Hi Deleted...you have the wrong understanding of the WTS position on this dating, allow me to explain?'
I thought slide 27 of the Feat of Clay piece to be particularly interesting. In short, based on astronimical measurements there's a difference referred to in Sky Software of some 9 minutes back in 567 BCE. So much for the WTS stance that archeological information being inaccruate (in defence of 607 vs 587as the fall of Jerusalem). If measurements in the same era are off just 9 minutes, any claims to substantial inaccuracies (eg 20 years) is highly bogus.
The WTS does not claim the scientific information in the text is wrong, only the reference to -567 being accurate as far as year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar. That's because the VAT4956 was not a text that originated during this period but a couple hundred years later during the Seleucid Period. In other words, anybody after the fact can take some clay tablets from 567BCE with astronomical observations and create a new clay tablet for that year and then put any king's year they want on the text. That's why any post-dated astronomical texts can't be used to preempt anything because they are so easily faked. But it's still effective to parade these texts around since most people, like yourself, focus on the accuracy of the astronomical information and thus think that's the end of it. It's not. Not in this case.
The Process of Revisionism of Astronomical Data: This is just a brief synopsis of what one is up against when a new text is created 200 years after the fact. Say you wanted to expand the year of your favorite king. Make him rule 60 years instead of just 20. What can be done, so that the chronology works for ending a 60-year rule the last year of that king is to go back and steal the years from the records of previous kings. This was done all the time for the Assyrian kings. The trick is to have control of the ancient records which the Persians did. The actual process was then quite simple. After deciding where you want to steal the 40 years from, you now come up with new dates for those older kings. Astronomically matched texts for the original years thus must be destroyed. But you can take the information from those original texts and put them into a new clay tablet and just change the year of the king. For instance, if there was a text for -567 BCE that said "Year 1 of Nabonidus" for instance and you needed to adjust that to "Year 37 of Nebuchadnezzar" then you just copy the astronomical information onto a new clay tablet before you destroy that text as evidence of the original chronology and then on the side insert the new kingship assigned to that year, "Nebuchadnezzar, year 37."
What the WTS simply noted is that since this is a very late document and not an original one from this period, while the astronomical information is accurate for -567BCE, the historical information may have been erroneous. Which is a valid position. Your presumption that the accuracy of the astronomical information confirms the accuracy of the historical information is a misconception, along with the idea that the WTS challenged the astronomical accuracy, which they do not. Hope that helps. JC