70 years = 607?

by allelsefails 421 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Leolaia

  There is no evidence that after the destruction of Jerusalem there remained people in the land because Jeremiah had prophesied repeatedly that the land would be desolate without an inhabitant.

  Of course there is evidence. And you certainly know if it since it has been posted here repeatedly in the past.

  e.g. http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/121323/1/Back-Cover-of-Nov15-WT-Did-Judah-Remain-Desolate

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/87714/22/Daniels-Prophecy-605-BCE-or-624-BCE

  The book Judah and Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period (ed. by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blinkinsopp, 2003) has many articles bearing on this.
• 

  slimboyfat

  I have been looking out for this book for a while. Not found a copy yet:

  The Myth of the Empty Land: Study of the History and Archaeology of Judah During the Exile Period (Paperback)

  by Hans M. Barstad (Author)

  Publisher: Aschehoug AS (Aug 1996)

  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Myth-Empty-Land-History-Archaeology/dp/8200227561/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246205232&sr=1-1
• 

  Leolaia

  Scholar is fully aware of the scholarly discussion on Daniel with its many interpretations by scholars as shown in commentaries, monograghs and published jornal articles. His posts cannot consider every facet of scholarly debate as the objective is to adhere to the points that are raised. All that you do is raise a 'smokescreen' in order to impress and confuse the reader with techical information that is not relevant to the point of discussion at hand.

  What nonsense. The "technical information", as you put it, are facts and data cited in order to support the arguments I am making, which are all in response to claims you or others in the thread have made. I try to show how my points have substance behind them. That doesn't in itself show that my points are correct, but it is intended to show the grounds and reasoning involved. I have never seen you support your claims with evidence, as any real "scholar" would; you content yourself with making blanket statements devoid of evidence. Rather, you actually complain when a person with an opposing viewpoint tries to substantiate their claims with cited facts. To you, a person would only do this "in order to impress and confuse the reader". This comment of yours only shows how far from being a "scholar" you actually are.

  Notice, for instance, the very next sentence you write:

  The Bible clearly discusses the prediction and the fulfillment of Neb's seven year madness and absence from the throne and the Society's publications certainly teach this further we also interpret the 'seven times' as having a greater fulfillemt because this is the obvious intent of the dream in Daniel 4.

  I have asked you repeatedly to show from the text how it sustains exegetically a "greater fulfillment" along the lines of what the Society teaches. Here you simply say, "It is obvious". Q.E.D. As if that saying that it is obvious is enough to make the argument. That is just laziness. No attempt made to show how it is so obvious; you are content to just say it's obvious, enough said. It is a crutch that substitutes for actual argumentation. As allelsefails observed as well:

  The thing that made me realize the "scholarship" of the WTS was not scholarship at all was to look at how often they used nonsense reasoning. You can see it clearly in Scholars posts. Saying something is "obvious", "clear", "evident" about a text does not make it so.

  Some of that technical information I posted, for instance, was intended to clarify the purported relationship between Luke 21:24 and Daniel 4 which you say is obvious. I did this because you were claiming connections that did not exist between the two passages. But you object to this, saying that such posting of technical information is a mere "smokescreen". So you subsequently press on (in post #1712) with the same claims:

  Indeed there is everything in Luke to prove its connection with Daniel 4 namely the use of 'times', Jerusalem and its 'being trampled' and the period of the Gentile Times. It is all there in the mix.

  You still claim a connection between Luke and Daniel 4 in terms of Jerusalem "being trampled," even though I showed that there is no "trampling" discussed or hinted at in ch. 4; it is in ch. 7 where "trampling" by the Gentile kingdoms is mentioned along with "times" devoted for this period of "trampling". There is nothing in Daniel 4 about the seven times being a period of Gentile times analogous to that in Luke. You are still reading things into the text that aren't there. You do not show how it is all there in the mix. You simply say that it is.
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  scholar: "I was a question and I supplied some names of supporters of 607 BCE and I am not responsible for their allegiances."

  Uh, 'some names'???? I think you were really scratching the bottom of the empty barrel to come up with those nutjobs. And of course you're not responsible for their allegiances. However, I think the list places you in perfect company for your chronology.

  It is now completely verified: Every "scholar" that advocates 607 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem is a flaming Egyptologist!

  Where are you in this picture, scholar? Are you one of the guys with the camels, or are you taking the picture?

  

  Really scholar, after betraying your pyramidology companions to the laughter of every serious scholar, you need to try an argument that nobody here would dare to dispute:

  Jerusalem was destroyed in 607 BCE... INVISIBLY!!
  The visible destruction occurred sometime later,
  but that is completely irrelevant to "celebrated JW scholars"!

  B the X
• 

  AnnOMaly

  It is now completely verified: Every "scholar" that advocates 607 BCE for the destruction of Jerusalem is a flaming Egyptologist!

  Ah now let's not be unfair to Egyptologists. Did you mean Pyramidologists?
• 

  Billy the Ex-Bethelite

  Yes Ann, I meant Pyramidologists. Thanks for correcting that. I do make mistakes sometimes... like wasting over a decade of my life in Bethel. But I digress...

  Apologies to all Egyptologists! I would never want to insult such a fascinating field of genuine scholarly research by associating them with quacks such as pyramidologists and "celebrated JW scholars".
• 

  Doug Mason

  Scholar,

  I am not surprised that you disagree with my summation of this part of the Judahites history. If I had listed my supporting references, the post would have been far too long and complex, making it impossible for readers to grasp the message. I shall produce a document that supports my contentions, which are based on reliable sources, some of which I shall email to you separately.

  It seems to me that you and your detractors are speaking in different arenas. As I see it, your focus is on "depopulation" being required before the "70 years" could commence, while your opponents (myself included, but please not as enemies but as persons with a common interest in seeking truth), we focus on the Watchtower's dishonesty with facts and their consistent misquoting of sources.

  Regarding the need for "depopulation", I wrote a piece that is available at

  http://au.geocities.com/doug_mason1940/without_inhabitant_and_without_men.pdf

  I wonder what your thoughts are on the differences between the MT and the LXX of Jeremiah. Why did this happen? What were the motives of the people who made such grand changes?

  In particular, why are the LXX and the MT of Jer 25 so different from one another? I don't pretend to know. I wonder what such a difference tells us of those exiles who wrote and rewrote the Scriptures, and of their attitude towards that book (scroll)?

  Since these marked differences exist, the WTS relies for its foundation on shaky and shifting grounds.

  Perhaps a study of the chaismic structures of Jeremiah might prove fruitful.

  Finally, while people (rightly, in my opinion) debunk the WTS's mishandling of Daniel 4, I would like to point out that in earlier times, the WTS misused Leviticus 26 to arrive at 2520 years.

  Doug
• 

  Mary

  pseudo-scholar said: You ask for names of those non JW scholars who support 607 BCE:

  Mary knows that pseudo-scholar can't really come up with any genuine scholars who support 607 BCE, so Mary decided to look up the names that pseudo gave to see what came up. Wanna see what I got?

  Jerry Leslie

  Hmmm.......this guys wasn't an academic scholar. He was a supporter of Charles Russell's bizarre ideas and wrote a paper on it. Mary would like to be kind to pseudo-scholar though and assume this was just an oversite: http://www.biblestudents.net/library/datingthedeolation.pdf

  Julian T Gray

  Perhaps English is pseudo-scholar's second language because Jeff specifically asked you for non-Witness scholars who support the 607 BCE date. Julian T Gray was most certainly a Witness who echoed the absurd ideas of Judge Rutherfraud as per her statement quoted in part below:

  If the year 1875 A.D. marks the end of the Great Cycle of 50 X 50 years, then the.following 50 years, or from 1875 A.D. to 1925 A.D., will be the Jubilee Cycle or period of time during which the Jews will be returned to their possessions. (This date, 1925 A.D., as we have seen, is the date originally intended by Jehovah as marking Israel's full number of Jubilees.) And how harmoniously does this agree with the ending of the Times of the Gentiles, which terminate during this jubilee period; their lease of power departing from them allows the Law to be fulfilled toward the Jew, who can now come into his possessions..............As shown in SCRIPTURE STUDIES, VOI. 11, chapter 6, Israel celebrated 19 Jubilees before going into captivity, and we have no reason to doubt that at each of these celebrations the RETURNING of the people to their possessions was accomplished to the best of their ability.

  Plus, it does not appear that Julian T. Gray was an academic scholar at all. Ironically her ridiculous conclusions are still praised by the Bible Students today. http://www.biblestudents.net/studies/chronology/

  Paul S Johnson

  Here's another one.......Paul S. Johnson was NOT an academic scholar. He was simply a supporter of either Russell's or Rutherfraud's bizarre teachings: http://www.biblechronology.org/books_studies/pdf/datingdesolation.pdf

  Morton Edgar

  Ditto for Morton Edgar: http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/contents/treatises/edgar%20parsons%20letters.htm

  Charles f Redeker

  And finally (drum roll please), Charles Redeker was not an academic scholar either: http://www.biblestudents.net/studies/chronology/70years.pdf

  Perhaps pseudo-scholar has an even more difficult time with reality that what was previously thought. This could be caused either by the medications he's on or by the effects of travelling from an alternate universe where he surely must reside.

  

  Anyone with half a brain knows, or should know, that an academic scholar is someone who has achieved a PhD in a certain discipline. None of the people whom pseudo-scholar listed ever achieved that and he knows it. And no, reading the Awake! ragazine for 4 years does not equal a college degree.

  Mary would really love to see pseudo come up with the name of genuine academic scholars who support the 607 BCE date. Even though Mary knows he can't.

  
• 

  Leolaia

  Doug Mason....It is a fascinating problem. The text of the OT is pluriform and one may recognize three main text traditions, the Palestinian (represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and a few other sources), the Egyptian (represented mainly by the LXX), and the Babylonian (represented mainly by the MT). In some books, especially 1-2 Samuel, Jeremiah, and Daniel, the differences between the various text types can be quite large. In the case of Jeremiah, the LXX and the Dead Sea Scroll versions (as found in 4QJer b and 4QJer d ) are shorter than the MT by some 13%. When the differences are examined systematically, it becomes clear that the MT contains many additions in a developing tradition. Basically, there were two different editions of the book in antiquity, and they developed on different trajectories from each other in terms of redaction and composition. The oldest manuscript of Jeremiah, 4QJer a (which is also one of the oldest Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to c. 200 BC), is chock full of scribal additions and corrections; a second scribe in ch. 7-8 ran out of space in the margin for his additions, such that he had to write sideways and then upside down to fit them all. What we have in the MT is the end of a long line of textual redaction and transmission over 1,500 years in the case of Jeremiah, whereas the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls represent versions of the text dating many hundreds of years earlier. But regional differences are very important to keep in mind, especially with a book like Jeremiah. Although the exiles in Babylonia probably possessed copies of the book, the historical Jeremiah did not go to Babylon but escaped to Egypt. The text of book thus probably diverged within the lifetime of the prophet himself, with Jeremiah making his own redactions in Egypt while the copies of the book circulating in Babylonia underwent their own redactions and corrections. The problem with respect to the "seventy years" passages in ch. 26 and 29 was discussed in detail by John Applegate (in the book The Book of Jeremiah and Its Reception, 1997, pp. 91-110), and he finds that the LXX represents a more primitive form of the text; indeed the LXX wording is much closer to the oldest oracles of Jeremiah in the early chapters (you know, the ones about the threat from a vague enemy from the north). The MT version of ch. 26 adds specific detail that improves the fit between prediction and actual events. The article is well worth the read, even pseudo-scholar has recommended it highly as a "ground-breaking" and "exhaustive" study.
• 

  AllTimeJeff

  JW Scholars do not exist. In fact, to use the word "scholar" in that context insults real scholars and those interested in learning real facts and history.

  It's sad that so many JW's are enslaved to prophecies that can't possibly be understood, only to be told to "take their word for it". In the meantime, generations of families, and decades of time are lost to the specific ends of this cult.

  Although playing with (fake) scholar is good fun, (and necesarry to refute his cult rhetoric) it shouldn't be lost on anyone who reads scholars BS the serious consequences of believing him or the standard JW company line.

  The sole reason JW's are in the "prophesy" business is for control over their group. The Governing Body absolutely knows every failed prophecy, every incorrect date, and they cynically continue to promote their failed eschatology in the hopes of keeping whats left. As time goes by, it will be near impossible to keep up the charade for much longer.

  And we can all be thankful for that.