Egg,
In Post 410 you ask me what I think.
I say you pasted wrong BC dates after the ruled kings or people.
There are some arguments that you can be of by two years but what you mentioned make no sense.
Others already mentioned your BC dates errors.
607 wrong using ONLY the bible (and some common sense)
by Witness My Fury 492 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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djeggnog
@djeggnog wrote:
You say you didn't rely on Whiston's translation? Then why bring up Nabopolassar's 29 years? If John Barclay's translation was your text of choice, then Nabopolassar's length of reign would not have been an issue for you.
@AnnOMaly wrote:
You hope that by flooding us with your river of nonsense, nobody will notice your fibs and deceptions. Well, you've been called out on this one too....
As I stated in my previous message, I quoted from Whiston because you had quoted from Whiston, for, as I also told @WMF, "I mentioned Whiston's translation of Against Apion considering the fact that @AnnOMaly quoted [Whiston] in her post directed to me from Chapter 21 of Book I." I was aware of Whiston's translation error, but I only addressed this point about the 29 years being a discrepancy that Josephus doesn't address when Ptolemy's Canon assigns only 21 years to Nabopolassar's reign to learn from you why you would rely upon Whiston's translation of Josephus' works, when Josephus didn't write "twenty-nine years"?
In fact, I specifically asked you: "On what basis do you regard 'twenty-nine years' as being an error?" It didn't matter what I knew to be true; what mattered to me is what you knew about this "twenty-nine years," which is the reason I put the question to you in the first place. I typically do not ask questions to which I don't already know the answer.
I don't know how you think you can get away with such bare-faced lies! In your post #409, you quote, at length, Whiston's translation! I agree with the others - there HAS to be something mentally wrong with you.
Ok.
@Dutch-scientist:
Others already mentioned your BC dates errors.
Ok.
@Witness My Fury:
Good Lord he's dumber than a bag of hammers. Here's that footnote he quoted again for you: ... The temple was destroyed in 587/6 BCE....
In his footnote 441, John Barclay indicates that "Josephus writes this introduction in biblical mode, while claiming to say no more than Berosus." I'm not sure that you understand what Barclay means by "biblical mode," but he goes on to say that Josephus' "biblical figure of 70 years ... is not justified by the later calculations" made by Josephus.
In your post, you highlighted the words "The temple was destroyed in 587/6 BCE" contained in footnote 439 of Barclay's commentary in Chapter 19 of Against Apion, wherein he interprets Josephus' reference to the destruction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem, and although Barclay believes the temple was destroyed in "587/6 BCE," he tell us that Josephus believed Jerusalem to have been "deserted ... for seventy years until Cyrus, the first king of the Persians."
So, then, if Cyrus deposed Babylon in 539 BC, and the Jews had returned to the land of Judah by the second year of Cyrus' reign, or by 537 BC, and of Judah had lied desolate for seventy years as Josephus states, then we arrive at the year 607 BC when Nebuchadnezzar deposed Judah so that its inhabitants became exiles in Babylon until their release by Cyrus' decree some 70 years later.
Maybe the significance of this went over your head, I don't know, but, as I stated in my previous post, I don't expect you to agree with me. I really don't think you even understood the argument that I was making here, and I think it would be just a waste of my time trying to explain it to you in a way that you would understand it since you, being close-minded, wouldn't hear my explanation.
@djeggnog wrote:
Do you think you have the right to dictate to me what to believe or what not to believe? Do you feel you have the right to voice dissent over what things Jehovah's Witnesses believe and what things Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe?
@Witness My Fury wrote:
Do you feel you have the right to overrule the GBs authority over you eggnog? .....Do you feel you are BETTER than them? Do you?
There you are again questioning what things Jehovah's Witnesses not in fade (as you are!) believe, when a Witness in fade is not a Witness at all! You have every right to decide what you are going to believe, but don't you worry yourself over what things I believe and why, ok? The governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses are fellow Jehovah's Witnesses -- my spiritual brothers -- and not masters over my faith or masters over anyone else's faith that we all have in common in connection with Christ Jesus. The governing body is the central body of elders that is taking the lead in ensuring that the good news is preached throughout the inhabited earth for a witness, and they provide Bible-based counsel to those associated with the worldwide organization of Jehovah's Witnesses to help all of us, including those whose faith is weak, remain strong in the faith.
You want to believe there is something wrong with me posting to JWN and I'm going to stand in the way of your deluding yourself, but even if you are convinced that JWN is an apostate website, which is what it may be in your opinion, I don't post to apostate websites, so I'll let you figure out who is right and who is wrong in this assessment of JWN. Better yet, ask @Simon whether JWN is the exclusive province of apostates, and if he should tell you that JWN is an apostate website, you won't find any further posts from me.
Again, I don't care what you choose to believe. The question is, @WMF, what can you prove?
So then Mr Uber HYPOCRITE Eggnog, get the fuck off this site like you are repeatedly told to do so by your mind control masters.
No one but you has told me to "get the fuck off this site," and why should I obey your dictates? If I were to start listening to you, rather than thinking for myself, I suppose I would then be allowing myself to become a weak-minded victim of "mind control" about whom you are railing on and on here, with me being your puppet and you, the puppeteer, controlling what things I do. Only a sociopath would think he or she could dictate the behavior of someone else, someone that suffers from some form of antisocial personality disorder. I will probably be withdrawing from this thread soon, but in the future, please don't feel any need to respond to any of my posts.
You don't know me, but you do know enough to know that I am not your dog or some animal, but someone that was made in the image and likeness of God. The fact that you speak in this way to me without any restraint does suggest in my opinion that you have respect for neither God or man, but I will not only accept you as you are, but I offer my apology to you for assuming that you were at all interested in what Jehovah's Witnesses believe. You believe you already know what Jehovah's Witnesses believe, but I'm telling you that you don't know.
We believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, and that if it says that the land of Judah lay desolate for 70 years, that the land of Judah lie desolate, not for 50 years as some claim, but for 70 years to which period Bible prophecy attests, despite what secular historians lacking faith in the truthfulness of God's word might opine as to the Bible's veracity. I also believe that when the end of the present wicked system of things comes that those that do not know God as well as those that refuse to obey the good news about our Lord Jesus, including those said to be on the fence "in fade" as far as their faith in the fulfillment of God's prophecies is concerned, will all perish as they "undergo the judicial punishment of everlasting destruction" as those who are actually exercising faith in Jesus will regard "with wonder" the things taking place during the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven "in that day." (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10)
@djeggnog
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cantleave
No one but you has told me to "get the fuck off this site," and why should I obey your dictates?
You cult leaders tell you to "get the fuck off this site", surely you should be obeying them, since they are your mediators to Christ!
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paladin
Obves & Eggnog are giving me head aches and glazed vision. LOL
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AnnOMaly
djeggnog:
As I stated in my previous message, I quoted from Whiston because you had quoted from Whiston, for, as I also told @WMF, "I mentioned Whiston's translation of Against Apion considering the fact that @AnnOMaly quoted [Whiston] in her post directed to me from Chapter 21 of Book I." I was aware of Whiston's translation error, but I only addressed this point about the 29 years being a discrepancy that Josephus doesn't address when Ptolemy's Canon assigns only 21 years to Nabopolassar's reign to learn from you why you would rely upon Whiston's translation of Josephus' works, when Josephus didn't write "twenty-nine years"?
In fact, I specifically asked you: "On what basis do you regard 'twenty-nine years' as being an error?" It didn't matter what I knew to be true; what mattered to me is what you knew about this "twenty-nine years," which is the reason I put the question to you in the first place. I typically do not ask questions to which I don't already know the answer.
You're still weaving in the fibs and you are NOT going to get away with it.
You first quoted snippets directly from Whiston's translation in your post #407 (p. 14). Annoyed that WMF and I drew your attention to how unreliable Josephus is on the matter of the 70 years (having provided the '50 years' quote from the same translation), you then quoted Whistons' translation at length in post #409 (p. 15) and noted the 29 year discrepancy. You only became aware of WHOSE translation you'd been referencing and the manuscript error when I pointed it out to you, which prompted your questions and subsequently all your twisting and turning to make it look like you were in the know all along. (It's already been suggested you cannot tolerate anybody being more clued up than you are and hate to genuinely concede anything - your above comments further confirm this.)
For heaven's sake, eggie, you even copied and pasted the relevant sections from both Whiston's and Barclay's versions so the reader can compare the wording and cross-check with your initial quotes! Your determination to 'save face' on this is absolutely hilarious!
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Bungi Bill
This is the main reason that I finally broke with the WTS:
- i.e. being more and more placed in a position of having to try and defend the indefensible.
All one has to do in order to realize the 607 BC date is wrong is to:
(i) Read what WTS literature itself says about the reigns of the five last Babylonian kings.
(ii) Then count backwards from what the WTS calls that "Absolute Date" - 539 BC.
1) Nabonidus, reigned 17 years i.e. 556 - 539 (WT 68 8/15 p.491)
2) Labashi-Marduk, reigned "less than one year" i.e. 556 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
3) Neriglassar, reigned 4 years i.e. 560 - 556 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
4) Evil-Merodach, reigned 2 years i.e. 562 - 560 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
5) Nebuchadnezzar, reigned 43 years i.e. 605 - 562 (WT 00 5/5 p.12)
According to 2 Kings 25: 2,8 Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed during Nebuchadnezzar's 19th year of reign - according to the 607 BC date, Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed two years before his accession to the throne!
The Watchtower article of January 1, 1965 in particular mentions nothing about an extra (or kings) between Labashi-Marduk and Nabonidus. All one has to do is count backwards, which is not diffcult!
Once more, as in many other matters, it is the WTS's own literature that shoots them in the foot.
(Realizing, of course, that this is not going to bother the more blinkered JW diehards - which, sad to say, constitutes most of them. In the end, it all comes down to "God is using only one channel, which is the FDS, and this is what they say .......... etc. etc. etc - all without one shred of evidence in support).
It would all be quite laughable - except so many people have been badly hurt taking this denial of the obvious seriously!
Bill.
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Witness My Fury
Bill though correct, that's far too simple for the egg.
Egg, I dont have to prove anything. ...You are the one attempting to defend 607 so the onus is on you.
You still haven't proved your claims, here's two for you to stump up the goods with:
1. 35 years for Nabonidus / Belshazzar.
2. That Daniel 2:1 should be taken as meaning something entirely different from what it plainly states. (yes i know you think you have answered this, but i want to see you twist it again thanks)
As far as point 1. goes Josephus whom you are so keen to bring into this discussion says this regarding Belshazzars reign:
Baltasar (called Naboandelus by the Babylonians) 17 years.
I think it's fair to say that Josephus is saying that Belshazzar and Nabonidus are the SAME person. But i guess you will vehemenently disagree and bring in all kind of non relevant material to say that's NOT what he meant.
If you are going to use Josephus as a defense for 607 then you will only be seen to be cherry picking. I've already pointed out what he said about the length of time between Nebs 18th year and the fall of Baylon that he gives it 100 years. So was Jerusalem desolate for 100 years? No. Does this help 607? No.
He also gives the length of the kings of Israel and years from temple dedication to destruction. None of which add up with his own chronology. So quite plainly he is WRONG. So why even use him at all in this? His only relevance is to the period he was eye witness to which was the destruction of Jerusalem in 66 - 70 A.D.
As to the point I made about your're being on this site Egg. If you or I were to go and speak to your body of elders or CO and discuss with them your posting on here in attemps to defend JWs from ex JWs, apostates, persons weak in faith (their terminologies), we all know what their advice to you would initially be. Get off that site!!
If you failed to heed their advice over time and despite counsel to do so you refused to desist from posting or visiting here and continued to engage with known apostates and ex JWs, we both of us know full well that yuo would yourself be subject to judicial action and likely be disfellowshipped.
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djeggnog
@Bungi Bill:
1) Nabonidus, reigned 17 years i.e. 556 - 539 (WT 68 8/15 p.491)
2) Labashi-Marduk, reigned "less than one year" i.e. 556 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
3) Neriglassar, reigned 4 years i.e. 560 - 556 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
4) Evil-Merodach, reigned 2 years i.e. 562 - 560 (WT 65 1/1 p.29)
5) Nebuchadnezzar, reigned 43 years i.e. 605 - 562 (WT 00 5/5 p.12)
Not one of the Watchtower articles you cite here provide any of the dates you inserted into your post. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe these dates you provided in your message to be accurate. You didn't get them from the Watchtower, so where did you get them?
It would all be quite laughable - except so many people have been badly hurt taking this denial of the obvious seriously!
Well, who exactly do you say has been hurt by our counting back 70 years from the second year of Cyrus when the Jews were repatriated in 537 BC to 607 BC? This is a ridiculous thing for you to say.
If Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong to rely upon the drop dead year of 539 BC and give a couple of years for the return of the exiled Jews to the land of Judah in 537 BC, if we are wrong to add 70 years to 537 BC, so that we end up at the year 607 BC when Solomon's temple had to have been destroyed, if we are wrong to reject the dates that secular history declares to have been when the various kings of the Babylonian Dynasty reigned because those years calculated by historians serve to contradict when it was we believe the Bible suggests to have been the year when Solomon's temple was destroyed during Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year or nineteenth were we to include his accession year, then so be it.
The Bible doesn't even provide specific dates when the kings of Babylon ruled, but we can rightly conclude that Nabonidus ruled for longer than just 17 years, since Belshazzar, his eldest son, was recognized in the Bible as having been the king of Babylon in 539 BC when Cyrus deposed Babylon, and by our comparing the king-lists of historians along with what the Bible says, it is clear that Nabonidus had to have ruled for 35 years from the year of his accession to the throne of Babylon (following Labashi-Marduk's death) until the year 539 BC (which means that Nabonidus' reign had to have begun in 575/574 BC), since Nebuchadnezzar's 43 years, Evil-Merodach's two years and Neriglassar's four years, along with Labashi-Marduk's three months, total 49 years, so that Nebuchadnezzar's first regnal year would have been 624 BC (575 BC - 49 = 624 BC).
What's "quite laughable" is that you thought you could get away with using these conjectured years by paring the with citations from non-existent Watchtower articles. What is more, what you attempted to do in your message with a view to deceiving everyone wasn't even a good try!
@Witness My Fury:
As to the point I made about your're being on this site Egg. If you or I were to go and speak to your body of elders or CO and discuss with them your posting on here in attemps to defend JWs from ex JWs, apostates, persons weak in faith (their terminologies), we all know what their advice to you would initially be. Get off that site!!
You are assuming that I am a part of the rank and file; I'm not. Enough said.
If you failed to heed their advice over time and despite counsel to do so you refused to desist from posting or visiting here and continued to engage with known apostates and ex JWs, we both of us know full well that [you] would yourself be subject to judicial action and likely be disfellowshipped.
Every one of Jehovah's Witnesses is in possession called Christian freedom. I'm sure you've heard of this at one time or another, but what is clear to me that you never understood what Christian freedom is, but suffice it to say that no Christian is in bondage to oppressive rules that serve no other purpose than to burden us. There are many among the rank and file that should not be posting to websites like this one, and especially to apostate websites, but as I told you in my previous message, JWN is not an apostate website, for if it were such, I would not be posting here, and even though you evidently believe JWN to be an apostate website just because you are an apostate doesn't make JWN an apostate website. You are entitled to your opinion, but I believe your opinion to be incorrect. So that the point isn't missed, I wish to emphasize that even the rank and file possess Christian freedom.
BTW, no one is disfellowshipped for visiting or posting messages to an apostate website; you evidently have been persuaded to believe that anyone that does such commits a disfellowshipping offense, but this is not how disfellowshipping works or has ever worked. If one is found by the body of elders to have sinned (and posting to any website is not a sin!) by engaging in activity that is designed to persuade others in the local congregation to another opinion, whether that "activity" involves posting messages containing dissent from the truth, or which proves to be apostasy on its face, and if when such is confronted by their behavior he or she proves to be unrepentant, only then might the individual involved in such apostate activity be reproved or disfellowshipped.
It is evident to me, @WMF, that you have no idea what things might lead to someone in God's organization being disfellowshipped, and I also know that you don't care what it is I say to you because you are going to be disagreeable no matter what it is I might say to you here, but I'm here telling you what kinds of things, as related to someone posting to websites, might lead to a judicial committee being formed, but disfellowshipping is not automatic despite what you may believe to be the case.
@djeggnog
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Witness My Fury
If you are not rank and file JW then why not state exactly what you are? You clearly dont follow the rules at any rate.
The sites status and aims has little to do with it being termed apostate or not. If the make up of the posters is largely of ex jws then that in itself should preclude you from even being here, not legalistic terminology to satisfy your conscience.
Calling Bill a liar is a bit of an insult coming from one so proficient in it as yourself:
*** w00 5/15 p. 12 par. 13 Pay Attention to God's Prophetic Word for Our Day ***
Learning that his father, Nabopolassar, had died, this young man named Nebuchadnezzar took the throne in 624 B.C.E. During his 43-year reign, he built an empire that embraced territories once occupied by Assyria, and he extended his domain into Syria and Palestine down to the border of Egypt.
*** w65 1/1 p. 29 The Rejoicing of the Wicked Is Short-lived ***
Evil-merodach reigned two years and was murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar, who reigned for four years, which time he spent mainly in building operations. His underage son Labashi-Marduk, a vicious boy, succeeded him, and was assassinated within nine months. Nabonidus, who had served as governor of Babylon and who had been Nebuchadnezzar's favorite son-in-law, took the throne and had a fairly glorious reign until Babylon fell in 539 B.C.E. He devoted his time to literature, art and religion. He is reported to have been the son of a priestess of the moon at Harran (Haran), which fact had endeared him to Nebuchadnezzar.
The last one you can find yourself.
You still avoided answering my 2 points above.
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Witness My Fury
OK the DATES inserted by Bill... As this is what you picked up on not the LENGTH of the reigns.
Well we can all add and subtract cant we?
But you cant Egg. 607 is blinding you into SEEing extra years as being needed on Nabonidus reign to reach your target date. Provide the PROOF with quotes to this effect. i.e NOT what you BELIEVE to be the case, but what you can PROVE to be the case.