All the footnotes in most Bibles point to this date, as the final fall of Jerusalem.
if this is the correct,this date means this is when the 2,520 days of years commenced
in Daniel chapter 4.The seven times. This is very important as ots the begining of the
Gentile times.
Was 587B.C. the first destruction of jerusalem?
by compton 9 Replies latest jw friends
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compton
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jerome
i'm waiting for the watchtower to get new light on this date.
the bible is a two edged sword
wield it the wrong way and it you WILL cut yourself! -
ashitaka
Hey guys,
I heard that in the Daniel book 587 was (loosly quoting) the beginning of the end of that Jewish system of things. So someone told me. I burned all those books long ago.
Revisionist doctrine is swell, eh?
ashi
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jerome
if this date is wrong the whole authoritrian based system of "god's organisation collapses"
the bible is a two edged sword
wield it the wrong way and it you WILL cut yourself! -
expatbrit
Conceivably, if 1914 was ditched, then the new date for the end of the gentile times would be changed to 1934. It wouldn't take too much fudging to tie this into Hitler as fulfillment of prophecy. In support, WW II could be presented as the true end of the imperial age (since America doesn't have a physical empire).
As for 1918 etc., all that is just gravy. As shown by the WT's explanation of the Revelatory trumpet blasts, any old shit will do to fulfill all those minor details.
That means we're only 68 years into the time of the end. Bring back the original understanding of "generation" and bingo, a whole new lease of life to the sense of urgency.
In 15 years, when there's been a significant turnover of believers, just revert back to the understanding of generation they have now. Unless of course, some apostate comes up with a better idea in the meantime.
Expatbrit
Expatbrit
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scholar
compton
It is incorrect to say that 587BCE was the date for the Fall of Jerusalem. The majority of scholars favour the date of 586 BCE for this momentous event in biblical history. However, the Society has determined that in accordance with secular, biblical and prophetic evidence that the date should be 607 BCE which marks the beginning of the Gentile Times ending in 1914 CE. Careful exegesis of the OT reveals the accuracy for 607 rather than the 'dead-end' dates offered by scholars and critics of the Society.
Much information has already been posted on this and other sites but little attention has been given to the theological importance of the Gentile Times doctine. One must remember that scholars are very cautious in being dogmatic about the chronology of this very contentious period of biblical history. Please be assured that 1914 is biblically and theologically sound.
scholar BA MA (Studies in Religion)
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aChristian
Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon in either 587 or 586 BC. The only reason there is any doubt at all about the exact date, 587 or 586, is not because there is a problem with secular historical records for this period of time, but because the Bible itself is not absolutely clear as to whether this happened in Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or his 19th year as king.
But even if we put aside the fact that the Watchtower Society is wrong about the date of Jerusalem's destruction, which they certainly are, their Daniel 4/"Gentile Times"/1914 doctrine still has more holes in it than a 500 lb. piece of Swiss cheese.
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Moxy
One must remember that scholars are very cautious in being dogmatic about the chronology of this very contentious period of biblical history.
well said scholar! for example, you would never find scholars dogmatically asserting that there are 'pivotal' dates, that have been 'absolutely proved' by secular history. no, they have more sense than that.
mox
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ianao
Oh brother. It's the scholar again. The guy who keeps coming back and ASSerting the society's correctness yet never substantially defends their stance. Hope they have good doughnuts over their in Bethel.
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AlanF
Uh oh, here we find the hit & run artist pseudo-scholar adding his two mils again. As usual he's not quite right about much of what he posts.
: The majority of scholars favour the date of 586 BCE for this momentous event in biblical history.
Correction: The majority of Evangelical scholars favor this date, following the reasoning of Edwin Thiele. However, the majority of secular scholars favor the 587 date. And as aChristian pointed out, the only reason for the ambiguity is that the Bible itself -- the only source for the date -- is ambiguous here.
: However, the Society has determined that in accordance with secular, biblical and prophetic evidence that the date should be 607 BCE which marks the beginning of the Gentile Times ending in 1914 CE.
Correction: the Society has determined that in accordance with its own flawed interpretation of some of such evidence, along with a stubborn refusal to deal with contrary evidence, the 607 and 1914 dates are valid.
There are many lines of evidence proving that the 1914 date has become for the Society, not the endpoint of the "Gentile times" calculation, but the starting point. For example, when Nelson Barbour first determined in 1875 that 1914 would be the "end of the Gentile times", he used 606 rather than 607 B.C. as the starting point. He deliberately neglected the fact that there was no "zero year" between 1 B.C. and 1 A.D., and so he calculated 606 + 1914 = 2520 years. C. T. Russell was ignorant enough of these matters that he didn't even realize the error. So if Barbour and Russell were "divinely guided", as the Watchtower Society claims, how could they have made this error?
Some Bible Students were aware before 1914 that the 606 date was wrong. For example, Morton Edgar, writing in the 1913 book Great Pyramid Passages, Vol. 2, specifically stated in a chart of dates that Jerusalem fell in 607 B.C. The Bible Student and confidant of Russell by the name of P. S. L. Johnson wrote a long letter to Russell in 1914 detailing this problem and pointed out that Russell had neglected the "zero year". But due to the press of events in 1914, Russell never managed to correct the problem in his writings, and so his successors such as J. F. Rutherford and C. J. Woodworth never changed the date either. That Woodworth, at least, knew about it is proved by the fact that his 1917 book The Finished Mystery also says that 607 B.C. was the date for Jerusalem's destruction.
The 606 date continued to be used for the date of the beginning of the Gentile times until it was changed to 607 in the 1943 book The Truth Shall Make You Free. The 606 date continued to be used for the date of Jerusalem's destruction until it too was changed to 607 in the 1944 book The Kingdom Is At Hand. These books finally managed to handle the "zero year" problem properly.
Again I must point out that a date that was conceived in error cannot be correct.
: Careful exegesis of the OT reveals the accuracy for 607 rather than the 'dead-end' dates offered by scholars and critics of the Society.
This is absolutely incorrect. The Society "establishes" 607 by using some scriptures that are ambiguous and ignoring others that are absolutely clear. They claim that the "70 years of Jeremiah" (cf. Jer. 25:11; 29:10) were years of captivity to Babylon and of desolation of Judah that ended in 537 B.C. when the Jews were repatriated to Judah, and so Jerusalem must have begun its period of desolation 70 years earlier, in 607 B.C. But the Scriptures show that this is impossible. 2 Chronicles 36:20 clearly states about Nebuchadnezzar that the Jews "were servants to him and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia". When did Persia begin to rule? In 539 B.C., when Babylon fell to the armies of Cyrus the Persian. Thus the Jews were no longer captives to Nebuchadnezzar and his sons after 539 B.C., and so any proposed 70 years of captivity had to end in 539 B.C. This blows away the 537 + 70 = 607 calculation. Furthermore, Jeremiah 25:11 clearly states that both the Jews and the nations round about would serve -- not necessarily be captive to -- the king of Babylon for 70 years. The language of 2 Chronicles 36:20 is perfectly consistent with this -- the Jews were no longer in servitude to the king of Babylon after the Persians began to rule in 539 B.C. Finally we have from Jeremiah 25:12 that when the 70 years are fulfilled, God would punish the king of Babylon. Which king? Obviously the same one referred to in 2 Chronicles 36:20: a king of the line of Nebuchadnezzar and his sons, i.e., Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty, the one ruling Babylon when the Persians took over. When did that punishment take place? Obviously, in 539 B.C., because after that time Nebuchadnezzar's sons were no longer ruling. Thus it is Scripturally established that the 70 years of Jeremiah ended in 539 B.C., not in 537 as the Watchtower Society claims, and so the "Gentile times" calculations based on 537 are invalid. There are a number of scriptural loose ends that I have not covered in this brief discussion, but they are easy to deal with once the above facts are accepted.
As for "prophetic evidence" that the Society claims justifies 1914 by the supposed events that began then, a careful look at the evidence proves that it is just as much a product of the Society's imagination as the connection between Pyramidology and 1914 was. This has been covered extensively on this forum and others, and I will not comment further on it in this post.
: Much information has already been posted on this and other sites but little attention has been given to the theological importance of the Gentile Times doctine.
That's because there is no importance to this imaginary doctrine. The doctrine is certainly not scriptural. It is only a product of taking a bunch of scriptures willy nilly from various parts of the Bible and jamming them together without any justification whatsoever except that it results in the 1914 date. It is just as much a product of imagination as were all the other "prophetic parallels", Pyramidology and other nonsense that Barbour and Russell came up with.
: One must remember that scholars are very cautious in being dogmatic about the chronology of this very contentious period of biblical history.
The entire year by year chronology -- yes. But specific dates are certain. They are certain in the sense that if they were abandoned, then everything else in Neo-Babylonian chronology would have to be abandoned, including the Society's cherished 537 date, upon which the 1914 date hinges. For example, it is certain that Nebuchadnezzar ascended the throne of Babylon in 605 B.C. and that Jerusalem first came under seige then. It is certain that Jerusalem next came under seige in 597 B.C. It is certain that Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year was 568/7 B.C. All of these certain dates blow away the Society's notions of Neo-Babylonian chronology.
: Please be assured that 1914 is biblically and theologically sound.
Yes, just like 1874 was "biblically and theologically sound" as the date of Christ's return -- until it was abandoned in the 1930s.
The 1914 date and things hinging on it in Watchtower theology are living on borrowed time. When present aging JW leaders die, and younger men take over, they will abandon these nonsensical teachings as surely as Nathan Knorr and Fred Franz abandoned many of Russell's and Rutherford's teachings during their tenure. And just as JWs forgot about the old teachings and relegated them to the dustbin of Watchtower history, 50 years from now the 1914 teaching will be seen as a quaint doctrine to be smiled at, just as 1874 evokes uncomfortable amusement from knowledgeable JWs today.
AlanF