TIL - 537 BC is in the Bible - and more

by berrygerry 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  berrygerry

  From an apologist site:

  http://thirdwitness.com/607_BCE/www.jehovahsjudgment.co.uk/607/realissue.html
  

  Hence, counting back from 537 BCE (the year the Bible says the Jews returned home) for a full seventy years, we arrive at the year 607 BCE.

  (I seem to be missing that verse in my Bible)

  Jehovah's Witnesses, on the other hand, believe something the secular historians do not. We believe the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God, so we take the Bible's prophecies into account when calculating ancient chronology.

  Prophecies (future) are used to calculate ancient chronology (the past).

  Say what?
  
• 

  Crazyguy

  Yet they make excuses too, what about the city of Tyre?. And what about all the prophecies that didn't come true. Damascus is still here, the Nile river didn't dry up. Egyptians didn't start talking Hebrew. Jesus didn't come back like he said before some of his followers yet died and also not very soon as the writer of Revelations said 5 times in the last chapter.

  History and archaeology should prove the Bible right if its God's book, not prove it wrong!!
• 

  Anders Andersen

  Hence, counting back from 537 BCE (the year the Bible says the Jews returned home) for a full seventy years, we arrive at the year 607 BCE

  The real question is:

  Why do Jehovah's Witnesses choose to accept 537BC and count backwards, instead of accepting 587BC and counting forward?

  
  

  The evidence for 587BC is much stronger than the very credible evidence for 537BC. If you have to pick only one, it would make sense to pick 586BC and count forward.

  
  

  Unless of course you have based your entire theology and claims of authority on 607BC and 537BC....

  
  
  
• 

  Finkelstein

  Off of that web site.......

  The year 607 BCE really is the only date that works with the Bible.

  Or in truth the only date that works for the Watchtower Corporation and unscriptural dating of 1914.
  

  The fact based reality is Jerusalem was under siege and control by Nebuchadnezzar starting in 605, he eventually destroyed Jerusalem and its temple in 586 and took many of the city's inhabitants to Babylon.

  So one could say that the real length of time of desolation only lasted 47 years 586 - 539 = 47 years .
  
• 

  Bungi Bill

  Some good creative accounting at work here, together with the old principle of "Never Let The Facts Get In The Way of a Bloody Good Story!"

  The real question is:
  Why do Jehovah's Witnesses choose to accept 537BC and count backwards, instead of accepting 587BC and counting forward?

  When you put it like that, it does indeed come over as a thoroughly back-to-front way of doing things!

  PS: Where is old DJ Damnfool Eggnog when you need him?
• 

  lusitano o tuga

  the apologist is an idiot! Why 537 isn´t an error of the same historians?

  why I CHOOSE ONE DATUM AS RIGHT AND OTHER NOT?

  They are deceived!
• 

  lusitano o tuga

  cullish!
• 

  scratchme1010

  As I have posted before, personally y stance is: Really, Jehovah? Such important message that is supposed to save many lives and matters so much, and it's supposed to be about the most important person next to the so-called Jehovah, is so, so important that we need an ancient book, archaeologists, theologians, chronologists, and who knows how many more other "ologists" to decipher it with prophecies, visions, dreams, involving World War 1, the destruction of Babylon, and this convoluted information forced to be tied up with history.

  Give me an effing break.
  
• 

  Finkelstein

  The WTS is proficient in exploiting people's ignorance and emotions, apparently Jehovah backs them up also in doing so.

  The chosen ones are also fraudulent charlatans all at the same time , go figure ?
  
• 

  Doug Mason

  berrygerry,

  When you look at the first diagram at that site you referenced in your initial post, you will note very carefully that in accordance with the WTS's "explanation", that the apologist correctly identifies their start of the "70 years" as "when Judah went into exile from off its soil", dating this in the 7th month (October, Tishri).

  The WTS has two reasons for focusing on the exile into Egypt in the 7th month: firstly, it ties in with their termination of the period in the 7th month. Equally significant is the fact that Jerusalem was devastated in the 5th month.

  I have analysed the situation, and it is impossible for the "exile into Egypt" as taking place only two months after the destruction of Jerusalem. I suspect that at least 2 years passed and possibly 4 years.

  http://www.jwstudies.com/Did_Jews_exit_after_two_months.pdf
  

  In addition, the WTS is incapable of arriving at 537 BCE for the Returnees to assemble at the site of the destroyed temple, or that any Scripture says this marked the end of the period. 2 Chr 36:21-22 makes it clear that the period of Babylonian rule ended on the day it was defeated (539 BCE).

  And the WTS gets its 539 BCE date from the secular sources who use processes that the WTS rejects.

  And if it needed the land to be emptied before the "70 years" could commence, why does the WTS not apply that "principle" to its end? The Jews returned to the temple site long after each had been settled into theor own villages.

  Doug