Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?

by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  scholar

  hilary_step

  You have put the matter rather nicely but you forget the fact that it is what the Bible says as it is the only authority which attests to the fact of only one seventy year period applicable not to Babylon as most scholars believe but to Jerusalem, the people and Judah. The majority of scholars today are blinded by 'higher criticism' so it is not surprising that their views of matters differ to the Lord;s people. The seventy years remains a big problem for scholars but not for Jehovah's Witnesses who with Holy Spirit and a loyal FDS are able to teach humble people the Truth. Sadly, apoztates have allowed themselves to be misled by such higher critics and have abandoned the pure and unadulterated truth of God's Word and allowed themselves to be deceived by the devilish Jonsson hypothesis.

  scholar JW
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  hillary_step

  Toreador,

  I was a temp CO for eighteen months. Not very good at it though...lol I received frequent letters of complaint from headquarters regarding the laxity of my paper-work - a 'two-page' complaint at one stage....and my sense of humor which was frequently misintepreted.....lol I was being tested against another would be CO who thank goodness won the day being far more suited to the job that I, and this allowed me to go back home and get a cat and continue guzzling strong beer by the tsunami.

  I fared a lot better as a Special Pioneer, and did a stint in a Bethel for a while, but was never quite political enough for the CO / DO system. Even at that stage I had deep-seated issues with many of the doctrines I was peddling from door to door.

  Obedience and an unquestioning faith is the Organization are essential requirements of would be CO's. Intelligence, reason and a good nature ( all of which I possess in great measure ) are of secondary importance.

  Best regards - HS
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  ozziepost

  HS:

  I think scholar has gone along unquestioningly with the whole WT notion that those who they call apostates couldn't possibly be intelligent or faithful or "responsible" brothers.

  If only they knew, eh? It'd make 'em mess themselves methinks. It'd make a change from messing with people's minds.

  Cheers, Ozzie (permanently upside down class)
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  hillary_step

  scholar JW

  Scholar-Puppet ( I am paying Narkissos roylaties on that one ),

  ....Very good.....Can we have the next paragraph read please Brother Shearman.

  17. The majority of scholars today are blinded by 'higher criticism' so it is not surprising that their views of matters differ to the Lord;s people. The seventy years remains a big problem for scholars but not for Jehovah's Witnesses who with Holy Spirit and a loyal FDS are able to teach humble people the Truth. Sadly, apoztates have allowed themselves to be misled by such higher critics and have abandoned the pure and unadulterated truth of God's Word and allowed themselves to be deceived by the devilish Jonsson hypothesis.

  ...Thank you Bro. Shearman. The question on paragraph seventeen is : Why does the Seventy Years remain a big problem with all worldy scholars and why is it not a problem to window cleaners gifted with the Holy Spirit?

  HS
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  AlanF

  scholar pretendus, your reply contradicts the very Bible you hold sacred.

  : The period of fasting and mourning began with the Fall of Jerusalem in 607 and not in the spurious date 587 and continued right up to the 2nd year of Darius and his 4th year which gives a total of some 90 years. Such a period included the 'seventy years' of exile-desolation-servitude and it is this same period that Zechariah referred to in the remaining portion of his seventh chapter.

  Zechariah contradicts this. Verse 7:3 has the Bethelites posing the question: "Shall I weep in the fifth month, practicing an abstinence, the way I have done these O how many years? " And Jehovah's answer immediately follows: "Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, 'When YOU fasted and there was a wailing in the fifth [month] and in the seventh [month], and this for seventy years, did YOU really fast to me, even me?' " Verse 3 speaks of "these years" of fasting, and verse 5 speaks of "seventy years" of fasting. Only a complete idiot can fail to make the connection: the fasting was for 70 years -- not 90. Nothing whatsoever is said or implied about a period of "exile-desolation-servitude". You are trying to make the text say what is simply not there. Furthermore, you cannot cite a single commentator or scholar to support your idiotic and self-serving claim.

  With most Jehovah's Witnesses, even the Bible becomes a piece of trash when it contradicts Mommy's teaching.

  : You claim that in Zechariah 7:5 that the fasting lasted 70 years and is a direct statement but you are reading into the next a meaning that is not there.

  Nope. The text says nothing more and nothing less than that the fasting lasted 70 years.

  : The text simply states that they had been fasting for seventy years

  Exactly.

  But then you trash the Bible by claiming that it says something it does not:

  : and the reader is reminded of that earlier seventy years of exile, servitude, desolation and fastings as shown by the immediate context to that chapter.

  Wrong. It says no such thing. If you think it does, then quote the exact words.

  : So, the fasting lasted at least 90 years in answer to your sincere question and as a tradition was commensurate with the already fulfilled seventy years of Jeremiah, Daniel and Ezra.

  Complete gibberish.

  I really appreciate your hard work here, scholar pretendus, in showing lurkers how unbelievably and stupidly and self-servingly dishonest a JW apologist can be when pressed hard by facts. Oh yeah, and you too, Shearman. Both of you really prove beyond a shadow of doubt that JWs don't worship Jehovah at all. What they worship is an image that the Watchtower Society calls "Jehovah" but in reality is nothing more than the composite 'man behind the curtain', the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses.

  AlanF
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  scholar

  hilary_step

  For your information Bro. Shearman has been down with the Flu for the last few days so he has simply looked at the posted material, I only engage the Hebraist when I need some assistance with the Hebrew. You ask the question Why is it that the seventy years is a big problem for scholars and not a problem with window cleaners gifted with Holy Spirit? Paradoxical don't you think?

  Really, the New Testament speaks about the wise ones are confounded by the humle ones and those unlettered, even Jesus who was regarded as foolish by the rabbinical leaders of his day was a simple artisan and yet he was gifted with knowledge from His heavenly Father. Similarly, the Early Christians had knowledge that the worldly wise did not possess according to the writings of Paul. So, in modern times Jehovah has raise up an organization of largely ordinary people who have the glorious privilige of knowing the truth intellectually and with faith.

  scholar JW
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  scholar

  Alan F

  I thank you for your complimentary remarks about my hard work as a JW apologist, someone has to deal with wiley poztates and it might as well as be me.

  Zechariah contradicts nothing of the sort as you allege, He simply states that the in verse 3 the fastings were currently practiced as had been the custom for many years which would go back to the very beginning of this tradition after the Fall in 607 BCE according to verse three. In verse five, the fasting is further described with a further mention of 'seventy years' It is plainly the fact that they had fasted for those seventy years whilst in exile whereupon the current custon began. Such a period would be the one and only reminder of that overall mournful period of denunciation as further discussed in the following verses 6 -14. So, the context of that chapter demonstrably proves beyond any sahadow of doubt that the seventy years forementioned in verse 5 is identical with the descriptive events in the remainder of the narrative.

  The seventy years is properly equated with themes of servitude, exile, desolation, denunciation and mourning as fully attested by Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah and Ezra proving absolutely that there can only be one period of historical and theological significance with a definite beginning and end. Such a scholarly conclusion trumps the Jonsson hypothesis as a devilish, cultish form of higher criticism which can only be suitable fodder for those wiley poztates.

  scholar JW
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  Alleymom

  Toreador
  

  Response to post 624

  : I think I may be getting confused by all this.

  Here's what's at issue in the question about Zechariah. Pretend you are back in junior high and your history class is putting up a giant timeline on the back wall of the classroom.

  Both conservative and critical Christian scholars as well as Jewish scholars such as Eliezer Shulman are working with several 7-inch-long strips of colored construction paper indicating various seventy-year periods. They are taping these strips of paper over the timeline.

  Scholar only has one 7-inch strip of paper, indicating one and only one 70-year period. And he is having trouble, because if he tapes the right-hand end of his strip of paper at the year 537, when he says the Jews returned to Jerusalem, then he has nothing left to put over the years of fasting and mourning being spoken of in Zechariah.

  According to Zechariah AND according to the Paradise Restored to Mankind book, there was a seventy year which starts at the Fall of Jerusalem and continues "right up to the time of 519 BCE."

  Last night in My post 443 on page 14 of this thread I pointed out to Scholar that Zechariah indicates the fasts are ongoing. Even though the exiles have been back home in Jerusalem since at least 537, they are still having annual fasts.
  
  

  Zech 1.12 -- the second year of Darius. "O Lord of hosts, how long wilt Thou have no compassion for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which Thou hast been indignant THESE seventy years?" [Hebrew has singular "this"]
  
  Zech 7:5 --- the 4th year of King Darius. "When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months THESE seventy years" [Heb. has sing. "this"]
  
  Note that the word is THESE, not THOSE. [Literally, in the Hebrew, THIS, not THAT.]
  
  "THESE/THIS" indicates that the particular seventy year period being spoken of in Zechariah is an ongoing period. It is NOT a seventy-year period which CEASED some twenty years ago in 537.

  In Alan's post 4076 he wrote to Scholar:
  

  First, your claim here shows that you agree with the statement in the Paradise Restored book that the Bethelites raised the question, not of whether they should begin again a fast that they had left off 20 years earlier, but whether they should "continue to hold such a fast".
  
  Second, the Society directly states that the Bethelites "had been celebrating" that fast, namely, were continuing to hold it. Third, if the Bethelites were continuing to celebrate the fast in 518 B.C., and they commenced that fast in 607 B.C., then the time period of fasting was obviously 90 years, counting inclusively. But that contradicts the direct statement in Zech. 7:5, namely, that the fasting lasted 70 years.

  In order to cover the period of continued fasting in Zechariah, Scholar either needs a longer strip of paper, since his strip ends at 537 BCE, or he needs to have more than one strip of paper, like all the rest of the students. He can't have a longer strip of paper, because the Bible clearly talks about "70 years" not "90 years" of fasts, as Alan pointed out above.

  It turns out that even the WTS has two strips of paper. According to the Paradise Restored to Mankind book there was a 70-year period of annual fasts which starts at the Fall of Jerusalem and continues "right up to the time of 519 BCE."

  Marjorie
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  Alleymom

  Response to Scholar's post 568 to Alleymom:

  There is only one period of seventy years referred to by Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra and Zechariah. This period was of exile, desolation of the land, servitude to Babylon. a period of mourning and denunuciation. It began in 607BCE and finished in 537BCE.

  Neil,

  But in your post 566 you referred to a "seventy year period of mourning."

  This seventy year period of exile was a constant reminder of the contemporaneous desolation of their homeland and was memorialized by a seventy year period of mourning as demonstrated by the annual fastings.

  You refer to TWO 70-year periods: a 70-year period of exile and a 70-year period of mourning.

  These cannot be identical, because the 70-year period of exile ended in 537 when the Jews returned home to Jerusalem, right?

  But when did the 70-year period of mourning end? The 70-year period of mourning which you mentioned in post 566 was still ongoing in Zechariah 1:12. The people had been back home in Jerusalem for almost 20 years, ever since 537, and they were STILL fasting. They wanted to know if they could STOP fasting.

  So according to what you said in post 566 , there were at least two 70-year periods: a 70-year period of exile which ended in 537 and a 70-year period of mourning which started when the temple was destroyed and which was still ongoing in the year 519 according to Zech. 1:12.

  Marjorie
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  Alleymom

  Response to Scholar's post 570 to Hilary_Step:

  You have put the matter rather nicely but you forget the fact that it is what the Bible says as it is the only authority which attests to the fact of only one seventy year period applicable not to Babylon as most scholars believe but to Jerusalem, the people and Judah. The majority of scholars today are blinded by 'higher criticism' so it is not surprising that their views of matters differ to the Lord;s people.

  Neil,

  In my post 443 last night (CLICK HERE) I spoke to you about conservative Christian and Jewish scholars who believe the Bible speaks of more than one 70-year period.

  Biblical scholars who adhere to a conservative view of the Scriptures have no problem with the "THESE 70 years" of Zechariah, because they understand there to have been a 70-year period between the destruction of the temple in 586 and its restoration under Darius in 516.

  I referred to Sir Robert Anderson and said:

  This is thoroughly addressed by Sir Robert Anderson (1841-1918) in two books which I read many years ago: Daniel in the Critics' Den, and The Coming Prince. Note that this conservative Christian was writing long before Carl Olof Jonsson or Dr. Ernst Jenni.

  I also referred to Eliezer Shulman, whose book I bought on your recommendation.

  Page 143 of the book of chronological charts you recommended by Eliezer Shulman, The Sequence of Events in the Old Testament, shows several different 70-year periods. Shulman shows 70 years from the "Destruction of the Temple" to the "Building of the Temple." He also shows "70 years of the kingdom of Babylon," "70 years of the Babylon exile," and "51 years from the destruction of the Temple until the end of the kingdom of Babylon."

  These are not higher critics, but conservative scholars whose views on the inspiration and authority of Scripture are the same as your own.

  Marjorie