The 1914 Doctrine and The Threat of the Egibi Business Tablets

by VM44 349 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Jeffro

  scholar said:

  blah blah blah

  The simple fact is that neither malkut nor the English word 'kingship' do anything at all to validly shift the time period referred to in Daniel 1:1 to a later time. Josephus only confirms my chronology which perfectly corelates Nebuchadnezzar's 8th year with Jehoiakim's 11th, with absolutely no need for rediculous mathematical gymnastics.

  Your post indicates that you hate the things that you formerly believed and are a person who prefers the lie over the Truth.

  It is a natural response to hate the fact that you have been taught a lie. I note that you capitalized Truth. The problem is that the Truth™ simply is not true.
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  Cygnus

  I just bothered to read this thread and it's El Oh El worthy. Scholar, when is Dave Letterman booking you for his show?

  This is such a complicated issue, and the year Nebuchadnezzar blinded and killed Zedekiah, putting a temporary end to the davidic throneship and beginning the times of the nations is nothing jesus taught, paul taught, peter taught, or anybody else but nelson barbour taught, with some dating refinements made by f.w. franz. Hardly any JW today besides scholar, milton henschel and rolf furuli could explain it today.

  Scholar, surely you have other hobbies. Tell me, what is your native tongue and what might be a synonym for "celebrated"?
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Now you are seeing the light. You finally accept the fact that Neb's eigth year coincides with the 11th year of Jehoiakim's reign which brought about after three years of vassalage to Neb, this invasion by him and the death of Jehoiakim. For this reason, the third year of Jehoiakim'svassalage to Nebuchadnezzer brought about his downfall and the deportation of Daniel and other captives to Babylon. Hence. this removes the mathematical gymnastics imposed by those who seek to relocate the three years of Jehoiakims' reign to the beginning and not to the end.

  Bad history=bad chronology: Good history=good chronology

  Another of scholar's maxims on chronology

  scholar JW
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  scholar

  Cygnus

  Another synonym for 'celebrated' would be 'exalted'!

  scholar JW
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  Jeffro

  Now you are seeing the light. You finally accept the fact that Neb's eigth year coincides with the 11th year of Jehoiakim's reign which brought about after three years of vassalage to Neb, this invasion by him and the death of Jehoiakim. For this reason, the third year of Jehoiakim'svassalage to Nebuchadnezzer brought about his downfall and the deportation of Daniel and other captives to Babylon.

  LOL. Don't try to make it seem as though I have finally conceded to some point of yours. I have never said anything other than that Nebuchadnezzar's 8th year is Jehoiakim's 11th. However, the rest of your statement is a lie. Nebuchadnezzar was paid a tribute by Jehoiakim in his final 3 years, and when he refused to pay it, he suffered the consequences. He wasn't appointed as king by Nebuchadnezzar, and his reign did not change in any spectacular fashion to justify counting his 'kingship' from some other point.

  Hence. this removes the mathematical gymnastics imposed by those who seek to relocate the three years of Jehoiakims' reign to the beginning and not to the end.

  You seem to think it is more straightforward to say that Jehoiakim's third year was actually his 11th in order to make events fit your interpretation, and then you allege that it is more complicated to say that Jehoiakim's 3rd year was his 3rd year. The accounts of the events in Daniel 1:1 and 2 Kings 24:13 are obviously describing different events, and it was Jehoiachin who was king during that deportation after the siege.

  Daniel 2:1 talks about Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year. Using the accession-year system, this was the 3rd year (accession, first, second = 3 years) that Daniel had been in Babylon (Compare Daniel 1:5). The only way that it works is if Daniel was taken just prior to Nebuchadnezzar's accession, learned the Babylonian ways for 3 years, and then during Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year (3rd absolute year), Daniel was presented to Nebuchadnezzar. There are absolutely no mathematical gymnastics. No twisting or justifying what the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign referred to. Just simple straightforward descriptions of the events, just as with the clear reading of Daniel 1:1.
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  You are finally coming around to our line of thinking about the events in Jehoiakim's reign. Yes that final three years of Jehoiakim's reign referred to in Daniel 1:1 and 2 Kings 24:1 and by Josephus in Ant. Book 10:6:2 was a period of vassalage and rebellion tol Nebuchadnezzer who invaded Judah, ended Jeholiakims's reign and deported booty to Babylon as further described in 2 Kings 24:13 all relating to that one event. Well done!!!!!!!!!

  Yes that last third year was the 11 th year of Jehoiakim's reign as also long understood by Jewish scholars who interpret matters similarly as did Josephus. This is in fact traditional Jewish interpretation and was not in fact invented by Wt scholars.

  You err again and I will correct you once again. Daniel 2:1 does not refer to the second regnal year of Neb's reign but to his second year of kingship or as World Ruler who had conquered Jerusalem in 607 so his second year is properly conyted from that epochal date. This is the view of many commentators.. Your interpretation of matters concerning Daniel 2:1 and 1:1 is complex and the subject of much endless dispute by scholars. The interpretation offered by celebrated WT scholars is easy, accurate historically and is theological significant.

  scholar JW
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  Jeffro

  You are finally coming around to our line of thinking about the events in Jehoiakim's reign. Yes that final three years of Jehoiakim's reign referred to in Daniel 1:1 and 2 Kings 24:1 and by Josephus in Ant. Book 10:6:2 was a period of vassalage and rebellion tol Nebuchadnezzer who invaded Judah, ended Jeholiakims's reign and deported booty to Babylon as further described in 2 Kings 24:13 all relating to that one event. Well done!!!!!!!!!

  You funny little man... you do make me laugh. I'm not "coming around" to your rediculous line of thinking. Daniel 1:1 does not refer to Jehoiakim's final three years unless he only reigned for a total of 4 years (including accession year), which we all know he didn't. 2 Kings 24 does not refer to the same event as Daniel 1:1, as already explained. Apparently you have misinterpreted something I said to come to the conclusion that I was agreeing with your rediculous mangling of the events.

  Yes that last third year was the 11 th year of Jehoiakim's reign as also long understood by Jewish scholars who interpret matters similarly as did Josephus. This is in fact traditional Jewish interpretation and was not in fact invented by Wt scholars.

  Rather than rely on tradition, I prefer to rely on facts. The only possible time for Jehoiakim's third year in Daniel 1:1 that is fully consistent with the bible, extant cuneiform writings, Berossus and Josephus is his third year, based on the accession-year system as used in Babylon.

  You err again and I will correct you once again. Daniel 2:1 does not refer to the second regnal year of Neb's reign but to his second year of kingship or as World Ruler who had conquered Jerusalem in 607 so his second year is properly conyted from that epochal date. This is the view of many commentators.. Your interpretation of matters concerning Daniel 2:1 and 1:1 is complex and the subject of much endless dispute by scholars. The interpretation offered by celebrated WT scholars is easy, accurate historically and is theological significant.

  As we have already been through, there is no basis for this 'year of kingship starting from some other point' rubbish. I don't know how it can be viewed as complex that Jehoiakim's 3rd year is Jehoiakim's 3rd year and Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year is Nebuchadnezzar's 2nd year... (The only possible confusion I can think of that you might be happen is if you still don't fully grasp the accession-year system? Do you need another diagram?)

  It cannot get any simpler than this, and is much less complicated than the Society's rediculous 'Nebuchadnezzar's rule relative to Jehoiakim's rule relative to Nebuchadnezzar's rule' anomaly.
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  Alleymom

  Neil ---

  You still seem to think you can discern shades of meaning in the Hebrew text by using the NWT's English renderings. Your methodology (to use one of your favorite words) is flawed. Start with the Hebrew. I realize you don't know Hebrew, but you can at least read the standard lexicons. You told me you own Brown-Driver-Briggs.

  Here is a scan of page 575 of BDB. This is part of the entry for "malkuth." Note that they list Daniel 1:1 under the definition "reign."

  Regards,
  Marjorie
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  scholar

  Alleymom

  Marjorie

  Thank you for the posting of a copy of the Lexicon regarding the meaning of malkut but I have already two Hebrew Lexicons in my personal library including the one you have posted. I am not the sort of person who is into reading tea leaves or engaged in some sort of divination in regard to the use of the NWT as you might suppose. The facts of the matter are these:

  Some lexicons give 'reign' as a meaning for malkut even citing refernces in Daniel in support of this meaning. However, other meanings are also offered including 'kingdom or realm" as indicated by the quoted lexicon. Other such meanings also offered by repected reference works include that of ; royal power, dominion, royal dignity, kingdom, royal. So, this illustrates that this Hebrew word has a broad semantic range.

  However, the meaning of malkut takes on a much broader dimension when considered by theological dictionaries of the OT and for the benefit of people like Jeffro, such publications are not published by Jehovah's Winesses. The DOTTE under a discussion of the the root word melek, states that malkut denotes a stronger emphasis on the activity of ruling...refers to the right or office of ruling as king". Such an observation indicates that it is not the duration of regnal years typified by a 'reign' but the characteristic or nature of that reign is implied by this theologically nuanced word.

  To further prove the matter, I draw your attention to a comment made by no less an illustrious authority that the TDOT, Volume 8, p.360 wherein it is observed that this "Aramaic term, with its more sharply accentuated character, was better suited as a designation for an institution that was largely dominated by foreign influence". Such a comment justifiably in my view, could refer to the institution of 'kingship' dominated by a foreign political power expressed as a vassalage. In view of these facts, biblical history and the writings of Josephus, it is no wonder that the NWT Committe saw fit to translate malkut as 'kingship' in Daniel 1:1; 2:1 etc.

  But theological implication looms even further. I have made the comment to Jeffro in a recent posting which was trivialized by him, that scholars have expressed the view that malkut in the case of Daniel 1:1, refers here in" an absolute sense for world kingdom which use continues in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel. The issue here is whether Daniel ascribed such world kingship to Jehoiakim, and by implication to the Davidic line, for the duration of its reign." says Klaus Koch in his Daniel, BKAT 22,1986-. Koch's comment appears in the Hermeneia commentary on Daniel by John Collins, 1993, p.36.

  The foregoing information has by no means exhausted the comments by other commentaries on this problematic passage. Such comments confirm the interpretation by Jewish scholars that the 'third year of Jehoiakim pertains not to the beginning or soon thereafter but to "the last three years of the revolt, Jehoiakim dying under Neb's hand". Daniel, ICC series, by James Montgomery,1972, p.115.

  Kind regards

  scholar JW

  BA MA
• 

  Jeffro

  Scholar said:

  However, the meaning of malkut takes on a much broader dimension when considered by theological dictionaries of the OT and for the benefit of people like Jeffro, such publications are not published by Jehovah's Winesses. The DOTTE under a discussion of the the root word melek, states that malkut denotes a stronger emphasis on the activity of ruling...refers to the right or office of ruling as king". Such an observation indicates that it is not the duration of regnal years typified by a 'reign' but the characteristic or nature of that reign is implied by this theologically nuanced word.

  And which people are they, 'scholar'? Either you are genuinely naive to assume that I think such lexicons are published by the Society, or you are saying it in an attempt to mock me. In either case, your statement betrays your ignorance.

  Your statements on malkut indicating its various uses still do not serve to prove the Society's suggestion that the 'reign', 'kingship' or whatever starts from some point other than the beginning of the subject's rule (pun intended).
  

  But theological implication looms even further. I have made the comment to Jeffro in a recent posting which was trivialized by him, that scholars have expressed the view that malkut in the case of Daniel 1:1, refers here in" an absolute sense for world kingdom which use continues in the Aramaic chapters of Daniel. The issue here is whether Daniel ascribed such world kingship to Jehoiakim, and by implication to the Davidic line, for the duration of its reign." says Klaus Koch in his Daniel, BKAT 22,1986-. Koch's comment appears in the Hermeneia commentary on Daniel by John Collins, 1993, p.36.

  I certainly did not 'trivialize' the matter. On the contrary, I correctly pointed out that Jehoiakim never was a "world ruler". There is no dispute that the world power passed from Assyria to Babylon. Of course, it is simple misdirection debating whether the word 'kingship' can be used instead of 'reign', as neither word supports counting Jehoiakim's kingship from some point other than the beginning of his reign.

  In any case, according to the Society's own interpretations of its "world view", the "world rulership" was taken away from Jerusalem in 607, not three years prior when Jehoiakim started paying tribute. So by their own reckoning, if Jehoiakim's reign should be counted as beginning from some other point, the only justifiable time by their stipulation would actually be his 11th year. Otherwise they would be forced to say that the "appointed times of the nations" (a misuse of Luke 21:24) began 3 years prior, back at the (false) beginning of Jehoiakim's 'kingship' in his 8th year.