In all my conversations with others discussing Jehovah's Witnesses teachings, people always make up their own minds without any outside influence, even on the internet. For example, I was recently talking to this gentlemen here (hard-core atheist). Some of the conversation went down as follows;
HoustonBelief - Insight on the Scriptures pp. 448-450 Chronology Bible Chronology and Secular History
GiordanoBruno: Oh great, here we go. All comments below directed to the author of the quoted text.
Maze: "Concern is often expressed over the need to try to “harmonize” or “reconcile” the Biblical account with the chronology found in ancient secular records."
GiordanoBruno: "Reconciling" an ahistorical ancient literary text with another ahistorical ancient literary text is a bit like trying "reconcile" Grimm's Fairy Tales with the Disney versions. The only thing it tells you is that similar myths can be found among all the Semitic peoples of the Ancient Near East.
Maze: "Since truth is that which conforms to fact or reality, such coordinating would indeed be vital—if the ancient secular records could be demonstrated to be unequivocally exact and consistently reliable, hence a standard of accuracy by which to judge."
GiordanoBruno: I see a double-standard coming just around the bend ....
Maze: "Since the Biblical chronology has so often been represented by critics as inferior to that of the pagan nations, it is worth while to examine some of the ancient records of nations and peoples whose activities and life touch on and connect with the people and events recorded in the Bible. The Bible is a historical book..."
GiordanoBruno: An anthology of largely ahistorical myths and legends common to Semitic cultures is, broadly speaking, "a historical book," yes, though not in the sense this writer is trying to convey.
Maze: "...preeminently so among ancient writings. The histories of the ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and others are, in the main, fragmentary; their earlier periods are either obscure or, as presented by them, obviously mythical."
GiordanoBruno: The "early periods" of these cultures are far better documented than the early period of the Israelites, and their legends are no more or less "mythical" than those of said Israelites. Not surprising since many of them share similar elements, elements which largely pre-date the earliest known Hebraic versions by hundreds of years or more.
Fragmentary? You call 30,000 cuneiform tablets excavated from the Library of Ashurbanipal "fragmentary"? The Hebraic myths don't have one fraction of one percent of that figure from the First Millennium BCE, and none from the Second.
Maze: "What is known from secular sources of these ancient nations has been laboriously pieced together from bits of information obtained from monuments and tablets or from the later writings of the so-called classical historiographers of the Greek and Roman period."
GiordanoBruno: First of all, misrepresenting the sources as "secular" is not going to get you much credibility. Ashurbanipal for one had thousands of "secular" and religious texts, and nobody in archaeology refers to non-religious tablets as "secular." Second, Christian apologists never qualify Greek and Roman historians as "so-called" whenever they imagine them to write something that supposedly supports their ideological bias. Didn't take long to get the double-standards revved up, did it?
Maze: "While archaeologists have recovered tens of thousands of clay tablets bearing Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions, as well as large numbers of papyrus scrolls from Egypt, the vast majority of these are religious texts or business documents consisting of contracts, bills of sale, deeds, and similar matter. The considerably smaller number of historical writings of the pagan nations, preserved either in the form of tablets, cylinders, steles, or monumental inscriptions, consist chiefly of material glorifying their emperors and recounting their military campaigns in grandiose terms."
GiordanoBruno: In other words, texts of the exact same type that inform the authors of the Old Testament.
Maze: "The Bible, by contrast, gives an unusually coherent and detailed history..."
GiordanoBruno: Anyone who would describe the Bible as "coherent" has just taken a potentially fatal dose of LSD.
Maze: "...stretching through some 4,000 years, for not only does it record events with remarkable continuity from man’s beginning down to the time of Nehemiah’s governorship in the fifth century B.C.E. but also it may be considered as providing a basic coverage of the period between Nehemiah and the time of Jesus and his apostles by means of Daniel’s prophecy (history written in advance) at Daniel chapter 11."
GiordanoBruno: The authors of the books of the Bible that we have created a highly incoherent "continuity" that imagined a history of what they wanted it to be, not how it was. This is not "history" in the modern sense. We refer to this literary genre today as historical fiction. Common among all peoples in the ancient world.
Maze: "The Bible presents a graphic and true-to-life account of the nation of Israel from its birth onward, portraying with candor its strength and its weaknesses, its successes and its failures, its right worship and its false worship, its blessings and its adverse judgments and calamities."
GiordanoBruno: It imagined a highly conceptual "history" as a series of legends and myths borrowed from other, more advanced, and earlier Semitic cultures, and given a regional flavor or relevance.
Maze: "While this honesty alone does not ensure accurate chronology..."
GiordanoBruno: No, invention never ensures accuracy in anything, and confirmation bias informed by gross double-standards guarantees a distorted and inaccurate interpretation. Such as the one you are erecting here.
Maze: "...it does give sound basis for confidence in the integrity of the Biblical writers and their sincere concern for recording truth."
GiordanoBruno: It does nothing of the sort. They had no concern for history or "truth" in the modern sense. They were concerned with demonstrating ideas through shared cultural ideas and concepts, not writing the CIA World Factbook.
Maze: "Modern historians still express uncertainty as to the correct positioning of certain Assyrian and Babylonian kings, even some in the later dynasties. But there is no such uncertainty regarding the sequence of the kings of Judah and Israel. There are references to “the book of the Wars of God” (Nu 21:14, 15), “the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Israel” (1Ki 14:19; 2Ki 15:31), “the book of the affairs of the days of the kings of Judah” (1Ki 15:23; 2Ki 24:5), “the book of the affairs of Solomon” (1Ki 11:41), as well as the numerous references to similar annals or official records cited by Ezra and Nehemiah. These show that the information set down was not based upon mere remembrance or oral tradition but was carefully researched and fully documented."
GiordanoBruno: As were the similar King lists of Assyria and Babylon. If those lists still have some gaps, it has nothing to do with a hypothetical disregard for research. We have gaps because we haven't had 2,000 years of people insisting Babylonian myths be preserved because of some imagined "historicity."
Maze: "Particularly distinguishing the Biblical record from the contemporaneous writings of the pagan nations is the sense of time, not only of the past and the present but also of the future, that runs through its pages. (Da 2:28; 7:22; 8:18, 19; Mr 1:15; Re 22:10)."
GiordanoBruno: I don't even know what this means, but Biblical "prophecy" distinguishes nothing except a localized version of a very common practice that the Greeks and Romans had been practicing for hundreds of years. The earliest extant texts from Ancient Greece pre-date the earliest extant texts of the OT by centuries.
Maze: "The unique prophetic element..."
GiordanoBruno: There was nothing unique about it. Study some basic Greek history PLEASE.
Maze: "...made chronological accuracy a matter of far greater importance to the Israelites than to any of the pagan nations because the prophecies often involved specific time periods."
GiordanoBruno: There is zero evidence that prophecies were "of greater importance" to the Israelites than any other "pagan" nation.
Not that facts mean anything to this rather sordid revisionist piece.
Maze: "As God’s Book, the Bible stresses his punctuality in carrying out his word (Eze 12:27, 28; Ga 4:4) and shows that accurate prophecies were proof of his Godship.—Isa 41:21-26; 48:3-7."
GiordanoBruno: So, the writers imagine a God, then imagine prophecies somehow relating to this character, then imagine when the prophecies are imagined to be fulfilled, and then imagine that this demonstrates "proof" of the "accuracy" of said prophecies?
The circularity of that dumb argument gives me vertigo.
Maze: "True, some of the non-Biblical documents are several centuries older than the oldest manuscript copies of the Bible thus far discovered."
GiordanoBruno: Actually, "non-Biblical" documents from Egypt, Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon pre-date the Dead Sea Scrolls by over a millennium or more.
Maze: "Engraved in stone or inscribed in clay, some ancient pagan documents may seem very impressive, but this does not ensure their correctness and their freedom from falsehood."
GiordanoBruno: True, just as it doesn't ensure your Bible freedom from falsehood.
Continued...
Much of what GiordanoBruno stated can be contested, but that's really not the point. The point, is every conversation I've ever engaged in about Jehovah's Witnesses takes place outside the perimeter of apostate propaganda even if it's at the touch of a button. GiordanoBruno has limited knowledge about Jehovah's Witnesses as demonstrated here:
HoustonBelief - Pyramidologists: the Great Pyramid of Gizeh
Maze: "From the inception of Jehovah's Organization, the proclamation of Christ's Millennial Reign beginning in 1914 CE has always been taught to begin after the Gentiles Times as foretold in God's Word."
GiordanoBruno: I don't even know what this nonsense is supposed to mean. "Gentiles Times"?
I responded back with the following:
Maze: The viewpoints I mentioned here were mainly viewpoints that were held at the time (1893 – 1928), not necessarily assessments about the pyramid that are held now by the scientific community. This explains more about the “Gentile Times:”
HoustonBelief - Bible or secular chronology for Jerusalem's destruction: which are you more inclined to believe?
Never did he shoot back with information from apostate websites.
Freeminds.org - 607 BCE - The Bible Or The Formula?
JWFacts Facts about 607 B.C.E. and whether Jesus started ruling in 1914
No one ever does. The only time I ever hear apostate rhetoric is in forums such as this one. There's limited public interest in Jehovah's Witnesses. It seems real important for some people to “expose” the truth about Jehovah's Witnesses when there's no public interest in such an ordeal. Didn't the administration of Freeminds.org almost go broke a couple of years ago?
It's been my experience that people make up their own minds about Jehovah's Witnesses based solely on their knowledge and life-experiences. If a person's heart is receptive to God's Word, nothing can interfere with that.
For the word of God is alive and exerts power and is sharper than any two-edged sword and pierces even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of joints and [their] marrow, and [is] able to discern thoughts and intentions of [the] heart. And there is not a creation that is not manifest to his sight, but all things are naked and openly exposed to the eyes of him with whom we have an accounting. Hebrews 4:12-13
What, then, is A·pol′los? Yes, what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, even as the Lord granted each one. I planted, A·pol′los watered, but God kept making [it] grow; so that neither is he that plants anything nor is he that waters, but God who makes [it] grow. 1 Corinthians 3:5-7