@castthefirststone wrote:
3. Please provide proof for your statement that Nebuchadnezzar was dead when Baal was reigning. I am not interested in an arithmetic lesson, provide proof that Nebuchadnezzar's reign ended in 582 BC (562 BC is the generally accepted date, by the way) or provide proof that Nebuchadnezzar was dead when Baal was reigning. Neither of these statements are correct and two incorrect assumptions doesn't proof anything.
@djeggnog wrote:
What's wrong with you? If Baal began to reign as the king of Tyre in 577 BC, then his predecessor, Ithobalos, would not have been reigning, correct? Why would you need proof that Nebuchadnezzar's reign ended in 582 BC when if Josephus indicated that Ithobalos was the king of Tyre when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre, then according to the popular premise that his siege on Tyre began in 587 BC and ended 13 years later, then this siege would have occurred during the reign of Baal, who Josephus essentially tells us had by 574 BC been ruling as the king of Tyre for three years since 577 BC. If Ithobalos was no longer the king of Tyre in 574 BC, then logically Nebuchadnezzar wasn't either. Maybe I missed it, but I don't believe Josephus indicated that the siege occurred during the reigns of both Ithobalos and Baal, did he?
@castthefirststone wrote:
@djeggnog it's ironic that you ask me what is wrong with me. What is wrong with you?
You first. I asked you whether Josephus had indicated that the siege on Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar occurred during the reigns of Ithobalos and Baal, and you didn't answer my question. Please answer my question.
You call me an apostate, but what makes me an apostate?
You were once one of Jehovah's Witnesses and yet you are asking me what is it that makes you an apostate? You know what makes you an apostate, so it is unnecessary for me to describe what you already know yourself to be.
Posting on this site?
I post messages on this site and I'm not an apostate. The fact that you post messages to JWN doesn't prove that you are an apostate. However, your pretending that you aren't an apostate would be like pretending that you've never had testicles, ever. Maybe you don't identify with being a man any longer, I don't know, but just as the things you say betray what you are as a person, the testosterone levels in you betray whether you are a man or a woman. Anyone can post messages to JWN, whether one should be one of Jehovah's Witnesses or an apostate.
What does that say about you?
Why don't you tell me what you believe my posting to this site says about me?
I suppose you are correct, I am an apostate, an apostate against falseness and lies that you keep spewing.
Say what now? An apostate against falseness and lies...? What kind of an "apostate" would that be?
@castthefirststone wrote:
With all the typos that you make, I suggest you change your keyboard as it seems faulty. It is difficult enough to read everything you post but compound that with your typing mistakes, it makes it almost impossible to follow your logic.
@djeggnog wrote:
I don't usually type anything; I dictate, and what you often read are the result of recognition errors, as to which I wouldn't expect you to know anything.
@castthefirststone wrote:
Dictating must be lamest excuse I have ever heard.
Did I make an excuse? I didn't make any excuse, let alone a lame one. I essentially told you that you were mistaken; that I have no need to change my keyboard, that I don't exactly make typing mistakes as much as recognition errors sometimes creep into what I dictate to my word processor. I sometimes type, like when I create a table to post here, but most of time I dictate what I post to JWN. Who are you to me that I should lie or make excuses to you? I didn't attack your character; you are an apostate, so why aren't you proud of who you are and why don't you stop pretending to be offended over what you yourself know yourself to be?
How do you dictate a wrong number?
What "wrong number?
I asked you about the 54 years and three months and how it connects to the reigns of the [Phoenician] kings because you brought it up. You use the three months of the 54 years to add 2 years to Eiromos' reign. Perhaps you should get a narrator to read back your posts to you as it seems that you can't remember what you posted.
But I do remember what it was I posted. I also know that Josephus was merely providing an estimate since he spoke of "the whole period" being "54 years, with 3 months in addition." I have no way of knowing -- and you don't either -- whether Josephus was relating in what he wrote in Against Apion, I, xxi, that Eiromos' reign was exactly 20 years or longer. Here's what we know about Eiromos: That he "reigned for 20 years," and that "[i]t was during his reign that Cyrus became ruler of the Persians." We also know that it was during "the fourteenth year" of his reign that "Cyrus the Persian seized power."
Now I have no way of knowing how Josephus reckoned Eiromos' 14th year or whether Eiromos' reign was 21, 22 or even 23 years. For all I know Eiromos reigned for 21 years if Josephus were to have included his accession year, but because Josephus also indicated that Solomon's temple lay in a "state of obscurity for fifty years," it does seem like Josephus might have done a bit of rounding. The total number of years that Josephus provides with reference to the reigns of the kings of Tyre total less than 54 years, 3 months, so if Eiromos reigned as king for at least four years after Cyrus deposed Babylon in 539 BC, then there would be a difference of 16 years, 3 months, during which the reign of Ithobalos and Nebuchadnezzar's 13-year siege occurred.
If Josephus provided approximations as to the reigns of the kings of Tyre, then the most I can reasonably account for is 38 years if I were to assign only 16 of Eiromos' 20-year reign when "Cyrus the Persian seized power" and 4 years to Merbalos, 1 year to Balatoros, 6 years to Myttynos and Gerastartos, 1 year to Ednibalos, Chelbes and Abbalos, and 10 years to Baal, or -539 + (-38), which brings me to 577 BC when I do the math.
Back to Josephus, the fourteenth year of Eiromos is when Cyrus took the kingdom. Josephus doesn't say in his 16th year and then add three months to his 16th year. Nothing you say can remove those facts, it is not an interpretation, it is explicitly stated as such. As I said before you trying to confuse the issue with Cyrus' regnal year doesn't work as it makes the starting point of the 13 years of Eiromos one year away from your precious 577 BC.
Ok.
577 BC is also wrong because you can't stretch Eiromos' reign in the context of Josephus. Josephus clearly states that he only reigned 20 years.
Ok.
This is the same problem you have with stretching Nabonidus/Belshazzar reign.
What does the reign of Nabonidus and Belshazzar, both of whom were Babylonian kings, not Phoenician kings, have to do with this?
You have absolutely no proof for either assumptions, yet you brazenly continue to try to proof your theories by spewing fallacies.
You're right; I don't, but neither do you have any proof for your assumption that Eiromos' 20-year reign is exactly 20 years.
I didn't join this forum to debate anything. I joined as I wanted to see if there was anyone that can defend the theory that 607 BC is the correct date and the established 587 BC is incorrect. You seem to be the only person willing to engage on this issue and the rest of the accusers that make up the Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses are not willing to defend their position regarding this. You have failed to do so and use deceit to try to prove your theories.
Have you ever seen what I have spelled out here regarding Josephus' account in Against Apion, I, xxi, spelled out in any of our publications? Ever? Maybe in the future mention will be made, but why do you mention the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses here? You have not engaged a member of our governing body here and I am not a proxy for our governing body. I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses and I know the truth, and so I am not tied to our publications as are many of Jehovah's Witnesses. The year 607 BC may, in fact, be a theoretical year, but so is the year 587 BC, since the Bible doesn't provide the year when Solomon's temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The year 607 BC is based upon the date when Cyrus deposed Babylon and my faith that when Jehovah spoke of "the fulfilling of seventy years at Babylon" by the Jews during which the land would pay off its sabbaths "to fulfill seventy years" that he meant 70 years! (2 Chronicles 36:21)
@castthefirststone:
The issue really is: Can Josephus be used to disprove conventional chronology, when you have to rely on the same conventional chronology to get to the start of Cyrus' rule?
Yes, and Josephus can also be used to provide another measurement to determine about when it was that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre.
@djeggnog
