Posts by AnnOMaly

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Hi Jeffro. The letter to Artaxerxes involves objections to rebuilding the city:

(Ezra 4:11-16) . . .“To King Ar·ta·xerx′es from your servants, the men of the region Beyond the River: ... They are rebuilding the rebellious and wicked city, and they are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations.  Now let it be known to the king that if this city should be rebuilt and its walls finished, they will not give tax, tribute, or toll, and it will result in a loss to the treasuries of the kings. ...  We are making known to the king that if this city is rebuilt and its walls are finished, you will have no control of the region Beyond the River.”

(Ezra 4:17-23) . . .Greetings! And now the official document that you sent us has been clearly read before me. ...  Now issue an order for these men to stop work, so that the city may not be rebuilt until I issue an order . . . [Cp. Neh. 1:3; 2:3, 5, 17.]

... Now after the copy of the official document of King Ar·ta·xerx′es had been read before Re′hum and Shim′shai the scribe and their colleagues, they quickly went to Jerusalem to the Jews and used force to stop them.

On the other hand, objections and schemes to halt the rebuilding of the temple were occurring between Cyrus' and Darius' reigns:

(Ezra 4:3-5) . . .“You have no share with us in building a house to our God, for we alone will build it to Jehovah the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.” Then the people of the land were continually discouraging the people of Judah and disheartening them from building. They hired advisers against them to frustrate their plans all the days of King Cyrus of Persia until the reign of King Da·ri′us of Persia.

(Ezra 4:24) . . .It was then that the work on the house of God, which was in Jerusalem, came to a halt; and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Da·ri′us of Persia.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

if I ask AnnOmally she will tell me 586.

Actually, I would tell you 587.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Hi Jeffro,

Ezra 4:1-7 explicitly states that temple work began during the reign of Cyrus , and then was halted during Cyrus' reign, remained on hold throughout the the reigns of 'Ahasuerus' ( Cambyses II ) and 'Artaxerxes' ( Bardiya ), and then resumed in Darius ' second year.

As explained above, equating Ahasuerus with Cambyses and Artaxerxes with Bardiya is an outdated view. It mainly comes from older commentaries where they had less archaeological data to go on. There is no indication from history that Cambyses was ever given the name Ahasuerus or that Bardiya was also named Artaxerxes. So 'Ahasuerus' is Xerxes (the Gk. form of the name) and Artaxerxes naturally refers to Artaxerxes I. Ezra talks about the opposition to rebuilding the temple and then digresses to the later opposition, in Xerxes' and Artaxerxes' reigns, concerning the rebuilding of the city walls, before returning to the subject of the temple.

Hi Bart,

AnnO - Silly me, I forgot than in la la land when history does not agree the the NWT and WT truth, then just make it up, oh the intellect they show!!!

In this instance, it's unfair to say they made up those identifications - they are just relying on older scholarship. If they changed their minds on it, I don't think it would affect the bigger chronological picture as far as they are concerned.

26

E-Watchman? Thoughts?

by thedepressedsoul in

i stumbled upon the website e-watchman today and while i didn't have time to read over everything i found this thoughts so far quite interesting.

recently when reading matthew i can't help but feel that jesus warnings about the pharisees also applied to the gb and elders.

actually everytime jesus brought them up i realized how similar they are.

AnnOMaly

Excellent bio, donut!

"Robert Has Become King!" - yes! LOL. Spot on.

26

October 2014 Kingdom Ministry (KM - 10/2014 PDF)

by WatchTower87 in

our kingdom ministry october 2014 .

instruction: press the 'skip ad' button top right, you should then see the download screen more easily.

no virus ;-).

AnnOMaly

My comment would be: "The demonstration was effective because it was contrived to be so. Make me the householder and let's see how effective it is."

12

Aug 1/87 WT p 32 - WT Index 1930-1985 has indexed EVERY publication

by berrygerry in

interesting quote on the back page.. "this new book has indexed every publication produced by the watch tower bible and tract society since 1930.".

(also on the cd wt library).

funny then that the life everlasting book (1966) never made it in..

AnnOMaly

Interesting quote on the back page.

"This new book has indexed every publication produced by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society since 1930."

(Also on the CD WT Library)

Funny then that the Life Everlasting book (1966) never made it in.

OBVIOUSLY, it was talking about the hardcopy Index - that big, heavy, doorstop of a book.

Over the years, the WT CD-ROM has weeded out, albeit in patchy fashion, older publications and some references to them.

Don't throw out your doorstop Index 1930-85. Hubby was donating ours to the KH ('we don't need it with having the CD-ROM') but I made him bring it back. It has references in there the CD-ROM does not have.

26

October 2014 Kingdom Ministry (KM - 10/2014 PDF)

by WatchTower87 in

our kingdom ministry october 2014 .

instruction: press the 'skip ad' button top right, you should then see the download screen more easily.

no virus ;-).

AnnOMaly

Thanks WT87!

So they are going to spend a whole Service Meeting discussing the beliefs about 1914! They are going to use the 'Conversation With A Neighbor' two-parter and a chart from the soon-to-be-published Nov. WT to help.

Oh boy.

100

Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?

by Bart Belteshassur in

i haven't come across any arguement that does not involve secular history and external references.

in fact the wt can not get to 607 bce without using external sources as in knowing that they need to get back from 1914 ce to 607 bce, and botching an argument using an external date as reference to create their start point at 537 bce.. i realize that to get the final date we must provide a fixed figure from somewhere which can only be a historical source, but the objective would be to disprove the wt flim flam.

once that is achieve we can use which ever fixed historical point they wish to chose.

AnnOMaly

Hi Bart,

In the absence of a king's name, it is still an assumption to believe a far later king's time (i.e. Darius) was meant. He's first mentioned in chapter 4. Yes, it is hard to untangle the timeline with all the parentheses added to the book, but it is more natural to think the writer, having not specified a new king's name, was still referring to the time of Cyrus.

I find Dr. Constable's online commentary helpful here (noting the table on p. 10).

Regarding Hag. 2:15. Maybe he's using prophetic hyperbole - after all, Haggai 1:12-15 indicates that the people had listened and had already started work on the temple a few weeks earlier than his statement at 2:15, so surely some stones had already been placed on other stones. Yes, 2:18 is phrased awkwardly and must be seen in the light of Ezra and Haggai's earlier statements.

As regards chapter 4 the chronology is a mess due to very poor redaction, and I do not know how this viewed in WT land.

The WT has a very outdated view on this.

*** w06 1/15 p. 18 Highlights From the Book of Ezra ***

PERSIAN KINGS FROM 537 TO 467 B.C.E.

Cyrus the Great (Ezra 1:1) died in 530 B.C.E.

Cambyses, or Ahasuerus (Ezra 4:6) 530-22 B.C.E.

Artaxerxes—Bardiya (Ezra 4:7) 522 B.C.E. (Assassinated after
or Gaumata reigning only seven months)

Darius I (Ezra 4:24) 522-486 B.C.E.

Xerxes, or Ahasuerus 486-75 B.C.E. (Ruled as
coregent with Darius I from
496-86 B.C.E.)

Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra 7:1) 475-24 B.C.E.

[Footnote]Xerxes is not mentioned in the book of Ezra. He is referred to as Ahasuerus in the Bible book of Esther.

Instead of renaming kings (without any support from history) and squashing them in in chronological order before Darius, it makes more sense to understand that the writer of Ezra began a giant parenthesis at 4:6 - as if he's saying, 'While we're on the subject of opposition to our temple rebuilding, I might as well mention what happened later in Xerxes' and Artaxerxes' reigns about our city rebuilding.' Then at 4:24 the writer resumes the narrative about the temple rebuilding.

As Sheshbazzar was made governer by Cyrus Ezra 5:14, why do the adversaries of 4:1-2 speak to Zerubbabel and not Sheshbazzar, this does make perfect sense though if this happens when Zerubbabel is governer as sated at Haggai 2:21.

There are different ideas about this, including one that the two names refer to the same person, but 1 Esdras 6:18 and 1 Chron. 3:17-19 suggest otherwise. Sheshbazzar (var. Shenazzar) appears to have been Zerubbabel's uncle so they both could have been the 'go to' guys, or for some reason Zerubbabel took over responsibility.

10

Question about Ezekiel's chronology

by opusdei1972 in

i am writing an article in spanish about the failed prophecies of ezekiel .

however, i have found a problem when researching.

for instance, in chapter 26 ezekiel says that yahweh gave him the prophecy against tyre in the eleventh year.

AnnOMaly

Hi opus,

Indeed, I have noted that Ezekiel's chronology is a mess. For instance, in the first chapter Ezekiel says that the thirtieth year is the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin . So, I see that Ezekiel's starting point is not the same in all his chapters.

I think Young (and others) offers a solution to that anomaly by saying the 30th year is in relation to Jubilee cycles and corresponds to Jehoiachin's 5th year.

10

Question about Ezekiel's chronology

by opusdei1972 in

i am writing an article in spanish about the failed prophecies of ezekiel .

however, i have found a problem when researching.

for instance, in chapter 26 ezekiel says that yahweh gave him the prophecy against tyre in the eleventh year.

AnnOMaly

Hi Phizzy,

The WTS say 4th month/Tammuz/June-July for the breach of Jerusalem's walls and the 5th month/Ab/July-Aug. for Jerusalem's destruction. This is the dating in the Bible. However, they start the '70 years' clock from when Gedaliah was assassinated in the 7th month/Tishri/Sept.-October, when they believe the land became 'desolate, without an inhabitant.'

*** Scripture Inspired (1990), p. 285 par. 6 Study Number 3—Measuring Events in the Stream of Time ***

The “seventy years” that ended in the autumn of the year 537 B.C.E. must have begun, then, in the autumn of 607 B.C.E. The facts bear this out. Jeremiah chapter 52 describes the momentous events of the siege of Jerusalem, the Babylonian breakthrough, and the capture of King Zedekiah in 607 B.C.E. Then, as verse 12 states, “in the fifth month, on the tenth day,” that is, the tenth day of Ab (corresponding to parts of July and August), the Babylonians burned the temple and the city. However, this was not yet the starting point of the “seventy years.” Some vestige of Jewish sovereignty still remained in the person of Gedaliah, whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor of the remaining Jewish settlements. “In the seventh month,” Gedaliah and some others were assassinated, so that the remaining Jews fled in fear to Egypt. Then only, from about October 1, 607 B.C.E., was the land in the complete sense “lying desolated . . . to fulfill seventy years.”—2 Ki. 25:22-26; 2 Chron. 36:20, 21.