Posts by ros

96

587 BC for Total Dunderheads

by Farkel in

if you're a dunderhead on neo-babylonian history (like me) you've probably remained totally clueless whenever the subject of the chronology leading to back 607 b.c.

since i had nothing better to do today, i decided to finally take the time it takes to understand why dub chronology on that date is wrong.

this piece of information alone should give you a clue about how bored i am!.

ros

Tor:

I think I'm on Scholars "ignore" list. Don't exactly know how I got there. :-)

~Ros

96

587 BC for Total Dunderheads

by Farkel in

if you're a dunderhead on neo-babylonian history (like me) you've probably remained totally clueless whenever the subject of the chronology leading to back 607 b.c.

since i had nothing better to do today, i decided to finally take the time it takes to understand why dub chronology on that date is wrong.

this piece of information alone should give you a clue about how bored i am!.

ros

Concerning a 1914 parousia:

The Watchtower prophecy has it that Christ + 144,000 saints will reign in heaven for 1000 years.
AND . . . they insist these numbers (144,000 and 1000) are literal numbers.

So, if Christ returned in 1914, were 144,000 saints resurrected at that time?
Not according to the WT prophecy.

Has the 1000-year reign begun?
Not according to the WT prophecy. It begins immediately AFTER Armageddon.

Will some of the144,000 "saints" live through Armageddon into the New Earth, and thereafter die and be resurrected?
That used to be the doctrine. Is it still the view? (Especially since anyone who dies in Armageddon has no hope of a resurrection.)

It is now 90 years after 1914.
If Christ returned in 1914, he has been reigning 90 years and the millenium has not begun.
If some of the 144,000 will not die and be resurrected until after Armageddon, they will not reign with Christ for a full 1000 years.
Christ and those "saints" who were resurrected in 1914 (or were they supposed to be resurrected in 1919?) will have reigned for 1000 years plus 90 years plus however many years still remain until Armageddon.

For all their insistence that the 144,000 and 1000 years are literal numbers in prophecy, in no way can it be said in their teaching that Christ + 144,000 reigned for 1,000 years.

Their own teaching denies the numbers are literal.

QUESTION: If Christ returned in 1914, how has that affected the earth? What has changed? Weren't things supposed to get better?

~Ros

96

587 BC for Total Dunderheads

by Farkel in

if you're a dunderhead on neo-babylonian history (like me) you've probably remained totally clueless whenever the subject of the chronology leading to back 607 b.c.

since i had nothing better to do today, i decided to finally take the time it takes to understand why dub chronology on that date is wrong.

this piece of information alone should give you a clue about how bored i am!.

ros

Marjorie:

Thanks for linking back to that post. I remember it and I think I copied it at the time, but now I know I have it.
Very interesting observation!!!

~Ros

96

587 BC for Total Dunderheads

by Farkel in

if you're a dunderhead on neo-babylonian history (like me) you've probably remained totally clueless whenever the subject of the chronology leading to back 607 b.c.

since i had nothing better to do today, i decided to finally take the time it takes to understand why dub chronology on that date is wrong.

this piece of information alone should give you a clue about how bored i am!.

ros

Scholar wrote:

You are quite correct, only a dunderhead could accept a hypothetical date 587 for the Fall of Jerusalem. The WT Society using reliable biblical data computes this event for 607. A foolproof methodology of 539 for the Fall of Babylon followed by the release of the Jews under Cyrus in 537 which ended their exile to Babylon and the desolation of the land of seventy years. One merely fixes the beginning of these momentous events by adding seventy years to 537=607. Boy that is so easy.

Yep, that is precisely how the WT comes up with that date--by counting 2 years forward from 539 then back 70. The year 607 is not based on any other scientific or historical evidence. The question in this simple (not brilliant) scenario is, what is it you're calculating for the 70 years?

The problem for the WT is that there are astronomical "absolute dates" from which your 607BC can be shown to be at or about Nebuchadnezzar's first year, and consequently that Babylon reigned about 70 years from the time he became king. There is no way it can be 18 years off to validate Jerusalem's destruction coinciding with Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year--which is in full harmony with the scriptures:

"This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, . . ."--Jer.25:11
"Only when Babylon's seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise to bring you back to this place."--Jer.29:10

The Babylonians (and the Jews) were meticulous in their records of the reigns of their kings.
As Farkel explained--in a slightly different fashion--they did not have the Gregorian calendar. It should not need to be explained that the Babylonians did not have a concept of calendar count-down to Christ--nor did the Jews (i.e., BC or AD ("in the year of our Lord"). All of that began in the chuches some centuries after the Christian era began. The way both the Jews and Babylonians kept track of years was by associating events, including astronomical events and records, with what year an event occurred in the reign of which king. So, the dating of important events would be stated something like:

"In the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and beseiged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. When Jerusalem was taken, . . ."--Jeremiah 39:1,2
"And in the ninth year of [Zedekiah's] reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came with all his army against Jerusalem, and they laid seige to it; they built siege works against it all around. So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine became so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. . . . In the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month--which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon--Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard who served the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, . . ."--Jer.52:4-13

In our day, "absolute dates" are derived from archaeological finds, records of ancient events that describe precise astronomical events--such as solar and lunar eclipses and other celestial occurrences of interest to astronomers--associated with a particular year in the reign of a particular king the way we see the Bible account preserved records of events between Babylon and Jerusalem. The Babylonians, and Nebuchadnezzar in particular, were avid astronomers--for which historians are greatly indebted. There are at least 30 astronomical events for Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year recorded on the Babylonian astronomical diary discovered by archaeologists, named VAT 4956, as well as others dated in the reigns of two of his successors. Thereby are at least 30 "absolute dates" for the 37th year of Nebuchadnezzar. If you pinpoint Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, then you can pinpoint his first year. If you pinpoint his first year, then you can pinpoint his 18th/19th year, the year he beseiged Jerusalem. As one historian put it, the year of the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon is one of the very few certain dates in ancient history. Add to the astronomical "absolute" dating the fact that 539 BC agrees with every other line of historical and archaeological research.

So for this discussion--it is not the year when Babylon was conquered by the Persians that the WT's chronology for the 70 years hinges, since all agree on 539 BC for that. (Which, btw, 539 BC is derived indirectly from only one "absolute date" associated with the 6th year of Cyrus.) The critical point for the Watchtower's argument is whether the 70 years applied to Babylon, or--as they claim--to the time of Jewish exile when they were without their temple in Jerusalem. And that definition hinges on, among other things, what year was the 18/19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar.

XQsThaiPoes:

Disproving the Watchtower's chronology about the 70 years should not be misunderstood as agreeing with their interpretation of what the 70 years is supposed to represent for long-range prophecy. Using it to calculate the 1914 parousia is a whole other discussion, which becomes moot when you understand their flawed chronology. :-)

~Ros

145

Invitation To Americans To Find Fault With The British..

by Englishman in

jw
friends

.

i thought we ought to even things up a little... go for it!.

no obscenities please.

ros

Why would I want to find fault with another country? That wouldn't be very polite. :-)

~Rosalie

96

587 BC for Total Dunderheads

by Farkel in

if you're a dunderhead on neo-babylonian history (like me) you've probably remained totally clueless whenever the subject of the chronology leading to back 607 b.c.

since i had nothing better to do today, i decided to finally take the time it takes to understand why dub chronology on that date is wrong.

this piece of information alone should give you a clue about how bored i am!.

ros

In Vol.1 of ?Insight on the Scriptures?, beginning on page 580 under the topic ?Darius? (1), there is a lengthy discussion about the secular historian uncertainties about the identity of Darius the Mede at the time of Babylon?s destruction. In there, the Watchtower position seems in full agreement with this uncertainty, because on page 583, (2) Darius Hystaspis (a Persian, not a Mede) is identified as the Darius in the Bible account. Now notice what they say about this other Darius:

It is particularly with regard to the rebuilding of the temple at Jerusalem that Darius Hystaspis figures in the Bible record. The temple foundation was laid in 536 B.C.E., but rebuilding work came under ban in 522 B.C.E. and ?continued stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius? (520 B.C.E.) (Ezr 4:4, 5, 24) During this year the prophets Haggai and Zechariah stirred up the Jews to renew the construction, and the work got under way again. (Ezr 5:1, 2; Hag 1:1, 14, 15; Zec 1:1)

See their reference to Haggai and Zechariah? Now the interesting point is this (quoting the relevant scripture texts from these prophets):

So the angel of Jehovah answered and said: ?O Jehovah of armies, how long will you y ourself not show mercy to Jerusalem and to the cities of Judah, whom you have denounced these seventy years???Zech.1:12 NWT

And:

Furthermore, it came about that in the fourth year of Darius the king the word of Jehovah occurred to Zechariah . . . And the word of Jehovah of armies continued to occur to me, saying: ?Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ?When you fasted and there was a wailing in the fifth [month] and in the seventh [month], and this for seventy years, did you really fast to me, even me? . . . Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate.?Zech.7:1, 5, 14 NWT

Anybody see an addition problem here? (607 to 522 BCE = 70 years?)

Re: Josephus

claiming the Jewish exile to be 70 years, he erred on this point and later corrected himself in his last work titled ?Against Apion? I, 21 where he quotes Berossus (a 3 rd century BC Babylonian prist/historian):

This statement is both correct and in accordance with our books [that is, the Holy Scriptures]. For in the latter it is recorded that Nabochodonosor in the eighteenth year of his reign devastated our temple, that for fifty years it ceased to exist, and that in the second year of Cyrus the foundations were laid, and lastly that in the second year of the reign of Darius it was completed.

The clincher is, of course, the Babylonian [not Persian] astronomical record VAT 4956 (now held in the Berlin Museum) that contains about 30 ?absolute dates? from the 37 th year of Nebuchadnezzar?s reign. The observations are so detailed that it allows astronomers to easily pin-point the year as 568/567 B.C.E. If one does not believe that evidence, then they have no basis for holding 539 as the year of Babylon?s destruction, since that is also calculated from an astronomical ?absolute date?. If you know his 37th year, then its elementary to deduce his first year.

~Ros

22

Day 8, Visit to BRCI

by jst2laws in

jw
friends

hello my loyal friends who apparently have little to do in life considering you are reading this thread.

we are in chicago for two days for the brci conference.

brci?

ros

Btw, I was remiss in not mentioning how much I thoroughly enjoyed visiting once again with Joy, Steve, Amazing, RW, Bobbie Witty (former Bethelite/missionary), Blondie (nice to meet you), Mouthy (what a special surprise to see you, Love!!!), Outaservice, Gregersons, Cabeens, Zweifels, Jon, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting to mention.

Jerry Bergman cancelled BRCI at the last minute for the reason of sudden serious illness of his father-in-law.
Not everyone agrees with Jerry's scholarship since he is moved along the lines of Christian Creationism (I'm not sure whether he is "new earth" or "old earth" creationism.)
He was very instrumental in motivating Diane Wilson to write her book, "Awakening of a Jehovah's Witnesses" that was published with good reviews two years ago. That all began about 7 years ago (I think--give-or-take) when Diane--who was very new out but her husband was still a JW elder--formed a cruise group of exWitnesses. I heard Gregersons were going, to I joined. [Side note: Diane's JW elder husband also joined us and thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, but did not discuss religion. He did hear some rather heated discussions, as you might imagine, being seated as he was at the table with Jerry and Peter Gregerson. But we had fun with him; he was a good sport. When the group photo was taken at the formal dinner, there was Diane's husband seated next to Peter. I later asked Diane if George realized that was *precisely* what got Ray Franz disfellowshipped? We had a good laugh over it!! :D))))

There will be another opportunity to observe, Jerry. I think he is going to be in a debate with AlanF in Washington state next October on the topic of creationism. As I understand it, Penton will also be there to debate with Amazing on the topic of "war". Might be a worthwhile get-together, if not for the debates, for the camaraderie in between (that's what I go for).

~Ros

22

Day 8, Visit to BRCI

by jst2laws in

jw
friends

hello my loyal friends who apparently have little to do in life considering you are reading this thread.

we are in chicago for two days for the brci conference.

brci?

ros

Actually, Ray *was very* involved with the original organizing of BRCI. But the group rather quickly developed along different lines from what was originally intended. In the original concept, Ray contributed significantly to the legal end of getting it set up as a nonprofit organization for research and publishing. True, he never served on the board. (Ray does not join any group.) But he *was* a key figure in the original setup. As BRCI progressed and the founders went about their diverse paths of "healing", the organization moved along lines away from the original purpose, as well as the fact that some of the original members followed diverse paths in their own exit progress and eventually withdrew from the group. That very briefly sums up why the name--Biblical Research and Commentary International, Inc.--now bears little or no resemblence to the groups literal function. (Notice the resemblence of the name to "Commentary Press".)

BRCI's original real objective was to provide an avenue for scholarly exJWs to do research and publish their work, which was intended to include that of Ray, Carl Olof, as well as numerous others who have now moved on. They had no intention of identifying with mainstream religion. Today, BRCI is mainly a fellowship group who espouse a mainstream Christian perspective to exiting JWs. The board members have varying Christian perspectives.

~Ros

62

Just As A Matter Of Curiosity..........

by hillary_step in

jw
friends

just as a matter of curiosity i was wondering if any of you know of anybody who has read raymond franz' 'crisis of conscience' and who actually remained a jw?

i have sent and lent this book to a number of people within the wts, even a co, all of whom left eventually.

one person remained due to domestic issues, but resigned from all his duties and remains as such.

ros

I would be surprised if "Scholar" and Furuli (sp?) have not read it.

~Ros

15

Took the next step....

by confusedjw in

okay as my jwd friends and acquaintances know i'm trying for "the perfect fade", because family is in etc etc .

but i've just taken some "bigish" steps for me.

(babysteps in reality i suppose.

ros

And you might want to get "Signs of the Last Days--When?" while you can. The original printing is not scheduled for reprint. As Farkel inferred, it's one of the best exJW books you'll ever read.

~Ros