The translation of le in Jeremiah 29:10 is no major issur of translation as poztates demand
It is hardly an issue of translation, as there is general agreement among scholars and translators on its rendering. The only reason why it is a subject for dispute in this thread is because the WTS has adopted a rendering that is extremely unlikely, and you have tried repeatedly (and failed repeatedly) to take Jonsson to task for pointing out this simple fact. It is an improbable translation, one that the WTS prefers in the face of extensive evidence favoring the non-locative rendering. You have refused to explain this evidence, much less provide evidence supporting the static locative rendering in the grammatical context of Jeremiah 29:10. The best you can do is say that the grammatical context does not matter. Of course, this is completely untrue.
because their whole hypothesis rides on a correct or precise meaning for this preposition which is impossible.
Actually, the whole Watchtower hypothesis rides on how the preposition is rendered in Jeremiah 29:10. That's the issue isn't it? That is why you are here defending a most improbable rendering, because without it the whole Watchtower understanding of the seventy years (and the chronology supported by it) collapses. The Bible would thus be referring to Babylon's 70 years, not Judah's. But this is unthinkable for you, and thus you must hold on to the weakest, most improbable rendering because anything else would be theologically unacceptable for you.
All that we have is a simple peposition which has a wide semantic range and there are no grammatical rules which directly determine which English equivalent should be used.
A blatant distortion of the facts. No mention at all of the actual evidence that the phrasing in Jeremiah 29:10 represents a discernable construction in which the preposition ALWAYS links the time duration to the possessor or experiencer of the duration. One can characterize that as a rule if one likes, but such a descriptive rule merely formalizes the corpus evidence discussed herein and is thus secondary to it (like any other constructed rule, like Cowell's Rule for that matter). You, of course, refuse to deal with any of this evidence.
Jenni's opinions, Narkissos's and yours count for nothing because Hebrew has too much fluidity causing any such claimed precision to simply evaporate.
False, every language has rules and operates according to rules (generative rules, not descriptive rules constructed from texts)....what causes fluidity and variability is interaction between rules, as well as the violable and probablistic nature of rules. You refuse to recognize the probablistic nature of rules....it is all or nothing to you. But what may seem like a linguistic chaos or fluidity over all the uses of the preposition le in all its linguistic contexts, is actually quite predictable and rule-governed when you examine each grammatical context individually. If you just look at your lexicon and see the wide range of meanings attributed to le, you are faced with a dazzling array of different nuances and senses (e.g. "according to", "toward", "for" "belonging to"), that you might wonder how anyone could make sense of this and understand which sense is meant at any given time. It is easy....it all depends on the linguistic context. Sure, there are often ambiguities in certain grammatical contexts.....but Jeremiah 29:10 is not one of these!! For the umpteenth time, ALL the examples of the construction in this verse have the same non-locative meaning. The NWT even translates them as non-locatives. But strangely, it suddenly renders Jeremiah 29:10 differently. Why? What makes Jeremiah 29:10 so special? Answer: The WTS has a preconceived theological reason to not translate le in most appropriate way.
the traditional locative 'at' favoured by the King James Bible attests well to 'at Babylon' in Jeremiah 29:10
The KJV was influenced by the Latin Vulgate, and reproduces the error of fourth-century translator Jerome. It does not carry much weight compared to the sense of the Hebrew original.
In this case it is the subjective opinion of the translator that transcends the of those who have an agenda, a hostility towards the NWT.
The WTS has a painfully obvious agenda...to shore up 607 BCE. Most other translations which do not express a locative here, do you seriously think they have an agenda along the lines of, "Ah, Jeremiah 29:10, we've gotta use 'for' instead of 'at' here, because we're hostile against the WTS, and we must do what we need to do in our translation to discredit it".
Rolf Furuli has already shown that the LXX with the Dative has a locative sense and in early times in the LXX the Dative case was a locative case anyway. Role Furuli is a formidable international scholar in Semitic studies and is well qualified in presenting the view that NWT is correct in the transaltion of this verse. You are not a scholar of these languages as Furuli is and I would rather take advice form my learned friend than yourself and Jenni.
Oh, what a classic "Appeal to Authority"....never mind what the linguistic facts are here.
See http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/90425/1520064/post.ashx#1520064 for my prior discussion of this. The "most natural" sense of the Greek dative is most definitely not "at" as Furuli claimed, and I would love to see you try to show otherwise. It would revolutionize Greek studies, as well as rewrite lexica as you put it. At most, the only locative sense of the plain dative is a remote Dative of Sphere....otherwise you need the preposition en, as the LXX renders Jeremiah 29:22.
Your nonsense about stauros is simply mischief making, a case made upon those facts that you selectively choose in order to support your thesis.
You have no shame....what a ridiculously malicious lie that is. It was the very fact that the WTS themselves selectively refused to tell the facts that I even researched this in the first place, and I left the WTS primarily because of their dishonesty.
The facts are that Jesus died according not to Roman custom but to Jewish custom which required a stake and that is what the eyewitnesses saw. If it was a cross then the appropriate word would if in fact it existed. Luke in Acts uses the word xulon which also means a stake or piece of wood co this confirms that Jesus was impaled on a simple stake.
The Romans crucified and tortured Jesus, not the Jews. There is nothing in Jewish law that forbade the cross having two beams rather than one. The Jews did not practice crucifixion except during the Hasomonean era. As for xulon, I already discussed this in my essay. Naturally, you deal with none of my arguments.
All that you have done is buried yourself in Roman and pagan Christian literature regarding later traditions concerning the manner of Jesus' death.
Another lie. My argument about stauros is based on Greek and Latin sources on crucifixion itself, not Jesus' death per se.
The cross was a pagan symbol long before the First Century so it wouls have been impossible for such a sacred act to have been impaled on such a pagan symbol.
This is not a historical argument, and much less any argument that stauros did not mean "cross".
