Is that what you would say if I was one of your "studies" or "interested ones"? Or would you give me the specific places in the books themselves? I dont mean to come across as being sarcastic when I ask these questions.
Scholar, please don't post and run...
by in a new york bethel minute 99 Replies latest watchtower bible
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AK - Jeff
Scholar -
I do not have the works of Josephus. Would you please post the quotations, locations, and the specific way in which this proves your point? That is the way to have a fair debate.
You seem to always dodge the actual questions. Why is that?
Please list the references - no red herring please. IF u are right and can actually prove it - there are probably people on this forum that would go running back to the WTS. Since you are a WTS apologist that should make you happy. SO prove it please!
Jeff
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AK - Jeff
Scholar -
If u reply, please do not think I am ignoring you. I must get some things done and will check back in while.
Jeff
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Hellrider
Never mind the PM, LittleRockGuy, I looked around in Josephus a little more, and found his full story on the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Turns out Josephus wasn`t a dummy after all, because...
SCHOLAR! You are wrong, wrong, wrong again! - although I can understand why you were mistaken, there is one place in Josephus where it says that Nebuhcadnessar, while he was still crown prince, initiated the siege on Jerusalem on the orders of his father, and then destroyed it. However, in that particular passage, the nature of that siege, or how long it lasted, is not mentioned! You should then read "Antiquities of the Jews, book X, chapter 8", in which we read Josephus full description of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple:
"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".
Perhaps you should do your homework before you come on claiming that Josephus supports the WTS`s claim! When both the Bible and Josephus says the land "laid desolate", you are ripping out of context. "Laid desolate" doesn`t mean that the Temple was destroyed right away, as the WTS insists, it just means that people were taken away (in groups, this took a long time back then, of course), some were probably also fleeing, and although this process took a long time, there is nothing wrong in claiming that this meant "desolation", especially when taking everything else, all the evidence, into consideration.
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AK - Jeff
"Laid desolate" doesn`t mean that the Temple was destroyed right away, as the WTS insists, it just means that people were taken away (in groups, this took a long time back then, of course), some were probably also fleeing, and although this process took a long time, there is nothing wrong in claiming that this meant "desolation", especially when taking everything else, all the evidence, into consideration.
Hellrider - thanx for that quote.
Do I have it right that the WT insists that the Temple was destroyed in 607 BCE ? Why didn't they just claim that 70 years of desolation started then and twist things to make that the start of the 7 Gentile times? Why did they insist that the destruction of the Temple is the start of them?
They just twist and turn things the way they want them anyway, so why did they take a stand that is so easily derailed?
Jeff
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OldSoul
It wasn't as easily derailed when they first made the claim. Remember, the seven times is prophecy that was originally used to support 1914 as the year for the DESTRUCTION of this system, which understanding makes much more sense in light of the context and what the JWs claim the objects represent. At the end of the seven times Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom did not become God's, nor was his kingship ended.
So to whom do we liken Nebuchadnezzar in his role restored to the throne at the end of the seven times? Well, who supposedly ascended the throne in 1914? The problem isn't with 607 B.C.E. at all. In fact, the WTS likely prays that we will continue distracted by that comparative trifle. The problem is the unfounded interpretation of the prohecy that caused them to need 607 B.C.E. as the year Jeruslame was destroyed.
Interesting.
OldSoul
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Hellrider
Ak-Jeff:
Yes, you got it right, they INSIST that the Temple was destroyed in 607 bc. I said that to Scholar in another post too, that that`s where they messed up. They should have insisted that the 70 years started when Nebuchadnezzar started his attacks on Judah, which led to the dsolation. His attacks started allready when he was crown prince, on his fathers orders. But I think Old Soul is right, when they first made the claim, it wasn`t as easily derailed. They kind of made their bed, and now they have to lie in it! (...and lie, lie, lie, again and again and again...) The analogy they were trying to fit, was this: a) The Temple was destroyed, that means that "godliness" began, God left his chosen people, and he left them for a prophetic "7 times", aka 2520 days, applyin the day for a year-rule= 2520 years until his return, that gets us to 1914, oh what an apocalyptic year, must have been Jesus invisible return, blah blah blah, you know the drill.
But yes, they could have claimed that God "left mankind" in 607, although the Temple wasn`t destroyed then. The "70 years of desolation" that both Jeremiah and Daniel are referring to to, began around 607, give or take a couple of years.
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scholar
littlerockguy
test message
scholar
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scholar
littlerockguy
The following references to Josephus are from the work of William Whiston, 1964 published by Kregel Publications:
Antiquities 10;7:3
10: 9:7
11:1:1
20:10:2
Wars Of the Jews
5:9:4
Against Apion
1:19
1:21
Enjoy your research whereupon it is self evident that the seventy years was a period of exile-desolation-servitude.
scholar JW
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scholar
Hellrider
You are plain wrong because the seventy years according to the Bible and confirmed by Josephus was a period of desolation of the land, Jerusalem and its temple and clearly that only occurred in Zedikiah's 11 th year and Neb's 18 th year whic is the date 607. Josephus agrees with the findings of celebrated WT scholars.
scholar JW