Deist,
If I may be so bold as to speak on Lars' behalf he is not an apologist for either 607 or for 587/6.
He has his own agenda, which I will not enter into here today, since that would muddy the waters and introduce unwanted distractions.
Doug
Doug Mason
JoinedPosts by Doug Mason
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14
539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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Doug Mason
Larry,
My main point, in my eyes anyway, is that the WTS does not make any computations of its own to determine the eclipse dates but accepts them on face value from the people it cited as the authorities. Yet it never again employs that process, presumably because they have the end point in view. This drives them to ridicule the sources it had relied on, which is gross dishonesty.
Second point is that they need a secular king list (such as Ptolemy) to be able to tavel to 539, and we know what they think of that.
Thirdly, by listing these authorities but without telling the JWs what these sources are really saying, the WTS is playing foul.
Three out of three is not nice.
Doug
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539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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Doug Mason
Larry,
You are sitting by the side of the River Euphrates, enjoying the peace. Suddenly some nearby children excitedly say they have discovered a clay tablet with some scratches on it.
Putting your pith hat on, magnifying glass in hand, you quickly see that it is an ancient astronomical tablet.
"Please Sir! Please Sir!", the little children excitedly call out, "What is the date of it so that we can understand?"
You tell them that even though the name of the king has been chipped off, you are still able to tell them the date in terms of the Julian Calendar, and likely will even be able to work out the king's name.
So with little children sitting in a half-circle in front of you, computer left at the hotel, you explain the method, step by little step, so simply that they will all understand.
Doug
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This competition is open to others, with a guaranteed prize to each who enters.
Once you have provided the children with the sequence, you are entitled to go to the nearest shop and buy yourself a Mars Bar. (If there are Babylonian Bars or Lunar Bars in your district, the choice is yours)
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True Authorship of New Testament
by QED inhi everyone.. i'm new here and this is the first time im posting.
about myself: i come from china and have been living in the uk.
5 years ago, i began to attend meetings and study the bible with jw in a chinese congregation, but never baptised.
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Doug Mason
PS,
I wonder whether the Gnostic Christians were able to influence the formation of the final Canon. Some of the NT writings directly confront that later emerging "heresy".
It is wonderful that we are still able to read a lot of the writings that were omitted from the canon formulated by the trinitarian Athanasius, and to see the contemporary alternative canons: "Lost Scriptures: Books that did not make it into the New Testament", Bart Ehrman.
Doug
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True Authorship of New Testament
by QED inhi everyone.. i'm new here and this is the first time im posting.
about myself: i come from china and have been living in the uk.
5 years ago, i began to attend meetings and study the bible with jw in a chinese congregation, but never baptised.
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Doug Mason
"It was not fraudulent in its day. Using someone's name to show how special your work was common."
This is a myth, and is not suppported by factual evidence, even from Paul's genuine writings.
I highly recommend that you get hold of Bart Ehrman's book, "Forged".
Doug
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539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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Doug Mason
Thanks for responding, Larry.
I have copied the thread so that I can spread your material into several paras, perhaps with headings, so I can make out your mesage.
I touched very lightly on other tablets but did not pursue them in detail since that would have distracted from the intention, as I set out in the Paper's title. I wrote this with a particular personal friend in mind.
The expression "cliffnote version" is meaningless to me; it's the first time I have seen the expression.
Have you seen the pictures of the eclipse traces that are available at:
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipses.html
I have now included the relevant pictures into my original Paper.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_BCE_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf
Why should I have any interest in the correct date of Jerusalem's destruction? Perhaps we could tease that out in a separate Thread?
You will know my understanding of Daniel 9, which I have set out at:
http://www.jwstudies.com/Critique_of_GM_on_Daniel_9.pdf
Can we work out the reason your submissions finish up as a single para? What program do you write it in? Can you solve the problem by using a couple of "soft returns" at the end of each para?
Doug
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In 2010 Bryan Bruce decided to apply his criminal investigative methods to the ultimate cold case : Who Killed Jesus and Why?
by Black Sheep intvnz tonight, sunday, at 8:30pm.
in 2010 bryan bruce decided to apply his criminal investigative methods to the ultimate cold case : who killed jesus and why?.
http://tvnz.co.nz/the-investigator/4202530.
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Doug Mason
Account has to be taken of the person who wrote the account, when it was written, who edited it, and the conditions at each time.
Some parts could not have been known by the original writer (such as what Pilate's wife said); the disciples abandoned Jesus, so how did they know what happened?; and most seriously, the accounts differ. They are not reliable eyewitness accounts.
As the Christian movements evolved from being simply a splinter Jewish movement, animosity grew. (Not that the movement was a united bunch, even from the start.) By the time some of these accounts were written, it was decided that the Jews should take the blame, so their writings reflected that later anti-Semitism.
Who killed Jesus? The Romans murdered him. This fate was not uncommon for any person appearing whom the Romans might consider posed a potential threat to their control.
Doug
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539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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Doug Mason
Here's a short study that someone else could consider:
In 1942, Rutherford died and Parker and Dubberstein released their study on Babylonian chronology.
A short time later, the WTS moved the Fall of Babylon to 539 BCE.
Today, the WTS says that the 539 date is based on calculations from the works of Jesuit Roman Catholic priests Strassmaier and Kugler, and by Professor Oppolzer.
Those people lived and worked at the time of CTR. Why did their works not influence Russell, even though they provide the WTS with its most absolutely significant starting date of - 523/522 for Cambyses' 7th year?
Doug
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True Authorship of New Testament
by QED inhi everyone.. i'm new here and this is the first time im posting.
about myself: i come from china and have been living in the uk.
5 years ago, i began to attend meetings and study the bible with jw in a chinese congregation, but never baptised.
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Doug Mason
QED,
There are several themes you should pursue.
The primitive Christian movement was broadly split into two: with the Peter/James group at Jerusalem, and the Paul group at several other places. (Notice that Paul had to defend himself from the Jewish Christian sect, saying that he was indeed a Hebrew of the Hebrews.) The original movements were initially seen as a Jewish sect.
Read: "St Peter versus St Paul: A Tale of Two Missions", Michael Goulder (Professor of Biblical Studies, Birmingham, England).
Then recognise how the NT was assembled: it took until the 4th century that the dominant Christian sect through the Trinitarian Athanasius came to a decision, aided by the Roman Emperors.
Read:
"Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years:, Philip Jenkins.
"AD 381: Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State", Charles Freeman
"A New History of Early Christianity", Charles FreemanIt should be apparent that this long process, which included violent disagreements between the various Christian sects, would bias the writings selected for inclusion as the NT scriptures. That is the reason the NT basically comprises Paul's writings. It is possible that the only Petrine source could be the book of James.
The process also resulted in serious mistakes, where writings were included that fraudulently claimed to have been written by Paul.
Read:
"Who wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth", Burton Mack
"The Authentic Letter of Paul: A New Reading of Paul's Rhetoric and Meaning", Dewey (and others).When you have come to grips with the origins of the NT, then turn your view to the Hebrew Scriptures. Look at the origins of the OG (=LXX) and the MT, and the probable reasons for the large differences between them (and also with the DSS).
Come back to me when you have gone through this so I can then point you to the recent books by Spong (such as "Liberating the Gospels") and by Ehrman (such as "Forged").
Then ask that if the Bible was the Word of God, why did he take a back seat and take no interest in preserving and protecting it. The Bible is a very human book, which means every writing has to be understood through the culture (idioms, understandings, politics, etc) of the community that created and who edited it.
Examine a Bible writing as you would any other piece of literature. Each writer (and editor) was interested in their own immediate community, and was addressing that community with the purpose of having it change its behaviour and attitude.
Enjoy the journey.
Doug
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539 BCE and an astronomical tablet
by Doug Mason inpage 453 of the wtss book, insight on the scriptures says that the eclipse records for the 7th year of cambyses can be used to calculate 539 bce for the fall of babylon.. to do this, the chronology article refers to j. n. strassmaier, f. x. kugler, t. oppolzer, and o. gingerich.. what did those people actually write?.
how does the wts manage to travel from the 7th year of cambyses to the date of the fall of babylon?.
http://www.jwstudies.com/539_bce_and_an_astronomical_tablet.pdf.
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Doug Mason
Thank you for your kind comments.
I expect and hope that others will be able to make use of these pages from Strassmaier etc., now that they are available to them.
Interestingly, the most difficult book to access was that by Gingerich. You can see the cost at Amazon (wow!), and there is only a handful in public libraries in Australia (one here at the State Libarary of Victoria).
If you wish, I can email the original scans that I used, so you can produce your own works using these source materials. You will find my email addrss at my web site: www.jwstudies.com
As you can guess, I was beside myself (two of me, what a horrible thought) as I collected these items. The only book I bought is that by Kugler (quite inexpensive at Amazon).
The relatively recent book by Stephenson was a great help, since he looks at the tablets at the British Museum, just as Strassmaier had.
I have an image in my mind of a dart board located at a certain Brooklyn address, with my name on it. Maybe they have a voodoo doll? If so, I am certain that this study would cause them to throw more darts or insert more pins. It's not working, though, I can assure you.
Regards,
Doug