Simple Question Re 1914

by Slidin Fast 540 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Jeffro

  Disillusioned JW:

  The WT has written that about the year 30 C.E. a number of Jews were expecting the arrival of the Jewish Messiah, and that such expectations were based upon their calculations of the 70 weeks prophecy in the book of Daniel. [Is that a false teaching of the WT or were Jews back then really doing such?]

  The Jews were always expecting a messiah at some point, but the notion that they were especially expecting one around 30 CE or that it was because of anything in Daniel is a Christian tradition. (Also, Jesus’ ministry would have run from 26-30 CE, and the JW dates for his ministry are also dogmatically asserted based on their interpretations of the ‘70 weeks’.)
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  Disillusioned JW

  Clarification to a recent earlier post. Regarding Furuli, I said that "... (while he was an elder at the time) he published a book which criticized the Governing Body of the JW." While the book appears to have been published then, Furuli didn't allow the book to be released to the public until after he became disfellowshipped. It seems that his book received some promotional publicity before a copy of the book was offered to the GB, before the book was released to the public. For example, see https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/05/26/in-new-book-a-prominent-jehovahs-witness-trashes-the-faiths-governing-body/ . That article came out in May 2020 (after the book had been published but before it had been released) and it appears Furuli was disfellowshipped in the following month.
  
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  Disillusioned JW

  Jeffo, thanks for informing me that the WT's idea that the Jews were especially expecting a Messiah around 30 CE or that it was because of anything in Daniel comes from a Christian tradition. Do you have a source that the idea is from a Christian tradition, instead of from a historical source (prior to 30 C.E.) saying some Jews had come up with the idea from their study of the book of Daniel?
  
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  Fisherman

  Jews were especially expecting a Messiah around 30 CE

  The Book, the Son of Man by Emil Ludwig portrays Jesus as a dreamer but also describes the atmosphere in Jesus’s day as expecting the Messiah. —No doubt based on Daniel. Rabbinical Jews today view Daniel as Kethuvim and not as part of the Neviim. But it doesn’t matter because given the authenticity of Daniel in Dan 9:25 it predicts the Messiah in Jesus’s day. The book of Daniel is prophetic because it predicts the future kingdom of God. Not because wt says so but because many Jews were expecting the Messiah during Jesus but Jesus did not meet their expectations. Further, the Judaism that developed after 70CE does not represent the forms of Judaism that existed in the 2nd Temple era although today’s Juda ism survived from that Pharisaical Judaism. Of course after the rejection of Jesus, Jews took a stand in interpreting Bible verses that refer to him so they don’t apply to him but you can’t hide the sun with one finger.
  
  
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Wrong as usual. Daniel 11:20 alludes to Heliodorus being sent (around 178 BCE) by Seleucus IV Philopator (ruled 187 - 175 BCE) to demand a tax from Jerusalem’s temple treasures, hence an exactor. It has nothing at all to do with a census (that the author of Luke places in the wrong year) that would not require people returning to the place of their birth anyway.

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  Wrong. Dan 11: 20 refers not to Seleucus IV but to the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus who caused an official to conduct a census of registration in 2 BCE.

  scholar JW
  
  
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Well that’s wrong even according to JW nonsense. But no, no part of Daniel refers to the Roman Empire.

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  The section that refers to the Roman Empire is Dan. 11:20-26 which includes the Roman rulers, Augustus, Tiberius and Aurelian.

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  Already provided. But I also already said that some of the stories are adapted from older tales (for example the story supposedly told by Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 4 incorporates details from The Prayer of Nabonidus). I also never claimed that it “deals wholly with the Seleucids”, as it also contains details about the Neo-Babylonian, Achmaenid and Macedonian periods.

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  You have not provided any facts to support your opinion. There is simply no evidence that the accounts in Daniel derive from earlier stories as you claim. The book of Daniel deals with the current World Power, Babylonian and successive Powers through history including Med0-Persian and Roman through to the Modern Age with the continuing struggle between the kings of the north and south and their respective dynasties which included in brief the Seleucids.

  scholar JW
  
  
  
  
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  Jeffro

  🤦‍♂️
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  Of course, the entire remainder of chapter 11 also refers to the Seleucid period, along with other references in chapters 2, 7 & 8, but I have low expectations about the quality of your responses anyway.

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  Nonsense, there are no references at all to the Seleucids in chapters 2, 7 or 8 but only to a part of ch.11 as mentioned in a previous post.

  scholar JW
  
  
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  scholar

  Jeffro

  🤦‍♂️

  scholar JW
  
  
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  Jeffro

  'scholar':

  Nonsense, there are no references at all to the Seleucids in chapters 2, 7 or 8 but only to a part of ch.11 as mentioned in a previous post.

  Haha. Poor deluded 'scholar'. It must make things hard having so much cognitive dissonance. Even in the JW interpretation, the following verses refer to the Seleucid period:

  • 2:32, 39: in JW dogma, the 'copper kingdom' (incorrectly) includes the Macedonian and Seleucid periods up until 30 BCE (in reality, verses 33 and 41-43 cover the period from Alexander until Antiochus IV)
  • 7:6: the four wings of the leopard represent Alexander's divided kingdom, two of which are the Ptolemies and Seleucids (in reality verses 6-8, 19-22 and 23-25 refer to the period from Alexander through to Antiochus IV)
    
  • 8:8, 22: as with chapter 7, the 'great horn that was broken into four' depicts Alexander's divided kingdom including the Seleucids and Ptolemies (in reality, verses 8-12 and 22-25 cover this period)
    

  The fact that there are any references to the Seleucid period in Daniel is evidence enough, but the very obvious references to that period in chapter 11 are sufficient to definitely place the composition of Daniel no earlier than the mid-2nd century BCE.