Posts by Jeffro

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

Such a liar! Though Orthodox (Hasidic) Judaism does differ from secular history, and they posit that Jehoiakim was exiled 70 years prior to Persia’s conquest of Babylon, they hold that the period from Jerusalem’s destruction until the Jews’ return was 52 years.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3915966/jewish/Timeline-of-Jewish-History.htm#q7

3319 Jehoiakim exiled

3327 Jehoiachin exiled

3338 Jerusalem destroyed

3389 Babylon conquered by Persia

3390 Jews return

(The Jewish Encyclopaedia on the other hand gives early 597BCE for the start of the exile, consistent with secular history.)

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

Look how doggedly the apologist tries to defend his ‘fuzzy’ assignment of 537BCE! 😂

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

It is particularly amusing that the JW apologist argues that the entirely plausible return of a contingent of Jews in 538 BCE is ‘impossible’ but the same standard isn’t applied elsewhere.

The entire population of Egypt exiled to Babylon for 40 years? The sun remaining still so Joshua could murder more people? A global flood killing everything and requiring subsequent evolution at an unprecedented rate? ‘God can do anything.’ 🤦‍♂️ But 6 months to prepare for and make a trip from Babylon to Judea, purportedly with God’s blessing? ‘Impossible!’ Maybe there was an iron chariot in the way (Judges 1:19). 😂

(Though not by any means a requirement, the Jews could have anticipated even earlier that they may be able to return, allowing even longer for preparations, since they may already have known of Cyrus’ reputation for religious tolerance. The claim that Cyrus made a special decree only for the Jews remains superstitious nonsense.)

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

Diogenesister:

I'm very ignorant about all this but weren't there Jews left behind in Jerusalem who could easily have began preparations particularly as they were working class and likely to be the kind to do most of the actual rebuilding / cleaning etc?.

I was referring to preparations for making the trip from Babylon to Jerusalem rather than preparation for rebuilding Jerusalem.

But yes, as far as the actual rebuilding goes, although Jerusalem may have had few people or none, there were still some people in Judea after Jerusalem was destroyed, as confirmed by Stern, and their descendants may also have assisted with preparations for the rebuilding.

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

Pierre1977:

The cities are enough to list the prediction as fulfilled.

Which means Tyre is still a definite failure. And so is Babylon since Hillah occupies the same land with only a small heritage protected area of ruins a few hundred meters across.

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

Pierre1977:

Atheist Jeffro wrote:

Gotta love the irrelevant ad hominem. Anyway, I think Jonsson would be glad that others are continuing to point out JW lies.

We simply think both Jeshua and Ezra officiated at that time — one as high priest, the other as normal priest, but both had leading religious roles together

There is no evidence Ezra had even been born yet in 538BCE let alone officiating as a priest, particularly since he was still alive in 457BCE when he went from Babylon to Jerusalem (and continued living for some time after that). A Jewish priest had to be at least 30, so unless you think Ezra was 111 when he traveled to Jerusalem in 457 BCE, then you’re obviously wrong. Hence the details of the stories are obviously conflated with Ezra’s much later journey to Jerusalem.

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️

🦘

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️ Poor addled ‘scholar’. He imagines that preparation and travel has ‘only now been considered’. He makes the same kind of pathetic jibe every time it is ‘acknowledged’ that ‘there was an exile’ (as distinct from the nonexistent ‘70-year exile’) as if it’s new Information. 🙄

Desperate to claim 538 BCE is ‘impossible’, he throws 537 BCE under the bus by pointing out that one person suggests 533BCE. 😂

In reality, there was no ‘decree’ just for the Jews, but a general policy on Cyrus’s part of allowing former exiled peopleto be repatriated to quell social unrest. The biblical story is greatly overstated and it is indeed true that many scholars recognise that the full number took a much longer time to return, with several separate groups returning at different times. As I already showed, the stories in Ezra and Nehemiah obviously conflate details, evidenced by the fact that they can’t decide whether it was Jeshua or Ezra who officiated. However, there is no problem at all for an initial contingent to have returned in 538 BCE.

All of this has previously been pointed out on this forum but ‘scholar’ is a slow one. It’s also somewhat ironic that the claim of ‘impossibility’ Is coming from someone who believes that all of Egypt was exiled to Babylon for forty years, not to mention all the other ridiculous stories in the Bible like the ‘flood’. Maybe after ‘scholar’ provides the logistics of getting the kangaroos back to Australia, I’ll give a breakdown of the preparations for returning to Judea. 😂

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

A standard retort from JW apologists about the Jews returning from Babylon to Judea in 'only' 6 months after Cyrus' decree is that it 'wouldn't allow time for preparations'. This retort never includes any kind of breakdown of just how long it would take to prepare, nor does it account for the fact that the size of the group allowed for division of labour for the preparations. Instead, it is simply a fallacious argument from incredulity.

Exact preparation times can only be speculated, but tasks could be divided among teams for responsibilities such as leadership, logistics, supplies, route planning etc, which would greatly reduce the time required for overall preparations. So the claim that it would be 'impossible' is entirely unfounded, particularly for people who were highly motivated to make the trip. And some of the many Jews who remained in Babylon might also have helped with the preparations.

As far as the journey itself goes, covering just 25km per day (allowing for a comfortable 5km per hour with several rest periods) and allowing 3 rest days per week, the complete journey could be done in about 16 weeks (112 days), if taking the long route of about 1,600km as proposed by the Watch Tower Society rather than the more direct route of about 800km.

(According to Ezra 2:64 and Nehemiah 7:66, 42,360 people, plus 7,337 slaves [which is apparently fine] and inconsistent numbers of singers made the journey, but comparison of Ezra 3:2 with Nehemiah 8:1-2 shows one or both versions to be unreliable.)

362

Just read that Carl Olof Jonsson died yesterday

by slimboyfat in

for newbies, who was carl olof jonsson?

he was a jw in sweden who was challenged by a householder in the 1960s, who pointed out to him that secular history books don’t agree with watchtower that jerusalem was destroyed in 607 bce, but instead place the event 20 years later.

the reason the date is important is because it is the starting date for jw chronology which leads to 1914 as the end of the gentile times, and the beginning of the last days, as jws understand it.

Jeffro

'scholar':

Nothing to do with arithmetic.

I suppose that could be taken one of two ways.

1) 'scholar's' limitations go beyond just having trouble with arithmetic; or

2) 'scholar' imagines that adding 70 to a number does not involve arithmetic, in which case see point 1.