How Will They End 1914 Teaching?

by EmptyInside 282 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Jeffro

  ‘scholar’:

  If there were no exiles then what are the deportations and into what?

  Are you drunk? Jeremiah 25:8-12 doesn’t mention any deportations. But there were deportations in early 597 BCE (when most were taken into exile and Zedekiah was appointed, and is regarded as the beginning of ‘the exile’ as clearly evidenced by Ezekiel 40:1), 587 BCE (when Jerusalem was destroyed), and 582 BCE. (Jeremiah 52:28-30) Why do you feign ignorance about ‘three exiles’. Are you really that unfamiliar with the subject?

  Also, some parts of Judea remained populated throughout the entire period.
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  MeanMrMustard

  
  'And all this land will be reduced to ruins and will become an object of horror, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years". - Jer. 25:11, NWT, 2013 .
  
  You will notice that there are four elements in this verse:
  
  1. Land (Judah) to be desolate
  
  2. Land to become an object of horror
  
  3. Nations to serve Babylon
  
  4. Period of 70 years
  
  All of these elements are tied together in a single verse, ...

  In the same verse, yes. But there are two grammatically independent statements, separating elements 1 and 2 from 3 and 4. Element 3 and 4 are in the second half of a compound sentence. Some Bibles render this verse with a separating semicolon (making the separation stronger than ", and"). Some some Bibles just make this verse two separate sentences completely.
  
  The 70 years in the last half of the verse applies to the servitude. That's it. You can't push it back into the first half of the verse without breaking grammar.
  
  To read this verse grammatically it states Judah would become desolate, an object of horror. (THOUGHT ENDS, NEW INDEPENDENT CLAUSE) The nations would serve Babylon 70 years.
  
  As for context - ch 15, v 18 - "as it is this day." The servitude had already started at the time of the writing of Jerimiah 25.

  What does servitude mean? Ch 27 is pretty explicit, listing nations, and encouraging every nation that doesn't want to be destroyed to "bring its neck under the yoke" of Babylon.
  
  
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  MeanMrMustard

  Daniel 9:2 — 2 in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, discerned by the books the number of years mentioned in the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah the prophet to fulfill the desolation of Jerusalem, namely, 70 years.

  
  Right "to fulfill" or complete. It's not a statement of equivalence. Daniel, in the first year of Cyrus, was reading Jerimiah and knew it was 70 years of Babylonian reign. That reign has just ended, and he knew that the 70 years was over, and the punishment could be completed / fulfilled.
  
  Note: if you read this as saying "Jerusalem was destroyed and the Jews were in Exile for 70 years" then you set up an explicit internal contradiction in the Bible, since Jerimiah's words were crystal clear. You sure you want to do that?
  
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  Fisherman

  2 Chronicles 36:20,21 — 20 He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia began to reign, 21 to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.

  It is not that complicated.
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  MeanMrMustard

  To fulfill, or finish, 70 years. It's the same language. There is no equivalence there.

  Read it carefully.

  Note: Again, you are attempting to set up internal contradictions in the Bible.
• 

  TonusOH

  scholar: Not really but just the plain reading of the text.

  Isn't this the same as the grammatical approach that you rejected earlier? Do you switch between exegesis and 'plain reading' as it suits you?
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  Jeffro

  Fisherman:

  2 Chronicles 36:20,21 — 20 He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia began to reign, 21 to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.
  It is not that complicated.

  🤦‍♂️ The inserted phrase “until the land had paid off its sabbaths. All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath,” isn’t “the word spoken by Jeremiah” at all, it is from Leviticus 26:34–35.

  But what this passage does say is that the Jews served Babylon for 70 years “until the kingdom of Persia began to reign”, which was quite definitely in 539 BCE, and began when Babylon replaced Assyria in 609 BCE. All the nations ‘served Babylon’ for 70 years, but they didn’t all go into exile, and submitting to Babylon during its 70 years was explicitly the way to avoid exile (Jeremiah 27:8-11).

  The parenthetical statement from Leviticus adds that the land was also desolate while the land paid its sabbaths, but Leviticus 25:8 associates this separate period with 49 years, not 70. This was from Jerusalem’s destruction in 587 BCE until some of the Jews returned in 538 BCE.

  It’s really not that complicated, but it is quite dishonest to falsely attribute statements to Jeremiah that are actually from Leviticus.
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  blondie

  Whatever workaround the WTS comes up with, if the rank and file jws don't understand it the WTS says that they should obey because it is coming from "god's organization."
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Are you drunk? Jeremiah 25:8-12 doesn’t mention any deportations. But there were deportations in early 597 BCE (when most were taken into exile and Zedekiah was appointed, and is regarded as the beginning of ‘the exile’ as clearly evidenced by Ezekiel 40:1), 587 BCE (when Jerusalem was destroyed), and 582 BCE. (Jeremiah 52:28-30) Why do you feign ignorance about ‘three exiles’. Are you really that unfamiliar with the subject?

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  Just sober enough to outsmart you!! Jeremiah 25: 8-12 does not have the word 'deportations nor but it does the rest of the OT. However, the account implies a 'deportation' and exile of the Jewish population because vss. 9 and 11 state that the 'land will become a perpetual ruin...will be reduced to ruins' thus the land becomes devastated or vacant of its population. Such a description is suggestive of a deportation-exile resulting in a fixed period of servitude of 70 years.

  Under Neb's reign, we learn of two deportations and an exile. The first, with the reign of Jehoiakim under vassalage to Neb and the latter, with the destruction of Jerusalem - 'Babylonian Exile of complete servitude for 70 years. Jer. mentions another exile in Neb's 23rd year but specific details are omitted. Jeremiah. clearly delineates the Jewish Exile in Neb's 7th year and in his 18th year as the former deportation was under vassalage to Neb with a residential monarch whereas the latter was not a vassalage but a period of servitude to Neb with the Monatch now deported to Babylon leaving behind an Empty Land.

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  lso, some parts of Judea remained populated throughout the entire period.

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  False. Jeremiah explicitly stated that Judah and Jerusalem would be devastated for 70 years.

  scholar JW
  
  
  
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  blondie

  These responses while thought-provoking, the jws are not encouraged to think, but to obey the WTS in all things even if they don't understand. I doubt the WTS would use any of your ideas to convince ordinary jws. But it seems to keep the rest of you thinking.