😂 🤦♂️
It remains a fact that the Bible does not mention an exile of 70 years.
Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?
by Godlyman 349 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Jeffro
‘scholar’:
Scholars do accept the reality of the Jewish Exile
Red herring. It is uncontested that there was an exile (the most significant one in early 597bce followed by the one at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction in 587bce).
which is usually believed to be that biblical period of 70 years
That is not at all the prevailing view, including among Jewish scholars. It is a theological assertion only, and one that is not supported by what the Bible actually says.
but there are others and in particular, Carl Jonsson and others of his ilk, who in his thesis
irrelevant ad hominem.
omits any mention or reference to that Exile which absence demolishes his thesis.
Liar. Neither Jonsson nor anyone else says there ‘was no exile’. All relevant sources acknowledge the main exile in early 597bce and the later deportation in 587bce. -
Fisherman
In the old thread above I argue that the number 70 was meant and understood by ancient Semitic people as symbolic of a generation and not a literal number.
Was 70 CE not year 70 either?
While the number 70 is used symbolically in the Bible, the quantity is literal.
2 Chronicles 36:21
לְמַלֹּאות דְּבַר־יְהוָה בְּפִי יִרְמְיָהוּ עַד־רָצְתָה הָאָרֶץ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתֶיהָ כָּל־יְמֵי הָשַּׁמָּה שָׁבָתָה לְמַלֹּאות שִׁבְעִים שָׁנָֽה ׃ פ
2 Chronicles 36:21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years. = 70
The Bible uses this word having the numerical value of 70.
(I posted in another thread that the Israelites were flagrantly raping the land by not allowing her to enjoy Sabbatical rest as prescribed in the Torah. How many years exactly did the land not keep Sabbath is not known but the sentence imposed was 70 years of desolation so the land could rest.) 537BCE+70=607BCE, assuming 537 marks the end of the desolation.
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Jeffro
Fisherman:
Was 70 CE not year 70 either?
Red herring. “70 CE” isn’t mentioned in the Bible, and wasn’t called that at the time. The fact that the year Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans later came to be called 70 is a coincidence.
How many years exactly did the land not keep Sabbath is not known but the sentence imposed was 70 years of desolation so the land could rest.
Your interpretation of the verse regarding how paying sabbaths relates to exile is entirely wrong as explained here.
537BCE+70=607BCE,
Jeremiah explicitly identifies the 70 years as a period of nations serving Babylon, not a period of exile. He also says exile was a punishment for refusing to serve Babylon rather than what ‘serving Babylon’ means. And he also says attention would be given to the Jews’ return only after the 70 years had already ended. And 2 Chronicles says servitude to Babylon ended when Persia began to reign. But you don’t actually care what the Bible says.
assuming 537 marks the end of the desolation
The Jews returned in 538, not 537. The fact that you need to ‘assume’ otherwise is very telling. 😂 -
peacefulpete
Isaiah 23
15 At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16 “Take up a harp, walk through the city,
you forgotten prostitute;
play the harp well, sing many a song,
so that you will be remembered.”17 At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her lucrative prostitution and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.
Here again the motif of "70" years is understood to mean a lifespan. Take that as you will.
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BruceX
That the 70 years is a period of nations serving Babylon and not a period of exile is absolutely correct.
For argument's sake let's assume 70 years is the period of exile in Babylon. We know that the trip from Babylon to Jerusalem was about 4 months (Ezra 7:9). How long was the trip from Jerusalem to exile in Babylon? We don't know but it must have been a few months.
So the trip back and forth was at least 6 months. The WT says that they were in exile in Babylon for 70 years and that Jerusalem was destroyed for exactly 70 years too. If they were in exile in Babylon for 70 years, then Jerusalem was destroyed for at least 70.5 years. If Jerusalem was destroyed for exactly 70 years then they were 69.5 years or less in Babylon.
So which was it? Make up your mind if you believe that 70 years is not the period of nations serving Babylon.
There is so much more wrong about 70 years meaning 70 years exile in Babylon.
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waton
Acts 1:7 proven true here. no sides taken. not nourishing food.
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Fisherman
That the 70 years is a period of nations serving Babylon and not a period of exile is absolutely correct.
He burned down the house of the true God,+ tore down the wall of Jerusalem,+ burned all its fortified towers with fire, and destroyed everything of value.+ 20 He carried off captive to Babylon those who escaped the sword,+and they became servants to him+ and his sons until the kingdom* of Persia began to reign,+ 21 to fulfill Jehovah’s word spoken by Jeremiah,+ until the land had paid off its sabbaths.+ All the days it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill 70 years.+
It is very interesting that after Jerusalem was destroyed as mentioned in the verses above, the land was not desolate because some Jews remained under a governor named Gedaliah who was ironically assassinated by a man named Ismael. It was after this event that the king of Babylon sent the remaining Jews to Babylon and the land began to be actually desolate.
Obviously, the destruction of Jerusalem had to do with the conduct of the Jews and not the nations so the 70 years mentioned in the quoted verse applied to the Jews whether or not it also applied to other nations concurrently or with other starting and end dates.
Since WwI started in 1914 which is based on 607 gives JW confidence that 607 is the date of Jerusalem’s destruction, among other signs that JW also claim to have witnessed. The minds of JW believe which doesn’t prove they are right but there certainly is a reasonable basis for 607 as JW interpret the Bible.
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BruceX
Jeremiah 29:10: ‘When 70 years at Babylon are fulfilled, I will turn my attention to you, and I will make good my promise by bringing you back to this place.’ (NWT)
WT teaches that the 70 years were over on the day when the Jews arrived in Jerusalem. So Jehovah turned his attention to them to bring them back to Jerusalem when they are already in Jerusalem?
It shows the nonsensical teaching of the WT that the 70 years were over when they arrived in Jerusalem. The 70 years of serving Babylon were over before they left Babylon, before the king of Babylon was killed in 539 BCE, see Jeremiah 25:12. -
peacefulpete
It is very interesting that after Jerusalem was destroyed as mentioned in the verses above, the land was not desolate because some Jews remained under a governor named Gedaliah who was ironically assassinated by a man named Ismael. It was after this event that the king of Babylon sent the remaining Jews to Babylon and the land began to be actually desolate.
The empty land myth has been debunked here decades ago. Even the post exile additions of Jeremiah 52 and the contradictory addition in 2 Kings 24:14,16 imagine 4-10,000 exiles. The Jewish Encyclopedia many years ago said:
Furthermore, if it be assumed that the total population of the kingdom of Judah was about 120,000 (the figures should probably be somewhat higher, as the country was at that time more densely populated than it is to-day), about one-fourth of the population (according to II Kings xxiv. 16) or, perhaps more correctly, one-eighth (according to Jer. lii. 28-30) was led captive into Babylonia.
Archaeology confirms that the land was continuously inhabited.