Doug Mason

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Posts by Doug Mason

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  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

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• 

  Doug Mason

  SCHOLAR: The seventy years of Zechariah these clearly ended in 537 BCE.
  DOUG: You know that the WTS is incapable of knowing which BCE year the Jews returned.
  
  SCHOLAR: The seventy years as a finite period of desolation-exile-servitude which could only have ended at the time of the Jews returning home.
  DOUG: While the WTS starts their Seventy Years with a supposed removal of every human from the land, they DO NOT end it when the Jews returned but they wait until the Returnees had settled in their respective towns and then met few months later at the temple site.
  
  SCHOLAR: 539 BCE is astronomically fixed as well explained in Insight On The Scriptures, 1988, Vol.1.p.353.
  DOUG: Well, that was a wild goose chase. It reminded me of the false statements made in the “Aid” book in chronology. I found statements at pages 447-467 of the said Insight volume. Let’s just pause a moment and consider the relevant parts.
  
  After ridiculing historians such as Diodorus, Africanus, Eusebius, et al, and the Babylonian tablets, the famed WT writer then turns around and relies on them to support the date for the Fall of Babylon. The Insight author writes:
  
  “ Another date that can be used as a pivotal point is the year 539 B.C.E., supported by various historical sources as the year for the overthrow of Babylon by Cyrus the Persian. (Secular sources for Cyrus’ reign include Diodorus , Africanus , Eusebius , and Ptolemy , as well as the Babylonian tablets.)”
  
  Insight does refer (selectively, I suggest) to the eclipse records of Cambyses, relying on the calculations of Oppolzer. They ignore what else Oppolzer wrote. Then to get to 539 BCE for the date of Babylon’s Fall, the author relies on the secular chronology of the period (which it does not support), citing sources such as Parker and Dubberstein, who in turn state they rely on the Babylonian tablets, aided by Ptolemy’s Canon.
  
  It is worth citing just one piece from the article in the article from Insight
  
  “It is very probable that [Cyrus’] decree was made by the winter of 538 B.C.E. or toward the spring of 537 B.C.E. This would permit the Jews time to make necessary preparations, effect the four-month journey to Jerusalem, and still arrive there by the seventh month (Tishri, or about October 1) of 537 B.C.E.”.
  
  This looks more like hope than fact. If this famed WT Scholar can’t prove the BCE year that Jews returned, what hope does someone else have? Further, the author ignores what the “Babylon” book said about Darius having a “First Year” by himself before Cyrus came to the throne of Babylon.
  
  SCHOLAR: Tensions between the city and country folk are just a small part of the tapestry of Late Judean history and have no bearing on the theology, history and chronology of that period.
  DOUG: These tensions played the dominant role in the antagonism between the priests who wanted their Yahwist religion to be centred at Jerusalem and the country folk who worshiped several deities at various “high places” around the country. And these opponents of the Yahwists were determined to continue their practices after Jerusalem and towns had been destroyed (Jer. 44:1-23). The writers of Scripture defined whether a monarch was good or evil on the basis of their allegiance to the priests at Jerusalem and their prophets. This tension was no small byplay.
  
  SCHOLAR: It is best to get your house in order before you attack another’s.
  DOUG: I’ll let that statement go through to the keeper (backstop).
  
  SCHOLAR: Jeremiah did not assign a precise date or event for the beginning of the seventy years but he gave a formula.
  DOUG: He gave a formula for telling when the Seventy Years would come to an end – Babylon’s Fall, because the period related to Babylon’s regional dominance and the consequential servitude by all its vassal states.
  
  SCHOLAR: Archaeology is in a state of flux and since the year 2000 scholarship is slowly moving more towards and acknowledgement of 'An Empty Land'.
  DOUG: The opposite of being in “a state of flux” is to have one's head set in concrete, unable to learn and to adjust accordingly. At least archaeologists are prepared to learn.
  
  I suggest that the flux – the trend – demonstrated by archaeology is moving in the direction opposite to that of the inflexible WTS writers. I have recently read several books which acknowledge that archaeology consistently shows the land was never totally devoid of humans. All agree that the land remained inhabited to some degree.
  
  As an example from Scripture, when the Returnees set up at the temple site they were surrounded by those antagonistic people who had remained behind while these Exiles were in Babylon. This tension continued, as is illustrated by Ezra’s bizarre behaviour and his demand for ritual purity, since the “People of the Land” who had remained behind did not fit his fundamentalist vision.
  
  Finally, I suggest that one either accepts historiography, as ably described in DOTHB, or not. It is not possible selectively accept historiography only when it is convenient. We must approach Scripture through the culture of the times it was written and edited, not through the eyes of today’s culture.
  
  Once more, should anyone wish to see part of the article from DOTHB, I have made it available at:
  
  http://www.jwstudies.com/Historiography.pdf
  
  This is just part of an article that covers 8 pages. DOTHB (Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books) is one in a series of Dictionaries published by IVP. These books are an invaluable resource for the serious student.
  
  Doug
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  SCHOLAR: Zechariah's 'seventy years' ended with the return of the Jews under Zerubbabel in 537 BCE.
  ZECHARIAH: In the second year of Darius … you have been angry with these seventy years?” (Zech 1:7, 12). In the fourth year of King Darius … for so many years? … for the past seventy years. (Zech 7:1, 3, 5, NIV)

  SCHOLAR: Judah's punishment ended after seventy years with the Return from Exile in 537 BCE.
  DOUG: There is no statement in Scripture that says the 70 Years ended when Jews returned. And the WTS does not end the Seventy Years with the Return, but several months later when people met at the Temple site.

  SCHOLAR: [Babylon's Fall is] astronomically fixed as a sound basis of acceptance.
  DOUG: What astronomical record? Since when has the WTS accepted astronomical evidence?

  SCHOLAR: [Jerusalem] could also represent not only its people but the country in which it was located namely Judah and so what befell the city also affected the people and the territory of Judah.
  DOUG: This ignores the tensions between the urban residents and the country farmers. And are you really saying that it only needed Jerusalem to be devoid of people, because what happened to the city was representative of the whole land?

  SCHOLAR: It is foolish to equate the date and event of the Fall of Jerusalem with the event and date for the Fall of Babylon.
  DOUG: Why is it foolish? The date for Babylon’s Fall and the date for Jerusalem’s fall are calculated from the same data.

  SCHOLAR: You let me know whether it is 586 or 587 BCE and I will see what I can do for you.
  DOUG: Firstly, it is not an issue whether 587 or 586 is correct, since I do not hang my faith on any dating system. The problem is for the WTS to prove that its date is correct, not that mine is incorrect. Nevertheless, I provide you with: http://www.jwstudies.com/Light_from_the_Ancient_Past_re_587_586.pdf

  SCHOLAR: I have a personal copy of the DOTHB and fully appreciate historiography and history as related to the Bible and I believe that such matters have a direct bearing on chronology and theology. ... In short, one finds that in historiography and history with its development of theology provides a 'ground' for WT Bible chronology.
  DOUG: For those who do not have ready access to the article that Scholar and I are talking about, I have provided an OCR scan at: http://www.jwstudies.com/Historiography.pdf

  SCHOLAR: Ezra wrote the book of Chronicles.
  DOUG: Wrong. Ezra did not write it, so you need to remove Ezra from your list. Then you need to explain the “70 years” at 2 Chronicles in the terms of historiography, which you understand.

  SCHOLAR: Jeremiah is not specific about a precise event or date for that prophecy to begin.
  DOUG: I agree with you, Jeremiah is not specific about what even started the Seventy Years.That’s the problem for the WTS. It does not matter for me, since my faith does not hinge on dates.

  SCHOLAR: The removal of humans and animals from the land as punishment was for the period of seventy years (607 -537BCE).
  DOUG: There was no need for all people and every domestic animal to be removed from the whole of Judah. Archaeology shows this never happened. Historiography again.

  SCHOLAR: Exile-servitude-desolation describes Babylon's fate which began after Judah's punishment had ended and it could be argued that it began with the Fall of the city in 539 BCE.
  DOUG: Your “exile-servitude-desolation” of Babylon did not require either the city or the country to be devoid of humans and their domestic animals. And that certainly did not happen in 539 BCE.
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  SCHOLAR: "Judah's punishment of seventy years as stated by Jeremiah, Ezra, Daniel and Zechariah".

  Jeremiah says that when the Seventy Years were completed, Babylon would be punished; so he was not speaking about punishment of either Judah or Jerusalem.

  When Daniel (9:2) speaks of "70 years" he is speaking of Jerusalem, not Judah. And the WTS does not end the 70 years at the time when Jerusalem was rebuilt. The place was still davastated decades after Daniel's time.

  Ezra does not use the expression "seventy years" anywhere.

  What was the end point of the Seventy Years in Zechariah? Was it the return of the Jews under Zerubbabel?

  When did Judah stop being punished by the LORD? Was it 539 BCE, 537 BCE, 70 CE, 1914 CE, 1948 CE? Is Judah now back in the LORD's favour, in accord with CTR's teachings?

  Is the WTS now shifting from "removal of all humans and domestic animals" to simple "punishment". If so, when did the LORD first start punishing Judah or Jerusalem?

  Doug
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  SCHOLAR: "539 BCE as a pivotal date because it is grounded in both the Bible and secular history as an event and is datable astronomically."

  DOUG: Therefore, the date for the Destruction of Jerusalem must be accepted on this very same basis, since "it is grounded in both the Bible and secular history as an event and [it] IS datable astronomically".

  What astronomical data fixes 539 BCE apart from the Absolute Dates and chronology that the WTS does not accept?

  It is not correct to say that 539 BCE is an Absolute Date "in a sense". It either is an Absolute Date or it is a calculated date. There is no middle ground.

  Sentimentality (as when SI of 1963 said that 539 was an Absolute Date) is a feeble foundation for one's faith.

  What foundation does a "Pivotal" date provide? Where does that term come from? Why is it preferable to eclipse dates, particularly when the dates of eclipses are used in the calculation of 539?

  Regarding "Bible history", I am certain you have read and understood the article dealing with this subject, including historiography, at: "Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books", pages 418-425, Arnold and Williamson.

  Scholar, I really don't understand how the term "Absolute Date" can be used rhetorically.

  Doug
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  2pink,

  I have provided WTS sources only at:

  http://www.jwstudies.com/WTS_support_for_the_Babylonian_king-list.pdf

  Doug
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  SCHOLAR: "why is not 587 regarded by scholars as an Absolute Date as with 539 BCE?"

  DOUG: 539 BCE is NOT regarded as an Absolute Date. There are other dates in the period that ARE Absolute Dates. The date for the Fall of Babylon is calculated from those real Absolute Dates and then using the neo-Babylonian chronology that the WTS does not accept. The WTS shifted the date from 538 or 536 BCE with the publication of Parker and Dubberstein in 1942.
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  12. The Ancient writer was not interested in knowing what event started the Seventy Years. He only wanted to know when it was going to end. The starting point was completely irrelevant to him, so he did not leave us with a statement indicating the event that marked the start. Their “history” was theology (historiography), rather than a precise, sequenced, accurate documentation of events.
  
  When modern Man asks for the starting date of the Seventy Years, he normally uses principles derived from his own culture: using modern attitudes towards numbers and statistics that enable him to count back 70 years.
  
  It is far more relevant to understand the culture of the Ancients, and to apply their cultural attitude towards numbers. They were prepared to employ hyperbole, give meanings to individual numbers, use numbers didactically, and so on.
  
  As an example, the number 70 combined the spiritual meanings assigned to the numbers 7 and 10. This meaning was more significant than a numerical dimension.
  
  The Hebrews assigned a number to each of the 22 letters of their alphabet, and a number was obtained by adding the numerical value of the string of letters. The order that the letters were placed in did not matter, so they had no need to assign a letter for zero (“0”).
  
  Imagine trying to invent mathematical formulae or doing calculations with this method. The Roman system of numbers had a form of positional notation, yet did not permit the use of Times Tables.

  13. If the Seventy Year period is not defined with the precision demanded of today’s technological age, it follows that the “Seventy Heptads” is similarly loose. One is based on the other. So much so, we see many “solutions”, with each one vigorously promoted and defended.
  
  In the case of the “Heptads”, neither the start point nor the end points is explicitly defined to the exclusion of other possibilities, which results in the numerous outcomes.
  
  The WTS’s interpretation of the “Heptads” points to dates that were fulfilled some 2000 years ago. The Dispensationalists, however, now fall into the suspect situation experienced by JWs, since the Dispensationalists snap off part of the “Heptad” system and project it to the current day – for the past 120 years or so, anyway.
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
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  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  1. The WTS does NOT start the “seventy years” with the destruction of Jerusalem. It starts the period with the exodus of Gedaliah’s murderers from a place north of Jerusalem two months later. The WTS waits for this moment as its starting event because it demands that the Land of Judah had to be devoid of humans and of domesticated animals before the Seventy Years could commence.

  2. The WTS, however, does not end the Seventy Years with the return of Jews from Babylon and a repopulation of the land. No, the WTS waits until well after the Returnees were settled in their towns. Without any Scriptural justification, the WTS waits until later, when the Returnees met, worked and worshiped at the temple site. Ezra 3:1 is cited by the WTS, although nowhere does Ezra use the expression “Seventy Years”.

  3. The start of the WTS’s Seventy Years is thus related to the removal (not just depopulation) of every human and domestic animal from the whole land, not just from Jerusalem, while the end of its Seventy Years is not related to the presence of people on the land, but is related to the temple, but not to its rebuilding.

  4. The WTS does not relate its end of the Seventy Years to the restoration of the destroyed temple, which should be a natural end-marker, but it relates the end of the period to the moment some Jews worshiped at an altar they had built at the site.

  5. The WTS cannot prove which BCE year the Returnees first worshiped at the temple site.

  6. The WTS appeals to the 70 years of Jerusalem’s desolations at Daniel 9:2. Firstly, Daniel is not making a prophecy, he is giving an interpretation of Jeremiah. While the WTS misuses Daniel 9:2 to say that Jerusalem had to be destroyed for the Seventy Years to commence, the WTS does not start the period with Jerusalem’s destruction, nor does the WTS end the Seventy Years with the restoration of Jerusalem (not the temple, not the land), which they reckon took place about 150 years later.

  7. Jeremiah was one of a long string of prophets who for centuries forewarned Israel and Judah that continued disobedience would result in the calamity that ultimately befell them. The destruction did not occur because of a warning from Jeremiah alone, but because from Moses’ time the people continually disobeyed God’s commandments, laws and statutes as repeatedly given by the prophets.

  8. Jeremiah applied the “seventy years” to Babylon, not to Jerusalem, and to the nations’ servitude of Babylon.
  “These nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. But when the seventy years are fulfilled, [the LORD] will punish the king of Babylon.” (25:11, 12, NIV)
  “The LORD says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon.’” (29:10, NIV)

  9. The WTS cannot prove that September/October 607 BCE is the date for the start of the Seventy Years without relying on the secular sources it decries.

  10. The WTS is incapable of citing archaeological evidence that shows the land of Judah was denuded of people or domestic animals at any stage. The evidence to date shows dramatic depopulation but a continued presence of people in Judah throughout the Babylonian Exile.

  11. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the elite, the power brokers, the intelligentsia, leaving just the poorest “People of the Land” (am hares). The reasons for doing that should be obvious. The exiled elite were the urban monotheists who were determined that religious worship be centralised at Jerusalem. Their opponents, the People of the Land, worshiped several deities at various locations around the country. The elite wrote the history, and painted the People of the Land accordingly. They tried to write the People of the Land out of history, like the marginalised Palestinians of today.

  Doug
• 
  160

  Need help disproving 607BCE

  by 2pink in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i hope i am posting in the right board.. anyway, i am newly out of the org, and have a dear friend who i've been speaking to all along about my thought process/decisions.

  she has been hesitantly receptive (how's that for confusing?!

  lol) and when i brought up 607bce to her yesterday, she was truly intrigued and had not heard of this as a false date before.. she is still half in/half out, so i know she isn't going to do a lot of naughty independent research on her own.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  Doug Mason

  2pink,

  I have an amount of material available, but perhaps the simplest is at:

  http://www.jwstudies.com/Why_historians_know_Babylon_fell_in_539_BCE.pdf

  If you are able to digest something more complex, another piece I wrote is at:

  http://www.jwstudies.com/WTS_support_for_the_Babylonian_king-list.pdf

  You will find my email address at: http://www.jwstudies.com/contact_me.html

  if you have any specific questions.

  I wish you well.

  Doug
• 
  3

  Maybe this is the reason I have not heard

  by Doug Mason in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  a short while ago, i asked for comments and criticisms of my understanding of the wts's "bible chronology".. i just realised that possibly i did not get any responses because i had provided the two-page file in .docx format.

  so i have resaved the file in .doc format at:.

  http://www.jwstudies.com/wts_bible_chronology.doc.

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  Doug Mason

  I modified my diagrams slightly at the top right hand corners.

  The amended file is available at the address in my first post on this thread.

  Doug