by Farkel 96 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Ros, good points.
The Watchtower is right in the "Insight from the Scriptures" book. The Darius of Zechariah is Darius Hystaspis, not "Darius the Mede". Zechariah 7 starts with " In the fourth year of King Darius," which was 518/517 BC. If the fasting for seventy years ended in 518/517 then the fasting must have begun in 587 BC. The bible agrees fully with the date of the destruction of the temple as 587 BC.
Farkel
You are quite correct, only a dunderhead could accept a hypothetical date 587 for the Fall of Jerusalem. The WT Society using reliable biblical data computes this event for 607. A foolproof methodology of 539 for the Fall of Babylon followed by the release of the Jews under Cyrus in 537 which ended their exile to Babylon and the desolation of the land of seventy years. One merely fixes the beginning of these momentous events by adding seventy years to 537=607. Boy that is so easy.
scholar
BA MA Studies in Religion
Scholar, oh wise one!
How do you explain Zechariah 7 then?
The real problem boths sides fail to see is they are cold reading to find 70 years of anying. THe prophecy never happend and at best it was a metaphor. In about 607 "chad" got control of the 10 tribe lands. For "christendom" that is enought to count as "desolation" beacause he started taken captives.
So basically the watchtower only differs in geography(saying it happend down the road) and not in so much as chronology. So they could flip flop on 607 still keep the date jw dont read well enought to remember where what happen. It could be a new 1914 but I doubt they would change until this causes more atrition than child abue or anything else.
I've said this a number of times before but I'll say it again, 70 years was a mythical period of time not a literal counting. I posted a thread a while back that illustrates that 70 years of banishment was a Caananite motif used by other nations. Even the second century BC author of Daniel 9 understood the period of exile of the elite of Judah as being 49-50 years. (seven weeks till a prince and an annointed). Wording is garbled thru biased translating and likely tampered with. Did other writers including the Chronicler understand 70 as literal by extending the period to mean Babylonian domination? Possibly but this only illustrates the problem of attempting to interpret scripture using other scriptures written by men who themselves are only interpreting the earlier ones.
Miller et al were much closer to the truth.
carm
I think the problem with JCannon's defense is it's length. If it takes all that time time to defend a doctrine, something is amiss. The average dub could never even dream of offering JCannon's defense, all they know are the two dates beg. and end with 1914. My mom who has been a dub for years doesn't even stand a chance let alone a new dub. To me, it's kinda like if your accountant came up to you and said he was going to change your investments, showed you a big formula you didn't understand, and then said, just trust me. No thanks.
Scholar wrote:
You are quite correct, only a dunderhead could accept a hypothetical date 587 for the Fall of Jerusalem. The WT Society using reliable biblical data computes this event for 607. A foolproof methodology of 539 for the Fall of Babylon followed by the release of the Jews under Cyrus in 537 which ended their exile to Babylon and the desolation of the land of seventy years. One merely fixes the beginning of these momentous events by adding seventy years to 537=607. Boy that is so easy.
Yep, that is precisely how the WT comes up with that date--by counting 2 years forward from 539 then back 70. The year 607 is not based on any other scientific or historical evidence. The question in this simple (not brilliant) scenario is, what is it you're calculating for the 70 years?
The problem for the WT is that there are astronomical "absolute dates" from which your 607BC can be shown to be at or about Nebuchadnezzar's first year, and consequently that Babylon reigned about 70 years from the time he became king. There is no way it can be 18 years off to validate Jerusalem's destruction coinciding with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year--which is in full harmony with the scriptures:
"This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, . . ."--Jer.25:11
"Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise to bring you back to this place."--Jer.29:10
The Babylonians (and the Jews) were meticulous in their records of the reigns of their kings.
As Farkel explained--in a slightly different fashion--they did not have the Gregorian calendar. It should not need to be explained that the Babylonians did not have a concept of calendar count-down to Christ--nor did the Jews (i.e., BC or AD ("in the year of our Lord"). All of that began in the chuches some centuries after the Christian era began. The way both the Jews and Babylonians kept track of years was by associating events, including astronomical events and records, with what year an event occurred in the reign of which king. So, the dating of important events would be stated something like:
"In the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and beseiged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. When Jerusalem was taken, . . ."--Jeremiah 39:1,2
"And in the ninth year of [Zedekiah's] reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they laid seige to it; they built siege works against it all around. So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. . . . In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month--which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon--Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, . . ."--Jer.52:4-13
In our day, "absolute dates" are derived from archaeological finds, records of ancient events that describe precise astronomical events--such as solar and lunar eclipses and other celestial occurrences of interest to astronomers--associated with a particular year in the reign of a particular king the way we see the Bible account preserved records of events between Babylon and Jerusalem. The Babylonians, and Nebuchadnezzar in particular, were avid astronomers--for which historians are greatly indebted. There are at least 30 astronomical events for Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year recorded on the Babylonian astronomical diary discovered by archaeologists, named VAT 4956, as well as others dated in the reigns of two of his successors. Thereby are at least 30 "absolute dates" for the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. If you pinpoint Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, then you can pinpoint his first year. If you pinpoint his first year, then you can pinpoint his 18th/19th year, the year he beseiged Jerusalem. As one historian put it, the year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon is one of the very few certain dates in ancient history. Add to the astronomical "absolute" dating the fact that 539 BC agrees with every other line of historical and archaeological research.
So for this discussion--it is not the year when Babylon was conquered by the Persians that the WT's chronology for the 70 years hinges, since all agree on 539 BC for that. (Which, btw, 539 BC is derived indirectly from only one "absolute date" associated with the 6th year of Cyrus.) The critical point for the Watchtower's argument is whether the 70 years applied to Babylon, or--as they claim--to the time of Jewish exile when they were without their temple in Jerusalem. And that definition hinges on, among other things, what year was the 18/19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar.
XQsThaiPoes:
Disproving the Watchtower's chronology about the 70 years should not be misunderstood as agreeing with their interpretation of what the 70 years is supposed to represent for long-range prophecy. Using it to calculate the 1914 parousia is a whole other discussion, which becomes moot when you understand their flawed chronology. :-)
~Ros
Hi peacefulpete,
I posted a thread a while back that illustrates that 70 years of banishment was a Caananite motif used by other nations.
Could you give a link to this thread? Sounds like good information, to be saved.
--VM44
Atilla - I concur with your conclusion stating JC's length of post to prove anything relevant to people strains believability that a god could expect 'people of the earth' to understand.
Scholar....The thing I love about your 607 posts, besides the absolute thrashing you always receive, is that the BIBLE chronology is touted as this most awesomest reason to believe the retarded calculation up to the year 1914, HOWEVER, the bottom line is that the absolute chronological year of 539 is critically necessary to have a starting point in the relative chronology of the Bible. Now, all dubbie apologists will have to admit this, THEN look like total weiners when they reject the massive mountain of evidence for OTHER dates for the destruction of Jerusalem with NO historical, absolute evidence for 607!
Somehow, I think you don't even believe this yourself its so crazy an idea.
boa
