Posts by AlanF

Slacker911, your post is an excellent example of what people with brains should be posting on this forum in order to beat back the gross ignorance that religious devotion -- personified by our own Borgish and thoroughly braindead mentor, the Watchotwer Society -- inevitably produces. Simple facts like you present are all that are needed.

AlanF

29

your best prank

by KW13 in

whats your best prank you've pulled?

i can think of loads but the best one that i got to actually see without causing wwiii was when two friends were staying over.

one of them said get him something to eat...so me and his brother went and got an oxo cube and unwrapped it.

AlanF

Once I snuck in to a KM school for elders and taped the whole 1 1/2 days of sessions, and put it on the Net.

Of course, this post is most likely a prank.

AlanF

46

HAS AN EVOLUTIONARY LINK BEEN DISCOVERED?

by badboy in

jw
friends

scientists have claimed to have found the missing link between fish and land animals on ellesmere island ,canada.

AlanF

Forscher said:

: Yawn!!!

Pretty well par for the course for these braindead Fundies.

Also par for the course for the often unwitting victims in George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

AlanF

128

listing of authorities and their date for the fall of Jerusalem

by M.J. in

sorry if this has been posted before.

i came across it and thought it was worth pointing out: http://members.tripod.com/sosoutreach/wts/607.html.

(edited) the annoying popup caused me to cut and paste the table from the page, rather than embed it: the narrative before and after is good too so you might want to check it out the original page.

AlanF

Scholar pretendus, I noticed that you've put your foot in it big time with your claim about Jeremiah 25:12, so I decided to disembowel your claims again. You said:

: Jeremiah 25:12 most emphatically has nothing to say that would date it to 539 for its judgement against Babylon could only commence after the years ended with the Return of the Exiles in 537.

First, nothing whatsoever in the text says anything about a "Return of the Exiles", much less a return of exiles in a specific year. This is trivial to show, by quoting the passage in question (NASB):

11 This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 'Then it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,' declares the LORD, 'for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it an everlasting desolation.'

The passage doesn't even speak of the Jews, although previous passages show that the Jews were among "these nations" that verse 11 specifically mentions. Clearly, "these nations" were to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years, and that servitude certainly did not end when the Jews returned to Jerusalem in 538 B.C.

Your claim is demonstrably false.

But here is your royal screwup:

: Your theory here is simply impossible. The text clearly associates the judgement against Babylon with the desolation of Babylon and its land which did not happen in 539 BCE.

Very good! The judgment is associated with Babylon alright. But a judgment of desolation did not come for more than another 900 years, because the city was inhabited at least through the 4th century A.D. For this reason alone, it's ridiculous to claim that verse 12 applies to a judgment so far in the future that no one would care, some 1000 years in the future with respect to Jeremiah's audience. Obviously then, Jeremiah's prophecy was intended to be fulfilled upon Babylon in a way that no one living at the time could deny.

The language connecting verses 11 and 12 proves this point. After verse 11 states that "these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years", verse 12 directly connects the end of that servitude with the punishment of the king of Babylon: "THEN it will be when seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon." In other words, it was to be right "then", or "at that time", as soon as the 70 years were over, that the king would be punished. And not just the king, of course, but the nation.

How was the king of Babylon punished? Nabonidus, the primary king, was deposed. Belshazzzar, the second ruler in the kingdom, was killed.

How was the nation punished? It lost its empire and its primacy in the region and was replaced by the kingdom of the Persians and the Medes.

To claim that these things were not a punishment is beyond stupid, and a clear case of special pleading.

It's also easy to see that a complete desolation of Babylon occurring some 900 years after its fall in 539 is consistent with the words of Jeremiah: the fall in 539 began a long, slow decline that ended with complete desolation nearly a millennium later.

In view of the above, scholar pretendus, it's clear that your claim that my "theory here is simply impossible" is more smoke and mirrors designed to throw yourself off from the simple fact that the McFadzen Hypothesis is completely unbiblical.

I will also point out that the McFadzen Hypothesis is at odds with that of Mommy Watchtower here, since the latter's only discussion of the matter claimed that the punishment upon the king of Babylon was not the city's desolation a millennium after Jeremiah's prophecy, but the fact that the king of Babylon in 537 B.C., poor old Cyrus, was commissioned by God to allow the Jews to return home. So, scholar pretendus, by publicly advancing a "different doctrine" than Mommy's, you've made yourself an apostate in her eyes.

A further point: you continue to ignore the absolutely clear words of Jeremiah 27:6, 7. Here God says (NASB):

6 Now I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, My servant, and I have given him also the wild animals of the field to serve him. 7 All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will make him their servant.

This is clearly speaking of Nebuchadnezzar and his dynasty -- not some minor city officials who presided over Babylon's final abandonment a millennium later. This passage is completely consistent with, and complementary to, Jeremiah 25:11, 12. In fact, it leaves no room at all for the ridiculous special pleadings engaged in by the likes of you, Rolf Furuli and Mommy Watchtower.

Each bit of verse 7 was completely fulfilled in 539 B.C.: "All the nations" round about Judah served Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty until that dynasty ended in 539; at that time, "the time of his own land" came for it to be judged and punished by its being conquered by a foreign power; at that time, "many nations and great kings" made "him their servant" by subjugating Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty.

To claim that Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty was not thoroughly punished, or called to account, in 539 B.C. is beyond stupid, and a clear case of special pleading.

To ignore this fact is to engage in gross scholastic dishonesty.

Jeremiah 27:6, 7, then, clearly proves that Jeremiah 25:12 can refer only to the demise of Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty in 539 B.C.

AlanF

128

listing of authorities and their date for the fall of Jerusalem

by M.J. in

sorry if this has been posted before.

i came across it and thought it was worth pointing out: http://members.tripod.com/sosoutreach/wts/607.html.

(edited) the annoying popup caused me to cut and paste the table from the page, rather than embed it: the narrative before and after is good too so you might want to check it out the original page.

AlanF

dozy, you appear to be some sort of Watchtower apologist. I say this because you, in the usual JW apologist manner, fail to deal with what posters actually say.

: The only certainties for many ex-witnesses is that JWs are pretty much wrong about everything.

Many do go overboard.

: A "critique" is published every week on the Watchtower which contains 100% criticism despite the average WT article containing perhaps 80 supporting scriptural references.

Your phrasing pegs you as a JW apologist.

Note that the mere inclusion of claimed "supporting scriptural references" says nothing about whether such references actually have anything to do with the topic at hand. The Society began claiming in 1967 that the Scriptures were against organ transplants. The Society abandoned this view a dozen years later. So much for "supporting scriptural references".

: They will argue strongly about the "wrongness" of 607 , yet they are much hazier on far more important issues of belief , conduct and purpose.

Think about why: it's easy to deal with historical references that establish a date; it's hard to interpret scriptures that are themselves fuzzy.

Also realize this: the Fundamental Doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses is that one must view and obey the JW Governing Body as if God himself speaking through them. I.e., that these men are the leaders of "the faithful and discreet slave". A foundation of this doctrine is that Watchtower leaders were appointed to this position in 1919, which date is in turn based on claimed prophetic fulfillments beginning in 1914 (of course, 1914 has much significance in JW doctrine beyond that). If this base date can be shown wrong, then the entire "JW leaders as faithful slave" doctrine is wrong.

Of course, most readers know that the real basis for the Fundamental Doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses has nothing to do with facts, but is based on the emotional need to have a visible Big Daddy telling a JW what to do. Once a JW becomes convinced that Big Daddy lives in Brooklyn, a disproof of the 1914 date does no good for him. But such disproofs are written for the few thinking JWs that exist, as well as to provide a solid, factual cutoff for those ex-JWs who want to understand why the JW organization should not be followed. Many who leave the JWs for emotional reasons are saddled with years of soul-searching: "Did I really do the right thing?" A factual basis for leaving is good for the soul that has been damaged by cultic belief.

AlanF

128

listing of authorities and their date for the fall of Jerusalem

by M.J. in

sorry if this has been posted before.

i came across it and thought it was worth pointing out: http://members.tripod.com/sosoutreach/wts/607.html.

(edited) the annoying popup caused me to cut and paste the table from the page, rather than embed it: the narrative before and after is good too so you might want to check it out the original page.

AlanF

Well well well, scholar pretendus! I'm floored that you actually answered a simple question!

I've already dealt many times with your standard stupid comments, which can be safely ignored.

I asked: "What are the beginning and ending dates of the 2nd year of Cyrus as ruler of Babylon?"

You said:

"The 2nd year of Cyrus if you mean his regnal year would run from Nisan 537 until Nisan 536 BCE for your enlightenment and that of MJ."

Very good!

Now, you've also claimed that the temple foundations were laid in 536 B.C. In this, you've merely followed Watchtower claims. And as you know very well, this claim is based on two things: the Society's claim that the Jews returned to Judah by Tishri, 537 B.C., and Ezra 3:8, which states that the foundations were laid in the "second month".

Now, the 7th month Tishri is also the first month of the Jewish secular year. According to Ezra 3:1, when the 7th month arrived, the Jews were already in their cities, which means that this 7th month was the beginning of the 2nd year of their return to Judah. So this 2nd year ran from Tishri, 537 through the last Jewish month of Elul, 536 B.C. Therefore, the 2nd month of of this 2nd year would have been Iyyar (April/May), 536 B.C.

Are you with me so far?

Combining this with Ezra 3:8, then, we learn that it was in the 2nd month of the 2nd year of the Jews' return that the temple foundations were laid.

But this month is actually in Cyrus' 3rd regnal year!

Therefore, Josephus contradicts the Watchtower's claims, since he put the laying of the temple foundations in Cyrus' 2nd year. This would have been Iyyar of 537 B.C.

And as I've explained a number of times now, this proves that Josephus' statement means that the Jews must have returned to Judah in 538 B.C.

DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

I thought not.

AlanF

128

listing of authorities and their date for the fall of Jerusalem

by M.J. in

sorry if this has been posted before.

i came across it and thought it was worth pointing out: http://members.tripod.com/sosoutreach/wts/607.html.

(edited) the annoying popup caused me to cut and paste the table from the page, rather than embed it: the narrative before and after is good too so you might want to check it out the original page.

AlanF

M.J., I'm glad to see how quickly you've caught on to the breathtaking dishonesty of this scholar pretendus. Note that he'll not comment intelligibly on my post here.

scholar pretendus wrote:

: Scholars of genuine reputre get the facts right

True, which is why you're a mere scholar pretendus. But it's not that you don't have the intelligence to get them right -- it's that you don't have the moral fiber to admit that you worship the Watchtower cult.

: and this is what Jonsson as a pseudo does not do for he cannot work how many lines of evidence there are whether it is 17 or 18.

We've been through this at least half a dozen times before. Jonsson counts two fragments of the same tablet as ONE line of evidence. That's because he's an honest scholar and understands the simple fact that breaking a piece of evidence into many pieces does not create many pieces of evidence. The fact is: you understand this, but your moral lack forces you to grasp at any straw you can dig up, no matter how stupid.

: His hypothesis is not scholarship but simply bashing the beliefs of a religious group of which he was a member and believed in its teachings including its chronology.

Since Jonsson simply collates and summarizes diverse scholarly writings about Neo-Babylonian chronology, such as can be found in works like The Cambridge Ancient History and Jack Finegan's Handbook of Biblical Chronology, your claim is obviously grossly dishonest. It is once again based solely on your moral stupidity and desire to remain in your cult. It's also grossly dishonest because you know very well that Jonsson began his studies of chronology when he was a Regular Pioneer in order to refute what a critic told him.

: Such lines of eviderce whatever their number do not destroy 607 but simply present alternative chronologies with their related interpretations.

Utter rubbish! Jerusalem cannot have been destroyed both in 607 and 587/6 B.C.

: The calcuable 607 well established by celebrated WT scholars has nothing to fear from the theories of men or apostates.

Just as all cult claims have nothing to fear from the facts.

: The date's calculation is faithful to the Bible and the secular evidence

It is faithful to neither. It contradicts biblical passages, ignores others, ignores all secular evidence, and has no secular evidence in its support. All of this is easily proved by your own posting history -- you have yet to present any such evidence, you do not comment substantively on any criticisms, and you don't even quote the Bible itself.

: and is proven by the fact that 1914 saw the fulfillment of the Gentile Times.

LOL! Everyone who carefully examines the facts of history comes to see how stupid a claim this is. You know it as well, since you've completely failed to come up with a shred of evidence to support this claim, and utterly failed to intelligibly critique the many refutations of it.

: The fact that the Jonsson hypothesis is fuzzy at the beginning of the seventy years is critical to his whole hypothesis because his 17/18 lines of evidence is based upon a singular interpretation of the seventy years namely that it was one of servitude alone.

This once again assumes that the figure of 70 years is of any real historical significance. The fact is that it is significant only to one insignificant group of people: modern day Bible Students and Jehovah's Witnesses. No else cares, or needs to care.

But your claim is not even correct. If one assumes that the 70 years is an exact number, then from Babylon's fall in 539 B.C. back to 609 B.C. fills the bill perfectly. In 609 B.C. Babylon and its allies defeated the last remnants of the Assyrian empire and became the undisputed dominant power in the Middle East. One can even argue, using JW notions, that this was the date when the "head of gold" of Daniel's dream image became reality, and that Babylon became one of the prophetic World Powers.

: Fallacy and contradiction have no place in logic or reason and have no place in constructing a chronology

This is hysterically funny, coming from you. It goes to show, as if any further demonstration were needed, that your gross scholastic dishonesty does not stem from intellectual stupidity, but from a devotion to your cult leaders.

: and that is why 586/587 is impossible because these dates are unreasonable in ignoring the epochal event of a seventy year period of servitude-exile and desolation.

The usual grandstanding, and standing logic and reason on its head.

: Jereremiah 25:12 supports the interpretation forementioned because it factually refers to an already ended or fulfilled seventy years with the Return from Babylon with the judgement upon Babylon to be experienced along with all of the other nations.

Utter nonsense. The passage plainly states that the 70 years would end when the king of Babylon -- a king that, according to Jeremiah 27: 6,7 must be of Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty -- was punished. That punishing inarguably occurred in 539 B.C.

Now let's see if you can manage to honestly answer a simple question:

What are the beginning and ending dates of the 2nd year of Cyrus as ruler of Babylon?

M.J., if you're still reading by this point, you'll note that scholar pretendus will avoid this question.

AlanF

128

listing of authorities and their date for the fall of Jerusalem

by M.J. in

sorry if this has been posted before.

i came across it and thought it was worth pointing out: http://members.tripod.com/sosoutreach/wts/607.html.

(edited) the annoying popup caused me to cut and paste the table from the page, rather than embed it: the narrative before and after is good too so you might want to check it out the original page.

AlanF

Good scholars, as opposed to "celebrated Watchtower scholars", know how to argue a case with facts and always fully explain their reasoning to their readers. On the subject of the date of return of the Jews to Jerusalem, the Watchtower Society has only given speculation. Its argument boils down to a mere "in view of the Bible record" but it gives no actual arguments as to why that Bible record supports its claim. The clearest words the Society has written on this subject are found in the Insight book, Vol. 1, p. 568, under the subject "Cyrus". Note the complete lack of supporting evidence for the conclusion, and how the writer turns pure speculation into a supposedly solid conclusion:

Cyrus’ Decree for the Return of the Exiles. By his decreeing the end of the Jewish exile, Cyrus fulfilled his commission as Jehovah’s ‘anointed shepherd’ for Israel. (2Ch 36:22, 23; Ezr 1:1-4) The proclamation was made "in the first year of Cyrus the king of Persia," meaning his first year as ruler toward conquered Babylon. The Bible record at Daniel 9:1 refers to "the first year of Darius," and this may have intervened between the fall of Babylon and "the first year of Cyrus" over Babylon. If it did, this would mean that the writer was perhaps viewing Cyrus’ first year as having begun late in the year 538 B.C.E. However, if Darius’ rule over Babylon were to be viewed as that of a viceroy, so that his reign ran concurrent with that of Cyrus, Babylonian custom would place Cyrus’ first regnal year as running from Nisan of 538 to Nisan of 537 B.C.E.
In view of the Bible record, Cyrus’ decree freeing the Jews to return to Jerusalem likely was made late in the year 538 or early in 537 B.C.E.

In contrast, note how scholar T. C. Mitchell, writing in The Cambridge Ancient History (Second Edition, Vol. III, Part 2, "The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries B.C." Ed. by John Boardman et al., Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 432 etc), clearly explains his reasoning and presents various facts to support it:

It is a reasonable hypothesis . . . that work was begun on the Temple site under the direction of Sheshbazzar as soon as the returning exiles reached Jerusalem, probably in 538 since, though Cyrus' first year ran from spring 538 to spring 537, he had taken Babylon in October 539, and it is unlikely that he would have allowed any great time to elapse before he issued the decreee. According to the Book of Ezra, Zerubbabel, Joshua the high priest, and others assembled in Jerusalem in the seventh month. There they built an altar and re-established the giving of burnt-offerings on it, celebrating in particular the observances of the festival of Succoth (Booths or Tabernacles) (Ezra 3:1-6; I Esdras 5:46-52). In the Jewish calendar, Succoth was kept in the seventh month, Tishri, to mark the time of harvest (Lev. 23:33-6; Deut. 6:13-15). This strongly suggests that the `seventh month' in which Zerubbabel built the altar was Tishri in 538, rather than simply the seventh month after the return, and that the end of the summer, when the people had been able to collect some kind of harvest from the untended plants of many decades and perhaps from those inadequately tended by those who had remained in the land, was a time when the distractions of self-interest relaxed and thoughts could turn again to religious matters. It seems that the people also now made financial contributions towards the bringing of cedar wood from Lebanon (Ezra 3:7; I Esdras 5:53). This transaction presumably took several months, for Zerubbabel is said to have begun organizing the building operations in the spring of the following year (second month of the second year of the return), at which time the foundation of the Temple was laid to the sound of music and song (Ezra 3:8-11; I Esdras 5:54-9). This reconstruction would therefore see an initial symbolic foundation-laying by Sheshbazzar in the spring or early summer of 538, followed by a failure on his part to inspire the people to continue; then a renewal of the operation under Zerubbabel some four or five months later, with the building of the altar in the autumn; and, finally, the laying of the foundations in the spring of the following year, 537, after a winter during which arrangements were made for the supply of building materials. This event would have taken place almost fifty years after the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadrezzar, and it is recorded that many of those present wept because they had seen the first Temple (Ezra 3:12-13; I Esdras 5:60-2), a strong indication that the `second year' in question (Ezra 3:8; I Esdras 5:54) was the second year after the return in 538, and not after a second return in 520 by which time it is unlikely that `many' would have remembered the first Temple.

The last point that Mitchell makes is telling as far as the length of the captivity is concerned. Since many Jews remembered the first temple, it is far more likely that many of them were in captivity for only 50 years rather than 70. At that time the average life span was significantly lower than the required minimum of about 80 years that would be necessary for "many" to remember the temple, but if the "many" were only about 60 years old and up, there is no problem. It is little details like this that Watchtower writer fail to account for, in addition to the bigger issues which they generally deliberately obscure and misrepresent.

AlanF