Britanica has good info
Research on the validity of 1914
by Bluegrass Tom 78 Replies latest watchtower bible
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City Fan
Scholar,
Your interpretation of Zechariah 7:1-5 is preposterous as it is without foundation and contradicts both Scripture and well established history
Well established history dates the destruction of the temple to 586/587BC so how can my interpretation of Zechariah 7:1-5 contradict it? And once again it doesn't contradict scripture. It contradicts the Watchtowers wacky interpretation of certain bible verses. Please stop confusing the two. Please explain how my interpretation goes against well established history.
The Bible indicates quite clearly that the seventy years ran until the royalty of Persia began to reign when in Cyrus first year (537) released the exiles from Babylon
Surely the royalty of Persia began to reign in 539BC. Are you saying there were 2 years when no one ruled Babylon? Wasn't Cyrus first year 539/538BC not 537BC. Are you using the ascension year system? Do you actually know what the ascension year system was?
The fact that Darius 1 is ruling at that time establishes that the seventy years had aleady concluded some twenty years earlier when Daniel had correctly discerned in the first year of Darius the Mede that the seventy years had ended (Daniel 9:2).
But your missing the point completely of Zechariah 7. The temple had still not been rebuilt in 518BC. This is a different biblical interpretation of the seventy years than Daniel's interpretation in Daniel chapter 9. In Zechariah 1:12 an angel asks Yahweh how long it will be before he has pity on Jerusalem. This indignation has been going on for 'these seventy years' in Darius I second year! (519BC). So according to Zechariah the seventy years extended to the second year of Darius I of Persia.
Just read Daniel 9 (all of it) again. You'll then get the context of what he is saying. Yes, you're right. Daniel does discern that the seventy years have ended. And when does he say they have ended? "In the first year of Darius, by birth a Mede". When was this? According to the Watchtower Society itself, the Babylonian Empire had been given to the Medes and Persians in 539BC. (Daniel's Prophecy p182). So in the year 539/538 BC the writer of Daniel is saying that the seventy years have already ended. So the writer of Daniel himself discounts 607BC as the beginning of the seventy years.
Because the desolation continues, Daniel 9 extends the duration of the desolation to seventy weeks of years. So Daniel is rejecting the Chronicler's view that Jeremiah's prophecy was fullfilled with Persian rule over Babylon. What does Daniel say about these seventy weeks of years? I'll use a proper translation, the RSV : "Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time."
This anointed one could be Cyrus, or the high priest Joshua. It is interesting to see how Daniel understood this period to be 49 years!
All you are doing is simply rehashing Jonsson who discusses this subject on pp.226-8 in GTR 1998. In response you should read what Rolf Furuli says about this matter in pp.67-9 in his Persian Chronology And The Length Of The Babylonian Exile Of The Jews, 2003.
I have not used Jonsson once in my discussions with you. I agree with all the secular arguments he puts forward and use it as a reference work, as it is simply a collation of material collected from other scholars in the field. I have lent this book to someone, so cannot quote from the pages you have referenced, but I remember reading his discussion of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9 and not agreeing with him. I believe this chapter to have been written around 167-164BC. I think Jonsson would disagree with this, but I don't have the book in front of me.
As for Furuli, pages 67-9 of his book are full of the same kind of arguments that the Watchtower society uses. For example, he dismisses the accounts of Berrosus because he includes mythological accounts in his work. But as a Babylonian scribe it was his duty to do this. Furuli is trying to throw doubt onto Berrosus' Neo-Babylonian chronology by including the mythological accounts. This was one of many errors I came across when I first read his book.
CF.
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toreador
Hello,
You wrote,
I don't think that the Holy Spirit has helped all of the people who now claim to have received such help. Neither do I believe those who have been helped to understand some things correctly by the Holy Spirit have been helped by the Holy Spirit to understand all of the things they now understand.
In other words, some people arrived at all of their beliefs without any help from God. And some people arrived at only some of their beliefs with His help. That leaves room for an an awful lot of false doctrine.
What you are saying then is there is absolutely no way to tell what is false and what is true. I agree with you.
But I would say what good is the holy spirit as sometimes its there and sometimes it isnt, no way of telling. It could be just a figment of an active imagination
Toreador
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scholar
City Fan
So do we have two different seventy year periods? You interpretation is preposterous and is not supported by Bible commentators. Did you bother to check what commentaries have to say on this subject of Zechariah 7:5 and 1:12. It is obvious from thte context that this sevety year had already been fulfilled, it was a past historic period when the land was desolated with its inhabitants exiled in Babylon. This is proven by the fact the last two verses of chapter seven refer back to the land as prophesied by Jeremiah.
It could not have continued till 518 because the seventy years were not fulfilled so the angelic reminder could only referred to something that had already concluded namely the seventy years. This is not WT interpretation but an observation based upon many commentaries.
scholar
BA MA Stucies in Religion
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outbutnotdown
Why is scholar not answering me? Can we institute new rules whereby one has to answer questions posed based on one's ridiculous preceding comments? One more try:
scholar,
You keep arguing the 607 date. IMO, no one can absolutely prove or disprove and even if they could a new theory would be thrown in as to was "jerusalem not symbolically destroyed in 607 after all"?
The questions I have tried to ask you and points that I have tried to make go beyond that. The year 607 is only important in the sense that it leads to 1914, in current JW chronology. Why the fixation on 1914? And could you give me your own personal thoughts as well? I have given you my viewpoint on why 1914 is so important to JW's. I am respectfully asking you to respond or to give me a reason why you choose to not do so?
Brad
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AlanF
For a good bashing of Rolf Furuli's whacky scriptural expositions on biblical chronology, take a look at an article on Carl Jonsson's website ( http://start.at/fkf ), titled "A Discussion of the Biblical Material in the Book Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, by Rolf Furuli (RF), Oslo 2003." by Kristen Jørgensen (2004). The article begins with this information: "[Editor?s note: Kristen Jørgensen is a professional Danish linguist with a sound knowledge of the Biblical languages.]"
outbutnotdown, you're wasting bandwidth trying to get this moronic non-scholar to answer you substantively. He knows you've got him by the balls but he won't cry "Uncle!". Typical of braindead cultists.
AlanF
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scholar
Alan F-Disciple of Carl O Jonsson
You talk about cultish behaviour when you probably have not studied Jorgeensen's nonsense because you seem to be mesmerized by the aside that he is Danish linguist with a sound knowledge of the Biblical languages. Perhaps I could say this of Rolf Furuli: a professional Norwegian linguist and a acknowledged expert in Semitic languages. Senior Lecturer in Semitic Studies, University of Oslo. BA MA PhD.
If the Jorgenen's critique of Furuli's thesis particularly focussing on the 'seventy years' is so bashing then tell me what Calender Dates does he offer for the begining and end of the 'seventy years'? Are these dates in agreement with the Jonsson hypothesis in his GTR? If not, Why not? This will truly determine the merit of this article.
scholar
BA MA Studies in Religion
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DaCheech
Scholar, a couple of questions? How could Jacob wrestle (grapple) an angel and win, when angels can destroy entire cities?
Why would Lot give his daughters to be raped to the mob, than rather let an angel show his power?
How can the watchtower interpret when a day means a day, and when a day means a year, and when a day mean 1000 years, and so on?
How can the watchtower still hold a straight face, and change it main characters on the king of the morth/south prophecy every time a new twist in history happens?
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barry
Im comming from a different church viewpoint but with some similarities in interpretation.
Only the JWs and the SDAs still hold to the historisist interpretation of bible prophecy.
William Miller though he was right in taking a premillerist stance was not right in every area of his interpretations. Miller took the position that many weak arguements made one strong arguement when arriving at 1844 for our Lords return.
Both Daniel 8 -1844 and Daniel 4-1914 require the formula of 1day=1 year in order to arrive at the respective dates. In Daniel 8 and Daniel 4 the word day is not even mentioned and where day is mentioned in predictive prophecy as our Lord saying he will build his body in 3 days the word day there is not transferred to years. What about the three and a half years in Daniel and Revelation in this case the witnesses say this is the period from 1914 to 1918 where the secretary and treasurer were imprisioned. The SDAs take a different view and transferre these days into years and say it is a period from 538 to 1798.
The problems with these calculations is they deny the clear teachings of scripture that after the cross the disciples were living in the last days and the second comming could have occured at anytime since then.
Among SDAs the scolars of the church have known for decades 1844 cant be found in scripture and thats the reason they never write on it.
The WT is in the very same position the SDAs find themselves in with these interpretations. Barry
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barry
Numbers and Ezekiel do not give a principle whereby we can extract years from days in fact an explicit year day principle cant be found in scripture. Some might say doesnt Daniel 9 require the use of a year day principle/ The SDA bible commentry itself says Daniel 9 does not require it. Even though this prophecy spans 490 years the context here is the 70 years at the beginning of the chapter and later the 70 years times 7.