Doug Mason
Post 739
1. Hardly, it seems that in reading the literature on this subject it is only the WTS that give a definitive date for the Return in 537 BCE.
2. Agreed. The Seventy years began right on time to the very month and ended on time at that very month.
3. Well hope does spring eternal and it is a fine Christian virtue to have. History is always hopeful as it is never complete so scholars and historians have to fill the holes or gaps as it were. In any event there is sufficient evidence for the establishment of 537 BCE which is more secure than any other date offered. The Insight articles certainly prove the matter much better than anything else.
4. Regardless of politics all of the people were caught up in events beyond their control and were forced to flee the land leaving it completely depopulated in 607 BCE for the countdown of the seventy years.
5. Jeremiah gave a formula period. It described the nature of the seventy years thus providing clear markers for identifying the beginning and end of the seventy years . As I have argued before it is impossible for the seventy years to end with the Fall of Babylon because the Jews were still exiled.
6. Yes but is your reading of archaeology current? Does it include current research in the Myth of an Empty Land ?
7. Historiography as a tool must be used selectively for it is a product of man's thinking and if it contradicts God's Word then it must be abandoned.
scholar JW