by Witness My Fury 492 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
607 BC - 587 BC = 1914 AD - 1934 AD .
607 BC - 537 BC = 1914 AD - 1984 AD.
587 BC - 517 BC = 1934 AD - 2004 AD.
587 BC ... 5 + 8 + 7 . 517 BC ... 5 + 1 + 7 .
1984 AD + 7 years = 1991 AD + 8 years = 1999 AD + 5 years = 2004 AD.
1991 AD + 7 years = 1998 AD + 1 year = 1999 AD + 5 years = 2004 AD.
I was taking the piss OBVES. Your numerology voodoo wont work on me sorry as my BS sensors are cranked up to 11. Only the weak and moronic will be fished in.
@thetrueone wrote:
How is it that the WTS. calculated 6000 years from Adam's existence up to October 1975, when that is impossible by using bible chronology or archaeological means. ?
@djeggnog wrote:
It has been evident to me for some time that you're illiterate about such things, but this doesn't mean that you cannot learn how Bible chronology (not archaeology, since the only events that are important to Jehovah's Witnesses, not to the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, which is only the corporate publishing arm of Jehovah's Witnesses -- a distinction that is totally meaningless to the ignorant -- is [539 BC], the date when Cyrus deposed Babylon, and 70 AD, the year when Herod's temple was destroyed by the Romans, which are historically relevant to Jehovah's Witnesses) provides the basis for determining the number of years since Adam that mankind have been walking upon the earth until now. By just using the secular year of [539 BC], which corresponds to [AM 3253] on the Hebrew calendar, and the Bible, I can lay out the years when every major event (and some not-so-major events) occurred in the Bible, but let me just focus here on the year 1975 that you mentioned:
Assume for a moment that there are valid reasons why Jehovah's Witnesses conclude that Adam's creation occurred in the year 4026 BC. On the Hebrew calendar, our year of 2011 corresponds to [AM 5771], which means that the Jews opine that the creation of the world began 5,770 years ago, so this means that they don't believe the world of mankind has been around as long as 6,000 years. The Jews have a 265 year problem that they cannot reconcile in the way they reckon Bible chronology, but I'm not going to bore you with the reasons that they are much mistaken in their view, and we'll instead take a different tact.
We can calculate that the difference between Adam's creation in the year 4026 BC and 1 BC is 4,025 years. Add to this 4,025, the year 1 BC to 1 AD, so now we have a subtotal of 4,026 years. Lastly, the difference between the number of years between 1 AD and 1975 AD is 1,974 years, and so adding 1,974 years to our subtotal of 4,026 years is what gives us a total of 6,000 years. (4,025 + 1 + 1974 = 6,000).
Your raising this issue in this thread indicates to me that you think this to be as good of an opportunity as any to bash Jehovah's Witnesses for what we believe as to the significance of the year 1975. We do not know when the sixth creative day ended, for we do not know how long it was after Adam's creation that Adam's wife, Eve, was created, but what we did know is that by October of 1975, humans had been living for 6,000 years. You're off topic. I don't expect that you will understand what I have said in this message without help from someone. I hope that you will find someone that is willing to help you understand what it is I've written to you here in this paragraph and in the paragraph before this one.
@wannabefree wrote:
Anybody who has been a Witness for more than 15 years knows that the TheWatch Tower Bible & TractSocietywas a term used synonymously with "The Organization" "The Faitful Slave" and was the term used to refer to those who were in charge, the suppliers of spiritual food, the ones that had the special insight and were not to be questioned, the ones who were God's representatives on earth, the name that used to be rubber stamped on correspondence to congregations.
While today there are a number of Jehovah's Witnesses within God's organization that are intimately associated with those that staff the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the majority of Jehovah's Witnesses that are associated with the Society today live in communities around the world and hold secular jobs so that they may provide for themselves and their families, which enable some of them to provide financial support toward all of the work that the Society does in preparing spiritual food for both God's people and for those with whom they conduct regular home Bible studies.
Many of these Jehovah's Witnesses provide financial contributions that help not only who are members of our governing body that oversee our preaching activity, but help other Jehovah's Witnesses as well, including those that are missionaries and travelling overseers, to help the rest of Jehovah's Witnesses to more fully accomplish their ministry through the exhortations and encouragement provided at special, circuit and district assemblies. As such, I, too, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, am likewise associated with the Society, and while I am someone having insight and one of God's representatives here on earth, I don't mind being questioned about anything related to the Bible and the ministerial work in which I engage, since I'm delighted to have been appointed by holy spirit to do so, either with or without complaint. (1 Corinthians 9:17)
I don't know what you meant by "special insight," but I especially don't know why it is you believe Jehovah's Witnesses aren't subject to questioning, for I've clearly demonstrated here that this isn't true. A question was floated by the OP and there are at least 14 pages of posts to which I have continued to respond.
For one to deny this fact, the person would have to be ignorant.
If anyone were to agree with the things that you have asserted here, such persons would be ignorant. Anyone that would listen to you would be taking the same risk that you are willing to take, namely, that God's word is not the truth, that God's prophecies are hooey, that the only real life is the one we are now living, and that the only thing to which anyone of us can look forward is death with no hope of a resurrection. (John 17:17; 1 Corinthians 15:32) Anyone that would take the risk of putting their faith in your words than in the words of the apostle Paul, who exhorted that we be mindful of what Jesus became for us, "a life-giving spirit," would be a fool. (1 Corinthians 15:45)
@AnnOMaly:
The reason you do not reply to most of my (and some other posters') messages, eggie, is because I/we challenge your claims and assertions, asking awkward questions about them, pressing you to provide evidence. You know that you haven't a leg to stand on, so when berating, deflection and obfuscation don't work, you like to ignore.
I don't berate anyone, neither do I engage in deflection or obfuscation, and this last bit would be like the pot calling the kettle black, wouldn't it, @AnnOMaly? What scriptural evidence there is, you ignore, and I've provided much proving that Jehovah God is not the liar that you make him out to be in your posts. When that force that remains in you because of the food that Jehovah lovingly provides and because you are able to sustain it by breathing the air that Jehovah provides eventually becomes inactive, that hard hearted defiance that is also in you will be forgotten quicker than that which the king of Egypt exhibited during the 16th century BC before God and man.
The only reason that we today even consider the Pharaoh's defiance at all is because through the manner in which Jehovah dealt with him we have come to understand God's power, and through it we today can take to heart the way in which things turned out for someone that was prominent among men, who had exhibited the same defiant attitude toward the Almighty that you have exhibited here in this thread, for your name will be forgotten while Jehovah's name will continue to "be declared in all the earth." (Roman 9:17; 15:4) Contrary to what you believe about me, I stand on two legs, and I am convinced that God is for me and against people like you. (Romans 8:31)
When somebody points out a mistake, I know it's hard (pride and all that - especially for one who has set himself on so high a pedestal), but the most mature response is to say, 'my apologies' or 'my bad' and have done with it instead of trying to attack the person who brought the mistake to your attention. And wouldn't you say that the important thing IS accuracy when trying to establish the truth of a matter?
While having accurate knowledge of a matter is important, what is most important -- the most important thing -- is upholding God's truth, not upholding that which you call "truth." Jehovah's Witnesses are fully aware that there are things that we will not know accurately until God decides to make certain matters apparent to us. In this thread, the controversy over the secular dates given to the kings that once ruled in the Babylonian Dynasty of kings not being "consonant" with King Nebuchadnezzar's reign beginning in 607 BC, who the Bible makes clear was in his 18th regnal year when the 70-year period of exile of the Jews began in Babylon has given rise to doubts in some as to the reliability of the Bible, which unbelief is ostensibly based on historical king-lists, like what Ptolemy's Canon says about these Babylonian rulers.
There are many like you, @AnnOMaly, both here on JWN and elsewhere, that would rather Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (Jeremiah 52:29), or 19th year if his accession year were included (Jeremiah 52:12), to have begun some 20 years later in 587 BC than in 607 BC, the latter being the year when Jehovah's Witnesses believe Daniel's "seven times" (Daniel 4:25) began to be counted, but the motive for throwing out 607 BC and accepting 587 BC is clearly to subvert Bible truth. But history argues a different point of view that is consonant with the viewpoint of Jehovah's Witnesses, a viewpoint that people like you reject, @AnnOMaly.
First-century historian Flavius Josephus wrote in Antiquities of the Jews (Book X, Chapter ix) about "Judea and Jerusalem, and the temple" as to it continuing "to be a desert for seventy years," also stating in Against Apion (Book I, Chapter xix) that it was "during the interval of seventy years, until the days of Cyrus" that Jerusalem lay desolate. As to Josephus' motives for writing what he did, keep in mind that Josephus was no Christian sympathizer, for he was a Pharisee that had befriended Vespasian, who became the emperor of Rome, and he also served in the military with Vespasian's son, Titus, so that Josephus became an eyewitness of the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy regarding the destruction of Herod's temple, which occurred in 70 AD. (Luke 19:43, 44; 21:20-24)
What things Josephus wrote regarding this 70-year period of Jewish exile is at odds with your anti-God viewpoint, so it isn't because you cannot believe what Jehovah's Witnesses have concluded as to destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar's armies occurring in 607 BC, and it isn't because you care one wit about history. It's just that you don't want to believe what Jehovah's Witnesses have concluded based on the prophesies of Jeremiah and Daniel, which conclusions find support in some of what things Josephus wrote. If you could prove God's word to be wrong about the prophesied 70-year period of exile, then you would feel justified in taking the anti-God viewpoint. But you cannot prove God to be a liar, can you?
You're like the fool that puts it all on the "Field" on the crap table for one roll of the dice, even though you bet loses to "5," "6," "7" and "8." The way you view the matter is like the person that sees he has 20 chances to roll a "2," "3," "4," "9," "10," "11" or "12" in the field, and 16 chances to roll one of these other four numbers in the field, but the law of probabilities doesn't agree with such an "analysis," considering that tossing a coin "Heads" or "Tails" has better odds (50%) than rolling one of these seven numbers (44%). I sometimes refer to the probability of rolling a field number versus a non-field number on a pair of dice because some seem to not get it when I would say that proving God to be a liar is like choosing to put it all on "Black" or on "Red" (48.6%) when there is a "0" and often a "00" on the roulette wheel to which a bet can lose, whereas it is 100% "impossible for God to lie," which means you will never be able to prove God to be a liar! (Hebrews 6:18) What reasonable person would gamble on their life?
Further, if what is written as to this 70-year period in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel as to "the devastations of Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 36:21; Daniel 9:2), which books were certainly available to the first-century Jewish religious leaders, were in dispute, I would expect this controversy to have been set straight in one or more of the gospels about the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is no mention of this in Scripture.
Neither do we read about dissent from anyone as to Jesus' mention of Noah and the flood (Matthew 24:37-39), nor do we find his mention of Sodom and Gomorrah and Tyre and Sidon being ridiculed by these religious leaders (Matthew 10:14; 11:24), so this indicates unanimity with regard to these historic events as much so as Jesus' mention of "the appointed times of the nations" that was not disputed by any of the religious leaders, so the inference to be drawn from this is a kind of acknowledgment that those religious leaders, who were opposed to Jesus' ministry, recognized that these "seven times" that Daniel talked about were, in fact, running at that time.
Should you or anyone point out a mistake on my part -- a typo -- I am quick to acknowledge my mistake, but you make a grave mistake in marginalizing Jehovah, in rejecting his word and declaring it to be false. I can be forgiven my mistakes, but you are speaking against the holy spirit, @AnnOMaly. Who will forgive you? (Matthew 12:32; Mark 3:29)
And enough of the persecution complex already, huh? I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't hate you (or JWs). I find your conceit and refusal to engage with the issues irritating, but hate? Nah.
I don't have any "persecution complex"; what you are doing is truly a mystery to me as to how you could have the audacity to meddle and contradict Bible truth, and with your words to become a fighter against God, as if the work I do is not empowered by and is not from God. (2 Thessalonians 2:7; Acts 5:38, 39; 2 Corinthians 5:20) You know exactly what I mean by "hate," don't you? You "hate" me in the same way that the world hates Jesus (John 7:7)
Just as they persecuted Jesus over the things he taught, you persecute me because of the things I teach on account of Jesus' name, for you have no wish to observe Jesus' word (John 15:18-21) To persecute can mean "to suffer," "to suppress truth," "to oppress," "to frustrate," even "to ridicule," so you might want to consult a dictionary. I am guilty of typos, but it would be folly on your part to challenge whether I know the meaning of words I use that are contained in the US English lexicon.
If given a choice between observing the words of Jesus Christ and listening to the protestations of members of their family against the truth, then anyone that has greater affection for their father or mother, or for their son or daughter, than they do for Jesus, then that person isn't worthy of Jesus. (Matthew 10:37) True, we ought to love our family, but we must "hate" them, in the sense of loving family members less than we do Jesus, loving Jesus more than we love our own souls, that is to say, loving him more than we love our own lives, should certain members of our family be against the truth.
At Luke 14:26, Jesus said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple." We must choose Jesus over anyone and over anything. Moreover, if anyone should hate Jesus, then he or she also hates Jehovah God. (John 15:23)
@djeggnog
Amazing. Simply amazing. Hardly anyone on this thread knows about Occam's Razor.
Out of the thousands of lines of bullshit in this threat and I mean THOUSANDS of lines of bullshit, I'm quite amazed that NO one would debate my simple argument in which I thorougly demolished the 607 argument. I mean, I TRASHED that argument, using ONLY the Bible and supported that Bible with two short references from the ONLY people who believe that bullshit, namely the WT Printing Corporation.
Everyone who believed in that 607 nonsense just flooded this thread with a ton of words and tons and tons of bullshit, but they NEVER addressed a SINGLE argument I made with my very SIMPLE and LOGICAL argument which actually MADE SENSE without any VOODOO BULLSHIT.
Sigh. You cannot shine Watchtower bullshit by trying to cover it up with tons of wordy bullshit, i.e. you cannot cover up bullshit with more bullshit. It still smells the same. Only more.
Farkel
Eggy quoting Josephus cant help you here, he's too unreliable.
He gives these reigns: (names given as in his writings)
Nebuchadnezzar 43
Evil Merodach 18
Neglissar 40
Labossordacus 9 months
Baltasar (called Naboandelus by the Babylonians) 17 years.
Now that = approx 100 years (118 - 18) from destruction of Jerusalem in Nebs 18th year, to fall of Babylon in 539. That clearly is WRONG and does not support 607 any better than it does 587.
It's worth pointing out that he also says 50 years captivity instead of 70 years in the last instance this likely being as a correction. So to use him as a support for 607 is to be selectively quoting him.
Farkel we know simple and logical doesnt work for some people lol...
witnessmyfury,
You said:
: Farkel we know simple and logical doesnt work for some people lol...
If that doesn't work for "some" people then those people need to know that "fuck you, you stupid fucking moron you don't deserve to know this stuff" DOES work for those people.
Farkel, Tough Love within Reason CLASS
@Witness My Fury:
Eggy quoting Josephus cant help you here, he's too unreliable.
I don't need Josephus' help if that is what you thought? Let's keep this simple, but don't be either simple-minded or small-minded, ok? It wouldn't be a good idea to confuse me with @Farkel, who doesn't seem to have the capacity to realize when the things he says makes no sense to anyone older than six or seven years old. Anyway, what it is that makes you regard Josephus as being unreliable? Do you think Josephus less reliable than Ptolemy, who wasn't even a historian? (I made reference to a historian, since I was discussing history, and would not think it appropriate to be referring to an astronomer.)
I rely solely upon the Bible, but I had pointed out to @AnnOMaly that since she prefers to side with historians, why does she not side with Josephus? I feel this is because what he writes in Antiquities of the Jews and Against Apion are inconvenient and/or not consonant with what she has already concluded, for if what he had written bolstered her point of view, surely she would be arguing how Josephus' writings supported her point of view.
He gives these reigns: (names given as in his writings)
Nebuchadnezzar 43
Evil Merodach 18
Neglissar 40
Labossordacus 9 months
Baltasar (called Naboandelus by the Babylonians) 17 years.
Now that = approx 100 years (118 - 18) from destruction of Jerusalem in Nebs 18th year, to fall of Babylon in 539. That clearly is WRONG and does not support 607 any better than it does 587.
So what is all of this supposed to mean? The issue isn't of what Josephus' king-lists might consist. The issue is what the man writes in Antiquities of the Jews (Book X, Chapter ix) about Judah and Jerusalem being "a desert for seventy years," and what he writes in Against Apion (Book I, Chapter xix) about their being an "interval of seventy years, until the days of Cyrus" when Jerusalem had lied desolate. You seem more than a bit confused over the point I was making here regarding the historical writings of a Pharisee as to what the Jews believed as to the length of Judah's desolation, but there is absolutely nothing in what Josephus wrote that contradicts the point he makes about seventy years. You can dismiss it, ignore it, act like he didn't write it, but the "seventy years" that Josephus wrote about isn't going to go away.
It's worth pointing out that he also says 50 years captivity instead of 70 years in the last instance this likely being as a correction. So to use him as a support for 607 is to be selectively quoting him.
You must either be a child or think me to be one. I wasn't using Josephus to support either the year 587 BC, 607 BC or any other year. Please read what it was I wrote. The writings of Josephus are available online. I would have inserted in here the URLs to these two passages to which I was referring, but I feel that if you are really interested in knowing the truth, you would be capable of finding them. Personally, I don't think you are at all interested in the truth, any more so than is @AnnOMaly or @Farkel, the latter who thinks he can fool everyone into thinking a man "wise in own conceit" to be the same as a truly wise person. (Proverbs 26:12, KJV) "There is more hope for the stupid one than for him."
You may look for these two passages and you may not look for either of them and that's ok, but as far as @Farkel is concerned, he may have you and others here fooled, but anyone that gives him glory would no doubt be just like him, not wise and not knowing any better. I gloss over his insults and putdowns, for I'm never surprised by the kinds of things that some immature individuals say when they have nothing of substance to say.
I never invite such individuals into my home or would shield the ears of young children knowing that these people lack self-control and will use profanities when it becomes apparent that their arguments are weak and convince no one but a six- or seven- year-old that has yet to learn how to spell puberty, let alone understand what the word means. But if you are interested in the truth @WMF, then I'd really be interested in hearing whether you regard Josephus' writings as far as what the Jews believed as to the seventy years as having been tampered with and, if you do, the basis for the conclusion you reach.
@djeggnog
Farkle said - Amazing. Simply amazing. Hardly anyone on this thread knows about Occam's Razor.
DJIdiotnog uses Ockham's Shaving foam, very voluminous but pretty much all air!
Eggnog you really are a piece of work aren't you... Your playing your old game again and it's called:
The I didnt say what I said before game.
The rules of your game are very simple, they are made and adjusted at your whim which results in you looking stupid to all but yourself, meanwhile you gloat in your own sheer brilliance. You have displayed classic Aspergers.
It is you who is the fool, the numb skull, the moron, the child, the mere student here. You claim to not understand my very simple post re Josephus, that would make you the fool. Or is it rather that you choose not to understand it, along with all the other evidence and problems presented against your precious 607 / 1914 date because of the horror that would result if you discover yourself to be in the wrong?
You need to approach the subject from a neutral position and go where the facts take you.
"Once you can honestly say, "I don't know" , then it becomes possible to get at the truth." - Robert Heinlein.
djeggnog:
I don't berate anyone, neither do I engage in deflection or obfuscation
LOL! It's a matter of permanent record now and it's sad that you persist in your foolishness.
What scriptural evidence there is, you ignore, ...
Again, this thread shows the reverse is true.
... and I've provided much proving that Jehovah God is not the liar that you make him out to be in your posts.
... your anti-God viewpoint
... you make a grave mistake in marginalizing Jehovah, in rejecting his word and declaring it to be false.
More shameless lies and more examples of your penchant for berating people! You've been asked on more than one occasion to desist making those kinds of slurs about me. *sigh*
Contrary to what you believe about me, I stand on two legs, and I am convinced that God is for me and against people like you. (Romans 8:31)
"Let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall" (1 Cor. 10:12) - especially when that individual should be more than aware that Jehovah God hates "a false tongue" (Prov. 6:16-19).
There are many like you, @AnnOMaly, both here on JWN and elsewhere, that would rather Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year (Jeremiah 52:29), or 19th year if his accession year were included (Jeremiah 52:12), to have begun some 20 years later in 587 BC than in 607 BC
It's not a simple matter of preference. It's a matter of where the scriptural and historical evidence lead. Despite trying to bury readers here in your own mound of rhetoric, you cannot dodge the avalanche of evidence against Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year being 607 BCE.
In this thread, the controversy over the secular dates given to the kings that once ruled in the Babylonian Dynasty of kings not being "consonant" with King Nebuchadnezzar's reign beginning in 607 BC, who the Bible makes clear was in his 18th regnal year when the 70-year period of exile of the Jews began in Babylon has given rise to doubts in some as to the reliability of the Bible, which unbelief is ostensibly based on historical king-lists, like what Ptolemy's Canon says about these Babylonian rulers.
You are still making it something it's not. It isn't 'Bible versus secular chronology/history' but rather 'Bible and secular chronology/history versus WTS interpretation.' The Bible's testimony on this historical period harmonizes with the established chronology far better than it does with the WTS' chronology. In addition, your own 'kings list' (specifically the years you say Nabonidus and Belshazzar ruled) cannot be substantiated either biblically or archaeologically.
Along with Witness My Fury, I cannot understand why you appealed to someone as unreliable as Josephus is with chronology. Then when it is pointed out to you why he cannot be relied upon, you say you didn't need his help, babble about how you somehow thought I should have used him and deride WMF for being confused! You really are flailing about here (like the dying and enraged Pris in 'Blade Runner').
[djeggnog to WMF] You seem more than a bit confused over the point I was making here regarding the historical writings of a Pharisee as to what the Jews believed as to the length of Judah's desolation, but there is absolutely nothing in what Josephus wrote that contradicts the point he makes about seventy years.
Tsk, tsk, eggie! You really are shameless. The writings of this Pharisee also attested that the temple was desolate for 50 years and this agreed with their Jewish histories.
Against Apion, I, xxi: "These accounts agree with the true histories in our books; for in them it is written that Nebuchadnezzar, in the eighteenth year of his reign, laid our temple desolate, and so it lay in that state of obscurity for fifty years; but that in the second year of the reign of Cyrus its foundations were laid, and it was finished again in the second year of Darius."
We don't need 1st century AD Josephus or 2nd century AD Ptolemy to establish the correct time-line for the 7th and 6th centuries BC. There are thousands of ancient records contemporaneous with the neo-Assyrian, neo-Babylonian and Persian eras that do this instead. You should know that if you'd read GTR.
