When Was Jerusalem Destroyed By The Babylonians? (page 6)

sir82

Really, those two lines of evidence hardly provide enough proof to overturn the Bible’s chronology.

What about the "line of evidence" of the Egibi business documents?

Huh - for some reason that was never mentioned in these articles.

Go figure.

Finkelstein

Okay I don't know what to do now. Maybe I can get them to think for themselves at least.

Be careful there, if you push too far you never know what the outcome might be.

If you don't mind being DFed or DAed for apostasy, thats a possibility your going have to deal with.

.

The accumulative facts regarding what happened to ancient Jerusalem under the beginning accession(605) and the final destruction

of the city including the temple under Nebuchadnezzar, is laid out in the time and length of kings of both Babylon and Jerusalem

itself and the bible actual supports those dates .

There has been much more archaeological findings since the late 1800's that reconfirms those specific dates as well,

so 586 BCE. is pretty solid.

.

The other important fact to remember is that this 607 date was never well researched deeply by the WTS leaders, from neither a

archaeological or theological perspective, they were more hyped upped on superimposing a date so they can use the 2520 years

in an effort to bring significance to 1914 and use that as commercial vehicle for the proliferation of the WTS's literature.

Much of what gets propagated by the WTS. leaders is inherently intended to attract attention to its published literature,

and much of the noted proclamations are made under that premise.

.

Apognophos

Maybe I can get them to think for themselves at least

Now why would they want to do that? Do you really think you've just discovered something they couldn't learn for themselves at any time if they wanted to?

I believe that at one time (up to the early 20th century?), 607 was the date used by many historians.

Never for Jerusalem's destruction.

Oh, hmm, sorry. Not sure where I thought I read that.

Bear in mind that Russell stated Jerusalem was destroyed in 606BC too, he counted the year zero in his calculations. When Rutherford in the 1920's realised that there was no year zero, that 1BC-1AD was one year not two, rather than moving the date from 1914 to 1915, he moved the date 606BC back to 607BC.

Londo111

Actually the transition from 606 to 607 didn’t happen until the 40’s, post-Rutherford, and it happened by steps.

Russell's chronology (or Barbour’s) had the 70-years end with the fall of Babylon, which was actually the right event to end the 70 years with (Jeremiah 25:12), but it was dated to 536 BC. Therefore, by subtracting 70 years from 536 BC, they came to 606 BC. That is how they dated the destruction of Jerusalem.

As mentioned, the Gentile Times equation did not account for there being no 0 year. Therefore, 2520 years added to 606 BC, ended in 1915.

So the chronology of calculating 1914 from Jerusalem's destruction had two errors.

Once it became apparent that Babylon fell in 539 BC, not 536 BC, that had to be corrected. However, subtracting 70 years from that yielded 609 BC, therefore the Gentile Times equation would come out to 1912.

So the event that ended the 70 years changed from when Babylon fell, to when the Jews returned to Jerusalem and ended the Exile. This was set at 537 BC, although there is no way to prove this from Scripture. It is conjecture. Besides, Ezra 1:1 and 3:1 seem to indicate the Jews returned in the fall of 538 BC.

However, that was the only way they could get the Gentile Times equation to work (this time accounting for the 0 year).

Phizzy

The other error that the WT make is their insistence that the exile was 70 years long. The Bible does not in fact, if read correctly ,say that the Exile was 70 years long.

88JM

Correct, Phizzy.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/161662/1/Jeremiah-and-the-70-years-Jewish-exile-or-Babylonian-rule

Fencing

That is correct. The NWT translates Jeremiah 29:10 as "seventy years AT Babylon", most other versions translate it as "seventy years FOR Babylon" or something similar. The latter would be more in harmony with Jeremiah 25:9-12, which says (even in the NWT) that the 70 years applies to Babylon's dominance of the surrounding nations. Which works, because 70 years before 539 (when Babylon was defeated by the Persians) is roughly when Babylon conquered the Assyrians, and the start of their regional domination began.

AnnOMaly

The context of Jer. 28 and 29 rules out the viability of the 'at Babylon' rendering anyway.

When Was Jerusalem Destroyed By The Babylonians?