Jeffro
scholar', you're just going round in circles with the same claims, so no extended response is required. Your claims that actual scholars support the JW view of the exile are entirely dishonest, and your use of the term "exilic scholars" as a qualifier is not particularly helpful. (A Google search for "exilic scholars" and "70 years" together yields only two results; one is a scam and the other is a JW-related forum comment by you. Changing "70 years" to "seventy years" yields 6 results, being either of similar 'quality' or otherwise not supportive of your views.) You know very well that actual scholars view the exile from early 597 BCE and the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, and secular historians do not conflate Babylon's 70 years with the exile (and nor do Ezekiel or Jeremiah). Jeremiah explicitly states that Babylon's 70 years end and then Babylon is called to account, and Daniel explicitly indicates Babylon being called to account in the agreed year of 539 BCE. Jeremiah further explicitly states that attention is given to the Jews' return from exile after the 70 years had ended. There is simply no getting away from the fact that the 70 years ended in 539 BCE and are therefore not the same as the period of exile.
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You are ignorant of current scholarship especially with regard to the subject of the Exile-Jewish Exile for there are scholars who are properly termed 'Exilic scholars' who specialize in this period of Jewish history such as Rainer Albertz. There is no need for me to 'go round in circles' for I unlike you, know the subject, its implications for theology and history.
Scholars properly date the Exile from the Fall to the Return and not earlier which saw at least one deportation of some Jews prior to the Fall and they do conflate the 70 years of captivity with the Exile of 70 years for there is no other period or different 70 year periods. There is only one period of 70 years and this can only be construed byJerr that period of Exile-Captivity-Servitude.
Jeremiah quite explicitly states that the 70 Years ended not with the Fall of Babylon but after the 70 years was fulfilled, such event occurred only after Babylon's Fall with its own ongoing judgment of desolation.
Daniel describes the continuance of the 70 years as a period up to the Fall of Babylon and beyond with the lamentation of the Exile by means of prayer which would come to end.
Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezra all agree that the 70 years ended not with the Fall of Babylon but only with the Return of the Jews which occurred after 539 BCE. Further, if you count back 70 years from 539 BCE you get to 609 BCE with nothing happened in that year, no significant historical event .
scholar JW