From the book "Let Your Kingdom Come" (1981), Appendix to Chapter 14, page 186:
"Business tablets: Thousands of contemporary Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets have been found that record simple business transactions, stating the year of the Babylonian king when the transaction occurred. Tablets of this sort have been found for all the years of reign for the known Neo-Babylonian kings in the accepted chronology of the period."
It's hard to believe that for years as a faithful Witness, I read these lines and simply nodded and read on:
"From a secular viewpoint, such lines of evidence might seem to establish the Neo-Babylonian chronology with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (and the destruction of Jerusalem) in 587/86 B.C.E."
"Might seem"? Hmm. Let's look at those two previous sentences again, this time with key words capitalized:
"Business tablets: THOUSANDS of contemporary Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets have been found that record simple business transactions, stating the year of the Babylonian king when the transaction occurred. Tablets of this sort have been found for ALL the years of reign for the known Neo-Babylonian kings in the ACCEPTED CHRONOLOGY of the period."
"Accepted chronology," of course, means the chronology that virtually everyone except the Society accepts.
This is the equivalent of a businessman who argues when audited: "Well, yes, it might seem that I have thousands of receipts for my earnings in this year. But actually, even though the date, month and year is indicated on all these thousands of bills, if you'd only look at them with eyes of faith, Mr. IRS Man, you'd realize that they actually come from twenty years ago and I shouldn't have to pay tax on them."
And the Society admits this in a book they published.
comment.