Good article. That the shunner also suffers psychological harm doesn't surprise me. I always felt conflicted and my stomach would knot up when I tried to do the 'right' thing and ignore a DFed person. It's far less stressful to just be friendly ... or to at least show common civility and courtesy.
AnnOMaly
JoinedPosts by AnnOMaly
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Ostracism Hurts: The Psychological Costs of Ignoring or Excluding Others
by JHK inhttp://www.psycholawlogy.com/2013/05/14/hurting-others-hurts-psychological-costs-of-ignoring-or-excluding-others/.
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100
Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
Bart,
My question must be which Darius is refered to in Haggai, and which Artaxerxes relates to Nehemaih's decree, and which Artaxerxes relates to Ezra?
Darius I (521-486 BCE) for Ezra and Haggai;
AND
Artaxerxes I (464-424 BCE) for both Ezra 4 and 7, and Nehemiah (my view).
OR
(Jeffro's view) 'Artaxerxes'/Bardiya (522 BCE) for Ezra 4;
Artaxerxes I (464-424 BCE) for Ezra 7 and Nehemiah.
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Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
Hi Jeffro
I do not use Josephus as the basis for my conclusion. It just happens to say something similar.
I said you use Josephus to support your position. Josephus takes his information from 1 Esdras, assumes that it is in chronological order and that 'Artaxerxes' was Cambyses.
It's also interesting that he didn't think to associate the 'Artaxerxes' letter with the "Magi" (Bardiya) who "attained the government of the Persians for a year" (Ant. 11.3.1).
The author of Ezra/1 Esdras (whichever was first) could have used the wrong throne name (which doesn't identify a specific king) but known which individual and period they referred to.
'Could have' reflects conjecture, of course. The author or later redactor 'could have' (and IMO more likely) got the right throne name(s) and mentioned it (them) out of sequence as part of the 'opposition' theme. 1 Esdras, as you admitted above, "associates events under Darius with events under Cyrus for literary purposes, however the rest of the book is in chronological order." If 1 Esdras can deviate from chronological order there, then it and Ezra conceivably 'could have,' deviated from chronological order with the first mentioned 'Artaxerxes.'
This does not require that the king was broadly known as the other name. The author of E[z/sdr]a[/s] could simply have confused the names, just like Josephus does.
Or he 'could simply have' NOT confused the names and placed later 'opposition' events in with the 'opposition' summary.
Or he could have jumbled events from kings from both periods. Or he could have made the whole thing up about the letters.
Indeed he 'could have' made the whole thing up. In that case, this textual passage is useless for chronological/historical purposes and it is pointless insisting on a timeline (one way or another) for Ezra 4:6-23.
(How did the author of E[z/sdr]a[/s] get the letters?
Unknown. How did he get a copy of the letters between Tattenai and Darius or know that they found the memo about Cyrus' order in Ecbatana?
Are we going with the 'inspired' [aka 'magic', aka superstitious nonsense] theory?)
??? I hope we are going with an approach that tries to harmonize ancient Jewish accounts of history with other historical sources. What has the subject of 'inspiration' to do with anything?
Anyway, I think we're at a stalemate.
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Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
Bart, there is no disconnect except in 4:6-23. The second year of their return (537 BCE) they laid the temple foundations (3:8). Celebrations (3:10-13). Samaritans/neighbors wanted in on the temple building and the Jews told them 'no' (4:1-3). General comment about temple-building trouble from the time of Cyrus to the time of Darius (4:4, 5). Additional info on later opposition to city wall building in Xerxes' and Artaxerxes' reigns (4:6-23). Back to the topic of temple-building trouble in Darius' reign (4:24f.).
The official WT view is that the Jews returned in 537 BCE so their second year when the foundation was laid was 536 BCE. The WT believes the 'Artaxerxes' of 4:7f. is Bardiya who stopped the work in 522 BCE..
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weird: passing around literature fragments in prison
by Magnum ini dont have any specific references, but over the years i remember reading in the mags and hearing in talks stories of imprisoned jws who would somehow get a piece of a page of a jw magazine or an article or something like that and pass it around and get spiritually nourished by it as if it almost had a magical or supernatural nature.
does anybody else remember such?.
i always thought it just didnt make sense.
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AnnOMaly
They could send such a message by simply writing a note and saying such. Wouldn't that be more personal? Wouldn't that be more effective than smuggling in an article written by somebody thousands of miles away who doesn't even know they're imprisoned?
But a handwritten note could've been written by anyone. Official writing from 'mother' would have more weight. I remember visiting Selters bethel once. One of the many things they had on display from the Nazi era was a matchbox containing a part of one of Rutherford's books in miniature form, specially printed so it could be smuggled into the camps. It was pretty cute. To think that the Org. had not forgotten them would also have greater psychological impact, and yes, of course Brooklyn knew the JWs were being imprisoned!
If their God is so powerful, why can't he sustain them with his so-called holy spirit? It makes no sense to me that a piece of cheap paper with some writing on it could be so important and be treated in such a way. It's almost like idolatry.
You don't get the same feeling of solidarity or comradeship without human contact.
And as to your first point, "The fragments being smuggled in would only contain what was deemed faith-strengthening or doctrinally important", the stories I remember don't indicate that someone specifically chose a part of a magazine that he thought would be appropriate. It was more like they just came across or happened to get a mag or a page or two of one, so the material could have been about anything.
That's not the impression I got from stories I heard, but your experience may well be different
Phizzy - Funny story! LOL.
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Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
(Bart) AnnO - I am making the point that in the second year of their coming is when the letter to Aterxexes was written which as you suggest is between the 4th and 7th months of 522BCE. It therefore follows that the return of this group must have been the year before 523BCE
Oh I see what you're getting at. No, it was the second year after they were first repatriated, i.e. early in Cyrus' reign, that they laid the foundations of the temple. That would be 537 BCE. It was after that that all the trouble started. If 'Artaxerxes' = Bardiya, then the letter was written about 15 years later. Ezra 4:4,5 does say it was an ongoing problem.
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Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
Hi Jeffro,
It's not my assumption at all. It's a fairly well established view, and one that was considered correct much closer to the period it happened.
That depends on whether 1 Esdras came before Ezra or whether 1 Esdras is a later reworking of Ezra. If the latter, 1 Esdras has embellished Ezra's wording.
(And it's not firmly established that 1 Esdras does not represent an earlier version of the text than Ezra.)
Although there is still much debate on how Ezra-Nehemiah and 1 Esdras were composed, most experts seem come down on the side of Ezra-Nehemiah being first.
So? Josephus was wrong (and it's not the first time). The context of the same chapter indicates the ongoing construction of the temple, so Josephus' error is irrelevant.
It illustrates how mistaken assumptions can be made if the wording of the source is ambiguous or if it breaks with chronological order and a reliable history of the Persian succession was not used.
... So Josephus can get the name wrong, but the author of Ezra and 1 Esdras (one of which is a copy of the other regardless of which came first) 'must' necessarily identify Artaxerxes correctly??
If Josephus wrongly assumed that 1 Esdras 2's 'Artaxerxes' was Cambyses, how can you use his mistake as support for your position that Ezra 4's 'Artaxerxes' = Bardiya, or indeed that Ezra's 'Ahasuerus' and 'Artaxerxes' have to refer to kings between Cyrus and Darius? It doesn't follow.
The word translated "until" literally means "allow", and can validly be interpreted as two years into the reign of Darius - the reign of Darius, allowing 2 years. Since it's basically a Greek rendering of Ezra 4:24, this isn't much of a leap.
Did you get that definition ('allow') from an online automated lexicon* that tried to match the Gk. word in the verse? If so, you unfortunately took the first of the 5 options it provided which is an unrelated verb ('until' is a conjunction) and which doesn't have the rough breathing mark or the same pointing that the one in the verse has. 'Until' is the 4th one down - ἕως[1]. So my argument stands. 1 Esdras 5:73 gives the impression that there were two years between the end of Cyrus' reign and Darius'. Its chronology is wrong. You have to reinterpret or correct it so it fits with known history.
* http://lexicon.katabiblon.com/?search=%E1%BC%95%CF%89%CF%82
Neither. ...
How can it be neither? You are arguing for the first scenario, believing that Cambyses and/or Bardiya were also known as Artaxerxes or Ahasuerus (circularly arguing on nothing more than speculation or assumption). You can't point your finger at my reasoning, claiming it is circular because of favoring the 'out of sequence' solution, when your own reasoning is patently globoid.
Chapters 3, 4 & 5 of 1 Esdras employs a chiastic structure that associates events under Darius with events under Cyrus for literary purposes, however the rest of the book is in chronological order.
You can allow 1 Esdras to mess with the chronological order but not Ezra?
They had already sent complaints to the previous king. Why would further 'conference' be required? The scribe could just write substantially what they'd previously written to 'Ahasuerus'.
That would have been 7 or 8 years earlier - "at the start of [Ahasuerus'/Cambyses'] reign" (Ezra 4:6). We do not know the contents of those letters, the nature of the accusation they wrote about or the names of the accusers. That the names of those involved in the reign of 'Artaxerxes' were mentioned suggests to me it was a new campaign. Naturally, if Xerxes and Artaxerxes I are the kings, the incidents would be more than 20 years apart anyway. But whatever the case, Bardiya was a flash in the pan and he had no lasting authority so that a ban on the work could be enforced - even if there was time to contact him and get a reply.
It's not really clear why the writer of Ezra (or 1 Esdras) would have in their possession a letter sent by their enemies to Persia's king and the Persian king's response to their enemies anyway. ...
The enemies would surely have to provide official documentation to prove it really was the king's order.
... so it's possible that some or all of the content of either letter was simply made up.
If that is so, it undermines its value for establishing the chronological structure of Ezra 4.
I'm not sure that Nehemiah's depression would be a particularly great motivator to Jerusalem's populace.
Naturally not. He was hundreds of miles away at Susa. My point was that Jerusalem's walls and gates were still in an appalling state in Artaxerxes I's 20th year, so much so Nehemiah was affected by the news. Little or nothing had been done since the first return from Babylon. If, as you argue, they were trying to rebuild the city and walls straight off but Bardiya had stopped it, and if Darius had granted permission to resume, it is puzzling that the city and walls remained in ruins 78 years later when there was no further recorded opposition from on high. On the other hand, if, once the temple was rebuilt, there were attempts at fixing the walls and city, it would explain the state of the city in Art's 20th year; i.e. successive campaigns in Xerxes' and Artaxerxes' reigns hampered and even stalled the Jews' progress till then.
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Where did Russell steal 606/7 BCE from ?
by Phizzy inthis is something i have wondered about, and our great poster stillin posed the question on another thread .
russell get the idea that jerusalem was destroyed in 606/7 bce?
(he adjusted 606 to 607 when it was pointed out there was no year "0").. as in the main a plagiarist, rather than an original thinker, i guess he got it from someone else ?.
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AnnOMaly
Terry, that link is to Tönis Tönisson's unauthorized and amended pdf copy of Jonsson's book.
Instead, please go here: http://kristenfrihet.se/english/gtr4/contents.htm. Less user-friendly, but it's the real deal.
Phizzy, the chapter on where Russell's chronology came from is at http://kristenfrihet.se/english/gtr4/3%20gtr4%20rev%20kap1.pdf
606 was generally understood to be the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Russell/Barbour understood 606 as the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. They believed that Cyrus' 1st year was established to be 536 BCE and that the 70 years related to the land being 'desolate, without inhabitant' which could only be when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem.
It was only in 1943 (Knorr's time) that 607 began to be introduced as the new 70 year starting point. 1944 was when the 'zero year' was officially recognized.
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Help with 607 587
by jimbojones instill trying to wrap my head around 587. does anyone have information about how the 70 years from jeremiah fits in.
the simpler the better.
thanks!.
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AnnOMaly
LOL! You've come to the right place!
Try http://jeffro77.wordpress.com/607-for-dummies/
Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inw7Wgn8AJM&list=UUnXY0-N67N4a5a8eKbar-iw
And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu_1t2ZsBPo&list=UUnXY0-N67N4a5a8eKbar-iw
Any further questions, no matter how 'dumb,' don't be afraid to ask. We've all been there.
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Can anyone disprove 607 BCE date using only the NWT and WT literature?
by Bart Belteshassur ini 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.
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AnnOMaly
I think you may be getting a little muddled with the Jews returning in 523 BCE, Bart, unless I'm just not following you. However, this comment popped out at me:
As this is regarded as a letter to Bardiya it can only be placed between 2nd and 8th month of Acc Darius, 522BCE
(More probably between the 4th and 7th months.)
So Jeffro, if the Samaritans and neighboring peoples wrote a letter to 'Artaxerxes'/Bardiya, we have to consider:
- The time it took for them to hear of Cambyses' death. The Behistun inscription indicates July 522 BCE as the time of his death.
- The time it took for them to hear about Bardiya's universal acceptance as new king, said to also be July (Behistun).
- The time it took to send and receive the letters.
Let's say the neighbors knew who the new boss was very quickly, by mid-July. They would have to meet up and confer with everyone concerned (Ezra 4:7-10), compose and translate a letter, send the letter to (presumably) the Persian capital Susa, allow time for the Persians to dig around the archives for historical information on the Judean kingdom, allow time for the Persians to compose a reply, have it sent back to the local Samaritans' or neighboring peoples' officials and have it read out to them before rushing over to Jerusalem to implement the order.
Google Earth calculates Jerusalem to Susa by foot on modern roads is about 988 miles (1174 km). If they can travel by very fit horses at a lightning 60 miles per day, it would still take at least 16 days there and 16 days back - a day less if Bardiya resided at the fort where he was said to have been killed, somewhere near Behistun.
Bardiya was dead by the end of September. Soon after Jerusalem got the reply, he'd be history. His order to stop building could hardly be enforced long-term, so why did the Jews wait to finish repairing the city and its walls until (the next) Artaxerxes' 20th year - 78 years - which made Nehemiah depressed - especially if you believe Darius gave the go-ahead to rebuild the city?