‘scholar’:
This is plain and utter nonsense for one of the themes of the OT is the fact of the Exile.
This is the kind of dishonest stupidity he has to resort to, as if saying there is no mention of a 70-year exile is the same as saying there was no exile at all. So blatantly dishonest. 😂
Most of the Jews were exiled in early 597 BCE. Those exiles were told in 594 BCE that Babylon would have 70 years. Later, more people were exiled when Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 BCE. Later still, some more were exiled in 582 BCE. Some Jews returned in 538 BCE, and the period from Jerusalem’s destruction until their return was 49 years, the same period of paying sabbaths indicated in Leviticus.
Babylon’s 70 years definitely ended in 539 BCE ‘when Persia began to reign’, after Babylon was ‘called to account’ and therefore began in 609 BCE, which is when Assyria disappeared from history. Jeremiah said the nations had already been ‘given into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand’ by the time he addressed both Jehoiakim and Zedekiah.
Poor hopeless ‘scholar’.