by Zico 142 Replies latest jw friends
Honesty
Your Neo-Babylonian chronology is shonky, it is wobbly because there is confusion over the precise length of the reign of Amel-Marduk or Evil-Merodach. Some authorities give his reign two years whereas Josephus gives him eighteen years so this makes your supposed list of conjectured 66 or 67 years useless. Try again and try harder!
scholar JW
Goldminer
You should listen to your wife as it seems she is smarter than you are. Jeremiah 25:12 has nothing to do with the Fall of Babylon in 539 BCE ending the seventy years. The opposite is in fact the case because the oracle against Babylon began only after the seventy years were fulfilled which according to biblical history and chronology occurred in 537 BCE with the Return of the Exiles ending the desolation of the land. After that year of 537 then Babylon would experience judgement from Jehovah as foretold by Jeremiah along with all of the other foreign nations referred to in the remainder of that chapter.
Further, using 539 as the end point of the seventy years would have 609 BCE for its beginning and nothing of note happened in that year so such an interpretation is impossible for numerous reasons. Listen to your wife!
scholar JW
Scholar wrote:
Your Neo-Babylonian chronology is shonky, it is wobbly because there is confusion over the precise length of the reign of Amel-Marduk or Evil-Merodach. Some authorities give his reign two years whereas Josephus gives him eighteen years so this makes your supposed list of conjectured 66 or 67 years useless. Try again and try harder!
"Some authorities"? Neil, the Society says Evil-Merodach reigned two years!
Is the WTS wrong?
*** w65 1/1 p. 29 The Rejoicing of the Wicked Is Short-lived ***
Evil-merodach reigned two years and was murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar, who reigned for four years, which time he spent mainly in building operations. His underage son Labashi-Marduk, a vicious boy, succeeded him, and was assassinated within nine months. Nabonidus, who had served as governor of Babylon and who had been Nebuchadnezzar’s favorite son-in-law, took the throne and had a fairly glorious reign until Babylon fell in 539 B.C.E.
Regards,
Marjorie
Jeffro
1028
The reference in the Insight volume is correct and provides a reasonable account of an histoical event which could only have been realized in 537 BCE. Your only objection to this account is the faulty premise that somehow the seventy years began with nations serving under Babylon from 609 BCE followed by the exile beginning in 598, the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 or 586 and the return in 538 BCE. Such proposed dates are open to serious challenges on all fronts, celebrated WT scholars have determined different dates for these principal events derived from the recogntion of the historicity of the seventy years.
scholar JW
Lady Liberty
You ask sincerely why is it the case that scholar only concerns himself with matters pertaining only to chronology. It is surely the case that scholar could engage with many other topics such as those you have mentioned and from time to time the foresaid scholar will intrude and make comments on such issues. However, scholar has spent much time and effort in matters of a scholarly nature and chronology is the most controversial and important as it contibuted to the Brooklyn apostasy in the 1980's. Scholar of course has opinions on all and on each and every one of such controversial topics but as he loves chronology and is the most simplest of topics, he feels more at home with such a topic that demands intellectual riguer.
scholar JW
The MYSTERIOUS CELEBRATED WBTS SCHOLARS.
No one knows their names, so they can not be CELEBRATED. Other than in the mind of "scholar".
I think this is a sexual experience for "scholar" because this is the only issue that he will regularly jump into.
He seems to know nothing much about his religion other than this issue. Then he will hang in there as he is getting shot down, over and over again. Sort of an emotional masturbation for a person that gets his rocks hot at getting beaten.
Poor old Scholar.
Outoftheorg
Auld Soul
3818
Well methodology is different and it is the choice of the 'celebrated ones' but in reality is really the choice of many Bible Students who have a preferred loyalty to God's Word over and above that of wordly thinking which seeks to undermine that selfsame Word of truth.
Secular chronologists also seek to use selected facts to prove their point of view and ignore other facts because these would contradict a 'pet theory'. Apostates follow the same erroneous course when they abandon the Bible and prefer higher criticism. The celebrated have as their right to acknowledge and accept the regnal years of the Babylonians when such years are confirmed or viable but where the data is faulty or suspect then an appropriate methodology must be employed in order to seek out the good from the bad. This chronology is a mixture of the 'good, bad. and the ugly' so the celebrated must use discretion with such secular data.
You ask certain questions about the data and I am happy to deal with those points you have raised but can you explain the following:
1. Seven missing years of Nebuchadnezzer's madness.
2. Twenty year gap between biblical and Neo-Babylonian chronology
3. Egypt's missing forty years of desolation
4. The difference of sixteen years in the reign of Amel -Marduk
5. Seventy years of Judean captivity missing from the Babylonian Annals
scholar JW
1. Seven missing years of Nebuchadnezzer's madness.2. Twenty year gap between biblical and Neo-Babylonian chronology
3. Egypt's missing forty years of desolation
4. The difference of sixteen years in the reign of Amel -Marduk
5. Seventy years of Judean captivity missing from the Babylonian Annals
scholar JW
Cutting to the quick of it.
Why should someone have to understand all this bullsh!t to understand bible prophecy?
Alleymom
Marjorie
Josephus who is the only source for the claim of Berossus that Evil-Merdoch's reign was two years also stated that the reign was eighteen years which creates a difference of sixteen years at least. You should consult the later refernces on Evil Merodach in the Aid and Insight publications because they were written after the 1965 WT which simply repeated a common viewpoint but was further clarified from 1969 forward with the Aid research.
scholar JW
I am curious about the celebrated bible scholars in the Jehovah's Witnesses. I am going to college and I am wondering what papers they have published. That way if I end up taking a class on ancient history, I can use them as a source.
