by s-c-3-1-3 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Christianity adopted Jewish scriptures b/c it was a new religion and had all the respect New Age religions do today. Judaism was a very ancient religion that Gentiles respected.
Indeed. The '70 weeks' 'prophecy' of Daniel 9:24-27 is one that has been fairly famously co-opted by Christians as a so-called 'Messianic prophecy' pointing to Jesus, but it is actually nothing of the sort. See http://www.jwsupportforum.com/index.php?topic=2659.msg37702#msg37702
JWs also believe that a period of 2520 years ran from 607 BCE until October 1914 CE, and from there they calculate that the Bible Students were 'chosen' as 'God's organization' in 1919.
... and if they were truly chosen in 1919, it makes no difference if what they teach makes sense, or not. You still have to believe whatever.
If it doesn't make sense, you just have to suck it up and 'wait on Jehovah' to supply a sensible answer to his seven men in Brooklyn, NY.
You would be better to study the support for their 'selection' in 1919 per the calculation given by Jeffro, because if that is wrong, then a whole bunch of their doctrine loses the support of being new understanding provided to them by Jehovah.
I know I should probably create a new thread, but perhaps one of you can provide me with an "Watchtower Society explanation" of John 2:19-21?
What's the point? None of it makes any sense, save to the flesh. None of it is born of the Spirit, only spirits.
As the Lord told me clearly in a dream one night, get rid of the NWT, it is "corrupting the bread", which indeed it was.
You can try to debunk the NWT and the WT explanations but they have answers for everything. The more you press, the more absurd they become.
Alternatively, you can get so lost in the other worldy "reality" that you never get out of the rabbit hole.
Focus on the light and come the appointed time, the Spirit will give you the words and the verses that really count i.e. what He wants to say. Without Him we can do nothing!
Blessings in Christ,
Stephen
As the Lord told me clearly in a dream one night
And... there's the point sane people stop reading.
Jeffro
Are there any Christians here willing to conceed that the Messiah/messianic passages in the Hebrew Scriptures are not the Messianic figure of the New Testament.
JEFFRO:
in order to terminate the transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error, and to bring in righteousness for times indefinite, and to imprint a seal upon vision and prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies.
The 70 weeks begins with the fall of Jerusalem in 587BC as the starting point "to make atonement for error".
(FROM LINK)
Wrong, Jeffor. The termination of the transgression occurred at the time of the HOLOCAUST, the "great tribulation." Your reference points are that the "great tribuilation" is 1) a one-time event and (2) that specifically happens during the end times. The "great tribuilation" is what finally finishes off transgression. The "great tribulation" was a future event and did not occur at the time of the fall of Jerusalem.
Zech 13:8 speaks of 2/3rds of the Jews dying during the great tribulation and one-third being restored to their promised land at which time God would have forgiven them and become their God again. The Holocaust exterminated 6 million Jews out of 9 million.
ZECH 13:
8 “And it must occur in all the land,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “[that] two parts in it are what will be cut off [and] expire; and as for the third [part], it will be left remaining in it. 9 And I shall certainly bring the third [part] through the fire; and I shall actually refine them as in the refining of silver, and examine them as in the examining of gold. It, for its part, will call upon my name, and I, for my part, will answer it. I will say, ‘It is my people,’ and it, in its turn, will say, ‘Jehovah is my God.’”
You, Jeffro, are very intelligent and very well read, but not well read enough to have been exposed to all the interpretations of the 70 weeks. The above interpretation allows for two interpretations of the 70 weeks, and yes, regarding the coming of the messiah, only it is a double prophecy that occurs twice. That is, the messiah does not just arrive to fulfill the 70 weeks from 29-36 CE, that's just the first coming. The second coming is the one that occurs during the end times and is connected with the great tribulation and the end of the covenant, which does not end until 1996. Once you understand that some things are linked with the 1st-coming 70 weeks and others with the 2nd-coming 70 weeks, then it will all make sense.
For the second coming, just for your information, is broken up into 62, 1 and 7. That is, the "cut off" or the great tribulation begins during the final 490 years from 1506 to 1996 (1506 + 490 = 1996). 434 years is 62 weeks and thus begins in 1940. Following this is the 7 years of the "great tribulation", followed by the final jubilee period of 7 weeks of 49 years from 1947 to 1996, where the Jews celebrate their return from exile. 1506 is derived fundamentally by simply counting 490-year periods from 36 CE. 4x490=1960 + 36 = 1996 - 490 = 1506.
Now the reason I'm telling you this is so that you can expand and correct your own interpretation of the "70 weeks." I have the correct interpretation because I'm the messiah, so I'm debating this with you, I'm just letting you know what the correct interpretation is and where your interpretation falls short. Still, I'm very impressed with your grasp of the topic which is far greater than probably than anyone else here.
I will note in passing though, that the Jews aggressively try to disconnect Daniel's prophecy with anything "messianic", which of course, is a joke. The prophecy is extremely messianic and they know it. But if so, they have to come up with a messiah in addition to denying Christ fulfilled the 70 weeks, so that's their propagandistic choice. You'll never convince anyone this prophecy is not messianic. Further, it has come true. 29 CE fixes the dating of both 70-week periods for the first and second coming. The WTS is correct by default to begin the prpohecy in 455 BCE. As you very observantly note, they twist secular history around to make this fit the 20the of Artaxerxes, which is their choice. But even COJ admits that Cyrus should have fulfilled that prophecy and thus the 1st of Cyrus should fall in 455 BCE. When you explore that timeline, then the VAT4956 and the SK400 astronomical texts make sense out of their cryptic "errors." The VAT4956 dates year 37 of Neb-II to 511 BCE as well as 568 BCE. The cryptic dating preempts the epificial dating and thus 511 BCE must be used as the official original Babylonian dating for year 37 of Neb-II whether we like it or not. This challenges the Biblical timeline based on 29 CE for the appearance of the messiah after 483 years (69 weeks) and the 1st of Cyrus in 455 BCE. However, there is no problem here when you carefully follow Josephus who established the traditional historical understanding that the 70 years of "servitude" to Neb-II and his sons (which includes Darius the Mede who was the grandson of Neb-II) began with the last deportation, year 23 of Neb-II. Add 70 years to 455 BCE and year 23 of Neb-II would fall in 525 BCE. That means year 37 falls in 511 BCE, just as the VAT4956 is trying to tell us. The SK400 matches a double eclipse to 541 BCE in the context of "year 7" of Kambyses, which does not work. But when you substitute 541 BCE for another Babylonian or Persian king, it works perfectly for Neb-II, since year 7 dated to 541 BCE matches year 37 dated to 511 BCE. So now both texts and the bible are in complete agreement.
If you don't correct the NB timeline then you will always have erroneous conclusions.
Now you're smart, maybe brilliant. For this to work you must note that Xerxes and Artaxerxes are the same king. That's a requirement for the Bible.
Now, this is YOUR research note. Ezra 6:14,15 gives us the accession year of "Artaxerxes" in "year 6" of Darius. That means Darius I died in his 6th years which can be confirmed by the eclipse in the first year of the PPW and the solar eclipse that occurred when Xerxes begins his invasion. This is compared to Daniel 12:2 where we find the successor to Darius I invades Greece, a historically well established fact during the regin of Xerxes. The Persian kings went by two names often and Xerxes went by "Artaxerxes", which was not known in Greece so he took advantage of that when Themistocles fled there to fool the Greeks into thinking that the "Artaxerxes" on the throne was the son of "Xerxes." But the Bible shows that "Artaxerxes" and Xerxes are the same king. This alone eliminates 51 years of fake Persian history just based on the Bible. 21 years for the reign of Xerxes which was the same as Artaxerxes' first 21 years, and 30 years for a 36-year rule of Darius I which the Bible clearly shows was only 6 years. You'll find the archaeology from Behistun, Naqshi-Rustam and Persepolis only support a short reign of Darius I.
Now, you know how to do research and your propagandizing, so you need to get a grip on the above or disprove it if you want to be respected. You've done well and come half way, but you need to do the hard work and go the full distance like I had to. You must date the 1st of Cyrus to 455 BCE, add back 26 years to the NB Period and remove 82 fake years from the Persian Period or else you're just a false propagandist promoting the false timeline.
That is, IF, you're interested truth and ultimately your own life, right? "Make sure of ALL things..." Keeping in mind that if by your persuasive and authoritative voice you happen to stumble even one of Christ's sheep, it will seal your fate to Gehenna. Stumbling the innocent is very serious business.
Thanks for keeping this topic alive, Jeffro. You have your homework cut out for you. Have a great day.
LS
Please note that while Christians clearly understand the fundamental references to the "70 weeks", at least for the 1st coming, that this is definitely a prophecy about dating the messiah's appearance, which has actually come true, by the way, that they aggressively must dismiss this as being "messianic" because they have no alternative "messiah" to fulfill this.
But the Jews are not deluded into thinking this prophecy which begins with the rebulding of Jerusalem in the 1st of Cyrus can be fulfilled by anything else. This means, with the current false timeline in place, they have a messianic figure needing to be fulfilled some 82 years earlier. This false chronology and the prophecy is clearly the basis for Herod thinking he was fulfilling this prophecy and likely inspired him to rebuild the temple. Further some believed he was the promised messiah and developed a cult of Herod and were known as the "Herodians." But for the Jews, it seems easiest just to say this is not a messianic prophecy at all.
In the meantime, the Jews were key in helping the Persians hide the identity of Xerxes, whom they loved. That's why they suppressed their own historical books of Daniel and Ezra/Nehemiah, originally one book called "Esdras" which they replaced with another version of "Esdras" known as the apocryphal "Esdras." You only need to compare "Esdras" with canonical Ezra and Nehemiah, plus Josephus to realize the part of history being suppressed. What is left out is the history of Nehemiah as cupbearer to Artaxerxes.
Even so, in modern times, the Jews have claimed that the Persian Period is too long and has too many kings. They produced their own timeline where the 6th of Darius I occurs in 532 BCE. That is totally rediciulous and they certainly don't believe that dating. But if you know Jewish historians, like Josephus and the cryptic dating from Herodotus, we have to look further to see if 352 BCE is a relavant cryptic dating pointing to the true date for year 6 of Darius. When we do we find a connection. The revised date is 82 years earlier than the original date. That is, the completion of the temple is dated to 516 BCE. The temple took 21 years to complete starting from the 1st of Cyrus, which dates that event to 434 BCE. 455 - 21 = 434 BCE. If you subtract exactly 82 years from 434 BCE you get the Jewish date of 352 BCE. In other words, the Jewish rabbis are mocking the revised secular date which is 82 years too early, so they create a timeline that is 82 years too late. But this proves some elite Jewish rabbinical circles have never lost track of the original chronology. So it would seem if the original timeline ever became official and they were faced to a messiah fulfilling the "70 weeks" prpohecy in 29 CE, they would be faced with coming up with an alternative messiah than Christ. In the meantime, saying nothing about the revised timeline would cause Christ not to fulfill the 70 weeks prophecy in 29 CE, thus they have a legitmate basis for denying Jesus Christ as the promised messiah.
This makes it impossible for the average researcher to likely resolve this, that is, because of the lies and the efforts to keep this phony timeline in place. The WTS and COJ and Furuli are all culprits in this regard since all use and promote 539 BCE as a reliable, legitimate date, even if they don't agree on any other dating. So they are ALL false promoters of this false timeline, partially or fully. The true timeline, which dates the 1st of Cyrus to 455 BCE will date the messiah's appearance in 29 CE, which was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. So anyone Jewish has a potential conflict of interest in exposing the false timeline, even though it is easy to follow their own cryptic dating to confirm what the original timeline was.
My position is that the elect needed to be able to resolve this and that is sufficient. If the rest of the Christian and Jewish community never get it, it doesn't matter since they are not candidates for the kingdom, which is limited to 1,440,000.
Anyway, so much for false prophets and those in the darkness who loved to be deceived by them.
LS
Martin Luther would have told you the book of Revelation (James, Jude, Hebrews) do NOT belong in the bible canon.
Would that help resolve it for you?
No, I didn't think so.
THERE IS A VERY VERY HARD THING I'm going to ask you to do.
An honest inquiry cannot INCLUDE a hidden presupposition.
BE WILLING to examine your presuppositions BEFORE you start analyzing scriptures!
Your question ASSUMES facts not in evidence.
Imagine being on a jury in a courtroom where there are no rules of evidence!
In legal disputation where important matters are to be decided between opposing parties these rules include:
relevance, privilege, witnesses, opinions, expert testimony, hearsay, authenticity, identification and rules of physical evidence.
The Truth, the WHOLE Truth and NOTHING BUT the Truth consists of evidence by preponderance.
Bible scripture is hearsay, opinions by word-of-mouth witnesses. There is no physcial evidence of original uncorrupt manuscripts by authors.
Authenticity of bible canon books cannot be established except by privilege of Authority rather than provenance.
Short reply: what you have is the equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I'm not sure there could be any better endorsement for my comments than for Larsinger58 to think I'm wrong!
Saint Paul- The vagina phobic self loathing Jew who saw an opportunity to pilfer the fledgling Nazarene movement in order to create his own religion among the Hellenistic world.
And you want to listen to him why?
