Jeffro

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Posts by Jeffro

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  100

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

  by Bart Belteshassur in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Jeffro

  AnnOMaly:

  As you said, v. 6-23 is the parenthesis.

  No. I didn't. I said you said it was.
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  100

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

  by Bart Belteshassur in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Jeffro

  AnnOMaly:

  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.

  If you relegate verses 6 to 23 as a parenthetical statement, you're left with (verses 4-5, 25):

  4 Then the people of the land were continually discouraging the people of Judah and disheartening them from building. 5 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. ... 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.

  It was then that the work came to a halt? In the reign of Darius? That doesn't make sense. On the other hand, there's no good reason to distinguish the 'they' in verse 5 from the 'they' in the verses that immediately follow.

  In addition, the attitude of Artaxerxes I (in Ezra chapter 7 & 8, and in Nehemiah) toward reconstruction in Jerusalem is entirely different to that of the Artaxerxes posited in Ezra chapter 4. There is nothing said of Artaxerxes I in Ezra chapters 7-8 or in Nehemiah to suggest that Artaxerxes I ever opposed reconstruction in Jerusalem; rather, he provides resources. In Ezra chapter 4, Rehum, the "governor of the region Beyond the River" is opposed to Jerusalem's reconstruction, but in chapter 7, the "governor of the region Beyond the River" is assisting with reconstruction. In Nehemiah, Sanballat and others objected after Artaxerxes I commissioned work in Jerusalem, but there is no reference to any associated request to Artaxerxes to halt repairs. Instead, work on the walls continues and is completed despite Sanballat's complaints to Nehemiah.
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  100

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

  by Bart Belteshassur in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Jeffro

  AnnOMaly:

  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.

  It may seem reasonable to come to the conclusion that it refers to Artaxerxes I, however Ezra 4:23, 24 invalidates that view:

  23 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. 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.

  Ezra's reference to 'Artaxerxes' explicitly pre-dates resuming construction of the temple in Darius' second year.

  The fact that other sources don't call Cambyses or Bardiya by the 'biblical' names does not conclusively mean that Ezra did not use those names. Josephus incorrectly refers to Artaxerxes I as Xerxes in Antiquities of the Jews Book XI, so it's evident that there may have been some confusion about the sequence of these throne names.
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  30

  JW.org down?

  by jw07 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i'm seeing tons of comments from sad jws on my facebook feed saying that the beloved golden calf jw.org is offline.. what are you seeing when you try it?

  *crosses fingers* i wish it could never ever return.. are they getting too much traffic to support?.

  work of hackers?

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  Jeffro

  Ignoranceisbliss:

  According to isitdownrightnow.com it has been down for over 9 hours.

  According to isitdownrightnow.com, jw.org is still down 15 hours later, even though the site is actually available. That probably means Watch Tower have started blocking ping requests (ICMP).
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  100

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

  by Bart Belteshassur in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  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.

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  Jeffro

  Bart Belteshassur:

  AnnO Haggai, during the 2nd year of Darius, claims that Jehovah states that his house is still a waste whilst the returnees have build their own own homes 1:9. This shows that the returnees have made no effort to build his house but have built their own instead, and planted crops which Jehovah with held the dew from. He continues to say that Jehovah then rouse up the spirit of Zerubbabel and Joshua and all the people and then they began the work on his house. This indicates that this was the first they did any work on the house, other wise he would have said continued.

  It's easy to have this mistaken impression if Haggai is read in isolation. However, when all the available sources are considered together, it is evident that work on the temple foundations began in Cyrus' second year, then construction was interrupted, and was later resumed with greater impetus in Darius' second year.

  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.

  When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the returned exiles were building a temple to Jehovah the God of Israel, 2 they immediately approached Ze·rub′ba·bel and the heads of the paternal houses and said to them: “Let us build along with you; for like you, we worship your God and we have been sacrificing to him since the days of King E′sar-had′don of As·syr′i·a, who brought us here.” 3 However, Ze·rub′ba·bel and Jesh′u·a and the rest of the heads of the paternal houses of Israel said to them: “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.”
  4 Then the people of the land were continually discouraging the people of Judah and disheartening them from building. 5 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. 6 At the beginning of the reign of A·has·u·e′rus, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. 7 And in the days of King Ar·ta·xerx′es of Persia, Bish′lam, Mith′re·dath, Tab′e·el, and the rest of his colleagues wrote to Ar·ta·xerx′es the king; they translated the letter into Ar·a·ma′ic, writing it with Ar·a·ma′ic characters.

  Josephus (Against Apion Book I, chapter 21) also states: "in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius."

  If deferring to a claim of 'scriptural infallibility' (without basis), interpreting Haggai 2:15 literally means calling Ezra a liar, invalidating the premise anyway. On the other hand, hyperbole is frequently used in the Bible, and there is no reason why it should not be applied to Haggai's description.
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  8

  JW WIKIPEDIA EDITS RANKING #3 ALL TIME AND JEFFRO77???

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  due to the recent postings about the #3 edit ranking for the jw wikipedia page, (.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/282138/1/interesting-article-about-wikipedia-edit-wars-jws-rank-near-the-top-of-religious-editing#.u95gnn-9ksm.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/282124/1/wikipedia-jw-editing.

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  Jeffro

  I have a special place in my heart for you Jeffro . Keep up the good fight!

  Awww... thanks.
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  8

  JW WIKIPEDIA EDITS RANKING #3 ALL TIME AND JEFFRO77???

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  due to the recent postings about the #3 edit ranking for the jw wikipedia page, (.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/282138/1/interesting-article-about-wikipedia-edit-wars-jws-rank-near-the-top-of-religious-editing#.u95gnn-9ksm.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/282124/1/wikipedia-jw-editing.

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  Jeffro

  baltar447:

  If this is the guy, then he's an apostate. So that's cool that he's got that many edits, he probably makes a hobby of fixing white washed edits from the WTBS.

  Incorrect. Being an "apostate" would require having previously believed JW teachings.
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  8

  JW WIKIPEDIA EDITS RANKING #3 ALL TIME AND JEFFRO77???

  by ADJUSTMENTS in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  due to the recent postings about the #3 edit ranking for the jw wikipedia page, (.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/scandals/282138/1/interesting-article-about-wikipedia-edit-wars-jws-rank-near-the-top-of-religious-editing#.u95gnn-9ksm.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/282124/1/wikipedia-jw-editing.

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  Jeffro

  ADJUSTMENTS:

  I decided to do a little digging and came up with the name Jeffro77 who has more than 20,000 edits on the JW Wikipedia site.

  '20,000 edits on the JW Wikipedia site'? That's obviously false.

  Analysis of the user's edits (https://tools.wmflabs.org/supercount/index.php?user=Jeffro77&project=en.wikipedia) indicates:

  Unique Pages Edited: 2,527
  Average edits per page: 8.27
  Live edits: 20,898

  There are not anywhere near 2500 JW-related pages, so the editor obviously can't have 20,000 edits on JW-related articles.

  The editor has 1553 edits on the main JW article. The remaining approx. 8300 edits of article pages are divided among over 2500 different articles. Most of the editor's edits are on various discussion pages.
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  56

  Is this a new "This Generation" or not?

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  first of all i want to express my sincere gratitude to atlantis and his good friends for making this 2014 book available.. ------------.

  as i see it, and i am absolutely open to contradiction, the wts appears to be giving another new meaning to this generation.

  this time the term means all of his anointed followers, including his immediate disciples.

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  Jeffro

  There's no reason to believe that there is any special significance at all to the 'gospel' stories about Jesus, all written decades after the alleged events, containing a hodge-podge of unoriginal stories re-attributed to Jesus.

  Aside from that, there is no reason to re-interpret the use of "generation" attributed to Jesus as anything other than the usual use of the word.

  Any attempt to apply anything at all from the 'gospels' to 1914 is entirely baseless. Although it is amusing watching the Watch Tower Society re-hash their ridiculous superstitions.

  (And it's mildly disturbing that the lives of dead JWs are represented by a brown smear.)
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  17

  Quotes in the Creation book... My article so far...

  by ILoveTTATT in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hi,.

  please review my article (so far) on the quotes in the creation book.... thanks!.

  https://www.dropbox.com/s/trsrdw4ojs9fec7/quotes%20in%20the%20book%20-%20formal%20article.pdf.

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  Jeffro

  Looks good so far! Please keep up the good work. :)