Oh no. Hi (fake) Scholar. I would love to talk, but I am going out to watch the fireworks.
I will check in later to see if a different kind of fireworks happened....
Question about 70 yr. excile:
by whyizit 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
scholar
On The Way Out
Post 8414
There is no other alternative but to accept the fact that the seventy years was a definite period of history as modern scholarship attests along with the clear testimony of Daniel, Ezra, Jeremiah, Zechariah and of corse the Jewish historian Josephus. These Bible writers were as in the case of daniel and Jeremiah live d at the time of the seventy years so their experience is far more convincing than those of the moderrn 'arm-chair' critic.
The Bible unlike the writings of secular historians is not fuzzy but specific as to event, time and place so we today can interpet those narratives with the bebefit of fulfilled prophecy. The Apostle Paul's words at Romans 3:3,4 are timeless: "Let God Be True".
scholar JW
-
AnnOMaly
Hi whyizit
They said I must think the Jewish excile occurred before the temple was burned.
Yes, that's right. Dan. 1:1-4 indicates that in King Jehoiakim's 3rd year (605 BCE - traditional chronology), the cream of young nobility was taken to Babylon. Also Josephus (using Berossus' record) attests to Jewish captives being taken at the time of Nebuchadnezzar's father's death (Against Apion I, 19 (137)).
It is well established that the vast majority of Jewish captives were taken during a subsequent Babylonian campaign in 597 BCE. See 2 Kings 24:12-16; Jer. 52:28-30 and Babylonian Chronicle ABC 5, reverse lines 11'-13' - http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/abc5/jerusalem.html
It has already been pointed out that there are '70 year periods' that refer to,
a) Babylonian domination over the nations including Judah (Jer. 25:11; 29:10 - 'for Babylon,' not 'at Babylon') which ended when Cyrus the Persian conquered Babylon in 539 BCE;
b) the time the temple lay desolate (Zech. 1:12; 7:4; Hag. 1:1-3 - note these texts refer to the early reign of Persian King Darius I - c. 520-515 BCE)
-
Narkissos
I think in addition to the two approximate applications of the "seventy years" phrase in Bible texts as described by AnnOMaly (609/5-539 and 587/6-519/8) there is a third one, which is historically wrong but scriptural nonetheless: that which identifies the "seventy years" to the desolation of the land supposed to have followed the final fall of Jerusalem, in 2 Chronicles 36:21. That period (which was not of complete desolation to begin with) actually lasted about 50 years (cf. the first "seven weeks" = 49 years in Daniel 9), but was (mis-)represented by the Chronicler (and perhaps the last redaction of Jeremiah 25:11) as 70. This imaginary duration of the exile was then followed by Josephus (except when he quotes Berossus in Against Apion) and traditional exegesis down to Russell. But forcing it on Jeremiah 29 or Zechariah, let alone "real" history, is desperate.
-
AnnOMaly
It's true that 2 Chron. 36:21, on the surface, makes it appear the desolation itself would last 70 years. However, it may not be that the Chronicler misrepresented the length of time the land was desolated. It may be a misunderstanding on the part of the reader. Other scholars have proposed explanations and interpretations that fit with both the secular and biblical testimony.
2 Chron. 36:12 says the land enjoyed its sabbath rests all the time it lay desolated. This harks back to God's instructions and warnings about keeping Sabbath years (to allow the land to rest every seven years) and Jubilee years (restoring freedom and property every 49 years) in Lev. 25 and 26. If they didn't observe the Sabbaths, they would be punished seven times over, removed from their country and their land forced to rest. It's interesting that the period from Jerusalem's final ruin and depopulation (587) to its restoration (c.538) tallies with a Jubilee period.
2 Chron. 36:12 goes on to say that the land would rest, pay off its sabbaths UNTIL 70 years are completed in fulfillment of Jeremiah's words. Seeing as Jeremiah never said the land would be desolate for a 70 year period but instead associated 70 years with Babylonian hegemony over the nations, it doesn't make sense that the Chronicler (who was familiar with Jeremiah's words) was suggesting the land was desolate for 70 years. But because all these ideas from Leviticus and Jeremiah are concertinaed together, the reader then jumps to the erroneous conclusion that the period of desolation from Jerusalem's fall to the exiles' return must have been 70 years long.
|___________punishment/Jerusalem's fall______________l a n d r e s t e d_______________sabbaths paid off|
|------7 0 y e a r s B a b y l o n i a n d o m i n a t i o n-----------------------------------------Jeremiah's words fulfilled|
-
digderidoo
Hi Whyizit,
OnTheWay Out has said it for me,
Jeremiah ends the 70 years with the "account against the King of Babylon". Babylon fell in 539 B.C. indicating the start of this 70 year period against "these nations" could have been 609 B.C.
It most certainly could have been 609BCE when Babylon conquered Assyria, most scholars mark 609BCE as the starting point for Babylonian domination, hence Jeremiah 25, 'that these nations will have to serve the king of Babylon seventy years.", implying a number of nations, rather than the nation of Israel.
Alternately, 70 years was the length of time the temple was in a state of disrepair, from the start of the siege on Jerusalem in 589 B.C. to the completion of the new temple in 519 B.C.
Here he has shown two explanations for the 70 year period, both reconcile a 587/6 destruction for Jerusalem. There are alternative explanations for a 70 year period that fit in with scripture.
What the JW's do is to set up a strawman argument. They tell you that that the 70 scriptural period HAS to begin with Jerusalems destruction and HAS to end with Cyrus announcing decree which they guesstimate at 537BCE, yet this is not what the scriptures actually say. The strawman is then set up that if you accept a 587/6 date you are then arguing with scripture, this is then presented as a scripture VS secular debate and ask you which one you should choose, the bible or secular sources.....typical strawman.
The reality is that alternative explanations for a 70 year period do harmonise with the bible and secular sources.
Paul
-
Narkissos
AnnOMaly,
To me a simple but valid 'rule of thumb' in Biblical exegesis is that most often the texts do mean what they appear to mean. Iow, the average reader / hearer generally has it right until s/he buys into overinterpretations based on extra-textual (and, in many cases, inter-textual) grounds. Otherwise you have to posit writers deliberately trying to be misunderstood by an audience who couldn't jump from one (con)text to another as we can so (too?) easily do.
While 2 Chronicles 36 alludes to both Jeremiah and Leviticus it doesn't follow that the meaning of the latter texts can be imposed on the former. What matters to the intention of the Chronicler is what he makes of those allusions. That the Jubilee scheme could explain a 50-year desolation is apparent from Daniel 9 (which also uses the "7 x" curse motif in transforming the 70 years of Jeremiah into 70 weeks of years). But this is not what the writer of Chronicles seems to be doing. As I suggested above, it also seems to me that the extant redaction of Jeremiah 25:11 conflates two originally distinct understandings of the "70 years," one applied to the desolation of Judah (as in 2 Chronicles) and the other to Babylonian rule over the "nations" (closer to the initial meaning of Jeremiah).
Imo, assuming that the Bible never speaks of a 70-year desolation of Judah is an error symmetrical to that of the WT, and based on the same presupposition (that Bible texts cannot be historically wrong just because they happened to be included in the Bible).
-
AnnOMaly
Hi Narkissos
I hear what you're saying about the danger of over-interpreting and where the text should be taken at its word, however - after considering what you've said - it still doesn't make sense to me that the Chronicler was misrepresenting the 70 years.
If the Chronicler had access to the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel, if he knew that Jeremiah composed a lament over Josiah which was recorded in a compilation of dirges (2 Chron. 35:25), then surely he had access to Jeremiah's prophecies too (he alludes to another of Jeremiah's prophecies in the preceding verse - 2 Chron. 36:20 --> Jer. 27:7), as well as other canonical records. Jeremiah (note, specifically Jeremiah) NEVER associated a period of 70 years with the desolation of the land. So why would the Chronicler make it appear that he did? I don't think he did.
Ross E. Winkle's approach makes the best sense to me. One of the arguments he puts forward is the verses' literary style and parallelisms it uses. He says:
"In this passage there are two sets of parallel clauses either beginning with 'ador lemallot.Displaying the text according to a quasi-poetic style (in order to highlight the parallels) results in the following (my translation):
Line
1 And they were servants to him and his sons
2 until ('ad) the reign of the kingdom of Persia
3 in order to fulfill (lemallot) the word
4 of the LORDin the mouth of Jeremiah
5 until ('ad) the land enjoyed its sabbaths
6 (all the days of its desolation
7 it kept sabbath)
8 in order to fulfill (lemallot) seventy years
Line 2 completes the thought of line 1, while lines 3-4 further clarify lines 1 and 2. Line 5, which starts with the same word as line 2, must be parallel to it. Precedent for this type of parallelism can be found in Exod 16:35:
And the people of Israel ate the manna forty years,
till ('ad) they came to a habitable land;
they ate the manna,
till ('ad) they came to the border of the land of Canaan.
This parallelism can also be seen in Jer 1:3:
It came also in the days of Jehoiakim . . . ,
and until ('ad) the end of the eleventh year
of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah,
until ('ad) the captivity of Jerusalem
in the fifth month.
One more example of this type of parallelism is in 2 Chr 36:16, a text only a few verses away from the text under discussion:
But they kept mocking the messengers of God,
despising his words,
and scoffing at his prophets,
till ('ad) the wrath of the LORDrose
against his people,
till ('ad) there was no remedy.
In all three examples, the second element beginning with "till/ until" ('ad) parallels temporally the first element beginning with the same word. One assumes the case is the same in 2 Chr 36:20b-21.
Line 8 of 2 Chr 36:20b-21 is parallel to lines 3-4 not only linguistically (lemallot) but also conceptually (Jeremiah prophesied the seventy years). Therefore it makes sense to take lines 6-7 as a parenthetical element further explaining line 5. This appears to disassociate the "seventy years" from delineating the length of time for the years of sabbath rest. In other words, the land completed its enjoyment of the sabbath rests (which had begun after the desolation of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.) by the time of Persia's conquest of Babylon, this latter event marking the end of the seventy-year "rule" of Babylon. ...
... In any case, while the Chronicler has injected a new theological issue into the seventy-year prophecy (i-e., the sabbath rest of the land), he does not seem to have radically changed the meaning of Jeremiah's prophecy." - Jeremiah's Seventy Years For Babylon: A Re-Assessment, Part I: The Scriptural Data, AUSS, 1987, Vol 25, No. 2, pp. 209-211.
-
Narkissos
Hi AnnO'Maly,
Thank you for this interesting quote.
I do agree on the double `ad construction pointing to the same terminus ad quem (although not from a different terminus a quo, as your interpretation would require), and on the parenthetical character of (Winkle's) lines 6-7; however I don't see how it should follow from those structural observations that "this appears to disassociate the "seventy years" from delineating the length of time for the years of sabbath rest," since the theme of the sabbath rest is already expressed in v. 5 -- which the parenthesis only explains. Should line 8 come before line 5 it might have been a little different. But even thus it would not weigh much against the following contextual fact: the lack of any indication of a terminus a quo other than the exile following the destruction of the temple (v. 17-20) under Zedekiah (v. 11-14) leaves the reader/hearer little choice but understanding the 70 years as being the duration of the LAST exile AND the desolation of the land. To construe it otherwise you would have to posit a reader who not only knows the book of Jeremiah (in which of its wildly different versions, which precisely split just after 25:11f?) perfectly but analyses it as a modern scholar, with all the data of comparative chronology at hand. Needless to say this is a highly improbable hypothesis for an original audience, hence for the meaning the author wished to convey (whether he was aware of the actual duration of the exile/desolation and the possible drift of meaning from the 70 years in Jeremiah 25:11b; 29:10 is another matter).
-
isaacaustin
pseudo scholar said:
whyizit
The seventy years was a period of servitude, desolation and exile of the Jews deported to Babylon in 607 BCE until they were released from Babylon due to her fall in 539 BCE in the year 537 BCE. Most if not all modern authorities discard any notion or importance of the seventy years and thus use a chronology based on the regnal years of the Babylonian kings counting from 539 BCE which marked the end of the Babylonian Monarchy places the fall of Jerusalem in 587 or 586 BCE.
The difference between secular and Bible chronology is one of methodology and the seventy years, WT chronologists such as the celebrated WT scholars insist that a true biblical chronology must factor in the biblical 'seventy years.'
scholar JW
My reply:
Only if you ignore Jer 25 which states all the nations of the world which would fall under babylonian domination. Jeru was one of the many nations. 586/7 is the only date that all of history shows to be true.