Jonsson rather than sourcing the fact of the matter from a journal article, grammar or lexicon instead refers to partially quoted letters from three scholars only. If in fact the evidence was so demonstrably evident that the NWT was in error lexically or gramatically then why did he not refer to standard Hebrew reference works? I put the case to you that Jonsson in his private research realized that no such evidence was and is available and had to solicit opinions favourable to his argument. If this is the case then this is shabby and amateurish scholarship.
If anything deserves being called "shabby and amateurish" it was your own post #508 which (as Narkissos and I pointed out) had cited phony parallels that not only failed to represent anything like the construction in Jeremiah 29:10, but didn't even include the very preposition that's being discussed. That you would even make such an argument indicates you don't understand the linguistic issue involved.
As to whether critical scholarship sides with Jonsson or not, I will only quote Jonsson's recent discussion on Jeremiah 29:10 which presents the comments of Ernst Jenni --one of the scholars contacted by Jonsson -- on this very subject. As Jenni indicates, his own lexicon (which is the most exhaustive work on the subject, covering all 20,275 instances of the preposition) supports not only Jonsson's position but also the vast majority of modern translations which render l-bbl as "for Babylon":
This question was sent to Professor Ernst Jenni in Basel, Switzerland, who is undoubtedly the leading authority today on Hebrew prepositions. So far, he has written three volumes on three of the Hebrew prepositions, b e (beth), k e (kaph), and l e (lamed). In Die hebräischen Prepositionen. Band 3: Die Präposition Lamed (Stuttgart, etc.: Verlag Kohlhammer, 2000), he devotes 350 pages to the examination of l e. His answer of October 1, 2003 was: "As I recently have received an inquiry from Germany concerning Jer 29,10 (likewise in connection with a theory of Jehovah's Witnesses), I can answer you relatively quickly.
My treatment of this passage is found in the Lamed-book p. 109 (heading 4363). The rendering in all modern commentaries and translations is 'for Babel' (Babel as world power, not city or land); this is clear from the language as well as also from the context.
By the 'local meaning' a distinction is to be made between where? ('in, at') and where to? (local directional 'to, towards'). The basic meaning of l is 'with reference to', and with a following local specification it can be understood as local or local-directional only in certain adverbial expressions (e.g., Num. 11,10 [Clines DCH IV, 481b] 'at the entrance', cf. Lamed pp. 256, 260, heading 8151). At Jer. 51,2 l is a personal dative ('and send to Babel [as personified world power] winnowers, who will winnow it and empty its land' (Lamed pp. 84f., 94)). On Jer. 3,17 'to Jerusalem' (local terminative), everything necessary is in Lamed pp. 256, 270 and ZAH 1, 1988, 107-111.
On the translations: LXX has with babylôni unambiguously a dative ('for Babylon'). Only Vulgata has, to be sure, in Babylone, 'in Babylon', thus King James Version 'at Babylon', and so probably also the New World Translation. I hope to have served you with these informations and remain with kind regards,
E. Jenni."
[Translated from the German. Emphasis added.]
I'm sure you're familiar with Jonsson's response to Furuli and would know of Jenni and his discussion on Jeremiah 29:10 in his authoritative work. Yet you talk as if no such support existed, when it is the local meaning that was exceptional in Hebrew (as Jenni points out, was restricted only to certain adverbial constructions) and the usual rendering "for Babylon" is perfectly in keeping with the usual sense of the preposition in Hebrew. Note also that Narkissos' point about examining other instances of the construction in Jeremiah 29:10 (such as occurring in Leviticus 25:30) is exactly what Jenni does on p. 109 (section 4363) of his Lamed volume, where he examines other instances of preposition in predicates of the verb ml' "to complete, fulfill".
