scholar JW

JW Insider There is much vexation as to the 'seventy years' and this is clearly evidenced if one were to check leading Bible Commentaries on Daniel and Jeremiah particularly and the scholarly literature. You need to research this subject at a much greater depth. Carl Jonsson could not even determine a precise beginning of the seventy years whether it was 605 or 609 BCE which is only one example of the confusion amongst others. Judah was in servitude to Babylon for at least 70 years and so to were other nations such as Tyre, eventually Egypt and others but Judah was exceptional in that the period of seventy years was also one of exile and desolation of the land for a fixed and known period of time from the Fall in 607 BCE and the Return in 537 BCE. The seventy years for Tyre is very different to that of Judah for the only commonality was that of servitude so one needs to be careful in conflating these periods which only adds to the confusion. Our focus should be on Judah dominated by Babylon for seventy years from the time of its Fall. scholar JW

We cannot be dogmatic about the shape, size or other physical characteristics of the instrument on which our Lord was hung but the linguistic, biblical and historical evidence favours the stake as the most likely form. This is what the eyewitnesses saw on that occasion and it was a stauros which simply means a stake even though at that time the word evolved into a different shape, a cross. WT writers have certainly used older sources to support our argument but this is simply due to the fact that scholarship has not had much to say on this subject with the exception of Gunnar Samuelson's thesis that Jesus was hung on a suspension device which differed to the traditional 'cross'. scholar JW

The biblical 'seventy years' of Jeremiah have proved to be a vexed problem for scholars and JW critics. There has simply been no consensus as to the nature and chronology of this period. Numerous interpretations have appeared in the scholarly literature since the fifties and continues to this day. The related biblical texts affirm that this definite historic period was one of servitude to Babylon, Exile in Babylon and Desolation of Judah from 607 BCE until 537 BCE and all these other theories simply fail upon a critical examination of such claims. Sadly many apostates and even some brothers have been deceived by this nonsense about the seventy years lacking any definitive beginning or end point eg. Is it 605 or 609 BCE? Carl Jonsson despite his considerable research on the subject simply does not know. scholar JW