS to cling on to this date of 607 BC, that they pick and choose which evidence is "admissable" - and which is not.

  According to Fred Franz's chronology, the year 539 BC is an "Absolute Date" (WT 8/15/1968 p.488) - and THE date from which all others are calculated. The first thing to note here is that, in the Bible, there is no such thing as an "Absolute Date" - nowhere in the scriptures will you see a statement like "Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians in the year 539 BC." (This should be obvious to the dimmest of dimwits, you would think!)Rather, in common with most other writings of those times, the Bible dates events by "regnal years" i.e. by which year of which king's reign the event occurred. For example, 2 Kings 25: 2, 8 state that Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed during the "eleventh year of King Zedekiah" and the "nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar."

  The date of 539 BC for the capture of Babylon by the Persian armies has had to be determined by what the WTS likes to call "secular history", and - for the last century or so - scholars have generally been in agreement about this date.

  The Watchtower of 8/15/1968 even lists nineteen different reference works to support that claim:

  - However, what it fails to acknowledge is that, rather than 539 BC being the date around which everything else hinges, 539 BC itself was calculated from another event - the succession of Nebuchadnezzar to the throne in the year 605 BC. (This followed quickly after the Babylonian victory at the decisive Battle of Carchemesh, in which the Egyptian army was practically destroyed).

  If, as the Bible says, Jerusalem's destruction occurred in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, then the date was 586 BC - NOT (horror of horrors!) 607 BC. Aside from the Bible's record ( and secular history pointing to 605 BC marking the start of Nebuchadnezzar's reign), there is much archeological evidence which also identifies 586 BC as being the date for Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonians. Archeologists have unearthed literally "tens of thousands of detailed economic, administrative and legal documents" (according to the Dictionary of Biblical Archeology p.274) that all identify the year 586 as being when the city and its temple were destroyed. Further, the Jewish historian Josephus is in agreement that the desolation of the temple lasted 50 years - NOT 70 years, as the WTS insists it was.

  Much more could be said about the matter of these "70 years"

  e.g. were Jeremiah 25:11,12; Jeremiah 29:10; Daniel 9: 1,2 ; 2 Chronicles 36: 20, 21; Zechariah 1: 7,12; Zechariah 7: 1 -5 all referring to the same 70 year period? With their propensity for cobbling unrelated bible verses together from many different parts of the scriptures, the WTS says they do. However - to say the least - this is very much open to debate! (Particularly when bible translation comes into it i.e. did the Hebrew word used mean "in Babylon" or "for Babylon"? Whichever translation was correct puts a different slant on things).

  Also, did the "seven times" have a secondary fulfillment, anyway? And even if they did, is it not quite an exercise in creative accounting to switch from 360 day "Prophetic Years" on one hand to get your 2520 days, then convert these "days" to literal 365.25 day Calendar Years? (What sort of cigarettes was he smoking, I wonder?)

  However, as far as dating Jerusalem's destruction goes, the WTS is happy to use "Secular history" - and nothing else - to identify what they (incorrectly) call an "Absolute Date" i.e. 539 BC:

  - yet they blatantly ignore what that very same historical source reveals as to the year of Jerusalem's destruction by Nebuchadnezzar.

  Rather than face reality, the WTS desperately clings to the date of 607 BC:

  - even to the point of rewriting Middle East history to try and make everything conform to their pre-conceived ideas of 607 + (7 x 360) + year zero = 1914 (In the process, trying to portray many events - such as the Battle of Carchemesh, the enthronement of Nebuchadnezzar, plus the reigns of the last kings of Judah - as occurring 20 years earlier than when they actually occurred).

  Picking and choosing which evidence you want to use, even if it is all from the same source:

  - If that is not intellectual dishonesty at its worst, then it would be difficult to describe what is!

  Bill.
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  aristeas

  Doug,

  Forget all the chronology/prophecy stuff! It's a big waste of time. There is much more interesting material to study and learn. BB is right about the O just trying to cling to the old WTS tradition as long as possible. But they do seem to be preparing for a change: the 1914 statement inside the WT mag cover is now gone. In the new songbook, in general, it's a return to golden oldies (plus some 40 new compositions) but conspicuous by its absence is the old number 14, 'Be Glad, You Nations' undoubtedly b/c it used to state 'The 7 Gentile Times have ended, the kings have had their day...' There is clearly a deemphasis on specific prophecies. They're hoping the publishers will forget about it—maybe you should too!

  If you do believe God/Jehovah is behind the Bible consider this: the real reason for all the enticing prophecies like 'Happy is he who comes ot the end of the 1,335 days' (Dan 12) is just to keep people wondering, keep them spiritually awake. Once you realize this, you can move on to the important stuff. Study real history, learn the basics of Greek, study Paul's letters as whole documents, or something, anything OTHER THAN PROPHECY! Think about it: Did the Essenes/Qumran community have prophecy right? Did the offbeat groups during the Reformation? Did Wiliam Miller? Russell? JFR? Freddie Franz? This nutjob Richard King/e-watchman? This Harold Camping guy? Get the message? Give it up—it's not figure-out-able, by design!

  My two cents, for what they're worth...
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  Doug Mason

  Thanks for your thoughts, aristeas.

  I wonder if others can see a shift away from the WTS saying that the Parousia has occurred, or that the WTS was anointed in 1919? Do they no longer say this? If that is so, where is their anchor, their source of authority?

  For decades I have felt that the value of looking at the subject of the neo-Babylonian chronology lies in its use as the foundation for determining 1914 and 1919 (the WTS earlier used Lev 26 instead of Dan 4).

  Its value also lies in showing how the WTS organisation continually misquotes and misrepresents the authorities it supposedly quotes. Since it is easy to show that the WTS does this, that fact should help break the WTS's mental stranglehold and permit enlightened discussions.

  Until and unless that happens, a JW believes the WTS because of whom and what it claims to be (Jehovah's sole channel of communication), rather than because of what it is saying.

  When the JW sees that they are being deceived and lied to, that the organisation is waging theological warfare on its own followers, then it is possible to have an open discussion. Certainly no two people will agree on everything, but that should never matter. The WTS does not allow for personal views; I encourage them

  I certainly do conduct very deep, serious and personally challenging study into the Biblical writings and I am more than keen to discuss my views.

  I am not an eschatologist, nor am I interested in so-called prophetic fulfilment. Rather, my strong interest lies in discovering the immediate context of any writing (religious politics, secular politics, contemporary idiom, and so on), and knowing whether a writing is genuine.

  Each Biblical writer was only addressing their immediate community, with the objective of influencing behaviour and attitude within that immediate community. With many of the NT writings, the writer was arguing against opposing views within the Christian community. Much of the NT writings are not what they purport to be; much is wrongly attributed. Most of the so-called NT fulfillments of the OT stretch the bounds of credulity.

  Another area of great interest to me is the religious and secular politics that determined which NT writings were canonised. It took centuries before a decision was finally arrived at, and the Roman emperors had a say.

  The religious expectation of an imminent divine appearance of Jesus (Yeshua/Joshua) has been taking place in every century since the first, and probably earlier. Even Jesus and Paul expected it to happen in their own time (this generation, then we who are alive, etc.). The expectations in every century of an imminent divine manifestation have had the same outcome -- zero.

  I see the Bible as a human book.

  But until we are able to break the nexus between the WTS and the JW's brain, such valuable discussions cannot commence. If you know of a better tool than neo-Babylonian chronology, I am more than keen to hear of it.

  Doug
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  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Doug,

  Don't forget to include this diagram in the explanation...

  
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  wobble

  Billy, that is great fun , the pyramid thing, it is interesting to read Russells letters to and from Prof. Piazzi Smyth, Russell claims them as support for his futhering the pyramid lunacy, whereas Piazzi-Smyth is only polite and says he finds Russells work interesting.

  Russell makes much of Piazzi-Smyth being the "Astronomer Royal" for Scotland, thus an "authority", maybe the old fraud P.S claimed this title for himself, but no such post ever existed.

  Doug, thanks once again for your great work, and if we ever get JW's to truly look at the subject properly, and to grasp the ramifications, they will wake up , no doubt.

  But getting them to consider such material is an uphill struggle.
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  aristeas

  Doug,
  
  Thx for explaining where you're coming from. It's gratifying to see that you're not all caught up in that prophecy stuff.
  
  Are you ex-JW or just s.o. interested from a completely outside (the WTS) view?
  
  As for trying 'to break the nexus between the WTS and the JW's brain', well, I doubt that can ever be done except for a few individual cases.
  
  If you have such interest in the NT writings, then surely you have noticed how writers like Paul regularly wrench individual OT passages out of their original context and apply them in what many might call a 'slap-dab' manner to his needs when writing to his audiences. Isn't that what occurs when you state 'the WTS organisation continually misquotes and misrepresents the authorities it supposedly quotes'? The mentality of JWs today is quite similar, to me anyway, to that of the unsophisticated fishermen of Galilee. They, as well as other Adventists, are sincere but generally uneducated people for whom eschatology has become the primary focus (per J. G. Melton's Dictionary of Religious Bodies).
  
  One final question: if you take the view (not personally but for the sake of illustraiton) that God inspired all this OT prophecy re: messiah's coming as early Christianity saw it, that is, that there are two comings, first as a humble guy (coming on an ass) who would be killed (but this was mostly hidden and cryptically written in obtuse ways in the OT), and then second as a warrior king with universal power to destroy all the nations and establish his own world rule from Jerusalem (and this coming is far more clearly perceptible from OT prophecies), and that God never clearly specified these two comings, THEN WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THIS HEBREW GOD?—or if you want to take a purely humanistic perspective, what does it say about those early Jewish and later gentile Christians who believed this scenario?
  
  If you wish to continue this interlocution, I then have some further questions.
  
  Cheers.
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  Doug Mason

  Thank you guys for your support. I find it a most humbling experience.

  Billy and Wobble, in the following post in this thread I shall share a passage about Piazzi Smyth.
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  Aristeas, Also the people who wrote after Paul did, such as the "Gospel" writers, were very loose in their reapplication of their Scriptures. As Spong points out, they were expecting their leader to achieve great and wonderful things, but instead the Romans murdered him. How could this be? So they searched their writings for answers and they reinterpreted the passages, such as Isa 53 and Ps 22, to make it appear as if they had some prophetic intent. Much like the WTS does today, in seeing symbolisms and parables in Scripture as if they applied to them.

  Are you aware of which NT writings are wrongly attributed to Paul and to Peter?

  I have never been a JW but I was an SDA (cousins of the WTS) for about 16 years, so I am fully aware of what it means to belong to such an organisation and the mental stresses caused when leaving one. It took me at least 10 years to free my brain.

  If I have not fully answered your question, please let me know.

  Doug