Something the "Watchtower" left out (page 2)

breakfast of champions

Thanks Doug and Black Sheep all the great info.

Have been again perusing the university library on lunch break. While many of the sources the WT quotes are not available (at least at this particular branch; there are about a dozen spread over the campus), the amount of information they have is staggering, overwhelming.

607 has never seemed more foolish, and I can't even IMAGINE what 'evidence' they're going to cough up in part II.

I'm starting to get the feeling that whatever it is, it may come back to bite them in the ass.

jefferyjones

i guess it's all foolish if you don't believe the bible is God's word. so your argument has nothing to do with the watchtower, it has to do with your disrespect of a notable authority in history, the bible.

it's more than obvious that the jews were sent home at a certain year and 70 years earlier was when Jerusalem was destroyed. that's what daniel said at least. do you discredit daniel as well? and the year 607 being the right year means that jesus appearing as the christ in 29 is accurate. the gospels even say that the jews were in anticipation for the messiah around that time.

so are you saying that you don't like/believe in jesus? if you don't accept 607 then you're forced to not beleive in him because then the bible prophecies would be all screwed up. so again, this has nothing to do with an article in a magazine. you're just a hater of the bible and facts.

*sigh* the lengths people will go to to deny the existence of God and Jesus. just man up and accept the facts. quit being little children, making excuses.

breakfast of champions

Just wondering: has anyone, using solely the 'notable authority in history, the bible,' ever determined the date when Jerusalem was destroyed?

AnnOMaly

Short answer: no.

Doug Mason

Thanks for your advice and corrections. As a result, I have made further amendments to my commentary on the Watchtower's article.

http://www.jwstudies.com/Commentary_on_When_Was_Ancient_Jerusalem_Destroyed.pdf

I have maintained my very deliberate and conscious decision to limit the scope of my Commentary for now. I am waiting to see what their second article contains.

At several levels, the WTS appears to be shooting itself in the foot. Since the WTS provides its Watchtower articles online for only one month, all they will have left online will be critical articles.

Why have they waited for so long before making this defence?

Why now?

Why have they limited their options when it becomes even clearer that their prophetic expectations have failed?

Doug

breakfast of champions

Why have they limited their options when it becomes even clearer that their prophetic expectations have failed?

In poker this is called 'double or nothing'

Pants of Righteousness

Thanks Black Sheep

Legal and Commercial Transactions Dated in the Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods—Chiefly From Nippur, by A.T. Clay,1908 PDF

If you check page 4 of the above you have a table with the earliest and latest dated tablet for each king. For the neo-Babylonian period, it gives as the latest dates:

Nabopolasar 21 Years 2 Months

Nebuchadnezzar 43 Years 5 Months 9 Days

Amel-marduck 2 Years 5 Months 17 Days

Nergal-shar-usar 4 Years 1 Month 2 Days

Labashi-marduck 2 Months 27 Days

Nabonidus 17 Years 9 Months

Pants

Doug Mason

b o c,

When I wrote that by writing this article the WTS have limited their options, I had in mind that they could have left open the option to drop their "Bible Chronology" reasoning. They could have let the matter continue to rest, particularly since they have waited for so long before bringing it to the fore. And it is so long since "1914". It is not impossible that they bowed to pressure from internal self-interested sources.

I thought it was not impossible for them to have dropped all reference to the chronology and to 1914. I am fully aware of their massive changes in the past, and would not have been surprised had they done it again. I have in mind 1874, the pyramids, unprecedented peace from 1914 onwards under Zionism, shift from 536 to 539 for Babylon's fall, etc., etc. Have you read Shadduck's "Seven Thunders of Millennial Dawn"? where he showed (in 1928!) the 180-degree changes the WTS made to CTR's books, and then continued selling them?

The WTS's reach is now hampered by the effectiveness of the www, which I imagine will influence their focus on those who still read only the WTS's publications.

Just a guess; time will tell.

Doug

wantingtruth

Something the "Watchtower" left out :

it is the "teaching of Christ" they have left out !

9 Whosoever goeth onward and abideth not in the teaching of Christ, hath not God: he that abideth in the teaching, the same hath both the Father and the Son.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/177953/1/The-Kingdom-of-God-when-in-Heaven-according-to-Jesus

Doug Mason

When I saw the Watchtower article’s reference to Anatolian Studies, it stood out like a sore thumb. In the latter 1960s we were constantly visited by JWs.

Quite fortuitously, I obtained two studies at the time that exposed the Watchtower’s errors with 1914, and their neo-Babylonian chronology in particular.

When part A-E of “Aid to Bible Understanding” came out, I sought the material referenced by the “Chronology” article.

For example, at page 327 the author wrote:
“What is thought to be a memorial written either for the mother or the grandmother of Nabonidus, gives some chronological information for this period, but many portions of the text are damaged. In the following translation of one section (taken from Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 311, 312), the words and figures in brackets represent the historian's attempts at restoring the damaged parts of the text. To appreciate how truly fragmentary the text is (etc., etc.)”

This was Pritchard's reference to the 1906 Adda-guppi stelae, which indeed were badly damaged, and years had been inserted by modern scholars.

However, on pages 560-561 of Pritchard's book I also read that identical but undamaged stelae had been discovered in 1956, and these confirmed the previously postulated dates. That meant that the author of Aid’s “Chronology” article did not reveal what Pritchard’s book actually said.

At the moment I cannot recall the reason, but in my searching I obtained the 1958 article in Anatolian Studies by Gadd that is referred to by the Watchtower article.

I recollect that issues raised by Gadd were addressed by Joan Oates; details are stuck somewhere in the cobwebs of the mind. Those were the days of BPC (before personal computers), where we had to write letters and visit libraries.

I notice a book on Babylon by Joan Oates is available online; I assume it could be helpful.

Doug

Something the "Watchtower" left out

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