Watchtower Gives Up Explaining 607 BCE Date!

by VM44 239 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Jeffro

  Celebrated WT scholars are not in the business of advocating any Babylonian chronology or any list of regnal years for the currently known Babylonian monarchs or kings. That is the businessof other scholars.

  WT 'scholars' are not in the business of advocating any facts that disagree with their flawed doctrines. "The business of other scholars"? Don't you mean the business of "real" scholars?

  Such a project is fraught with danger because biblical chronology proves that there is a twenty year gap when the two chronologies are compared.

  No, Watchtower Society chronology (not 'biblical chronology') alleges (not 'proves') that a twenty-year gap exists. As a sidepoint, trying to use the twenty-year gap as a defense for the Society's interpretations is an absolute joke.

  The seventy years mentioned in the Bible in connection with Jerusalem, its people and the land of Judah are not limited to a period of Babylonian domination or servitude as the Jonsson hypothesis attempts to argue. The evidence is simply not there because the relevant texts clearly refer to a period of servitude-exile and desolation.

  What about the 70 "forgotten" years of Tyre? What about the 70 years in connection with the other nations (Egypt, Uz, the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Sidon, “the region of the sea”, Dedan, Tema, Buz, “those with hair clipped at the temples”, the Arabs, “the mixed company who are residing in the wilderness”, Zimri, Elam and the Medes) to which Jeremiah applied the 70 years? (Jeremiah 25:9-11,17-26) It is quite clear that the 70 years to which Jeremiah referred were of Babylon's dominance (as admitted by the Society in the Isaiah's Prophecy publication on page 253).
• 

  Narkissos

  z, I suppose your Hebrew fonts are not compatible -- and neither are mine.
  I'll give it a try from an online Bible which might better work:
  
  Edit: no it doesn't!

  Leolaia succeeded in including Hebrew words, so maybe she found the trick.
• 

  littlerockguy

  Scholar:

  "There is secular evidence for 607 as you well know for it is based upon the Fall of Babylon and the Return, both these events have testimony from secular sources. the seventy years finds agreement with Josephus, a secular historian and the Fall of Jerusalem in 607 is confirmed biblically and again by Josephus. The foundation of 607 and its calculation is rock solid."

  Can you give any examples of secular evidence and list them so I can look them up? I have not been able to find any shred of other so called evidence you speak of concerning the 607 date as the fall of Jerusalem. As far as I know that is the WTS date.
• 

  Alleymom

  Z and Narkissos ---

  I think the only way to display Hebrew fonts is to save the text as an image file (jpeg) and upload it to an image-hosting site such as strike9, etc.

  Marjorie
• 

  Narkissos
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  Alleymom

  Alleymom

  Marjorie

  Celebrated WT scholars appreciate the fact that Neo-Babylonian chronology has a certain appeal in that it deals with the regnal data mentioned in the Bible but using a regnal based methodology is fraught with danger because it cannot accolunt for a twenty year gap between secular and biblical chronology. For this very reason an event-based methodology is preferred because it avouds many of the problems in comparing secular chron ology with the biblical data.

  The other vexing problem that your chronology and methodology cannot account for the seventy years unless it is either ignored or reduced to fifty years, classed as a round number or interpreted as a period of servitude only.

  WT chronology is simple, event based and teats the seventy years as a genuine historical period of exile-servitude-desolation harmonizing all of Scripture.

  scholar JW

  Neil -- "Celebrated WT scholars" have given accurate information on the reigns of all the neo-Babylonian kings. I accept that accurate information which the "celebrated WT scholars" have given regarding the reigns of the neo-Babylonian kings. My question for you is this: Why don't YOU accept what your "celebrated WT scholars" have had to say about the reigns? Do you think your "celebrated WT scholars" were WRONG? Regards,
  Marjorie
• 

  minimus

  If you guys can't see that "scholar" just says things simply to get you going, you're obviously missing the point. "Scholar" is being funny, folks!
• 

  OldSoul

  Jeffro keeps referring to this quote:

  *** ip-1 chap. 19 pp. 253 Jehovah Profanes the Pride of Tyre ***
  "She Must Return to Her Hire"21 Isaiah goes on to prophesy: "It must occur in that day that Tyre must be forgotten seventy years, the same as the days of one king." (Isaiah 23:15a) Following the destruction of the mainland city by the Babylonians, the island-city of Tyre will "be forgotten." True to the prophecy, for the duration of "one king"---the Babylonian Empire---the island-city of Tyre will not be an important financial power. Jehovah, through Jeremiah, includes Tyre among the nations that will be singled out to drink the wine of His rage. He says: "These nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years." (Jeremiah 25:8-17, 22, 27) True, the island-city of Tyre is not subject to Babylon for a full 70 years, since the Babylonian Empire falls in 539 B.C.E. Evidently, the 70 years represents the period of Babylonia's greatest domination---when the Babylonian royal dynasty boasts of having lifted its throne even above "the stars of God." (Isaiah 14:13) Different nations come under that domination at different times. But at the end of 70 years, that domination will crumble. What will then happen to Tyre?

  We have been repeatedly told by the WTS and CCoJW that the way to properly interpret prophecy is to examine what the terms used meant in other instances of prophecy fulfilled. This paragraph, much more recent than any chronological discussion of 607 B.C.E. that Scholar can appeal to, raises a very interesting question.

  Since they use "worldly chronology" to determine the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C.E., why do they choose not to insist that "worldly chronology" is wrong in this case in the same way they insist it is wrong regarding 607 B.C.E.? If we apply this identical understanding and thinking to the 70 years of Jerusalem, then we have no need to look for a phantom king.

  Jeffro raises an excellent point.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
• 

  Hellrider

  Scholar wrote:

  Celebrated WT scholars are not in the business of advocating any Babylonian chronology or any list of regnal years for the currently known Babylonian monarchs or kings. That is the businessof other scholars. Such a project is fraught with danger because biblical chronology proves that there is a twenty year gap when the two chronologies are compared.

  Excuse me? Remember THIS thread, Scholar: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/96152/1.ashx

  ...in which you claim:

  The WT publications have informed the scholarly community of a correct, biblical chronology which cannot be refuted by scholars as it based upon a God's Word which is far superior than the opinions and theories of secular scholars.

  And this is a fantastic claim, that cannot be be forgotten so soon. If this is the case, please: PROVIDE US WITH THE CHRONOLOGY! Or is it a secret? Unlike your "mystical 20-year gap", secular chronology gives a clear, precise and detailed account of the lengths of reigns for each and every one of the five kings. Your precious WTS are the ones that have created the gap of 20 years by insisting on the 607-date /which was 606 for years before they figured out there was no year 0, ha ha - by insisting that the 70 years refer to a "complete desolation of the land", and not the power and influence of Babylon over Judeah. The word "desolation" can mean so much, and is much easier to explain than the entire list of problems created by the 607-claim. If I was a JW, I could easily have said that "for some 1800 years, the world was spiritually desolated, but then the celebrated C.T. Russel and his Bible students entered the scene bla bla bla", and the meaning of the word "desolated" would be easily understood by all JWs. But this is of course irrelevant, because your WTS had allready decided upon 1914 as the year of Christs return (first in the flesh, of course, then that was changed later on, in the late 30s), as you clearly admit here:

  The other useless dates of 587 and 586 have no significance for Christians today as such dates lack prophetic significance, these dates are 'dead-end dates, are of interest to apostates, unbelieving secular scholars and those who are jealous of the spiritual paradise enjoyed by the Witnesses.

  So you pretty much admit it yourself: It doesn`t really matter what really happened 2500 years ago, it just matters that we set a date that would agree with your celebrated WTS`s already decided-upon date of 1914.

  And that, Scholar, is simply pathetic. I don`t know why people here, myself included, bother arguing with you anyway. There must be something about you, the extreme arrogance and ignorance, that we recognise from back in our days of dubdom.
• 

  kid-A

  Scholar is a daily reminder of why we left the borg collective in the first place. He is a perfectly programmed Watchtower( TM ) android.