C'mon IW, play nice and answer my question seriously, just like I did yours. Then you'll see the reason for my answer.
AlanF
Furuli's New Books--Attempt to Refute COJonsson
by ros 264 Replies latest jw friends
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ros
Scholar wrote:
I thought I should alert you to the fact that Furuli does not esteem himself as a scholar which implies that somehow his qualifications are not bona fide.
Question: Is that a localized usage of the word "scholar" (e.g., Australia)?
In my country, as far as I know, "scholar" means just what the dictionary defines: "a) a learned person b) a specialist in a particular branch of learning, esp. in the humanities." (Webster's New World [no pun intended] Dictionary of the American Language)
Scholar implies a learned person, regardless of academic credentials. Nevertheless, in my frame of reference, an individual with degrees enjoys being esteemed a scholar, even in areas where s/he may not be. So my thinking is somewhat the reverse of what you suggest in that degrees imply scholarship even where it may not be merited. Example: It is very difficult for me to conceive how genuine scholarship could viably lend to defending the WTS's world history positions, or any kind of fundamentalist biblical literalism, regardless of degrees behind the one presenting the information. That would be like expecting one with an advanced degree from Oral Roberts University to write a viable refutation on evolution.
On the other hand, perhaps the issue is more simple than we imagine. Perhaps Mr. Furuli simply recognizes a ready audience and market for a book on a particular topic. He doesn't really have to be right. Now that's not too dumb, is it?
~Ros
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TD
If I understand correctly, Mr. Furuli is not simply correlating scholarly opinion and secular evidence on the subject and then attempting to harmonize these with scripture as Mr. Jonsson has done. It appears that Furuli is attempting to reinterpret the secular evidence itself, prove that Parker & Dubberstein jumped to conclusions and got it wrong for the most part --in short, challenging the majority opinion If "Scholar" doesn't understand the difference at work here, then he/she is certainly no scholar.
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IslandWoman
The problem that morons like "scholar", Furuli and other Watchtower apologists have is multi-fold. First, if Watchtower chronology is correct, it would overthrow a tremendous amount of good scholarship and invalidate much of what we know about ancient history. That ain't gonna happen, any more than Newton's Laws are going to be overthrown. Suppose I come up with a theory: "IslandWoman is a 500 pound gorilla."
If anyone were to make a good argument for this theory, would you acknowledge it?
Apples and oranges. Our knowledge of ancient history is not as static as you try to assert it is in the first statement, it is more fluid. New information is always being gathered, and at times contradicts what was at one time thought to be a given. The very nature of archeology alone produces a state of flux in our understanding of the ancient past. It is as inexact as it is exact. Add to that the varying degrees of expertise and talent in that field as well as in the others involved in studying the ancient past and you have a science which is in continual evolution and discovery.
The gorilla comparison was off the mark because I know what I look like. Therefore any argument presented to support a theory which I can see with my own eyes is false, is not worthy of even the slightest consideration and would be ludicrous.
Comparing the acceptance of a good argument against Jonsson's book, something which is based on a changing science, to the acceptance of a good argument that I am a 500 pound gorilla, something which I can see with my own eyes, is therefore a faulty comparison. Ergo my strawman question.
Oh, btw. Please don't ask me to play nice, it's no fun.
IW
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AlanF
Alright, now we're talking!
:: Suppose I come up with a theory: "IslandWoman is a 500 pound gorilla."
:: If anyone were to make a good argument for this theory, would you acknowledge it?
: Apples and oranges.
Nope, as I will argue.
: Our knowledge of ancient history is not as static as you try to assert it is in the first statement, it is more fluid...
It is not fluid for the Neo-Babylonian period. It was established many decades ago and has not changed by more than a year, in the basics, for more than three hundred years.
I don't think you've actually studied the evidence in favor of standard secular history on this. Thus you cannot logically make such an assertion. Jonsson shows in excruciating detail some fourteen independent lines of evidence in favor of this history. The mere fact that, in general, history cannot always be established with full confidence has no bearing on any situation where the evidence is overwhelming. Fourteen lines of evidence is certainly overwhelming by archaeological standards. And of course, when you throw in the fact that the Bible itself fully supports standard secular history for the Neo-Babylonian period, having full confidence in it is a no-brainer.
Now, if you have actually studied the history of the Neo-Babylonian period and have some specific criticisms that allow you to speak with specific knowledge rather than in fuzzy generalities, then by all means -- let's hear it. Otherwise your argument has the same weight as does the similar one the Watchtower Society makes, which amounts to a "hopeful monster".
I've presented arguments that prove conclusively that 2 Chronicles 36:20 and Jeremiah 25:11, 12 together are absolutely conclusive that Watchtower chronology is wrong, and that these are completely consistent with standard secular history. You just don't find such close correspondence among independent archaeological sources unless they all point to the same conclusions.
: The gorilla comparison was off the mark because I know what I look like.
Yes, but no one else on this board knows what you look like. For all we know, you could be a talking gorilla.
But of course, the weight of evidence -- our experience, and a number of other clues -- indicates that you're a woman, not a gorilla. And that's the point with the archaeological evidence in favor of standard secular history for the Neo-Babylonian period -- the weight of evidence proves it.
If you really want to get technical about this, try proving that the sun will come up tomorrow without invoking "weight of evidence".
: Therefore any argument presented to support a theory which I can see with my own eyes is false, is not worthy of even the slightest consideration and would be ludicrous.
Precisely. And because I can see with my own eyes the huge weight of evidence in favor of standard secular history of the Neo-Babylonian period, there is no more room for the Watchtower being right than there is for you being a gorilla.
: Comparing the acceptance of a good argument against Jonsson's book, something which is based on a changing science,
No, it's not changing. It's been established for many decades.
: to the acceptance of a good argument that I am a 500 pound gorilla, something which I can see with my own eyes, is therefore a faulty comparison. Ergo my strawman question.
I understand the reason for your question, and answered it because I hoped it would lead to a discussion such as we're having.
: Oh, btw. Please don't ask me to play nice, it's no fun.
True, but we have to keep up appearances so the kiddies won't be too bothered.
AlanF -
Earnest
scholar:
Jonsson is simply a amateur scholar not a professional scholar
I have followed your correspondence with interest and really appreciate the academic references you make from time to time which have some bearing on biblical chronolgy. I have also taken the time to read Carl Jonsson's book 'The Gentile Times Reconsidered' and the academic support he provides for his arguments is very thorough. I am a bit surprised that you choose to criticise his academic credentials rather than what he has to say and recall that on a previous thread ('THE SEVEN TIMES of Daniel Chapter 4') you said:
I am inclined either to write or telephone D J Wiseman and ask him how is it that he could endorse a hypothesis written by someone who has not attained scholarly qualifications namely Carl Jonsson. For anyone to be taken seriuosly would have has at least a PH.D or upper level Master's qualifications. I would very much like to know the precise endorsement by Wiseman of the Jonsson hypothesis.
I wondered about this myself and asked Mr Jonsson about the precise endorsement that Professor Wiseman had given. He replied:
The quotation from Professor Donald J. Wiseman on the back cover was taken from a letter to me dated 18 January 1990. The letter dealt with the dates on some cuneiform tablets at the British Museum that he and Chris Walker had been checking for me.
Wiseman ends his letter with the following statement:
Your work is most valuable and I would appreciate having any other publication
details of any update you issue. I have already drawn the attention of a number of
correspondents to it.Before using Wiseman's statement for the third edition of GTR, I sent him the parts quoted on the back cover and asked for his permission to use it. He answered immediately, in a brief letter dated 28 January 1998, saying:
Thank you for your letter of January 25. I am glad to learn that you are working
on a third revised edition of your useful work on 'The Gentile Times Reconsidered'.
I am certainly willing for you to quote me in the way you state in your letter.When the third edition had been published later that year, I sent a copy to Wiseman. He immediately sent me a handwritten letter postmarked 5 August 1998. It says:
Dear Mr. Jonsson,
This morning I received the revised edition of your book The Gentile Times Reconsidered which I am pleased to have. This is a most useful and timely publication which will be of great value to the understanding of the truth and interpretation of Scripture & also of ancient Near Eastern history and chronology. I am glad that the small part I may have played in encouraging your research has such a fruitful outcome.With thanks and best wishes.
Yours sincerely, Donald J. Wiseman
Mr. Jonsson offered to send me copies of the letters but I declined, having no reason to doubt his integrity. However, I did write to Dr. Wiseman as follows:
Dr. Wiseman replied:I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty of writing to you regarding a book I have recently been reading, namely ‘The Gentile Times Reconsidered’, by Carl Olaf Jonsson.
This book goes into some depth in discussing the chronology of the Babylonian kings and your own research on the subject is referred to a number of times. As the accuracy of this chronology affects the beliefs of millions of Jehovah’s Witnesses you will appreciate there is some controversy on the conclusions which have been reached.
Questions have been raised as to whether Mr Jonsson is really equipped to write a scholarly work without the academic qualifications needed to be taken seriously. As you have been quoted as describing it as a "most valuable [work]" I wonder if you would care to briefly comment on its scholarly worth.
I assume you refer to Carl Olaf Jonsson's 'The Gentile Times Reconsidered' of which he gave me the Third Revised Edition 1998 after I had answered his questions and pointed out late Babylonian astronomical and economic dated texts. These have all been published and interpreted so that it does not need 'a qualified Assyriologist' to quote them. This he does in an accurate and reliable way. Since my retirement, now many years ago, I have not seen any ancient texts which would counter his chronolgy of this critical period. Nor have I seen any internationally or academically credited reply to the chronological references in his book, which I still consider a valuable work.
I hope this gives you the assurance you need.
With best wishes, etc.
I am also quite interested whether the scholars you do refer to support the chronology Jehovah's Witnesses endorse. With this in mind I will be attending the 'International Congress of Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology' in London next week (7-11 July) and hope to discuss this with Abraham Malamat and others. I will certainly let you know.
Earnest
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IslandWoman
Alan,
LOL, what's it like for your poor wife? Does she ever win an argument? Yes, I am sure she does. It's only here you are such a pesky piece of taffy. Posting to you feels like walking in taffy, just no way to get out without some of it stuck to our shoes. lol
Now back to business:
It is not fluid for the Neo-Babylonian period. It was established many decades ago and has not changed by more than a year, in the basics, for more than three hundred years.
What I am about to post is not in any way connected to Jonsson's work only to my statement that ancient history is something which is continually being discovered and each discovery changes the picture.
Smithsonian June 2003, Saving Iraq's Treasures, Ashur, page 49
"Yet in 614 BC., the Medes-a people from today's Iran--attacked the Assyrian Empire and laid waste to fortified Ashur. Many scholars have surmised that the Medes launched a surprise attack on the city when the fierce Assyrian military was fighting elsewhere.
"But Miglus [Peter Miglus, an archaeologist at the University of Heidelberg who has excavated sites at Ashur over the past three years. pg.46] and his team, along with Iraqi and other Western researchers, have put together an alternative description of Ashur's final days. They have found an unfinished tunnel most likely built by the Medes to penetrate the city's formidable defense; that the Medes had time to build a tunnel suggests the siege was quite long. Based on his excavations, Miglus paints a stark picture of Ashur's preparations for that siege and its terrifying end. He believes the city's inhabitants converted the vast palace cellars into granaries, as if to wait out the usurpers, and that Ashurs's final hours were a chaos of street barricades, beheaded corpses and burned buildings."
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The changing scene of historical knowledge continues:
Archeology Odyssey, July/August, Plundering the Past, The Rape of Iraq's National Museum, page 19,
"One important group of tablets was found as recently as 1986. At Sippar, 20 miles southwest of Baghdad, Iraqi achaeologists discovered a nearly intact archive from the Neo-Babylonian period (625-539 B.C.). About 800 clay tablets, inscribed in cuneiform, were found still organized on their shelves. The Sippar archive included hymns, prayers, lamentations, fragments of the Gilgamesh epic (including some that fill in holes in the text we have) and other epic-like poems, glossaries, astronomical and scientific texts, missing pieces of the Sumerian flood story, and the prologue to the Code of Hammurabi, the first complete law book."
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My point was that our knowledge of ancient history is subject to change, whereas my knowledge of my appearance is not.
: The gorilla comparison was off the mark because I know what I look like.
Yes, but no one else on this board knows what you look like. For all we know, you could be a talking gorilla.
Now you are changing the parameters of our original discussion (there's that taffy again. :) You originally said:
Suppose I come up with a theory: "IslandWoman is a 500 pound gorilla."
If anyone were to make a good argument for this theory, would you acknowledge it?
In the original discussion I asked if you would acknowledge a good argument, you came back and asked me if I would acknowledge one. It was never about proving anything to others but only our own recognition of a good argument.
My appearance is known to me, the detailed facts of ancient history may or may not be fully or without a doubt accurately known. Therefore to say that no evidence will ever be found that could influence your judgment on the matter is imo just a tad prejudicial and closed minded. Weight of evidence is fine, but if all science was simply based on the weight of evidence of past theories than the earth would still be the center of the universe, the stars are still going around us aren't they? Science moves forward precisely because it challenges the weight of evidence that came before, it seeks to understand the unknown by inventing hypotheses sometimes built on the slimmest weight of evidence.
You are talking about dates. I was talking about a concept, a question: Would AlanF acknowledge a good argument even though it went against what he believed to be true? This is after all what is expected of JWs who wander in here is it not?
IW
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scholar
Earnest
I note with interest your reply concerning the endorsement by Wiseman of the Jonsson hypothesis and I wish to make the following request. Ihave long pursued the query as to whether any scholar as subjected Jonsson'd book to a peer review in some internationally recognized journal. If you look at nearly all journals, they normally have a section where book reviews are covered. I am somewhat surprised that Wiseman has not done this or anyone else. So, at your conference why don't you ask somebody to publsh a review in a major journal.
Wiseman certainly has competence in Assyrriology but not in biblical exegesis. 2 Chronicles36:20,21 is for example well attested by scholars and its interpretation supports the view of the Society namely that the land was desolate for seventy years until Cyrus' first year. Afact that no one including Jonsson and his dupe, the Missippissi gambler can refute.
scholar BA MA Studies in Religion
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ros
Hello, Scholar:
You wrote:
Wiseman certainly has competence in Assyrriology but not in biblical exegesis. 2 Chronicles36:20,21 is for example well attested by scholars and its interpretation supports the view of the Society namely that the land was desolate for seventy years until Cyrus' first year. Afact that no one including Jonsson and his dupe, the Missippissi gambler can refute.
Question 1: May we ask how you know how much competence Wiseman has in biblical exegesis?
Question 2: When you say 2Chron.36:20-21 is well attested by scholars, and their interpretations support the view of the WTS, to which scholars are you referring? My references indicate that scholars generally agree with Jonsson. For just one example, check out this site: http://www.biblehistory.webcentral.com.au/70Years.htm ) The following was gleaned from that presentation:
2 Chronicles 36:20-23 (NIV)
He [Nebuchadnezzar] carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah. In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: "This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: 'The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you--may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up.'"
At first glance, this segment seems to imply that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. Read it again, and you will see that this is in fact not the case. This segment states that now that Jerusalem has been destroyed, the land would lay desolate at least until the seventy-year prophecy of Jeremiah was fulfilled. Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. The seventy-year prophecy ended with Babylon's fall in 539 B.C., and the people of Judah were allowed to return to Jerusalem by decree of Cyrus II in 538 B.C. So Jerusalem lay desolate from 586 - 538 B.C. - a total of 48 years.
Article by David Petrie. Perhaps you may know him--he is one of your countrymen. (Or do you regard him as a scholar?)
Question 3: Who is Mississippi gambler?
~Ros
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Gamaliel
This is just a bit off topic, but I used to follow B-Greek fairly closely and this is where I first came to notice that Furuli was interested in any anomalies of NT Greek that might allow for the NWT/non-Trinitarian renderings (especially) to be correct. Sometimes I thought he had a good argument, and sometimes not, but I am just an amateur myself. If you go back through B-Greek archives still available on the Net, you will see that Furuli often guessed and grasped at potential ideas, but usually in a very intelligent manner. I submit that Furuli is definitely more qualified than I ever was on NT Greek issues.
From watching how he "grew" on B-Greek, I believe him capable of producing a book that may very well be worth a close inspection -- even on this unrelated subject. I have my doubts as to how far it can go against 99% of the scholarship out there. I suspect that it will be related to the argument IW mentioned: that there is a level of uncertainty in historical documentation, and possible corrections to some errors may tend in the direction of an earlier beginning to Nebuchadnezzar's reign, therefore the JWs might have a point. If that's the argument it's not worth much, since a lot of people have tried moving Babylonian secular chronology by a few months or even a couple years, here and there. The JWs need to move it by nearly 20 years! The trick is moving every Babylonian king back but still leaving Cyrus' first year intact. In spite of "scholar"'s oft-repeated diversionary tactic, it hasn't anything to do with the 70 years of desolation; it's the accession year of Nebuchadnezzar that would be required to get Jerusalem destroyed by him in 607 BCE.
BTW, there was a time I recall when I thought Furuli was about to be caught in a very stupid mistake on B-Greek and he came up with the most novel excuse for his post that I ever saw. If all the archives are still up, I should be able to find it again. I'll post it if I do, otherwise I'll summarize it in a later post
Gamaliel