SECULAR EVIDENCE and NEO-BABYLONIAN CHRONOLOGY (Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, etc.)

[Arauna]

 

1 hour ago, AlanF said:

As for Babylon itself, it continued as a working city until roughly 700 CE, depending on how you measure "working". That's another 1,200 years.

Jer 29:10 

 “For this is what Jehovah says, ‘When 70 years at Babylon are fulfilled, I will turn my attention to you,a and I will make good my promise by bringing you back to this place.

We all know the Babylonian empire as a empire that dominated the world scene came to an end when Cyrus conquered it. Yes it continued for a long time after that as a city but not as an empire ever again.

So what are you trying to prove?

[AlanF]

11 minutes ago, Arauna said:

 

Jer 29:10 

 “For this is what Jehovah says, ‘When 70 years at Babylon are fulfilled, I will turn my attention to you,a and I will make good my promise by bringing you back to this place.

Irrelevant scripture. Try Jer. 25:12, 27:7.

11 minutes ago, Arauna said:

We all know the Babylonian empire as a empire that dominated the world scene came to an end when Cyrus conquered it. Yes it continued for a long time after that as a city but not as an empire ever again.

So what are you trying to prove?

You'll never get the point if you can't manage to read the proper scriptures. So I'll help you. Jer. 25:12:

<< But when 70 years have been fulfilled, I will call to account the king of Babylon and that nation for their error,’ declares Jehovah, ‘and I will make the land of the Chal·deʹans a desolate wasteland for all time. >>

According to ScholarJW Pretendus, the beginning of this "desolation" began when the Jews returned to Judah in 537 BCE -- a completely nonsensical idea. My point is that there was no such desolation for another ~1,200 years.

Note that the scripture says nothing about either the city of Babylon or about the Babylonian empire, but about "the land of the Chaldeans". The "land" comprises more than the empire; the empire is a political entity, but the land is a physical entity. The political entity ceased to exist in 539 BCE. In the course of time, the physical entity fell into ruins and became "a desolate wasteland". Capiche?

 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

56 pages and you still squabble like children in a playground.    

[JW Insider]

On 12/30/2020 at 11:41 AM, César Chávez said:

On 12/30/2020 at 9:20 AM, Ann O'Maly said:

the point that he had no clue what Gertoux or I were talking about

Apparently, neither do you and your sidekick JWinsider

CC, You keep dragging me (and @Arauna ) into this. Arauna is right. We should be able to explain complex things with simple words and simple sentences. So here goes:

• Ann O'maly commented on a paper written by Gerard Gertoux.
• In her comments, O'maly happened to make mention of a mistake that might have just been a typo.
• Gertoux's "typo" indicated that 360/12=15, instead of 360/12=30. No big deal.
• Chavez (CC) sarys Gertoux is right about 15 degrees, and O'maly must be stupid.
• For evidence CC posts content saying that 360/12=30 and that 360/24=15 and that 30/2=15. CC apparently doesn't realize that all CC has done is prove that O'maly was right.

That's the whole story: CC has tried to prove O'maly wrong, but all his evidence directly shows she was right. His evidence blew up in his face. That's the whole story, except that Arauna has sided with the idea that 360/12=15, without even knowing, probably, that this was the entire argument. It's EXACTLY as if:

• O'maly said 2+2=4
• CC told her she was stupid, because 2+2=5
• CC "proves" it by loading up a lot of Googled sites that prove that 2+2=4
• CC claims his superiority and O'maly's stupidity, by misreading his evidence that "proved" to him that 2+2=5
• Arauna places her bets on the side of 2+2=5 and criticizes O'maly for believing that 2+2=4.

But why go to so much trouble to defend a typo in the first place? Why the need to pretend O'maly is stupid and wrong and incompetent just because she caught a simple mistake? That was not even the point of O'maly's comments. 

I think it only goes to prove a more general point we have seen on this thread. Hatred of people interferes with good judgment. And conversely, if people think someone else (like a Furuli, a Gertoux) is on the side of 1914, then it doesn't matter if they are making ludicrous claims. 99.9% of Witnesses apparently aren't really going to test them anyway. It's easier to just say they must be right, and Witnesses should defend them. For people who do not wish to look into the facts, it becomes an 'us versus them' proposition.

But there's another way I can tell that it doesn't matter what the evidence shows, and this is only about assumptions, and not real study or research:

It's because Gerard Gertoux has agreed with  the same date that Carl Olof Jonsson gives for the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. I have even communicated with Gerard Gertoux to find out why.
 

[Ann O'Maly]

FYI: Your images haven't embedded, @JW Insider

[JW Insider]

Gerard Gertoux would love to side with the Watchtower's chronology wherever possible, and has looked at some of the potentially "weaker" evidence here and there and claimed that there might be room for agreement with the Watchtower's dates.

Although he is a WItness, he has studied the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian chronology and has realized that the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar cannot be placed in 607. As you can see here, he puts it in 587 BCE.

https://www.academia.edu/26080694/Absolute_Chronology_of_the_Ancient_World_from_1533_BCE_to_140_CE ...

(The only mistake he makes here is using the "astronomical dating" format to represent "BCE" format. But he acknowledges this. It makes the spreadsheet easier for most people to understand.)

[JW Insider]

7 minutes ago, Ann O'Maly said:

FYI: Your images haven't embedded, @JW Insider

I couldn't delete them either, so I redid them for another post.

[JW Insider]

23 hours ago, scholar JW said:

The simple fact of the matter is that scholarship has always been confused over the 70 years and some scholars have because of their chronology compressed it to '50 years' if you read the literature on this subject.

I don't believe any true scholars are confused about the 70 years of Babylonian domination. The evidence is too clear and overwhelming to leave any room for such confusion by any true scholar. You apparently think they are confused but that's a reflection on you, not them. You make haughty claims without evidence, but you haven't been able to honestly deal with any of the evidence so far.

23 hours ago, scholar JW said:

Broadly speaking, most scholars favour the 70 year Babylonish domination hypothesis but Exilic scholars support the Exilic theory rather than the Domination hypothesis. 

Outside of the Watchtower publications, JWs or Adventists who defend an inherited chronology, can you give me a reference for any "Exilic scholar" who thinks it was more than 50 years between Jerusalem's destruction and Babylon's downfall by Cyrus? Can you show any "exilic scholar" who thinks that Jerusalem was destroyed within 2 years of 607? Can you show any "exilic scholar" who thinks that Jerusalem was NOT destroyed within 2 years of 587?

If you can't, then this is just another empty claim.

[Ann O'Maly]

Gertoux was about to submit a University thesis in the mid/late 2000s on archaeology and history of ancient worlds. He made the mistake of courteously informing the governing body about it and they told him to stop or he'd get disfellowshipped. Obviously he diverged from the official WT teaching somewhere. Echoes of COJ, hey? The difference was that, at the time, he did stop.

[JW Insider]

6 hours ago, Ann O'Maly said:

Echoes of COJ, hey?

Someone named RR(?) was selling a book on eBay while making a claim it came from Tom Cabeen, implying it might have been printed on WT materials. I thought it was nearly impossible, having been there from 76 to 82. I got Cabeen's number through contact with his son (who went to college with my son). Cabeen was sure he had never seen the book before.

Anyway, I asked Cabeen if he knew how COJ was doing healthwise. Cabeen didn't know for sure, but told me how sad it was that COJ only tried to do the right thing when one of his Bible Study "RV's" asked him about why the WTS uses this special chronology. COJ was sure it could be defended and did his best, but, of course, discovered what anyone would discover if they were being honest and thorough. I told Cabeen that when I was tagging along with Brother Schroeder's "entourage" for an International Convention tour in 1978 that I had to stay in Athens for some extra time while Bert Schroeder went to Wiesbaden. When I was supposed to catch up with him in Wiesbaden, I was told he had alread gone to Hamburg/Copenhagen/Stockholm for some meetings (no conventions) and without any of his small entourage. The rumor was that this was about the COJ manuscript, although I couldn't know absolutely for sure. We caught up again when he came back to Hamburg then on back to London and Brooklyn. 

I told Cabeen this, and he already knew about part of it. I understand Cabeen might be biased, but he said that Schroeder had already determined to get COJ disfellowshiped several months before that convention trip. So I can believe that something like this happened with Gerard Gertoux. Gertoux seemed willing to discuss anything except 587 BCE, which made him suddenly clam up. 

[AlanF]

28 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Someone named RR(?) was selling a book on eBay while making a claim it came from Tom Cabeen, implying it might have been printed on WT materials. I thought it was nearly impossible, having been there from 76 to 82. I got Cabeen's number through contact with his son (who went to college with my son).  He had never seen the book before.

Anyway, I asked Cabeen if he knew how COJ was doing healthwise. Cabeen didn't know for sure, but told me how sad it was that COJ only tried to do the right thing when one of his Bible Study "RV's" asked him about why the WTS uses this special chronology. COJ was sure it could be defended and did his best, but, of course, discovered what anyone would discover if they were being honest and thorough. I told Cabeen that when I was tagging along with Brother Schroeder's "entourage" for an International Convention tour in 1978 that I had to stay in Athens for some extra time while Bert Schroeder went to Wiesbaden. When I was supposed to catch up with him in Wiesbaden, I was told he had alread gone to Hamburg/Copenhagen/Stockholm for some meetings (no conventions) and without any of his small entourage. The rumor was that this was about the COJ manuscript, although I couldn't know absolutely for sure. We caught up again when he came back to Hamburg then on back to London and Brooklyn. 

I told Cabeen this, and he already knew about part of it. I understand Cabeen might be biased, but he said that Schroeder had already determined to get COJ disfellowshiped several months before that convention trip. So I can believe that something like this happened with Gerard Gertoux. Gertoux seemed willing to discuss anything except 587 BCE, which made him suddenly clam up. 

Someone told me many years ago (Randall Watters?) that Schroeder let COJ's thesis sit on his desk for about three years, not knowing what to do with it. He received it around 1978. After that, there was the apostasy furor over Ray Franz and company. I'm guessing that Schroeder was spurred on to go after COJ by that whole scenario. Of course, the Society's attacking COJ, understandably, made him all the more determined to publish his material, which he did in book form in 1983 as The Gentile Times Reconsidered.

[scholar JW]

JW Insider

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

I don't believe any true scholars are confused about the 70 years of Babylonian domination. The evidence is too clear and overwhelming to leave any room for such confusion by any true scholar. You apparently think they are confused but that's a reflection on you, not them. You make haughty claims without evidence, but you haven't been able to honestly deal with any of the evidence so far.

You are sadly mistaken for you only have to read what is stated in the leading Bible commentaries on the Bible books that deal with the 70 years and the published studies on the subject  in leading Journals from the first major study in 1954. Nile's Thesis gives a broad but in depth view of the range of views heretofore presented. In proof of this refer to the Appendix A, pp.68-72 in the above thesis.

5 hours ago, JW Insider said:

Outside of the Watchtower publications, JWs or Adventists who defend an inherited chronology, can you give me a reference for any "Exilic scholar" who thinks it was more than 50 years between Jerusalem's destruction and Babylon's downfall by Cyrus? Can you show any "exilic scholar" who thinks that Jerusalem was destroyed within 2 years of 607? Can you show any "exilic scholar" who thinks that Jerusalem was NOT destroyed within 2 years of 587?

I will give you two scholars: Steven M Bryan and Rainer Albertz who nicely address the Exile as the period from the Fall to the Return. 

scholar JW