Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?

by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  AlanF

  scholar pretendus:

  The simple fatct is that you do not have a complete chronology of the OT and you do not have a complete chronology for the reigns of kings for the Divided Monarchy in Israel and Judah. This is proved by the fatct that you cannot provide a complete and coherent account of the reigns of kings for the Divided Monarchy in Israel and Judah, which in turn is proved by the fatct that you can cite no complete and coherent discussion of any of these things in Mommy's literature. Nor can you provide a complete and coherent account of the Neo-Babylonian period, as proved by Alleymom's challenge, which shows that the Watchtower Society agrees with every detail of modern-day secular Neo-Babylonian chronology, but disagrees with the sum total. This, of course, is like agreeing that 1+2 makes 3, and 4+5 makes 9, but disagreeing that 1+2+4+5 makes 3+9 makes 12. Nor can you show anywhere in Mommy's literature where the most important of the 70-year-related biblical passages, as I have expounded upon at some length, are even discussed, much less shown to be coherent with Mommy's other teachings.

  : What you do have is a chronology for the Neo-Babylonian period only.

  Wrong. Secular chronology covers far more than that, and a number of fine scholars such as Edwin Thiele have provided full OT chronologies that most scholars agree are accurate to within a year or two at most. By contrast, Watchtower chronology is wrong for a good deal of the period of the OT by at least 20 years.

  Furthermore, it should be obvious even to someone barely above the intelligence level of a clam that, because an accurate Neo-Babylonian chronology in and of itself firmly establishes that Jerusalem was destroyed, not in 607 B.C., since that was before Nebuchadenzzar was even king of Babylon, but in his 18th or 19th year (according to the Bible), which corresponds to 587 or 586 B.C., the Watchtower Society's chronology cannot be correct. So periods outside of accurately established Neo-Babylonian chronology are self-evidently irrelevant to the question of the date of Jerusalem's destruction, since said destruction comes within that period.

  Thus, scholar pretendus, your repeated bleatings that imply that a lack of a full and complete OT chronology on the part of secular chronologists, but that Watchtower chronologists provide such, are demonstrably false, misleading, and irrelevant to the question at hand: is the Watchtower Society's claim that Jerusalem fell in 607 B.C. correct?

  AlanF
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  scholar

  Alan F - Jonssons' disciple

  I disagree with your nonsense because WT scholars have provided a consistent and coherent chronology for the OT. An example of such under the heading 'Chart Of Outstanding Historical Dates' is presented in the publication All Scripture Is Inspired Of God and Beneficial, 1963, 1990, pp.294-7.

  Again, a chronology for the Divided Monarchy is found in Insight, 1998, Vol.1, pp.464-6.

  So, disciple of the Jonsson hypothesis please present your chronology of the OT and chart for the Divide Monarchy.

  scholar JW
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  scholar

  Narkissos

  So it is not worth a thesis but it worth considerable argument from yourself and Jonsson. In fact Jonsson devoted more space to the matter of this text than all of the other texts relating to the seventy years. Why is it that you present examples of this phrase outside of Jeremiah to support your argument. It is preferable surely to present examples of this phrase le Babylon that occur within Jeremiah. What about those phrases that I listed for you in chapter 29 that in English have locative prepositions prefixed to Babylon? If these examples omit 'le' then are they correctly tranlated in English.

  The context of Jeremiah's letter convincingly demonstrates that the seventy years are of the exiles and not of Babylon's otherwise the message of hope, restoration and counsel would be of no benefit. Also, it is rather clear that the phrases regarding Babylon all have a locative meaning as variously transalted 'to' in' 'at' etc.

  You have not provided evidence that the rendering 'at' is impossible and you have not quoted a rule of grammar or syntax that determines the problem definitively.

  scholar
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  scholar

  Leolaia

  Jenni does nothing of the sort, he merely provides an opinion about how this verse should be and is translated at the request of Jonsson. Jenni displays bias against Jehovah's Witnesses which is clear from his remarks to Jonsson and he does cite this specific text in this particular discussion of the preposition in this supposedly exhausitive treatment of Hebrew prepositions.

  The fact of the matter is that the Jonsson hypothesis has even from its first appearance right up to the present fourth edition cannot and has not provide firm linguistic and contextual evidence that proves that the NWT rendering of 'le' is impossible or highly improbable Jonsson Jonsson has had over twenty years to come up with hard evidence and has failed his readers miserably. All that has been done is an appeal to selected authoriies and examples of several translations. That is an hypothesis not fact.

  scholar JW
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  AlanF

  scholar pretendus said:

  : Alan F - Jonssons' disciple

  LOL! While I respect Jonsson greatly in a number of areas, and have independently verified most all of his claims regarding Neo-Babylonian chronology, he and I have, well, "agreed to disgree" on a number of rather fundamental notions of the Bible in general and Christianity in particular. So your attempt at dismissing my arguments by such a transparent ad hominem is, well, as stupid as all your other idiotic claims.

  : I disagree with your nonsense

  LOL again! You have yet to show that a single thing I've said is "nonsense". You've managed to shit forth a small amount of contrary opinions, but that's a far cry from intelligent disagreement. Your disagreement is quite on a par with that of Flat-Earthists' dismisal of modern geology.

  : because WT scholars have provided a consistent and coherent chronology for the OT.

  No, they have not. Whatever they've provided, it's certainly not internally consistent, since it fails to account for the inconsistencies among the various lengths of reigns of kings that it accepts for the Neo-Babylonian period that it has published, as shown by Alleymom. In other words, the lengths of reigns of Babylonian kings that the Society accepts don't add up to the length that the Society claims for the Neo-Babylonian period.

  Since you obviously claim that the Society has covered all bases, and I've shown that this is false, it's up to you to demonstrate that the Society has indeed covered all these bases with explicit discussions in its literature. I.e., what bit of literature, what year, what page?

  But you cannot demonstrate anything of the sort, since I've shown that no appropriate discussions are to be found in Watchtower literature. The fact that you, scholar pretendus, are unable to find any such discussions is a further confirmation of the facts that I have presented.

  Of course, both you and I know that the Society hasn't demonstrated anything at all, and so you cannot do so, and so an objective reader must conclude that your claims are mere smoke.

  : An example of such under the heading 'Chart Of Outstanding Historical Dates' is presented in the publication All Scripture Is Inspired Of God and Beneficial, 1963, 1990, pp.294-7.

  Absolute nonsense. I could equally well publish such a list of idiotic dates and events:

  1769: scholar pretendus is born
  1790: scholar pretendus becomes a braindead Christian pretender
  1880: scholar pretendus becomes a braindead follower of C. T. Russell
  early 1914: scholar pretendus expects "the end of everything" imminently
  late 1914: scholar pretendus decides that "the end of everything" began this year and will be culminated in 1918
  1916: scholar pretendus accepts Watchtower claims that "the end of everything" will come about in 1918.
  1918: scholar pretendus accepts Watchtower claims that "the end" will occur in 1925, when the "great worthies" wil be resurrected.
  2005: scholar pretendus realizes how incredibly stupid he has been

  How does anyone know which things in this list are right? Only by checking back with the originally published claims.

  Similarly, how does anyone know if the dates published in that 'Chart Of Outstanding Historical Dates' are correct? Only by checking with secular sources that base their claims on astronomically confirmed dates. And the fact is that this "Chart" and its surrounding context give virtually no astronomically confirmed dates outside of those which virtually all modern scholars agree upon, such as 539 B.C. for the destruction of Babylon. And of course, the text of Insight is forced to admit that the weigth of evidence is on the side of truth.

  : Again, a chronology for the Divided Monarchy is found in Insight, 1998, Vol.1, pp.464-6.

  Again, thoroughly incomplete and stupid. Edwin Thiele demonstrates in his book how a proper discussion of OT chronology ought to be handled. The discussion in Insight, bastardized from the Aid book, is beyond the pale. It simply ignores all OT interpretive problems and sweeps them under the rug, quite in contrast with the writings of honest scholars such as Thiele. It does so based on the ridiculous doctrine that JW leaders somehow have an "in" with God, and so their interpretations are completely in line with what God would say if He decided to make his ideas known directly in our modern world.

  : So, disciple of the Jonsson hypothesis

  Which is nothing more than the hypothesis of 99% of the world's scholars.

  Neil, why don't you have enough sense to stop this unbelievably stupid series of ad hominems? Are you really so stupid as to not understand that what you call "the Jonsson hypothesis" is nothing other than the consensus of modern scholars? Are you really so stupid as to think that any readers of this board will be deceived by your lies? Are you really so stupid as to continue to believe your own lies?

  : please present your chronology of the OT and chart for the Divide Monarchy.

  Thiele.

  AlanF
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  Leolaia

  Why is it that you present examples of this phrase outside of Jeremiah to support your argument. It is preferable surely to present examples of this phrase le Babylon that occur within Jeremiah.

  Not at all, silly, if none of the examples in Jeremiah represent the same construction that occurs in 29:10. Prepositions are underspecified grammatical items whose semantic properties depend greatly on their relationship with other constituents in the predicate (e.g. the kind of noun phrase that it has as its complement, the kind of verb that governs it, whether the prepositional phrase has a theta role or instead occurs as an adverbial, etc.). The phrase l-bbl can occur in a great variety of different constructions, neither does bbl "Babylon" define a particular class of grammatical constructions. Narkissos drew attention to other examples approximating the construction in 29:10. That is exactly what Jenni does in his book in categorizing the different senses of lamed, and its what any descriptive linguist would do to make sense of a language's grammar. That you don't understand this again indicates your ignorance of the issues involved.

  What about those phrases that I listed for you in chapter 29 that in English have locative prepositions prefixed to Babylon?

  All those examples don't even have the preposition le that's under discussion! Are you seriously basing your interpretation of a Hebrew preposition on English grammar (which requires prepositions in places where they may not occur in Hebrew)?? If we used a Chukchi or Swahili translation instead, would that give a better insight into the idiosyncracies of Hebrew grammar?

  If these examples omit 'le' then are they correctly tranlated in English.

  Again, you have things backwards. The Hebrew original does not "omit" a preposition in contexts where other languages might require them. And why must le be the relevant preposition in comparing static locative renderings when this is not even the usual value of the preposition whereas other prepositions like b- occur naturally as static locative? (cf. wyhy b-byt 'dnyw "And he was in the house of his master," Genesis 39:2). In fact, when you gave your list of "in/at/to Babylon" examples from Jeremiah 29, one of them even had this preposition in Hebrew (cf. v. 22, b-bbl "in Babylon").

  The context of Jeremiah's letter convincingly demonstrates that the seventy years are of the exiles and not of Babylon's otherwise the message of hope, restoration and counsel would be of no benefit. Also, it is rather clear that the phrases regarding Babylon all have a locative meaning as variously transalted 'to' in' 'at' etc.

  So what. If a stretch of discourse just happens to have three instances of directional "to Babylon" and four instances of locative "in/at Babylon", does that predict that the next reference, regardless of meaning, should be just like the previous ones?

  And all the instances you gave of "Babylon" with locative or directional meaning don't even have the preposition le! One could even dare say that because 29:10 uses le to mark the noun whereas the other instances of bbl "Babylon" don't, that could be an indication that the grammatical relation in 29:10 is not like the other verses you want to compare it to.

  Jenni displays bias against Jehovah's Witnesses which is clear from his remarks to Jonsson.

  How? What did he say that was biased against JWs? And how does this undermine his linguistic observations?

  he does cite this specific text in this particular discussion of the preposition in this supposedly exhausitive treatment of Hebrew prepositions.

  Yes, that's exactly what I noted in my response. And Jenni treats it together with other cases of the completive verb (just as Narkissos has done). I'm glad you recognize that his lexical grammar does cite and discuss the text.

  The fact of the matter is that the Jonsson hypothesis has even from its first appearance right up to the present fourth edition cannot and has not provide firm linguistic and contextual evidence that proves that the NWT rendering of 'le' is impossible or highly improbable Jonsson Jonsson has had over twenty years to come up with hard evidence and has failed his readers miserably.

  The fact of the matter is that Jonsson is not a linguist, and thus consulted those who are for their input on the question.

  All that has been done is an appeal to selected authoriies and examples of several translations.

  Earlier you also characterized Jonsson's research as only soliciting "favorable to his argument". Do you have evidence at all that he has selectively cited expert responses, and omitted respondents who support the NWT?

  scholar pretendus indeed.
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  scholar

  Leolaia

  Jenni provides no evidence for the use of the preposition le used in Jeremiah 29:10, it is not cited as you claim and I made a typo by saying that he did. I withdraw that mistake and note that he does not cite the text in the material that you have quoted. It seems that Jonsson's and Jorgensen's treatment of Jenni's reference is ambiguous and I would ask that specific pages relating to this matter be posted on this board so that everyone can see what Jenni says about this matter for until this is done Jenni cannot be used as evidence against this theory of Jehovaj's Witnesses, a comment made by Jenni in response to an inquiry.

  The NWT uses 'at Babylon' also at Jeremiah 29:28: 51:49 and I suppose that 'le' is used in these texts. In any event if be the case that an identical semantic construction is not found in Jeremiah as you seem to allege then this would be rather puzzling abd certainly warrants further research.

  I ask your comment on the English renderings of the prepositions in Jeremiah 29 in order to test whether the NWT committe has rendered these other prepositions from Hebrew into English correcctly. Is this case?

  scholar JW
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  scholar

  Alan F - Jonsson's boy

  Excuses, excuses is your pathetic response to my request of you to provide a chronology of the OT and a scheme for the Divided Monarchy. If it be the case that your Neo-Babylonian is accurate then with all this evidence it should be possible to make an attempt or have a go at least.

  It seems that WT scholars are superior to your scholars because we have a scheme that works, that enables a Bible student to make sense of history and for a Christian to have faith in the prophetic word.

  It seems that all that your Jonsson hupothesis has done for you is to convert you to atheism or agnosticism and you expect to be taken seriously in matters of biblical exegesis.

  scholar JW
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  Narkissos

  The NWT uses 'at Babylon' also at Jeremiah 29:28: 51:49 and I suppose that 'le' is used in these texts.

  That says it all.

  In 29:28 there is no preposition, although be ("in, at") is understood, which often falls by assimilation, or haplology, before another beth (bbbl -> bbl; cf. Joüon § 126h).

  In 51:49 le occurs, but once again the NWT misunderstands the text (although no chronological agenda is apparent here):

  Not only was Babylon the cause for the slain ones of Israel to fall but also at Babylon the slain ones of all the earth have fallen.

  This "at" creates an unsuperable difficulty which does not exist in Hebrew, namely that most of those killed as a result of Babylonian imperialism did not fall in Babylon.

  The text actually reads, literally:

  also Babylon (is) to fall, slain ones of Israel, also to/for Babylon fell the slain ones of all the earth.

  The first sentence, and consequently the connection between the two sentences, are not entirely clear. However, the preposition le here is obviously logical and not local: for Babylon, on account of Babylon, etc.

  E.g. NRSV:

  Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel,
  as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.

  Or the Jerusalem Bible (French version):

  Babylone à son tour doit tomber, ô vous, tués d'Israël, de même que par Babylone tombèrent des tués de la terre entière.
  Babylon in turn must fall, o you slain ones of Israel, just as by Babylon slain ones of the whole earth fell.

  Again, if le were to be interpreted as local it would naturally imply movement ("to Babylon"), which makes no sense here. As the above comments by Jenni point out, the only apparent exceptions are in stereotyped formulae (cf. "to the right, to the left," in both Hebrew and English...)
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  ellderwho

  elderwho

  The simple fatct is that you do not have a complete chronology of the OT and you do not have a complete chronology for the reigns of kings for the Divided Monarchy in Israel and Judah.

  What you do have is a chronology for the Neo-Babylonian period only.

  Huh? You have presuppositions that my secular "kings list" years of reign is wrong. Im simply asking that you give your neo-Babylonian kings list with years of rule to help me better understand your position.

  Is it that hard to understand? 625-------539 now you fill in the gap with kings and years of rule.

  Forget GTR and all the little details that are disputed.

  Futher it is my belief that you cannot do the above. Because it cannot be done with WT information.