Leolaia
Response to post 6988
I take issue with your observations that my treatment of the seventy years is not coincidentally shared by the Society that this period as a chronological datum for the Neo Babylonian period. In fact it is our interpretation of the seventy years as a definite historical period that falsifies current interpretations of the chronology for the Neo Babylonian period. Of course, I scoff at those who offer interpretations that exhibit a disloyalty to God's prophetic Word by either regarding the seventy years as a round number or other concocted theories such as those suggested by the Jonsson hypothesis.
The Jonssson hypothesis does not inform its readers of the many conflicting opinions about the seventy years in commentaries and the scholarly literature. It offers several interpretations with numerous 'seventy year periods' but favours the period as best representing servitude to Babylon.
Applegate admits the diversity of opinion and shows the history of interpretation in the literature, his analysis of the key texts is most refreshing in comparison to the dogmatic and narrow of the seventy years advocated by Jonsson. Clearly, Jonsson displays a anti-Witness bias which impugns his scholarship wheras Appleagate simply gives his opinon on the basis of scholarship. Therefore, Appl;egate's article is refreshing to read as an advancement on this much neglected subjects and offers many gems for Celebrated WT scholars in their promotion of the truth regarding the biblical seventy years.
Applegate admits that "the current concensus on Jeremiah's use appears to be that, by convention, ancient Near Eastern peoples anticpated seventy years of divine displeasure for a city or land that fell foul of its god, and that an actual period of seventy years may also be in view." True, Applegate offers no chronology for this period but this comment supports my long held publicly staed view that any iny interpretation of the seventy years must be in harmony with the theology of the OT. Jonsson discounts such theology and prophetic significance of the seventy years seeing the period primarily as servitude to Babylon.
Obviously, the seventy years had not then commenced prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and deportation of all the people as exiles to Babylon and Applegate's comment on Jer. 29:10 that Yahweh would visit his people in Babylon after the seventy years. It is correct to say that Applegate does not define the seventy years as a period exile, desolation and servitude but neither does he favor Jonsson's servitude position either but Applegate certainly makes observations on those key texts that give credence to the position the Society has long held.
It is correct to say that Applegate does not advocate a precise chronology for the seventy years but he certainly acknowledges a holistic or unitary interpretation even if in a very subtle form. Applegate's concluding abstract notes the flexibility of interpretation for this period but such flexibility is omitted by Jonsson who promotes a rather dogmatic view that the seventy years was only one of servitude. Applegate's paper does not support the Jonsson nonsense as to its chronology and interpretation.
This paper has a far greater import for the Jonsson hypothesis than for biblical chronology because the seventy years is the very basis of that hypothesis with Jonsson caught with conflicting evidence and no precise chronology. WT scholars are not dependent on this paper but it is a useful contribution to the current debate with studies on Jeremiah, for me it serves as a corrective or litmus test to Jonsson's fanciful theories that his findings are not based ujpon sound biblical scholarship. I believe that Applegate's paper exposes such foolish chronology with its flawed understanding of the seventy years as a sham, a fraud.
scholar JW
