scholar pretendus said:
: At last a chronology for the Divided Monarchy is grudgingly admitted. If Thiele's scheme is acceptable them am I to conclude that you are in full agreement with Thiele's dates.? Yes/No?
I will answer that after you answer the question that Alleymom has been asking you for a long time:
Do you fully agree with the Watchtower's assignment of dates to the reigns of the Neo-Babylonian kings?
Your handling of this will demonstrate your hypocrisy.
: The issue of the alleged accuracy of the Neo-Babylonian period is of no great interest to WT scholars
Really. Then why does the Society disfellowship people for disagreeing with its false claims about the period?
: and we are not interested in trying to solve impossible questions or harmonization.
So you admit that Watchtower writers can't handle the facts -- facts which all proper scholars of the period have no trouble at all incorporating into a harmonious whole.
: We have a complete and workable chronology that is simple and covers the entire OT and the Divided Monarchy
No you don't. You merely claim it to be complete, and you ignore a great number of pieces of data -- in particular, scriptural data -- that unassailably disprove your claims.
: and we are happy with what information has been provided by the FDS.
Uh huh. And you'd be happy to drink cyanide-laced Koolaid if those idiots provided it.
: If you are not happy with this then you do your own research and provide your own chronology for the OT and the Divided Monarchy.
I've already done it. That's why I know that Watchtower chronology is bunk. You know it, too, but are too braindead to admit it. You know it, because all readers can see how all of your arguments have been destroyed, and you've now retreated to a dreary repetition of masturbatory generalizations.
: It is important to have aOT chronology because of history. We would like to know the year of Adam's creation, the year of the Deluge etc.
All irrelevant to the fact that accurate Neo-Babylonian chronology disproves the most important "pivotal date" in Watchtower chronology.
: The seven times -607 until 1914 is relevant because this is the Gentile Times which points to events fulfilled in our era when we believe prophecies have been fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled.
You forget your Watchtower history, and you neglect the fact that everything the Watchtower ever predicted, based on its interpretation of "Bible chronology" and "Bible prophecy", has failed.
C. T. Russell picked up the date 1874 from Nelson Barbour along with many other dates, including the 1914 date. Barbour had falsely predicted 1874 as "the end of the world", and 1914 was one result of his attempt to salvage his false prediction. Russell went on to make many predictions about what would happen in 1914. Not a single thing came to pass. Until 1943 the Society, according to its own literature, taught that the critical period of "the Gentile times" ran from 606 B.C. to 1914 A.D. Obviously, people who cannot do simple arithmetic cannot be trusted to decipher hard things like Bible chronology and Bible prophecy. Until 1926 the Society taught that Jesus had invisibly returned in 1874, at which point it decided that he had returned in 1914. Eventually, all of Russell's dates were abandoned. This proves beyond dispute that nothing Russell taught about Bible prophecy, or supposedly prophetically significant dates, was right. In view of this history of false interpretations, and the massive amount of secular chronology that disproves the 606/607 date for Jerusalem's destruction, there is nothing left of the Watchower's date system.
As to events supposedly fulfilled in our era, there are none. You cannot point to any. You know it, and you won't even try. The Society has systematically been abandoning its claims about "the composite sign" based on its false claims about Matthew 24 and related passages. The likelihood of dying in an earthquake was at least 2-4 tmes lower in the 20th century than in all previous centuries for which records are available. The likelihood of dying by pestilence or famine was far lower. The likelihood of dying in war was almost the same as in most previous centuries. The fact that the world's population increased at an ever-faster rate during the entire 20th century than in previous centuries proves that these traditional killers were operating on a lower level. Thus, 1914 was not a prophetic turning point in the way the Society claims. Thus, your desire to have "the Gentile times" calculation point to 1914 as a signficant date in Bible prophecy is proved to be a pipe dream.
: It is fine that you now admit the influence of the Jonsson hypothesis had on your atheism
What do you mean, "now admit"? I've publicly stated this for years on various discussion boards. I've told you this many times. Your stupidity continues to amaze me.
: but has not yet cured your agnosticism.
Jonsson has nothing to do with my agnosticism. The Bible itself has everything to do with it.
: If you are perplexed by the Bible's internal problems
I'm not, any more than I'm perplexed by the Koran's internal problems.
: how then can you have any biblical chronology or any certain interpretation of the seventy years.
I've already explained this: any competent reader can take note of what a piece of literature says, and make conclusions based on that. It is not necessary to believe that a piece of literature is true in order to understand what it says and draw conclusions from it.
This is one of your incredibly stupid red herrings. Jonsson fully believes in the inspiration of the Bible, yet you discount his ideas.
Point is: the viewpoint of commentators is irrelevant to their ability to comprehend what they're commenting on. You know this, and the fact that you attempt to use my viewpoint to discount what I say is a transparent ad hominem designed to throw stupid readers (of which you are the most prominent by far) off the track.
: If you are having difficulties I suggest that you turn to Jehovah in prayer and study the Bible and not be persuaded by works of higher criticism. I believe that the Jonsson hypothesis is a classic piece of higher criticism because it is loyal to men rather than God.
Nonsense. Jonsson's work is loyal to his God and to good scholarship. The Watchtower is loyal to neither. You yourself are a fine example of this disloyalty, because you lie and lie ane lie, proving that you have no respect for the one the Bible calls the God of truth.
As I said you would in my previous posts, you failed to deal once again with any specific facts that I brought up in my previous post. That proves your intellectual dishonesty. You offer only lame excuses, never any real explanations for anything you claim. Obviously you're going to continue on this self-destructive course.
I find it amusing that every poster on this thread has made mincemeat of your claims, and you ignore pretty much all of their disproofs of your silly claims.
AlanF
