607 - What is it all about?

by leaving_quietly 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Apognophos

Yes, thanks for that, Londo111. I haven't spent much time researching 607 vs. 586 yet, so I was unaware of much of that information. I think that, for Witness willing to accept scientific reasoning, it makes sense to use that point as the "in" for debunking 1914.
But really, the whole chain of scriptures one has to cross-apply in order to get from 607 to 1914 makes little sense when viewed clearly from beginning to end at one time. It looks more like someone just randomly flipping through the Bible pointing to numbers and then adding them up.
leaving_quietly

Londo, don't you wish you never had to research that in the first place? But since WT insists there's a SECOND FULFULLMENT to a prophecy that was clearly already fulfilled with Nebuchadnezzar, they have created a made-up prophecy!!!!! 607/586 is just a way to get us all driveling on about a date. I'd venture to say that none of us would care if the "Seven Times" / "2,520 years" prophecy didn't exist in the first place, which, when any sane person reading the Bible would see, does not!
The Daniel's Prophecy book, pgs 95-96, par. 26 states: "Evidently, Nebuchadnezzar’s “seven times” involved seven years. In prophecy, a year averages 360 days, or 12 months of 30 days each. (Compare Revelation 12:6, 14.) So the king’s “seven times,” or seven years, were 360 days multiplied by 7, or 2,520 days. But what about the major fulfillment of his dream? The prophetic “seven times” lasted much longer than 2,520 days. This was indicated by Jesus’ words: “Jerusalem will be trampled on by the nations, until the appointed times of the nations are fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24) That ‘trampling’ began in 607 B.C.E. when Jerusalem was destroyed and the typical kingdom of God ceased to function in Judah. When would the trampling end? At “the times of restoration of all things,” when divine sovereignty would again be manifested toward the earth through symbolic Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God.—Acts 3:21."
I can agree with the first sentence, but then they make this strange leap to a whole other prophecy that just is not alluded to at all in the Bible. The explanation doesn't even make sense. The prophecy is about a Babylonian king going mad, but then regains his mental state and has his kingdom restored, but somehow, WT makes this prophecy about Jerusalem being trampled on by the nations. Huh? This is a clear and classic example of cherry-picking completely unrelated verses to meet some odd belief system.
I mean really... why not apply that "day for a year" rule with everything?
Let me give it a go... (what follows is pure sattire)
Jesus was raised up after three days, so that must represent three years! What happened three years later? Well, the first of the Gentiles came in in 36C.E. (Now I get it. Jesus death is related to the death of the Jewish nation and the birth of the Gentiles! <face palm>)
Jesus reign is for a thousand years. Let's see, day for a year (using 360 days, of course) would mean 360 * 1000 = 360,000 years. Wow! Now there's new understanding for how long Jesus reign REALLY is. (it's all so clear now!)
The flood of Noah's day had them in the Ark for 40 days. 40 days = 40 years. Day for a year is 360 * 40 = 14,400 years! Holy cow, the flood hasn't ended yet! It's still going on (invisibly, of course)!
Seriously...
blondie

607 to 1914 (no zero year) = 2520 years
It is quite ridiculous when you realize that the WTS taught that Christ's presence began in 1874 and his kingship started in 1878 and that 1914 was the end not the beginning.
http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/failed-1914-predictions.php
Apognophos

The issue is that the fact that WW1 started in 1914 is an "all too precious nugget" to be simply discarted. If WW1 had started in a different date, this 1914 date would have long been changed or discarded, even it it meant making up some BS to justify changing 1919 to another date as well.
Well, the interesting thing is that so far in my reading, I haven't seen much evidence of the Society showing a direct chain of events from the end of the Gentile times in the fall of 1914 to 1919. See my posts in this thread on pages 2 and 3 for the confusing facts that I found. Hint: the basis for 1919 is a yeartext, not 2,520 years.
I predicted at the time that the Society would try to phase out the Gentile times prophecy in favor of just talking about the appointment of the F&DS in 1919, but lately I'm not so sure they can make this work without the weight that comes from the 2,520 years leading into the events I describe in that post. So maybe they have nowhere credible that they can go, except to stop talking about all the 20th century dates altogether.
Londo111

For any newcomers, a threaddump on some related discussions in case they want to start looking into it:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/230627/1/Post-607-Reject-607-BC-if-You-TRULY-Trust-the-Bible
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/241929/1/Timeline-for-the-seventy-years
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/118291/1/Fact-Jews-Returned-In-538-BC-Kills-Off-Watchtower-Chronology
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/223978/1/The-EGIBI-Family-Records-WIPESOUT-Watchtower-607-B-C-E-Date-for-GOOD
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/218052/1/Onscreen-Critique-NOVEMBER-1-Watchtower-When-Was-Ancient-Jerusalem-Destroyed
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/219023/1/When-JERUSALEM-DESTROYED-e2809d-PART-TWO-c-o-Jonsson
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/215282/1/WT-Nov-1-2011-public-When-Was-Ancient-Jerusalem-Destroyed-Part-2
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/222960/1/e2809cWHEN-WAS-ANCIENT-JERUSALEM-DESTROYED-e2809d-Why-does-it-matter-The-Watchtower-October-1-2011-and-November-1-2011
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/224416/1/The-June-2012-citation-of-Ephraim-Stern
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/214475/1/The-Section-on-Berossus-in-WT-Oct-1-2011-When-Was-Ancient-Jerusalem-Destroyed
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/216056/1/VAT-4956-Comparison-Of-The-Lunar-Three-Time-Intervals-For-Years-568-7-BCE-and-588-7-BCE
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/117917/1/thirdwitness-and-other-pseudo-scholars-Lets-discuss-the-Hillah-Stele
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/240360/1/Nebuchadnezzars-accession-year-in-625-B-C-E
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/215914/1/1904-and-Russell-taken-to-task-for-606-BCE-calling-you-brainiacs
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/224385/1/Explain-in-a-FEW-words-why-the-607-date-is-incorrect
Finkelstein

Lets not forget that 1914 was held up as some important significance decades prior to that year even coming about,
by the WTS. and Its not all surprising that the WTS. recently lied about what the WTS. under C T Russell, was preaching prior to 1914
and what particualr significance it had.
607 BC date is the corner stone foundation that the WBTS uses for its self acclaimed office of being selected as God's only organization
Of course every religion has the open door privilege to proclaim whatever they want about themselves.
Self proclaiming that god had chosen their organization help to create validation toward the organization's published goods., they really couldn't loose.
I still think that in the near future 607 and 1914 will be dropped by the WTS., but it was really good religious bullshit that helped in selling
an enormous amount of literature for the organization and also helped in drawing in millions in financial donations as well $$$
Londo111

leaving_quietly,

I agree--I wish I’d grown up in a normal household and my head was never filled with such nonsense. I do wonder sometimes if the number #1 consumer of information gleaned from Neo-Babylonian scholarship are awakening and former JWs.

The second fulfillment/day for a year is quite a stretch. But in a world where the 1290 days gets fulfilled at a convention held in an amusement park, and the 1335 days end with the book Deliverance that very few active JWs have even cracked open—it fits right in. Most everything is Daniel and Revelation somehow gets tied back to the Organization. It is an extreme form of narcissistic exegesis.

For an awakening JW, full of fear and guilt, the Seven Gentile Times interpretation seems vague enough to be plausible, or at least, too vague to disprove. Most awakening JWs have the fear, “What if they are right?” Therefore, one has to examine the supposed 607 BC startpoint--that gives such a person something tangible to prove or disprove.
leaving_quietly

Londo...
But in a world where the 1290 days gets fulfilled at a convention held in an amusement park, and the 1335 days end with the book Deliverance that very few active JWs have even cracked open
LOL! I hear you on this one. I shake my head every time I read the supposed fulfillment. No JW can really explain this, but these prophecies seem to be fairly important if you read Daniel 12:12: "Happy is the one who is keeping in expectation and who arrives at the one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days!"
For me, I don't need to keep trying to understand the mess made about 607/586. The realization that there is no such 2,520 years prophecy is good enough for me.
Londo111

The one thing to realize is what Russell (as well as his Adventist predecessors) meant by the “end of the times of the Gentiles”. They believed in 1914, Jerusalem and the land of Palestine would cease to be occupied or ruled by any Gentile nation, and that the land would be restored to the Jews. It would be, as Russell called it, a “restoration of natural Israel to favor under the New Covenant”.
After that didn’t happen, Russell claimed that the persecution of the Jews had stopped, and that was how 1914 was fulfilled. It was only in 1925 that 1914 got associated with the birth of a heavenly Kingdom as JWs understand it today. And by 1931, they ceased looking for a restoration of Israel.
Nothing of what the Bible Students expected happened in 1914. But like many Adventists before them, like Miller in regard in 1844, they believed they expected the wrong thing at the right time.
Londo111

While we are on the subject of interpretations of prophet days and other wacky takes on Daniel:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/233903/1/Some-thoughts-on-the-days-of-Daniel-12
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/244916/1/The-1260-Days-No-Witnesses-were-harmed-in-the-making-of-this-prophesy
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/245112/1/There-will-be-1290e280a6err-I-mean-1699-err-1334-err-1317-days
I know this has been discussed recently, but for the benefit of newcomers, revisit the Watchtower's interpreation and do the math for yourself! It doesn't add up!

607 - What is it all about?

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