Where did Russell steal 606/7 BCE from ?

by Phizzy 19 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Phizzy

  This is something I have wondered about, and our great poster Stillin posed the question on another thread . Where did C.T. Russell get the idea that Jerusalem was destroyed in 606/7 BCE? (He adjusted 606 to 607 when it was pointed out there was no year "0").

  As in the main a plagiarist, rather than an original thinker, I guess he got it from someone else ?

  I know the year was obviously arrived at by using wrongly understood scriptures and working back to it, but how did he justify flying in the face of historians and even his fellow religionists ? Theological Dictionaries contemporaneous with his Studies in the Scriptures list 586BCE as the date.

  Was he never ridiculed at the time of publication for his 606 faux pas ?
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  Witness My Fury

  John Aquila Brown I think....
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  Bart Belteshassur

  Russell did make a foux pas in his calution at all. That is a fallacy that the WT put out. He was aware of Millars error regarding 1843, and although he calculated the date from 536 start point he states that as the Jewish year started in the October then the beginning of 1915 was actually Oct 1914. The original complilation of BS came from Brown in the early 1820's I think, but it is likely that Miller used his cals in some way. Russell adapted much of Millers calcs by useing different numbers from Daniel thus adding 30 years to Miller's date of 1844 and arriving at 1874 or as he saw it Oct 1873. This and numerous other calcs, including Pizza Smyth's pyrimid deductions lead him to Oct 1914. Hope that helps.

  BB
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  Bart Belteshassur

  Sorry I meant Russell did NOT.

  BB
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  Phizzy

  I have little doubt that J.A Brown's writings affected Russells writing, and he modified most of his rubbish from this and other similar sources, but Brown starts his calculation from what he calls the "start of the Babylonian tyraney" in what he claims was the year 604BCE. He also claims that therefore the 2520 years end in 1917.

  So, what was the basis for Russell using 606(later 607) and claiming that Jerusalem was destroyed in that year ?

  The whole thing is getting more opaque as far as I am concerned, why pick 536 as ayear to work back 70 years from ? and surely once having alighted on 606 or 607 Russell must have realised that nothing of significance happened in that year ?

  My question, I suppose, really is, did he actually think up 606/7 more or less by himself, and if so, how did he explain the disparity with known History, or did he nick this idea, and did the origianl thinker explain how to justify the problem ?
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  Witness My Fury

  I think it was either a mistake on his part or else he thought he knew better based on a misreading of the 70 years in jeremiah.
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  Phizzy

  Yes, WMF, I suppose the old "Bible Chronolgy is superior to secular chronology" argument did it for him.

  " If I, C.T. Russell, say Jerusalem was destroyed 20 years earlier than it was, this is based upon Bible Chronology."

  A Bible Chronolgy that I, C.T Russell made up, as there is actually no such thing as Bible Chronology.
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  Terry

  See below:

  https://www.watchtowerlies.com/linked/the-gentile-times-reconsidered.pdf

  The complete Gentile Times Reconsidered
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  wizzstick

  Russell got all this 606(7) clap trap from Nathan Barbour.

  It was Barbour we have to thank for all of us being brought up in the crap. If it wasn't for '1914 and all that', I doubt many of us would have been here now.

  Thanks Nathan.
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  Bart Belteshassur

  I have not got access to Aquilla Brown's bible (it was a very old copy I had for a while) but if memory serves correctly the chrono that Brown used was Usher and this gives the date of the fall of Babylon was in 536 BCE. So Russell worked it out from the fall of Bab, the WT had to discridit this in 1942, as by then everyone accepted that Bab fell in 539 BCE. If they had continued to follow Russell explaination but converted to the new figure Jerusalem would have fallen in 609 BCE, that no good as they wanted to prove 1914. To much had been written relative to 1914 and thats why their explaination is so defective.

  BB