Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?

by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • scholar
    scholar

    Narkissos

    Pleas read my question again! All you have given is the calender dates for the times when the word of Jehovah ocurred to Zechariah the prophet. Please try again!

    scholar JW

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    Pleas read my question again! All you have given is the calender dates for the times when the word of Jehovah ocurred to Zechariah the prophet. Please try again!

    LOL! What do you think our whole discussion on the demonstrative was all about! You sure have a knack for missing the point.

  • ozziepost
    ozziepost
    That's what you need to understand jw doublespeak. Any jw who surfs this site to find a convert is only trying to convince thenselves. Keep wasting yer life lad.

    That's what I've been thinking too!

    Say, doofdaddy, where ya from in New South?

    Cheers, Ozzie

  • scholar
    scholar

    Alan F

    Response to nonsense 4083

    It is indutiably true that there is no confusion amongst poztates about the seventy year because they have to a man and woman been utterly deceived by the Jonsson hypothesis published and authored by the Governing Body of the Evil Slave Class.

    It is indutiably true that scholars are confused, divided and indifferent about the seventy years referred to by Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezra and Zechariah. Also, it is the case that the 'popular' view within scholarship is that the seventy yearsrefers to Babylonish sovereignty.

    Now to your gibberish: Your summary is as follows;

    Zechariah 1:12

    589---519 =70

    587---587=68

    Zechariah 7:5

    587---518= 69

    So, as you say we have three 'indefinite' periods for a 'finite' seventy year period. Are you mad or just plain ornery? As usual you want to blame the texts for this 'mess' believing that this is solely due to human scribal inadequacy. The reality is that this definite period of seventy years was not of human manufacture but of divine manufacture emanating from the word of Jehovah or his angel.

    To the contrary, we believe that the seventy years began with as a time of exile, desolation, servitude and mourning from the Fall to the Return covering an exact period of seventy years or from 607 until 537 BCE. This was a period of mourning as memorialized by the annual fastings which continued for at least 90 years at the time of Zechariah.

    Zechariah's seventy year periods were one and the same because Zechariahs links the same period with the themes of desolation of Jerusalem, its cities by means of denunciation. Again he links this period with this same exilic history with the themes of fastings and the desolation of Jerusalem and her cities without an inhabitant.

    Poztates deny these contextual facts of history and argue that a finite period of seventy years can also simultaneously an indefinite ending. It is either finite or infinite. The period either finished or was soon to finish, it cannot be one thing and be another simultaneously. This is an obvious examole of poztate's special pleading of the worst kind typical of deranged thinking.

    In both of these two texts we see identical themes in refernce to Jerusalem, its cities and denunciations with the desolation of the land, these same elements are thematic of what occurred during the exile according to Jeremiah. To prove the point Zechariah refers to these Jeremaniac themes in Zechariah 7:4, 14.

    Yes the texts do speak of 'seventy years' and not ninety years, the latter is derived fro the fact that after the seventy year ended in 537 the Jewish returnees simply continued the fastings for further 'years' as the angel recognized and this is simply counted a ninety years of fastings and mournings. Such a period of its own constituence is not defined as such but simply an exegetiucal construction of history. So, if you now agree that there is a definite period of seventy years then be consistent and honest and make a chronology that is faithful to the facts. Your chronology of three periods of at least 68 and 69 years is dishonest and stupid.

    If the seventy year period was devoid of those constitutive elements of exile, desolation, servitude and mourning then What was it made up of? Do you think that whole population was invited to go to Babylon as tourists and enjoy the high life as a freed people who were forcefully evicted by the new conqueror Cyrus. It seems that not only do poztates want to rewrite Greek lexicography but they wish to rewrit Jewish history. Perhaps you can enlighten us and tell us what the seventy years was really about. Simply referring to Babylon's hegemony merely states the obvious.

    To argue for two separate periods is fanciful because how then can such periods be identified historically either by later people or people living at the time. Perhaps one could say Zechariah 1A and Zechariah 7 B becuse we now have to develop a special system of coding. Poztates should now be grateful to scholar who has now developed a code for the Jonsson hypothesis.

    I reproduced and interpreted Jonsson's data to show how meaningless and confusing it really is. Yes, Jonsson is not dogmatic about this chronology and I never claimed that he was for he is simply as you correctly point out, stating his opinion which is simply ambiguous and complex. For if you are going to argue for a definite seventy years then provide a definite chronology and if this cannot be done then perhaps the interpretation or methodology is in error. On this point please note scholar's Law: " Something that cannot be made simple cannot be true".

    My representation of Jonsson's data is simply a rhetorical device to illustrate possible derived consequence of accepting such an hypothesis. It would have been preferable for him to make the data simple where possible and if if was uncertain then it would have been wiser to omit it. One must remember that this particular discussion is set against the overall dogmatic and presumptous tone of his hypothesis against WT chronology.

    The very fact that it is freely admitted that there is not one but three seventy years for Zechariah or possible three with varaiable dates well indicates that this is mere mischief making designed to distract sincere ones away from a simple singular seventy year period attested by Zechariah, Daniel, Ezra, and Jeremiah from the Fall in 607 until the Return in 537BCE.

    scholar JW

  • scholar
    scholar

    Leolaia

    So are you then saying that the years when Zechariah received the word were the same years for the seventy years? Was it the beginning, the middle or the end? It could not be the end because neither period had ceased and therefore could not have been seventy years. The angel could only have made reference in the present context to an already fulfilled period of time mentioned in the second and later fourth year of Darius.

    scholar JW

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Scholar,

    Young, in the introductory paragraphs highlights the division amongst scholars over the preise dating of the Fall wherein eleven scholars prefer 586 and eleven prefer 587.

    You mean that of these twenty-two scholars, not one preferred 607BCE as the correct date? You mean the only issue of difference revolved around the period of one year?

    Can you please show me, not eleven, not twenty-two, but ONE scholar who agrees with the WTS view of EITHER secular or Biblical chronology of the 607BCE first fall of Jerusalem. I know that I have asked this of you on numerous occasions but you have never produced an answer.

    Are you prepared to now?

    I rest my case.

    HS

  • OldSoul
    OldSoul

    Scalar,

    Your posts are full of incessant assonance peppered with brief interstices of praise for the insight of men who had a clear objective in their translative efforts, namely, a largely previously expounded dogma to protect. When you describe "elegance" in the Governing Body I see puffery, deliciously unwarranted and uninformed ego-stroking.

    The Governing Body appear to be front men for the Faithful and Discreet Slave, but no one, not even the Governing Body knows who the Faithful and Discreet Slave is. So in reality, the faithful and discreet slave is a puppet, it isn't real. Whenever the faithful and discreet slave needs to say something, the Governing Body shove their hands up the aspects of the puppet and makes it say things. At times, you can barely even see the GB's lips moving.

    Poor bloke, I imagine you hoped your credentials would hold fast against anyone you'd meet in an online forum. What a shock it must have been to your system to have discovered some real scholars who could demonstrate how wanting your skills at scholarship, and those of the GB, really are. Don't you imagine that if you gave up defending them you might have a chance at becoming what you can presently only pretend to be?

  • AlanF
    AlanF

    Scholar pretendus said:

    : Scholar as always is one step ahead of you. I too have my own copy of Younger's article obtained some weeks ago.

    Um, I didn't post the link for your benefit.

    But as long as you're so far ahead of me, you should have no problem posting refutations of Young's thesis, point by point. Your failure to do so will prove once again that your criticisms are nothing but faint smoke.

    : For a person of your intelligence and one who studiously reads my postings on this board, I am somewhat bemused by the fact that you have not captured 'the 'drift' of Young's thesis.

    Whatever gave you that idea? That brilliant intelligence of yours that made you flunk out of such a simple program as religious studies? Which is easier than basket weaving! LOL!

    : This jounal article is the lastest

    I take back the part about basket weaving. I doubt you could pass a course in drooling on your chin.

    : of three already published articles on OT chronology and what was the purpose of these articles, namely methodology and interpretation, the self-same issues that I have raised repedly on this board.

    Sure, Young's article says much about methodology and interpretation. But that wasn't the focus of his article. The focus is directly stated in the title: "When Did Jerusalem Fall?" He applies his systematic methodology to a specific example and shows how it results in a sound conclusion, namely, that Jerusalem fell in 587 B.C.

    : Young, in the introductory paragraphs highlights the division amongst scholars over the preise dating of the Fall wherein eleven scholars prefer 586 and eleven prefer 587. He then proposes a new methodology that will facilitate an improved method of reckoning the dates.

    Which clearly shows why the eleven scholars who have preferred 586 are wrong.

    : His study offers no new solutions to the problems of exegesis and insight into the secular records but offers only a new, complex presentation of the calendrical data based upon the technique known as Decision Analysis.

    Which results in proving that Ezekiel, Jeremiah and 2 Kings cannot be reconciled except by reference to 587 as the date of Jerusalem's fall.

    But as you've stated, "I am rather a bit slow" and "I am not the smartest fellow around and you characters in comparison to me are geniuses", so it's no surprise that you can't understand such simple concepts.

    : Such a complex study makes one grateful for the very simple methodology used by the FDS

    Simple-minded is more like it.

    : which avoids any of the current confusion concerning the perplexing date for Jerusalem's Fall.

    It avoids the difficulties not by resolving them, but by ignoring them. Which is one of the Watchtower Society's fortés -- ignoring difficulties.

    : You say that his material is conclusive but you are rather premature because it was only just a few months earlier that another study was published in the journal Biblica by Michael Avioz on the same subject of 'When Was the First Temple Destroyed, According to the Bible'. The author of this study concludes that "It seems that the contradiction between the books of Kings and Jeremiah regarding the date of the First Temple's destruction cannot be resolved either by textual emendation or by chronological sol.utions'

    Well then, given that you didn't give a reference to this article, you need to post a scan of it so that all readers may benefit. Then we can all analyze Avioz' arguments, compare them to Young's and anyone else's that come to mind, and come to some conclusions.

    Oh, and if you can't manage to post a scan of the article, I will have a few more words to add to the huge corpus of them about your hypocrisy.

    AlanF

  • scholar
    scholar

    hilary_step

    That's right, not one of those 22 scholars affirmed 607. Boy, was I unhappy about that but what to do. I simply comforted myself with a glass of Jim Bean and said to myself: May Jehovah be praised for raising up WT scholars who are smarter than those Christendom's scholars and those wiley poztates. And to think that these scholars cannot bridge that one year of complexity for they have hung themselves up on higher criticism, if they only would listen to the FDS.

    scholar JW

  • Alleymom
    Alleymom

    The Avioz article is available online.

    http://www.bsw.org/project/biblica/bibli84.html
    Michael AVIOZ, "When Was the First Temple Destroyed, According to the Bible?" Biblica 84(2003) 562-565. This article deals with the contradiction between 2 Kgs 25 and Jer 52 regarding the date on which the First Temple was destroyed. Comparing the descriptions of the destruction in Kings and in Jeremiah shows that the two descriptions were borrowed from a common third source. In our view, this common third source is better preserved in Jeremiah 52 than in 2 Kings 25. We therefore deduce that Jeremiah 52 preserves the more exact date of the Temple?s destruction: the tenth of Ab. This claim is based on the fact that the description of the destruction in Kings is in any case truncated, and is therefore likely that it contains the textual corruptions as opposed to Jeremiah.

    Marjorie

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