Jeremiah 52:31 indicates that Nebuchadnezzer ruled until his 43rd year: "In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Evil-Merodach became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin from prison on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month". That would be 36 complete years and a portion of a year. According to Jeremiah 52:28, the exile that Jehoiachin was carried into began in Nebuchadnezzer's seventh year. The accession year of Evil-merodach would have thus completed Nebuchadnezzer's 43rd year (7th + 36 = 43rd + part of year = accession year of Evil-Merodach).
Corrupting historical facts
by Hellrider 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
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City Fan
Leolaia,
Those verses in Jeremiah do support secular chronology, giving Nebuchadnezzar a 43 year reign. But I think if you take the bible on its own, without secular sources, then it would show that Nebuchadnezzar's reign was no more than 43 years, and could be less.
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zagor
Hellrider,
Well I guess in a way it is good that book with such arguments has been published outside of confines of religious literature. Now serious researchers will have a chance to peer review it and tear it apart if it is wrong as many suggest it is. If 607 BCE stayed only on pages of WTBS publications it would never have gotten attention of serious experts.
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JCanon
I guess we dont need scholars, any astronomers and so on.
The bible itsself explains the correct date. Please read the posting from Honesty again.
It is the matter, that thsi fact, Zechariah chapter 7, cannot be thrown from the desk.
WE read there about the 70 years in regard to the assassination of Gedaliah, demonstrated by fastening.
Hello Klaus,
This is not good enough because Honest applies this "Darius" 4th and 2nd year to Darius I. But the Bible doesn't say this was "Darius the Persian" or "Darius the Mede." Per the Bible Darius the Mede began to rule immediately after the fall of Jerusalem. Josephus claims the 70 years didn't begin until 4 years after the fall of Jerusalem in year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar. So 70 years after the fall of Jerusalem in year 2 and 70 years after the mourning for Gedeliah in year 4, is still not 70 years from year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar. That is, per Josephus, there are 74 years from the fall of Jerusalem until the 1st of Cyrus. So 70 years after the fall of Jerusalem in year 2 would mean there are yet two years to go before the 70 years are up for the last deportees.
Thus Zechariah is not clear enough regarding the dating, as you state, because the Bible does not specifically say this was "Darius the Mede" or Darius the Persian. Honesty is presuming it is Darius I, as most do. But this would contradict Josephus. Others, like myself, believe this is the 2nd and 4th year of Darius the Mede who ruled for six years before Cyrus came to the throne. The Bible says nothing about the Jews being released in the 1st year of Darius the Mede. In addition the context of Zechariah 1 is that the Jews are still in exile. They ask when will God "show mercy to the cities of Judah and Jerusalem?" What does that mean, "show mercy?" On direct meaning it certainly would mean the cities were still devastated and desolated and showing mercy to the cities would mean allowing them to be rebuilt and reinhabited. Thus this is consistent with the 2nd year of Darius the Mede when the Jews were still in exile, still with 4 more years to go before the 70 years were totally up.
Bottom line: You have to determine somehow whether you can definitely apply Zech. 1 and 7 to either Darius the Mede or Darius I. So Zechariah still presents options or at least debate. If you go by Josephus, this would be year 2 and 4 of Darius the Mede while the Jews were still in exile, not 2 and 4 of Darius I, which is long after the Jews had returned.
If you date the 1st of Cyrus to 455BCE and add 70 years to get year 23 of Nebuchadnezzar in 525BCE, then his year 37 falls in 511BCE, the same dating found hidden in the VAT4956. That's too much of a coincidence. It only makes sense if 511BCE was the original chronology for year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar.
JC
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JCanon
City Fan, I can hardly believe your posts. You do not know your facts.
The simple answer is it doesn't. The bible only mentions 2 of the kings, Nebuchadnezzar and Evil-Merodach. No lengths of reign are given.
The Bible indeed gives the length of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 45 years. We determine that because the year that Evil-Merodach became king was the 37th year of Jehoiachin's exile. This would represent the accession year of Evil-Merodach and the last year of Nebuchadnezzar.
Jehoiachin, per the Bible was deported "at the turn of the year" of the 8th year of Nebuchadnezzar, meaning right near the end of the 8th year and beginning of the 9th. We know this because Zedekiah who was appointed king would have begun his rule at this time which means most of his first year, if not all of it, matched that of Nebuchadnezzar's 9th year. Thus the 1st year of Zedekiah matched to the 9th year of Nebuchadnezzar gives you an 8-year difference. This would essentially be the same difference sance a month for the exile of Jehoiachin.
This is confirmed when Babylon in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar falls in the 11th year of Zedekiah. Again, an 8-year interval. So the 37th year of exile for Jehoiachin would fall mostly in the 45th year of Neubuchadnezzar, since 37 plus 8 is 45.
So the Bible does give the lengtho of the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 45 years, 2 years longer than the Babylonian records. But that is no big deal since it also assigns a 6-year rule to Darius the Mede which is also not recognized by the Babylonian records, which suggests the Babylonian records were revised.
Thus of the two Babylonian kings prior to Cyrus, we can determine from the Bible the precise length of rule: Nebuchadnezzar 45 years, Darius the Mede, 6 years. The other reigns are not covered.
So please don't incorrectly state that the Bible does not give the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. It does.
Thanks, City Fan
JC
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Hellrider
Now serious researchers will have a chance to peer review it and tear it apart if it is wrong as many suggest it is. ; If 607 BCE stayed only on pages of WTBS publications it would never have ;gotten attention of serious experts.
Maybe. But on the other hand, if (when) serious experts tear it apart, that will not reach the ears of the average JW. The only thing they will hear, is that "a serious scholar, one of our own, even (gasp), has now written a book where he proves the fall of Jerusalem in 607bc". They`ll all applaud, even half of the congregation doesn`t even know or understand why that date is important, the other half knows it is, but doesn`t know why. All they`ll hear is that "a jw showed all those worldly people, yessir, opened up a can of Truth on them, thank you Jehover-god in the name of Jeeesus." The rebuttals of the academic institutions won`t reach the WT-publications, and even if they did, the WT would come up with some idiotic explanation, and the dubs would swallow it down like all the other crap, I mean articles. And even if the WT ever had to admit that Furuli was probably wrong, they`d fix it by a "but doesn`t Jehovah guarantee that 607bc had to be the date, taking the apocalyptic year 1914 into the equation? Yes, he does, we now bring a heart of wisdom in, that with the magnitude of the events of 1914 in mind, all we have to do is count 2520 years backwards bla bla bla". Swallow every word.
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JCanon
Could you folks PLEASE stop misquoting the Bible?
According to Jeremiah 52:28, the exile that Jehoiachin was carried into began in Nebuchadnezzer's seventh year.
The Bible does not say that Jehoiachin was exiled in the seventh year. This Jeremiah 52:28 reference claims a deportation, for instance, of "three thousand and twenty three Jews." When Jehioachin was taken into exile, there were over ten thousand. Thus the reference you need to quote regarding the exile of Jehoiachin is 2 Kings 24:12:
12 At length Je·hoi´a·chin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he with his mother and his servants and his princes and his court officials; and the king of Babylon got to take him in the eighth year of his being king. 13 Then he brought out from there all the treasures of the house of Jehovah and the treasures of the king’s house, and went on to cut to pieces all the gold utensils that Sol´o·mon the king of Israel had made in the temple of Jehovah, just as Jehovah had spoken. 14 And he took into exile all Jerusalem and all the princes and all the valiant, mighty men—ten thousand he was taking into exile—
So please note, the 7th year exile of just 3,020 Jews is not the same as the eighth year exile when over 10,000 were taken into exile with Jehoiachin. This last exile was at the "turn of the year" meaning at the very end of the year just before spring. The Babylonians usually carried out their exiles during this time, right after winter. That means that essentially most of the time of exile for Jehoiachin actually was during the 9th year of Nebuchadnezzar. In that case, most of his 37th year would have fallen in the 45th year of Nebuchadnezzar. Please note that the rule of Zedekiah is practically concentric and parallel with the exile of Jehoiachin since he began to rule at the same time Jehoiachin's exile began. Thus year 11 of Zedekiah is matched to year 19 of Nebuchadnezzar, again, an 8-year difference, meaning most of the 1st year of Zedekah was during the 9th year of Nebudchazzar since it was at the very end of the 8th year that he was appointed.
SUMMARY: Per the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar reigned into his 45th year. Per Babylonian chronicles, which contradict the Bible in many other references, Nebuchadnezzar only ruled for 43 years. This is one more instance where the Bible's chronology is at odds with that of the Babylonians and Persians for this period.
The Bible does not support a 43-year rule for Nebuchadnezzar but indicates his rule was into his 45th year.
The above claim that the 7th year deportation was that of Jehoiachin is simply an error by the person who posted it.
JC
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City Fan
The Bible indeed gives the length of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, which is 45 years. We determine that because the year that Evil-Merodach became king was the 37th year of Jehoiachin's exile. This would represent the accession year of Evil-Merodach and the last year of Nebuchadnezzar.
So you rely on secular records for the order of the Babylonian Kings but not the length of their reign. Another great example of the way you pick and choose data with no logical reason. You missed my point completely. I'm saying if you use the bible alone you would have to guess that Evil-Merodach succeeded Nebuchadnezzar to get the length of his reign. But who's to say in your strange little world of chronology and Persian revisions that some other king didn't reign inbetween.Leolaia's asssignmemt of 43 years is correct. Yours is out by 2, and is only calculated as 45 to help prove your messiahship!!!
I would expect the son of god to be able to add up.
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City Fan
JC,
Could you please answer the following question:
In view of this statement:
Now that we have atomic clocks that should be easy to determine. Well, guess what? The earth rotational speed doesn't vary even within a fraction of a second right now.
Why have over 20 leap seconds been added in the last 30 years with the next to be added at the end of 2005? See this link http://www.livescience.com/technology/050705_leap_second.html or simply do an internet search on 'leap seconds'.
You also said:
But from the records from the Seleucid Period, which is where the Earth's Rotatinoal slow down theory comes from, there is up to 12 hours difference. The amount of time of decline back then was close to 3 minutes every five years, not a fraction of a second.
The difference in the Seleucid period is much less than 12 hours. The difference around the 6th century BC was only around 5 hours. I've been through all the maths with you before on this subject but as usual you choose to ignore anything that disproves your little fantasy. The time difference is cumulative. What do you not understand about that?
Even in 1500 BC the difference between one year and the next would only be about .01 seconds. BUT the difference between both years and the reference year 1820 would be about 20 seconds. Add all these differences up and you get the total time difference. The change in the length of day is only 1.7 ms per century. That is why pyramid calculations still work and why the ancients had the same amount of days as we have.
But from the records from the Seleucid Period, which is where the Earth's Rotatinoal slow down theory comes from
No it doesn't. It also comes from ancient Chinese and Islamic observations, which also confirm the gradual slowdown of the rotation of the Earth. Were the Chinese also part of the 'conspiracy' to revise ancient Babylonian records?
CF.
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Leolaia
I did not say that the text in Jeremiahstates that Jehoiachin was exiled in Nebuchadnezzar's 7th year. I said that the exile itself is mentioned as occurring in the 7th year; the 7th year exile is mentioned specifically in the Babylonian Chronicle and dated precisely:
"In the seventh year (of Nebuchadnezzar) in the month Chislev the king of Babylon assembled his army, and after he had invaded the land of Hatti (Syria/Palestine) he laid siege to the city of Judah. On the second day of the month of Adar he conquered the city and took the king (Jehoiachin) prisoner. He installed in his place a king (Zedekiah) of his own choice, and after he had received rich tribute, he sent (them) forth to Babylon."
The exile of Jehoiachin thus could hardly have occurred in the 9th year of Nebuchadnezzar (in Nisan-to-Nisan reckoning, Adar marks the end of the 7th calendrical year; in Tishri-to-Tishri reckoning, Chislev and Adar were both in the 7th calendrical year as well), or do you have some esoteric way of discerning a double-dating or explaining away the historical value of this statement?
(As a side-note: the reference to the 8th year in 2 Kings would reflect the 7 calendrical years + accession year in Judean regnal reckoning, and the differing numbers of captives can again involve different methods of numbering (e.g. including women + children or not?). It is odd, isn't it, that Jeremiah or his redactor mentions a lesser exile from a year before but failed to list the much greater exile of 10,000 that carried off Judah's king? That's a big omission...)
Finally, please show me where the text specifically states that the exile was "late in the year" (as you say it says) and how "late in the 8th year" thus means "9th year" -- thereby adding another year to Nebuchadnezzar's reign.