by Little Bo Peep 763 Replies latest watchtower bible
WT scholars and I follow the exilic methodology
Scholar - You keep referring to "the Jonsson hypothesis" as if he is "out there"
Can you let us in on anyone else in the world who subscribes to the 607 date?
And Scholar can you address the change from 606 to 607 that the WT did? You seem to make much of the 586/587 question, but how about the "slight of hand" the WT did in changing the 606 date to 607?
WT Scholars? Would Scholars forget or not notice the Zero Year Problem?
Does anyone outside of the WT agree on the 607 date?
steve
Just Scholar
And of course, readers will note your continued and incredibly stupid labeling of proper secular chronology as "the Jonsson hypothesis" -- as if this transparent ad hominem is anything more than your personal method of dismissing secular chronology.
Yes, we have dealt with this ad nauseum on an earlier occasion, and even on another Board at great length. It is quite clear that Scholar is attempting by sleight of verbal wrist to dismiss Carl Jonsson's *collation* of accepted historical fact. This is dishonest in the extreme and well reflects the methodology used by his WTS masters whose ad hominem attacks on its opposers are legendary and documented.
The only hypothesis available for examination in this whole issue is the one presented by the WTS, and this one has been found wanting by every scholar, or group of scholars outside the WTS itself. What Scholar describes as the 'Jonsson hypothesis' is actually 100 years of secular history accepted by *every* expert in the matter, excepting the WTS and a few scattered SDA self-appointed experts who *clearly* have an clear adventist agenda.
I hope that this finally puts to rest the dishonest use of the phrase 'hypothesis' by Scholar. He is a deliberate and bare-faced liar in using this phrase at this stage in these discussions when he is well aware of his own misuse of the statement.
HS
Scholar,
By the way - I have asked you this question three times before. I ask again, for the sale of the JW's who are reading this thread :
The Society follows it own style of referencing when writing to the general public
Why?
Best regards - HS
Here's another scripture whose implications the Society completely ignores, Jeremiah 29:10. In the New World Translation, this reads:
For this is what Jehovah has said, ?In accord with the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon I shall turn my attention to YOU people, and I will establish toward YOU my good word in bringing YOU back to this place.?
According to the Society (and therefore scholar pretendus), this scripture proves that there was a period of precisely 70 years -- not a week longer and not a week shorter -- of desolation, servitude and exile of the Jews. In particular, they emphasize that the phrase "at Babylon" (more on that below) means precisely 70 years of exile "at" or in Babylon. But a problem screams out here. According to the Society's chronology, the land of Judah was emptied of inhabitants by Tishri (about the end of September), 607 B.C., and some of the Jews returned to Judah by Tishri, 537 B.C., thus making precisely 70 years of desolation of Judah. But exiles were taken to Babylon about a month earlier, around the end of August, according to various scholars and apparently the Watchtower Society. The trip to Babylon for a group of exiles that included women and children would be about four months. When the Jews returned from Babylon, there was another trip of four months. So the exile must have lasted 69 years and 5 months, according to Watchtower chronology -- not precisely 70 years. Also, the servitude "at" or in Babylon must have lasted the same shorter time period.
But the Society, and JW apologists like scholar pretendus, constantly emphasize that the time of "desolation, servitude and exile" of the Jews lasted precisely 70 years, and that the periods were identical. But logic proves that this cannot be. Therefore, the time of desolation of Judah -- according to Watchtower claims -- cannot have been identical to the time of servitude to Babylon, or to the time of exile at or in Babylon.
Therefore, Watchtower chronology is internally contradictory, and cannot be true.
The Society has never addressed this problem. I've brought this problem up dozens of times in discussions with JWs, including scholar pretendus. To date, not a single one has attempted to deal with the Society's contradictory claims.
On the other hand, in a proper Bible translation, Jeremiah 29:10 reads (NASB):
For thus says the LORD, 'When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.
Compare this with the literal translation of the passage from The NIV Interlinear Hebrew-English Old Testament (Ed. John Kohlenberger III, Zondervan, 1987):
Indeed this he-says Yahweh when by-mouth-of-me to-be-completed for-Babylon seventy year I-will-come to-you and-I-will-fulfill for-you promise-of-me the-gracious to-bring-back you to the-place the-this
Compare this with the nearly literal translation of the passage from the Analytical Key to the Old Testament, Vol. 4 (John Joseph Owens, Baker, 1989, 1992):
for thus says Yahweh when are-completed for-Bayblon seventy years I-will-visit you and-I-will-fulfil to-you my-promise good and-bring-back you to this place
Now, the phrase shown as "to be completed" or "are completed" is in the Hebrew verb form called "Qal infinitive construct", which simply means that it describes a completed action. Hence, the entire phrase boils down to: "when seventy years have been completed" or "when seventy years have been fulfilled". The point is that whatever action is described by this phrase must necessarily come after the completion or fulfillment of the 70 years. Thus, the end of the 70 years must correspond exactly with the period "for Babylon" or "at Babylon".
Note how the NWT blurs this phrasing. It adds the words "in accord with", which nullifies the precise correspondence in the Hebrew of the end of the 70 years with a being "for Babylon" or "at Babylon". If the being "for Babylon" or "at Babylon" is merely "in accord with the fulfilling of seventy years", the precision of the Hebrew is nullified. This is an obvious attempt by Fred Franz to avoid raising the question I've raised here, in the minds of his JW readers. This is clearly seen by rephrasing the NWT's rendering according to the literal renderings above, while retaining the NWT's incorrect use of "at" rather than "for" in conjunction with "Babylon":
When seventy years at Babylon have been completed, I shall turn my attention to YOU people.
Now the reader should be able to see why the Society used a different phrasing -- this makes no sense in terms of Watchtower claims. How could the 70 years be completed, or fulfilled, or be finished and done with, "at Babylon", if the 70 years did not end until the Jews returned to Judah some four months after leaving Babylon? It should be obvious why Fred Franz doctored the passage -- he didn't want to raise questions about the Society's claims.
One solution is to make a distinction between the periods of desolation, servitude and exile -- but that goes against everything the Society and scholar pretendus have been claiming, and means that only one of these periods can be exact, while the others are only approximations to 70 years. But that is exactly what these people have argued against! They have claimed that an approximation to 70 years, such as from 605 to 539 B.C. (66 or 67 years, depending on whether you count ordinally or cardinally) is unscriptural. So if they try to solve the discrepancy by arguing that at least two of the 70 year periods is approximate (69 years and 5 months), they have no argument left as to why it could not equally well be 67 or 66 years. And of course, they've completely blown away any possibility of claiming that the approximately 70 years between Babylon's destruction of the last remnants of the Assyrian empire in 609 B.C. to Babylon's own fall in 539 B.C. is merely approximate and therefore cannot be correct.
It has been pointed out by many commentators, and confirmed by almost all Bible translators, that the phrase that the NWT translates as "at Babylon" should properly be rendered "for Babylon". When this is done, there are no internal inconsistencies in the rendering of Jeremiah 29:10, unlike with the NWT's rendering. Furthermore, assigning the 70 years to the period 609 to 539 B.C. is reasonable, since various other scriptures (as I showed in my above post) definitively prove that the 70 years ended in 539 B.C. -- even though the Bible nowhere assigns a beginning to the period and even though, in the absence of direct statements, a beginning date of 609 B.C. is speculation.
So we arrive at an important conclusion: Jeremiah 29:10 is deliberately mistranslated in the NWT in order to pull the wool over the eyes of the JW community and to support an otherwise unsupportable chronology.
AlanF
confusedjw
Yes the 'Jonsson hypothesis' which presents a particular interpretation of chronology amidst a vast array of chronologies within Christendom. It is famous for it peculiar interpretation of the 'seventy years'.
You seem to be troubled by the earlier 606/607 dilemna. This has long since been resolved and Wt scholars since the forties have determined that 607 is the correct calender date. If I was you I would be more concerned about the controversy over 586 or 587. In fact, leading chronologists or the majority view prefer 586 over the minor school who prefer 587. Others take a middle view and prefer 586/587. Confusion reigns!!!!
Chronology is only a recent study and with developing methodologies it is not to hard to understand the zero problem as it beset most chronologists in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century.
scholar JW
hilary_step
You raise some issues. Firstly, you inquire about referencing in WT publications are different because these are written for the general public. These publications are written specifically for the academic community otherwise specific academic conventions would be necessary. The publications are multi- lingual and written for the world wide audience made up of varying education. Simplicity and simplification are requisites for this vast worl-wide field. The answer is simplification.
My mention of the 'Jonsson hypothesis' is my attempt to classify it as a personal interpretation of a small piece of secular chronology. Afterall, in his GTR he is primarily concerned with refuting the historical date of 607. Jonsson's collation of so called historical facts is rather ambitious as many of his so-called historical facts are simply his opinion and are not widely accepted in the scholarly community. The end of Assyria is a case in point as well as the beginning of the neo- Babylonian dynasty, seventy years etc.
I do not need to rely on ad hominem attacks because Jonsson's book well illustrates faulty logic.by using assumptions instead of facts for his conclusions.
I regret to inform you that there are hundreds of chronologies of the OT out there and Jonsson who does not have a chronology of the OT is simply a criticism of WT chronology.So the Jonsson hypothesis is of no interest to scholars because it is just a piece of cultish literature. That is why it has not been peer reviewed in any of the scholarly journals.
The Jonsson hypothesis is not as you claim a 100 years of secular history accepted by every expert in the matter. Jonsson's views have not been cited or referenced in leading journals or scholarly works on chronology even though it has been published for twenty years. The only people who quote are Jonsson are apostates. To date, Jonsson's views have been promoted in a whacky pseudo- scientific journal dealing with Catastrophism.
scholar JW
nevermind
Scholar,
Thank you for your response which I will deal with shortly. You raise some interesting issues which seem to be at the very heart of your refusal to accept the long ( over 100 year ) accepted date ( 586/587BCE ) for the first fall of Jersualem and these deserve to be dealt with in detail.
Just as an aside, you frequently point to the one year confusion between the accepted chronology for the first fall of Jerusalem as somehow important in its discrediting of the WTS own chronology. You well understand how and why this difference in months occurs and it is of no great issue at all.
I regret to inform you that there are hundreds of chronologies of the OT out there and Jonsson who does not have a chronology of the OT is simply a criticism of WT chronology
I would also ask that you provide references for the above claim against the backdrop of my original comments. This comment stated that only the WTS and a few scattered SDA theologians, with a clear agenda in mind, try to challenge the 586/587BCE fall of Jerusalem.
Please present one reference outside of the WTS or the SDA theologians mentioned that agree with the WTS that the date of the first fall of Jerusalem occured in 607BCE.
As to your other points, I will attend to them in due course.
Best regards - HS
