by VM44 239 Replies latest watchtower bible
Jeffro
It was not fifty years but seventy years for that is what is stated in Against Apion 1:21. All that we have here is a scibal error because 50 years cannot be placed anywhere, the Bible omits it and cannot hav e a beginning and end point because you do not accept 537 and i do not accept 587 so no chronology can be constructed with fifty years.
scholar JW
Hellrider
It cannot be said in truth that Josephus supported any modern day date as such dates did not exist in his day. All that can be said is that Josephus agree with the history of the Bible in relation to the seventy years and that such a view accords with the view of celebrated WT scholars.
scholar JW
Since "Scholar" is obviously having fun with us by by continually using the phrase "celebrated Watchtower scholars," while refusing to personally identify these "scholars" I thought he wouldn't mind if I took a guess at their identity. : )
It was not fifty years but seventy years for that is what is stated in Against Apion 1:21. All that we have here is a scibal error because 50 years cannot be placed anywhere, the Bible omits it and cannot hav e a beginning and end point because you do not accept 537 and i do not accept 587 so no chronology can be constructed with fifty years.
Scholar,
There are several basic flaws in logic in this post. Your apparent position is that if you cannot find a specific place in the Bible to correspond to the 50 years Josephus mentions that there must have been a scribal error. However, any third grader can tell you that 50 definitely "goes into" 70. You are making yourself seem more stupid and ignorant than a third grader. The 50 years could fall anywhere within the 70, and still be correctly supported by Josephus.
It is you that insists on constructing a chronology from the resulting date. The effort of a real Scholar would be devoted to determining the date itself, not how well that date fit into the framework of tribal lore in the area where the events took place. Your "Scholarship" and that of your celebrated WT scholars seems more eschatological in nature, looking for ways to attribute import to various dates instead of trying to uncover and reveal the dates of events.
You first arrive at the conlusion you need and then force the data to fit your conclusion, changing the date from 606 B.C.E. to 607 B.C.E. instead of moving 1914 to 1915, inventing a second fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy wherein every element means something distinctly different than what Daniel stated that it meant, and even attributing error to scribes when there is no basis for such an assumption, all in order to preserve an illusion of infallibility regarding prophecy. You have no claim to scholarship that I can see. If you once did, you have allowed yourself to become so thoroughly deluded by the "infallible doctrine" of your church leaders that such a claim is rendered null.
OldSoul
Old Soul
Not at all. There is no way that the fifty years can fit into the context of seventy years. Scholars of Josephus have opined that the original reading was seventy rather fifty and this would harmonize with the seventy years not fifty years mentioned in the previous paragraph 19 of chapter One. In addition there is no chronological construct applicable for a fifty years but of course there is for the seventy year period. In short, the fifty year period is a nothing period.
What you fail to realize that any chronology is constructed on the basis of methodology and interpretation and chronologies differ because of different methods and views. In other words, chronologies are deductive in nature, our chronology is event based whereas the populist are regnal based thus arriving at different conclusions.
Celebrated Wt scholars adjusted their chronology with new and latest research and so have other scholars operating on similar lines. The book of Daniel is prophetic in outlook with a basis in history and this leads to much larger fulfillments of prophecy. Indeed, Daniel as a book was to be sealed up until the time of the end so it is no surprise that Daniel is about eschatology including the Gentile Times. It appears that you do not like Daniel and you have littel interest in its contents.
scholar JW
So-o...you still haven't answered MY simple question, for you to 'Name some names...' you tell us who these "celebrated WT scholars" are. That way everyone can look up their educational experiences, we'll see if they can even read Greek, Hebrew, etc. We'll see in the light of day what makes them "scholars."
If you cannot prove this arguement, if you and the WT insist on 'anonymous' scholars, instead of being honest by allowing people to ask questions and criticsize...people will suspect you of dishonesty and fraud.
And your answer is...???
Rabbit
Scholar: ???!! I just PROVED to you that Josephus DON`T support your 607-claim! Did you not read my post, or didn`t you understand it? Do you have to be spoonfed? Let me try to explain it to you again. Yes, Appion says:
"OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE JEWISH TEMPLE.
He (Nabopollasar) sent his son Nabuchodonosor with a great army against Egypt, and against Judea, upon his being informed that they had revolted from him; and by that means he subdued them all, and set fire to the temple that was at Jerusalem; and removed our people entirely out of their own country, and transferred them to Babylon, and our city remained in a state of desolation during the interval of seventy years, until the days of Cyrus king of Persia. (He then says, that) this Babylonian king conquered Egypt, and Syria, and Phœnicia, and Arabia, and exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldæa.—Joseph. contr. Appion. lib. 1. c. 19."
This could of course be interpreted like you say. However: In "Antiquities of the Jews", book X, chapter 8, Josephus says:
"5. And now it was that the king of Babylon sent Nebuzaradan, the general of his army, to Jerusalem, to pillage the temple, who had it also in command to burn it and the royal palace, and to lay the city even with the ground, and to transplant the people into Babylon. Accordingly, he came to Jerusalem in the eleventh year of king Zedekiah, and pillaged the temple, and carried out the vessels of God, both gold and silver, and particularly that large laver which Solomon dedicated, as also the pillars of brass, and their chapiters, with the golden tables and the candlesticks; and when he had carried these off, he set fire to the temple in the fifth month, the first day of the month, in the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah, and in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar: he also burnt the palace, and overthrew the city. "
Let me explain this yo you: IF you are to claim that the quoted text from Appion means that Nebuchadnezzar went with his army against Judah and "laid it desolate for 70 years", allready while he was crown prince, and acted on behalf of his father, in 624 bc, then he would have had to come back in his 18th year as king to destroy the Temple (in 607), because the Bible says "in the eigteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he destroyed the city", and so does Josephus in "Antiquities of the Jews", book X. However, this completely destroys the validity of your claim that "Josephus says in Apion that Jerusalem was laid desolated for 70 years". If he was to have cleared the city of people in 624 (as the Appion-quote says, according to your thinking) - only to come back to an an empty city in 607 and to burn the Temple, this would mean that we would have to count from 624 - 537 as "years of desolation", a full 87 years! And nowhere does the Bible speak of "87 years of desolation". And the Bible nowhere says that Nebuchadnezzar came, conquered, took all the people away while he was still crown prince, then left for 18-19 years, only to come back to destroy a Temple in an empty town, that many years later. This is of course completely stupid, but this is what you would have had to claim, for Josephus and WTS doctrine to agree. It is clear that Appion must be read in light of what Josephus says in "Antiquities of the jews", book X.
Bringing Josephus into this, didn`t help your, and the WTS`s case at all, Scholar!
Hellrider
Both quotations from Josephus support the interpretation of the seventy years a presented by celebrated WTscholars, namely that the seventy years was an interval beginning with Nebuchadnezzer's destroying the temple and depopulating Judah for seventy years in his 18 th year and the 11th year of the last Judean king, Zedekiah. Further, the is interval ended not at the Fall of Babylon in 539 but with the release of the exiles under Cyrus in 537. Josephus provides the secular evidence for our calculation of 607 from the establishment of that seventy years. Josephus is a withess for our defence of 6O7, Period!
scholar JW
Scholar, you`re just simply never going to get it.
Both quotations from Josephus support the interpretation of the seventy years a presented by celebrated WTscholars, namely that the seventy years was an interval beginning with Nebuchadnezzer's destroying the temple and depopulating Judah for seventy years in his 18 th year and the 11th year of the last Judean king, Zedekiah
Ah, ok. So your claim is that in Appion, Nebuchadnezzar was sent by his father (because that is what the quote says, he was sent by his father!!) around...624, or 625? - and then he must have moved very slowly, using about 18 - 19 years to move his ass and his army into Judah and Jerusalem, only to destroy the temple in 607. Aha, that makes sense. I get it. How stupid of me.
Josephus is a withess for our defence of 6O7, Period!Only in your WTS - fantasy. Period!
And Zedekiahs 11th year was in 587, no matter how your WTS has twisted the jewish king-chronology to fit in with the 607-claim!
http://www.abdicate.net/chronology.asp?page=68&order=CreationYear&fonly=False#here
It was not fifty years but seventy years for that is what is stated in Against Apion 1:21. All that we have here is a scibal error because 50 years cannot be placed anywhere, the Bible omits it and cannot hav e a beginning and end point because you do not accept 537 and i do not accept 587 so no chronology can be constructed with fifty years.
What evidence do you have that this is a scribal error? I have already indicated how the two references are consistent. When did I say I don't accept 537? I only said that I don't rely on the Society's interpretations for the selection of that year, and that it could have been in that year, but not by necessity. Also, it is completely possible that Josephus, who based his information on Berossus' data from the Seleucid period, may have approximated the fifty years for which the temple was desolated.
For every problem with the 607 issue, you choose to ignore the facts with weak excuses, contradictory reasoning, and absolutely no logic to achieve whatever conclusion the Watchtower Society wants you to. If an interpretation does not agree with the known facts, then the interpretation is simply wrong. You continue to claim that the interpretation of the Society is 'the facts' without any actual basis whatsoever.
