Zechariah is clearly not just concerned about Babylon
Immaterial deflection. The subject matter here is 70 years in Babylon which Zechariah confirms.
537+70= 607 —If you forgot the subject.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
Zechariah is clearly not just concerned about Babylon
Immaterial deflection. The subject matter here is 70 years in Babylon which Zechariah confirms.
537+70= 607 —If you forgot the subject.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
70 motif
Drivel red herring sophistry to confuse an unsure audience . Both scriptures are referring to the 70 year captivity of Judah in Babylon.
Reminds me of a discussion I had with a Jewish man that insisted king David did not commit adultery with Bathsheba because she was divorced with him at the time based on a Talmudic interpretation of a woman married to a soldier in battle. Intentional utter gibberish. Believe as you wish. I’ve nothing more to add than to repeat that JW interpretation is at the very least plausible and more. Have a good day.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
The "desolate" land is again a literary creation reflecting angst about homesickness more than reality.
Spoken divinely and not poetically.
12 So the angel of Jehovah said: “O Jehovah of armies, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with whom you have been indignant these 70 years?”
11 And all this land will be reduced to ruins and will become an object of horror, and these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon for 70 years.”’
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
The 70 years of serving Babylon were over before they left Babylon
That is how you like to see it but you refuse to factor in the land laying desolate until it was inhabited again and this did not happen as soon as Babylon fell to the Medes but at the time the Jews set foot on eretz Israel ending the desolation prophecy. There is no historical evidence to prove when this exactly happened. We JW like to believe 537 for the reasons I explained in my previous post. JW have proclaimed publicly that their interpretation is subject to error not claiming to be inspired prophets.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
That the 70 years is a period of nations serving Babylon and not a period of exile is absolutely correct.
He burned down the house of the true God,+ tore down the wall of Jerusalem,+ burned all its fortified towers with fire, and destroyed everything of value.+ 20 He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword,+and they became servants to him+ and his sons until the kingdom* of Persia began to reign,+ 21 to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah,+ until the land had paid off its sabbaths.+ All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.+
It is very interesting that after Jerusalem was destroyed as mentioned in the verses above, the land was not desolate because some Jews remained under a governor named Gedaliah who was ironically assassinated by a man named Ismael. It was after this event that the king of Babylon sent the remaining Jews to Babylon and the land began to be actually desolate.
Obviously, the destruction of Jerusalem had to do with the conduct of the Jews and not the nations so the 70 years mentioned in the quoted verse applied to the Jews whether or not it also applied to other nations concurrently or with other starting and end dates.
Since WwI started in 1914 which is based on 607 gives JW confidence that 607 is the date of Jerusalem’s destruction, among other signs that JW also claim to have witnessed. The minds of JW believe which doesn’t prove they are right but there certainly is a reasonable basis for 607 as JW interpret the Bible.
recall the famous charge made against jesus in his trial in the gospel mark: .
“we heard him say, ‘i will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days i will build another, not made with hands.’”.
matt has a shorter version which likely reflects what he saw in his copy of mark *:.
“I will build it up “ is also symbolic poetic language because dead Jesus could not raise himself up from the dead referring to the temple of his body being resurrected. It is also an ironic allusion to the Temple that would be destroyed and replaced by the new Jerusalem consisting of his joint heirs and himself in heaven. Jerusalem will be trampled by the nations— trampled implies the earth compared to heavenly Jerusalem which cannot be trampled.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
In the old thread above I argue that the number 70 was meant and understood by ancient Semitic people as symbolic of a generation and not a literal number.
Was 70 CE not year 70 either?
While the number 70 is used symbolically in the Bible, the quantity is literal.
2 Chronicles 36:21
לְמַלֹּאות דְּבַר־יְהוָה בְּפִי יִרְמְיָהוּ עַד־רָצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתֶיהָ כָּל־יְמֵי הָשַּׁמָּה שָׁבָתָה לְמַלֹּאות שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָֽה ׃ פ
2 Chronicles 36:21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. = 70
The Bible uses this word having the numerical value of 70.
(I posted in another thread that the Israelites were flagrantly raping the land by not allowing her to enjoy Sabbatical rest as prescribed in the Torah. How many years exactly did the land not keep Sabbath is not known but the sentence imposed was 70 years of desolation so the land could rest.) 537BCE+70=607BCE, assuming 537 marks the end of the desolation.
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
to prove that there was indeed a Jewish exile of 70 years
Scholar
Do you think there was anything at all Jesus could have done to convince the Jewish leaders besides telling them that they were right and he was wrong? In a Court of law, you might be able to convince a judge or a jury but not an advocate even if he knows the truth. An advocate does not consider evidence or proof and change his position. He wants to win. You need to convince the Court.
do jw's still believe that babylon the great is the empire of false religion?
inquiring minds want to know .
estephan.
TD
Thanks for sharing the interesting commentary. You made reference to this before in a previous post. John is not disputed to be the writer and if that is true, there is an obvious difference in style when reading Revelation in English compared to his other books even without analyzing and comparing his use of Greek words. The English translation reader would obviously have to believe the commentator on John’s Greek but would still believe Revelation is inspired based on the internal substance of the book and would not think the anomaly you describe is relevant given the subject matter and uniqueness of the book which ties in all books of the bible together (from a Christological point of view). Maybe John ate too many boloney sandwiches in prison or drank a couple of beers before writing the book but the Bible author who caused the sun and moon to (appear to?) stand still could turn whatever John wrote into inspired. The premise is “inspired”. If the premise fall apart, everything is junk.
Isn't that a circular prior assumption of your own viewpoint?
I think I also posted that BTG was not destroyed in the manner described in Rev, therefore, it hasn’t been destroyed yet. My point is that if the Bible isn’t inspired then BTG doesn’t have to be destroyed or doesn’t have to be destroyed in the manner described in Revelation but looking at the book as if it is inspired, BTG has not been destroyed as described in Revelation.
Respectfully,
Fisherman
if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.
estephan.
The FDS shoe only fits the JW. It is obviously not Christendom as I showed in another thread was utterly defeated circa 1919 in their attempts to stop the JW movement.