by 2pink 160 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Some of these posts from JWD poster 'ithinkisee' may help you and your friend:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/94785/1/What-does-Josephus-say-about-586-87-BCE
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/96152/1/Many-many-books-from-library-on-586-87
Haven't heard anything from either ithinkisee or freedomlover(r) for a long time. I hope they and their kids are doing well.
-Aude.
607 - a very heady subject. there is much on this site about it.
Leolaia
Post 13750
That is why one must look heavenward. LOL...
scholar JW
2pink,
As a JW I hadn't really known that others didn't think that Jerusalem was destroyed in 607BCE. Why did I think everyone believed Jerusalem was destroyed in 607BCE? Because Watchtower had used all the weight of their authority to pound it in our heads that it happened when they say it happened. They never presented the real truth. However, as the Information Age has blossomed with research at our fingertips, we clearly see that nobody agrees with the JW fictional rewriting of history. NOBODY!
Wikipedia is straightforward about the history of Jerusalem, no 607BC in the view of real historians: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem#Temple_periods
Wiki does mention 607 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology_of_Jehovah%27s_Witnesses#Fall_of_Jerusalem
Really, why is 607 so important to the Watchtower clergy? To try to justify that something happened in 1914. What happened in 1914? Well, that was the start of "this generation" that WT prophecied would see Armageddon. In fact, Watchtower prophecied that millions living in the 1920s and 1930s would never die. But they died. "This generation" false prophecy was swept under the rug and reinterpreted to mean that the "generation" alive in 33CE would still be alive when the big A hit.
Of course, when they're a bunch of false prophets, it's no big deal to falsify all history.
Hey 2pink, would you like to see the list of "non-JW scholars" that support 607BCE? I'll give you a hit of what they ALL have in common... "Walk like an Egyptian"
SCHOLAR, Have you ever read Zechariah 7:1-5? verse 1 says "In the fourth year of Darius and last part of verse 2 says "Shall I weep in the fifth month, practicing an abstinence, the way I have done THESE O HOW MANY YEARS?" vERSE 5,LAST PART, "WHEN YOU FASTED AND THERE WAS WAILING IN THE FIFTH MONTH AND IN THE SEVENTH MONTH AND THIS FOR 70 YEARS, DID YOU REALLY FAST FOR ME?" In the marginal ref. they give 2Kings 25:8-9 and Jeremiah52:12-13 to show they were weeping because Jerusalem had been desolated. 2Kings 25:25 shows why the were weeping in the seventh month. Because Gedaliah and those with him were killed. Vol.1 Insight on the Scriptures page 583, last paragraph on the right, says 520 B.C.E. was the second year of Darius so the forth year would be 518. 518 being the 1st year and add 69=587. they weeped 70 years down to 518. They would have to weep 90 years to get 607. Add 89 to 518. Yes, the Society is off 20 years.
Billy,
You made an excellent point that I was going to touch on myself when I had a chance to get back online. Why the whole debate over 607 B.C.E. to start with? I've never been to a church that spoke of or even cared whether or not Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586, 587, or 607 B.C.E. so it is obviously not important to them. To them, it is just an event in the Bible and its date is of no real significance.
However, to the WTS this date is extremely important because it ties into all of their doctrines concerning 1914 C.E. and 1919 C.E.. Without 607, 1914 is false and their proclaimation of them being the only true religion falls apart. They need it, plain and simple.
Scholar,
With all of your efforts to support this date on this message board and in your own mind, what are you going to do when the Society quietly drops the whole 1914 teaching altogether?
1. The WTS does NOT start the “seventy years” with the destruction of Jerusalem. It starts the period with the exodus of Gedaliah’s murderers from a place north of Jerusalem two months later. The WTS waits for this moment as its starting event because it demands that the Land of Judah had to be devoid of humans and of domesticated animals before the Seventy Years could commence.
2. The WTS, however, does not end the Seventy Years with the return of Jews from Babylon and a repopulation of the land. No, the WTS waits until well after the Returnees were settled in their towns. Without any Scriptural justification, the WTS waits until later, when the Returnees met, worked and worshiped at the temple site. Ezra 3:1 is cited by the WTS, although nowhere does Ezra use the expression “Seventy Years”.
3. The start of the WTS’s Seventy Years is thus related to the removal (not just depopulation) of every human and domestic animal from the whole land, not just from Jerusalem, while the end of its Seventy Years is not related to the presence of people on the land, but is related to the temple, but not to its rebuilding.
4. The WTS does not relate its end of the Seventy Years to the restoration of the destroyed temple, which should be a natural end-marker, but it relates the end of the period to the moment some Jews worshiped at an altar they had built at the site.
5. The WTS cannot prove which BCE year the Returnees first worshiped at the temple site.
6. The WTS appeals to the 70 years of Jerusalem’s desolations at Daniel 9:2. Firstly, Daniel is not making a prophecy, he is giving an interpretation of Jeremiah. While the WTS misuses Daniel 9:2 to say that Jerusalem had to be destroyed for the Seventy Years to commence, the WTS does not start the period with Jerusalem’s destruction, nor does the WTS end the Seventy Years with the restoration of Jerusalem (not the temple, not the land), which they reckon took place about 150 years later.
7. Jeremiah was one of a long string of prophets who for centuries forewarned Israel and Judah that continued disobedience would result in the calamity that ultimately befell them. The destruction did not occur because of a warning from Jeremiah alone, but because from Moses’ time the people continually disobeyed God’s commandments, laws and statutes as repeatedly given by the prophets.
8. Jeremiah applied the “seventy years” to Babylon, not to Jerusalem, and to the nations’ servitude of Babylon.
“These nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. But when the seventy years are fulfilled, [the LORD] will punish the king of Babylon.” (25:11, 12, NIV)
“The LORD says: ‘When seventy years are completed for Babylon.’” (29:10, NIV)
9. The WTS cannot prove that September/October 607 BCE is the date for the start of the Seventy Years without relying on the secular sources it decries.
10. The WTS is incapable of citing archaeological evidence that shows the land of Judah was denuded of people or domestic animals at any stage. The evidence to date shows dramatic depopulation but a continued presence of people in Judah throughout the Babylonian Exile.
11. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the elite, the power brokers, the intelligentsia, leaving just the poorest “People of the Land” (am hares). The reasons for doing that should be obvious. The exiled elite were the urban monotheists who were determined that religious worship be centralised at Jerusalem. Their opponents, the People of the Land, worshiped several deities at various locations around the country. The elite wrote the history, and painted the People of the Land accordingly. They tried to write the People of the Land out of history, like the marginalised Palestinians of today.
Doug
12. The Ancient writer was not interested in knowing what event started the Seventy Years. He only wanted to know when it was going to end. The starting point was completely irrelevant to him, so he did not leave us with a statement indicating the event that marked the start. Their “history” was theology (historiography), rather than a precise, sequenced, accurate documentation of events.
When modern Man asks for the starting date of the Seventy Years, he normally uses principles derived from his own culture: using modern attitudes towards numbers and statistics that enable him to count back 70 years.
It is far more relevant to understand the culture of the Ancients, and to apply their cultural attitude towards numbers. They were prepared to employ hyperbole, give meanings to individual numbers, use numbers didactically, and so on.
As an example, the number 70 combined the spiritual meanings assigned to the numbers 7 and 10. This meaning was more significant than a numerical dimension.
The Hebrews assigned a number to each of the 22 letters of their alphabet, and a number was obtained by adding the numerical value of the string of letters. The order that the letters were placed in did not matter, so they had no need to assign a letter for zero (“0”).
Imagine trying to invent mathematical formulae or doing calculations with this method. The Roman system of numbers had a form of positional notation, yet did not permit the use of Times Tables.
13. If the Seventy Year period is not defined with the precision demanded of today’s technological age, it follows that the “Seventy Heptads” is similarly loose. One is based on the other. So much so, we see many “solutions”, with each one vigorously promoted and defended.
In the case of the “Heptads”, neither the start point nor the end points is explicitly defined to the exclusion of other possibilities, which results in the numerous outcomes.
The WTS’s interpretation of the “Heptads” points to dates that were fulfilled some 2000 years ago. The Dispensationalists, however, now fall into the suspect situation experienced by JWs, since the Dispensationalists snap off part of the “Heptad” system and project it to the current day – for the past 120 years or so, anyway.
garyneal
Post 218
The date 607 BCE and 1914 CE are very important to sincere Bible Students because these dates relate to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. It is not surprising that the churches of Christendom have no interest in such matters because they have no belief or interest in Bible prophecy.
The dropping of 1914 CE is merely a product of your fanciful imagination, the date marks an event grounded in Scripture revolving around the reality of God's Kingdom. Perhaps, you should pay close attention to the Lord's Prayer.
scholar JW
Alwayshere
Post 637
The references to the seventy years in Zechariah simply attest to the simple fact that the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem had for the past seventy years memorialized their fate of deportation, exile and the destruction of their Temple and city. The seventy years therein was that same period from the Fall in 607 BCE until their Return in 537 BCE. There is simply nothing in those texts that support your nonsense.
scholar JW
