The Watchtower interpretation of the "Gentile Times" involves misapplying and bringing together too many irrelevant, unrelated Old and New Testament scriptures. You can't just scour the Bible for the words "times" and put all those prophecies together.
Luke 21:24, "and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled."
Irrelevant. This prophecy refers to an event in the future relative to Jesus' day. It cannot refer back to an event that happened 600 years before Jesus uttered the prophecy. Verses 20 & 21 say "Furthermore, when YOU see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolating of her has drawn near. Then let those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains, and let those in the midst of her withdraw, and let those in the country places not enter into her". This is clearly referring to the Roman seige of Jerusalem in 70 AD, NOT the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BC (Watchtower date: 607 BC).
Daniel 4:16, "Let its heart be changed from that of mankind, andlet the heart of a beast be given to it, and let seven times pass over it."
Irrelevant. This verse refers to the 7 year madness of paganking Nebuchadnezzar. It CANNOT refer to God's holy dynasty. Why would God choose a rebellious pagan king to represent his own rule? In what way was God's Kingdom given the heart of a beast?
Revelation 12:6, 14 "And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, that they should feed her there 1260 days."... "But the two wings of the great eagle were given the woman, that she might fly into the wilderness to her place; there is where she is fed for a time and times and half a time away from the face of the serpent."
Inconsistent. The Watchtower applies the 1260 days of Revelation 11: 2,3 to Rutherford's imprisonment between 1914 and 1918, a literal 1260 days. Yet it uses this same scripture to calculate that 7 times = 2 x 3.5 times = 2 x 1260 days = 2520 days = 2520 years. You can't have it both ways, "days" meaning years in one instant and days in another. Daniel 12:11,12 are also said to be literal daysrelated to a uneventful District Convention at Cedar Point, Ohio in 1922. How egocentric and parochial.
Numbers 14:34 "By the number of the days that YOU spied out the land, forty days, a day for a year, a day for a year, YOU will answer for YOUR errors forty years, as YOU must know what my being estranged means."
and Ezekiel 4:6, "And you must lie upon your right side in the second case, and you must carry the error of the house of Judah forty days. A day for a year, a day for a year, is what I have given you."
Both irrelevant. These two verses are NOT indictations of how to interpret Messianic prophecies fortold in days but are judgments of punishment for sin. In the first case, the Israelites were sinful for 40 days and the punishment was 40 years of wandering. In the second case Judah was sinful for 40 years and the punishment (for Ezikiel) was 40 days. They are opposite to one another and both reflect a kind of poetic justice that was common in the Bronze-Age near-east. The main point is that in each case the punishment was clear and precise and did not involve elaborate mathematical calculations. Daniel's "seven times" prophecy is also very clear when it talks about Nebuchadnezzar being beastlike for 7 years. There is no need to read something else into it.
The final nail in the coffin has already been mentionned before. 1914 became such a pivotal date that it was necessary to preserve it at all costs, even if the point of origin changed from 606 to 607 when it was discovered there was no year 0. The year 607 is not based in scripture and it is not based in archaeology. It was derived from counting backwards from 1914!!
The 70 years most likely was written about after the event and most likely refers to the period between 609 BC and 539 BC. 609 BC was the year of the Battle of Megiddo when the combined armies of Egypt and Assyria on their way to fight the Babylonians at Carchemish marched through Judah and killed King Josiah for refusing them permission to pass through.
This battle is recorded in 2 Chronicles 35:20-35. "After all this, when Josiah had set the temple in order, Neco king of Egypt came up to make war at Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out to engage him. But Neco sent messengers to him, saying, “What have we to do with each other, O King of Judah? I am not coming against you today but against the house with which I am at war, and God has ordered me to hurry. Stop for your own sake from interfering with God who is with me, so that He will not destroy you.” However, Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to make war with him; nor did he listen to the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to make war on the plain of Megiddo. The archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, for I am badly wounded.” 24 So his servants took him out of the chariot and carried him in the second chariot which he had, and brought him to Jerusalem where he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. Then Jeremiah chanted a lament for Josiah. And all the male and female singers speak about Josiah in their lamentations to this day. And they made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are also written in the Lamentations".
This was evidently a prominent event in Jewish consciousness and is the origin of the term "Armageddon". It was a year of great shame and lamentation for the Jewish people, and was the beginning of the period of hardship including the sacking of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
Between 609 and 605 the Babylonians conquered the Egyptians and the Assyrians proving themselves to be the major power of the day. This all ended in 539 BC when Kurash (Cyrus) of Persia conquered Babylon and characteristically allowed the Jews and all other captives to return to built the temple. Kurash was a Zoroastrian who left a lasting legacy on Judaism (and Christianity) and human rights. The rewriting and restructuring of the Bible probably took place then, the 100-350 year old Yahwist, Elohist and Deuteromist texts being mixed with new Priestly texts and blended seamlessly by the Redactor. The new Judaism was modelled on Zoroastrianism showing the powerful legacy that Kurash left on the Jewish consciousness at the time. Evidently the 70 years prophecy was about this 70 year period of shame, displacement, lamentation and eventual repatriation. The whole Jewish victim complex probably stems from this defining moment in history and the direction of the previously parochial Jewish religion was clearly defined. The concept of Satan as an evil individual was directly borrowed from the Zoroastrian concept, the final eradication of Jewish polytheism also probably took place at this time, the instigation of the Priesthood, the idea of a final purgation of evil from the Earth and the concept that Yahweh alone was the creator-god were all Zoroastrian concepts that were merged with Judaism.
The prosperity of the new Judaism thanks to the Persians after 539 must have lead to the many "prophecies" about the 70 years of woe and lamentation from 609 to 539.
