New 607 info?

by startingover 73 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  AK - Jeff

  I guess that I missed all the fireworks - if stecka comes back;

  Stecka said:

  dates although correct or incorrect are not the important issue. as christians you should know that imitating christ is the most important issue.

  • Dates are important to the WTBTS, obviously. Otherwise why have they declared 1799,1844,1881,1884,1914,1915,1920,1921,1925,1935,1940's,1975 all as significant? The organization sprung out of the Adventist movements in the early 1800's - that is what Adventist and Millennialist believe in - dates! By the way, they missed every one of them! Seems like the mouthpiece of God would get something right, doesn't it?
  • The entire basis for the claim that the WTBTS is God's mouthpiece is predicated on the date 607 BCE - which lead to 1914 - which lead to 1918. IF 607 is disproved, then the entire claim and most of the books explaining prophecy of Revelation become extinct and innaccurate. And the claim of exclusivity is thrown out the window. Making Jehovah's witnesses just another of the hundreds of upstart religions that sprang up in the 19th century. Maybe this explains the insistence of always denying that they were wrong about 607, in spite of mountains of evidence to the contrary? Hmmmmm? The evidence was presented to them in the 1970's and they disfellowshipped the man who showed them - and any others that dared to agree that something was amiss here. I suggest that you read Carl Olof Jonnson's book "The Gentile Times Reconsidered" - it proves beyond any reasonable doubt that they have had that date wrong all along -

  • As for your comment about treating others as Christ would. Christ never shunned persons that had sinned in some way - he certainly never set us rules to shun anyone. He did not preach in the fashion that JW's do. He would not have joined the local United Nations NGO (if there had been one), and then covered it up and lied to all that asked about it, would he? He spoke and showed love to persons of all sorts, even the most notorious sinners. He did not draw off to the little room in the back of hall with two of his disciples - form a judicial committee -and then disfellowship someone in 15 minutes who had dedicated his/her whole life to him, did he? He did not feel a need to chastise and destroy the Christian reputation of someone when he decided to leave him, did he? Calling him some evil name - like Apostate? No, the organization has not done what you claim here. They have not done well in imitation of Jesus.
  • And as far as your earlier assertions about use of the Bible - I use it everyday - 15 translations of it in German, Spanish and English are now 4 feet from my desk. I spent 35 years of my life loving the Bible and it's Author. I will do so till the day I die. But I left this organization because it cannot be the truth. The truth and the lie are opposites! And I have seen the lies for most of my 50 years and didn't know it. I was like you, blinded by the lies substituting as truth. I am now 50, alone, shunned, and hurting everyday. But I left because my conscience would not permit me to stay and share responsibility for lying to others. Do you honestly think that we have nothing better to do except sit around and attack the religion that many of us gave our lives to?
  • Do some research - not in the pages of the Wt - they will only tickle your ears and make you think you have the 'truth'. Read Franz' books, or Penton's, or Jonnsons. Or listen to what is here - with a filter if u need to - some of which I do not agree with either. But check it out. Quit defending long enough to see if there is something worth defending here. Otherwise you may be 50, lonely, shunned, and hurting, yourself someday. And wishing that you had listened before you were!

  May the True God bless you if u do as the Wt tells you to do: EXAMINE YOUR RELIGION! They even have a brochure by that name - but witnesses never do it - they just tell others to do so. Listen to your own advise - it means your life!

  Jeff
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  TheEdge

  I feel so stupid. I always took the ''Society's'' word that 607BCE was an accurate historical date - historical fact. Only since coming on here have I discovered this isn't true at all - but when did this come to light? Out of all the JWs in the World, there must have been some over the years who have a sound knowledge of History. (Or is this another reason why further education is discouraged).

  Have just done my OWN search, and all sources point to the year 586 BC, and more accurately, 9th av 586 BC
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  kwintestal

  but when did this come to light?

  As I recall, according to CoC, when Ray Franz was doing the topic of chronology for Aid to Bible Understanding, everything was pointing to 586/7. Late 70's Carl Olof Jonnson really did a lot of research on the subject and presented it to the GB about the invalidity of the 607 date, but this was obviously rejected.

  Kwin
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  AlanF

  A reasonably good chronology of neo-Babylonian times has been around for hundreds of years. Of course, it has gradually been refined. By the time Russell began his publishing career, most important dates of the period were accurately known to within two years. For example, many solid sources from about 1875 pegged the crucial date of the beginning of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to 604 B.C., whereas the correct date is 605. Some of the confusion was because it wasn't clearly known that the Babylonians used the accession-year dating system, but this was cleared up by the discovery of thousands of Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform tablets in the latter half of the 19th century. Thus, when a reference spoke of Nebuchadnezzar's 1st year, and this was dated to 604, that was certainly correct, but only those who were aware of the accession-year dating system knew that Nebuchadnezzar had actually begun reigning in his accession year, 605 B.C.

  The Watchtower Society got its first real internally generated wakeup call on this when Ray Franz was assigned to write a section on "Chronology" in the Aid book. In Crisis of Conscience, Franz writes that he and other Bethel staffers could find no secular evidence whatsoever in support of 607 as the date of Jerusalem's destruction, and no support in the scholarly community for that date. Of course, the "oracle of the organization" Freddie Franz knew this all along. Everything pointed to 587/6 B.C. In the 1970s, once-pioneer Carl Olof Jonsson began researching the issue due to being challenged at the door to justify the traditional WTS dates. He found the same thing that Ray Franz did, and eventually communicated the information to the Society in a paper. About 1978, the paper ended up in the hands of GB member Albert Schroeder, who didn't know what to with it. He just let it sit on his desk for a year and a half. After that, Jonsson received communications from the Society to keep his mouth shut about the material or he'd be disfellowshipped. In 1981 the Society published the book Let Your Kingdom Come, which was largely a response to Jonsson's paper.

  So really, the Society has always been aware that its chronology was contradicted by all available secular evidence, and that its scriptural interpretations were on shaky ground.

  AlanF