Jeffro
Entirely invalid response (and there actually wasn't any special decree just for the Jews, Cyrus just had a general policy of allowing conquered people to follow their religious beliefs in order to quell civil unrest). Giving attention to their return before the end of the 70 years directly contradicts the direct statement at Jeremiah 29:10. But thanks for confirming once again that JWs don't really care what the Bible actually says when it disagrees with Watch Tower Society doctrine.
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There was such an instrument as the Decree of Cyrus. The direct statement or prophecy at Jeremiah 29:10 validates the date of the Return at the behest of Cyrus' Decree and fulfilling the prophetic word of Jeremiah that the 70 years marked the end of the Exile at the Reurn in 537 BCe. Everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle.
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It is not necessary to believe a text is true in order to assess what it says. However, the descriptions in Jeremiah of 70 years as a period during which the nations were subject to Babylon does nicely fit the period from the fall of Assyria in 609 BCE until the fall of Babylon in 539 BCE. And Jeremiah's further description of attention being given to the Jews' return after Babylon's 70 years also nicely fits the fact that some of the Jews returned to Jerusalem in 538 BCE after Persia began to reign and began work on the temple foundations in Cyrus' second year, 537 BCE.
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Utter nonsense for credibility is everything for why would a person trust another's disbelief or scepticism for only a fool does that. Your thesis that the Fall of Assyria in 609 BCE? marks 70 year period and ending in 539 BCE with the Fall of Babylon is correct but that has nothing to do with Jeremiah's 70 years which commenced with the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 BCE and ended with the Return of the Jews in 537 BCE consistent with the fact that this 70 year was of servitude-desolation and Exile as detailed and foretold in the biblical record.
scholar JW