by Cordelia 126 Replies latest watchtower scandals
The WTBTS does have a very intricate and hard to digest dogma on the whole issue . I think the bible goes into the 70 weeks of years prophesy from that point which the WTBTS claims brings ya to the arrival of the messiah in 29 AD .
heathen of the I think I have indigestion class .
Leolaia
1. That is the problem, if you subtract 587 from 537 you only get fifty years which is twenty years short so it must be 607. The choice of 539 is a suitable anchor for the immediate 537 as the date 539 is well anchored in secular history and the biblical narratives.
2. the exile-desolation-servitude is well attested by the historian Josephus.
scholar JW
When Raymond Franz was working on the "Insight On The Scriptures" volumes,
Sorry to be pedantic but it was Aid to Bible Understanding - Ray was DFd in 1981 I think - The Insight volumes were published in 1988 and were an update to Aid to Bible Understanding
Sorry to be pedantic
not at all stilla, thats just the kind of thing that they'd attack, "well they dont have their facts straight on that, sooo..."
good catch.
Scholar pretendus wrote:
: 2. the exile-desolation-servitude is well attested by the historian Josephus.
Josephus, in his final work, specifically said that the time of devastation of Judah was 50 years -- not 70.
AlanF
the exile-desolation-servitude is well attested by the historian Josephus.
Who wrote over 6 centuries after the facts and was, of course, dependent on the later interpretations of the "70 years" by 2 Chronicles and Daniel.
Edit to add that, as AlanF recalled, when Josephus quotes Berossus he is indeed led to modify his usual version (apparently without any attempt at harmonisation), Against Apion I,21:
These accounts agree with the true histories in our books; for in them it is written that Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius.
the date 539 is well anchored in secular history and the biblical narrativesThis suggestion of an agreement is deliberately misleading: actually the biblical narratives provide no independent date for the event of Babylon's fall. The WTS picks 539 exclusively from "secular history" and then chooses to ignore the rest of non-biblical evidence to build its chronology only on biblical texts, starting with the misinterpretation of Jeremiah which has been extensively discussed on the other thread.
1. That is the problem, if you subtract 587 from 537 you only get fifty years which is twenty years short so it must be 607. The choice of 539 is a suitable anchor for the immediate 537 as the date 539 is well anchored in secular history and the biblical narratives.
Yet again you completely miss the point. Instead of picking 539 as a pivotal date, oh let's say we pick 597 BC as a pivotal date (derived from the absolute date of 568 BC), which is definitely a dated event in both the Bible and in the Babylonian Chronicle. Then we can use that date to derive the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC, which is 20 years out of whack of your preferred Watchtower chronology. Then, depending on how one interprets the Bible, one can then derive a date of Jerusalem's destruction in 587 or 586 BC. Then, if you want to hold onto your erroneous interpretation of the 70 years, be my guest and go right ahead and insert 70 years of exile-desolation-servitude after 587. There you have it... both 587 BC and your Watchtower interpretation of the 70 years. Not in conflict at all. Of course, that means that the date of Cyrus' Edit was 517 BC instead of 537 BC. No problem at all. Making the Persian chronology be out of whack by twenty years is no different than making Babylonian chronology out of whack by twenty years. It's the same thing. Only, in one instance there is a huge discrepency with 587. In the other, there is no conflict at all. So why do you admittedly arbitrarily hold onto one than the other? It can't be because 539 is better than 597 by your criteria. It is simpler to use 597 as a pivotal date because it is derived from an absolute date within the very reign of Nebuchadnezzer; it is more complicated to count the reigns of several kings to get to 539 BC from its own absolute date. It is also an event that is dated relatively within both biblical and secular sources; it involves a syncronism missing in 539 (which is not dated relatively in the Bible). And finally, the secular source providing the absolute date for 539 is less well preserved than the tablet supporting 597 (VAT 4956); and one could arrive at 597 BC via other absolute dates (such as those established for the Assyrian period).
2. the exile-desolation-servitude is well attested by the historian Josephus.
Josephus was a historian, but he was not an independent secular source. Moreover, if cannot at all be said to be "well attested" if Josephus once indicated a 70 year desolation and secondly indicated a 50 year desolation.
Leolaia
Scholars and poztates agree on the basis of the biblical and secular evidence that 539 is a accurate date for the Fall of Babylon and thus a suitable date for WT scholars to use as a pivotal date.
From that date, poztates and scholars on the basis of biblical and secular evidence accept 537 for the Decree of Cyrus and WT scholars conclude from the scriptural evidence that year marked the end of the Exile when the Jews returned thus fulfilling the seventy years.
Poztates and scholars attribute the seventy years as a round number with a variety of interpretations, Wt scholars shown on the basis of biblical and secular evidence that this period was one of exile-desolation-servitude thus beginning with the Fall in 607.
These facts indicate the impossibility of any other candidate other than 607 for the Fall of Jerusalem.
scholar JW
Scholar,
Can you read?
Scholars and poztates agree on the basis of the biblical and secular evidence that 539 is a accurate date for the Fall of Babylon and thus a suitable date for WT scholars to use as a pivotal date.
Which biblical evidence?
From that date, poztates and scholars on the basis of biblical and secular evidence accept 537 for the Decree of Cyrus and WT scholars conclude from the scriptural evidence that year marked the end of the Exile when the Jews returned thus fulfilling the seventy years.
Which secular evidence?
Poztates and scholars attribute the seventy years as a round number with a variety of interpretations, Wt scholars shown on the basis of biblical and secular evidence that this period was one of exile-desolation-servitude thus beginning with the Fall in 607.
Which secular evidence?
As for the biblical evidence, the WT obviously chooses to build on a literal interpretation of Daniel (and possibly 2 Chronicles) while ignoring, or explaining away, the plain meaning of Jeremiah and Zechariah.
Yes, everyone agrees that 539 was the year for the fall of Babylon. With that in mind, read Jeremiah 25:12 again. The 70 years could not end another two years later. Even if it were that on its own it would debunk the 607 myth, yet there is so much more corroborative evidence that the 607 date is just wrong. It is humorous that this issue has had to go on as long as it has.
