@scholar
For over a century, Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) have insisted that ancient
Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE, contrary to the scholarly consensus of
586/587 BCE. This unique chronology underpins their prophetic framework
(notably the year 1914), making the 607 date the linchpin of a far-reaching
eschatology. To defend 607 BCE, Watch Tower apologists advance a range of
arguments: they debate when the prophesied seventy-year period began (609 vs.
605 BCE), reinterpret biblical texts like Jeremiah 25 to redefine the scope of
Babylonian domination, and assert that the 70 years ended exactly with
Babylon’s fall (539 BCE) and the Jewish return under Cyrus (~537 BCE). They
invoke historical sources such as Flavius Josephus to bolster their timeline,
cast doubt on the well-established 586/587 BCE date by alleging ambiguity or
gaps in Neo-Babylonian chronology, and lean on the work of Rolf Furuli to
challenge astronomical data (e.g. the Babylonian tablet VAT 4956).
In their narrative, secular historians are accused of ignoring “missing years,”
and critics of 607 BCE are said to have “no single line of evidence” disproving
the Watchtower’s date. The JWs even laud the “beauty” or symmetry of the
607–537 BCE timeline as if aesthetic coherence were proof of truth.
This article provides a detailed, polemical rebuttal to these claims. We
will show that each major argument for 607 BCE is deeply flawed and
inconsistent with the historical, biblical, archaeological, and astronomical
evidence. Far from vindicating the Watchtower chronology, a careful examination
of the facts reveals the untenability of the 607 BCE date. In what
follows, we address each of the apologist’s points in turn – from the
interpretation of Jeremiah’s seventy years to the astronomical observations of
Babylon – drawing on a wealth of scholarly research and documented
correspondence. The goal is to demonstrate, once and for all, that the
traditional 586/587 BCE date for Jerusalem’s fall stands firm, and that the
Watchtower’s chronology must be discarded in light of all available evidence.
The Starting Point of the
Seventy Years: 609 vs. 605 BCE
At the heart of the 607 BCE argument is the biblical prophecy of a seventy-year
period associated with Babylon. The question is: seventy years of what, and
when did they begin? Jehovah’s Witness apologists often claim that secular
scholars “cannot agree” on a starting point – some pointing to 609 BCE,
others to 605 BCE – implying an irresolvable ambiguity. In reality, historians
do broadly concur on the framework: the seventy years correspond to the span of
Babylonian imperial dominance in the ancient Near East, a period that clearly
began in the late 7th century BCE and ended with Babylon’s demise in 539 BCE.
The two candidate start-dates (609 or 605) reflect not confusion, but two
facets of Babylon’s rise:
- 609 BCE – The Fall of Assyria: By 609 BCE, the Babylonians under Nabopolassar
(with Median allies) had definitively crushed the last Assyrian stronghold
at Harran, ending the Assyrian Empire. This watershed marked the
transfer of imperial hegemony to Babylon. As historian Jack Finegan notes,
“the defeat in 609 B.C. of Ashur-uballit II…marked the end of [Assyria]
and the rise to power of the Babylonian empire… Then in 539 [BCE] Cyrus…
marched in victory into Babylon… and the seventy years of Babylon and the
seventy years of Jewish captivity were ‘completed’ (609–539 = 70)”.
Many scholars therefore see 609–539 BCE as the prophesied 70-year span
“for Babylon.” Indeed, Babylon’s supremacy began with the final
shattering of Assyrian power in 609 BCE and ended 70 years later with
Babylon’s fall in 539 BCE, precisely as Jeremiah had foretold.
- 605 BCE – The Battle of Carchemish: In 605 BCE, crown prince Nebuchadnezzar II
defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish (northern Syria) and thereby asserted
Babylonian control over Syro-Palestine (including Judah). This brought
Judah and the surrounding nations formally under Babylon’s yoke,
fulfilling Jeremiah’s warning that “these nations will serve the king
of Babylon seventy years” (Jeremiah 25:11). Some chronologists
therefore date the “servitude” from 605 BCE. However, by the Watchtower’s
own calculation this yields only 68 years to 537 BCE, underscoring
that 605 is a terminus a quo for Babylon’s regional domination but
not necessarily meant to be an exact start for a literal 70-year count.
Crucially, whether one counts from 609 or 605 BCE, the terminus ad quem
remains 539 BCE – the fall of Babylon – which is exactly seventy years after
609 and about 66–68 years after 605. There is no contradiction here,
only a question of emphasis: 609 BCE marks Babylon’s emergence as world power,
while 605 BCE marks Judah’s direct subjugation. In either case, the seventy
years are anchored squarely in the Neo-Babylonian era and not a
product of later chronological meddling. In contrast, the 607 BCE defenders
insist the seventy years must begin with Jerusalem’s destruction (which they
date to 607) and end with the Jewish return in 537 – an interpretation we will
evaluate below. For now, it is sufficient to note that the Bible’s seventy-year
period does align neatly with well-defined historical events (the fall
of Assyria and the fall of Babylon), giving it a clear context that does not
require any chronological sleight-of-hand. As one scholar observed, no one
acquainted with Neo-Babylonian history can claim these 70 years have a “fuzzy”
or indeterminate meaning; the period is bookended by specific, major events.
In summary, historians are not “confused” about 609 vs. 605 – both dates
highlight the emergence of Babylonian rule, and neither lends any credence to
607 BCE. On the contrary, the necessity of some JW apologists to even float 605
BCE as a start-date tacitly admits that 607 BCE finds no support at all
in the events marking Babylon’s rise. The prophecy’s clock did not wait until
Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 (let alone 607) to start ticking; it was already
well underway by then, as evidenced by the geopolitical facts on the ground.
Jeremiah 25 and the Scope of
Babylonian Servitude
Jeremiah 25:9–12 lies at the
core of the debate. In this passage (delivered around 605 BCE, early in King
Nebuchadnezzar’s reign), Jeremiah warns that Babylon will conquer the
surrounding nations, including Judah, and that “these nations will serve the
king of Babylon seventy years”After the seventy years are completed,
Babylon itself would be punished (Jer 25:12). The Watchtower interpretation
reads this as a literal 70-year exile of the Jews (from Jerusalem’s fall
in 607 BCE to Babylon’s fall in 539 BCE, with the exile ending in 537 BCE). But
is that what the text actually says? A close examination shows that the scope
of the 70 years was far broader – and more imperial – than the JW
reading allows.
First, note the language: “these nations [haggōwyim] will serve the king
of Babylon seventy years” (Jer 25:11). The subject is plural – it is not only
Judah, but a collection of nations in the region. Jeremiah 25 lists Judah
alongside Egypt, Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, Sidon, and others
as the peoples whom Babylon would subjugate (Jer 25:17-26). The 70 years,
therefore, refer to a period of Babylonian hegemony over the Near East,
not exclusively to Jews being in exile. In fact, at the time of Jeremiah’s
prophecy (circa 605 BCE), Jerusalem had not yet fallen – the Judeans
would only be exiled years later – yet the prophecy speaks as if the 70 years
of servitude were either imminent or already begun. Indeed, Jeremiah 29:1–10
records a letter Jeremiah sent to Jewish exiles during the reign of Zedekiah
(Jerusalem’s last king, still on the throne), telling them to settle in for a
long stay in Babylon. He says: “When seventy years are completed for
Babylon, I will attend to you and fulfill my promise to bring you back”
(Jer 29:10, NIV). This letter was written before 587 BCE, indicating
that Jeremiah regarded the seventy-year count as running concurrently with
the exile, not starting after Jerusalem’s destruction. In other words, the
clock was already ticking even while Zedekiah was ruling in Jerusalem. This
makes sense only if the seventy years began with Babylon’s ascendancy (as
discussed above, c. 609 or 605 BCE), not with the city’s fall.
Apologists defending 607 BCE often seize on a particular translation issue
in Jeremiah 29:10. The verse in the JW’s New World Translation (NWT)
reads “at Babylon” – “according to the fulfilling of seventy years at
Babylon I will turn my attention to you…” – which they take to mean the
Jews would spend 70 years in Babylonian exile. However, the Hebrew
preposition le is more accurately rendered “for”
or “with respect to.” Thus many modern translations (and the ancient Greek Septuagint)
read “when seventy years are completed for Babylon”. This small
change has big implications. “For Babylon” means the period is Babylon’s
time of dominion – the 70 years belong to Babylon, so to speak, as the term
of its divinely allotted supremacy. Understood this way, Jeremiah was not
saying God’s people would be captives in Babylon for 70 years; he was saying
that Babylon would dominate the nations (Judah included) for 70 years, after
which (in Babylon’s punishment) God would allow his people to return.
Notably, the JW organization is aware of the translation nuance – their own
literature acknowledges that le can mean “for” – yet the English
NWT continues to use the archaic “at Babylon” (a choice largely abandoned
by modern scholarship) because the “at Babylon” phrasing conveniently supports
the idea of Jews being in Babylon for 70 years (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). As one commentator observes, the Watchtower Society
persists with “at Babylon” precisely to prop up 607–537 BCE, whereas in reality
Jeremiah’s words mean “seventy years for Babylonian supremacy”. The
nations would serve Babylon for that span, and when those seventy years
were over, “Jehovah would punish Babylon and begin the rehabilitation of his
people back to Jerusalem”. This interpretation – the one actually faithful
to Jeremiah’s context – perfectly fits the historical timeline: Babylon’s rule
lasted ~70 years, and its end enabled the Jewish return. It does not
require that Jerusalem lie desolate for every day of those 70 years.
It is also significant that Jeremiah 27:6–7 reiterates the prophecy:
God says He has given all these lands into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, and “all
nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until the time of
his own land comes” (NASB). This corresponds exactly to the Neo-Babylonian
dynasty: Nebuchadnezzar, his son Evil-Merodach, and (through his daughter’s
marriage) his “grandson” Belshazzar (co-regent with Nabonidus) – after which
Babylon fell to Cyrus. Jeremiah thus defines the period as the reign of
three generations of Babylonian kings, not a period defined by Jerusalem’s
status. The end-point is the fall of Babylon, “the time of his land.”
Indeed, Jeremiah 25:12 explicitly states, “when the seventy years are
fulfilled, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation”. The JWs
agree that Babylon fell in 539 BCE and that this marked the end of the 70
years; they simply add two extra years by insisting the Jews remained in
exile until 537 BCE to “complete” the period. But the Bible itself does not say
the Jewish repatriation completes the 70 years – it says Babylon’s
punishment does. In short, Jeremiah’s prophecy is focused on Babylon’s
empire and the servitude of the nations, not exclusively on the exile or on
Jerusalem’s desolation. By trying to make the prophecy solely about the Jewish
exile, the Watchtower distorts the plain wording. As Carl Olof Jonsson
observes, to start with the later brief references in Daniel or 2 Chronicles
(which mention Jerusalem’s desolation) and interpret Jeremiah by those, rather
than vice versa, is to “turn the matter upside down”. The proper approach
is to take Jeremiah’s clear original statements as primary and understand the
later remarks in that light. Jeremiah unambiguously foretold 70 years of
Babylonian domination; nowhere did he explicitly say “70 years of Jewish
exile.
Thus, the claim that Jeremiah 25 supports a 607–537 BCE exile collapses
under scrutiny. The scope of the seventy years was the servitude of
many nations under Babylon, beginning well before Jerusalem’s fall. This
broader view is not a revisionist trick; it is the natural reading of the
biblical text in context and is confirmed by multiple scholars and
translations (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). It is the Watchtower’s narrow interpretation that is forced
and eisegetical, driven by dogma rather than the text. Far from
requiring that Judah lie desolate for a full 70 years, Jeremiah’s prophecy encompasses
the entire region and in effect sets a deadline for Babylon’s own judgment.
As we will see, that deadline was met precisely in 539 BCE – and not a single
reputable historical source places Jerusalem’s fall 20 years earlier to
accommodate an overly literalist twist on Jeremiah’s words.
Fulfillment of the 70 Years:
Babylon’s Fall and Cyrus’ Decree
A related point of contention is when and how the seventy
years were fulfilled. JWs contend that the prophecy was only fulfilled once the
Jewish exiles returned home from Babylon, which they date to 537 BCE
(following Cyrus the Great’s decree in his first regnal year). By their
reckoning, Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE, lay desolate for 70 years, and
the Jews returned in 537, neatly completing the period. Critics, on the other
hand, point out that the Bible’s emphasis is on Babylon’s downfall after 70
years, which occurred in 539 BCE, and that the return under Cyrus
(whether in 538 or 537 BCE) is a subsequent event not required to complete
the 70 years to the exact month or day.
It is important to understand the sequence: Babylon fell to the Persians
in October 539 BCE. Soon thereafter (by 538 BCE), Cyrus issued a decree
allowing captive peoples, including the Jews, to return to their homelands. The
initial group of Jewish exiles likely trekked back to Judah around 537 BCE,
arriving by the autumn of that year (the Bible notes they gathered in Jerusalem
by the seventh month, Tishri, likely of 537 BCE – see Ezra 3:1). Thus, if one
insists on tying the full 70 years to the period of exile/desolation,
one must count roughly from summer 607 to summer 537 BCE in the JW scenario.
But as we have seen, Jeremiah ties the 70 years to Babylon’s domination and
subsequent punishment, not explicitly to the Jews’ repatriation.
By fall 539 BCE, exactly seventy years after 609 BCE, Babylon’s
empire was finished – Cyrus had “called Babylon to account” as Jeremiah 25:12
said would. At that moment, the prophetic 70-year period “for Babylon”
was effectively fulfilled. Jehovah’s “good word” to bring his people back (Jer
29:10) was set in motion by that event, since Cyrus’s victory paved the way for
the decree. Within a year or two, the exiles were on their way home.
Second Chronicles 36:20–23 – written after the fact – reflects on this, saying
that the land of Judah “paid off its sabbaths all the days of lying
desolated, until seventy years were fulfilled, to fulfill the word of Jehovah
by Jeremiah” and that in Cyrus’s first year God moved him to issue the
return decree. The Chronicler here is giving a theological summary: he links
the desolation of the land with Jeremiah’s 70 years and sees Cyrus’s decree as
the culmination of God’s mercy. However, this does not demand that the
land was totally empty for a full 70 years. In fact, the Chronicler doesn’t
date the destruction to 607 BCE at all – that idea is imported by
Watchtower interpreters. The Chronicler was aware (from sources like Jeremiah
and perhaps Persian records) that about fifty years had passed from Jerusalem’s
fall (587 BCE) to Cyrus’s decree (538 BCE). Yet he invokes “70 years” because
that number had prophetic significance (Jeremiah’s oracle) and symbolic
resonance (the land “enjoyed its sabbath rests” presumably one year for each
missed sabbath year over centuries of Judah’s sin). In other words, 70 in
this context is a rounded, theological number – it emphasizes the
completeness of the land’s rest and the fulfillment of prophecy, not a precise
chronological count from point A to B.
Daniel 9:1-2 provides an interesting perspective: Daniel, writing from
Babylon “in the first year of Darius the Mede” (right after Babylon’s
fall, c. 538 BCE), says he “discerned by the books the number of years
concerning which the word of Jehovah occurred to Jeremiah… for fulfilling the
desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years.” Daniel realized that the
prophesied period was ending. Notably, Babylon had already fallen when
he says this, strongly suggesting he linked the fall of Babylon to the
fulfillment of Jeremiah’s 70 years. Daniel does not wait until 537 BCE to start
praying for Jerusalem’s restoration; he does so immediately after Babylon is
toppled (Dan 9:3–19). This implies that Daniel understood the “70 years”
were essentially complete with Babylon’s demise, opening the door for
Jerusalem’s rebuilding (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). The Watchtower argument is that Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chron.
36:21 “unambiguously” apply the 70 years to Jerusalem’s desolate condition, and
therefore these later writings should control our interpretation of Jeremiah.
But as Jonsson incisively notes, Furuli and the Watchtower have reversed the
proper order of interpretation: they start with Daniel and Chronicles –
which give only terse allusions subject to interpretation – and use them to
override Jeremiah’s clear original prophecy. A sound reading does the
opposite: Jeremiah defined the prophecy (servitude to Babylon for 70 years,
ending with Babylon’s fall), and Daniel and the Chronicler reflect on that
prophecy after its fulfillment, each with a theological emphasis. Daniel
focuses on Jerusalem’s ruined state (which by 538 had lasted ~49 years) and
prays for mercy now that the 70-year Babylonian domination has ended.
The Chronicler focuses on God’s providence in using Cyrus to allow the land to
be resettled, framing it as the expiration of a divinely ordained period of
rest. Neither writer intended to teach a novel chronology that contradicts the
known historical timeline; they were interpreting Jeremiah’s prophecy in light
of the events that had transpired, using “70 years” as the prophetic framework
given by Jeremiah.
It is telling that Josephus, too, understood the chronology such
that the temple lay desolate for roughly 50 years (from 587 to about 537 BCE).
In Against Apion he explicitly states: “in the eighteenth year of
[Nebuchadnezzar’s] reign [he] devastated our temple, that for fifty years it
ceased to exist, that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus the foundations
were laid…”. This aligns with the biblical timeline and Berossus’s
Babylonian data, yielding about 49–50 years of desolation. Thus, even devout
ancient historians did not insist the exile/desolation lasted a full seventy
calendar years – they recognized Jeremiah’s 70 years in terms of Babylon’s
empire, while recording ~50 years for the temple’s actual desolation. Strictly
speaking, the land’s desolation did not cease until the exiles returned in
538/537 BCE (almost 49 years after 587), but the prophetic seventy years
had already run their course by then. There is no contradiction if we allow
Jeremiah’s prophecy to mean what it says (“for Babylon”) and the later
references to use “70” in a reflective or symbolic sense. The only way to
obtain a literal 70-year exile is to perform the kind of chronological
acrobatics the Watchtower has: move the destruction 20 years earlier, despite
all evidence. We will shortly examine why that 20-year shift is historically
impossible. But first, let us consider how Jehovah’s Witness apologists
misuse Josephus in an attempt to corroborate their timeline.
Flavius Josephus on the
Destruction of Jerusalem
Jehovah’s Witnesses frequently appeal to the 1st-century historian Flavius
Josephus as a star witness for their 607 BCE date. They often quote
Josephus as saying that the Babylonian captivity/desolation lasted 70 years.
However, a careful look at Josephus’ writings shows that his statements are
neither consistent nor supportive of the Watchtower’s chronology once
properly understood. In fact, Josephus ultimately affirms a timeline much
closer to the scholarly consensus (with about a 50-year exile) and explicitly
gives figures for Babylonian reigns that match the traditional chronology, not
the extended one required by 607 BCE.
It is true that in one passage of Antiquities (Book X,
chap. 9, ¶7) Josephus appears to place a 70-year desolation between the fall of
Jerusalem and the restoration. But he does so in a rather confused manner,
seemingly misreading his sources. He writes that the Babylonian king
“made an expedition against the Jews, and reduced their city… to desolation
for seventy years” and he bizarrely associates this with the reign of Nabopolassar
(Nebuchadnezzar’s father) instead of Nebuchadnezzar. Modern scholars and
Josephus translators have noted this as an error or interpolation. As Rolf
Furuli himself quotes, Josephus’s translator H. St. J. Thackeray
commented that “The burning of the temple, not mentioned in the extract
which follows, is presumably interpolated by Josephus, and erroneously placed
in the reign of Nabopolassar”. In other words, Josephus (or a scribe)
appears to have jumbled the timeline, mistakenly inserting the 70-year
desolation into Nabopolassar’s reign. The result is a chronological mess:
it would start the 70 years around 605 BCE (Nabopolassar’s last year) rather
than 587 BCE – a scenario no modern JW would accept either, since it doesn’t
match 607 BCE. Clearly, Josephus was not working from precise chronological
records at that point; he was likely trying to reconcile the biblical 70-year
motif with historical accounts and did so clumsily. Carl Jonsson points out
that Josephus “seems to have confused events concerning Jerusalem in the last
year of Nabopolassar’s reign with events in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign”. Thus, the one Josephus passage that could be read as endorsing a
70-year desolation is demonstrably flawed and not based on accurate chronology.
By contrast, when Josephus quotes more reliable sources, he gives a very
different reckoning. In Against Apion I.19, Josephus reproduces a
Babylonian chronology from the Chaldean historian Berossus, listing the
Neo-Babylonian kings and their reign lengths: “Nebuchadnezzar, 43 years;
Evil-Merodach, 2 years; Neriglissar, 4 years; Labashi-Marduk, 9 months;
Nabonidus, 17 years. Josephus then immediately says, “This statement is
both correct and in accordance with our books”, and he explains why it is
correct: because it tallies with the biblical record of the temple’s
destruction and rebuilding. He notes (as cited earlier) that “in the
eighteenth year of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] reign [he] devastated our temple… for
fifty years it ceased to exist, … in the second year of Cyrus the foundations
were laid…”. By Josephus’s own calculation, the interval from
Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (the destruction of Jerusalem) to Cyrus’s first year
was about 50 years, consistent with Berossus’s sum of the intervening reigns (Nebuchadnezzar’s
remaining 25 years + Evil-Merodach 2 + Neriglissar 4 + Labashi’s <1 +
Nabonidus 17 ≈ 49 years). This is a remarkable admission: Josephus
essentially confirms the traditional chronology (which places the fall
of Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE and the decree of Cyrus in 538/537 BCE). He
explicitly calls the Berossus chronology “correct” and aligns it with
Scripture, highlighting the 50-year desolation.
Thus, we have two Josephus “witnesses”: one (Antiquities) confusedly
implying 70 years of desolation, the other (Against Apion) clearly stating 50
years of desolation and endorsing the standard Neo-Babylonian regnal lengths.
Which is more credible? Obviously, the account that Josephus himself frames as correct
and supported by the historical record (Berossus) deserves more weight than a
garbled retelling. Even the Watch Tower’s scholar of choice, Rolf Furuli,
acknowledges that Josephus gives conflicting figures and that the 70-year
reference in Antiquities is likely based on a “serious distortion” of the
sources.
In practice, the Watchtower writers have cherry-picked Josephus’ mention of
70 years while ignoring his explicit 50-year statement. This is
intellectually dishonest. If one were to take Josephus at face value in
Antiquities, one would start the 70 years in 605 BCE (not 607), which no JW
apologist advocates. And if one takes Josephus in Against Apion, one must
accept that Jerusalem fell about 587 BCE, since only that dating makes the 50
years to Cyrus work out. The Watchtower cannot have it both ways. The upshot
is: Josephus provides no real support for the 607 BCE date. When read
critically, Josephus actually corroborates the scholarly timeline and
acknowledges that the Judean exile (from the burning of the temple to the
return) lasted on the order of 50 years. His use of “70 years” elsewhere is
best understood as echoing the biblical phrase in a general sense, not as a
precise chronological assertion – much like the Chronicler’s usage. In any
event, using Josephus as a prop for 607 BCE backfires because his detailed data
undermine the notion of an extra 20 years in Babylonian history.
In conclusion, Josephus’ testimony, far from being an independent
confirmation of the Watchtower chronology, is a mixed and ultimately
unreliable witness if misused. The only consistent way to interpret
Josephus is to recognize that he knew of the biblical 70-year tradition but
also had access to historical records that showed a shorter interval. He
himself gives precedence to the historical data in Against Apion, effectively
conceding that the literal 70 years did not separate Jerusalem’s fall and the
temple’s rebuilding. Modern JW apologists who continue to cite Josephus’
70-year remark without context are either unaware of or deliberately
obfuscating his fuller narrative. Selective quotation of Josephus cannot
overturn the combined evidence of both Scripture and cuneiform records pointing
to 587/586 BCE.
Archaeological Dating: 586 or
587 BCE?
One oft-heard Jehovah’s Witness objection is that “even scholars don’t agree
whether Jerusalem fell in 586 or 587 BCE,” implying that the conventional date
is uncertain or based on flimsy evidence, and by extension that 607 BCE might
somehow still be viable. This argument is misleading. It is true that scholarly
literature sometimes gives 587 BCE and sometimes 586 BCE for the
destruction of Jerusalem, but this is a difference of one year, owing
largely to how regnal years and calendar boundaries are reckoned – not a
fundamental dispute about the chronology. The historical records place the fall
of Jerusalem in the summer of Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th regnal year (or 19th,
counting his accession year). The Babylonian calendar year for Nebuchadnezzar’s
18th ran from spring 587 to spring 586 BCE. Jerusalem fell in the summer
(Tammuz/Ab, mid-year by the Babylonian calendar), which was 587 by our
modern calendar. Some sources simplify by saying 586 BCE if they count the
end of that regnal year or use an accession-year system differently. But in
essence, every scholar agrees the city was destroyed around 587 BCE
(give or take a few months into 586). There is no reputable historian placing
the event in the early 600s BCE. Thus, the oft-parroted “586 or 587?”
talking point is a red herring: either of those is only ~20 years later
than 607, and it is that 20-year gap that is the real issue. The scholarly
consensus is that Jerusalem’s fall occurred in the late 7th century and
absolutely not in 607. Whether one says 587 or 586, one is still refuting
the Watchtower date by about two decades.
The evidence pinning Jerusalem’s destruction to 586/587 BCE is extensive
and solid. This is not a date conjured out of thin air or solely reliant on
later historians like Ptolemy (as JWs sometimes insinuate). Let us summarize
just a few key lines of evidence:
- Babylonian Chronicles: Cuneiform tablets known as the Babylonian
Chronicles record year-by-year military events of Babylonian kings. One
such chronicle (BM 21946, the so-called “Jerusalem Chronicle”) notes that
in Nebuchadnezzar’s 7th year (598/597 BCE), he captured the city of Judah
and installed a new king (this refers to the first capture of Jerusalem,
when Jehoiachin was deposed and Zedekiah placed on the throne). The same source likely had entries (now fragmentary or
lost) for Nebuchadnezzar’s later campaigns. While the tablet covering 587
BCE is broken, the sequence of events is clear: Nebuchadnezzar
fought in the west repeatedly in his reign, and by his 18th year Judah’s
rebellion under Zedekiah was crushed. The Bible itself records that
Jerusalem fell in Zedekiah’s 11th year (Jer 52:5-12), which was
Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th. And we know Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year was 587 BCE
from Babylonian records that link regnal years to absolute time (see
astronomical data below). The biblical and Babylonian accounts dovetail,
dating the fall to Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year, which independent
chronology equates to 587. No tablet or ancient text ever dates that
event to Nebuchadnezzar’s 36th year (which is what 607 BCE would
imply), and JW apologists do not even claim such evidence exists.
- Astronomical Dating (Nebuchadnezzar’s Reign): We have firm astronomical fixes for
Nebuchadnezzar II’s reign. The most famous is the diary VAT 4956
(which I will discuss in detail in the next section) documenting
observations in Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year. That tablet’s data unequivocally
pin Year 37 to 568/567 BCE. From this it follows that Nebuchadnezzar’s
Year 18 was 587/586 BCE (since 37 – 19 = 18, and 568 + 19 = 587). Another
astronomical text, the lunar eclipse tablet BM 32312, logs an eclipse
in Nebuchadnezzar’s 7th year that corresponds to 597 BCE (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). These astronomical synchronisms are like timestamped
photographs of the ancient sky – they cannot be moved by two decades
without becoming totally inconsistent with planetary motions. Thus, the cosmic
clock ratifies 587 beyond reasonable doubt. (Even Rolf Furuli, in his
attempt to salvage 607, had to suggest highly implausible “alternative”
star alignments or scribal errors – claims thoroughly refuted by experts,
as we will see.)
- Neo-Babylonian King Lists and Business Tablets: Clay tablets from Babylonia recording economic
transactions provide year-by-year continuity for the reigns of
Nebuchadnezzar and his successors. For example, one contract
(BM 30254) is dated “Month Kislimu of Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd
year” and the sale of the same slave is recorded again in “Month Tebetu
of the accession year of Amel-Marduk [Evil-Merodach]” – clearly
indicating Nebuchadnezzar’s reign ended and Evil-Merodach’s began in the
same year with no gap. Another tablet (NBC 4897) tabulates the growth
of a herd of sheep and goats every year from Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th
year through his 43rd, then Evil-Merodach’s 1st and 2nd, and then
Neriglissar’s 1st year (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). It is essentially a running ledger bridging the
reigns – confirming Nebuchadnezzar reigned 43 years, Evil-Merodach 2,
and that Neriglissar followed immediately. Such documents make it impossible
to insert extra, unattested years or kings. They demonstrate that Nebuchadnezzar’s
18th year occurred exactly 25 years before his death (since he died in
year 43), which means 587 BCE (given his death in 562 BCE by the absolute
chronology) (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). In summary, every recovered Babylonian record places
Jerusalem’s destruction in the late 580s, not the 600s BCE. The
difference between “586” and “587” is negligible here – both fall in
Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year. What is not negligible is the difference
between 587 and 607 – those twenty years cannot be conjured out of thin
air without shredding all these continuous records (chronicles, king
lists, administrative texts, etc.).
- Synchronisms with Other Cultures: Judean chronology during that era interlocks
with the histories of other nations. For instance, the prophet Ezekiel,
exiled to Babylon in the first wave (597 BCE), writes in Ezekiel 40:1 that
a vision came to him “in the 25th year of our exile, in the 14th year
after the city was struck down.” Since Ezekiel was taken captive in
597, his 25th year would be 573 BCE, and he says this is 14 years after
Jerusalem fell – yielding 587/586 BCE for the fall (573 + 14 = 587). This
is a biblical synchronism supporting the conventional date and
inconsistent with 607 (which would require Ezekiel to say 34 years after,
not 14). Additionally, Josephus cites Tyrian records (Menander’s
king list of Tyre) indicating that the Babylonian siege of Tyre began
around the 7th year of Nebuchadnezzar (i.e. just after Jerusalem’s
first fall in 597) and lasted 13 years, ending around Nebuchadnezzar’s
20th year (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). If Jerusalem’s final destruction were in
Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th (587), that fits the timeline of Nebuchadnezzar’s
western campaigns (Jerusalem, then Tyre). If one moves Jerusalem’s
destruction to Nebuchadnezzar’s 36th year (607 per JW model), it throws
off the sequence and leaves Nebuchadnezzar oddly idle during the actual
years historians know he was campaigning. In short, regional
correlations (Egypt’s withdrawal after 605, Tyre’s siege in the 580s,
Cyrus’s rise by 539, etc.) all mesh with the standard dates and leave no
room for a 607 scenario.
Given these points, the scholarly dispute over “586 vs 587” is trivial—a
matter of rounding or different calendrical conventions. It in no way indicates
any doubt that the event happened in the late 580s. When JW apologists
highlight this one-year discrepancy, they omit the fact that all lines of
evidence cluster tightly around that date. By contrast, not a single
artifact or text places the fall of Jerusalem in 607 BCE. The Watchtower’s
date stands alone, propped up only by its peculiar interpretation of scripture
and denial of evidence. Even the Watchtower’s own literature tacitly admits the
strength of the evidence for 587: one article acknowledged that “secular
historians” date Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year to 587 BCE, but then speculated
that perhaps Nebuchadnezzar hadn’t actually destroyed Jerusalem in that year
after all – effectively proposing that the Bible’s explicit statement (Jer.
52:5-12) might be reinterpreted to allow a different year (a desperate and
circular argument).
In conclusion, the archaeological and scholarly dating of 586/587 BCE is
robust, resting on converging lines of evidence from Babylonian
astronomy, historical chronicles, biblical internal chronology, and more. The
“ambiguity” over a one-year difference pales in comparison to the yawning
chasm between 587 and 607. No amount of hair-splitting over 586 vs 587 will
make 607 plausible. The Watchtower’s chronology is not merely off by a year or
two; it is off by twenty years, and that discrepancy cannot be reconciled with
the entire corpus of Neo-Babylonian data. As we will detail next,
attempts by JW apologists like Rolf Furuli to discredit or reinterpret the data
– especially the crucial astronomical tablets – have been thoroughly
discredited.
Astronomical Evidence (VAT
4956) vs. Watchtower’s Reinterpretation
One of the strongest evidences for the traditional chronology (and by
extension against 607 BCE) comes from astronomy. The Babylonians left us
detailed observational records of celestial phenomena dated to specific regnal
years of their kings. These act as astronomical “timestamps” that can be
matched with computer calculations of ancient sky positions, pinning those
regnal years to exact years B.C.E. Perhaps the most famous example is VAT 4956,
an astronomical diary from the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar II. This tablet
records dozens of observations of the moon and planets relative to
constellations and certain stars, as well as lunar eclipse data, all within one
Babylonian year. When modern scholars (starting with astronomer F. X.
Kugler in the early 20th century) computed the positions, they found that the 37th
year of Nebuchadnezzar corresponded to 568/567 BCE – the only year that
fits all (or nearly all) the recorded phenomena. This single piece of evidence
is devastating to the 607 theory, because if Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year was
568/567, then by simple subtraction his 18th year was 587/586, not 607. In
other words, VAT 4956 independently verifies the conventional dating
for Jerusalem’s fall. Little wonder, then, that the Watchtower Society and
its defenders have expended great effort to cast doubt on this tablet or to
squeeze an alternate meaning from it.
Rolf Furuli, a
Jehovah’s Witness and linguist who attempted to rewrite Neo-Babylonian
chronology in favor of 607, has claimed that the Bible and VAT 4956
“contradict each other”, thus one must question the reliability of the
astronomical tablet. He proposed a number of supposed “sources of error” that
could throw off the interpretation of astronomical texts. For example, he
suggested that many positions on such tablets might have been calculated rather
than observed, or that copyists made errors, or that perhaps the data could fit
multiple solutions. In particular, Furuli (and earlier, a fringe theorist
E. W. Faulstich) argued that VAT 4956 might be a copy that includes
some observations from a different year, or that certain readings could be reinterpreted
to match 588/587 BCE (which would be Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year if one
adds 20 years to his reign). The Watchtower’s 2011 magazine articles
enthusiastically picked up these claims. In “When Was Ancient Jerusalem
Destroyed?—Part Two”, the Watchtower stated: “While not all of [the
tablet’s] sets of lunar positions match the year 568/567 B.C.E., all 13 sets
match calculated positions for 20 years earlier, for the year 588/587
B.C.E.”. In other words, the Society asserted that every one of the
13 lunar observations on VAT 4956 lines up with 588/587 BCE, and implied
that the tablet actually points to that year as the intended one – conveniently
aligning Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th with 588 and therefore his 18th with 607. If
true, this would be a remarkable vindication of their chronology against
mainstream science. However, this claim is exceedingly misleading. It is based
on selective use of data and special pleading.
Firstly, the Watchtower carefully limited the scope to 13 lunar
observations (conjunctions of the moon with stars/constellations) on the
tablet, excluding the planetary observations. Why? Their own article
admits: “Because the cuneiform signs for many of the planetary positions are
open to speculation and to several interpretations, these positions were not
used in this survey to pinpoint the year…”. In plainer terms, the planetary
data did not readily match 588/587, so they threw it out. This is a glaring red
flag. The planetary observations on VAT 4956 are numerous and precise
(covering positions of Venus, Mars, etc., in various constellations on specific
dates). Modern analysts have shown that while the lunar data on VAT 4956
is very important, it’s the combination of lunar and planetary data together
that makes 568/567 BCE the unique fit. By ignoring the planetary positions,
the Watchtower’s “survey” was free to focus on the more ambiguous lunar
conjunctions. Even then, to claim all 13 match 588/587 is an
overstatement. Independent researchers have scrutinized the Society’s list of
13 and found that some of those purported “matches” are questionable or
outright incorrect when checked against astronomy software.
For example, the Watchtower attachment sent to one inquirer (our source, Jacob Halsey’s correspondence) rated several of the lunar observations
as “Exact” or “Excellent” matches for 588/587. Halsey, using a program (Starry
Night Pro) with Babylonian coordinates, tried to replicate these. He found
problems. One observation in the tablet (Obv. line 3) says the moon stood 1
cubit in front of β Virginis (a star in Virgo) on a certain date. The
Society claimed this was an “Exact” match on May 10/11, 588 BCE. Halsey found
that on that date, while the angular separation was about right, the moon was
actually behind β Virginis (i.e. to the west of it, not east “in
front” along the ecliptic). So calling it “exact” is dubious – the orientation
was wrong. Another observation (Obv. line 14) describes the moon passing 1
cubit above or below the star at the tip of the Lion’s foot (β Virginis
again, as identified). The Watchtower rated the 588 BCE match “Excellent.” Yet
Halsey noted that at the time in question, the moon was 5–6 degrees (over 5
cubits) away from β Virginis – and behind it, not above/below – which
is nowhere near a 2.2° separation “above/below” as the tablet says. He rightly
questioned, “I don’t understand how this can excellently match ‘passing 2.2°
above/below’.” In a third case, (Obv. line 15, moon and β Librae), the
tablet says the moon was 2½ cubits below the star; in 588 the moon was actually
more than 10° in front of the star throughout the night, not below it.
Again, the Society had rated that a “Good” match, but clearly the geometry is
off.
Even more telling is an issue with the Babylonian calendar dates in
587 BCE. VAT 4956 is dated according to the Babylonian lunisolar calendar.
Halsey discovered that one observation on the reverse (Rev. line 5, recorded as
the 1st day of month XI, “the moon became visible in the Swallow” (part
of Pisces)) would not have been possible on the date the JW researchers assumed
in 587. They aligned month XI day 1 with Feb 21/22, 587 BCE. But on
Feb 21, 587, the new moon was not yet visible – the astronomical new moon
occurred on Feb 20 and the first crescent would be seen around Feb 23 by normal
Babylonian reckoning. In other words, the Watchtower’s chronology of months in
587 was two days off from the actual lunar visibility cycle. Halsey
notes that Parker & Dubberstein (the standard reference for Babylonian
calendars) place month XI of 587 starting on Feb 23/24, not Feb 21. So the
Society’s attempt to force an observation onto “Sabatu 1, 587” actually
conflicts with how the Babylonians themselves would have dated the month by the
first crescent. The observers in Babylon could not have recorded a sighting of
the moon on “month XI day 1” if the moon wasn’t visible yet – a clear
inconsistency in the JW model. Halsey found similar one-day discrepancies for
several other observations where the Watchtower’s assumed calendar was slightly
out of sync.
All these technical details reinforce a general conclusion: the
Watchtower’s reinterpretation of VAT 4956 is not rigorous science; it is
driven by the desired outcome (607 BCE). They picked the data that could
arguably be twisted to support 588/587 and ignored the rest. Even then,
independent checking shows that their “13 matches” are not as perfect as
claimed. Meanwhile, mainstream scholars have long demonstrated that 568/567
BCE fits nearly every detail of VAT 4956’s record. Jonsson, for
instance, highlights that about 30 lunar and planetary positions on the tablet
fix Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year firmly in 568/567, with only a few minor copying
errors accounted for. Those minor scribal errors (such as a possibly miswritten
digit in one measurement) are well understood and do not permit an alternative
date 20 years off. In fact, experts point out that no other year in the
vicinity provides the comprehensive fit that 568/567 does. If one tries
588/587, many observations (especially planetary and certain lunar phase timings)
become impossible. For example, researcher Marjorie Alley computed the tablet’s
timing intervals (“lunar three” phenomena like time from sunrise to moonset)
and found that some entries would be astronomically impossible in
588/587, whereas they make perfect sense in 568/567. The Watchtower
quietly acknowledged one such problem in a footnote, suggesting that maybe the
ancient observers’ time measurement was off due to using “some sort of clock”
(attempting to dismiss an inconvenient data point). But it strains credulity
that every single ancient measurement that contradicts 588/587 was an error,
yet all others were correct. The far simpler explanation is that the tablet is
exactly what it purports to be: an astronomical diary of 568/567 BCE in Nebuchadnezzar’s
reign.
It should also be noted that the Watchtower accepts other
astronomical tablets when convenient – for example, the Strm Kambys 400
tablet, which anchors year 7 of Cambyses II (son of Cyrus) to 523 BCE,
thus supporting 539 BCE for Babylon’s fall. Furuli himself used the Cambyses
tablet in his proposed chronology (because the Society already trusted the 539
BCE date). Yet he rejected VAT 4956. This inconsistency was highlighted by
Jonsson: Furuli and the Watchtower have no qualms about the astronomical
data when it confirms a date they like, but suddenly raise a multitude of
speculative “sources of error” when the data contradicts 607. In truth, both
tablets come from the same corpus of Babylonian astronomical diaries, which
collectively span centuries. One cannot pick one and throw out another without
compelling reason. And in the case of VAT 4956, the consistency of its
observations with 568/567 is far too great to be coincidental – modern
computations confirm the tablet as a mostly accurate transcription of actual
observations, with any scribal errors being few and trivial.
In the final analysis, the astronomical evidence alone is enough to
refute the 607 BCE chronology. VAT 4956 is a “smoking gun” that
directly links Nebuchadnezzar’s regnal years to absolute dates, leaving 607 out
in the cold. The Watchtower’s efforts to discredit it have not convinced any
actual Assyriologists or historians outside their circle – on the contrary,
reviews of Furuli’s work by experts have been scathing. For instance, one
review noted that Furuli’s attempted 588/587 fit for VAT 4956 requires
assuming the Babylonians recorded an entirely different year’s sky or made
massive mistakes, which is unfounded. The fact that JW apologists must resort
to such special pleading illustrates how desperate the 607 defense is in
light of solid evidence. The stars in their courses fight against 607 BCE,
we might say. And the tablet VAT 4956 is just one piece – we also have
eclipse records, other dated diaries, and a 1300-year continuous Babylonian
astronomical archive that would all have to be wrong to accommodate a
20-year shift. As Professor Hermann Hunger (a leading Assyriologist) estimated,
the extant diaries alone contain tens of thousands of dated observations;
originally, there were hundreds of thousands. To suppose that all those
observations were retrocalculated or altered by later scribes to fit a “wrong”
chronology, as Furuli insinuates, is to enter the realm of conspiracy theory.
The sheer scale of data that aligns with the traditional timeline makes the JW
alternative effectively impossible.
In sum, astronomy confirms 587, not 607. The Watchtower’s attempt to
co-opt VAT 4956 by cherry-picked reanalysis fails under scrutiny. The
tablet remains a powerful witness from antiquity that Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th
year = 568/567 BCE, locking in his 18th year (destruction of Jerusalem) at 587.
The JW apologist’s treatment of this evidence exemplifies a broader pattern:
embracing sound evidence only when it suits them, and discarding or distorting
it when it doesn’t. We turn now to another facet of that pattern – the
allegation of “missing years” in Neo-Babylonian chronology, and how the actual
evidence precludes it.
The Myth of “Missing Years” in
Neo-Babylonian Chronology
Since all historical records indicate a span of only about 50 years from
Jerusalem’s fall to the Jews’ return, defenders of 607 BCE are forced to posit
that something is wrong with Neo-Babylonian chronology itself. They
argue that perhaps historians have underestimated the length of that
period by about 20 years – in other words, that there were “missing years”
or even missing kings in the conventional timeline. A specific variant of this
claim involves “missing 7 years” – some have speculated, for instance,
that Nebuchadnezzar’s 7 years of divinely-imposed madness (mentioned in Daniel
4) might not have been counted in his official reign, or that those years
create a gap in the record. Others have floated that maybe one of the later
Babylonian kings had an unrecorded coregency or an alter ego, or that a king
not in the surviving king lists ruled for a time. All such conjectures aim to
stretch the Neo-Babylonian period (625–539 BCE) by the extra years needed to
land Jerusalem’s fall in 607.
However, these attempts run aground on a mountain of “cast-iron”
evidence that tightly interlocks the known reigns with one another, leaving no
room for additional years or phantom kings. The Watchtower Society’s own
publications have essentially acknowledged there are only two ways their
20-year gap could be inserted: either extend the reigns of the known kings
beyond what the sources say, or insert new, unknown rulers in between. As one
analysis succinctly put it, “There are only two possible ways of extending
the Neo-Babylonian period to include the extra twenty years demanded by
Watchtower chronology. Either the kings of the period had longer reigns than
those given… or there were unlisted kings… unknown to history.”. And, as
that analysis continues, “Neither of these is possible, as there is
cast-iron evidence that interlocks one reign with the reign that followed.”
(The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust).
Let us survey a few of these interlocking pieces of evidence (many of which
we alluded to earlier):
- Nabopolassar to Nebuchadnezzar: Babylonian Chronicle 5 (B.M. Series) explicitly
records that Nabopolassar died in his 21st year and that his son
Nebuchadnezzar II succeeded him immediately (ascending the throne
the same month. This means Nabopolassar’s reign cannot be stretched beyond
21 years, nor can any “extra” king slip in between father and son – the
transition was instantaneous and documented.
- Nebuchadnezzar to Evil-Merodach: As mentioned, a business document BM 30254
documents a transaction in Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year and the same
transaction being completed in Evil-Merodach’s accession year a few
months later. This nails Nebuchadnezzar’s reign at 43 years, no more. If
Nebuchadnezzar had reigned, say, 50 years (as JW chronology might wish, to
add 7 years), there would have to be records of years 44–50, but there are
none – instead, we have a seamless move to his successor right after year
43.
- Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach, Neriglissar: Tablet NBC 4897 (the sheep/goat ledger) spans
10 consecutive years: Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th through 43rd, then
Evil-Merodach’s 1st and 2nd, then Neriglissar’s 1st. It shows the count of the herd each year,
leaving zero gaps. This single document inherently verifies the reign
lengths of Nebuchadnezzar (43) and Evil-Merodach (2) and shows Neriglissar
followed directly. If any “hidden” reign or extra years were to be
inserted in this sequence, the continuity of the herd growth record would
be broken – which it is not.
- Neriglissar to Labashi-Marduk: A tablet from Yale (YBC 4012) records that
Neriglissar’s reign ended and his son Labashi-Marduk succeeded in the
first or second month of Neriglissar’s 4th year. We also have Nabonidus’s
royal inscriptions (Nabon. H1, B – sometimes called the
“Nabonidus King List” or stele) where Nabonidus narrates that after
Neriglissar’s days, his son Labashi-Marduk sat on the throne, but was
eventually replaced by Nabonidus himself (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). Nabonidus even remarks on the fates of these
predecessors (Labashi-Marduk being a usurper killed, etc.). This allows no
room for an unknown usurper or a longer Neriglissar reign. Neriglissar
ruled 4 years (not 11 or 14), and his minor son reigned only a few months
before Nabonidus – exactly as the traditional chronology holds.
- Nabonidus to Cyrus: The Nabonidus
Chronicle (BM 35382) is explicit that Nabonidus was defeated in
his 17th year, when Cyrus of Persia took Babylon (539 BCE). This dovetails
with numerous contract tablets dated to Nabonidus year 17 and then Cyrus’s
accession and first year. For example, several tablets (cited as
CT 56 and CT 57 series) are dated to Cyrus’s accession and first
regnal years, showing continuity from Nabonidus’s reign to Cyrus’s, with
no gap. Cyrus’s reign (and Persian chronology beyond) is
well-established through classical sources and dozens of Babylonian
tablets, so the end of the Neo-Babylonian period is firmly anchored at
539. The Watchtower agrees on 539; the challenge is they need Babylonian
history before 539 to be 20 years longer than it was. But as we
see, every transition from 626 (Nabopolassar’s start) to 539 is tightly
documented.
The cumulative effect of these records is that the Neo-Babylonian
timeline is airtight. You cannot pad 20 extra years into it without
inventing events for which no evidence exists and which would contradict the
evidence we do have. Every king’s reign length is confirmed by multiple
sources: King lists, Chronicle entries, dated tablets, and later historians (Berossus,
Ptolemy’s Canon) all converge. If one king were missing or had undiscovered
extra years, it would ripple through the entire sequence and show up as
anomalies in the tablets. But no such anomalies are found. On the contrary, as
Jonsson notes, if one were to adopt Furuli’s “Oslo chronology” (JW-friendly
revision), you’d have to believe Babylonian scholars in the Persian/Seleucid
era deliberately fabricated 20 years of fake chronology and somehow
modified 90% of the huge corpus of astronomical tablets to reflect those fake
years. This is an absurd conspiracy theory; there is no hint in the record of
any such tampering. Why, for example, would scribes insert a fake “Year 43” for
Nebuchadnezzar and not take credit for any achievements in those years? The
documents from Nebuchadnezzar’s time speak of his 37th, 40th, 43rd year
normally – no gaps, no duplicated year numbers that would indicate an
insertion. Furthermore, contemporary civilizations (like the Egyptians and
Medo-Persians) interacted with Babylon and kept their own chronologies; none
have a “hole” for an unknown Babylonian king or an extra decade that went
missing.
What about the “7 years” of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness mentioned in
Daniel chapter 4? The Bible doesn’t explicitly say whether those “seven times”
were literal years, but traditionally they are taken as such. If Nebuchadnezzar
was incapacitated for a period (some suggest it could have been a shorter
interval, or that Daniel uses a symbolic figure), one might wonder who ran the
empire. It’s possible, even likely, that his son (Evil-Merodach) or officials
handled affairs during that time. However, Babylonian records do not
indicate any interruption in Nebuchadnezzar’s rule. His regnal year count
continued normally up to 43. There is no evidence the Babylonians ever removed
him or installed a regent formally. The absence of any gap in dated business
tablets indicates that even if Nebuchadnezzar was absent from court for a
time, the Babylonians still counted those years as part of his reign. They
did not, for example, start counting Evil-Merodach’s reign early or leave those
years unaccounted – Nebuchadnezzar remained king throughout. So the “seven
times” could have been seven years of illness within the 43, which matters not
at all to the chronological count (except as anecdotally interesting). This
cannot be twisted into seven extra years beyond 43.
In fact, JW apologists face a dilemma: if they suggest Nebuchadnezzar
reigned longer than 43 years, that contradicts both scripture and secular
data, since Jeremiah 52:31 mentions Evil-Merodach’s accession in
Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th (actually it mentions Jehoiachin’s release in
Evil-Merodach’s first, which was Neb’s 37th year after Jehoiachin’s exile in
Neb’s 8th – confirming Neb didn’t reign 50 years). If they suggest an extra
king, where would he go? Between whom? Every gap is filled. Some have
speculated about a mysterious “Darius the Mede” ruling between Babylon’s fall and
Cyrus (to stretch the Persian period), but the evidence shows Darius the Mede,
if identified with a known figure, was likely the general Gobryas or a title
for Cyrus himself – he left no regnal years to account separately. There is
certainly no room for an entire 20-year reign of someone omitted.
To drive the point home: No “missing gap” hypothesis holds up against
the concrete records. As one researcher summarized, tablets like
BM 30254 and NBC 4897 “prove that no extra kings could be inserted
between the reigns of each of these kings” (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout Trust),
and the Nabonidus Chronicle plus contract texts prove the continuity right up
to Cyrus. Therefore, the extra 20 years demanded by the 607 BCE doctrine simply
do not exist. They are a fiction. The fact that JW apologists even resort
to this argument shows the paucity of real evidence for 607 – they must ask us
to believe that somehow every contemporary chronicle, tablet, and historian
missed two decades of history. In reality, the burden of proof is entirely
on them to produce evidence of those phantom years, and they have produced
none. On the contrary, as early as the 1980s, JW researcher (and former elder)
Carl Olof Jonsson compiled extensive evidence in The Gentile Times
Reconsidered demonstrating year-by-year continuity in the Neo-Babylonian
timeline. The Society has never been able to refute that documentation;
instead, they have largely ignored it or dismissed it without substantive
rebuttal, while clinging to their assertion that secular chronology might be
wrong. But “might be” is not a substitute for actual proof. To date, no
“single line” of positive evidence for missing years has been found –
whereas multiple independent lines converge on a perfectly coherent timeline
with no gaps, rendering 607 BCE an impossibility.
Carl Olof Jonsson, the Exile,
and Watchtower Misrepresentations
Carl Olof Jonsson’s name inevitably comes up in this discussion. A former
Jehovah’s Witness from Sweden, Jonsson was one of the first inside the
organization to rigorously challenge the 607 BCE doctrine. His research
(compiled in a manuscript in the 1970s and later published as The Gentile
Times Reconsidered) systematically dismantled the Watchtower’s chronology.
The Society’s response was to ignore the evidence and eventually disfellowship
Jonsson in 1982 – effectively shooting the messenger. In recent years, JW
apologists have sometimes tried to downplay Jonsson’s work by claiming, for
example, that he “omitted” or failed to consider the significance of the
biblical exile or the explicit scriptures linking 70 years to Jerusalem’s
desolation. Let us address this canard directly: Jonsson did not “omit” the
exile – he directly engaged the biblical texts, but came to a different
understanding of them than the Watchtower’s. And he did so with good reason, as
we have already seen.
Jonsson’s analysis, much like the one presented here, emphasized that Jeremiah’s
prophecy was about Babylon’s period of domination rather than a literal
70-year exile. He certainly discussed the return of the exiles and the biblical
references in Daniel and 2 Chronicles. What he argued (correctly) is that those
later references should not be isolated from Jeremiah’s broader context. The
Watchtower accuses critics like Jonsson of ignoring Daniel 9:2 and 2 Chronicles
36:21, which mention 70 years of desolation. Furuli explicitly made this
charge, insisting that those verses are “unambiguous” and that Jeremiah 25 must
be bent to harmonize with them. Jonsson countered that it is Furuli (and the
Watchtower) who ignore sound interpretive method: they start with later
allusions and force the original prophecy to fit, rather than starting with
Jeremiah and seeing how later writers understood it). Jonsson noted that Daniel
9:2 in the original language is not as unambiguous as claimed, and that even
the Watchtower’s own Bible has revised its rendering of that verse over time.
The context in Daniel suggests he realized, after Babylon fell, that the
prophesied period was ending – implying he associated the end of the 70 years
with Babylon’s fall, not some later date. The Chronicler, writing after the exile, theologically tied
the 70 years to the land’s Sabbath rest (a symbolic device), but he did not
date events differently than they actually occurred. Jonsson’s work covers all
this; he did not sweep it under the rug. For instance, he acknowledges that “strictly
speaking, the desolation of the land did not cease until the exiles had
returned… (most likely) 538 BCE”, which is about 49 years after 587. In
saying “strictly speaking,” he shows he fully considered the period of exile –
he simply does not equate it one-for-one with Jeremiah’s 70 years. Rather, he
affirms the historical reality (50 years of desolation) and distinguishes it
from the prophetic number (70 years of domination).
The JW apologetiv portrayal of Jonsson’s research as if it “omitted the
exile” is a straw man. Jonsson’s aim was never to deny that the Jews
were exiled or that the land lay desolate for decades – that is undisputed. His
aim was to correct the Society’s chronological placement of that exile.
And that he did, by showing the weight of evidence for 587 and interpreting the
biblical texts accordingly. If anything, it is the Society that omits and
ignores. They have omitted mention of critical evidence from their
publications. For example, when they quote secular experts on chronology, they
sometimes do so out of context to imply those experts support 607 (when they do
not). They have never, in any of their 607 defenses, directly addressed the pile
of evidence from business tablets like NBC 4897 or the specifics of
the Babylonian Chronicle’s statements that contradict any extended timeline. In
their 2011 articles, they omitted that none of the secular scholars they cited
actually accept 607 – some of those scholars were in fact describing the 70
years as Babylon’s rule (not a Jewish exile). It is telling that the Watchtower
has never produced a scholarly rejoinder to Jonsson’s book; instead they
instruct Witnesses not to engage with “apostate literature.” Meanwhile,
Jonsson’s theses have been vindicated by others and even grudgingly confirmed
by certain admissions (e.g., the Society’s Insight book acknowledges that
Babylon fell in 539 and that most historians date Jerusalem’s fall about 587,
but then just asserts the Bible says otherwise without proof).
In short, Jonsson’s work is coherent and comprehensive, and the criticisms
leveled against it by JW apologists do not hold up. He did not “forget” about 2
Chronicles or Daniel – he simply interpreted them in line with the rest of the
data. It’s worth highlighting Jonsson’s moral courage as well: as a
loyal JW in 1977, he sent his detailed treatise on 607 vs 587 to the Governing
Body in Brooklyn, hoping they would examine the evidence.The leadership’s
response was not to refute him with counter-evidence (they provided none), but
to eventually excommunicate him and label the evidence he gathered as satanic
lies. This indicates that the 607 date is upheld not by scholarship but by authoritarian
decree. It also underscores that the arguments we are rebutting here
(mostly coming from official Watchtower articles or loyalist apologetics) are
not academic in nature but polemical – designed to defend a doctrine at
all costs. Thus, it is somewhat ironic that we in turn respond polemically; but
given the strength of the case for 587, one can afford to be bold: the facts
are overwhelmingly on the side of the so-called “apostates” like Jonsson.
To sum up, Jonsson did not omit the exile; the Watchtower omitted the
facts. His analysis of the biblical 70 years stands as the more convincing
one because it aligns with the “established facts of history” – something even
Furuli had to admit in part. (Recall that Furuli conceded the traditional
chronology is “established” but then claimed the Bible demands a different view
– essentially admitting he was discarding evidence in favor of dogma.) The
Gentile Times Reconsidered and subsequent critiques have systematically exposed
the flaws in the JW position, and the Society has never successfully countered
those points. Instead, they rely on followers not being exposed to the full
arguments. This article, by citing the very sources JW representatives avoid or
distort, shines light on what has been concealed. The “beautiful” 607–537
framework, as we will see next, is not biblical truth but an illusion
maintained by selective storytelling.
The Supposed “Beauty” of the
607–537 BCE Timeline
Proponents of the Watchtower chronology often gush about the elegant
symmetry of their 70-year scheme. They say it is “beautiful” how
Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled to the very year: Jerusalem destroyed in 607
BCE, 70 years of desolation, then restoration in 537 BCE – exactly as (they
believe) the Bible requires. By contrast, the mainstream view might seem messy:
only ~50 years of desolation, some portions of the 70 years applied to
Babylon’s rule, etc. This appeal to the “beauty” or simplicity of the JW
timeline is essentially an emotional or aesthetic argument, not an evidentiary
one. While an elegant solution is desirable in historical reconstruction, elegance
means nothing if it’s false. A wrong answer doesn’t become right because
it’s pleasantly neat. We must recall the cautionary example of Ptolemaic
astronomy: it was an elegant system of epicycles that “saved the appearances”
of planetary motion in perfect circles – mathematically clever but factually
wrong. Similarly, the Watchtower’s 607–537 timeline might look like a perfect
fulfillment, but it is a house of cards when it collides with reality.
One could argue, in fact, that the actual historical fulfillment of
prophecy is quite elegant in its own way – just not in the simplistic manner
JWs expect. Consider this: Jeremiah prophesied seventy years for Babylon.
Babylon’s empire indeed lasted about seventy years (from its rise over Assyria
to its collapse). Exactly seventy years after the last Assyrian
resistance was crushed (609 BCE), Babylon was conquered (539 BCE). That is a
remarkable fulfillment. The Jewish exile, which was a consequence of Babylon’s
domination, lasted roughly from 597 BCE (first deportation) or 587 BCE (final
destruction) to 537 BCE (return) – in other words, about 60 to 50 years. But
the spiritual lesson drawn by the biblical writers did not require a
mathematically precise 70 in that sense. “Seventy” in Scripture often
signifies completeness or a lifetime (Psalm 90:10). The Jews indeed
experienced an exile that, for those who lived through it, felt like a lifetime
– a whole generation punished until the old sinful generation died off. At the
same time, Babylon got its allotted span and then fell. The Chronicler’s
reference to the land enjoying 70 sabbath years (2 Chron. 36:21) is
elegant theologically: since Israel had (supposedly) ignored the sabbath year
law for centuries, God let the land rest for 70 years to make up for it.
Seventy there is a theological construct (based likely on 490 years of
disobedience, 490/7 = 70). It was not meant as a reporter’s statement that
exactly 70 years passed between event X and Y. Biblical writers were not as
pedantic about chronology as modern chronologists – they were comfortable with
approximations to convey spiritual truths. So the insistence on ultra-precision
in a prophetic context is misguided to begin with. But even if one demands
precision, the “coherence” of 607–537 is only skin-deep. It only appears
coherent if one isolates the biblical prophecy from all external data and
forces a literal interpretation. Once you integrate the vast external data,
that timeline stops being coherent and instead generates numerous
contradictions (with other scriptures, with recorded history, etc.). For
example, the 607–537 model must disregard Ezekiel’s 25th-year reference that
implies a 587 fall; it must hypothesize that every contemporary nation’s
chronicle was skewed; it must assume Daniel and his companions somehow spent an
extra 20 years in Babylon unaccounted for by any historical source. By
contrast, the 587–537 model might seem less “tidy” in that the number 70
is not a literal count of the exile, but it is far more coherent with
reality. And ultimately, truth in history is measured by correspondence
with evidence, not by narrative symmetry.
The polemical point here is that the Watchtower’s timeline is only
“beautiful” if one is already convinced of it and ignores the blemishes.
It’s a bit like praising the “beautiful” logic of a geocentric universe – sure,
it looks nice on paper with everything circling Earth in perfect circles, but
observational science shatters that beauty. Likewise, the array of cuneiform
evidence shatters the imagined beauty of 607–537. In fact, once one sees all
the contortions needed to defend 607 (as we have gone through:
reinterpretations, dismissing evidence, inventing missing years, etc.), the
alleged beauty gives way to something rather ugly – a willful disregard for
truth in service of dogma. On the other hand, there is a certain beauty
in the convergence of truth: how multiple independent witnesses (Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel, Babylonian chroniclers, astronomical phenomena, Josephus
quoting Berossus, etc.) all harmonize once we let 70 years be understood
correctly. The Jews did return and rebuild, fulfilling God’s promise after
Babylon’s time ended – and they did so at the historically documented time
under Cyrus. This is both historically and theologically satisfying. The
Watchtower’s version tries to be more satisfying by adding precision
that the Bible itself didn’t demand, and in doing so they have created a beautiful-seeming
falsehood.
In any case, arguments about “beauty” or “symmetry” are subjective and
secondary. The primary question must always be: what actually happened?
The evidence shows Jerusalem was destroyed around 587, and the Jews returned
about 50 years later. If that lacks a certain numerical poetry, so be it –
truth is not always poetic. It is the job of interpreters to understand
prophecy in light of fulfillment, not to bend fulfillment to fit a preconceived
notion of prophecy. The Watchtower has essentially idolized its timeline
(because 1914 depends on it) and praises its beauty to reinforce faith in it,
rather than letting the “beauty of truth” inform their beliefs. In the
final analysis, the true beauty lies in how perfectly the seventy-year prophecy
was fulfilled as a period of Babylonian dominance – a fulfillment that
fully accords with 587 BCE for Jerusalem’s fall. The JW timeline’s “beauty” is
a mirage that fades under the light of factual scrutiny.
“No Single Line of Evidence”?
— Converging Proofs Against 607 BCE
The last claim we address is the bold assertion made by some JW apologists
that critics of 607 “have no single line of evidence” to disprove it.
Sometimes this is phrased as “There is no single piece of evidence that
explicitly dates Jerusalem’s fall to 587 BCE” or “All the evidence for 587 is
convoluted or indirect.” This claim likely stems from the fact that there isn’t
(for example) a stone stele that says in plain English “Jerusalem was destroyed
in 587 B.C.E.” But this is a straw man demand. Historians rarely have such
direct labels for events – chronology is determined by piecing together many
pieces of data. And indeed, we have an abundance of independent lines of
evidence that together point unequivocally to 587 and eliminate 607.
Crucially, multiple independent lines converging on the same conclusion
constitute stronger proof than any single item in isolation. The
Watchtower’s chronology is not disproved by one tablet alone; it is disproved
by the convergence of astronomical, historical, and biblical data all
aligning on a timeline that excludes 607.
Let’s enumerate the “lines of evidence” that collectively verify 586/7 and
refute 607:
- Mesopotamian King Lists and Chronicles: These list each Babylonian king and the length
of his reign. The Uruk King List, Babylonian Chronicle, and later
Ptolemy’s Canon all agree on the sequence Nabopolassar (21 years),
Nebuchadnezzar (43), Evil-Merodach (2), Neriglissar (4), Labashi (0.2),
Nabonidus (17), Cyrus. Summing from Nebuchadnezzar’s first year (604)
through Nabonidus’ 17th (539) yields about 65 years. Therefore,
Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (destruction of Jerusalem) must be about 586/7.
No room for an extra 20 years exists in these lists .
- Contemporary Economic Tablets: Thousands of business/contracts dated by
reign/year/month/day exist from this entire period. These tablets act as
an unbroken annual ledger. For example, tablets from
Nebuchadnezzar’s 1st year all the way to Cyrus’s years show a continuous
progression of dates with no unexplained gaps. If 607 were the correct
date for Jerusalem’s fall, we’d have to insert roughly 20 additional years
of dates in these records – but those are absent. Instead, the contracts
transition from Nebuchadnezzar’s year 43 to Evil-Merodach year 1 in the
space of a few months in late 562 BCE. This eliminates any
possibility that Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year was as early as 607.
- Astronomical Diaries: We’ve
highlighted VAT 4956, which fixes Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year
to 568/567 BCE by over two dozen celestial observations. Another key
tablet, BM 32312, records lunar eclipses in specific years of
specific kings (including Nebuchadnezzar’s 2nd and 7th) that correspond to
603 and 597 BCE. There are also planetary texts and eclipse records for
Nabonassar’s era down to the Persian era that all align on one consistent
chronology (the same used by modern scholars). Astronomical
calculations do not lie: they objectively match the 587-based
chronology and flatly contradict any 20-year shift. Not a single
astronomical text supports the JW timeline (Furuli’s attempts
notwithstanding, which have been decisively refuted).
- Biblical Synchronisms: The Bible itself, when read carefully, supports
the conventional dating. We noted Ezekiel 40:1’s implicit calculation for
the fall in 587. We have Jeremiah’s detailed chronology of events leading
to the 11th year of Zedekiah (Jer. 52:5-12), which we can correlate with
Babylonian data to 587. We have Zechariah 7:5, which in 518 BCE refers to
70 years since a certain mourning began (likely the 586 BCE temple
destruction), again pointing to around 586/7 for that event. All these
internal clues coincide with a late-580s date, not 607.
- Ancient Historians: While
Josephus is inconsistent, ultimately his final analysis (Against Apion)
acknowledges 50 years of desolation. Babylonian historian Berossus (as
preserved by Josephus and others) agrees with the lengths of reign that
yield a 587 destruction. Greek chronographer Ptolemy in his Canon (2nd
century CE) lists the kings of Babylon with the same lengths – that canon
was not concocted in a vacuum; it is known to derive from earlier
Babylonian sources and is confirmed by cuneiform evidence. In sum, every
ancient source that attempts a chronology aligns with the standard one,
not with anything like the Watchtower’s extended timeline.
- Interlocking Chronologies (Persian, Egyptian,
Tyrian): The Babylonian timeline
meshes with the Persian timeline (which is extremely well-attested through
dozens of tablets for kings like Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius etc., and Greek
historical accounts). If one tried to add 20 unknown years in Babylon,
Persian chronology would also shift relative to global history, causing
chaos (it would imply Cyrus conquered Babylon 20 years later than thought,
throwing off Greek and Persian synchronization – which is impossible given
dated Persian records tied to eclipse observations, etc.). Egyptian
history records the conflict with Babylon (Battle of Carchemish in 605,
Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion of Egypt after 601, etc.) and those fit the
conventional timeline. The Tyrian king list, cited by Josephus, gives intervals
between Shalmaneser’s time and Cyrus that also back-calculate to
Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre following Jerusalem’s fall in the 580s, not
the 600s (The Watchtower and Chronological Speculation - Reachout
Trust). Multiple nations’ histories align on the late
7th-century date, which would all have to be wrong if 607 were right.
- Concession by Absence: Perhaps a rhetorical point, but powerful: if
there truly were evidence for 607, the Watchtower would showcase it. They
have not produced any stela, tablet, or text from antiquity labeling a
year equivalent to 607 as the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar or the year of
Jerusalem’s fall. All named regnal years in the contemporary
records correspond to the conventional dates. The absence of any direct
statement for 607 is itself telling. For example, we have the Babylonian
Chronicle for 605–594 BCE, which is silent on a destruction of Jerusalem
(because none happened in those years). For 589–588 (Neb’s 17th year),
another fragment suggests Nebuchadnezzar was besieging Tyre (and likely
Jerusalem in 587). If 607 had seen a major event like Jerusalem’s fall, we
would expect it to echo in some record, either Babylonian or in
neighboring cultures – but nothing does.
Considering all these lines together, the case against 607 is over-determined.
We do not rely on just one approach (say, the Canon of Ptolemy) or just one
tablet. Even if we set aside Ptolemy’s Canon (as JWs like to, calling it a
later source), we still have the contemporary Babylonian tablets. If we set
aside those, we still have the astronomical fixes. If we ignored those, we have
the Bible itself and Josephus. They all independently corroborate each other.
This is the very definition of a robust historical conclusion. By contrast, the
607 date rests on a single pillar: the Watchtower’s interpretation of a few
Bible verses. Remove that interpretation (which we’ve shown to be flawed),
and nothing sustains 607. Carl Jonsson aptly noted after years of research that
he “found that there was not one piece of evidence to back up the Society’s
date of 607 BCE”. Indeed, that is precisely why he wrote to the Society, shocked
at the disparity between claims and evidence. The Watchtower’s claim about “no
single line of evidence” is an exercise in projection: it is their
position that lacks any single, let alone multiple, credible lines of proof.
Finally, even if one were to stubbornly insist on 607 as a matter of
“biblical belief,” one must confront the sheer implausibility that every
line of secular evidence is somehow misleading or corrupted. The odds that
dozens of astronomical observations would coincidentally fit a wrong timeline
and none point to the “correct” 607 timeline are astronomical themselves (no
pun intended). The odds that hundreds of scribes dated thousands of tablets all
in a way that just happens to be exactly 20 years off of truth, without a
single tablet betraying a different scheme, are effectively zero. Such an
outcome would require an almost miraculous orchestration of error. Ironically,
believing 607 over 587 would require far more “faith” (in the face of
contradicting reality) than accepting that maybe, just maybe, the Watchtower’s
interpretation is mistaken.
In critical scholarship, a convergence of independent lines is considered
strong proof. Here we have that convergence – biblical chronology, Mesopotamian
chronology, and scientific astronomy all intersect at the late 6th century BCE
for Jerusalem’s fall. It is the Watchtower’s 607 that stands isolated,
unsupported by any outside testimony. To persist in that belief, one has to
dismiss all other witnesses as false. Such a stance is not sound history;
it is dogmatism.
Conclusion
In every case, the JW apologists’ claims have been shown to be either misinterpretations
of scripture, distortions of historical evidence, or baseless conjectures
introduced to prop up a predetermined date. The weight of evidence – biblical,
historical, archaeological, and astronomical – is overwhelmingly against the
607 BCE chronology. We can summarize our findings as follows:
- Biblical Context:
Jeremiah’s prophecy of seventy years was directed “for Babylon,”
signifying the period of Babylonian domination over the nations, not a
literal 70-year exile of Judah. When read in context, Jeremiah 25 and 29
make perfect sense as foretelling Babylon’s 70-year hegemony from the late
7th century to 539 BCE. The Watchtower’s insistence that the 70 years must
equal the full length of Jewish exile is not supported by the Hebrew text
or the broader scriptural narrative. Later biblical references (Daniel 9,
2 Chronicles 36) do not rewrite history; they reflect on Jeremiah’s
prophecy in theological terms, and they certainly do not mandate a 607–537
timeline except by strained inference. Thus, the foundation of the JW
position – their interpretation of the Bible – is fundamentally flawed.
The Bible does not require 607 BCE at all.
- Historical Record: Every
known ancient source that provides chronological information (Babylonian
chronicles, king lists, Josephus quoting Berossus, Ptolemy’s Canon, etc.)
aligns with Jerusalem’s fall in 587/586 BCE and the duration of the Neo-Babylonian
Empire as we know it. There is no hint in these records of an extra 20
years or an additional king that the Watchtower’s schedule would need. We
examined and debunked the notion of “missing years” – the continuity of
documentation from Nabopolassar to Cyrus is essentially unbroken and
allows for no sizable gaps. The suggestion that secular historians have
ignored some hidden chronology or seven-year co-regency is pure fantasy.
On the contrary, it is the Watchtower that ignores the cast-iron
interlocks linking one reign to the next.
- Archaeology and Tablets: Thousands of cuneiform tablets dated to specific
regnal years form an unassailable chronological skeleton. Tablets like
BM 30254 and NBC 4897 conclusively demonstrate the precise
lengths of Neo-Babylonian reigns and their succession without interruption.
We reiterate: not a single contract or administrative text is dated beyond
Nebuchadnezzar’s 43rd year or Nabonidus’s 17th year, whereas if 607 were
true, such texts from a hypothetical Nebuchadnezzar year ~63 or a
Nabonidus year ~37 should have turned up. None have. Instead, business
documents from 587 BCE show dates like “Nebuchadnezzar Year 18,”
confirming that year corresponded to 587 (not 607). The archaeological
evidence is unequivocal and lines up exactly with mainstream dates.
- Astronomy: The
movements of the heavenly bodies, preserved on clay tablets like
VAT 4956, serve as an impartial and precise clock. This clock says
Nebuchadnezzar’s 37th year was 568/567 BCE, which is incompatible with the
607-based scheme and perfectly compatible with the 587-based scheme.
Furuli’s attempts to impugn the astronomical evidence have been
meticulously refuted. The Watchtower’s own experiment to align
VAT 4956 with 588/587 BCE fell flat when scrutinized – it turned out
to require special pleading (ignoring planetary data, adjusting Babylonian
month starts, etc.). In scholarly terms, the JW approach to VAT 4956
has been ad hoc and driven by confirmation bias, whereas the
conventional analysis of that tablet has stood the test of time for over a
century. No credible astronomer or Assyriologist has endorsed the
Watchtower’s reading of VAT 4956 or any other astronomical text –
a telling fact.
- Ancient Witnesses: We saw
how Josephus, often touted by JWs, actually undermines their case
when read fully – he ends up agreeing that about 50 years passed from
Jerusalem’s fall to the second year of Cyrus. The Society’s selective
citation of Josephus is therefore deceptive. Other ancient historians
either don’t address the specific Judean chronology or simply echo the
traditional sequence of Babylonian kings, which, again, yields 587. Not
a single ancient historian explicitly supports a 607 destruction of
Jerusalem – because that idea did not exist prior to modern Watchtower
theology.
- Internal Consistency: The
607 date creates numerous internal contradictions even within the Bible’s
own timeline. For example, it forces the 70-year prophecy to start at a
time (607) when, according to the Bible, servitude to Babylon had not
yet begun – Judah was still a vassal of Egypt until 605. It also
forces the prophet Ezekiel’s statements to be contorted (Ezekiel counts
the years of exile from 597 and marks 14 years after the fall in 573,
which matches 587, not 607). The Watchtower explanation of these things
usually boils down to, “Well, perhaps the writer meant something else,”
which is far less plausible than the straightforward explanation that the
fall happened in 587. By contrast, the 587 chronology can integrate all
biblical data points logically, once we understand “70 years” in the
proper sense. In short, the JW chronology even jars with parts of the
Bible, whereas the scholarly chronology harmonizes with both biblical
and extra-biblical evidence when each is properly understood.
Given all this, we arrive at an inescapable conclusion: the year
607 BCE for Jerusalem’s destruction is untenable. It is a date
maintained only by insulating one’s belief system from evidence and by
reinterpreting scripture against context. The Jehovah’s Witness leadership has
a theological investment in 607 (as it underpins their 1914 doctrine), which
explains their reluctance to acknowledge the facts. But as researchers,
historians, or honest Bible students, we must follow the evidence wherever it
leads. In this case, it leads to the firm conclusion that Jerusalem fell in
586/587 BCE, and that the biblical “70 years” are fully accounted for by
the period of Babylonian supremacy from roughly 609 to 539 BCE. The Jewish
exiles returned around 537 BCE not to fulfill a literal count to the day,
but because Babylon’s fall made it possible – exactly as Jeremiah foretold when
he said “I will punish the king of Babylon at the end of seventy years and
bring you back”. And that is precisely what history records.
The rebuttal to the JW apologists is therefore polemical in the
sense of strongly challenging their assertions, but it is grounded in academic
rigor and evidence rather than sectarian bias. We have critically engaged
the Watchtower’s own sources (like their 2011 articles and Furuli’s writings)
and shown their methodology to be flawed or even disingenuous. By contrast, the
case for 587 BCE rests on a broad foundation of verified data, making it
the only defensible date in scholarly discourse. It’s no wonder that in over
100 years, no professional historian or archaeologist (outside the JW
community) has endorsed the 607 chronology. It stands rejected by consensus,
not out of prejudice against the Bible, but because the facts speak for
themselves.
In conclusion, the “beauty” of the Watchtower’s 607–537 timeline is
a mirage – attractive to those inside a closed ideological system, but not real
when tested against historical reality. The true beauty, if one may call it
that, lies in the converging truth: a prophecy accurately capturing the span of
an empire’s rule, the dramatic vindication of Jeremiah’s words in 539 BCE,
and the heartfelt joy of the exiles’ return shortly thereafter, all preserved
in the records of humanity. There is no need to force a false chronology to
uphold scripture; scripture is not broken by truth. The 607 dogma, however, is
broken – shattered by the cumulative evidence that it is historically
indefensible. As researchers and truth-seekers, we must side with evidence
over ideology. The destruction of Jerusalem occurred in 587 BCE (with many
scholars specifying summer 587 BCE), and no amount of special pleading can
resurrect the year 607 except in the minds of those determined to believe it at
any cost.
The verdict of both academia and, increasingly, enlightened former
Witnesses is clear: 607 BCE is a chronological error. The Watchtower’s
position is untenable, and those who have carefully examined all the data
have overwhelmingly come to reject it. The hope is that by laying out this
comprehensive rebuttal, more individuals – including sincere Jehovah’s
Witnesses – will see that the truth has nothing to fear from evidence. The
untenability of 607 BCE does not undermine the Bible; it only undermines a
particular interpretation that has been overly rigid. In the end, facts must be
faced: Jerusalem was not destroyed in 607 BCE, and claiming otherwise in
the face of all evidence does a disservice to history, scripture, and honest
scholarship. The 607 BCE doctrine has been weighed and found wanting,
and it is time to let it go.
Sources:
- Jonsson, Carl Olof. The Gentile Times
Reconsidered, 4th ed. (2004) – and Jonsson’s detailed reviews of Rolf
Furuli’s chronology. These works extensively document the evidence against
607 BCE and were cited throughout (e.g., Jonsson demonstrating the
correct meaning of Jeremiah’s 70 years and exposing Furuli’s misuse of
sources).
- Correspondence between J. Halsey and the Watch
Tower Society (2017–2018) – which provided an inside look at the Society’s
VAT 4956 analysis and its shortcomings.
- Independent scholarly sources on Babylonian
chronology and astronomy, including the Babylonian Chronicles, business
tablets, and analyses of astronomical texts (Neugebauer, Hunger, Sachs, etc.),
confirming the standard dates.
- The Watchtower’s own published statements (e.g., The
Watchtower, Nov. 1, 2011) used here to illustrate the Society’s
claims and our refutation of them.
Each of these sources and lines of evidence, taken on its own, is highly
persuasive; taken together, they render the 607 BCE position utterly
indefensible. The conclusion is unavoidable: Jehovah’s Witness apologists
have failed to defend 607 BCE, and their arguments collapse under critical
scrutiny. The destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE stands as a
well-established historical fact, and no amount of special pleading can alter
that reality. The sooner this is acknowledged, the sooner one can move on to a
more accurate understanding of both history and biblical prophecy – one that
does justice to evidence and truth.
