Insight Book LIES - then tells the TRUTH!

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  For over a century, Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) have insisted that ancient Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE, contrary to the scholarly consensus of 586/587 BCE. This unique chronology underpins their prophetic framework (notably the year 1914), making the 607 date the linchpin of a far-reaching eschatology. To defend 607 BCE, Watch Tower apologists advance a range of arguments: they debate when the prophesied seventy-year period began (609 vs. 605 BCE), reinterpret biblical texts like Jeremiah 25 to redefine the scope of Babylonian domination, and assert that the 70 years ended exactly with Babylon’s fall (539 BCE) and the Jewish return under Cyrus (~537 BCE). They invoke historical sources such as Flavius Josephus to bolster their timeline, cast doubt on the well-established 586/587 BCE date by alleging ambiguity or gaps in Neo-Babylonian chronology, and lean on the work of Rolf Furuli to challenge astronomical data (e.g. the Babylonian tablet VAT 4956). In their narrative, secular historians are accused of ignoring “missing years,” and critics of 607 BCE are said to have “no single line of evidence” disproving the Watchtower’s date. The JWs even laud the “beauty” or symmetry of the 607–537 BCE timeline as if aesthetic coherence were proof of truth.

  This article provides a detailed, polemical rebuttal to these claims. We will show that each major argument for 607 BCE is deeply flawed and inconsistent with the historical, biblical, archaeological, and astronomical evidence. Far from vindicating the Watchtower chronology, a careful examination of the facts reveals the untenability of the 607 BCE date. In what follows, we address each of the apologist’s points in turn – from the interpretation of Jeremiah’s seventy years to the astronomical observations of Babylon – drawing on a wealth of scholarly research and documented correspondence. The goal is to demonstrate, once and for all, that the traditional 586/587 BCE date for Jerusalem’s fall stands firm, and that the Watchtower’s chronology must be discarded in light of all available evidence.

  The Starting Point of the Seventy Years: 609 vs. 605 BCE

  At the heart of the 607 BCE argument is the biblical prophecy of a seventy-year period associated with Babylon. The question is: seventy years of what, and when did they begin? Jehovah’s Witness apologists often claim that secular scholars “cannot agree” on a starting point – some pointing to 609 BCE, others to 605 BCE – implying an irresolvable ambiguity. In reality, historians do broadly concur on the framework: the seventy years correspond to the span of Babylonian imperial dominance in the ancient Near East, a period that clearly began in the late 7th century BCE and ended with Babylon’s demise in 539 BCE. The two candidate start-dates (609 or 605) reflect not confusion, but two facets of Babylon’s rise:

  • 609 BCE – The Fall of Assyria: By 609 BCE, the Babylonians under Nabopolassar (with Median allies) had definitively crushed the last Assyrian stronghold at Harran, ending the Assyrian Empire. This watershed marked the transfer of imperial hegemony to Babylon. As historian Jack Finegan notes, “the defeat in 609 B.C. of Ashur-uballit II…marked the end of [Assyria] and the rise to power of the Babylonian empire… Then in 539 [BCE] Cyrus… marched in victory into Babylon… and the seventy years of Babylon and the seventy years of Jewish captivity were ‘completed’ (609–539 = 70)”. Many scholars therefore see 609–539 BCE as the prophesied 70-year span “for Babylon.” Indeed, Babylon’s supremacy began with the final shattering of Assyrian power in 609 BCE and ended 70 years later with Babylon’s fall in 539 BCE, precisely as Jeremiah had foretold.
  • 605 BCE – The Battle of Carchemish: In 605 BCE, crown prince Nebuchadnezzar II defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish (northern Syria) and thereby asserted Babylonian control over Syro-Palestine (including Judah). This brought Judah and the surrounding nations formally under Babylon’s yoke, fulfilling Jeremiah’s warning that “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11). Some chronologists therefore date the “servitude” from 605 BCE. However, by the Watchtower’s own calculation this yields only 68 years to 537 BCE, underscoring that 605 is a terminus a quo for Babylon’s regional domination but not necessarily meant to be an exact start for a literal 70-year count.

  Crucially, whether one counts from 609 or 605 BCE, the terminus ad quem remains 539 BCE – the fall of Babylon – which is exactly seventy years after 609 and about 66–68 years after 605. There is no contradiction here, only a question of emphasis: 609 BCE marks Babylon’s emergence as world power, while 605 BCE marks Judah’s direct subjugation. In either case, the seventy years are anchored squarely in the Neo-Babylonian era and not a product of later chronological meddling. In contrast, the 607 BCE defenders insist the seventy years must begin with Jerusalem’s destruction (which they date to 607) and end with the Jewish return in 537 – an interpretation we will evaluate below. For now, it is sufficient to note that the Bible’s seventy-year period does align neatly with well-defined historical events (the fall of Assyria and the fall of Babylon), giving it a clear context that does not require any chronological sleight-of-hand. As one scholar observed, no one acquainted with Neo-Babylonian history can claim these 70 years have a “fuzzy” or indeterminate meaning; the period is bookended by specific, major events.

  In summary, historians are not “confused” about 609 vs. 605 – both dates highlight the emergence of Babylonian rule, and neither lends any credence to 607 BCE. On the contrary, the necessity of some JW apologists to even float 605 BCE as a start-date tacitly admits that 607 BCE finds no support at all in the events marking Babylon’s rise. The prophecy’s clock did not wait until Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 (let alone 607) to start ticking; it was already well underway by then, as evidenced by the geopolitical facts on the ground.

  Jeremiah 25 and the Scope of Babylonian Servitude

  Jeremiah 25:9–12 lies at the core of the debate. In this passage (delivered around 605 BCE, early in King Nebuchadnezzar’s reign), Jeremiah warns that Babylon will conquer the surrounding nations, including Judah, and that “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years”After the seventy years are completed, Babylon itself would be punished (Jer 25:12). The Watchtower interpretation reads this as a literal 70-year exile of the Jews (from Jerusalem’s fall in 607 BCE to Babylon’s fall in 539 BCE, with the exile ending in 537 BCE). But is that what the text actually says? A close examination shows that the scope of the 70 years was far broader – and more imperial – than the JW reading allows.

  First, note the language: “these nations [haggōwyim] will serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jer 25:11). The subject is plural – it is not only Judah, but a collection of nations in the region. Jeremiah 25 lists Judah alongside Egypt, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, and others as the peoples whom Babylon would subjugate (Jer 25:17-26). The 70 years, therefore, refer to a period of Babylonian hegemony over the Near East, not exclusively to Jews being in exile. In fact, at the time of Jeremiah’s prophecy (circa 605 BCE), Jerusalem had not yet fallen – the Judeans would only be exiled years later – yet the prophecy speaks as if the 70 years of servitude were either imminent or already begun. Indeed, Jeremiah 29:1–10 records a letter Jeremiah sent to Jewish exiles during the reign of Zedekiah (Jerusalem’s last king, still on the throne), telling them to settle in for a long stay in Babylon. He says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will attend to you and fulfill my promise to bring you back” (Jer 29:10, NIV). This letter was written before 587 BCE, indicating that Jeremiah regarded the seventy-year count as running concurrently with the exile, not starting after Jerusalem’s destruction. In other words, the clock was already ticking even while Zedekiah was ruling in Jerusalem. This makes sense only if the seventy years began with Babylon’s ascendancy (as discussed above, c. 609 or 605 BCE), not with the city’s fall.

  Apologists defending 607 BCE often seize on a particular translation issue in Jeremiah 29:10. The verse in the JW’s New World Translation (NWT) reads “at Babylon” – “according to the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon I will turn my attention to you…” – which they take to mean the Jews would spend 70 years in Babylonian exile. However, the Hebrew preposition le is more accurately rendered “for” or “with respect to.” Thus many modern translations (and the ancient Greek Septuagint) read “when seventy years are completed for Babylon”. This small change has big implications. “For Babylon” means the period is Babylon’s time of dominion – the 70 years belong to Babylon, so to speak, as the term of its divinely allotted supremacy. Understood this way, Jeremiah was not saying God’s people would be captives in Babylon for 70 years; he was saying that Babylon would dominate the nations (Judah included) for 70 years, after which (in Babylon’s punishment) God would allow his people to return. Notably, the JW organization is aware of the translation nuance – their own literature acknowledges that le can mean “for” – yet the English NWT continues to use the archaic “at Babylon” (a choice largely abandoned by modern scholarship) because the “at Babylon” phrasing conveniently supports the idea of Jews being in Babylon for 70 years (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). As one commentator observes, the Watchtower Society persists with “at Babylon” precisely to prop up 607–537 BCE, whereas in reality Jeremiah’s words mean “seventy years for Babylonian supremacy”. The nations would serve Babylon for that span, and when those seventy years were over, “Jehovah would punish Babylon and begin the rehabilitation of his people back to Jerusalem”. This interpretation – the one actually faithful to Jeremiah’s context – perfectly fits the historical timeline: Babylon’s rule lasted ~70 years, and its end enabled the Jewish return. It does not require that Jerusalem lie desolate for every day of those 70 years.

  It is also significant that Jeremiah 27:6–7 reiterates the prophecy: God says He has given all these lands into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, and “all nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes” (NASB). This corresponds exactly to the Neo-Babylonian dynasty: Nebuchadnezzar, his son Evil-Merodach, and (through his daughter’s marriage) his “grandson” Belshazzar (co-regent with Nabonidus) – after which Babylon fell to Cyrus. Jeremiah thus defines the period as the reign of three generations of Babylonian kings, not a period defined by Jerusalem’s status. The end-point is the fall of Babylon, “the time of his land.” Indeed, Jeremiah 25:12 explicitly states, “when the seventy years are fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation”. The JWs agree that Babylon fell in 539 BCE and that this marked the end of the 70 years; they simply add two extra years by insisting the Jews remained in exile until 537 BCE to “complete” the period. But the Bible itself does not say the Jewish repatriation completes the 70 years – it says Babylon’s punishment does. In short, Jeremiah’s prophecy is focused on Babylon’s empire and the servitude of the nations, not exclusively on the exile or on Jerusalem’s desolation. By trying to make the prophecy solely about the Jewish exile, the Watchtower distorts the plain wording. As Carl Olof Jonsson observes, to start with the later brief references in Daniel or 2 Chronicles (which mention Jerusalem’s desolation) and interpret Jeremiah by those, rather than vice versa, is to “turn the matter upside down”. The proper approach is to take Jeremiah’s clear original statements as primary and understand the later remarks in that light. Jeremiah unambiguously foretold 70 years of Babylonian domination; nowhere did he explicitly say “70 years of Jewish exile.

  Thus, the claim that Jeremiah 25 supports a 607–537 BCE exile collapses under scrutiny. The scope of the seventy years was the servitude of many nations under Babylon, beginning well before Jerusalem’s fall. This broader view is not a revisionist trick; it is the natural reading of the biblical text in context and is confirmed by multiple scholars and translations (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). It is the Watchtower’s narrow interpretation that is forced and eisegetical, driven by dogma rather than the text. Far from requiring that Judah lie desolate for a full 70 years, Jeremiah’s prophecy encompasses the entire region and in effect sets a deadline for Babylon’s own judgment. As we will see, that deadline was met precisely in 539 BCE – and not a single reputable historical source places Jerusalem’s fall 20 years earlier to accommodate an overly literalist twist on Jeremiah’s words.

  Fulfillment of the 70 Years: Babylon’s Fall and Cyrus’ Decree

  A related point of contention is when and how the seventy years were fulfilled. JWs contend that the prophecy was only fulfilled once the Jewish exiles returned home from Babylon, which they date to 537 BCE (following Cyrus the Great’s decree in his first regnal year). By their reckoning, Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE, lay desolate for 70 years, and the Jews returned in 537, neatly completing the period. Critics, on the other hand, point out that the Bible’s emphasis is on Babylon’s downfall after 70 years, which occurred in 539 BCE, and that the return under Cyrus (whether in 538 or 537 BCE) is a subsequent event not required to complete the 70 years to the exact month or day.

  It is important to understand the sequence: Babylon fell to the Persians in October 539 BCE. Soon thereafter (by 538 BCE), Cyrus issued a decree allowing captive peoples, including the Jews, to return to their homelands. The initial group of Jewish exiles likely trekked back to Judah around 537 BCE, arriving by the autumn of that year (the Bible notes they gathered in Jerusalem by the seventh month, Tishri, likely of 537 BCE – see Ezra 3:1). Thus, if one insists on tying the full 70 years to the period of exile/desolation, one must count roughly from summer 607 to summer 537 BCE in the JW scenario. But as we have seen, Jeremiah ties the 70 years to Babylon’s domination and subsequent punishment, not explicitly to the Jews’ repatriation.

  By fall 539 BCE, exactly seventy years after 609 BCE, Babylon’s empire was finished – Cyrus had “called Babylon to account” as Jeremiah 25:12 said would. At that moment, the prophetic 70-year period “for Babylon” was effectively fulfilled. Jehovah’s “good word” to bring his people back (Jer 29:10) was set in motion by that event, since Cyrus’s victory paved the way for the decree. Within a year or two, the exiles were on their way home. Second Chronicles 36:20–23 – written after the fact – reflects on this, saying that the land of Judah “paid off its sabbaths all the days of lying desolated, until seventy years were fulfilled, to fulfill the word of Jehovah by Jeremiah” and that in Cyrus’s first year God moved him to issue the return decree. The Chronicler here is giving a theological summary: he links the desolation of the land with Jeremiah’s 70 years and sees Cyrus’s decree as the culmination of God’s mercy. However, this does not demand that the land was totally empty for a full 70 years. In fact, the Chronicler doesn’t date the destruction to 607 BCE at all – that idea is imported by Watchtower interpreters. The Chronicler was aware (from sources like Jeremiah and perhaps Persian records) that about fifty years had passed from Jerusalem’s fall (587 BCE) to Cyrus’s decree (538 BCE). Yet he invokes “70 years” because that number had prophetic significance (Jeremiah’s oracle) and symbolic resonance (the land “enjoyed its sabbath rests” presumably one year for each missed sabbath year over centuries of Judah’s sin). In other words, 70 in this context is a rounded, theological number – it emphasizes the completeness of the land’s rest and the fulfillment of prophecy, not a precise chronological count from point A to B.

  Daniel 9:1-2 provides an interesting perspective: Daniel, writing from Babylon “in the first year of Darius the Mede” (right after Babylon’s fall, c. 538 BCE), says he “discerned by the books the number of years concerning which the word of Jehovah occurred to Jeremiah… for fulfilling the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.” Daniel realized that the prophesied period was ending. Notably, Babylon had already fallen when he says this, strongly suggesting he linked the fall of Babylon to the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s 70 years. Daniel does not wait until 537 BCE to start praying for Jerusalem’s restoration; he does so immediately after Babylon is toppled (Dan 9:3–19). This implies that Daniel understood the “70 years” were essentially complete with Babylon’s demise, opening the door for Jerusalem’s rebuilding (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). The Watchtower argument is that Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chron. 36:21 “unambiguously” apply the 70 years to Jerusalem’s desolate condition, and therefore these later writings should control our interpretation of Jeremiah. But as Jonsson incisively notes, Furuli and the Watchtower have reversed the proper order of interpretation: they start with Daniel and Chronicles – which give only terse allusions subject to interpretation – and use them to override Jeremiah’s clear original prophecy. A sound reading does the opposite: Jeremiah defined the prophecy (servitude to Babylon for 70 years, ending with Babylon’s fall), and Daniel and the Chronicler reflect on that prophecy after its fulfillment, each with a theological emphasis. Daniel focuses on Jerusalem’s ruined state (which by 538 had lasted ~49 years) and prays for mercy now that the 70-year Babylonian domination has ended. The Chronicler focuses on God’s providence in using Cyrus to allow the land to be resettled, framing it as the expiration of a divinely ordained period of rest. Neither writer intended to teach a novel chronology that contradicts the known historical timeline; they were interpreting Jeremiah’s prophecy in light of the events that had transpired, using “70 years” as the prophetic framework given by Jeremiah.

  It is telling that Josephus, too, understood the chronology such that the temple lay desolate for roughly 50 years (from 587 to about 537 BCE). In Against Apion he explicitly states: “in the eighteenth year of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] reign [he] devastated our temple, that for fifty years it ceased to exist, that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus the foundations were laid…”. This aligns with the biblical timeline and Berossus’s Babylonian data, yielding about 49–50 years of desolation. Thus, even devout ancient historians did not insist the exile/desolation lasted a full seventy calendar years – they recognized Jeremiah’s 70 years in terms of Babylon’s empire, while recording ~50 years for the temple’s actual desolation. Strictly speaking, the land’s desolation did not cease until the exiles returned in 538/537 BCE (almost 49 years after 587), but the prophetic seventy years had already run their course by then. There is no contradiction if we allow Jeremiah’s prophecy to mean what it says (“for Babylon”) and the later references to use “70” in a reflective or symbolic sense. The only way to obtain a literal 70-year exile is to perform the kind of chronological acrobatics the Watchtower has: move the destruction 20 years earlier, despite all evidence. We will shortly examine why that 20-year shift is historically impossible. But first, let us consider how Jehovah’s Witness apologists misuse Josephus in an attempt to corroborate their timeline.

  Flavius Josephus on the Destruction of Jerusalem

  Jehovah’s Witnesses frequently appeal to the 1st-century historian Flavius Josephus as a star witness for their 607 BCE date. They often quote Josephus as saying that the Babylonian captivity/desolation lasted 70 years. However, a careful look at Josephus’ writings shows that his statements are neither consistent nor supportive of the Watchtower’s chronology once properly understood. In fact, Josephus ultimately affirms a timeline much closer to the scholarly consensus (with about a 50-year exile) and explicitly gives figures for Babylonian reigns that match the traditional chronology, not the extended one required by 607 BCE.

  It is true that in one passage of Antiquities (Book X, chap. 9, ¶7) Josephus appears to place a 70-year desolation between the fall of Jerusalem and the restoration. But he does so in a rather confused manner, seemingly misreading his sources. He writes that the Babylonian king “made an expedition against the Jews, and reduced their city… to desolation for seventy years” and he bizarrely associates this with the reign of Nabopolassar (Nebuchadnezzar’s father) instead of Nebuchadnezzar. Modern scholars and Josephus translators have noted this as an error or interpolation. As Rolf Furuli himself quotes, Josephus’s translator H. St. J. Thackeray commented that “The burning of the temple, not mentioned in the extract which follows, is presumably interpolated by Josephus, and erroneously placed in the reign of Nabopolassar”. In other words, Josephus (or a scribe) appears to have jumbled the timeline, mistakenly inserting the 70-year desolation into Nabopolassar’s reign. The result is a chronological mess: it would start the 70 years around 605 BCE (Nabopolassar’s last year) rather than 587 BCE – a scenario no modern JW would accept either, since it doesn’t match 607 BCE. Clearly, Josephus was not working from precise chronological records at that point; he was likely trying to reconcile the biblical 70-year motif with historical accounts and did so clumsily. Carl Jonsson points out that Josephus “seems to have confused events concerning Jerusalem in the last year of Nabopolassar’s reign with events in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign”. Thus, the one Josephus passage that could be read as endorsing a 70-year desolation is demonstrably flawed and not based on accurate chronology.

  By contrast, when Josephus quotes more reliable sources, he gives a very different reckoning. In Against Apion I.19, Josephus reproduces a Babylonian chronology from the Chaldean historian Berossus, listing the Neo-Babylonian kings and their reign lengths: “Nebuchadnezzar, 43 years; Evil-Merodach, 2 years; Neriglissar, 4 years; Labashi-Marduk, 9 months; Nabonidus, 17 years. Josephus then immediately says, “This statement is both correct and in accordance with our books”, and he explains why it is correct: because it tallies with the biblical record of the temple’s destruction and rebuilding. He notes (as cited earlier) that “in the eighteenth year of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] reign [he] devastated our temple… for fifty years it ceased to exist, … in the second year of Cyrus the foundations were laid…”. By Josephus’s own calculation, the interval from Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (the destruction of Jerusalem) to Cyrus’s first year was about 50 years, consistent with Berossus’s sum of the intervening reigns (Nebuchadnezzar’s remaining 25 years + Evil-Merodach 2 + Neriglissar 4 + Labashi’s <1 + Nabonidus 17 ≈ 49 years). This is a remarkable admission: Josephus essentially confirms the traditional chronology (which places the fall of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE and the decree of Cyrus in 538/537 BCE). He explicitly calls the Berossus chronology “correct” and aligns it with Scripture, highlighting the 50-year desolation.

  Thus, we have two Josephus “witnesses”: one (Antiquities) confusedly implying 70 years of desolation, the other (Against Apion) clearly stating 50 years of desolation and endorsing the standard Neo-Babylonian regnal lengths. Which is more credible? Obviously, the account that Josephus himself frames as correct and supported by the historical record (Berossus) deserves more weight than a garbled retelling. Even the Watch Tower’s scholar of choice, Rolf Furuli, acknowledges that Josephus gives conflicting figures and that the 70-year reference in Antiquities is likely based on a “serious distortion” of the sources.

  In practice, the Watchtower writers have cherry-picked Josephus’ mention of 70 years while ignoring his explicit 50-year statement. This is intellectually dishonest. If one were to take Josephus at face value in Antiquities, one would start the 70 years in 605 BCE (not 607), which no JW apologist advocates. And if one takes Josephus in Against Apion, one must accept that Jerusalem fell about 587 BCE, since only that dating makes the 50 years to Cyrus work out. The Watchtower cannot have it both ways. The upshot is: Josephus provides no real support for the 607 BCE date. When read critically, Josephus actually corroborates the scholarly timeline and acknowledges that the Judean exile (from the burning of the temple to the return) lasted on the order of 50 years. His use of “70 years” elsewhere is best understood as echoing the biblical phrase in a general sense, not as a precise chronological assertion – much like the Chronicler’s usage. In any event, using Josephus as a prop for 607 BCE backfires because his detailed data undermine the notion of an extra 20 years in Babylonian history.

  In conclusion, Josephus’ testimony, far from being an independent confirmation of the Watchtower chronology, is a mixed and ultimately unreliable witness if misused. The only consistent way to interpret Josephus is to recognize that he knew of the biblical 70-year tradition but also had access to historical records that showed a shorter interval. He himself gives precedence to the historical data in Against Apion, effectively conceding that the literal 70 years did not separate Jerusalem’s fall and the temple’s rebuilding. Modern JW apologists who continue to cite Josephus’ 70-year remark without context are either unaware of or deliberately obfuscating his fuller narrative. Selective quotation of Josephus cannot overturn the combined evidence of both Scripture and cuneiform records pointing to 587/586 BCE.

  Archaeological Dating: 586 or 587 BCE?

  One oft-heard Jehovah’s Witness objection is that “even scholars don’t agree whether Jerusalem fell in 586 or 587 BCE,” implying that the conventional date is uncertain or based on flimsy evidence, and by extension that 607 BCE might somehow still be viable. This argument is misleading. It is true that scholarly literature sometimes gives 587 BCE and sometimes 586 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem, but this is a difference of one year, owing largely to how regnal years and calendar boundaries are reckoned – not a fundamental dispute about the chronology. The historical records place the fall of Jerusalem in the summer of Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th regnal year (or 19th, counting his accession year). The Babylonian calendar year for Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th ran from spring 587 to spring 586 BCE. Jerusalem fell in the summer (Tammuz/Ab, mid-year by the Babylonian calendar), which was 587 by our modern calendar. Some sources simplify by saying 586 BCE if they count the end of that regnal year or use an accession-year system differently. But in essence, every scholar agrees the city was destroyed around 587 BCE (give or take a few months into 586). There is no reputable historian placing the event in the early 600s BCE. Thus, the oft-parroted “586 or 587?” talking point is a red herring: either of those is only ~20 years later than 607, and it is that 20-year gap that is the real issue. The scholarly consensus is that Jerusalem’s fall occurred in the late 7th century and absolutely not in 607. Whether one says 587 or 586, one is still refuting the Watchtower date by about two decades.

  The evidence pinning Jerusalem’s destruction to 586/587 BCE is extensive and solid. This is not a date conjured out of thin air or solely reliant on later historians like Ptolemy (as JWs sometimes insinuate). Let us summarize just a few key lines of evidence:

  • Babylonian Chronicles: Cuneiform tablets known as the Babylonian Chronicles record year-by-year military events of Babylonian kings. One such chronicle (BM 21946, the so-called “Jerusalem Chronicle”) notes that in Nebuchadnezzar’s 7th year (598/597 BCE), he captured the city of Judah and installed a new king (this refers to the first capture of Jerusalem, when Jehoiachin was deposed and Zedekiah placed on the throne). The same source likely had entries (now fragmentary or lost) for Nebuchadnezzar’s later campaigns. While the tablet covering 587 BCE is broken, the sequence of events is clear: Nebuchadnezzar fought in the west repeatedly in his reign, and by his 18th year Judah’s rebellion under Zedekiah was crushed. The Bible itself records that Jerusalem fell in Zedekiah’s 11th year (Jer 52:5-12), which was Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th. And we know Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year was 587 BCE from Babylonian records that link regnal years to absolute time (see astronomical data below). The biblical and Babylonian accounts dovetail, dating the fall to Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year, which independent chronology equates to 587. No tablet or ancient text ever dates that event to Nebuchadnezzar’s 36th year (which is what 607 BCE would imply), and JW apologists do not even claim such evidence exists.
  • Astronomical Dating (Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign): We have firm astronomical fixes for Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign. The most famous is the diary VAT 4956 (which I will discuss in detail in the next section) documenting observations in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year. That tablet’s data unequivocally pin Year 37 to 568/567 BCE. From this it follows that Nebuchadnezzar’s Year 18 was 587/586 BCE (since 37 – 19 = 18, and 568 + 19 = 587). Another astronomical text, the lunar eclipse tablet BM 32312, logs an eclipse in Nebuchadnezzar’s 7th year that corresponds to 597 BCE (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). These astronomical synchronisms are like timestamped photographs of the ancient sky – they cannot be moved by two decades without becoming totally inconsistent with planetary motions. Thus, the cosmic clock ratifies 587 beyond reasonable doubt. (Even Rolf Furuli, in his attempt to salvage 607, had to suggest highly implausible “alternative” star alignments or scribal errors – claims thoroughly refuted by experts, as we will see.)
  • Neo-Babylonian King Lists and Business Tablets: Clay tablets from Babylonia recording economic transactions provide year-by-year continuity for the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. For example, one contract (BM 30254) is dated “Month Kislimu of Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year” and the sale of the same slave is recorded again in “Month Tebetu of the accession year of Amel-Marduk [Evil-Merodach]” – clearly indicating Nebuchadnezzar’s reign ended and Evil-Merodach’s began in the same year with no gap. Another tablet (NBC 4897) tabulates the growth of a herd of sheep and goats every year from Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year through his 43rd, then Evil-Merodach’s 1st and 2nd, and then Neriglissar’s 1st year (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). It is essentially a running ledger bridging the reigns – confirming Nebuchadnezzar reigned 43 years, Evil-Merodach 2, and that Neriglissar followed immediately. Such documents make it impossible to insert extra, unattested years or kings. They demonstrate that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year occurred exactly 25 years before his death (since he died in year 43), which means 587 BCE (given his death in 562 BCE by the absolute chronology) (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). In summary, every recovered Babylonian record places Jerusalem’s destruction in the late 580s, not the 600s BCE. The difference between “586” and “587” is negligible here – both fall in Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year. What is not negligible is the difference between 587 and 607 – those twenty years cannot be conjured out of thin air without shredding all these continuous records (chronicles, king lists, administrative texts, etc.).
  • Synchronisms with Other Cultures: Judean chronology during that era interlocks with the histories of other nations. For instance, the prophet Ezekiel, exiled to Babylon in the first wave (597 BCE), writes in Ezekiel 40:1 that a vision came to him “in the 25th year of our exile, in the 14th year after the city was struck down.” Since Ezekiel was taken captive in 597, his 25th year would be 573 BCE, and he says this is 14 years after Jerusalem fell – yielding 587/586 BCE for the fall (573 + 14 = 587). This is a biblical synchronism supporting the conventional date and inconsistent with 607 (which would require Ezekiel to say 34 years after, not 14). Additionally, Josephus cites Tyrian records (Menander’s king list of Tyre) indicating that the Babylonian siege of Tyre began around the 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar (i.e. just after Jerusalem’s first fall in 597) and lasted 13 years, ending around Nebuchadnezzar’s 20th year (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). If Jerusalem’s final destruction were in Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th (587), that fits the timeline of Nebuchadnezzar’s western campaigns (Jerusalem, then Tyre). If one moves Jerusalem’s destruction to Nebuchadnezzar’s 36th year (607 per JW model), it throws off the sequence and leaves Nebuchadnezzar oddly idle during the actual years historians know he was campaigning. In short, regional correlations (Egypt’s withdrawal after 605, Tyre’s siege in the 580s, Cyrus’s rise by 539, etc.) all mesh with the standard dates and leave no room for a 607 scenario.

  Given these points, the scholarly dispute over “586 vs 587” is trivial—a matter of rounding or different calendrical conventions. It in no way indicates any doubt that the event happened in the late 580s. When JW apologists highlight this one-year discrepancy, they omit the fact that all lines of evidence cluster tightly around that date. By contrast, not a single artifact or text places the fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE. The Watchtower’s date stands alone, propped up only by its peculiar interpretation of scripture and denial of evidence. Even the Watchtower’s own literature tacitly admits the strength of the evidence for 587: one article acknowledged that “secular historians” date Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year to 587 BCE, but then speculated that perhaps Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t actually destroyed Jerusalem in that year after all – effectively proposing that the Bible’s explicit statement (Jer. 52:5-12) might be reinterpreted to allow a different year (a desperate and circular argument).

  In conclusion, the archaeological and scholarly dating of 586/587 BCE is robust, resting on converging lines of evidence from Babylonian astronomy, historical chronicles, biblical internal chronology, and more. The “ambiguity” over a one-year difference pales in comparison to the yawning chasm between 587 and 607. No amount of hair-splitting over 586 vs 587 will make 607 plausible. The Watchtower’s chronology is not merely off by a year or two; it is off by twenty years, and that discrepancy cannot be reconciled with the entire corpus of Neo-Babylonian data. As we will detail next, attempts by JW apologists like Rolf Furuli to discredit or reinterpret the data – especially the crucial astronomical tablets – have been thoroughly discredited.

  Astronomical Evidence (VAT 4956) vs. Watchtower’s Reinterpretation

  One of the strongest evidences for the traditional chronology (and by extension against 607 BCE) comes from astronomy. The Babylonians left us detailed observational records of celestial phenomena dated to specific regnal years of their kings. These act as astronomical “timestamps” that can be matched with computer calculations of ancient sky positions, pinning those regnal years to exact years B.C.E. Perhaps the most famous example is VAT 4956, an astronomical diary from the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar II. This tablet records dozens of observations of the moon and planets relative to constellations and certain stars, as well as lunar eclipse data, all within one Babylonian year. When modern scholars (starting with astronomer F. X. Kugler in the early 20th century) computed the positions, they found that the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar corresponded to 568/567 BCE – the only year that fits all (or nearly all) the recorded phenomena. This single piece of evidence is devastating to the 607 theory, because if Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year was 568/567, then by simple subtraction his 18th year was 587/586, not 607. In other words, VAT 4956 independently verifies the conventional dating for Jerusalem’s fall. Little wonder, then, that the Watchtower Society and its defenders have expended great effort to cast doubt on this tablet or to squeeze an alternate meaning from it.

  Rolf Furuli, a Jehovah’s Witness and linguist who attempted to rewrite Neo-Babylonian chronology in favor of 607, has claimed that the Bible and VAT 4956 “contradict each other”, thus one must question the reliability of the astronomical tablet. He proposed a number of supposed “sources of error” that could throw off the interpretation of astronomical texts. For example, he suggested that many positions on such tablets might have been calculated rather than observed, or that copyists made errors, or that perhaps the data could fit multiple solutions. In particular, Furuli (and earlier, a fringe theorist E. W. Faulstich) argued that VAT 4956 might be a copy that includes some observations from a different year, or that certain readings could be reinterpreted to match 588/587 BCE (which would be Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year if one adds 20 years to his reign). The Watchtower’s 2011 magazine articles enthusiastically picked up these claims. In “When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two”, the Watchtower stated: “While not all of [the tablet’s] sets of lunar positions match the year 568/567 B.C.E., all 13 sets match calculated positions for 20 years earlier, for the year 588/587 B.C.E.”. In other words, the Society asserted that every one of the 13 lunar observations on VAT 4956 lines up with 588/587 BCE, and implied that the tablet actually points to that year as the intended one – conveniently aligning Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th with 588 and therefore his 18th with 607. If true, this would be a remarkable vindication of their chronology against mainstream science. However, this claim is exceedingly misleading. It is based on selective use of data and special pleading.

  Firstly, the Watchtower carefully limited the scope to 13 lunar observations (conjunctions of the moon with stars/constellations) on the tablet, excluding the planetary observations. Why? Their own article admits: “Because the cuneiform signs for many of the planetary positions are open to speculation and to several interpretations, these positions were not used in this survey to pinpoint the year…”. In plainer terms, the planetary data did not readily match 588/587, so they threw it out. This is a glaring red flag. The planetary observations on VAT 4956 are numerous and precise (covering positions of Venus, Mars, etc., in various constellations on specific dates). Modern analysts have shown that while the lunar data on VAT 4956 is very important, it’s the combination of lunar and planetary data together that makes 568/567 BCE the unique fit. By ignoring the planetary positions, the Watchtower’s “survey” was free to focus on the more ambiguous lunar conjunctions. Even then, to claim all 13 match 588/587 is an overstatement. Independent researchers have scrutinized the Society’s list of 13 and found that some of those purported “matches” are questionable or outright incorrect when checked against astronomy software.

  For example, the Watchtower attachment sent to one inquirer (our source, Jacob Halsey’s correspondence) rated several of the lunar observations as “Exact” or “Excellent” matches for 588/587. Halsey, using a program (Starry Night Pro) with Babylonian coordinates, tried to replicate these. He found problems. One observation in the tablet (Obv. line 3) says the moon stood 1 cubit in front of β Virginis (a star in Virgo) on a certain date. The Society claimed this was an “Exact” match on May 10/11, 588 BCE. Halsey found that on that date, while the angular separation was about right, the moon was actually behind β Virginis (i.e. to the west of it, not east “in front” along the ecliptic). So calling it “exact” is dubious – the orientation was wrong. Another observation (Obv. line 14) describes the moon passing 1 cubit above or below the star at the tip of the Lion’s foot (β Virginis again, as identified). The Watchtower rated the 588 BCE match “Excellent.” Yet Halsey noted that at the time in question, the moon was 5–6 degrees (over 5 cubits) away from β Virginis – and behind it, not above/below – which is nowhere near a 2.2° separation “above/below” as the tablet says. He rightly questioned, “I don’t understand how this can excellently match ‘passing 2.2° above/below’.” In a third case, (Obv. line 15, moon and β Librae), the tablet says the moon was 2½ cubits below the star; in 588 the moon was actually more than 10° in front of the star throughout the night, not below it. Again, the Society had rated that a “Good” match, but clearly the geometry is off.

  Even more telling is an issue with the Babylonian calendar dates in 587 BCE. VAT 4956 is dated according to the Babylonian lunisolar calendar. Halsey discovered that one observation on the reverse (Rev. line 5, recorded as the 1st day of month XI, “the moon became visible in the Swallow” (part of Pisces)) would not have been possible on the date the JW researchers assumed in 587. They aligned month XI day 1 with Feb 21/22, 587 BCE. But on Feb 21, 587, the new moon was not yet visible – the astronomical new moon occurred on Feb 20 and the first crescent would be seen around Feb 23 by normal Babylonian reckoning. In other words, the Watchtower’s chronology of months in 587 was two days off from the actual lunar visibility cycle. Halsey notes that Parker & Dubberstein (the standard reference for Babylonian calendars) place month XI of 587 starting on Feb 23/24, not Feb 21. So the Society’s attempt to force an observation onto “Sabatu 1, 587” actually conflicts with how the Babylonians themselves would have dated the month by the first crescent. The observers in Babylon could not have recorded a sighting of the moon on “month XI day 1” if the moon wasn’t visible yet – a clear inconsistency in the JW model. Halsey found similar one-day discrepancies for several other observations where the Watchtower’s assumed calendar was slightly out of sync.

  All these technical details reinforce a general conclusion: the Watchtower’s reinterpretation of VAT 4956 is not rigorous science; it is driven by the desired outcome (607 BCE). They picked the data that could arguably be twisted to support 588/587 and ignored the rest. Even then, independent checking shows that their “13 matches” are not as perfect as claimed. Meanwhile, mainstream scholars have long demonstrated that 568/567 BCE fits nearly every detail of VAT 4956’s record. Jonsson, for instance, highlights that about 30 lunar and planetary positions on the tablet fix Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year firmly in 568/567, with only a few minor copying errors accounted for. Those minor scribal errors (such as a possibly miswritten digit in one measurement) are well understood and do not permit an alternative date 20 years off. In fact, experts point out that no other year in the vicinity provides the comprehensive fit that 568/567 does. If one tries 588/587, many observations (especially planetary and certain lunar phase timings) become impossible. For example, researcher Marjorie Alley computed the tablet’s timing intervals (“lunar three” phenomena like time from sunrise to moonset) and found that some entries would be astronomically impossible in 588/587, whereas they make perfect sense in 568/567. The Watchtower quietly acknowledged one such problem in a footnote, suggesting that maybe the ancient observers’ time measurement was off due to using “some sort of clock” (attempting to dismiss an inconvenient data point). But it strains credulity that every single ancient measurement that contradicts 588/587 was an error, yet all others were correct. The far simpler explanation is that the tablet is exactly what it purports to be: an astronomical diary of 568/567 BCE in Nebuchadnezzar’s reign.

  It should also be noted that the Watchtower accepts other astronomical tablets when convenient – for example, the Strm Kambys 400 tablet, which anchors year 7 of Cambyses II (son of Cyrus) to 523 BCE, thus supporting 539 BCE for Babylon’s fall. Furuli himself used the Cambyses tablet in his proposed chronology (because the Society already trusted the 539 BCE date). Yet he rejected VAT 4956. This inconsistency was highlighted by Jonsson: Furuli and the Watchtower have no qualms about the astronomical data when it confirms a date they like, but suddenly raise a multitude of speculative “sources of error” when the data contradicts 607. In truth, both tablets come from the same corpus of Babylonian astronomical diaries, which collectively span centuries. One cannot pick one and throw out another without compelling reason. And in the case of VAT 4956, the consistency of its observations with 568/567 is far too great to be coincidental – modern computations confirm the tablet as a mostly accurate transcription of actual observations, with any scribal errors being few and trivial.

  In the final analysis, the astronomical evidence alone is enough to refute the 607 BCE chronology. VAT 4956 is a “smoking gun” that directly links Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal years to absolute dates, leaving 607 out in the cold. The Watchtower’s efforts to discredit it have not convinced any actual Assyriologists or historians outside their circle – on the contrary, reviews of Furuli’s work by experts have been scathing. For instance, one review noted that Furuli’s attempted 588/587 fit for VAT 4956 requires assuming the Babylonians recorded an entirely different year’s sky or made massive mistakes, which is unfounded. The fact that JW apologists must resort to such special pleading illustrates how desperate the 607 defense is in light of solid evidence. The stars in their courses fight against 607 BCE, we might say. And the tablet VAT 4956 is just one piece – we also have eclipse records, other dated diaries, and a 1300-year continuous Babylonian astronomical archive that would all have to be wrong to accommodate a 20-year shift. As Professor Hermann Hunger (a leading Assyriologist) estimated, the extant diaries alone contain tens of thousands of dated observations; originally, there were hundreds of thousands. To suppose that all those observations were retrocalculated or altered by later scribes to fit a “wrong” chronology, as Furuli insinuates, is to enter the realm of conspiracy theory. The sheer scale of data that aligns with the traditional timeline makes the JW alternative effectively impossible.

  In sum, astronomy confirms 587, not 607. The Watchtower’s attempt to co-opt VAT 4956 by cherry-picked reanalysis fails under scrutiny. The tablet remains a powerful witness from antiquity that Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year = 568/567 BCE, locking in his 18th year (destruction of Jerusalem) at 587. The JW apologist’s treatment of this evidence exemplifies a broader pattern: embracing sound evidence only when it suits them, and discarding or distorting it when it doesn’t. We turn now to another facet of that pattern – the allegation of “missing years” in Neo-Babylonian chronology, and how the actual evidence precludes it.

  The Myth of “Missing Years” in Neo-Babylonian Chronology

  Since all historical records indicate a span of only about 50 years from Jerusalem’s fall to the Jews’ return, defenders of 607 BCE are forced to posit that something is wrong with Neo-Babylonian chronology itself. They argue that perhaps historians have underestimated the length of that period by about 20 years – in other words, that there were “missing years” or even missing kings in the conventional timeline. A specific variant of this claim involves “missing 7 years” – some have speculated, for instance, that Nebuchadnezzar’s 7 years of divinely-imposed madness (mentioned in Daniel 4) might not have been counted in his official reign, or that those years create a gap in the record. Others have floated that maybe one of the later Babylonian kings had an unrecorded coregency or an alter ego, or that a king not in the surviving king lists ruled for a time. All such conjectures aim to stretch the Neo-Babylonian period (625–539 BCE) by the extra years needed to land Jerusalem’s fall in 607.

  However, these attempts run aground on a mountain of “cast-iron” evidence that tightly interlocks the known reigns with one another, leaving no room for additional years or phantom kings. The Watchtower Society’s own publications have essentially acknowledged there are only two ways their 20-year gap could be inserted: either extend the reigns of the known kings beyond what the sources say, or insert new, unknown rulers in between. As one analysis succinctly put it, “There are only two possible ways of extending the Neo-Babylonian period to include the extra twenty years demanded by Watchtower chronology. Either the kings of the period had longer reigns than those given… or there were unlisted kings… unknown to history.”. And, as that analysis continues, “Neither of these is possible, as there is cast-iron evidence that interlocks one reign with the reign that followed.” (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust).

  Let us survey a few of these interlocking pieces of evidence (many of which we alluded to earlier):

  • Nabopolassar to Nebuchadnezzar: Babylonian Chronicle 5 (B.M. Series) explicitly records that Nabopolassar died in his 21st year and that his son Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded him immediately (ascending the throne the same month. This means Nabopolassar’s reign cannot be stretched beyond 21 years, nor can any “extra” king slip in between father and son – the transition was instantaneous and documented.
  • Nebuchadnezzar to Evil-Merodach: As mentioned, a business document BM 30254 documents a transaction in Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year and the same transaction being completed in Evil-Merodach’s accession year a few months later. This nails Nebuchadnezzar’s reign at 43 years, no more. If Nebuchadnezzar had reigned, say, 50 years (as JW chronology might wish, to add 7 years), there would have to be records of years 44–50, but there are none – instead, we have a seamless move to his successor right after year 43.
  • Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach, Neriglissar: Tablet NBC 4897 (the sheep/goat ledger) spans 10 consecutive years: Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th through 43rd, then Evil-Merodach’s 1st and 2nd, then Neriglissar’s 1st. It shows the count of the herd each year, leaving zero gaps. This single document inherently verifies the reign lengths of Nebuchadnezzar (43) and Evil-Merodach (2) and shows Neriglissar followed directly. If any “hidden” reign or extra years were to be inserted in this sequence, the continuity of the herd growth record would be broken – which it is not.
  • Neriglissar to Labashi-Marduk: A tablet from Yale (YBC 4012) records that Neriglissar’s reign ended and his son Labashi-Marduk succeeded in the first or second month of Neriglissar’s 4th year. We also have Nabonidus’s royal inscriptions (Nabon. H1, B – sometimes called the “Nabonidus King List” or stele) where Nabonidus narrates that after Neriglissar’s days, his son Labashi-Marduk sat on the throne, but was eventually replaced by Nabonidus himself (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). Nabonidus even remarks on the fates of these predecessors (Labashi-Marduk being a usurper killed, etc.). This allows no room for an unknown usurper or a longer Neriglissar reign. Neriglissar ruled 4 years (not 11 or 14), and his minor son reigned only a few months before Nabonidus – exactly as the traditional chronology holds.
  • Nabonidus to Cyrus: The Nabonidus Chronicle (BM 35382) is explicit that Nabonidus was defeated in his 17th year, when Cyrus of Persia took Babylon (539 BCE). This dovetails with numerous contract tablets dated to Nabonidus year 17 and then Cyrus’s accession and first year. For example, several tablets (cited as CT 56 and CT 57 series) are dated to Cyrus’s accession and first regnal years, showing continuity from Nabonidus’s reign to Cyrus’s, with no gap. Cyrus’s reign (and Persian chronology beyond) is well-established through classical sources and dozens of Babylonian tablets, so the end of the Neo-Babylonian period is firmly anchored at 539. The Watchtower agrees on 539; the challenge is they need Babylonian history before 539 to be 20 years longer than it was. But as we see, every transition from 626 (Nabopolassar’s start) to 539 is tightly documented.

  The cumulative effect of these records is that the Neo-Babylonian timeline is airtight. You cannot pad 20 extra years into it without inventing events for which no evidence exists and which would contradict the evidence we do have. Every king’s reign length is confirmed by multiple sources: King lists, Chronicle entries, dated tablets, and later historians (Berossus, Ptolemy’s Canon) all converge. If one king were missing or had undiscovered extra years, it would ripple through the entire sequence and show up as anomalies in the tablets. But no such anomalies are found. On the contrary, as Jonsson notes, if one were to adopt Furuli’s “Oslo chronology” (JW-friendly revision), you’d have to believe Babylonian scholars in the Persian/Seleucid era deliberately fabricated 20 years of fake chronology and somehow modified 90% of the huge corpus of astronomical tablets to reflect those fake years. This is an absurd conspiracy theory; there is no hint in the record of any such tampering. Why, for example, would scribes insert a fake “Year 43” for Nebuchadnezzar and not take credit for any achievements in those years? The documents from Nebuchadnezzar’s time speak of his 37th, 40th, 43rd year normally – no gaps, no duplicated year numbers that would indicate an insertion. Furthermore, contemporary civilizations (like the Egyptians and Medo-Persians) interacted with Babylon and kept their own chronologies; none have a “hole” for an unknown Babylonian king or an extra decade that went missing.

  What about the “7 years” of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness mentioned in Daniel chapter 4? The Bible doesn’t explicitly say whether those “seven times” were literal years, but traditionally they are taken as such. If Nebuchadnezzar was incapacitated for a period (some suggest it could have been a shorter interval, or that Daniel uses a symbolic figure), one might wonder who ran the empire. It’s possible, even likely, that his son (Evil-Merodach) or officials handled affairs during that time. However, Babylonian records do not indicate any interruption in Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. His regnal year count continued normally up to 43. There is no evidence the Babylonians ever removed him or installed a regent formally. The absence of any gap in dated business tablets indicates that even if Nebuchadnezzar was absent from court for a time, the Babylonians still counted those years as part of his reign. They did not, for example, start counting Evil-Merodach’s reign early or leave those years unaccounted – Nebuchadnezzar remained king throughout. So the “seven times” could have been seven years of illness within the 43, which matters not at all to the chronological count (except as anecdotally interesting). This cannot be twisted into seven extra years beyond 43.

  In fact, JW apologists face a dilemma: if they suggest Nebuchadnezzar reigned longer than 43 years, that contradicts both scripture and secular data, since Jeremiah 52:31 mentions Evil-Merodach’s accession in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th (actually it mentions Jehoiachin’s release in Evil-Merodach’s first, which was Neb’s 37th year after Jehoiachin’s exile in Neb’s 8th – confirming Neb didn’t reign 50 years). If they suggest an extra king, where would he go? Between whom? Every gap is filled. Some have speculated about a mysterious “Darius the Mede” ruling between Babylon’s fall and Cyrus (to stretch the Persian period), but the evidence shows Darius the Mede, if identified with a known figure, was likely the general Gobryas or a title for Cyrus himself – he left no regnal years to account separately. There is certainly no room for an entire 20-year reign of someone omitted.

  To drive the point home: No “missing gap” hypothesis holds up against the concrete records. As one researcher summarized, tablets like BM 30254 and NBC 4897 “prove that no extra kings could be inserted between the reigns of each of these kings” (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust), and the Nabonidus Chronicle plus contract texts prove the continuity right up to Cyrus. Therefore, the extra 20 years demanded by the 607 BCE doctrine simply do not exist. They are a fiction. The fact that JW apologists even resort to this argument shows the paucity of real evidence for 607 – they must ask us to believe that somehow every contemporary chronicle, tablet, and historian missed two decades of history. In reality, the burden of proof is entirely on them to produce evidence of those phantom years, and they have produced none. On the contrary, as early as the 1980s, JW researcher (and former elder) Carl Olof Jonsson compiled extensive evidence in The Gentile Times Reconsidered demonstrating year-by-year continuity in the Neo-Babylonian timeline. The Society has never been able to refute that documentation; instead, they have largely ignored it or dismissed it without substantive rebuttal, while clinging to their assertion that secular chronology might be wrong. But “might be” is not a substitute for actual proof. To date, no “single line” of positive evidence for missing years has been found – whereas multiple independent lines converge on a perfectly coherent timeline with no gaps, rendering 607 BCE an impossibility.

  Carl Olof Jonsson, the Exile, and Watchtower Misrepresentations

  Carl Olof Jonsson’s name inevitably comes up in this discussion. A former Jehovah’s Witness from Sweden, Jonsson was one of the first inside the organization to rigorously challenge the 607 BCE doctrine. His research (compiled in a manuscript in the 1970s and later published as The Gentile Times Reconsidered) systematically dismantled the Watchtower’s chronology. The Society’s response was to ignore the evidence and eventually disfellowship Jonsson in 1982 – effectively shooting the messenger. In recent years, JW apologists have sometimes tried to downplay Jonsson’s work by claiming, for example, that he “omitted” or failed to consider the significance of the biblical exile or the explicit scriptures linking 70 years to Jerusalem’s desolation. Let us address this canard directly: Jonsson did not “omit” the exile – he directly engaged the biblical texts, but came to a different understanding of them than the Watchtower’s. And he did so with good reason, as we have already seen.

  Jonsson’s analysis, much like the one presented here, emphasized that Jeremiah’s prophecy was about Babylon’s period of domination rather than a literal 70-year exile. He certainly discussed the return of the exiles and the biblical references in Daniel and 2 Chronicles. What he argued (correctly) is that those later references should not be isolated from Jeremiah’s broader context. The Watchtower accuses critics like Jonsson of ignoring Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chronicles 36:21, which mention 70 years of desolation. Furuli explicitly made this charge, insisting that those verses are “unambiguous” and that Jeremiah 25 must be bent to harmonize with them. Jonsson countered that it is Furuli (and the Watchtower) who ignore sound interpretive method: they start with later allusions and force the original prophecy to fit, rather than starting with Jeremiah and seeing how later writers understood it). Jonsson noted that Daniel 9:2 in the original language is not as unambiguous as claimed, and that even the Watchtower’s own Bible has revised its rendering of that verse over time. The context in Daniel suggests he realized, after Babylon fell, that the prophesied period was ending – implying he associated the end of the 70 years with Babylon’s fall, not some later date. The Chronicler, writing after the exile, theologically tied the 70 years to the land’s Sabbath rest (a symbolic device), but he did not date events differently than they actually occurred. Jonsson’s work covers all this; he did not sweep it under the rug. For instance, he acknowledges that “strictly speaking, the desolation of the land did not cease until the exiles had returned… (most likely) 538 BCE”, which is about 49 years after 587. In saying “strictly speaking,” he shows he fully considered the period of exile – he simply does not equate it one-for-one with Jeremiah’s 70 years. Rather, he affirms the historical reality (50 years of desolation) and distinguishes it from the prophetic number (70 years of domination).

  The JW apologetiv portrayal of Jonsson’s research as if it “omitted the exile” is a straw man. Jonsson’s aim was never to deny that the Jews were exiled or that the land lay desolate for decades – that is undisputed. His aim was to correct the Society’s chronological placement of that exile. And that he did, by showing the weight of evidence for 587 and interpreting the biblical texts accordingly. If anything, it is the Society that omits and ignores. They have omitted mention of critical evidence from their publications. For example, when they quote secular experts on chronology, they sometimes do so out of context to imply those experts support 607 (when they do not). They have never, in any of their 607 defenses, directly addressed the pile of evidence from business tablets like NBC 4897 or the specifics of the Babylonian Chronicle’s statements that contradict any extended timeline. In their 2011 articles, they omitted that none of the secular scholars they cited actually accept 607 – some of those scholars were in fact describing the 70 years as Babylon’s rule (not a Jewish exile). It is telling that the Watchtower has never produced a scholarly rejoinder to Jonsson’s book; instead they instruct Witnesses not to engage with “apostate literature.” Meanwhile, Jonsson’s theses have been vindicated by others and even grudgingly confirmed by certain admissions (e.g., the Society’s Insight book acknowledges that Babylon fell in 539 and that most historians date Jerusalem’s fall about 587, but then just asserts the Bible says otherwise without proof).

  In short, Jonsson’s work is coherent and comprehensive, and the criticisms leveled against it by JW apologists do not hold up. He did not “forget” about 2 Chronicles or Daniel – he simply interpreted them in line with the rest of the data. It’s worth highlighting Jonsson’s moral courage as well: as a loyal JW in 1977, he sent his detailed treatise on 607 vs 587 to the Governing Body in Brooklyn, hoping they would examine the evidence.The leadership’s response was not to refute him with counter-evidence (they provided none), but to eventually excommunicate him and label the evidence he gathered as satanic lies. This indicates that the 607 date is upheld not by scholarship but by authoritarian decree. It also underscores that the arguments we are rebutting here (mostly coming from official Watchtower articles or loyalist apologetics) are not academic in nature but polemical – designed to defend a doctrine at all costs. Thus, it is somewhat ironic that we in turn respond polemically; but given the strength of the case for 587, one can afford to be bold: the facts are overwhelmingly on the side of the so-called “apostates” like Jonsson.

  To sum up, Jonsson did not omit the exile; the Watchtower omitted the facts. His analysis of the biblical 70 years stands as the more convincing one because it aligns with the “established facts of history” – something even Furuli had to admit in part. (Recall that Furuli conceded the traditional chronology is “established” but then claimed the Bible demands a different view – essentially admitting he was discarding evidence in favor of dogma.) The Gentile Times Reconsidered and subsequent critiques have systematically exposed the flaws in the JW position, and the Society has never successfully countered those points. Instead, they rely on followers not being exposed to the full arguments. This article, by citing the very sources JW representatives avoid or distort, shines light on what has been concealed. The “beautiful” 607–537 framework, as we will see next, is not biblical truth but an illusion maintained by selective storytelling.

  The Supposed “Beauty” of the 607–537 BCE Timeline

  Proponents of the Watchtower chronology often gush about the elegant symmetry of their 70-year scheme. They say it is “beautiful” how Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled to the very year: Jerusalem destroyed in 607 BCE, 70 years of desolation, then restoration in 537 BCE – exactly as (they believe) the Bible requires. By contrast, the mainstream view might seem messy: only ~50 years of desolation, some portions of the 70 years applied to Babylon’s rule, etc. This appeal to the “beauty” or simplicity of the JW timeline is essentially an emotional or aesthetic argument, not an evidentiary one. While an elegant solution is desirable in historical reconstruction, elegance means nothing if it’s false. A wrong answer doesn’t become right because it’s pleasantly neat. We must recall the cautionary example of Ptolemaic astronomy: it was an elegant system of epicycles that “saved the appearances” of planetary motion in perfect circles – mathematically clever but factually wrong. Similarly, the Watchtower’s 607–537 timeline might look like a perfect fulfillment, but it is a house of cards when it collides with reality.

  One could argue, in fact, that the actual historical fulfillment of prophecy is quite elegant in its own way – just not in the simplistic manner JWs expect. Consider this: Jeremiah prophesied seventy years for Babylon. Babylon’s empire indeed lasted about seventy years (from its rise over Assyria to its collapse). Exactly seventy years after the last Assyrian resistance was crushed (609 BCE), Babylon was conquered (539 BCE). That is a remarkable fulfillment. The Jewish exile, which was a consequence of Babylon’s domination, lasted roughly from 597 BCE (first deportation) or 587 BCE (final destruction) to 537 BCE (return) – in other words, about 60 to 50 years. But the spiritual lesson drawn by the biblical writers did not require a mathematically precise 70 in that sense. “Seventy” in Scripture often signifies completeness or a lifetime (Psalm 90:10). The Jews indeed experienced an exile that, for those who lived through it, felt like a lifetime – a whole generation punished until the old sinful generation died off. At the same time, Babylon got its allotted span and then fell. The Chronicler’s reference to the land enjoying 70 sabbath years (2 Chron. 36:21) is elegant theologically: since Israel had (supposedly) ignored the sabbath year law for centuries, God let the land rest for 70 years to make up for it. Seventy there is a theological construct (based likely on 490 years of disobedience, 490/7 = 70). It was not meant as a reporter’s statement that exactly 70 years passed between event X and Y. Biblical writers were not as pedantic about chronology as modern chronologists – they were comfortable with approximations to convey spiritual truths. So the insistence on ultra-precision in a prophetic context is misguided to begin with. But even if one demands precision, the “coherence” of 607–537 is only skin-deep. It only appears coherent if one isolates the biblical prophecy from all external data and forces a literal interpretation. Once you integrate the vast external data, that timeline stops being coherent and instead generates numerous contradictions (with other scriptures, with recorded history, etc.). For example, the 607–537 model must disregard Ezekiel’s 25th-year reference that implies a 587 fall; it must hypothesize that every contemporary nation’s chronicle was skewed; it must assume Daniel and his companions somehow spent an extra 20 years in Babylon unaccounted for by any historical source. By contrast, the 587–537 model might seem less “tidy” in that the number 70 is not a literal count of the exile, but it is far more coherent with reality. And ultimately, truth in history is measured by correspondence with evidence, not by narrative symmetry.

  The polemical point here is that the Watchtower’s timeline is only “beautiful” if one is already convinced of it and ignores the blemishes. It’s a bit like praising the “beautiful” logic of a geocentric universe – sure, it looks nice on paper with everything circling Earth in perfect circles, but observational science shatters that beauty. Likewise, the array of cuneiform evidence shatters the imagined beauty of 607–537. In fact, once one sees all the contortions needed to defend 607 (as we have gone through: reinterpretations, dismissing evidence, inventing missing years, etc.), the alleged beauty gives way to something rather ugly – a willful disregard for truth in service of dogma. On the other hand, there is a certain beauty in the convergence of truth: how multiple independent witnesses (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Babylonian chroniclers, astronomical phenomena, Josephus quoting Berossus, etc.) all harmonize once we let 70 years be understood correctly. The Jews did return and rebuild, fulfilling God’s promise after Babylon’s time ended – and they did so at the historically documented time under Cyrus. This is both historically and theologically satisfying. The Watchtower’s version tries to be more satisfying by adding precision that the Bible itself didn’t demand, and in doing so they have created a beautiful-seeming falsehood.

  In any case, arguments about “beauty” or “symmetry” are subjective and secondary. The primary question must always be: what actually happened? The evidence shows Jerusalem was destroyed around 587, and the Jews returned about 50 years later. If that lacks a certain numerical poetry, so be it – truth is not always poetic. It is the job of interpreters to understand prophecy in light of fulfillment, not to bend fulfillment to fit a preconceived notion of prophecy. The Watchtower has essentially idolized its timeline (because 1914 depends on it) and praises its beauty to reinforce faith in it, rather than letting the “beauty of truth” inform their beliefs. In the final analysis, the true beauty lies in how perfectly the seventy-year prophecy was fulfilled as a period of Babylonian dominance – a fulfillment that fully accords with 587 BCE for Jerusalem’s fall. The JW timeline’s “beauty” is a mirage that fades under the light of factual scrutiny.

  “No Single Line of Evidence”? — Converging Proofs Against 607 BCE

  The last claim we address is the bold assertion made by some JW apologists that critics of 607 “have no single line of evidence” to disprove it. Sometimes this is phrased as “There is no single piece of evidence that explicitly dates Jerusalem’s fall to 587 BCE” or “All the evidence for 587 is convoluted or indirect.” This claim likely stems from the fact that there isn’t (for example) a stone stele that says in plain English “Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C.E.” But this is a straw man demand. Historians rarely have such direct labels for events – chronology is determined by piecing together many pieces of data. And indeed, we have an abundance of independent lines of evidence that together point unequivocally to 587 and eliminate 607. Crucially, multiple independent lines converging on the same conclusion constitute stronger proof than any single item in isolation. The Watchtower’s chronology is not disproved by one tablet alone; it is disproved by the convergence of astronomical, historical, and biblical data all aligning on a timeline that excludes 607.

  Let’s enumerate the “lines of evidence” that collectively verify 586/7 and refute 607:

  1. Mesopotamian King Lists and Chronicles: These list each Babylonian king and the length of his reign. The Uruk King List, Babylonian Chronicle, and later Ptolemy’s Canon all agree on the sequence Nabopolassar (21 years), Nebuchadnezzar (43), Evil-Merodach (2), Neriglissar (4), Labashi (0.2), Nabonidus (17), Cyrus. Summing from Nebuchadnezzar’s first year (604) through Nabonidus’ 17th (539) yields about 65 years. Therefore, Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (destruction of Jerusalem) must be about 586/7. No room for an extra 20 years exists in these lists .
  2. Contemporary Economic Tablets: Thousands of business/contracts dated by reign/year/month/day exist from this entire period. These tablets act as an unbroken annual ledger. For example, tablets from Nebuchadnezzar’s 1st year all the way to Cyrus’s years show a continuous progression of dates with no unexplained gaps. If 607 were the correct date for Jerusalem’s fall, we’d have to insert roughly 20 additional years of dates in these records – but those are absent. Instead, the contracts transition from Nebuchadnezzar’s year 43 to Evil-Merodach year 1 in the space of a few months in late 562 BCE. This eliminates any possibility that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year was as early as 607.
  3. Astronomical Diaries: We’ve highlighted VAT 4956, which fixes Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year to 568/567 BCE by over two dozen celestial observations. Another key tablet, BM 32312, records lunar eclipses in specific years of specific kings (including Nebuchadnezzar’s 2nd and 7th) that correspond to 603 and 597 BCE. There are also planetary texts and eclipse records for Nabonassar’s era down to the Persian era that all align on one consistent chronology (the same used by modern scholars). Astronomical calculations do not lie: they objectively match the 587-based chronology and flatly contradict any 20-year shift. Not a single astronomical text supports the JW timeline (Furuli’s attempts notwithstanding, which have been decisively refuted).
  4. Biblical Synchronisms: The Bible itself, when read carefully, supports the conventional dating. We noted Ezekiel 40:1’s implicit calculation for the fall in 587. We have Jeremiah’s detailed chronology of events leading to the 11th year of Zedekiah (Jer. 52:5-12), which we can correlate with Babylonian data to 587. We have Zechariah 7:5, which in 518 BCE refers to 70 years since a certain mourning began (likely the 586 BCE temple destruction), again pointing to around 586/7 for that event. All these internal clues coincide with a late-580s date, not 607.
  5. Ancient Historians: While Josephus is inconsistent, ultimately his final analysis (Against Apion) acknowledges 50 years of desolation. Babylonian historian Berossus (as preserved by Josephus and others) agrees with the lengths of reign that yield a 587 destruction. Greek chronographer Ptolemy in his Canon (2nd century CE) lists the kings of Babylon with the same lengths – that canon was not concocted in a vacuum; it is known to derive from earlier Babylonian sources and is confirmed by cuneiform evidence. In sum, every ancient source that attempts a chronology aligns with the standard one, not with anything like the Watchtower’s extended timeline.
  6. Interlocking Chronologies (Persian, Egyptian, Tyrian): The Babylonian timeline meshes with the Persian timeline (which is extremely well-attested through dozens of tablets for kings like Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius etc., and Greek historical accounts). If one tried to add 20 unknown years in Babylon, Persian chronology would also shift relative to global history, causing chaos (it would imply Cyrus conquered Babylon 20 years later than thought, throwing off Greek and Persian synchronization – which is impossible given dated Persian records tied to eclipse observations, etc.). Egyptian history records the conflict with Babylon (Battle of Carchemish in 605, Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Egypt after 601, etc.) and those fit the conventional timeline. The Tyrian king list, cited by Josephus, gives intervals between Shalmaneser’s time and Cyrus that also back-calculate to Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre following Jerusalem’s fall in the 580s, not the 600s (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust). Multiple nations’ histories align on the late 7th-century date, which would all have to be wrong if 607 were right.
  7. Concession by Absence: Perhaps a rhetorical point, but powerful: if there truly were evidence for 607, the Watchtower would showcase it. They have not produced any stela, tablet, or text from antiquity labeling a year equivalent to 607 as the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar or the year of Jerusalem’s fall. All named regnal years in the contemporary records correspond to the conventional dates. The absence of any direct statement for 607 is itself telling. For example, we have the Babylonian Chronicle for 605–594 BCE, which is silent on a destruction of Jerusalem (because none happened in those years). For 589–588 (Neb’s 17th year), another fragment suggests Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Tyre (and likely Jerusalem in 587). If 607 had seen a major event like Jerusalem’s fall, we would expect it to echo in some record, either Babylonian or in neighboring cultures – but nothing does.

  Considering all these lines together, the case against 607 is over-determined. We do not rely on just one approach (say, the Canon of Ptolemy) or just one tablet. Even if we set aside Ptolemy’s Canon (as JWs like to, calling it a later source), we still have the contemporary Babylonian tablets. If we set aside those, we still have the astronomical fixes. If we ignored those, we have the Bible itself and Josephus. They all independently corroborate each other. This is the very definition of a robust historical conclusion. By contrast, the 607 date rests on a single pillar: the Watchtower’s interpretation of a few Bible verses. Remove that interpretation (which we’ve shown to be flawed), and nothing sustains 607. Carl Jonsson aptly noted after years of research that he “found that there was not one piece of evidence to back up the Society’s date of 607 BCE”. Indeed, that is precisely why he wrote to the Society, shocked at the disparity between claims and evidence. The Watchtower’s claim about “no single line of evidence” is an exercise in projection: it is their position that lacks any single, let alone multiple, credible lines of proof.

  Finally, even if one were to stubbornly insist on 607 as a matter of “biblical belief,” one must confront the sheer implausibility that every line of secular evidence is somehow misleading or corrupted. The odds that dozens of astronomical observations would coincidentally fit a wrong timeline and none point to the “correct” 607 timeline are astronomical themselves (no pun intended). The odds that hundreds of scribes dated thousands of tablets all in a way that just happens to be exactly 20 years off of truth, without a single tablet betraying a different scheme, are effectively zero. Such an outcome would require an almost miraculous orchestration of error. Ironically, believing 607 over 587 would require far more “faith” (in the face of contradicting reality) than accepting that maybe, just maybe, the Watchtower’s interpretation is mistaken.

  In critical scholarship, a convergence of independent lines is considered strong proof. Here we have that convergence – biblical chronology, Mesopotamian chronology, and scientific astronomy all intersect at the late 6th century BCE for Jerusalem’s fall. It is the Watchtower’s 607 that stands isolated, unsupported by any outside testimony. To persist in that belief, one has to dismiss all other witnesses as false. Such a stance is not sound history; it is dogmatism.

  Conclusion

  In every case, the JW apologists’ claims have been shown to be either misinterpretations of scripture, distortions of historical evidence, or baseless conjectures introduced to prop up a predetermined date. The weight of evidence – biblical, historical, archaeological, and astronomical – is overwhelmingly against the 607 BCE chronology. We can summarize our findings as follows:

  1. Biblical Context: Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years was directed “for Babylon,” signifying the period of Babylonian domination over the nations, not a literal 70-year exile of Judah. When read in context, Jeremiah 25 and 29 make perfect sense as foretelling Babylon’s 70-year hegemony from the late 7th century to 539 BCE. The Watchtower’s insistence that the 70 years must equal the full length of Jewish exile is not supported by the Hebrew text or the broader scriptural narrative. Later biblical references (Daniel 9, 2 Chronicles 36) do not rewrite history; they reflect on Jeremiah’s prophecy in theological terms, and they certainly do not mandate a 607–537 timeline except by strained inference. Thus, the foundation of the JW position – their interpretation of the Bible – is fundamentally flawed. The Bible does not require 607 BCE at all.
  2. Historical Record: Every known ancient source that provides chronological information (Babylonian chronicles, king lists, Josephus quoting Berossus, Ptolemy’s Canon, etc.) aligns with Jerusalem’s fall in 587/586 BCE and the duration of the Neo-Babylonian Empire as we know it. There is no hint in these records of an extra 20 years or an additional king that the Watchtower’s schedule would need. We examined and debunked the notion of “missing years” – the continuity of documentation from Nabopolassar to Cyrus is essentially unbroken and allows for no sizable gaps. The suggestion that secular historians have ignored some hidden chronology or seven-year co-regency is pure fantasy. On the contrary, it is the Watchtower that ignores the cast-iron interlocks linking one reign to the next.
  3. Archaeology and Tablets: Thousands of cuneiform tablets dated to specific regnal years form an unassailable chronological skeleton. Tablets like BM 30254 and NBC 4897 conclusively demonstrate the precise lengths of Neo-Babylonian reigns and their succession without interruption. We reiterate: not a single contract or administrative text is dated beyond Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year or Nabonidus’s 17th year, whereas if 607 were true, such texts from a hypothetical Nebuchadnezzar year ~63 or a Nabonidus year ~37 should have turned up. None have. Instead, business documents from 587 BCE show dates like “Nebuchadnezzar Year 18,” confirming that year corresponded to 587 (not 607). The archaeological evidence is unequivocal and lines up exactly with mainstream dates.
  4. Astronomy: The movements of the heavenly bodies, preserved on clay tablets like VAT 4956, serve as an impartial and precise clock. This clock says Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year was 568/567 BCE, which is incompatible with the 607-based scheme and perfectly compatible with the 587-based scheme. Furuli’s attempts to impugn the astronomical evidence have been meticulously refuted. The Watchtower’s own experiment to align VAT 4956 with 588/587 BCE fell flat when scrutinized – it turned out to require special pleading (ignoring planetary data, adjusting Babylonian month starts, etc.). In scholarly terms, the JW approach to VAT 4956 has been ad hoc and driven by confirmation bias, whereas the conventional analysis of that tablet has stood the test of time for over a century. No credible astronomer or Assyriologist has endorsed the Watchtower’s reading of VAT 4956 or any other astronomical text – a telling fact.
  5. Ancient Witnesses: We saw how Josephus, often touted by JWs, actually undermines their case when read fully – he ends up agreeing that about 50 years passed from Jerusalem’s fall to the second year of Cyrus. The Society’s selective citation of Josephus is therefore deceptive. Other ancient historians either don’t address the specific Judean chronology or simply echo the traditional sequence of Babylonian kings, which, again, yields 587. Not a single ancient historian explicitly supports a 607 destruction of Jerusalem – because that idea did not exist prior to modern Watchtower theology.
  6. Internal Consistency: The 607 date creates numerous internal contradictions even within the Bible’s own timeline. For example, it forces the 70-year prophecy to start at a time (607) when, according to the Bible, servitude to Babylon had not yet begun – Judah was still a vassal of Egypt until 605. It also forces the prophet Ezekiel’s statements to be contorted (Ezekiel counts the years of exile from 597 and marks 14 years after the fall in 573, which matches 587, not 607). The Watchtower explanation of these things usually boils down to, “Well, perhaps the writer meant something else,” which is far less plausible than the straightforward explanation that the fall happened in 587. By contrast, the 587 chronology can integrate all biblical data points logically, once we understand “70 years” in the proper sense. In short, the JW chronology even jars with parts of the Bible, whereas the scholarly chronology harmonizes with both biblical and extra-biblical evidence when each is properly understood.

  Given all this, we arrive at an inescapable conclusion: the year 607 BCE for Jerusalem’s destruction is untenable. It is a date maintained only by insulating one’s belief system from evidence and by reinterpreting scripture against context. The Jehovah’s Witness leadership has a theological investment in 607 (as it underpins their 1914 doctrine), which explains their reluctance to acknowledge the facts. But as researchers, historians, or honest Bible students, we must follow the evidence wherever it leads. In this case, it leads to the firm conclusion that Jerusalem fell in 586/587 BCE, and that the biblical “70 years” are fully accounted for by the period of Babylonian supremacy from roughly 609 to 539 BCE. The Jewish exiles returned around 537 BCE not to fulfill a literal count to the day, but because Babylon’s fall made it possible – exactly as Jeremiah foretold when he said “I will punish the king of Babylon at the end of seventy years and bring you back”. And that is precisely what history records.

  The rebuttal to the JW apologists is therefore polemical in the sense of strongly challenging their assertions, but it is grounded in academic rigor and evidence rather than sectarian bias. We have critically engaged the Watchtower’s own sources (like their 2011 articles and Furuli’s writings) and shown their methodology to be flawed or even disingenuous. By contrast, the case for 587 BCE rests on a broad foundation of verified data, making it the only defensible date in scholarly discourse. It’s no wonder that in over 100 years, no professional historian or archaeologist (outside the JW community) has endorsed the 607 chronology. It stands rejected by consensus, not out of prejudice against the Bible, but because the facts speak for themselves.

  In conclusion, the “beauty” of the Watchtower’s 607–537 timeline is a mirage – attractive to those inside a closed ideological system, but not real when tested against historical reality. The true beauty, if one may call it that, lies in the converging truth: a prophecy accurately capturing the span of an empire’s rule, the dramatic vindication of Jeremiah’s words in 539 BCE, and the heartfelt joy of the exiles’ return shortly thereafter, all preserved in the records of humanity. There is no need to force a false chronology to uphold scripture; scripture is not broken by truth. The 607 dogma, however, is broken – shattered by the cumulative evidence that it is historically indefensible. As researchers and truth-seekers, we must side with evidence over ideology. The destruction of Jerusalem occurred in 587 BCE (with many scholars specifying summer 587 BCE), and no amount of special pleading can resurrect the year 607 except in the minds of those determined to believe it at any cost.

  The verdict of both academia and, increasingly, enlightened former Witnesses is clear: 607 BCE is a chronological error. The Watchtower’s position is untenable, and those who have carefully examined all the data have overwhelmingly come to reject it. The hope is that by laying out this comprehensive rebuttal, more individuals – including sincere Jehovah’s Witnesses – will see that the truth has nothing to fear from evidence. The untenability of 607 BCE does not undermine the Bible; it only undermines a particular interpretation that has been overly rigid. In the end, facts must be faced: Jerusalem was not destroyed in 607 BCE, and claiming otherwise in the face of all evidence does a disservice to history, scripture, and honest scholarship. The 607 BCE doctrine has been weighed and found wanting, and it is time to let it go.

  Sources:

  • Jonsson, Carl Olof. The Gentile Times Reconsidered, 4th ed. (2004) – and Jonsson’s detailed reviews of Rolf Furuli’s chronology. These works extensively document the evidence against 607 BCE and were cited throughout (e.g., Jonsson demonstrating the correct meaning of Jeremiah’s 70 years and exposing Furuli’s misuse of sources).
  • Correspondence between J. Halsey and the Watch Tower Society (2017–2018) – which provided an inside look at the Society’s VAT 4956 analysis and its shortcomings.
  • Independent scholarly sources on Babylonian chronology and astronomy, including the Babylonian Chronicles, business tablets, and analyses of astronomical texts (Neugebauer, Hunger, Sachs, etc.), confirming the standard dates.
  • The Watchtower’s own published statements (e.g., The Watchtower, Nov. 1, 2011) used here to illustrate the Society’s claims and our refutation of them.

  Each of these sources and lines of evidence, taken on its own, is highly persuasive; taken together, they render the 607 BCE position utterly indefensible. The conclusion is unavoidable: Jehovah’s Witness apologists have failed to defend 607 BCE, and their arguments collapse under critical scrutiny. The destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE stands as a well-established historical fact, and no amount of special pleading can alter that reality. The sooner this is acknowledged, the sooner one can move on to a more accurate understanding of both history and biblical prophecy – one that does justice to evidence and truth.
• 

  HereIam60

  I can't enter into the historical discussion, but if I remember correctly the Insight On The Scriptures and previous Aid To Bible Understanding had a long, convoluted, and controversial background. With so many subjects covered, and sources involved, it's not surprising there are inconsistencies and contradictions in it. The current Governing Body gives the impression that they don't even care to read it, let alone revise or correct it.
• 

  scholar

  aqwsed12345

  Par.1. Rebuttal

  Agreed

  Par. 2 Rebuttal

  The argument for a 607 BCE as opposed to the date 586 or 587 BCE is based on the Biblical Record through the Jeremiah' prophecy, experience of the 70 years through Daniel the prophet and confirmed by Ezra the historian and Josephus the historian. Both Daniel and Jeremiah lived during the 70 years of Exile, so their collective testimony as eyewitnesses was confirmed by later historians such as Ezra and Josephus.

  Such collective testimony by people who lived at that time or lived much closer to the Exile presents testimony that is far superior to any so-called evidence presented centuries later. Biblical and historical evidence confirms the fact of a 70-year Exile, whereas later archaeological and astronomical evidence is subject to interpretation and/or differing opinions within scholarship.

  Starting Point - Rebuttal

  There is no question that the 70 years is summed up in one word -Exile which as common to exany exile of a peoples especially in ancient times consited of three major elements: Servitude to Babylon- Exile at or for Babylon - Desolation of the land of Judah. All of which are detailed and written up by Jeemiah by prophecy-confirmed historically by Ezra, Daniel and Josephus.

  Scholars who champion 605 or 609 BCE for the beginning of the 70 years have the major problem that the events associated with these two years make no mention of the 70 years and do not provide a time or date stamp in relation to the 70 years. Thus, what we have are two 'fuzzy' candidates for the beginning of the 70 years. WT Chronology as a 'strong cable' of Bible Chronology time and date stamps the beginning and end of the 70 years, which is unmatched by the advocates of 605 and 609 BCE.

  All that such advocates have is the interpretation that the 70 years was solely a period of Babylonian domination, which is only partially correct as it ignores the fact of the exile and the fact that Judah was desolated for 70 years.

  609 BCE for the Fall of Assyria is not date stamped. The beginning of Babylonian supremacy is open to interpretation for others would date such an event in Neb at the Battle of Carchemish in the 4th year of Jehoiakim but Neb had not come up against Jerusalem -hence, no deportation -no exile. The 70 years could not have begun with that event as Nneb had not invaded Judah at that time.

  The terminus ad quem is not 539 BC for the fall of Babylon, for the jews were still captive in Babylon as exiles even after 539 BCE, as confirmed by Daniel 9: 1-2, who had discerned that the 70 years had not expired at the time of Darius' first year. Further, Ezra in 2 Chron.36: 22-23 contextually links the 70 years with the Cyrus' first year and discusses the 70 years during the reign of Zedekiah's 11 year and Neb's 19 year. Such history belies the claim that the 70 years of exile occurred much earlier in Neb's reign. IMPOSSIBLE

  In summary, there remains confusion amongst scholars as to when the 70 years began and what it actually represented. Numerous scholars present different opinions as to when the 70 years began and its end.

  Jer. 25 and Scope of Servitude

  Jer. 25: 9-12 was primarily addressed to Judah, as shown by a reading of that pericope and the previous verses from vs. 1-8. However, surrounding nations were also caught up in the Babylonian conquest, and these too were made to serve Babylon during the exilic period of 70 years., There is no historical data for each of those nations as to the precise timing of their servitude to Babylon, and even Jeremiah does not list those affected nations. Later in the chapter, Jeremiah does list all of the nations that would later receive judgement beginning with Babylon - Jer. 25: 12-26.

  Jer. 20:10 can either be rendered either 'at Babylon' or 'for Babylon'. WT critics argue that 'for Babylon' is the correct translation and the said scholar is of the view that either translation is permissible and is happy with both, and the scholar likes to be happy.

  In short, Jeremiah's prophecy in relation to the 70 years of Exile is focussed not on Babylon but Judah as shown by a plain reading of the text. By focussing on Babylon, WT critics such as COJ stand to quote COJ 'is to turn the matter upside down"..The proper and only approach is that the 70 years of Jewish Exile under the babylonian yoke or domination.

  Thus, the claim that the 70 years began in either 605 0r 609 BCE and ended in 539 BCE is impossible, bogus and false- complete and utter nonsense and noyt supported by Josephus who presents the subject exactly as do JW's with their strong cable of Chronology beginning in 607 BCE and ending in 537 BCE- the JEWISH EXILE.

  Fulfilment of the 70 years

  Par. 1

  Agreed

  Par. 2. Rebuttal

  The scenario is corrected to Tishri 1 607 BCE- Tishri 1 537 BCE. Jeremiah ties the 70 years not to Babylonish domination but to the Jewish Exile. Ezra explicitly states that the 70 years as Jeremiah's prophecy that the land lay desolate ain order to pay off its sabbaths for 70 years and confirmed by Josephus.The Chronicler links the beginning of the 70 years during the Zedekiah;s reign with the destruction of the city and the Temple under neb in 607 BCE. -2 Chron 36:11-21.

  The claim that '70 in this context is a round number' is nonsense and simply an interpretation disproved by all of the 70 year references and Josephus. Scholar loves Josephus!!

  Dan.9:1-2 This proves that the 70 years had not ended in 539 BCE with the fall of Babylon as Daniel discerned that according to Jeremiah the 70 years was still running even up to the 1st year of Ddarius in c. 538 BCE. Such of the fact would pave the way of Cyrus' decree in his 1st year to relaes the captive jews in 537 BCE Babylon under the Nneb's dynasty had indeed fallen in 539 BCE but a new king of Babylon was now installed as the Medo-persian empire which was no able to offialyy end the Exile of 70 years and return the jewish captives home.

  WT interpretation has reversed no such thing. The 70 years of exile begin with Jeremiah's prophecy and end with Ezra's historical account but also continued in later writings by Josephus. In short, Daniel, Ezra and Josephus explain Jeremiah's prophecy. You gotta luv Josephus111

  Interestingly, Daniel, in his 70 weeks of years prophecy of the coming Messiah, piggybacks this prophecy on the 70 years of exile in Dan 9..

  Josephus in five references to the 70 years, presents the subject as we understand the subject and not as WT critics. His focus in his texts centers on the temple in each of these, and in Ap 1.21 he makes reference to the temple -"laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years". in the previous section 1.19 he states, "our city was desolate during the interval of seventy years, until Cyrus, king of Persia". One translation of Josephus with marginal footnotes states" and it was left in a state of obscurity for fifty years".

  This means that during the interval of 70 years the temple was obscured for fifty years in a state of slow decay requiring by the time of the Jews returned home found the temple nonexistent, having then to lay its foundations as it had been originally burnt at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE.

  Further, in Whiston's Dissertation v he refers to the 'conflagration of the temple beginning and ending under Cyus after 70 years. This confirms the fact that the 70 years of exile also included or was a period of conflagration of the Temple, nothing to do with Babylon or Babylonian domination.

  Josephus' many references to the 70 years cannot be ignored, and although his chronology can be challenged, he nevertheless deals with the 70 years exactly as do the bible writers such as Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezra.

  Josephus is a credible historian who was also the source for Berossus, the Babylonian historian, so if you are going to dismiss Josephus, then to be consistent, you may as well dismiss Berossus and all of the other Babylonian scribes who compiled their history and chronology. You should not cherry-pick . Naughty fellow!!!

  Archaeology Dating 586 or 587 BCE?

  Rebuttal

  Scholars cannot agree as to whether it was 586 or 687 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem despite the preponderance of so-called scholarly evidence. It is a basket case of confusion, and also so it is with the reigns of the Divided Monarchy. WT scholars have both matters well and truly sorted.

  It is a difference of one year, but it is much more than a one-year difference for it comes down to METHODOLOGY. Methodology is key in constructing any scheme of Chronology, and there is a major difference between WT methodology and that of secular Chronology. One method works the other fails. In the case of determining the precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem, WT scholars have proved it to be 607 BCE. Secular scholars do not know whether it was 586 or 587 BCE? You need to get your house in order !!

  You claim that there is extensive evidence for 586/587 BCE and that it is solid, but it is not rock hard but fluid, very flexible and fuzzy. Your Chronology lacks any foundation for it is not based on the inspired Word of God as its primary base, nor does it account for the Jewish Exile of 70 years, which, along with the established date of 539 BCE for the Fall of Babylon it is determined that 607 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem. It is as the author Charles Dickens wrote of A Tale of Two Cities.

  Your pretend scheme of Chronology is falsified by the biblical 70 years of Jewish exile.

  Babylonian Chronicles simply affirm biblical history in part, which can easily be used to support 607 BCE.

  Astronomical dating has been shown to support 607 BCE by means of scholarly research.

  Babylonian king lists are of scholarly interest but do not include Neb's missing seven years, so of little value but as with the former Chronicles can be construed to fit 607 BCE

  Synchronisms that are mentioned in the biblical record are important as these serve as a date or time stamp.

  The fact is that at this stage of knowledge, the most important artifact that supports 607 BCE is that of the biblical 70 years of Exile and that of Josephus, and that is as it should be.

  Astronomical Evidence -VAT 4956

  The strongest line of evidence is not astronomy, for it is subject to interpretation, human observation and calculation and manipulation as in the case of Ptolemy's Canon according to recent scholarship. The bible should be the sole authority when it comes to biblical chronology and its history.

  VAT 4956, as with any piece of evidence, is subject to criticism, and recent scholarship has shown that the dating of Neb's 37 the year can be dated to 588 and not 568 BCE

  Rof Furuli was the first scholar to conduct a comparison of the astronomical data for the proposed years of 568 or 588 BCE, and his analysis of both the sets of the lunar and planetary data support 588 rather than 568 BCE. Furuli found that in the case of the 13 sets of lunar positions were a perfect fit for 588 rather than 568 BCE and the planetary positions were retro-fitted to fit 568 BCE.

  WT scholars carried out their own independent research and found that in the case of the lunar sets were again a perfect match for 588 rather than 568 BCE

  What this means is that in the case of VAT 4956 the jury is still out as to whether it corroborates either 586 or 588 BCE so only time will tell so at this stage it cannot be considered to solid evidence against 607 BCE

  Myth of Neb's missing years.

  This is no myth but piece of history referred to by Daniel and Josephus and according to the OG translation of Daniel was an experience publicised in a literary form throughout the Babylonian Empire in many languages for the peoples.

  You present a king list for the neo-Babylonian Era none of which contains historical facts that disprove 607 BCE

  It is nonsense to say that such records are airtight when there are at least 7 missing years in Neb s reign, and with the historical placement of the Jewish exile of 70 years shows a 20-year difference between the two chronologies.

  COJ and the Exile

  This is a misnomer for COJ; there was no Exile of 70 years despite its clear presentation in the biblical record and Josephus.Its omission can hardly be called a strawman when it clearly is discussed in the Bible as a major theme-Exile and Return have now featured as titles in a recent book. and discussed topically in scholarly reference works on Jewish and Biblical history.

  You can read all of COJ's GTR in its four editions and you will find no discussion of a Jewish Exile and such omission falsifies his thesis as a piece of worthless rubbish.

  WT Chronology a thing of beauty.

  There are many beautiful things in this world, one of which is God's inspired Word -the Holy Bible, authored by the Sovereign, Jehovah God. It contains sacred history and prophecy, which, when combined, create a chronology- likened to a strong cable. Such chronology has elegance, symmetry and simplicity. In comparisons, we see a secular chronology that has no fixed dates for key events based not on the bible but wholly on secular sources- a secular or profane system of Chronology only fit for scrap.

  No single line of evidence - converging proofs against 607 BCE

  If this is truly the case then only one is necessary and despite my repeated request, you supply nothing.

  You set out six lines of evidence but all of which have been and remain contestable.tour 7th argument is nonsense for we table the bible as evidence against any artifact or pagan records.

  Conclusion

  You present 6 findings but none of these disproves 607 BCE for each one of these has been discussed and shown to have validated 607 BCE in terms of biblical context, history, archaeology, astronomy, ancient witnesses such as Josephus and internal consistency.

  It has been well demonstrated that WT Chronology is of God, is divine as all of God s inspired Word anchored in history and prophecy. The date 607 BCE is solidly based on all our knowledge, enabling the humble seeker to understand history and prophecy and to discern that God's Kingdom was born in that momentous year 1914CE

  scholar JW
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  aqwsed12345

  @scholar

  1. Jeremiah and Daniel as “Eyewitnesses” of the 70 Years Prophecy

  Jehovah’s Witness apologists often appeal to the authority of the prophets Jeremiah and Daniel – who experienced the Judean exile period firsthand – to insist that the Babylonian captivity lasted a full 70 years (607–537 BCE). It is true that Jeremiah and Daniel were contemporaries of the exile. However, their own writings do not actually state that Jerusalem would lie desolate for a 70-year exile. Rather, Jeremiah’s prophecy explicitly applies the 70 years to Babylon’s period of supremacy, not to the duration of Jerusalem’s desolation. In Jeremiah 25:11, the prophet announces: “These nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years,” indicating 70 years of Babylonian domination, after which Babylon itself would be punished (Jer. 25:12). This is exactly what happened – roughly seventy years passed from Babylon’s rise to power (after Assyria’s fall in 609 BCE) to its fall to Cyrus in 539 BCE. Jeremiah never said that the Jews would be in exile or that the land would be empty for that entire period.

  Daniel, writing near the end of the Babylonian Empire, likewise does not redefine Jeremiah’s prophecy as a 70-year exile. Daniel 9:2 reports that Daniel “discerned by the books the number of years” foretold by Jeremiah, “to fulfill the desolation of Jerusalem, namely seventy years.” Rather than introducing a new chronology, Daniel was simply acknowledging Jeremiah’s prophecy and praying for its fulfillment as Babylon’s 70-year reign neared its end. Notably, Daniel himself had been exiled in the first deportation (605 BCE), so by 539 BCE he had been in Babylon about 66 years – yet he still viewed Jeremiah’s “seventy years” as coming to completion. This implies that Daniel did not rigidly interpret the prophecy as requiring a literal 70-year exile for every last Jew, but understood it in the context of Babylon’s dominance. Indeed, the Watchtower’s own defenders admit that Jeremiah’s text “does not say explicitly” that the 70 years referred to Jerusalem’s desolation. The attempt to use Daniel and the Chronicler (the author of 2 Chronicles) as later interpreters to overturn the plain sense of Jeremiah’s words “turns the matter upside down,” as one scholar observes. The proper approach – accepted in sound exegesis – is to let Jeremiah’s explicit statements set the framework, rather than reading into them a doctrine of a 70-year total exile. In fact, a critical examination of the Hebrew text shows that nowhere does the Bible unambiguously state “the exile would last 70 years.” As one linguistic analysis concludes: “there is no such passage anywhere in the entire Bible” – the text leaves the duration to be inferred from historical facts, which align with an exile of about half a century, not seventy years. In short, Jeremiah was an eyewitness to Judah’s last days, but what he witnessed and prophesied was a seventy-year period of Babylonian hegemony – not a seventy-year empty land. Daniel, likewise an eyewitness, confirms Jeremiah’s prophecy was on schedule to end with Babylon’s fall, without ever asserting that Jerusalem had already been desolate for 70 years. Appealing to these prophets’ authority cannot rescue the 607 BCE theory, because their writings simply do not support the notion of a 70-year desolation from 607 to 537 BCE. On the contrary, modern scholarship unanimously places Jerusalem’s fall about twenty years later (587/586 BCE), meaning any “eye-witness” argument for 607 BCE is fundamentally at odds with both the biblical text and established history.

  2. Interpreting Jeremiah 25 and 2 Chronicles 36 in Context

  The cornerstone of the Watchtower’s 607 BCE claim is its reading of certain Bible passages – chiefly Jeremiah 25:11-12 and 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 – as proof that the entire exile lasted a full seventy years of unbroken desolation. This interpretation does not hold up under careful exegesis. As noted, Jeremiah 25:11 foretells “seventy years” of nations serving the king of Babylon. It does not say that Judah would be uninhabited for seventy years; rather, Judah (along with surrounding nations) would be subject to Babylonian rule for that span. Jeremiah 25:12 then specifies that after those 70 years are completed, God would punish the king of Babylon, which happened when Cyrus conquered Babylon (539 BCE). Thus, in its plain meaning, Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled by the period of Babylonian domination (c. 609–539 BCE) – an interpretation that aligns perfectly with the historical record.

  What about 2 Chronicles 36:20-21? This verse describes the aftermath of Jerusalem’s fall, saying the survivors were exiled to Babylon “until the kingdom of Persia began to reign, to fulfill Jehovah’s word by Jeremiah, until the land had paid off its sabbaths all the days of lying desolated – to fulfill seventy years.” At first glance (especially in some translations), this might seem to support a 70-year desolation. In reality, the Chronicler is summarizing Jeremiah’s prophecy and its fulfillment, not redefining its timeframe. The construction “until… until… seventy years” indicates that the land’s desolation (which did occur after 586 BCE) lasted until the prophetic period ended with Persia’s ascendancy. In other words, the land “enjoyed its sabbath rests” during the decades of exile while the 70 years were running their course, coming to an end when Cyrus’s decree allowed the return (538–537 BCE). The Chronicler explicitly ties this to “fulfilling the word of Jehovah by Jeremiah” – a word that, as we have seen, spoke of seventy years of Babylonian rule. He does not say that Jeremiah’s prophecy was a “70-year exile”; that is an assumption read into the text. Indeed, if one translates the Hebrew literally, 2 Chronicles 36:21 is describing that the land lay desolate during those years up to the time the prophecy was fulfilled – not that the desolation itself lasted 70 years. The Jewish exiles remained in Babylon “until the kingdom of Persia began to reign,” which is precisely when Jeremiah’s 70 years expired.

  Crucially, neither Jeremiah nor the Chronicler actually uses the phrase “seventy-year exile.” The notion that “70 years means a literal 70-year captivity of Judah” is a later extrapolation – one that the text itself does not demand. In fact, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, we find internal evidence that the exile did not last a full seventy years. The prophet Zechariah, writing in 518 BCE (about 19 years after the first returnees arrived back in Judah), referred to God’s indignation on Jerusalem “these seventy years” (Zech. 1:12) – a clear allusion to Jeremiah’s prophecy. This suggests that by Zechariah’s day the prophesied period was already seen as essentially complete, even though only about 68 years had passed since 586 BCE. The simplest explanation is that the 70 years were a rounded, prophetic period, not a precise count of empty years for the land. As one expert observer bluntly notes, “God’s inspired Word nowhere states explicitly how long that period [the exile] was to last” – the Bible leaves it to readers to piece together the chronology, which in fact yields about 50 years of exile (from 586 to ~536 BCE). Thus 2 Chronicles 36, read in context, confirms Jeremiah’s 70-year prophecy was fulfilled with the fall of Babylon and the return under Cyrus, but it does not teach a 607 BCE destruction. The chronicler’s intent was to show that Jeremiah’s word came true, not to retroactively declare that Judah must have been desolate for an exact 70 years. In sum, Jeremiah 25 and 2 Chronicles 36 align to support the traditional 587/586 BCE date for Jerusalem’s fall (with a roughly 50-year exile), not the 607 BCE theory. Any argument to the contrary must ignore the plain wording that the 70 years were linked to Babylon’s empire, not exclusively to Jerusalem’s ruin.

  3. Did the Jewish Exile Last a Literal 70 Years?

  According to Watchtower publications, the Jews’ Babylonian exile lasted exactly seventy years – supposedly from the summer of 607 BCE (Jerusalem’s destruction, in their view) until the Jews’ restoration in 537 BCE. This claim is flatly contradicted by both the Bible’s chronology and historical data. As demonstrated above, the Bible does not explicitly say “the exile will be 70 years.” In fact, multiple scriptures indicate a shorter exile. The prophet Ezekiel, for example, dated his prophecies by the years of exile of King Jehoiachin (Ezek. 1:2, 40:1). Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon in 597 BCE; by Babylon’s fall in 539 BCE, only 58 years had elapsed since that first major deportation. Even counting from the final destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, the interval to 537 BCE is about 49 years. This is the figure acknowledged by modern scholarship: roughly half a century of exile. Notably, the Bible’s historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah – which narrate the return – never state that the exile had lasted 70 years. They simply report Cyrus’s decree ending Jewish captivity in his first year, consistent with the prophecy of “seventy years for Babylon” having ended (Ezra 1:1).

  From a historical perspective, all evidence shows that the Judean exile was about fifty years. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE, and Cyrus’s decree allowing Jews to go home was issued in 538 BCE; many Jews were back in Judah by 537 BCE. Contemporary records (both biblical and Babylonian) attest that the Babylonian empire had begun dominating the region decades before Jerusalem’s fall (captives from Judah were taken to Babylon in 605 and 597 BCE, and Judah became a vassal by 605). Therefore, the period during which Judah and the surrounding nations “served the king of Babylon” was approximately 70 years (from the 605 BCE Battle of Carchemish or the 609 BCE fall of Assyria, down to 539 BCE) – fulfilling Jeremiah’s words. But the period during which the people of Judah were actually in exile from their land was shorter. This understanding is reflected even in second-temple Jewish literature: for example, the prophet Zechariah’s references imply the 70 years of divine anger were effectively over by the late sixth century.

  Jehovah’s Witness apologists argue that “70 means 70” – insisting the number cannot be symbolic or approximate. Yet, ironically, they acknowledge that other biblical time-spans (such as the “40 years” of Judah’s punishment in Ezekiel 4:6, or the “400 years” of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt in Gen. 15:13) were not always exact to the year, but rounded for theological emphasis. There is broad agreement among historians and biblical scholars that the “70 years” in Jeremiah is a schematic or symbolic figure denoting a long, complete period of Babylonian domination, rather than the precise length of the exile (So Was It 70 Years, or Not? | BJU Seminary). As Dr. Rolf Furuli – a defender of the Watchtower view – admits in formulating the argument, he cannot actually point to a single verse that unambiguously states “the exile lasted 70 years,” only to inferences from Daniel and Chronicles. And as we have seen, those inferences crumble under scrutiny. In reality, the Jews’ exile in Babylon ran from 586 to 538 BCE (if measured from the final deportation to the decree of Cyrus), which is about 48 years – in full harmony with the copious historical data from Babylon and Persia, and with the Bible’s own internal chronology. No faithful “Jehovah’s Witnesses” remained in Babylon until a 70th year in 537 BCE waiting to leave; they had long since gone home. The Watchtower’s insistence on a literal 70-year exile is a prime example of forcing a symbolic prophetic number into a rigid chronological timeline that neither Scripture nor history supports.

  In summary, the claim that the Jewish exile was exactly seventy years (607–537 BCE) finds no support in the biblical text once it is carefully examined in context. The Bible indicates a seventy-year period for Babylon, and a roughly fifty-year exile for Judah. By conflating those distinct concepts, the 607 BCE defense imposes a chronological straightjacket on Scripture that obscures the actual fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy. The historical reality is that Jerusalem’s desolation lasted about fifty years, not seventy – and this is entirely consistent with God’s word when properly understood.

  4. The 586 vs. 587 BCE Debate – No Support for 607 BCE

  Watchtower publications frequently point out that secular historians are “undecided” whether Jerusalem fell in 586 BCE or 587 BCE, implying that scholarly chronology is confused and unreliable. It is true that scholars have cited both 587 and 586 BCE for Jerusalem’s destruction. However, this one-year discrepancy is a far cry from the 20-year revision that the 607 BCE theory demands – and it arises from minor ambiguities in interpreting biblical data, not from any serious doubt about the overall timeline. In fact, whether one prefers 587 BCE or 586 BCE, the historical and archaeological community is united that Jerusalem’s fall occurred in the late 7th century BCE, not in 607 BCE. The 586/587 question hinges on how to correlate Babylonian regnal years with the Jewish civil year. The Babylonian chronicles record Nebuchadnezzar’s reign in terms of Babylon’s calendar, while the Bible records Judah’s kings in Judah’s calendar – leading to an uncertainty of a few months in 587/586 BCE for the exact timing of the final siege’s end. Because the specific Babylonian tablet describing the capture of Jerusalem is not extant, historians rely on the Bible’s chronological notes (e.g. “Zedekiah’s 11th year, 4th month, 9th day”) tied to known anchor points like Nebuchadnezzar’s accession and the well-dated earlier events of 605 BCE (Battle of Carchemish) and 597 BCE (capture of Jehoiachin). Using these anchors, it is clear that Jerusalem fell about 18–19 years after 605 BCE – hence the two possibilities, 587 BCE or 586 BCE, depending on whether one counts Nebuchadnezzar’s accession year as year 0 or year 1 in Judah’s reckoning.

  Crucially, this scholarly debate is confined to a one-year margin and does not indicate any broader uncertainty about the chronology. In a survey of the literature, Jeremy Hughes found essentially an even split: a number of authorities favor 586 BCE and an equal number favor 587 BCE. Renowned historians such as Edwin Thiele opted for 586 BCE, while others like Donald Wiseman and K. A. Kitchen have argued for 587 BCE. The very fact that the disagreement is so narrow highlights how solid the overall dating is – all experts place the event around that time, based on the convergence of biblical and Babylonian records. Notably, none of these historians even remotely suggests a date in the 600s BCE (let alone as late as 607 BCE) for Jerusalem’s fall. The Watchtower’s assertion that scholars are “confused” about the date is misleading: they are debating which summer – 587 or 586 BCE – the city fell, not whether it fell decades earlier. The uncertainty arises from scriptural ambiguities (like whether the biblical author counted Nebuchadnezzar’s accession year), not because of any flaw in the secular chronology.

  In practical terms, many modern references use 587 BCE as the date of Jerusalem’s destruction (and 586 BCE for the burning of the temple the following month), while some use 586 BCE for the city’s fall – but this is often simply a difference in inclusive reckoning. The important point is that both dates lie within one year of each other, and both are about twenty years later than 607 BCE. The existence of a 586/587 debate therefore in no way validates the Watchtower’s chronology. If anything, it underscores how no credible historian considers moving the date by two decades. Indeed, 607 BCE finds no support in any of the extensive scholarly literature on the fall of Jerusalem. It is telling that Jehovah’s Witness writers highlight a one-year academic debate as if it cast doubt on the whole chronology; in reality, such a minor dispute is typical in ancient chronology and does not conceal any hidden +20 year gap. By analogy, if ten researchers debated whether an event happened in late 2020 or early 2021, none of them would accept an argument that it actually happened in 2000 – yet the Watchtower’s defense of 607 BCE amounts to a claim of that magnitude. In conclusion, the 586 vs. 587 BCE issue is a red herring. Scholars disagree only on a technicality of calendrical calculation, while unanimously affirming that Jerusalem fell around 587 BCE. This consensus, built on a wealth of biblical and Babylonian evidence, utterly excludes 607 BCE as a plausible date.

  5. Astronomical Data: VAT 4956 and the Confirmation of Neo-Babylonian Chronology

  One of the most striking lines of evidence against the 607 BCE chronology is astronomical. The cuneiform tablet VAT 4956 – an astronomical diary from Babylon – provides a detailed record of planetary and lunar observations dated explicitly to “Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.” This tablet has long been known to correlate unambiguously with 568/567 BCE, confirming that Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year fell in 568/567 BCE (which in turn pegs his 18th year – the year of Jerusalem’s fall – to 587/586 BCE)). Faced with this powerful evidence, the Watchtower’s 2011 apologetic article attempted an audacious counter-claim: it argued that “much of the astronomical data in VAT 4956 fits the year 588 B.C.E. as the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar II,” thereby supporting 607 BCE for Jerusalem’s destruction. This claim, however, is deeply flawed and has been sharply refuted by specialists. In reality, VAT 4956 overwhelmingly confirms the conventional chronology, and the Watchtower’s reinterpretation relies on selective use of data and misrepresentation of scholarly sources.

  First, it must be noted how complete the astronomical evidence on VAT 4956 is. The tablet records dozens of observations: positions of the moon relative to reference stars on specific nights, conjunctions and positions of planets (“Mercury, Venus, Saturn,” etc.) on specific dates, and even a lunar eclipse. These observations act like celestial timestamps. When modern astronomers or historians plug these data into astronomy software or mathematical calculations, they find one clear match in the mid-6th century BCE. Indeed, as a standard scholarly publication on Babylonian astronomy concludes, VAT 4956 “contains lunar and planetary observations … from the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar conclusively dated to [568/567 BCE].” No credible academic study has dated VAT 4956 to 588 BCE – because doing so produces numerous mismatches with the recorded positions of celestial bodies. The Watchtower article arrived at its 588 BCE claim only by ignoring a large portion of the tablet’s data. Specifically, the article admitted that it “did not use” the planetary observations from VAT 4956 in its analysis, on the rationale that “some of the signs for the names of the planets and their positions are unclear” and therefore “open to speculation”. Instead, the Society’s writers focused solely on 13 instances of the moon’s position. By this cherry-picked approach, they claimed a significant number of lunar observations could align with 588 BCE. But this is highly misleading: the excluded planetary data are in fact crucial, and they strongly pinpoint 568 BCE, not 588. The Watchtower’s own source, assyriologist David Brown, was cited out of context to justify dismissing the planetary records. In truth, Brown was discussing variants of planet nomenclature over centuries, not saying VAT 4956’s data were too unclear to use. The tablet actually identifies the planets by their well-known “A-names” (distinctive Babylonian names), which are not ambiguous at all in context. Thus, there was no valid reason to exclude the planetary observations – except that they conflict with the 588 BCE hypothesis. By omitting them, the Watchtower article essentially threw out the bulk of the evidence that professional astronomers consider when dating such tablets. This is special pleading, not sound scholarship.

  Secondly, even within the lunar data, the Watchtower’s analysis had to employ special assumptions to force a 588 BCE fit. For example, one key observation on VAT 4956 is a lunar eclipse recorded in “month 3, day 15” of Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year. In 568 BCE, there was a lunar eclipse that exactly matches this entry (on July 4, 568 BCE, which corresponds to 15 Simanu of Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year under the normal Babylonian calendar). In 588 BCE, however, the only lunar eclipse fell on July 15, which would ordinarily correspond to month 4 of that year. To get around this, the Society’s writers proposed that in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year the Babylonian calendar started two months late – i.e. that an extra intercalary month had pushed Nisanu (month 1) all the way to May of 588 BCE. This is an unconventional and highly implausible interpretation of the Babylonian calendar. Babylonian months began with the sighting of the new moon around the spring equinox; in practice, Nisanu 1 in Babylon never started as late as the beginning of May. The Watchtower admits that normally that year’s Nisanu would have begun in early April 588 BCE, but claims a tablet reference to an intercalary month justifies moving New Year to May 2/3, 588. In fact, as analysts have pointed out, even with an intercalary month the Babylonians would not start the next year beyond about early April. Pushing Nisanu to May is far outside known Babylonian practice. When one examines the details, the supposed “perfect fit” of the July 15, 588 BCE eclipse is achieved only by contorting the calendar in a way Babylonian astronomer-scribes themselves would not have done. In contrast, the conventional placement (Nisanu starting in early April 568 BCE) produces an eclipse in month 3 that matches VAT 4956 with no special pleading. The Watchtower’s approach here amounts to special-case special pleading piled on top of data exclusion – all to dodge the straightforward implication of the tablet’s content.

  When all the astronomical observations on VAT 4956 are considered – lunar and planetary – the evidence for 568/567 BCE as Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year is overwhelming. Experts have calculated that 13 out of 15 lunar positions on the tablet match 568/7 BCE perfectly (the slight discrepancies being attributable to normal observational error), and all 5 planetary positions recorded on VAT 4956 also correspond to where the planets would have been in 568 BCE. By contrast, if one tries to date those planetary positions to 588 BCE, none of them line up correctly – which is precisely why the Society chose to ignore them. The Society’s claim that “much” of the data fits 588 BCE is only true in the sense that by dropping most data points and tweaking a calendar, one can get some of them to fit. This is not a sound method. Tellingly, no peer-reviewed scholarly publication has endorsed the 588 BCE interpretation. It exists solely in Watchtower apologetics and the writings of one Jehovah’s Witness advocate (Rolf Furuli). On the other hand, the standard 568 BCE dating of Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year has stood unchallenged in academia for decades, precisely because it is so well supported.

  It is also worth noting the double standard in the Watchtower’s use of astronomical evidence. In the same 2011 article, the Society accepts and cites the computed dates for Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon in 539 BCE, which are derived from the same corpus of Neo-Babylonian tablets that include VAT 4956. For example, another astronomical text (the so-called “Strm. Kambys 400” tablet) fixes the seventh year of Cambyses II to 523 BCE by means of an eclipse – a result the Watchtower does not dispute when discussing Persian chronology. The Society even uses such tablets to establish 539 BCE, the pivotal date that it agrees on. Yet, when an equally robust tablet (VAT 4956) points to a date that undermines 607 BCE, the Society suddenly declares the evidence “ambiguous” and the methods “speculative.” In fact, Babylonian astronomical diaries like VAT 4956 are widely regarded as reliable for fixing absolute dates because the motions of the moon and planets are calculable and were accurately observed by the Babylonians. As one astronomer notes, even without reading the cuneiform script, a modern investigator can use the sky data on VAT 4956 to “reach [their] own conclusions based on the available evidence” – and the conclusion will invariably be Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year = 568/7 BCE (The Astronomical Diary, VAT 4956 | aperi mentis). The Watchtower’s attempts to dismiss the astronomical data have been characterized by specialists as misleading and unjustified. Scholars have pointed out that the Society misquoted sources like Hunger, Steele, and Brown in its discussion of the tablet, giving the false impression that experts question the tablet’s evidentiary value, whereas in reality experts affirm its accuracy and felt misrepresented by the Watchtower’s citations (The Jerusalem Book).

  In conclusion, VAT 4956 stands as a powerful witness against the 607 BCE chronology. Its recorded celestial coordinates anchor Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year in 568 BCE, which by extension places his 18th year (the year of Jerusalem’s fall) in 587 BCE. The Watchtower’s claim that the tablet can be re-dated to 588 BCE does not withstand critical examination – it is achieved only by excluding inconvenient planetary data and by positing an abnormal Babylonian calendar for that year. When one “lets the stars speak” without bias, the heavens declare that the conventional Neo-Babylonian chronology is correct to within a month or two. Far from supporting 607 BCE, the astronomical diary VAT 4956 definitively refutes it. This is why no secular historian rejects the established dates of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. The only way to maintain 607 BCE is to cast aside objective astronomical evidence – a step that underscores the unsoundness of the Watchtower’s position.

  6. The Myth of “Missing Years” in Neo-Babylonian History

  Because the evidence for Jerusalem’s fall in 587/586 BCE is so abundant, Watchtower defenders are forced to speculate that the historical record might be incomplete – that perhaps there were “missing years” (or even missing kings) in the Neo-Babylonian chronology that scholars have overlooked. The 2011 Watchtower article hints at this by noting “gaps” in the Babylonian Chronicles and pointing out a few apparent discrepancies in business documents during the transitions between kings. The suggestion is that the reigning king list might have unknown figures or that existing kings may have ruled longer than the records show, thus adding extra years that could shift the timeline back to allow a 607 BCE destruction. This suggestion has been thoroughly investigated – and decisively rejected – by historians. In reality, the Neo-Babylonian chronology (spanning from Nabopolassar’s ascension in 626 BCE to Cyrus’s conquest in 539 BCE) is one of the best-documented periods in ancient history, with a convergence of numerous sources: king lists, chronicles, thousands of dated economic tablets, and later classical accounts. There are no unaccounted gaps of twenty years.

  Consider the reign of Nebuchadnezzar himself. He is known to have reigned 43 years (605–562 BCE). We possess over 500 economic (business) tablets dated to specific days and months within Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal years. These tablets form a near-continuous year-by-year record of his rule. The same is true for his successors: we have contemporaneous tablets dated to the reigns of Evil-Merodach (Amel-Marduk), Neriglissar, and Nabonidus, covering every year attributed to them by historians. If, for example, Nebuchadnezzar had actually reigned 20 years longer than thought (as the 607 BCE theory effectively requires), there would be 20 years of missing business tablets – a glaring hole in the otherwise continuous stream of dated documents. But no such hole exists. On the contrary, tablets dated to Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year exist, followed by tablets from Evil-Merodach’s accession and 1st year, then his 2nd year, then Neriglissar’s accession and so forth. The sequence of reigning years is seamless. Historian Rolf Furuli, in his attempt to challenge the chronology, scoured these texts for anomalies. He found a couple of instances where an accession-year tablet of one king had an earlier date in the year than a final-year tablet of the previous king – a result of how Babylonians counted regnal years by New Year’s, causing slight overlaps at the new year. Such minor overlaps are well understood by scholars and do not add extra years; they certainly do not imply hidden rulers. In fact, these overlaps occur in the matter of months (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar died in the autumn of his 43rd year, Evil-Merodach’s accession year began earlier that spring by Babylonian reckoning). The Watchtower article asks, “Could others have ruled between the reigns of these kings?” and muses that if so, “additional years would have to be added”. But this is pure speculation without evidence – and indeed, all evidence argues against it. The Uruk King List, an ancient Babylonian document compiled not long after the Neo-Babylonian period, explicitly lists the kings from Nabopolassar through Nabonidus in order with their lengths of reign. Its figures for each reign match those derived from the business tablets and other records. For example, it gives Nebuchadnezzar 43 years, Evil-Merodach 2 years, Neriglissar “3 years and 8 months,” Labashi-Marduk (Neriglissar’s son) a reign of just “3 months,” and Nabonidus 17 years. These precise numbers reflect authentic archival memory. If a mystery king had ruled for, say, 10 years between any of these known kings, the king list and the archival tablets would betray some gap or inconsistency. They do not. On the contrary, we find tablets dated to Labashi-Marduk’s short reign of a few months (showing he was recognized as king for that brief period), followed shortly by tablets in Nabonidus’s accession – a clear indication of smooth succession. The idea that a decades-long phantom king (or an unnoticed extension of a known king’s reign by 20 years) could slip into this well-documented era is simply not credible.

  Furthermore, the writings of later historians confirm the same sequence. The Babylonian priest-historian Berossus (3rd century BCE), whose works are partially preserved via Josephus, gives the duration of each Neo-Babylonian king’s reign in agreement with the canonical figures: Nebuchadnezzar (~43 years), Evil-Merodach (2), Neriglissar (4), Labashi-Marduk (9 months), Nabonidus (17). He mentions no extra monarchs. The Canon of Ptolemy, a later Hellenistic-era king list used by astronomers, likewise lists the kings and their regnal lengths matching the cuneiform data. Even Josephus, despite some internal inconsistencies, ultimately preserves information that from the fall of Jerusalem to the 1st year of Cyrus was about 50 years (as we will discuss in the next section), which aligns with the standard chronology ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154). These multiple witnesses (Babylonian contemporary records, native king lists, and later historians) interlock to give a consistent timeline with no room for an extra 20 years.

  The Watchtower argument seizes upon the phrase “gaps in the history recorded in the Babylonian chronicles” – indeed, the Babylonian Chronicle tablets are broken or lost for some years in the 590s BCE, so they do not narrate every event. But a gap in a narrative source is not a gap in the timeline. The chronicles are like a patchy historical diary; missing entries do not equate to missing years, because other sources cover those years. The business tablets, for example, have no such gaps year-to-year. It is also telling that no archaeological discovery from the last century and a half of Mesopotamian research has turned up any trace of an “extra” Neo-Babylonian king or an unexplained additional regnal year. On the contrary, every new find (such as additional contract tablets published in recent decades) continues to fill in details consistent with the existing chronological framework, sometimes even narrowing the dates of transitions to within a month or two. The Society’s suggestion that “additional years would have to be added” is a tacit admission that its 607 BCE theory cannot be reconciled with the evidence as it stands – one must imagine adding fictional years. That is not how historical revision is done; one would need actual evidence of those years. None has been forthcoming. Scholars have scrutinized the possibility extensively and found “any evidence in support of such assumptions is completely lacking.” On the contrary, as a leading chronologist observes, each known year in the Neo-Babylonian era is attested by numerous documents, and if a king had ruled longer or an unknown king existed, we would have a “large number of tablets” dated to those additional years – yet we do not . All lines of evidence converge on the conclusion that the Neo-Babylonian period lasted as long as we think – no more, no less.

  In short, the “missing years” argument is a myth. It arises not from evidence, but from the necessity of finding somewhere to shove an extra 20 years into history to accommodate 607 BCE. The hard data – tens of thousands of dated cuneiform tablets, astronomical diaries, and ancient king lists – leave no blank to fill. The scholarly consensus is that there are no gaps in the Neo-Babylonian chronology large enough to account for a twenty-year error. Even Rolf Furuli, after proposing some adjustments, could at best shift certain Persian dates by 10 years (a thesis which has also been rejected by experts), and he notably failed to produce any concrete evidence of missing Babylonian regnal years. Indeed, as has been pointed out, Furuli in his book did “not explicitly mention the 607 B.C.E. date” at all – a telling omission of the very point he ostensibly set out to prove. The reason is clear: the evidence for the established chronology is so massive that directly arguing for extra years in Nebuchadnezzar’s time would be academic suicide. Thus, the idea of adding years to Nebuchadnezzar’s reign or inserting unknown rulers is entirely speculative and contradicted by the harmonious records at hand. All known data fix the fall of Jerusalem in the 18th–19th year of Nebuchadnezzar, which corresponded to 587 BCE (or 586 BCE) – not twenty years earlier.

  7. Josephus, Classical Sources, and Watchtower Misuse of History

  In defending the 607 BCE date, Jehovah’s Witness apologists sometimes appeal to Flavius Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, as well as other classical sources. Josephus is quoted as saying that the Jews were exiled for 70 years, which on the surface might seem to support the Witness interpretation. However, a closer look at Josephus’s writings – and how the Watchtower uses them – reveals a pattern of selective quotation and even contradiction. Far from corroborating 607 BCE, Josephus’s accounts actually align with the standard chronology (with Jerusalem’s fall in the 580s BCE) and expose the inconsistency of the 70-year exile claim.

  It is important to understand that Josephus in his various works was not entirely consistent on chronological details. In some passages, he indeed paraphrases the biblical prophecy of a 70-year Babylonian captivity. For example, in Antiquities of the Jews (Book XI, ch.1), Josephus writes that the first year of Cyrus (538 BCE) was “the seventieth year from the day that our people were removed from their land to Babylon”, as Jeremiah had foretold that after serving Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants for 70 years, they would be restored (Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI). This shows Josephus understood the prophecy of Jeremiah as involving 70 years from exile to restoration. The Watchtower frequently cites such statements, implying that even a Jewish historian reckoned a full 70-year exile ending in Cyrus’s time. What the Watchtower fails to mention is that Josephus elsewhere quantifies the historical interval in a very different way. In Against Apion (Book I, §19), Josephus discusses the chronology of the temple’s desolation. There he explicitly states: “Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state for fifty years; but in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius.” (Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154) This is a remarkable passage: Josephus here pegs the desolation of the temple (and thus Jerusalem) to 50 years in duration, not 70. He even ties it to known reigns – from Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (which we know to be 587 BCE) to Cyrus’s 2nd year (537/536 BCE) is about 50 years. Indeed, this matches the biblical and historical reality almost exactly. So we have Josephus in one work essentially acknowledging a 50-year desolation, even as in another context he referenced the “70 years” prophecy. How do we reconcile this? It appears Josephus himself was combining the theological prophecy with the historical facts: he repeats Jeremiah’s 70-year prophecy in a general sense, but when he calculates the actual timeline, he comes out with 50 years. This is not surprising, because by Josephus’s time the historical duration from the fall of Jerusalem to the rebuilding of the temple was well known from sources like Berossus (whom Josephus quotes in the same section). Josephus elsewhere provides additional chronological details that further affirm the traditional dates. For instance, in Antiquities XX.10, he sums up that the entire duration from the first temple’s construction under Solomon to its destruction under Nebuchadnezzar was 470 years, and then says “after the termination of the Babylonian captivity, seventy years” the second temple was built and endured another 500+ years (What does Josephus say about 586/87 BCE?). Even there, his phrasing “seventy years’ captivity” is a general descriptor, but his specific numbers (combined with other statements he makes) actually indicate about 50 years between the temple’s destruction and the decree of Cyrus (What does Josephus say about 586/87 BCE?) (What does Josephus say about 586/87 BCE?). In short, Josephus’s historical data is fully consistent with a 587 BCE destruction and a return in 537 BCE, whereas his rhetorical references to “70 years” reflect the biblical prophecy without attempting to assert a precise chronology. The Watchtower typically cites only the latter, leaving readers with the false impression that Josephus “confirmed” a 70-year exile, when in fact Josephus explicitly recorded that the temple lay desolate for 50 years ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154).

  The misrepresentation goes further: The Watchtower’s 2011 article presented a table of classical historians’ figures for the Neo-Babylonian kings and implied they are unreliable or conflicting. In doing so, it omitted crucial context. For example, the article fails to mention that Berossus’s figures agree exactly with the modern chronology, and that even Ptolemy’s Canon (though compiled in the 2nd century CE) was based on well-attested records and likewise matches the Mesopotamian evidence. The Society also selectively quotes Josephus regarding the start of the “servitude.” They highlight that Josephus (in Antiquities X.6) said Nebuchadnezzar took Judean captives in his 8th year, not earlier, arguing that this contradicts other sources and supports a later date for the start of Babylonian servitude. But this is a red herring: Josephus’s comments on the start of the 70 years are secondary (and he elsewhere contradicts himself on that point too), whereas his data on the end of the period are clear (50 years from destruction to Cyrus). If anything, Josephus’s mention that Nebuchadnezzar didn’t fully deport Jerusalem until his 18th year (which is historically accurate) undermines the idea that 70 years of complete desolation began earlier.

  Beyond Josephus, other ancient sources unanimously point to a fall of Jerusalem in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, 18–19 years after his accession (i.e. 587/586 BCE). Berossus, as preserved in Josephus, reports that Nebuchadnezzar succeeded his father in 605 BCE, defeated Jerusalem, and that the Neo-Babylonian kingdom lasted 66 years in total until Babylon’s fall ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154). This total is exactly what we get from 605 to 539 BCE. The Tyrian King List quoted by Josephus (in the same Against Apion I.19-20) notes that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre in his 7th year and gives a timeline that also implies about 50 years from that point to Cyrus’s era ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154). All these independent data align with the well-established 587/586 BCE date. None places the destruction in 607 BCE. In fact, no ancient author, Babylonian or Greco-Roman, explicitly supports a 607 BCE date or a 70-year desolation from 607–537 BCE. That concept arises solely from a particular literalist interpretation of Scripture that ignores the actual historical fulfillment.

  In light of this, the Watchtower’s use of Josephus and others can be seen as polemical cherry-picking. They quote Josephus when he echoes Jeremiah’s prophecy (as any pious Jew would) but ignore him when he provides the historical interval that contradicts their timeline ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154) (Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI). They similarly cast doubt on Ptolemy or Diodorus when those historians conflict with 607, yet they freely rely on the very same historians’ evidence to date events like Cyrus’s conquest (539 BCE) which they accept. This inconsistent methodology – embracing evidence when it suits them, dismissing it as “uninspired” or “incomplete” when it doesn’t – reveals that the 607 BCE doctrine is driven by dogma, not objective analysis. The scholarly consensus on Neo-Babylonian chronology, supported by Josephus’s actual chronological data and all other ancient sources, is that Jerusalem fell in 587/586 BCE and that the exile lasted about 50 years ( Flavius Josephus, Against Apion, BOOK I, section 154) (Appendix, The Gentile Times Reconsidered - Carl Olof Jonsson). There is no credible support, ancient or modern, for extending the desolation to 70 years ending in 537 BCE.

  Finally, it should be noted that the “70 years” in biblical theology was understood by later Jewish writers as a period of national judgment and servitude, not a precise calendar duration for the land’s emptiness. The second-century BCE book of 2 Chronicles (cited above) and the first-century writings of Josephus both treat the 70 years as prophecy fulfilled by the Persian restoration, without feeling a need to reconcile every chronological detail. The early Christian chronographer Theophilus of Antioch (2nd century CE) explicitly states that the Jews were in captivity at Babylon for 70 years, “until Cyrus” – showing that he, too, followed the standard timeline (with 587 BCE as the start) albeit phrased in terms of the prophecy. In other words, for ancient interpreters, the theological truth was that God had ordained “70 years” for Babylonian domination and Jewish subjugation; the historical reality was that this prophecy manifested in events spanning roughly 609–539 BCE, with Jerusalem desolate c.587–537 BCE. There is no conflict between these when one understands the flexibility of biblical numeric idiom (70 as a number of completion or punishment). It is only the modern Watchtower’s insistence on a rigid 607–537 timeline that creates a false conflict. By refuting their arguments point-by-point – from the scriptural exegesis to the astronomical records and ancient historians – we see that the 607 BCE date is neither biblically required nor historically tenable. All available evidence, including the very sources the Watchtower tries to enlist, actually converges on the conclusion that Jerusalem was destroyed around 587 BCE and that the prophesied 70 years ended with the return of the exiles under Cyrus. The 607 BCE apologetic stands on misinterpretations and selective use of data, and it collapses under a full, honest scrutiny of the Bible and history.
• 

  scholar

  aqwsed12345

  1. Jeremiah and Daniel as “Eyewitnesses” of the 70 Years Prophecy

  The very fact that Daniel and Jeremiah were eyewitnesses means that we must pay careful attention to their description of the 70 years, which was a definite historic period of Exile- Serviude to Babylon-Desolation of the land of Judah which was confirmed by Ezra the historian and Josephus, the Jewish historian.

  2. Interpreting Jeremiah 25 and 2 Chronicles 36 in Context

  Just read the entire context of Jer. 25 and 2 Chron. 36 and it is obvious that such chapters explain the nature and timing of the Jewish Exile.

  3. Did the Jewish Exile Last a Literal 70 Years?

  Absolutely. No fuzzy dates or events. Ezra and Josephus explain the matter in full.

  4. The 586 vs. 587 BCE Debate – No Support for 607 BCE

  What it proves is that scholars do not know the precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem, but celebrated WT scholars from the 1870s knew, and it is 607 BCE

  5. Astronomical Data: VAT 4956 and the Confirmation of Neo-Babylonian Chronology

  VAT 4956 has been the subject of recent analysis, and it has been shown by two independent researchers that 588 BCE and not 568 BCE is the only possible date for neb's 37th year.

  6. The Myth of “Missing Years” in Neo-Babylonian Histo

  Daniel refers to Neb being absent from his throne for 'seven times' or seven years and this must be accounted for in any history of the peNB Period and any scheme of Chronology.

  7. Josephus, Classical Sources, and Watchtower Misuse of History

  Josephus makes several refences to the historical fact of the Exile of 7o years. His focus in each one of these refences is the Temple which 'lay in obscurity for 50 years within the interval of 70 years.

  CONCLUSION:

  Your posts are lengthy, boring and repeititive. All that you present is a rehash of COJ's GTR. The piece of nonsense fails to account for the historical reality of the Jewish exile of exactly 70 years -a period of Exile-Servitude -Desolation. Such a major historical period substatiates the 607 BCE for the Fall of Jerusalem, 537 BCE for the return of the jews and the Gentile Times which ended in 1914 CE.

  scholar JW
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  Gorb

  Take your medication, guys!

  Gorby
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  Jeffro

  Oh come on, aqwsed12345. What’s with these long screeds of text that are obviously pasted from some other source without any attribution?

  All that text and you don’t even make the connection between the period of paying off sabbaths in 2 Chronicles 36 with Leviticus 25-26?

  For more straightforward explanations of the subject, see 607 for Beginners and Jehovah’s Witnesses and 1914
• 

  Jeffro

  ‘scholar’:

  What it proves is that scholars do not know the precise date for the Fall of Jerusalem,

  Fallacy of division. Just because not everyone knows something, it doesn’t mean no one does. Most modern scholarship recognises that 587 BCE is the correct year, despite various (mostly religious) sources using faulty appeals to tradition for 586 BCE.

  The precise date is 29 July 587 BCE. See 586 or 587?

  but celebrated WT scholars from the 1870s knew, and it is 607 BCE

  Poor doofus doesn’t even seem to know they said it was in 606 BCE until the 1940s. 🤣 When they finally realised there was no ‘year 0’ between 1 BCE and 1 CE, they moved it to 607 BCE to retain their superstitious numerology about 1914.
  
  
• 

  aqwsed12345

  @scholar

  You have presented a defense of the 607 BCE date for Jerusalem’s fall, hinging on a particular reading of biblical “70 years” prophecies and selective use of historical sources. Below is a point-by-point rebuttal of each claim (1–7), following your own structure, and a conclusion addressing the charge that scholarly refutations are mere “rehashes” that ignore the “Exile–Servitude–Desolation” triad. Each point is examined in light of biblical context and established historical evidence.

  1. Jeremiah and Daniel as Eyewitnesses to a 70-Year Exile?

  Claim: Jeremiah and Daniel were eyewitnesses whose testimony confirms a literal 70-year Exile that included servitude, exile, and desolation.

  Rebuttal: Neither prophet actually “confirms” a 607–537 BCE exile in the way you assert. Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years (Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10) does speak of a 70-year period, but critically, it applies that period to the Babylonian empire’s dominance, not to a full 70-year desolation of Judah. Jeremiah 25:11 foretells that “these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years,” and verse 12 adds that after those seventy years Babylon would be punished. This aligns perfectly with history: Babylon’s supremacy began with its final defeat of Assyria (609 BCE) and ended with Babylon’s own fall (539 BCE) – a span of about 70 years. Jeremiah was not prophesying that Judah would lie empty for exactly 70 years; he was warning that Judah (among other nations) would serve Babylon until Babylon’s power was broken.

  Daniel 9:2, written near the end of the exile, shows Daniel reflecting on Jeremiah’s prophecy, not redefining it. Daniel “discerned by the books” that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, and he prayed for Jerusalem’s restoration (Dan. 9:2-19). The Watchtower you treat Daniel’s wording as an independent eyewitness confirmation that the exile must have been a full 70 years. In reality, Daniel is reading Jeremiah. As one analysis observes, using Daniel’s later interpretation to override Jeremiah’s clear original meaning “turns the matter upside down”. Jeremiah’s own words are unambiguous about the focus of the 70 years: they are tied to Babylon’s period of domination. Daniel and the author of Chronicles, writing after the fact, understood that prophecy in light of the exile that had occurred, but they do not claim the power to rewrite Jeremiah. In short, Jeremiah was an eyewitness to Jerusalem’s fall and Daniel an eyewitness to the exile’s end, but neither actually states that Judah would be completely depopulated for exactly seventy years. Your argument reads an “exile–servitude–desolation” triad into their testimony that Jeremiah himself did not explicitly make. Their prophetic testimony supports a 70-year Babylonian servitude, not a 70-year complete exile from 607 BCE onward.

  2. Do Jeremiah 25 and 2 Chronicles 36 Support the Watchtower’s View?

  Claim: Jeremiah 25 and 2 Chronicles 36 support the Watchtower’s understanding of the 70 years (i.e. a full 70-year desolation and exile from 607–537 BCE).

  Rebuttal: This claim hinges on cherry-picked interpretation. Jeremiah 25:11-12 is unequivocal that the seventy years were to end when Babylon was called to account for its crimes – in other words, when Babylon fell in 539 BCE. Far from supporting an end of the period in 537 BCE, Jeremiah’s prophecy pinpoints Babylon’s downfall as the terminus. The Watchtower reading has to bend Jeremiah’s words, suggesting that the “fulfilled” seventy years only ended when the Jews returned two years after Babylon’s fall. But Jeremiah 25:12 does not say “when seventy years end, Babylon will be destroyed two years later” – it says Babylon itself would be punished at the completion of the seventy years. History confirms Babylon was conquered by Cyrus in 539 BCE, exactly seventy years after 609 BCE (when Babylon’s hegemony began). Your insistence that 537 BCE must be the end-point finds no support in Jeremiah’s text, and indeed contradicts Jeremiah’s clear timing.

  What about 2 Chronicles 36:20-21? The Chronicler writes that the Jews were carried off to Babylon “to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths... to fulfill seventy years.” On the surface this might seem to endorse a 70-year land desolation. However, context is key. Verse 20 in the same passage says they served the king of Babylon “until the kingdom of Persia began to reign.” That places the end of servitude in 539 BCE, consistent with Jeremiah. The Chronicler does not contradict Jeremiah; rather, he echoes Jeremiah’s prophecy and explains Judah’s exile as allowing the land to recuperate (a theological explanation drawing on the idea of Sabbath rests in Leviticus 26). Notably, the Chronicler sticks very closely to Jeremiah’s description of the 70 years as a period of servitude under Babylon, ending it when Cyrus of Persia took power. In other words, 2 Chronicles 36 supports that the exile was related to a 70-year period, but it does not insist that Judah lay completely desolate for that entire span. The Watchtower’s understanding reads the Chronicles text as if it said “the land lay desolate for seventy years” – but that is not what it actually states. It says the exile and land rest fulfilled Jeremiah’s words, which as shown above, refer to Babylon’s 70-year dominance. Thus, when read in context, neither Jeremiah 25 nor 2 Chronicles 36 validates a 607–537 BCE timeline. On the contrary, they align the 70 years with the period of Babylonian rule culminating in 539 BCE, leaving the Watchtower’s 607 BCE date with no explicit biblical support.

  3. Must the 70 Years Be Literal? (Ezra and Josephus to the Rescue?)

  Claim: The 70 years must be taken as a literal time span, and both Ezra (biblical chronology) and the historian Josephus fully support a 607–537 BCE exile.

  Rebuttal: Serious scholars do take the seventy years literally – but literally applied to the correct period. There is no dispute that the Bible’s seventy-year prophecy represents a real period of roughly seventy years; the debate is when that period occurred. As shown, the biblical evidence points to 609–539 BCE for Babylon’s dominance (about 70 years), rather than 607–537 BCE for Judah’s exile. Your insistence that it must be 607–537 is circular: it assumes what it needs to prove. Indeed, the Watchtower’s own 2011 article admitted that if one counts seventy years from the accepted date of Cyrus’s decree (~538/537), one does not reach 607 unless you assume the period only began at Jerusalem’s fall. That assumption is precisely what Jeremiah’s text does not support, as we’ve seen. So yes, the “70 years” are literal – but literal in the sense Jeremiah intended, not in the forced sense the Watchtower requires.

  The appeal to Ezra is also misguided. The book of Ezra nowhere mentions “607 BCE,” of course; the argument is that Ezra (who likely authored 2 Chronicles) believed Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled by the return from exile. Ezra 1:1 does say Cyrus’s decree came “in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by Jeremiah.” This is true – the exile did end as Jeremiah foretold. But Ezra gives no dates for the length of exile, nor does he say it lasted seventy years. In fact, by synchronizing biblical data with Persian records, Ezra implies the return occurred around 538 BCE (Biblical Evidence Against Watchtower Society Chronology - Mentes Bereanas), which would make the total exile (from Jerusalem’s destruction in 587 BCE to the first return) about fifty years, not seventy. You claim that Ezra “fully supports” a 607–537 span is baseless; Ezra confirms the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy without redefining it. He certainly does not say “the land was desolate for 70 years.”

  What of Flavius Josephus? It is true that Josephus, writing centuries later, references the 70-year period. But he is far from an endorsement of Watchtower chronology – in fact, he ends up undermining it. Josephus makes two relevant statements: (a) that the Babylonian captivity lasted seventy years in total, and (b) that the Temple was desolate for a subset of fifty years. Notably, Josephus explicitly writes that Nebuchadnezzar burned the Temple in his 18th year and that it lay desolate for 50 years until Cyrus’ second year (when rebuilding began). This matches the historical timeline of 587 BCE (Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year) to 538/537 BCE (Cyrus’ first regnal year) almost exactly as a 50-year span. In contrast, the Watchtower’s 607–537 BCE scheme requires the Temple to be desolate for 70 years, not 50. Josephus himself would place the fall of Jerusalem around 587 BCE, not 607 – he identifies Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year as the destruction of Jerusalem, which by all standard chronologies is 587. You attempt to harmonize Josephus by saying the 50-year desolation occurred “within” a 70-year interval. But this only highlights the problem: if 50 of the 70 years were the desolation, what were the other 20? Josephus’s data imply that he, like many Jewish readers, saw the seventy years as spanning from an earlier Babylonian campaign (or from the exile of 605 BCE) down to the Temple rebuilding. In any case, Josephus does not support a 607 start. In fact, researchers have noted that Josephus is inconsistent – at times he implies even 100 years of desolation in one passage, elsewhere 70, elsewhere 50. This inconsistency shows that Josephus cannot be treated as an infallible chronological authority. The Watchtower’s habit of quoting Josephus only when he mentions “seventy years” and ignoring his explicit “fifty years” statement is academically dishonest. In sum, there is no “full support” from Ezra or Josephus for the specific 607–537 BCE exile idea. The literal 70-year prophecy is real, but it was fulfilled by Babylon’s rise and fall, not by an imaginary twenty-year-longer exile of Judah.

  4. 586 vs. 587 BCE – Are Secular Scholars “Confused”?

  Claim: Secular experts can’t even agree whether Jerusalem fell in 586 BCE or 587 BCE, showing confusion. By contrast, Watchtower chronology (607 BCE) is clear and superior.

  Rebuttal: Highlighting the 586 vs. 587 debate is a red herring. The one-year difference arises from nuances in reckoning Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal years and the precise month of Jerusalem’s fall – it does not indicate fundamental confusion about the decade. All scholars agree Jerusalem was destroyed in the late 580s BCE, about fifty years before the Jews returned from exile. Whether one calculates the year as 587 or 586 BCE, one is only adjusting minor chronological details. This academic discussion in no way lends credence to 607 BCE, which is twenty years removed from the entire scholarly consensus. Indeed, the very fact that the scholarly debate is confined to 587 vs. 586 underscores how well-established the late 580s date is – no historian places the event anywhere near 607 BCE.

  Your argument here is essentially: “scholars differ by one year, so they must be wrong by twenty years – and our completely different 607 date must be right.” This is plainly a non sequitur. The small discrepancy (586/587) is the result of different ways of harmonizing biblical data with Babylonian records, but both dates fall in the correct reign of Nebuchadnezzar and align with the same body of evidence. By contrast, 607 BCE contradicts all that evidence. Thousands of contemporary cuneiform records from the Neo-Babylonian period – including business tablets dated by the reigning king’s year, Babylonian chronicles, and astronomical texts – unequivocally show that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th regnal year (when Jerusalem fell, per Jeremiah 52:29) was around 587/586 BCE. These sources establish a precise sequence of Babylonian kings with no gaps, leaving no room for an extra twenty years. It is telling that even Rolf Furuli, a Jehovah’s Witness writer who attempted to defend 607, did not initially mention 607 BCE at all in his first volume analyzing Neo-Babylonian chronology – presumably because inserting 607 is indefensible without special pleading.

  Rather than indicating “superior” clarity, the 607 BCE claim stands alone, unsupported by any neutral scholarship. The Watchtower’s chronology is “clear” only by fiat – it is based on starting with 537 BCE (the return) and assuming a 70-year exile, thus back-calculating to 607. This is a textbook case of circular reasoning. Meanwhile, scholars have put forward solid reasons for preferring 587 or 586 BCE (most today favor 587 BCE, but either way within months of each other). The Watchtower criticism of scholars “not agreeing on the date” rings hollow when one realizes that all credible historians and archaeologists find Jerusalem’s fall in the 580s BCE, and none find it in 607 BCE. In fact, extensive evidence compiled by researchers like Carl Olof Jonsson in The Gentile Times Reconsidered converges on 587 BCE as the likely year – Jonsson enumerated at least 17 lines of evidence (biblical and secular) pointing to the late 580s BCE. This is hardly confusion; it is a robust consilience of data. By contrast, the Watchtower’s 607 date is entirely dependent on its interpretation of prophecy, against all empirical evidence. Clinging to 607 and mocking scholars for a minor internal debate is like claiming superiority of a flat-earth model because scientists disagree whether a certain mountain is 8,850 or 8,840 meters tall. The 20-year error in Watchtower chronology is of a completely different magnitude than the 1-year question among scholars – and only the former is actually an error at all.

  5. VAT 4956 and Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th Year: 588 BCE?

  Claim: The astronomical diary VAT 4956 has been misdated by scholars. It actually confirms 588 BCE (not 568 BCE) as Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year, thus supporting the Watchtower’s 607 BCE timeline.

  Rebuttal: This claim is a cornerstone of the Watchtower’s 2011 defense of 607 BCE, but it collapses under scrutiny. VAT 4956 is a Babylonian astronomical text that scholars universally date to 568/567 BCE, as it records dozens of lunar and planetary observations that fit that year, which was Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year according to the standard chronology. The Watchtower article seized on a few calculated positions and asserted that “much” of the data could fit 588 BCE. However, this conclusion was achieved only by ignoring most of the evidence and even hypothesizing that ancient or modern conspirators altered the tablet. Jehovah’s Witness researcher Rolf Furuli, whose work influenced the Watchtower, literally suggests that someone in modern times used a “modern grinding machine” to carve the year numbers “37” and “38” and Nebuchadnezzar’s name onto the tablet’s damaged edges – an accusation for which he offers no proof. Such a theory betrays the desperation of the 607 BCE defense: to make VAT 4956 fit 588 BCE, one must propose an unlikely forgery or massive copying error, because otherwise the tablet plainly supports the established chronology.

  When the entirety of VAT 4956’s data is considered, the 568 BCE dating stands firm. The diary includes positions of the moon and five planets on specific dates. In 588 BCE, those positions do not line up. Furuli argued that 13 lunar observations seem to match 588 BCE better, but even if that were so, the planetary data are wildly off – which is why he theorized they were later “calculations” inserted by an ancient scribe. In reality, analyses have shown that virtually none of the lunar positions in VAT 4956 genuinely match 588/587 BCE when properly calculated, whereas all of them match 568/567 BCE. The Watchtower’s attempt to fit 588 BCE also required assuming an unusual extra intercalary month not supported by the record, in order to make one eclipse observation “fit” their timeline. As one detailed critique concluded, The Watchtower’s handling of VAT 4956 was based on a “flawed understanding” of Babylonian calendrical cycles, selectively excluding clear planetary references (which are explicitly named on the tablet) to force a 588 BCE alignment.

  By contrast, if one dates Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year to 568 BCE (which corresponds to his accession in 605 BCE, destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, etc.), everything falls into place. The tablet’s described lunar eclipses and planetary positions make sense in 568/567 BCE and in no other year near that era. Indeed, modern sky software reconstructions confirm the 568 BCE match and refute the 588 BCE claim. In plain terms, VAT 4956 conclusively anchors Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year in 568 BCE, not 588. Your argument to the contrary relies on fringe revisionist work that mainstream Assyriologists (and even interested amateurs with astronomy tools) have found to be riddled with errors. Hermann Hunger, a renowned Assyriologist, reviewed the Witnesses’ astronomical arguments and found them unconvincing, noting that all relevant celestial data favor the conventional chronology. The Watchtower’s own quotation admits “much” (not all) data fits 588 BCE – a tacit concession that much more of it does not. In fact, attempting to date VAT 4956 to 588 BCE produces multiple absurdities unless one invokes a mysterious ancient fraud. This special pleading stands against the entire corpus of Neo-Babylonian astronomical and economic texts, which, taken together, leave no doubt that Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year = 568 BCE and his 18th year = 587 BCE. The VAT 4956 tablet, rather than vindicating Watchtower chronology, is one of the clearest refutations of it, unless one believes in a conspiracy by ancient scribes with grinding machines.

  6. Nebuchadnezzar’s “Seven Times” – Evidence of Missing Years?

  Claim: Nebuchadnezzar’s seven-year bout of insanity (“seven times” in Daniel 4) reflects real missing years in Babylonian history, presumably explaining a gap in chronology.

  Rebuttal: This imaginative claim lacks any supporting evidence in the historical record. Daniel 4 narrates Nebuchadnezzar’s humbling by God, during which he was insane for “seven times” (widely understood as seven years). You suggest that secular historians have failed to account for these seven years – implying that the Neo-Babylonian timeline might be missing seven years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, thereby helping the 607 BCE theory. But all actual data shows no such gap. Babylonian chronology, from Nebuchadnezzar’s father Nabopolassar through Nebuchadnezzar and on to his successors, is well documented year-by-year. Business contract tablets and administrative texts are dated by the reigning king and regnal year – and they cover every year of Nebuchadnezzar’s 43-year reign without interruption. If Nebuchadnezzar had spent seven years off the throne or incapacitated, we would expect to see anomalies (e.g. an interregnum, co-regency, or at least a note of a king’s absence). We see none. The Babylonian records show Nebuchadnezzar reigning continuously, and then being succeeded by his son Amel-Marduk (Evil-Merodach) the very next year after Nebuchadnezzar’s last (43rd) – with no extra seven years inserted. In fact, Babylonian sources and later catalogues (Ptolemy’s Canon, Berossus, etc.) all agree on the length of each king’s reign. The idea of “missing years” is a fantasy: as one scholar quipped, “quantities of dated documents exist for each of [the Neo-Babylonian kings’ reigns],” leaving no room for phantom rulers or extra years.

  Furthermore, the Bible itself does not support adding seven extra years to Nebuchadnezzar’s chronology. Daniel 4 does not say Nebuchadnezzar ceased to be king during his madness – to the contrary, it implies his kingdom was preserved for him until he recovered (Dan. 4:26, “your kingdom will be assured to you”). His officials likely managed affairs in his name, and the official counting of years continued unabated. (Similarly, if a modern monarch is incapacitated for a time, the calendar years of their reign don’t pause.) Indeed, 2 Kings 25:27 records that Evil-Merodach became king in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year of Jehoiachin’s exile – a synchronism that fits perfectly with Nebuchadnezzar’s 43-year reign (since Jehoiachin’s exile year 37 = Nebuchadnezzar’s year 43) without any gap. There is thus zero indication in Scripture or history that Nebuchadnezzar reigned 50 years instead of 43. The “seven times” of Daniel 4 are meant as a theological lesson about humility, not as a cryptic alteration of chronology.

  Your claim appears to stem from the fact that Watchtower doctrine assigns a secondary prophetic meaning to those “seven times” – equating them to 2,520 years and ending in 1914 CE. But that is a separate doctrinal leap. Nowhere does secular history show a mysterious seven-year hole requiring explanation. If anything, the notion is self-defeating: if Nebuchadnezzar truly had “missing years” unaccounted for by his chroniclers, the Watchtower could not reliably use his reign-length to derive 607 BCE in the first place. In reality, all evidence indicates no missing period: Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity did not expunge seven years from the calendar of Babylon. The chronology stands solid, and 607 BCE would require not seven but twenty missing years (since the well-documented 587 BCE destruction would have to be shifted two decades earlier). Proponents of 607 have never identified where those twenty years could come from without dismissing a mountain of evidence. In summary, Nebuchadnezzar’s “seven times” are a non-factor for historical dating – they leave no trace in the chronological record and cannot be invoked to paper over the glaring 20-year discrepancy in Watchtower chronology.

  7. Josephus on the 70 Years and Temple Desolation

  Claim: Josephus supports the Watchtower chronology, particularly by noting the temple’s desolation lasted 50 years within a 70-year interval – just as the Watchtower teaches.

  Rebuttal: This is a misrepresentation of both Josephus and Watchtower teaching. As discussed in point 3, Josephus gives mixed information: he mentions 70 years in some places, but also explicitly says the Temple was desolate for 50 years. Your here try to have it both ways – using Josephus’s 50-year statement (which actually matches the conventional 587–537 BCE span) and wrapping it into a vague “70-year interval” to claim support for 607–537. This is historical sleight-of-hand. The Watchtower teaches that Jerusalem was completely desolate for the entire 70 years (607–537 BCE). Josephus does not say that. Rather, Josephus indicates a 70-year period from the time of Judah’s initial calamities until the restoration, but within that, only 50 years of actual desolation of the Temple. In Against Apion I.21, he writes: “Nebuchadnezzar... laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years, but that in the second year of Cyrus its foundations were laid”. This clearly places a 50-year desolation from 587 BCE (Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year) to 537 BCE (Cyrus’ 2nd year). In the same work (Apion I.19), Josephus refers to an “interval of seventy years” of Babylonian captivity. The simplest reconciliation of Josephus’ statements is that he understood the Jews’ captivity as seventy years (perhaps counting from an earlier exile in 605 BCE down to 536/535 BCE), but recognized that the worst period, when the Temple lay in ruins, was fifty years.

  This in no way “fully supports” the Watchtower’s version of events. On the contrary, Josephus’s figures reinforce the fact that the Temple was not desolate for 70 years. Watchtower publications often omit Josephus’s 50-year statement precisely because it undermines their claim of a 70-year total desolation. It is only by a convoluted reading that one can claim Josephus agrees with the notion that the exile ran from 607 to 537 BCE. If we were to take Josephus at face value, we’d place Jerusalem’s fall in the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar (as he does) – which, by all evidence, was 587 BCE, not 607. In fact, Josephus’s assignment of the Temple’s destruction to Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year aligns with the biblical record (Jer. 52:29) and with standard chronology, not with the Watchtower’s altered timeline. Your argument glosses over this. It’s worth noting too that Josephus, writing in the 1st century, did not have access to the precise records we have today; he was attempting to make sense of biblical prophecies and second-hand historical memories. Where Josephus’s accounts conflict with proven historical data (e.g. the length of certain reigns), historians rightly favor the concrete data. The Watchtower’s approach, however, cherry-picks Josephus when convenient (citing the ambiguous “seventy” references) and explains away his explicit “fifty” reference – betraying a bias toward dogma over evidence. In truth, Josephus provides no support for a 607 BCE destruction of Jerusalem. If anything, his work underscores that the Jewish exile and desolation were understood to have been about fifty years, consistent with a 587 BCE fall and 537 BCE return. The “70-year interval” he and others mentioned is simply another way of referring to the Babylonian captivity as a whole (often counting from an earlier starting point). Thus, claim 7 collapses: Josephus is not an ally of the 607 BCE chronology, and the attempt to press him into service only highlights the weakness of the Watchtower’s case.

  Conclusion

  Your defense of the 607 BCE date relies on a rigidly literalist yet inconsistent reading of Scripture, coupled with speculative and conspiratorial reinterpretations of historical data. Each of the seven claims, when examined closely, fails to stand up to academic scrutiny:

  • Biblically, you conflate “servitude, exile, and desolation” into one blanket 70-year period, whereas the texts (Jeremiah, Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra) distinguish the 70 years of Babylonian domination from the shorter period of Jerusalem’s actual desolation. The “Exile–Servitude–Desolation triad” is not an established biblical formula but a Watchtower contrivance that forces the scriptures into an unwarranted chronology. Far from ignoring this, scholarly rebuttals like Gentile Times Reconsidered have methodically dismantled that conflation.
  • Historically, your arguments collapse under the weight of evidence. The claim of secular confusion (586 vs 587) is a smokescreen – the real confusion is in Watchtower writings that must deny or distort a vast array of primary sources. Business tablets dated to Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, royal chronicles, and astronomical diaries all point to the conventional chronology. Critical analyses of Jehovah’s Witness apologetic literature – including detailed critiques of Rolf Furuli’s works by experts – have shown that the Society’s chronology is not only unsubstantiated but flatly contradicted by the data. These scholarly refutations are hardly “boring rehashes”; they often break new ground in examining Watchtower claims, and they have accounted for the very points your raise. For instance, multiple publications have dealt extensively with the Jeremiah 25/29 issue, the Chronicles interpretation, the 70 vs 50 years in Josephus, and the astronomical texts like VAT 4956, thoroughly rebutting the Watchtower’s interpretations.

  The dismissive charge that all academic rebuttals are mere rehashes is ironic, given that the Watchtower’s 607 BCE defense recycles arguments long ago posed – and refuted – in debates with scholars. In reality, it is you who rehash the same points (e.g. attacking “Ptolemy’s Canon” or positing missing years) that have been answered by historians repeatedly over the last century. The scholarship marshaled against 607 BCE is extensive and up-to-date, incorporating discoveries from cuneiform texts and refined biblical exegesis. These rebuttals have not been refuted by the Society – indeed, the Society often ignores them, preferring to present its followers with a simplified narrative. But ignoring counter-evidence is not the same as refuting it.

  In conclusion, the 607 BCE date for Jerusalem’s fall is untenable both biblically and historically. Jeremiah and Daniel do not support it when properly understood. The chronicler of 2 Chronicles does not support it. Ezra and Josephus do not truly support it. Secular records absolutely devastate it, and attempts to salvage it via VAT 4956 or “missing years” require extraordinary assumptions that specialists have rejected. The Watchtower’s chronology is a house built on sand – specifically, on a misreading of the 70-year prophecy. No amount of polemical distraction can change the fact that 607 BCE is off by twenty years. Meanwhile, 587 BCE (or 586 BCE) for Jerusalem’s destruction remains supported by an overwhelming convergence of Biblical context and empirical data. Your arguments, far from demolishing the secular chronology, only highlight the lengths to which one must go to defend 607. It is fitting to close with the observation that even Jehovah’s Witnesses’ own former scholars have reconsidered and abandoned the 607 BCE dogma in light of the evidence. The truth is not “boring,” and repeating it is not a “rehash” – it is necessary so long as misinformation persists. The evidence, once again, confirms: Jerusalem fell in 587 BCE, and the “70 years” ended in 539 BCE with Babylon’s fall, exactly as history and an honest reading of Scripture attest.
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Fallacy of division. Just because not everyone knows something, it doesn’t mean no one does. Most modern scholarship recognises that 587 BCE is the correct year, despite various (mostly religious) sources using faulty appeals to tradition for 586 BCE

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  False. Scholars are divided between 586 or 587 BCE.

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  The precise date is 29 July 587 BCE.

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  False. Tammuz 9 (June- July) 607 BCE in the 11th year of Zedekiah's reign and Nebuchadnezzer's

  19th year if counting from his accession year or his 18th regnal year.

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  Poor doofus doesn’t even seem to know they said it was in 606 BCE until the 1940s. 🤣 When they finally realised there was no ‘year 0’ between 1 BCE and 1 CE, they moved it to 607 BCE to retain their superstitious numerology about 1914.

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  Poor boofhead who does not seem to understand that Chronology like any science is a 'work in progress'.

  scholar JW