Alan F
Lester Grabbe did not peer review Furuli's work but simply a critique listed as a Book Review in a leading scholarly journal something of which Jonsson has not bothered to do. Furuli has long sent out at least twenty copies of his work to various scholars and institutions during the short time it has been published and has already received feedback from a prominent SDA scholar. Jonsson has had his work published for more than twenty years and over this time there is still no Book Review.
Grabbe was not poking fun at Furuli but rather paid him a compliment for his attempt to rewrite scholarship and really this is what contributes to advances in scholarship where a scholar breaks new ground or submits current thinking to testing. Grabbe reminds the reader that "gifted amateurs have sometimes revolutionized scholarship" and he looks forwardto Furuli's next volume.
Jonsson's nonsense has not been subject to a peer review or a Book Review but on the back cover of his last two editions there are two endorsements by two scholars who express a favourable opinion about Jonsson's work. Wiseman promises to notify a number of correspondents of the work but since 1998 the date of the third edition where is there any mention of Jonsson's work in the scholarly literature?
Regarding Cagni's claim that this work is a serious study for the field of Assyriology then again where in the scholarly literature since 1998 have serious scholars used or benefited from this so called 'serious study'? One cannot but feel that there is an agenda against the teaching of Jehovah's Witnesses manifested by these two fellows. If the endorsements are of any value why does not Jonsson make public the full content of such letters of admiration?
Alan F, you boast that Jonsson's work mainly consists of summarizing the cream of modern scholarship but if this is truly the case How is it that Jonsson's views clearly are a minority view and does not represent the majority of scholars as to the date for the Fall and the exegesis of the seventy years. If the book does not need a review of any sort then its significance for the serious student is somewhat diminished as it merely amounts as I have reminded Augustin that it is a piece of 'cult bashing'.
If serious scholars do not regard the Jonsson hypothesis as a piece of 'cult bashing' then one could infer that it is a serious study of Neo- Babylonian chronology and the biblical seventy years but where then is a Book Review? Where has this 'serious study' been utilized by scholars in discussions of chronology and biblical history?
Augustin claims that a quotation by some Norwegian scholar of Jonsson in his book on the Witnesses is proof of something. Proof of what? Even James Penton in his history of the Witness sources Jonsson as does Raymonf Franz but this is irrelevant in this discussion of the merits of Jonsson's alleged scholarship because fellow sympathizers will always find comfort in the arms of each other.
The scholars mentioned by you such as Lundbon etc do not endorse the Jonsson hypothesis, they have not quoted from Jonsson's work and their published writings and commentary on the seventy years differ greatly from Jonsson. There would be a few facts of common agreement just as would also be the case with celebrated WT scholars and Furuli but the substance is very much of wide dispute. In this repect, Grabbe admits that with Furuli that "some biblical passages make such a statement" What was that statement? It was that ' seventy years desolation of the land' which is against Jonsson's opinions.
Grabbe nowhere in his Book Review gives any indication that the seventy years was a period of Babylonian servitude or domination but he recognizes that some texts can if read literally refer to desolation even if he himself has a different view of matters, a view which is left unstated.
Typically apostates are desperate people with nowhere to turn and nowhere to hide for they a re exposed for the deceivers they are: haters of God's Word, his people and his organization.
The chronology published by the Society, developed by celebrated WT scholars has shown itself superior to the empty theories of secular scholars who cannot amongst themselves cannot produce a simple and coherent chronology.
scholar JW