One point that I've emphasized repeatedly in various threads on this topic, over the at least four years during which scholar pretendus has lamely been trying to defend the indefensible, is that the Watchtower Society's translation of Jeremiah 29:10 is absolutely contradicted by its claim that the 70 years were a period of complete desolation of Judah, from about October 1, 607 B.C. to October 1, 537 B.C. I've pointed this out to scholar pretendus many, many times, and as usual with arguments he cannot refute, he simply ignores the problem.
The Watchtower Society has stated clearly in its publications going back to C. T. Russell that the key point to understand about the 70 years mentioned in Jeremiah, 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles is that it was a period of complete desolation of the land of Judah, a period in which neither man nor domestic animal inhabited the land. They claim that it was precisely 70 years, from about October 1, 607 B.C. (shortly after Gedaliah was assassinated, the remaining Jews fled to Egypt, and then the land was completely abandoned) to about October 1, 537 B.C. (when the Jews became settled back in their cities).
The Society has not explicitly claimed that this 70-year period was the time of exile of the Jews at Babylon, but has sometimes glossed over the point by implication. Indeed, the Society has directly admitted that the travel time between Jerusalem and Babylon was about four months for a caravan comprised of men, women, children and their possessions. So, if captives were taken to Babylon as early as the first capture of Jerusalem around the beginning of August (586, 587, 607; take your pick), they would have arrived in Babylon around the beginning of the following December. And the repatriated Jews who arrived in Judah by October would have left Babylon no later than the beginning of June. Therefore, the time of the captivity of the Jews at Babylon was at most 69 years and 6 months, according to the Watchtower Society's own reasoning. Therefore, if the 70 years referred to a period of complete desolation of Judah, the Jews cannot have been at Babylon for a period of 70 years. They would have been at Babylon for at most 69 years and 6 months. Therefore, Jeremiah 29:10 cannot be a reference to 70 years at Babylon, since there was no such period.
This proves that, according to the Society's own basic doctrine, the locative sense for le is contextually impossible at Jeremiah 29:10! And of course, it also proves that l-bbl means "for Babylon".
The fact that the Society's overall arguments are self-contradictory means no more here than the fact that many of its arguments in support of other doctrines are self-contradictory or contradictory to fact. All it means is that Watchtower pseudo-scholars are too stupid or delusional to recognize or admit of such contradictions.
Scholar pretendus' admission that he "goofed in claiming that meloth in Leviticus 25:30 is not an infinitive" is diagnostic of all that is wrong in the scholarship of Jehovah's Witnesses as a whole. Like scholar pretendus in this instance, JWs don't base their claims on facts or real scholarship, but on Watchtower tradition. C. T. Russell adopted N. H. Barbour's poor scholarship that resulted in a large body of claims resulting in the notion that "the Gentile times would end in 1914", along with a host of other bad claims, including the necessity of retaining in the NWT the wrong KJV rendering of Jer. 29:10. Once this set of claims became tradition, it could not be altered without the collapse of the entire house of cards. And this realization is behind the stubbornness of JWs like scholar pretendus -- they know that even the tiniest wedge will collapse the house of cards that comprises much of JW doctrine.
I know that some people who have lately contributed the most to this series of threads have been bothered by my acerbic comments towards scholar pretendus. I think that now you know why I do this. It's not possible for an honest person to deal with someone as thoroughly dishonest as a JW-defender like scholar pretendus without eventually becoming indignant and expressing it. My outrage is not so much at the specifics, such as the dry, academic topics being discussed here (I actually find this moron's antics amusing), but at the destructive results of such unchristian, braindead shenanigans -- results that include the disfellowshipping and shunning of honest-hearted people. It's my opinion that only by dealing forthrightly and forcefully with such disgusting and deliberate dishonesty can such braindead people be jarred to their senses.
AlanF
