Hellrider
Post 2100
Mason's 'seventy years' now by his own admission corrected to a full 66 years is very much relevant in the pursuit of integrity and honesty to the Bible record. The Bible plainly states that the numeral is 70 and not some other or any such 'round number' hypothesis. Your specious pleading for a 'rounded' seventy years is forced upon you because you have no definitive beginning for this period. All that you propose is a mamby-pamby beginning of uncertain events surrounding 605 or 609 BCE, events that proceeded Jeremiah's prophesying the seventy years. Jeremiah spoke of those seventy years l after the end of Assyria and at the time of Nebuchadnezzer's assumption to the throne. This means that the seventy years had not then commenced even though there was at the latter time Jewish exiles were in Babylon and serving for Babylon. The seventy years could only commence whence the whole land was desolated and depopulated causing a complete exile in Babylon and servitude to or for Babylon.
Thus we have scholar's seventy year formula, to wit: DESOLATION + EXILE +SERVITUDE = 70 years from the FALL in 607 BCE until the RETURN in 537 BCE. Don't you like my formula? Boy, I do!
Jeremiah's seventy years has a partial or elemental reference to the domination of Babylon, it is not wholly Babylon's domination because Jeremiah addresses Jehovah's judgement against Judah by means of a forced period of seventy years of punishment. Babylon along with the other Nations were also to have judgement against them. So, the seventy years are for Judah and Judah alone, the surrounding nations during that period would also along with Judah be brought under servitude to Babylon.
Your argument or model which is the Jonsson hypothesis or apostate model is based upon a preposition in Jeremiah 29 :10 which semantically has many meanings such as 'at'. 'to' 'for' etc. It is sheer stupidity to base an entire argument on a speculative 'for Babylon'. Celebrated WT scholars are not troubled by the rendering of this phrase 'for Babylon' or 'at Babylon' because either meaning shows on the one hand 'servitude' to Babylon or on the other hand, an 'exile' in Babylon. I am more than happy to work with 'for' or 'at' because both meanings fal within the above formula.
Your explanation of matters is meaningless and rather repetitious for it violates 'common sense' which is typical of apostate propaganda
scholar JW