Validity of 607 BCE date

by stevieb1 119 Replies latest jw friends

  • sleepy
    sleepy

    Scholar

    You've been challenged on this board already.

    I'm willing to suspend disbelief of the 607 date if you can show how and why that date should take us to 1914.

    I look forward to your considered reply

  • cornish
    cornish

    Scholar

    Can you give just one example of this so called evidence?

  • hawkaw
    hawkaw

    Scholar,

    So far - Alan et. al have provided "facts"

    So far - you have provided "opinions"

    You placed a challenge to AF. Great. One minor problem. In tennis once someone hits the ball, and it makes it over the net to the other side of the court in bounds (as AF did), the opposite player needs to hit the ball back.

    In this thread at this moment, you are the "opposite player". And you need to provide the "facts" and not an opinion without any facts backing you up.

    Oh, Scholars actually present in a very scientific way. In other words they present an abstract, an introduction, background on previous data, observations on their collected factual data, discussions on obervations and any errors, conclusions and recommendations. Then a peer committee will review the information prior to release to make sure a scholar doesn't look like an idiot.

    I hope your response back to AF lives up to a Scholar's presentation.

    hawk

  • felix a
    felix a

    Just a quick question.

    How many other religious organizations have considered 607 BCE to be the date for the fall of Jerusalem? If there are any groups who also feel this is the correct date for the fall, did they publish their position prior to or after the Watchtowers contention that this is the date of Jerusalems fall?

    To Scholar and StevieB1:

    I believe several others have already asked you this, but I'll ask as well. Could you please provide your mountain of evidence to support the date claimed by the WBTS and yourself to support the date mentioned?

    Regards,

    felix a (David P)

    "Vision is the art of seeing things invisible"
    Swift

  • AlanF
    AlanF

    To non-scholar:

    : You give the impression that you are all knowing in matters of biblical chronology

    Wrong. Here begins a drawn-out ad hominem argument.

    : and that the society's chronology is bunk.

    Wrong again. Both I, and scholars far more competent than I, have demonstrated that the Society's chronology is bunk.

    : You have a profound influence on the many posters to this board, you are a loyal support of the Jonsson hypothesis,

    To a certain extent, yes. However, you need to understand that people on this board are not braindead Jehovah's Witnesses who accept claims about the Bible or whatever based solely on the claimed authority of some group of leaders. They actually look at evidence and they evaluate it themselves. Unlike JWs, if someone who appears to know something about a subject begins spewing nonsense, they will see the nonsense as nonsense, and realize that the spewer is wrong. JWs like you are unable to do that with the nonsense spewed by the Society, because if you do, the Society will boot you out.

    I do not support the "Jonsson hypothesis" (an extreme misnomer; it is the result of more than a century of solid scholarship by the best archaeologists and bible chronologers in the field) merely because Jonsson or anyone else claims it is correct -- I support it because I have looked at the evidence for myself, and have done much independent research that confirms what Jonsson has set forth. I've done this by accumulating and reading a good deal of scholarly material that has nothing to do with Jonsson. I have also carefully examined the arguments that the Society has set forth, and have found that many of them are wrong, or are distortions of the facts, and that the Society steadfastly ignores much evidence, to the extent of not even commenting on it. I've also researched and written material on out-and-out lies on this subject in Watchtower literature in areas that no one had written about before.

    JWs like you, on the other hand, blindly accept Watchtower claims simply because "the faithful slave" has spoken, and instead of evaluating all available evidence for yourselves, defer to whatever Mommy tells you -- even if you have an inkling that Mommy may be wrong.

    Readers of this thread can see for themselves that I have presented solid scriptural proof of what "the 70 years of Jeremiah" were, and of when the period ended.

    Readers can see for themselves that you have entirely failed to present any evidence at all to support what the Society claims those "70 years" were.

    Readers can see that you have failed even to comment on the proof I presented, much less to give evidence against it.

    Readers can see from this post that you know you're unable to do what JWs claim they're so good at: expound upon the Bible. They can see it because instead of dealing with the evidence, you're attempting to sidetrack the discussion into an irrelevant area.

    : in fact you are a chronologist along with Carl in company with such luminaries as Edwin Thiele and Jame Ussher. I salute you!

    I'm am not in their league by a long shot. Your sarcasm is wasted, by the way.

    Now comes the red herring. It's a red herring because it attempts to argue that because someone does not have all the answers about every topic, his answers about a particular topic must be wrong.

    Begin red herring:

    : Because you are so learned as it seems in all areas pertaining to the Bible and Jehovah's Witnesses Iwonder if you will indulge me with a simple and lowly challenge. Your attention to this request would completely satisfy me that that you are far superior to me in all matters of scholarship. Never more will I dare to reply on matters chronological on this board.

    Other readers have already pointed out the fallacy of this challenge.

    : THE CHALLENGE:

    : you are to post on this board at a time of your convenience and using the expertise of whatever source you so desire including CARL, the following:

    : A LIST OF THE REIGNS OF THE KINGS OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL

    : Such a list would demonstrate competence in chronology as has been demonstrated by the society, Thiele and a few other scholars.

    : Failure by you to undertake this task will demonstrate to all your incompetence in this field. As I have challenged you first to put up you may wish to challenge me. So be it, but I reserve the right to refrain until you have responded as requested.

    Red herring completed.

    First, your challenge is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The length of reigns of the kings of Judah and Israel has absolutely nothing to do with the chronology of the Neo-Babylonian period.

    Second, all scholars who have attempted to come up with a complete scheme for dating these reigns admit that there are unsolved problems, or problems that can be resolved only by resorting to rather ad hoc solutions that other scholars are uncomfortable with. This is not a failing on their part -- it is the case because the Bible itself provides contradictory information. The Watchtower Society resolves these problems in its usual fashion: it ignores them. Good scholars like Thiele and Finegan set forth their exact reasoning by which they come to their conclusions; readers can easily check it for themselves and agree or not. The Society, on the other hand, presents only results, leaving the reader with no way of checking the reasoning process by which they got the results. This is good for a cult like the JWs, where adherents are not expected to reason but to accept the pronouncements of the leaders. It is bad for a scholar or his audience, who want to understand why they believe what they believe, and why they know what they know.

    Finally, your challenge itself demonstrates that you're not a scholar at all, because you claim that if I can establish myself as an authority on one topic, you'll defer to my word about an unrelated topic. In other words, you don't accept conclusions based on evidence, but on who tells you to accept them. Your challenge is akin to someone saying, "Prove that you can argue competently that the earth is flat. Then I'll accept your claim that the earth was created in six days." You clearly demonstrate the cult mindset.

    Now let's see if you can do something that in principle is far simpler: post arguments that show why you think my scriptural expositions in this thread are wrong.

    But readers already know that you're not up to this task. So far all you've come back with is unsupported claims and red herrings. This is stereotypical cultish and JW-ish behavior.

    AlanF

  • Jeremy Bravo
    Jeremy Bravo

    Alan,

    Nice. Nuff said.

    Jer.

  • Fredhall
    Fredhall

    AlanF,

    You may fool others but you can't fool me. Your information is full of shit. If you think that you can interpet Akkadian then prove it. If not then ask Rolf Furuli to help you.

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Frederico,

    My furry little twelve-horned friend, this probably has to be one of the funniest jokes I have read on this Board. Well done.

    You may fool others but you can't fool me.
    Coming from somebody who seems to have turned fooling himself into an art form, this is a wonderful pleasentry.

    HS - Gently tweaking the frisky kitty's whiskers.

  • Fredhall
    Fredhall

    Hillary Clinton,

    Can you interpet Akkadian?

  • hillary_step
    hillary_step

    Fred,

    Why don't you ask her?

    Seriously, not nearly as well as Furuli, but having worked in the BM in London, probably much better than most, however the issue is not about my linguistic or archealogical skills but your very witty joke about Alan not fooling you.

    Good one Fred, HS

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