AnnOMaly
Steinmann does mention 537BCE as a credible date in the footnote on the first page of his article . His article is the latest on the subject of the Return and he certainly does not support 538 BCE. I mention his article because it is the latest scholarship and highlights how complex this subject and silences those who are dogmatic about the false date of 538 BCE. There is no room for dogma in chronology.
Rodger Young supports 587 BCE but his regnal lists for the Divided Monarchy supports WT chronology. My purpose in referring to Rodger Young is that he stresses the importanc eof methodology in doing chronology which supports scholar's truism before Young's article appeared in the literature that Chronology = Methodology+Interpretation.
I cannot comment as to whether Furuli has dug himself deeper because I do not have his revised editionof his second volume.
The Fall of Assyria marking the beginning of the seventy years is problematic because no year can be positively asserted for not all historians would agree that 609 BCE should be the only marker for the purposes of chronology. As you Jonsson also proposes 605 BCE and in my view this is a more chronologically significant date. Yes I agree with you and I always have that the seventy years represents dominion under Babylon but Jeremiah's prophecy restricts this to Judah alone in concert with other nations also being under Babylonian domination. For Judah these seventy years also meant exile and desolation of the land. There is no discrepancey with the seventy years of Tyre because the respective seventy years for Judah and Tyre are not historically or theologically identified. The only commonality between the two nations is that of servitude to Babylon and the fact that for Judah there was a precise length calcuable and for Tyre a length of time uncalcuable. If you disagree then please give a timeframe with dates and event for Tyre for Isaiah does not give these details.
Yes at times 607 and 606 were given as precise dates for the Fall and with advances in chronology 607 is now believed to be the precise date. Chronology has and always be a work in progress for it is not and exact science as far as I know but you may know better. The foundation for 607 BCE is as firm as ever even the more so if one introduces Neo-Babylonian chronology into the picture. There is a gap of twenty years between Bible chronology and NB chronology. The intoduction of the seventy years which is omitted in NBC fine tunes or readjusts such chronology harmonizing it with biblical chronology. That means that scholar can fully utilize NB chronology as a support for the validity of 607 BCE all because of a unrecognized piesce of Jewish history-Jeremiah's seventy years. This Romance at its best!!
You know full well that scholars and historians nominate 586 rather than 587. The date 586 is the preferred option no doubt to the legacy of Edwin Thiele. I cannot be held responsible for the comment in the Wt article in which you have some difficulty. I suggest you write about it. I did not edit the article, I would have expressed the matter differently.
Not quite, even thoughthe leadership changed at Babylon with the Medo-Persian Empire the exiled Jews still remained in Babylon and were still in her cluthes undera new king of Babylon so in respect of their exile, captivity, desolation of the land nothing had changed until the Decree of Cyrus. Jeremiah 25; 12 quite clearly foretold the fate of the king, the land and territory as I have explained many times in great detail on this forum.
I raise the matter of COJ with Jeffro because Jeffro has simply rpeated or rehashed the Jonsson nonsense. He says that he has noit read COJ but how can he be trusted.? If you trust his word fine but for me the coincidence is too much. If Jeffro used scholarship as COJ has done then that would give some credibilkity to his independent research but Jeffro shows no interest in such therefore suspicsion remains.
I do not desperately seek scholarship to support 607 BCE. I seek scholarship to broaden by horizon of understanding and to keep up to date. There is no need of desperation because I have long held the view that WT chronology is supported by secular chronology with the adjustment of the seventy years.
For example if a watch is out of sync with some standard of time the watchmaker uses a screwdriver to adjust the watch so that it tells the corect time. The screwdriver in this case is the seventy years, the watch is the NB chronology and the universal standard is WT-Bible chronology. Don't you love this powerful illustration?
COJ submitted a review of the first WT article but did not supply a review of the second to my knowledge. Doug Mason wrote for the second which was endorsed or supported by COJ as far as I remember but my files are boxed at the moment.
Competence and agreement are not both sides of the same coin. At the very least I have the tools at hand!
scholar JW