Daniel's Prophecy, 605 BCE or 624 BCE?

by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • scholar
    scholar

    Leolaia

    The simple observation must be made that the Gospel eyewitnesses saw a stauros upon which Jesus was impaled and according to the lexicon a stauros means a stake. Agaim this is confirmed by the use of xulon to denote the instrument of Jesus' death which has a similar or parallel meaning as stauros, a tree or piece of wood. If in fact the eyewinesses saw sommething other than a stake, a take with a crosspiece in the shape of a cross, then why did not theu use that specific Geek word. In Greek, there are a number of words that could be used to describe such a cross-like instrument.

    The very fact that stauros which means stake was the instrument sighted overules can such concocted theories of special pleading based upon later traditions influenced by pagan symbols such as the ancient cross. The cross is simply an accretion that found itself into Christian theology during the time of the Great Apostatsy.

    scholar JW

  • toreador
    toreador

    Toreodor,

    I am going to keep bugging you Scholar till you answer this. You wrote:
    3. Salvation does not depend upon a chronology or any date.

    If this statement of yours is true then the GB has got themselves in deep trouble with God as they force JW's to accept this date or such ones are treated as dead. How do you think God feels about this if your statement is true

    Hillary wrote: In all fairness to Scholar he went some way to answering this question a year or so ago. He acknowledged that the GB had overstepped their authority in disfellowshipping those who disagree with the 607BCE chronology. He is not prepared to follow the intellectual implications of what this actually means in practice and would not comment on how he would deal with such a person in a judicial committee, but at heart he knows the GB is very wrong to have disfellowshipped thousands of people for questioning this chronology. It continues to take this action to this day. Fear and cowardice lies at the root of much cultic dogma, but we have all been there, and in many ways I sympathize with the cognitive dissonance that he lives with. Best regards - HS

    Hello Hillary, That is very interesting. I wonder if he realizes he too could be disfellowshipped just for disagreeing with the GB on their stance on disfellowshipping those who do not agree with the 607 issue. Are you sure he has not changed his mind on the matter since your exchange with him over a year ago? Tor

  • scholar
    scholar

    Jeffro

    Your statement that according to Jeremiah 25:placing seventy years of serving Babylon after the calling to account the king of Babylon thus ending the seventy yeras at 539 is blatantly false and misleacing. That is simply your interpretation and viloates the plain reading of the text. The text simply indicate that after the fulfillment of seventy years which is described by verse 11 as a period of exile, servitude and desolation, Babylon would commence to receive her judgement which as with Judah would mean desolation as described in the latter part of verse 12. The text bears no reference to events of 539 with the fall of Babylon by Cyrus because such an event is not mentioned in verse 12. All that verse 12 describes is Babylon's eventual fate.

    Jeremiah 25:11 describes the serving of Babylon by the Jjewsfor seventy years. Do not you believe that the Jews were deported to Babylon at all if they were then they were exiles.

    The Bible presents not concocted history but the simple fact that the seventy yeras was of desolation-exile and servitude as well attested scripturally and by Josephus. It is you and the Jonsson hypothesis that seek to rewrrite Jewish history. Indeed Tyre along with other nations as foretold in Jeremiah 25:11 came under the domination of Babylon but Judah had to serve for a period of seventy years which was not the case for Tyre literally.

    At last you agree with me and not with Alan F and Jonsson that the seventy years spoken about in Zechariah were one and the same period. Yes I agree with you that it is possible that the angel knew that the seventy years were to to a end but it is also the case that the angel knew that the seventy yeras had already past. Both propositions are likely so it is only the context that can settle the matter. In the case of the Zechariah 1:12 we need to ask what the question, How long referred to, W as it the seventy years or was it how long Jehovah would continue to denounce Jerusalem and her cities? This question immediately connects the seventy yeras with denunciation that had already began from the Fall and as the now returned Jews were back home in the the 2nd year of Darius would clearly prove that seventy yeras had already elapsed. All that remained was that the temple which is the focus of Zechariah had not then yet been rebuilt.

    Similarly. Zechariah 7:5 refers to the seventy years in connection with the time when Judaj lay desolarte and thus had become a time of mourning and fasting throughout the seventy years whilst exiled in Babylon. This is clearly shown by the context of this chapter from 6-14.

    Thus the seventy years of Zechariah are in full agreemnet with all of the other seventy yeras texts that can only pertain to a complete period of desolation-exile-servitude.

    scholar JW

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Toreodor,

    Are you sure he has not changed his mind on the matter since your exchange with him over a year ago?

    I could not say. What makes it even more difficult to know is that I have a feeling that more than one person is writing his posts. With a Puppet Master now looking over his shoulder at all he writes, he may be a little less compromising about these things - after all he has to put on show of zealous stridency for his JW audience.

    HS

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Narkissos,

    This of course is hardly meaningful to people who analyse the Gospels as Greek constructions (as I do) -- but it is shattering to the WT which holds that the Gospels contain an exact rendition of a historical Jesus' Semitic words. If they do, the WT theological argument on the etymology of the Greek words is simply absurd.

    Agreed. I would also note that Scholar does not even seem to understand the WTS own use of the parousia. In the last article that looked into this subject in any depth, the WTS admitted and actually highlighted the correct usage of the parousia. It then went on to focus on its less obvious usage and built its theology around that, ignoring its previous notations.

    But then, why is that a surprise?

    HS

  • toreador
    toreador


    Scholar,

    Your posts are starting to have so many misspelled words in them that they are getting increasingly hard to follow. Its hard enough trying to follow your reasoning but then when you misspell almost every other word it makes matters much worse. I don't care about one here and there as everyone does that from time to time. Is english not your native language?

    Please use a spellchecker if you know how to use one.

    Toreador

    Edited to correct misspelling.

  • EvilForce
    EvilForce

    ****What makes it even more difficult to know is that I have a feeling that more than one person is writing his posts.

    I was thinking / wondering the same thing.

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro
    Your statement that according to Jeremiah 25:placing seventy years of serving Babylon after the calling to account the king of Babylon thus ending the seventy yeras at 539 is blatantly false and misleacing.

    "placing seventy years of serving Babylon after the calling to account the king of Babylon" - No I didn't say that at all. I agreed with Jeremiah that it is the calling to account of the King of Babylon that is after the 70 years. Daniel obviously agreed with this otherwise his recording the writing on the wall - ME'NE, ME'NE, TE'KEL, PAR'SIN, the death of Babylon's king, and it's overthrow by the Medo-Persian empire in 539 would be meaningless. I'll have to look up 'misleacing'.

    That is simply your interpretation and viloates the plain reading of the text. The text simply indicate that after the fulfillment of seventy years which is described by verse 11 as a period of exile, servitude and desolation, Babylon would commence to receive her judgement which as with Judah would mean desolation as described in the latter part of verse 12.

    The "plain reading" of Jeremiah 25:12 is a very simple sequence of events. It is the 'Society hypothesis' that "violates the plain reading". You state that "Babylon would commence to receive her judgement" after the 70 years, though it is obvious that Babylon started to receive such judgement in 539, and Daniel 5:26-31 makes it extraordinarily clear that the overthrow at the time was very specifically the call to account to which Jeremiah referred.

    The text bears no reference to events of 539 with the fall of Babylon by Cyrus because such an event is not mentioned in verse 12. All that verse 12 describes is Babylon's eventual fate.

    Jeremiah says that "when seventy years have been fulfilled I shall call to account against the king of Babylon"; ME'NE means "God has numbered [the days of] your kingdom and has finished it", TE'KEL means "you have been weighed in the balances and have been found deficient". This was in 539. By striking co-incidence, many scholars agree that Babylon replaced Assyria as world power in 609 at Harran's overthrow. Even if this were not the case, and regardless of whether or not all historians agree, this is where the bible points for the beginning of Babylon's 70 years.

    Jeremiah 25:11 describes the serving of Babylon by the Jjewsfor seventy years. Do not you believe that the Jews were deported to Babylon at all if they were then they were exiles.

    Jeremiah 25:11 describes many nations serving Babylon, and there is no specific mention of Judah in verses 8-11, though it is included among the long list of nations in verses 17-26. There were numerous deportations of Jews, not just in 587 (your 607). Jeremiah lists exiles in Nebuchadnezzar's 7th, 18th, and 23rd years. Nearly as many people were exiled in the 23rd year as in the 18th (Jeremiah 52:30), therefore the bible indicates that Jerusalem was not in your bizarre desolation-exile-servitude thingy in your 607 anyway. Thanks for bringing that up.

    The Bible presents not concocted history but the simple fact that the seventy yeras was of desolation-exile and servitude as well attested scripturally and by Josephus.

    In Against Apion Book I, Chapter 21, Josephus states: "Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius." Josephus concurs that the land was desolated (not unpopulated) for 70 years, and that the temple was destroyed for 50 years which fits 587 to 537.

    It is you and the Jonsson hypothesis that seek to rewrrite Jewish history. Indeed Tyre along with other nations as foretold in Jeremiah 25:11 came under the domination of Babylon but Judah had to serve for a period of seventy years which was not the case for Tyre literally.

    On what basis does the 'Society hypothesis' assign the entire 70 years to Judah, and not apply the same rule to Tyre? As has been stated in previous posts, the Hebrew words 'chorbah' and 'shamem' do not require depopulation, and do not mean the same as each other.

    At last you agree with me and not with Alan F and Jonsson that the seventy years spoken about in Zechariah were one and the same period.

    I have never changed my stance on the 70 years mentioned in Zechariah, and whether you agree is irrelevant.

    Yes I agree with you that it is possible that the angel knew that the seventy years were to to a end but it is also the case that the angel knew that the seventy yeras had already past. Both propositions are likely so it is only the context that can settle the matter. In the case of the Zechariah 1:12 we need to ask what the question, How long referred to, W as it the seventy years or was it how long Jehovah would continue to denounce Jerusalem and her cities? This question immediately connects the seventy yeras with denunciation that had already began from the Fall and as the now returned Jews were back home in the the 2nd year of Darius would clearly prove that seventy yeras had already elapsed. All that remained was that the temple which is the focus of Zechariah had not then yet been rebuilt. Similarly. Zechariah 7:5 refers to the seventy years in connection with the time when Judaj lay desolarte and thus had become a time of mourning and fasting throughout the seventy years whilst exiled in Babylon. This is clearly shown by the context of this chapter from 6-14.

    Yes, it is the context that settles the matter. Zechariah said in Chapter 7 that they had been fasting for 70 years, not 90 - this qualifies the period referred to in Zechariah Chapter 1.

    Thus the seventy years of Zechariah are in full agreemnet with all of the other seventy yeras texts that can only pertain to a complete period of desolation-exile-servitude.

    You are still wrong sorry scholar. I will reiterate at this point that Jeremiah states that there were still people left to exile in Nebuchadnezzar's 23rd year (around 583, or your 603).

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro
    I have a feeling that more than one person is writing his posts

    You mean there's a team of them and yet they're still consistently wrong and have to resort to insults?

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Jeffro,

    You mean there's a team of them and yet they're still consistently wrong and have to resort to insults?

    Well, I think the insults are mutual so I would not care too much about that.

    I certainly think that Scholar gets direction from Elder Sherman. His own posts are often erratic, contradictory and unsure of themselves. Other posts are well constructed and consistent, and certainly contain input from another source.

    Of course it has to be said that he is one person trying to deal with numerous posts fired at him from every angle, so we can forgive the siege mentality that shows up in some of his posts. The important thing to remember is that Scholar has not been able to convince anybody of the WTS chronological and Biblical interpretations and indeed, I suspect that many who were once sympathetic to his arguments have now firmly planted their flags in new territory.

    HS

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