Posts by link

14

A dumb question?

by link in

its quite possible that i am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.. at jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, babylon and its king will be destroyed.

when does this 70 years start from?

all wts literature says that babylon was destroyed in 539 bce, two years before the end of the 70 years of judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 bce.. are these two different lots of 70 years?

link

Thanks for your responses everyone. I can' t argue with any of it.

I do believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God but I do not believe that by allocating numbers to historical events then juggling them about you can come up with somthing and call it the fulfillment of scriptural prophesy. It is comforting to know however, that history supports the Biblical record.

Unfortunately I am not in a position to take a hard line with my family on these matters, I stand to lose too much.

I have tried putting this and similar questions to them about 1914, 1919 etc but they always resort to the same ultimate response. "How else could we have foretold the second comming of Jesus and the start of the First World War before the actual events?" What a loaded statemet!

They won't believe this, but firstly they never attached 1914 to the Second Comming before the event and secondly they never foretold the the start of WW1. Ask them for proof of either of these two statements and the response you get is "you don't have enough faith".

There are just so many issues that they do not want to even look at, let alone want to explain.

link

14

A dumb question?

by link in

its quite possible that i am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.. at jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, babylon and its king will be destroyed.

when does this 70 years start from?

all wts literature says that babylon was destroyed in 539 bce, two years before the end of the 70 years of judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 bce.. are these two different lots of 70 years?

link

Hi J Gull,

Thanks, I have that site stored under "favourites" but you can only understand it if you are not a JW, if you are it will not make sense to you.You will still go on believing what the WTS says.

I have to work with what the JW's believe hence my question about the last king of Babylon being killed after 68 yrars and not 70 years as per the Bible. This is what they believe so I am just asking how they work it out.

I mentioned in my last post about complications. They complicate matters still further by frequent use of such words as "literal", "figurative" and "fulfillment".

Any part of the Bible can be literal or figurative or both at the same time or at different times depending on the outcome you want to achieve. Any part of the Bible can have a literal fulfillment on any number of occasions and can also have a figurative fulfillment at any time and on any number of occasions from one to infinity depending on what you are trying to "prove".

I don't know how 6m people, including my own family, can believe this!

link

14

A dumb question?

by link in

its quite possible that i am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.. at jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, babylon and its king will be destroyed.

when does this 70 years start from?

all wts literature says that babylon was destroyed in 539 bce, two years before the end of the 70 years of judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 bce.. are these two different lots of 70 years?

link

Hi db,

My only interest in numerology stems from my very close association with my JW family members.

Yes I have a very strong belief in God and the Bible but not in the man made religions of our day. For example I do not believe in divination by numbers as the JWs do with their 607 and 1914 etc therefore second Adventist numerology is hogwash to me. It borders on the occult and I believe it has no place in Christianity .

I think perhaps that I am more inclined towards a practical than theoretical interpretation of the Bible so in that respect, yes I could be a pragmatist.

The reason that I frequent this board is that my JW family are continually challenging me to disprove their beliefs. I find it very difficult at times trying to prove a negative so always attempt to turn the challenge around by asking questions in the form of seeking clarification. The secret here is that I must always know the answer myself before asking the question. Hence my question.

Changing the subject slightly, the biggest problem that I come up against is one of interpretation. On occasions there appears to be many different English words that fit a Greek or Hebrew verb and many different ways of understanding these English words. At other times there appears to be no English equivalent to the Greek or Hebrew or no Greek or Hebrew equivalent of the English word.

For this reason the interpretation of the Bible takes many and various forms and the outcome is completely dependent upon how these variations are linked together by the writer in order to present the finished article. The Witnesses do it in a unique way and therefore they are different, but may not always be wrong.

I do however disagree with them most strongly on some of their interpretation of scripture and occasionally need a little bit of ammunition to fire back.

Link

14

A dumb question?

by link in

its quite possible that i am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.. at jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, babylon and its king will be destroyed.

when does this 70 years start from?

all wts literature says that babylon was destroyed in 539 bce, two years before the end of the 70 years of judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 bce.. are these two different lots of 70 years?

link

Hi Craig,

Many thanks for your response to my question. I can understand how this might be applied to Babylon but not how it applies to its king. The final evidence of Babylons defeat may have been the return of the Jews, but the final evidence of the end of the king was his dead body.

According to the WTS his death occurred after 68 years and according to the Bible it was after 70 years that the last king of Babylon would be destroyed. Something does not "click".

Would be grateful for any further info.

link

14

A dumb question?

by link in

its quite possible that i am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.. at jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, babylon and its king will be destroyed.

when does this 70 years start from?

all wts literature says that babylon was destroyed in 539 bce, two years before the end of the 70 years of judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 bce.. are these two different lots of 70 years?

link

Its quite possible that I am the only one on this board who does not know the answer to this question so can someone please enlighten me.

At Jeremiah 25:12 it says that when 70 years have been fulfilled, Babylon and its king will be destroyed. When does this 70 years start from? All WTS literature says that Babylon was destroyed in 539 BCE, two years before the end of the 70 years of Judahs desolation in 537, which started in 607 BCE.

Are these two different lots of 70 years? I've tried asking Witnesses but they don't seem to have any explanation?

link

45

Sept KM Scan

by dmouse in

jw
friends

edited by - dmouse on 23 august 2002 4:10:39.

link

Can anyone clarify the U.K. laws on copyright? Is it illegal to copy and distribute information (for profit or not) when the author has knowingly put the information into the public domain without charge? I would have thought that an offence would have been committed only if the author was deprived of something by the action of the person copying and distributing the information.

link

25

Words we no longer use

by sleepy in

jw
friends

.

what are some words and phrases we no longer use (except when writing here) that we used to use as witnesses.. heres some,.

theocratic, other crowd, this system of things, new order

link

I used to think that "right hearted ones" had some sort of internal deformation!

What about the public speakers who end every sentence with "isn't it", "aren't they", "don't they" etc. etc. ad nauseum?

"Ones" answering up in the Watchtower who always start off with the word "Yes". Did you have one of these?

link

25

Words we no longer use

by sleepy in

jw
friends

.

what are some words and phrases we no longer use (except when writing here) that we used to use as witnesses.. heres some,.

theocratic, other crowd, this system of things, new order

link

Or how about "ones" as in "ones comming along"?

link

2

Questions at baptism.

by link in

can anyone please tell me the precise wording of the two questions that are asked of candidates immediately prior to their baptism?

i believe the second one is the point at which the candidate kisses good-bye to the inclination, right or ability to think for themselves ever again!

any comments?.

link

Thanks for the response Teejay. It was dumb of me not to think of doing a search.

I tried search to answer your question on Zelda and no! i don;t do computer games.(Is that the right Zelda I wonder?)

The reason for my question is that my very dear wife and her JW friends seem to have a blockage when it comes to normal reasoning and I'm trying to figure out how it works.

At the moment I do not believe that it can be changed because she says she does not see the "truth" as a belief system but a way of life that everyone should subscribe to. There is nothing but nothing that will change her ideas about the "Society" being Gods sole channel of communication at the present time. As she says, it is something way beyond what is just a belief so I dont think that there is any way you can shift that sort of thing.

Even with her cooperation it would be difficult, without it it is impossible to my way of thinking but I'm still working on it!

Thanks for the welcome.

link

2

Questions at baptism.

by link in

can anyone please tell me the precise wording of the two questions that are asked of candidates immediately prior to their baptism?

i believe the second one is the point at which the candidate kisses good-bye to the inclination, right or ability to think for themselves ever again!

any comments?.

link

Can anyone please tell me the precise wording of the two questions that are asked of candidates immediately prior to their baptism? I believe the second one is the point at which the candidate kisses good-bye to the inclination, right or ability to think for themselves ever again! Any comments?

link