by AuldSoul 124 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
No need thirdwitness, post whatever you like. You have just proven you can't engage in an intellectual discussion where your religious beliefs are concerned. That's all I needed to see. Your most recent gracing of this thread is nothing but logical fallacies strung together by a thing veneer of factoids.
AuldSoul
Hillah Stele was hella rockin' at the hollywood bowl last weekend...... oh nevermind :-D
thirdwitness,
In order to date the 607 prophecy to 1914 you need an external reference, that is an extra-biblical reference. All external references used by the watch tower society for "absolute dating" are from "pagan" sources.
Get back to the discussion.
steve
You have asked why doesn't the WT address the Hillah Stele Chronicle. Because they do not need to. There is no need to address every little piece of 'evidence' that secular historians claim disproves 607. Because we know from what the Bible says that 607 is the correct date. While you work from secular evidence and then fit the Bible around that. We start with the Bible and fit the secular evidence around what it says.
Two problems with this statement from Thirdwitness...
1. Watchtower does not want to deal with this, not because they don't want to, but because they can't. It can't be bent to fit their arguement.
2. Why start with the bible and fit secular evidence around it? If the Bible is accurate, actual historical records from that period would agree without any fitting around, now wouldn't it?
First I will cover the Adad Guppi Stele. Aside from the fact that it is an unbelievable story about how the false gods blessed Adad Guppi with long life and destined her son to be king, there are other reasons to discredit it. It is easily discredited as the WT has shown. Two copies have been found. One missing most of the years of the King's rules (the one the WT quotes). The 2nd copy contains their years.
The first copy says: "during all these 95 years in which I visited the temple
of the great godhead Sin..."from the time of Ashurbanipal to the 6th year of Nabonidus, the king of Babylon, the son of my womb, for 104 happy years."
As the WT points out if we add all the years together we arrive at 101 years not 104 years as stated. Three years are unaccounted for.
Enter copy number 2. Notice what it says: ..."from the time of Ashurbanipal to the 9th year of Nabonidus, the king of Babylon, the son of my womb, for 104 happy years."
By simply changing the 6th to the 9th, presto, the mistake is gone. Clearly, the writings have been changed from one copy to the next. What other changes were made? Were other numbers that are missing on the first copy changed in the 2nd copy to make it all fit togther? It is very likely that the numbers provided were put in there sometime after Adad-Guppi lived and just reflected what was believed to be accurate at the time it was written or copied. We really don't know who wrote it or who copied it. How can we possibly accept this writing over the Bibles clear and inspired testimony. Especially since it has been shown to be altered by someone somewhere along the way.
So we can easily discount these writings. Now on to the Hillah Stele.
The Hillah Stele
As I pointed out earlier by changing the number from 74 to 54 the writer or copyist could have easily caused readers to get the understanding that he was promoting. However, as I said, I will treat the Hillah Stele as if it were part of the inspired record of the Bible (although we definitely know that it is not nor is it inspired) to show that it still does not disprove 607.
First we must show what BM 21901 states:
that in the "sixteenth year" of Nabopolassar, in the month
Marheshwan, "the Umman-manda" (Medes) "who had come to help the king
of Akkad, put their armies together and marched to Harran against
Ashuruballit II who had ascended the throne in Assyria...the king of
Akkad reached Harran and he captured the city. He carried off the
vast booty of the city and the temple."
You surely must take note that it does not say that the temple was destroyed or ruined in the 16th year of Nabopolassar but merely that it was looted. Booty was taken from it and the city. The reader must assume that the writer of this chronicle is saying the temple was destroyed. The chronicle does not really say that.
We have a Bible example of this. Daniel 1: 2 In time Jehovah gave into his hand Je·hoi´a·kim the king of Judah and a part of the utensils of the house of the [true] God, so that he brought them to the land of Shi´nar to the house of his god; and the utensils he brought to the treasure-house of his god.
Now we know for a fact that the temple in Jerusalem was not destroyed at this time because we have further Biblical evidence that the temple was destroyed over 10 years later. The reader might make the assumption that the temple was destroyed at this time but he would be wrong. So likewise assuming that the BM chronicle above is talking about the temple being destroyed might just be a wrong assumption. It only says that booty was taken from the temple.
Now we can proceed to the Hillah Stele. The Hillah Stele tells us: "In the beginning of my everlasting reign they caused me to see a dream...they were standing together... Marduk spoke to me: 'Nabonidus, king of Babylon, carry bricks on your horse, build the Ehulhul and establish the dwelling of Sin, the great lord, in its midst."
We will assume that Nabonidus means in his very first year of rule although he merely says in the beginning of his rule. The Stele tells us: "Marduk the great Lord, and Sin, the Light of Heaven and Earth, stood one on each side of me, and the god Marduk spake unto me, saying: 'O Nabonidus, thou king of Babylon, with the horses of they chariot bring thou bricks, and build the shrine of Ehulhul, and make thou Sin, the great Lord, to dwell in his habitation.'"
And concerning this temple it says: "which had been lying in ruins for 54 years because of its devastation by the Medes (who) destroyed the sanctuaries, with the consent of the gods the time for reconciliation approached, 54 years, when Sin should return to his place."
If we count 54 years back using the chronology really established in the Bible it brings us back to about the 16th year of Neb's rule. Was this when the temple of Ehulhul in Harran was actually destroyed? Well I personally cannot say but if this was an inspired inscription that would be the only conclusion that could be reached. So the destruction of the temple in Harran apparently took place during Neb's rule about 20 years after Nabopolasser plundered or looted it if you believe the Hillah Stele.
And that is why it does not absolutely disprove 607 even if it were true.
As the WT points out if we add all the years together we arrive at 101 years not 104 years as stated. Three years are unaccounted for.
LOL. Because of a discrepancy of 3 years, thirdwitness alleges that neither report can be right. thirdwitness might like to refer to one of my prior posts mentioning several discrepancies in the bible where numbers are reported differently.
And that is not his only hypocrisy, for he expects everyone to believe that the Society's 20-year discrepancy is not an issue!
As I pointed out earlier by changing the number from 74 to 54 the writer or copyist could have easily caused readers to get the understanding that he was promoting. However, as I said, I will treat the Hillah Stele as if it were part of the inspired record of the Bible (although we definitely know that it is not nor is it inspired) to show that it still does not disprove 607.
thirdwitness' argument here is quite amusing, for Witnesses don't like to admit that the bible was canonized by people whom they believe to be false Christians influenced by pagan teachings.
And he again introduces his wishful thinking that the record originally said 74 years, and some sneaky copyist went and changed it just so that JW doctrine would look just that little bit sillier.
It has always ammused me how non-mainstream apocalyptic denominations claim to have the true religion. Two that come to mind are the Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses. Both claim there was once some great apostasy when Satan the Devil removed God's true faith frome this world! Somehow they believe the Bible survived, being canonized by apostates and itself being a copy of a copy of a copy. Their logic is irrational. Unfortunately they have explainations for it all. The New Light and what not. They claim God would never allow the Bible to be destroyed and altered from its true inspired form, yet apparently God allowed his true organization to disolve from this Earth. Perhaps another alien world needed it and God could only allow his true faith to be at one world at a time, but then agian, I always thought God was universal.
If we count 54 years back using the chronology really established in the Bible it brings us back to about the 16th year of Neb's rule.
What a lame defense! What is claimed to be "the chronology really established in the Bible" is merely the JW interpretation thereof, which has been called into question by many lines of evidence, including the Hillah Stele. It is circular reasoning to use that interpretation to suggest that evidence against that interpretation must be wrong. The appalling 'logic' employed is almost as bad as that of 'scholar'.
