What does Ab stand for?
Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?
by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Alleymom
Boy, you are a sharp one. Even I did not notice that. I wonder if Alan noticed that too for it just goes to show that life is full of coincidences. Perhaps, it proves that even though I am a devotee of 607, I have a equal fascination with 587, Ah, it is time to meet with Jim Bean methinks.
It sounds as if you and old Jim have already had quite a meeting tonight, my friend! Are you ok?
Marjorie
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Alleymom
What does Ab stand for?
A month in the Hebrew calendar. Also transliterated as "Av".
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Alleymom
Perhaps, it proves that even though I am a devotee of 607, I have a equal fascination with 587, Ah, it is time to meet with Jim Bean methinks.
Perhaps it proves that deep down you know we're right.
Are you sloshed enough to tell me why you are spending your whole life collecting these articles and books when NONE of them agree with the 607 date? Are you hoping that someday, if you just persevere long enough, you'll come across some scholarly support for 607?
Neil, that's really sad. You know that's not going to happen.
I bet you'd have fun learning Hebrew. You could forget about all this chronology stuff for awhile and just concentrate on the Scriptures.
Marjorie
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AlanF
Scholar pretendus:
First I will note that, as usual, you failed to deal with most of the points I brought up. This, of course, is quite in line with your Watchtower training to ignore difficulties.
: It is indutiably true
I love it!
: that there is no confusion amongst poztates about the seventy year because they have to a man and woman been utterly deceived by the Jonsson hypothesis published and authored by the Governing Body of the Evil Slave Class.
I see. I suppose these "poztates" include folks like Jack Finegan, Jack Lundbom, F. C. Cook, the authors of The Cambridge Ancient History, the 22 scholars mentioned by Rodger C. Young in his article "When Did Jerusalem Fall?", Young himself, and a host of other commentators.
: It is indutiably true that scholars are confused,
It is indufusibly true that you are confused beyond all comprehension by anything to do with Bible chronology.
: divided and indifferent about the seventy years referred to by Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra and Zechariah.
Of course, that can't possibly be because the Bible itself contains a great many confusing and apparently contradictory statements about all sorts of chronological details. And of course, the "faithful and discreet slave" has fully resolved all such seeming difficulties and published them for the full enlightenment of all those who love the Lord and the truth!
Let's see now, um, um, um. . . Just where are those pesky published resolutions?
Dang! I must have misplaced them! Perhaps, scholar pretendus, you'd be so kind as to remind me where I can find them.
: Also, it is the case that the 'popular' view within scholarship is that the seventy yearsrefers to Babylonish sovereignty.
Not just the popular view. The only view among modern scholars.
: Now to your gibberish:
That's pretty funny, coming from someone who can't pass a chin-drooling course.
: Your summary is as follows;
Which, as usual, you mostly got wrong, or too fuzzy to be of any use.
: Zechariah 1:12
: 589---519 =70
More precisely, from the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem on January 27, 589 B.C.E. until the receipt of the prophecy on February 15, 519 is 70 years and 19 days.
: 587---587=68
Actually, 587---587=0. But let's not quibble.
What I actually posted was from 587 through 519, which was a period from the capture of Jerusalem in July, 587 B.C. through the receipt of the prophecy on February 15, 519, a period of almost 68 years.
: Zechariah 7:5
: 587---518= 69
No. As Jonsson carefully stated, from 587 to 518 is 70 years, counting inclusively. This what the term "seventieth" means.
: So, as you say we have three 'indefinite' periods
Why do you continue to lie about my arguments? I said nothing of the kind. I gave definite periods, including start and end dates, for Jeremiah's 70 years, and for the period spoken of in Zech 7:5. Since the text of Zech. 1 is not definite, no one else can be definite and can at best assign an approximation.
: for a 'finite' seventy year period.
You have no idea what the word "finite" means, do you.
: Are you mad or just plain ornery? As usual you want to blame the texts for this 'mess' believing that this is solely due to human scribal inadequacy.
Not at all. See above.
: The reality is that this definite period of seventy years
There you go again! Making definite statements based on nothing more than your need for Mommy to be right.
: was not of human manufacture but of divine manufacture emanating from the word of Jehovah or his angel.
Yada yada yada.
: To the contrary, we believe that the seventy years began with as a time of exile, desolation, servitude and mourning from the Fall to the Return covering an exact period of seventy years or from 607 until 537 BCE. This was a period of mourning as memorialized by the annual fastings which continued for at least 90 years at the time of Zechariah. . .
You can believe in the Tooth Fairy if you want. That doesn't make it correct.
Your claims have been proved wrong on virtually every count. You offer no real proofs of your own -- only dogmatic assumptions that you're too obstinate to admit are just that.
: Yes the texts do speak of 'seventy years' and not ninety years, the latter is derived fro the fact that after the seventy year ended in 537 the Jewish returnees simply continued the fastings for further 'years' as the angel recognized and this is simply counted a ninety years of fastings and mournings. Such a period of its own constituence is not defined as such but simply an exegetiucal construction of history.
So you admit that you've invented this 90-year period out of thin air. Obviously, this is so as not to contradict what the Paradise Restored book said (we ought never to contradict Mommy, eh?), while still retaining the words "70 years". What out and out bullshit!
Furthermore, your little private god Rolf Furuli made a rather surprising admission in his book Persian Chronology. On page 87 he wrote, concerning Zechariah 1:12 and 7:5:
Both Zechariah's words from the second and from the fourth year of Darius point to a full period of seventy years, and this would presume that two different periods of seventy years were meant if the expressions are to be taken literally -- one ending in the second and the other in the fourth year of Darius I. In that case we have three different periods of 70 years, one which according to Daniel and the Chronicler ended when the land became inhabited, and the two others ending in the second and the fourth year of Darius I respectively.
Furuli then proceeds to argue that the 70-year periods spoken of by Zechariah are not to be taken literally. In other words, he rejects the plain reading of the texts and substitutes a ridiculous Watchtower-inspired interpretation. As I said, you guys flat-out reject the Bible when the Bible contradicts Watchtower teaching. Talk about presumptuousness!
: So, if you now agree that there is a definite period of seventy years
I don't. There were three definite periods of approximately seventy years. They were definite because we can assign definite times for their ends, and either definite times for their beginnings, or speculative times that are definite but not certain because the Bible does not state them with certainty. All of the commentaries I've read, for example, agree that the 70 years spoken of by Jeremiah were approximate. In The Anchor Bible, Vol. 21B on Jeremiah 21-36, author Jack Lundbom comments concerning Jer. 25:11 (pp. 249-250:
The 70 years here and in 29:10 refer not to the length of Judah's exile or to "Jerusalem's desolations" but to Babylon's tenure as a world power . . . The idea that Jerusalem and the Temple lay in ruins for 70 years is postexilic . . . and not implicit in Jeremiah's prophecies . . . The number 70 is stereotyped, thus no more than an approximation. If it corresponds to anything, it is the conventional description of a full life-span (Ps. 90:10). Tyre is forgotton for 70 years, then remembered (Isa 23;15-17). . . As far as Babylon's tenure as a world power is concerned, 70 years turned out to be a good approximation: From the fall of Nineveh (612 B.C.) to Babylon's capture by Cyrus (539 B.C.) was 73 years; from the Battle of Carchemish (605 B.C. -- Nebuchadrezzar's first year; cf. 25:1) to Babylon's capture by Cyrus (539 B.C.) was 66 years; and from the actual end of the Assyrian Empire (609/8 B.C.) to Babylon's capture by Cyrus and the return of the exiles (539 B.C.) was almost precisely 70 years. . . Not ony Judah but all nations would be under Babylonian suzerainty for 70 years.
Concerning Jer. 25:12, Lundbom writes (p. 250):
The anticipation of a 70-year Babylonian rule restates what is said in v 11b, with the one difference that now judgment is said to await Babylon at the end of this period. Babylon's 70-year rule is anticipated also in 29:10, except that there, in place of an eventual judgment for Babylon, a promise of eventual salvation for Yahweh's covenant people is given.
I suppose that poor Jack Lundbom is really just a stupid, wiley old poztate, but I suspect that would be news to him.
: then be consistent and honest and make a chronology that is faithful to the facts. Your chronology of three periods of at least 68 and 69 years is dishonest and stupid.
Nope. It's exactly what the Bible itself says. Now, if you want to say that the Bible is dishonest and stupid, well, that's your problem not mine.
: If the seventy year period was devoid of those constitutive elements of exile, desolation, servitude and mourning then What was it made up of?
I've told you several times already, you moron. Go back and reread my posts.
: Do you think that whole population was invited to go to Babylon as tourists and enjoy the high life as a freed people who were forcefully evicted by the new conqueror Cyrus.
What kind of a braindead statement is that?
: It seems that not only do poztates want to rewrite Greek lexicography
LOL! Freddie Franz was really the one to want to do that.
: but they wish to rewrit Jewish history. Perhaps you can enlighten us and tell us what the seventy years was really about.
I've told you several times already, you moron. Go back and reread my posts.
: Simply referring to Babylon's hegemony merely states the obvious.
Yet another braindead, meaningless statement.
: To argue for two separate periods
Three. Count 'em: ONE, TWO, THREE.
: is fanciful because how then can such periods be identified historically either by later people or people living at the time.
I've told you several times already, you moron. Go back and reread my posts.
: Perhaps one could say Zechariah 1A and Zechariah 7 B becuse we now have to develop a special system of coding. Poztates should now be grateful to scholar who has now developed a code for the Jonsson hypothesis.
Rather than commenting directly on this insane ranting, I will quote some material on the relevant stuff in Zechariah from a wiley old poztate writing back in 1876, the respected Bible commentator F. C. Cook. Cook produced a multi-volume commentary called The Bible Commentary, based on the King James Version. In Vol. VI, "Ezekiel -- Daniel -- and the Minor Prophets", the wiley old Cook writes about Zech. 1:12 (p. 707):
12. these threescore and ten years] Rather, these seventy years, as in vii. 5, there being no reason for varying the rendering. It does not signify the seventy years from the captivity of Jeremiah to the edict of Cyrus; see Jer. xxv, 11, 12, xxix. 10; Dan. ix. 2; but the seventy years of the destroyed temple, from the captivity of Zedekiah to the second year of Darius Hystaspis; see Davison 'on Prophecy,' p. 316 and note.
Concerning Zech. 7, the old poztate Cook writes (pp. 717-718):
CHAP. VII. 1. the fourth year of king Darius] B.C. 518. Nearly two years had elapsed since the visions vouchsafed to Zechariah had been made known for the encouragement of the people. Meanwhile the work of restoration had progressed and Jerusalem had begun to wear somewhat of her former aspect. With returning prosperity and power it was only natural that a question should arise as to the propriety of retaining those services of humiliation, which had been instituted as memorials of the destruction of the city and temple.
. . .
3. weep] Rather, mourn.
the fifth month] Because on the tenth day of the fifth month the temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, see Jer. lii. 12--14; 2 K. xxv. 8-10, where the seventh day of the fifth month is mentioned as the date of the final destruction, not the tenth, as in Jer. lii. 12.
. . .
5. seventh month] Probably on account of the death of Gedaliah; see 2 K. xxv. 25; Jer. xli. 1-3.
those seventy years] i.e., the period between the burning of the temple and the fourth year of Darius.Now, I suppose that F. C. Cook might have had access to a time machine (didn't Professor Emmett Brown go back to about then in one of the "Back To The Future" movies?), so as to travel forward in time some 120 years and get hold of the works of that most evil of wiley poztates, Carl Olof Jonsson, and return to 1876 and incorporate Jonsson's evil hypotheses into his works -- but I think that this hypothesis is of low probability. So in all likelihood, Cook developed his evil hypotheses about Zechariah all on his own. Well I suppose that means that evil, poztate notions can crop up anytime and anywhere. But I'm getting off topic.
: I reproduced and interpreted Jonsson's data to show how meaningless and confusing it really is.
All you've done is show how copiously you can drool on your chinny-chin-chin.
: Yes, Jonsson is not dogmatic about this chronology and I never claimed that he was
I believe you did. Do you want me to go back over old posts and embarass you once more?
: for he is simply as you correctly point out, stating his opinion which is simply ambiguous and complex.
Not at all. For even wiley old poztates like F. C. Cook could figure it all out for themselves. This ain't rocket science.
: For if you are going to argue for a definite seventy years then provide a definite chronology
Already done, you moron. Go back and reread my posts.
: and if this cannot be done
It can and has. Thus, your conclusion is in error:
: then perhaps the interpretation or methodology is in error. On this point please note scholar's Law: " Something that cannot be made simple cannot be true".
Not so. The science of quantum mechanics is a system of mathematical physics that is extremely complex, but its predictions have been verified to an accuracy exceeding that of any other science.
Furthermore, the explanations of the several periods of 70 years mentioned in Jeremiah and Zechariah are quite simple, as I've shown above. But obviously, oversimplification is prone to error, just as in my illustration in my post that you're responding to here, about John and Fred. John and Fred lived 70-year lifespans during somewhat different periods. Making oversimplifying statements about their lifespans is not different from making oversimplifying statements about the three 70-year periods mentioned in Jeremiah and Zechariah -- as almost all commentators agree.
: My representation of Jonsson's data is simply a rhetorical device
But a grossly false one, so it is of no value.
: to illustrate possible derived consequence of accepting such an hypothesis. It would have been preferable for him to make the data simple where possible
He did just that, as I have demonstrated. But your moral stupidity (a Watchtower term), which is dictated by your misplaced loyalty to this imaginary "faithful and discreet slave", forces you to invent all manner of excuses, straw man arguments, and just about every thought-stopping device known to man, to avoid the simple truth that this "slave" has misled you.
: and if if was uncertain then it would have been wiser to omit it.
Absolutely wrong. An honest scholar must examine and set forth ALL data. The data is fixed -- it is the Bible text, and the texts of tens of thousands of cuneiform documents and related ancient textual material. An honest scholar cannot omit anything, because to do so would be dishonest.
Actually, scholar pretendus, you've here revealed the basic and fundamental dishonesty drummed into you by many years of cult indoctrination. You call everything that proves your cult wrong "uncertain" or "dishonest" and thereby "omit it". You can't allow the tiniest bit of uncertainty to enter your cult-drugged brain, for to do so would be, as George Orwell so aptly said, to commit crimethink. As Orwell described in Nineteen Eighty-Four:
Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.
I have never seen a human being demonstrate the level of protective stupidity that you routinely do, scholar pretendus.
: One must remember that this particular discussion is set against the overall dogmatic and presumptous tone of his hypothesis against WT chronology.
Presumptuous? Who is this Watchtower Society, so that anyone should obey its voice to throw truth away?
: The very fact that it is freely admitted that there is not one but three seventy years for Zechariah
Two, actually.
: or possible three with varaiable dates
Combining the statements in Jeremiah and Zechariah, yes, there are three. But the dates are not variable -- they are only "not proved" in the sense that the Bible itself is not dogmatic about the start dates.
: well indicates that this is mere mischief making designed to distract sincere ones away from a simple singular seventy year period attested by Zechariah, Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah from the Fall in 607 until the Return in 537BCE.
I love the Orwellian doublethink and excuses that cultists like scholar pretendus make. They make it so easy for intelligent people to see what cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses are all about.
AlanF
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AlanF
scholar pretendus said:
: I am not interested in posting a refutation point by point of Younger's thesis as I am not familiar with the technique he uses
In other words, you admit that you're not competent to comment on Young's article specifically, or to discuss these matters in general. This is, to put it mildly, no surprise. What is a surprise is that you actually admit it. Perhaps tomorrow, when the Jim Beam wears off (I know quite well how easy Jim Beam goes down), you'll change your tune. But alcohol does that to some people, you know, making them admit things they ordinarily wouldn't.
: nor I suspect are other scholars and chronologists
Of course they are. Why do you think Young would write an article for a general audience of scholars? Don't judge the world of scholars by your own inability to obtain a simple Masters Degree in that most simple of disciplines, religious studies.
: but I would much rather dance with you than with Younger.
Sure. I don't have a degree in linguistics, Hebrew, Greek and so forth. That makes it easy for you to "attack the man" and dismiss anything I say based on my lack of credentials. But do keep in mind that one of your little gods, Freddie Franz, taught himself Hebrew and Greek. I'm not nearly as brilliant as Freddie was, but at least I'm sane, and I'm honest. Freddie was the antithesis of that.
: The focus of Younger's article was indeed methodology as illustrated by the technique he then uses in connection of establishing a more precise date for the Fall.
You're not just stupid. You're militantly stupid. The focus is what the author says is the focus: the subject in the title.
: This third article needs to read against the backdrop of his two previous arrticles which are about methodology and interpretation.
Oh? What exactly does that mean? Or are you too drunk to elaborate?
: Those eleven scholars have told me that those other scholars who prefer 587 should be placed in a lunatic assylum so that is there problem not mine.
LOL! Seems to me that this is a product of your dreaming in a drunken stupor.
Assuming your statement was not the product of drunkenness, do list the eleven scholars and, with their permission, post their actual statements to you.
: WT scholars have no problems.
A la Jim Jones' followers. At least, up until a certain critical juncture.
: We are part of a happy and united throng.
I won't dispute that. Of course, at the point of downing the KoolAid, Jim Jones's people mostly would have said the same thing.
: Here again you quote opinion as fact,
In a truly scientific discussion, a thorough exposition harmonizing all known pieces of data becomes fact, after surviving critical scrutiny. In this sense, "fact" means nothing more or less than, as Stephen Jay Gould so aptly wrote, something that is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." There are such things in the study of ancient chronology. One of them is the fact that Jerusalem was captured in 597 B.C. From this simple fact, the destruction of all of Watchtower doctrine flows.
: Younger
Can't you manage to get even a simple thing like someone's name right?
: seeks to harmonize the scriptural data but other scholars would disagree with his results as shown byt the fact that this matter is currently being debated with no final oucomes.
So what? But I'm convinced that when the entire scholarly community reads Young's material and incorporates it into their various opinions, they'll come out almost unanimously in favor of Young's basic claim that Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C. This, for the simple reason that nothing else works.
: It would seem that this is one problem that will never be solved unless scholars change their methodology and take not of the seventy years.
Seems to me that you ought to take not of the Jim Beam.
: As usual I have to baby you and hold your hand. The jounal Biblica is available online and you only need to key in 2003.
Hey. I have a regular job and this bullshitting with JW morons like you is only an entertaining sideline that I do in my spare time. I don't remember hearing about this journal Biblica before you mentioned it. But after doing a bit of web searching, it's apparent that it has a miniscule circulation. So why should anyone expect anyone not a dedicated, fulltime scholar to know about it?
: However, let me warn you that if you wish to go down the road of solving the knotty problem of 586/7 you will need to much further reading of the subject, do not rely just on the most recent articles because this subjject has more needles than a porcupine.
I know enough of this subject to say that it's knotty only from the point of view of a braindead JW who has to figure out a thousand excuses as to why basic facts are not really facts.
: Perhaps when you have finished this as a project then have it published in a journal or include it as an addendum to Jonsson's GTR.
I'm not that interested. People like Jonsson, who are far more interested in this topic than I, have and will continue to publish.
AlanF
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AlanF
So there, scholar pretendus. When are you going to apologize for lying about Carl Jonsson's "association" with "that whacky catastrophism journal"?
When are you going to acknowledge that the Watchtower Society itself is whacky because it explicitly supports the whacky views of Immanuel Velikovsky? You should know that I'm going to hit you with this, your deliberate lying, every day from here on in.
AlanF
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Narkissos
So are you then saying that the years when Zechariah received the word were the same years for the seventy years? Was it the beginning, the middle or the end? It could not be the end because neither period had ceased and therefore could not have been seventy years. The angel could only have made reference in the present context to an already fulfilled period of time mentioned in the second and later fourth year of Darius.
We have been celebrating the end of WWII for sixty years now.
The time when I write this sentence is technically the end of the sixty years. That does not mean WWIII starts today.
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scholar
Alan F
Response to gibberish 4089,4088,4087
Speaking about apologies, When will Jonsson apologize for his historical blunder in connection with John Aquila Brown and the Proclaimer's book? The Society does not support the whacky views of Velikovsky and if you have an issue about the matter then you should write to them. Jonsson did or does have an association with that whacky pseudo Catastrohist journal. By the way when will you apologize over the matter of the Society misrepresenting Thiele and when are you going to apologize to me for stating that I have failed my Master's program?
Now to your gibberish:
Now what do we really have here for Zechariah's seventy years. One moment you say there are two definite periods and then you say there is one period but the other is fuzzy. You have one period of 70 years and the other is indefinite or at best an approximation. Zechariah refers to 'seventy years' which can be nothing else but a definite period of seventy years with a beginning and end. What Jonsson gives you are at best two periods with different spans of time. I do not agree with Furuli that the two references of seventy years if taken literally presume to be two different periods. A close or literal meaning simply suggests that Zechariah is refering to one period of seventy years referred to on two separate occcasions namely the 2nd and 4th year of Darius. There is nothing in the text that connects the time of his receiving the word in the 2nd and 4th year a chronological datum for the seventy year period. It cannot be otherwise for the prophet's reference is to an already fixed period in time and place and is further along in the discourse.
Your so called 'three definite periods of approximately seventy years' is rather ambiguous and meaningless but if that is your view then so be it. You accept, I reject it. End of story. Your quotes from the Anchor Bible is well known to me but you omit to mention that as far as Lundbom is concerned the 'seventy years' should simply be understood as a round number. This generally accepted view of the seventy years is a tacit admission of its exegetical difficulty and that the period can not be precisely identified as to time. Therfore, according to scholars it cannot be a definite period whether numbered the one or the many.
Cook was not a poztate nor a member of that evil slave class and like all commentaries are of much merit for all Bible Students. However, he expresses a view of the seventy yeras which differs to ours . The seventy years of Zechariah must be identical to those of Jeremiah because Daniel had already discerned that those seventy years had nearly ended and that the seventy years of Zechariah were attributable to Jeremiah because of the context of chapters 1 and 7
In regard to Young's thesis it simply confirms what I long said about chronology on this board that it is about methodology and interpretation, a fact which only now are poztates forced to accept. Scholar is now vindicated.
So you think that Young's article will convert the entire community to accept 587. I wonder what Young would think of that absurd assumption, such stupidiy demonstrates your total ignorance of the debate. Somehow I do not believe that your guru Carl Jonsson would believe this.
So, you got caught out in not knowing about the article in the journal Biblica, this well demonstartes it is I that has to teach you and show you the way for in time I may convert from falsehood into truth. You did not know enough about this debate to be aware of a significant recent article in that journal Biblica and so the so-called braindead JW apologist had to put it first under your dribbling chin.
Alan, you and I have two things in common: We both share a concern for darn pesky resolutions and we both acknowledge the utter brilliance and genius of that greatesT of all scholars, the late Frederick William Franz.
scholar JW
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lawrence
Been watching these posts for a while. I read Hebrew and Greek, and I truly detest any man calling Fred Franz a genius and greatesT of all scholars. The bastard was a madman, a lunatic, a false prophet, and full of crap. That man was a menace to the Holy Scriptures.
Scholar think twice! We can't follow your reasoning.