shepherdless:
I am solely focused on Watchtower’s strawman argument, where Watchtower claims that “secular” historians are the source of 586/587 BC. To repeat myself, outside of the Bible, there is no evidence of the event. Therefore, outside of the Bible, there is no date. The 586/587 BC date is a biblical date.Thanks for the clarification. It is certainly the case that the Watch Tower Society tries to 'demonise' 'secular' sources, and to use this as a distraction from the fact that the information in the Bible only actually allows for 587 BCE (unless an incorrect year is presumed for the start of Nebuchadnezzar's reign).
And in relation to whether it is 586 or 587, I leave that to others, because my understanding is that it is not so straight forward.Rest assured, 587 is definitely correct year. The confusion generally stems from some (mostly religious) sources trying to reconcile Bible verses about the subject without understanding the different dating systems used in different Bible books (and additional confusion about the interpolation at Jeremiah 52:28-30). Some sources also fail to properly account for the fact that the primary exile is properly counted from 598 BCE (rather than 597) because it occurred prior to Nisan of 597. Additionally, some sources refer to "587/6" because the Jewish year starting in Nisan spans parts of both years of our calendar, with the destruction of the city still actually occurring in 587 BCE.