Srecko Sostar

The ads promoting 19 didn't mention that it would put elderly heirs on the pavement because of massive tax increases nor did they say the funding came from real estate agents.
repealthedeathtax.com
 

Dad had a "rebellious-lost son" who left and came back. But dad also had a "faithful JW-son" who showed that dad made a mistake somewhere in his upbringing. Not only with the "lost son" but also with the one who "stayed at home".
Now, did the father make a mistake in upbringing, so he created a "broken household"? And where was the mother? Or was he a "single father"? Or was the older JW son actually the "goat", because he showed all the accumulated negativity when his younger brother returned?
SO, MM made a good point. JWs have no solution even for their own social deviations. They have the same sufferings as the rest of the religious world, who are in "the safe place of their own religion".
I think the population of "nominal JWs" is increasing, regardless of whether they were "born into the religion" or accepted it by coming "from outside". 
My impression of this view increases when I see "mute" JWs standing by the carts and carrying on their private conversations with each other a few meters away from the "source of spiritual food".
Jesus was active in reaching people with the "good news". What is "active" about standing 10-15 feet from the cart?
On the other hand, JWs want to "fix the world", because they want to "fix people" so that they turn to God. So what exactly is the WTJWorg mission? "Going/flee out of the world" and not returning to it?
So why are they fighting for tax breaks and state money?  It is a form of returning to the world from which you supposedly escaped.
Or for "freedom of speech and belief"?  Within their church they have complete freedom to believe their own speech.

 
 

The sole reason I cited that same authority you did was to point out JWs haven't built a social panacea. If that were the case then those raised in the religion would tend to be more compelled to remain compared to other religions. But that's not what we find, even in westernized societies where people are freer to do so.
 

I dare say for certainty that I've known AlanF for probably decades before you encountered him here. Anyone acting as you described is screaming torture they've experienced.
Sometimes it's not enough to walk in another man's shoes. Sometimes you have to feel their feet walking in their shoes, a thing most of us are untrained to do. But fellow feeling would have us recognize a tortured soul when it's screaming at us. Bullies aren't born; they're made, and typically they didn't ask to be made. Rather, it was done to them. That's not to say AlanF was a bully, but in a text only format it could come across that way. In real life the man would stand up for the downtrodden every time. Every single time. Particularly if he saw someone being intellectually manipulated. He'd jump into that like a dog on a snake!

The gods must be crazy. I thought that movie was great!
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980 film) The tribal people in a remote African desert live a happy life, but it is all torn to pieces when a Coca-Cola bottle falls from a plane. With the villagers fighting over the strange foreign object, tribal leader Xi (N!xau) decides to take the bottle back to the gods to restore peace.
I saw the Broadway play 'The Book of Mormon" and was reminded of the same movie.

Thanks @George88 for the details from Britton: "An Early Observation Text for Mars:"

I don't know how many people have tried this, but you can create a kind of time-lapse "movie" with several of these astronomy applications (software) by simply pointing in a fixed, specific direction (il.e. due West) but zooming out to get a picture of the entire night sky and setting the time to give you a picture of what it looked like at say 9pm Babylon time (or Baghdad, Iraq or thereabouts). Then you quickly click through days going either forward or backward to watch the movements of the planets and the changing path and phases of the moon. On some apps you can just hold down the arrow key and run through about 20 days per second, creating a kind of movie showing the new position for 9pm every day.
What is most interesting is the path of planets like Mars when they move at a steady pace across the sky from night to night, but then will slow down to almost no movement and smoothly changes direction. (Mars in retrograde.) It makes you wonder just how closely the ancient astronomer/astrologers were able to figure out exactly when it turned retrograde because it slows down so much. It's like the date for the Roman Sol Invictus being around December 25 when accurate measurements show that the Winter Solstice was actually on December 21/22. (The idea, of course, is that the hours of sunlight in a day got shorter and shorter, but by December 25 they were sure the days were getting longer again.) 
You might expect a similar 3-day delay in determining Mars in retrograde. And this is pretty much what happens with the earliest Mars readings:

 
What I am talking about is in the second paragraph above where you would expect the observation to be "late by several days" which is exactly what happened for the ancient measurement of when "Mars stood still."
I included the paragraph above just to show that if you are using the software, and yours doesn't have "Babylon" you will be off by no more than a day if you pick a modern city closer to Baghdad or a different city 100 miles away.  

Because of the need for the WTS publications to sow seeds of doubt about Ptolemy, the Watchtower made the following statement about that same 621 BCE eclipse. The mistake they made is pretty obvious once you have seen Ptolemy's writing.
*** w69 3/15 pp. 185-186 Astronomical Calculations and the Count of Time ***
LUNAR ECLIPSES
Lunar eclipses, as found in Ptolemy’s canon and presumably drawn from data in the cuneiform records, have been used in efforts to substantiate the dates usually given for particular years of the Neo-Babylonian kings. But even though Ptolemy may have been able to calculate accurately the dates of certain eclipses in the past, this does not prove that his transmission of historical data is correct. His relating of eclipses to the reigns of certain kings may not always be based on the facts. Additionally, the frequency of lunar eclipses certainly does not add great strength to this type of confirmation.
For example, a lunar eclipse in 621 B.C.E. (April 22) is used as proof of the correctness of the Ptolemaic date for Nabopolassar’s fifth year. However, another eclipse could be cited twenty years earlier in 641 B.C.E. (June 1) to correspond with the date that Bible chronology would indicate for Nabopolassar’s fifth year. Besides, this latter eclipse was total, whereas the one in 621 B.C.E. was partial.
To me, that's just embarrassing. I don't think it was 'deviant scholarship' as @Arauna would have called it had I made a similar mistake. I think it was just grasping at any straws possible to sow seeds of doubt in Ptolemy's work. The problem, of course, is that Ptolemy said it was partial, and it shows up as partial in my software exactly as Ptolemy reported. But the Watchtower claimed that a better one 20 years earlier would be a TOTAL eclipse. In other words, someone in the Writing Dept found a reference, or went to the trouble themselves to find an eclipse exactly 20 years earlier (necessary to feed the 1914 theory) and somehow overlooked the fact that they were choosing a NON-matching eclipse over the matching eclipse. Rolf Furuli made the exact same attempt with lunar information from Nebuchadnezzar's 37th year, and made some of the same "wishful-thinking" errors over and over again.  
 

*** kc p. 187 Appendix to Chapter 14 ***
Evidently realizing such facts, Professor Edward F. Campbell, Jr., introduced a chart, which included Neo-Babylonian chronology, with the caution: “It goes without saying that these lists are provisional. The more one studies the intricacies of the chronological problems in the ancient Near East, the less he is inclined to think of any presentation as final. For this reason, the term circa [about] could be used even more liberally than it is.”—The Bible and the Ancient Near East (1965 ed.), p. 281.
That statement also got my attention back in 1981. My first thought to myself was, then we cannot depend on our own conclusions as "final" because they are equally based on secular chronology.

Actually, they kept lists of winners for each games, which had started much earlier than 776 BCE, but in the mid 200's BCE when it was clear that the Greeks and Egyptians and Assyrians and Babylonians had been keeping fairly accurate chronologies going back to the 700's, they decided to start attaching some of those important historical events to specific Olympiads, deciding to start the first one in 776 BCE. For the most part, it seems they did a good job. But they cared more for Greek events, especially related to Alexander the Great in the 300's, than to prior Assyrian and Babylonian and Egyptian and Persian events.  But here and there they at least tied the reigns of Cyrus and Artaxerxes, etc., to specific Olympiads that fit the existing Babylonian and Persian records. 
Unfortunately, the Watchtower REJECTS the Olympiad date they picked for Artaxerxes, which was apparently correct, and they ACCEPT the date for Cyrus, which was also apparently correct. Of course, the Greeks got that data about Cyrus and Artaxerxes from the same Babylonian and Persian records that also give us the rest of the Neo-Babylonian period. We know this from the fact that Greek astronomers like Claudius Ptolemy also still had access to the same astronomically verified chronology handed down and copied and recopied from the Babylonian data.  

I recall the first time I read that in the Kingdom Come book. My first thought was to say to myself, everything said in that statement could be equally applied to our own chronology, its source material and interpretations. That was only my first thought!

For purposes of this discussion I will go ahead and learn something about Egyptian chronology. My goal was to focus on what the evidence shows for Neo-Babylonian chronology. 
My experience has been that there is one question that most of us are deathly afraid to answer as Witnesses, the same question I put to @scholar JW:
What BCE date does the astronomical evidence point to for the 14th year of Nebuchadnezzar?
[You can pick any particular year you like in his reign]
If you are like almost all other Witnesses in my personal experience, most will say they don't know. But for those who have some idea what the actual answer will be, they will invariably start obfuscating and talking about tiny disagreements among scholars, or Delta-T, or claim that only dates after Cyrus accession are accurate, or start talking about some other chronology issues, or put the onus back on me to solve some unrelated issues that they pretend are related. It's an amazing experiment, I've seen played out here a dozen times. 
I think that anyone here can easily learn how to use the astronomy software and use it to check eclipses and other solar and planetary phenomenon back to yesterday, to last year, and then scroll back through the last century, and the last millennium -- or use it to discover the next eclipse or the next planetary configurations. (I have a nice telescope and I also use the same software to set up viewings of planets up to a year in advance.)
In spite of the ease of use, try to get another Witness to check out a reading from Nebuchadnezzar's time, and let the deflections and diversions and excuses begin. 

This is another form of poisoning the well. The Watchtower relies on the world of archaeology to get the dates for Cyrus from flawed material. But the "ten-times-better" archaeological material is dismissed. The Watchtower does nothing but try to sow seed of doubt about the "ten-times-better" material. Note:
*** kc p. 187 Appendix to Chapter 14 ***
From a secular viewpoint, such lines of evidence might seem to establish the Neo-Babylonian chronology with Nebuchadnezzar’s 18th year (and the destruction of Jerusalem) in 587/6 B.C.E. However, no historian can deny the possibility that the present picture of Babylonian history might be misleading or in error. It is known, for example, that ancient priests and kings sometimes altered records for their own purposes. Or, even if the discovered evidence is accurate, it might be misinterpreted by modern scholars or be incomplete so that yet undiscovered material could drastically alter the chronology of the period.
Back in the 1870's when Barbour and Russell considered Ptolemy to be the only source of Cyrus 1st year as 586 BCE [sic], they praised Ptolemy as the astronomer with whom ALL reputable scholars agreed with. After it was discovered that it was the same data from Ptolemy that demolished 606 BCE, the WTS has done nothing but try to sow seeds of doubt about him. 
*** g72 5/8 p. 28 When Did Babylon Desolate Jerusalem? ***
As Ptolemy used the reigns of ancient kings (as he understood them) simply as a framework in which to place astronomical data, . . . Hence both Ptolemy’s Canon and “VAT 4956” might even have been derived from the same basic source. They could share mutual errors.
 
*** w77 12/15 p. 747 Insight on the News ***
How certain can we be of the presently accepted chronology of the ancient Babylonian Empire? For many years, chronologists have put heavy reliance on the king list of Claudius Ptolemy, a second-century Greek scholar often considered the greatest astronomer of antiquity.
However, in his new book “The Crime of Claudius Ptolemy,” the noted physicist Robert R. Newton of Johns Hopkins University offers proof that many of Ptolemy’s astronomical observations were “deliberately fabricated” to agree with his preconceived theories “so that he could claim that the observations prove the validity of his theories.”
In its comments on Newton’s book, “Scientific American” magazine notes: “Ptolemy’s forgery may have extended to inventing the length of reigns of Babylonian kings. Since much modern reconstruction of Babylonian chronology has been based on a list of kings that Ptolemy used to pinpoint the dates of alleged Babylonian observations, according to Newton ‘all relevant chronology must now be reviewed and all dependence upon Ptolemy’s [king] list must be removed.’”—October 1977, p. 80.
 
Not only have the accusations been thoroughly debunked, the WTS publications have been so anxious to present information that sows seeds of doubt, that they have been caught quoting authors and experts out of context to make it seem they were saying something that the author didn't say. One example is one that you allude to when you speak of the old Assyrian mythological king list where kings reigned for thousands of years instead of reasonable lengths of time. Quotations from books referring to those pseudo-chronologies have been used (even in the 1981 "kc" Appendix I quoted above) to make it look like they referred to the Neo-Babylonian chronology. Sometimes the "trick" has been to speak of ancient pre-astronomy Babylonian chronology (Nimrod/Hammurabi/etc) and make it seem like Neo-Babylonian chronology is being referred to. If this was done on purpose I guess that would be an example of what you called "deviant scholarship." At least I think you would have called it that if I had used such a "trick."
 

There's the tale of A.K. Dewdney, who wrote about a fictional character named Dr. Matrix, an eccentric mathematician.
In one story, Dr. Matrix spends years calculating the optimal way to peel a banana, determining the exact number of slits needed and their precise angles.
The idea of focusing on minutiae without practical purpose.
But then again, I binge watch TV with six seasons of 27 episodes each, which is worse.

@Arauna, just to respond more comprehensively.
It is not "scholarly deviancy" to claim that the WTS only relies on Babylonian sources. The WTS rejects the accuracy of the later Greek sources as shown in the comments about those sources in "Insight." The WTS rejects the accuracy of Olympiad dates that later Greek sources began tying events to.  And Insight admits very explicitly that it was ONLY Babylonian sources which gives them the date 530 BCE. And the date 530 is for the beginning of Cambyses reign (not the death of Cyrus)  The 530 date itself is not attested in the evidence, only the date, 523 and 522 which are said to be in the 7th year of Cambyses, so it's a matter of counting back from 523. If the WTS is only using the source they claim to be using, then it is only an assumption that Cyrus also ended his reign in 530. That assumption is based on the business tablets, and the fact that there have only been tablets discovered for years 0 through 9 of Cyrus. The WTS rejects that these same business tablets tell us about the rest of the Neo-Babylonian chronology. The WTS indicates that evidence may someday be found that would adjust the chronology in favor of the WTS, so the mere fact that the last discovered tablets in Cyrus reign are for his 9th year is not very meaningful if a 10th or 11th year might show up in the future.   The WTS explains in the Insight's Chronology article why those Greek sources are not irrefutable. Those Greek sources might also assume (correctly) that Cyrus died in his 9th year, but they do NOT tell us that year was 530 BCE.  Therefore, the "impression given above" was actually correct, and not a "deviancy."  The tablet the WTS uses is actually a tablet of inferior quality, a much later copy of a copy, with multiple corrections, and places where the copyist admits he had to try to fill in gaps because it was damaged and needed to be restored.
So, if the relatively poor and indirect evidence pointing to 530 BCE is absolute, then it is most definitely NOT the only date that is secularly absolute. ALL of the dates of the Neo-Babylonian period can be discovered in exactly the same way, including the date for Nineveh's fall in 612 BCE, the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar's 18th regnal year in 587 BCE, and Cyrus' accession year in 539 BCE. But there are something on the order of 40,000* of these business tablets dated to Nebuchadnezzar's reign. 
The reign of Nebuchadnezzar is attested not only with about 40,000 tablets, averaging about 1,000 for every year, but several of the years of his reign are attested in the exact same manner astronomically as the 7th year of Cambyses, as explained in the Insight book. And although several of these are also through eclipses, there are also several more important planetary observations which Rolf Furuli himself admits (in his book) can ONLY be associated with a year of his reign that places his 18th year in 587 BCE.
*I got the 40,000 number when I attended a seminar when I visited the British Museum in 2018 and met a man named Dr. Gareth Brereton who works there as a curator of Assyrian and Babylonian artefacts. He was in charge of a lecture on Assyria and Ashurbanipal at the time. I was also able to contact him one additional time in 2020 for some related follow-up questions. 
If you are right, that 530 is an absolute date, then ALL of Nebuchadnezzar's years are at least ten-times-better absolute dates. 

Sometimes, just for fun, I sometimes try to predict the responses of the more easily predictable participants, and put it in white on white text to show my oldest son what I was guessing. You can just take your mouse and highlight the blank text after the last sentence. In this case, you had two responses. I missed the first one about needing to supply an event, but I hit the second one right on target. In case your mouse highlight thing doesn't work I'll show you what I had typed:

In this case, of course, m.o. means modus operandi. I just meant that the usual thing to do instead of answering a question is to try to "poison the well" of astronomical evidence by associating it with an apostate. In this case, an apostate who was disfellowshipped specifically for sharing his research with other Witnesses instead of keeping it to himself as he was told to do.
For the record, of course, no one has to produce a specific event to attach a BCE year to a specific year of a king's reign. If you know someone reigned for 43 years and you know the BCE date for year 7 is, then you know also know year 17, and 18, and 19, and 20. He could have been asleep the entire year, or insane and eating grass the entire year, or conquering Tyre for all we know. If you know that I'm 66, and you don't know any specific event in my life during 1968, it doesn't mean I didn't exist in 1968.
Still, I can always change the question but I think you will either say you don't know or you will be otherwise just as evasive as you were with this last one: 
What year does the astronomical evidence point to for Nebuchadnezzar's 17th year? (Or, you can use his 16th or his 14th or his 25th, 26th, 27th or 28th or 32nd, or his 42nd year.) Nothing this time, sorry.

It's almost like I paid you to say that. But I know you say that as your opening "salvo" in every single discussion of NB chronology I have ever seen you join. What's funny though is that I just said the following in the Nineveh thread:
And, of course, you did exactly that. In fact, this thread is not focused at all on when Jerusalem was destroyed. The focus is on whether anyone can attach a BCE date to the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and thus to any and all of the reigns of every Neo-Babylonian king. 
I keep finding that the question most Witnesses are afraid to answer and terrified to research is the question: What year does the astronomical evidence point to for Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year?
Once that question is asked the evasion becomes too obvious. Usual m.o.: poison well with COJ

As you probably already know, the WTS publications are correct when they state:
*** kc p. 187 Appendix to Chapter 14 ***
Business tablets: Thousands of contemporary Neo-Babylonian cuneiform tablets have been found that record simple business transactions, stating the year of the Babylonian king when the transaction occurred. Tablets of this sort have been found for all the years of reign for the known Neo-Babylonian kings in the accepted chronology of the period.
Literate Babylonians from various cities all over the empire could write "17th year of Nabopolassar" [with the month and day] or "18th year of Nebuchadnezzar" [with the month and day] just as readily as we would write 2/25/2024. And there is apparently an average of about 1,000 of these contracts per year covering EVERY year of EVERY Neo-Babylonidan king.
This means that if you could just put them in the right order, you would have the entire string of dates covered from Nabopolassar, to Nebuchadnezzar, to Amel-Marduk, to Neriglissar, to Labashi-Marduk, to Nabonidus, to Cyrus, to Cambyses, etc.
At that point you would only need to identify the BCE year for any ONE of those years and you would know the entire Neo-Babylonian chronology of every king. Evidence for any one year, serves as evidence for every other year. All of them interlock with no exceptions and no contradictions.
In other words, if you had evidence somehow that the first year of Cyrus was 538 BCE, that would also serve as evidence that the 14th year of Nabopolassar was 612 BCE. If you had evidence that the last year of Nabopolassar was 604, that would serve as the same evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's accession year was 605, and his first year was 604, and his 18th was 587 and his 43rd was 562. 
This is why a discussion of the actual 'solid' evidence for the Neo-Babylonian chronology is the best foundation for discovering the date of Nineveh's destruction, or the fall of Jerusalem, or the fall of Babylon, or the start of Evil-Merodach's reign.
I think you can tell, @xero, that a discussion that focuses on just the secular evidence would be useful to more easily reach exactly the same goal. And that goal could not only be more easily reached, but also more easily verified and double-checked and triple-checked, and quadruple-checked from various independent sources. 
I say this because there is no astronomical event recorded for the 14th year of Nabopolassar which is the evidenced date for the Fall of Nineveh.
But there is an astronomical event dated to the accession year of Nabopolassar in 626 BCE. That fact alone can tell us that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE. There is a separate astronomical event dated to the 18th year of Nabopolassar in 616. That fact alone can tell us that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE. And putting those two independent pieces of evidence together we have double-checked the date. But when the entire string of Neo-Babylonian kings is put in the right order, we also have astronomical observations reported for Neb 14 = 591, Neb 16 = 589, Neb 18 = 587, Neb 25 = 580, Neb 26 = 579, Neb 27 =578, Neb 28 = 577, etc. Each one of those pieces of evidence is ALSO therefore evidence that Nabopolassar 14 = 612, so that even an observation under Nebuchadnezzar becomes evidence that Nineveh fell in 612 BCE.  Of course, this also means that, when you put the entire string of Neo-Babylonian kings in order, any evidence that 539 is the correct date for Cyrus conquering Babylon is the same evidence that Nebuchadnezzar's 18th is 587. There is no such thing as choosing one without the other, UNLESS you are willing to discard the evidence from literally THOUSANDS of business documents, and also discard the double-checked, triple-checked, . . . octuple-checked astronomical data. And it would be highly hypocritical, because whatever reason you tried to give for discarding THOUSANDS of piecies of excellent evidence would apply moreso against the much weaker and less attested evidence for Cyrus in 539.
The reason for moving that kind of a discussion to another thread is because there will invariably be someone who is so fearful of the actual evidence that they will quickly say that first you have to prove exactly when the 70 years started and ended. Or, first you have to tell me why secular scholars haven't decided on whether it was Nebuchadnezzar's 18th or 19th year when Jerusalem was destroyed. Or, first you have to prove that Russell was really wrong in promoting Zionism. Those types of new goal posts and moving of goal posts can be distracting to someone who is more interested in the strength of the evidence for attaching BCE dates to the Neo-Babylonian chronology. 

Excellent point made here in the link you provided:
"The durations of the Babylonian reigns, from Eriba-Marduk (770-761) to Nabonidus (556-539), are all known. The chronology of these Babylonian kings is anchored on the dates set by the astronomy of five precisely described lunar eclipses."
Sometimes when we read about Babylonian or Mesopotamian chronology being revised, we think of the Neo-Babylonian period which, unfortunately for the WTS tradition, has been "set in stone" and therefore can't really be revised. 

There is NO Bible evidence for 539 BCE. There is NO Bible evidence for 587 BCE. There is NO Bible evidence for 607 BCE. I think most of us understand that by now. So, I propose a thread/topic where we shift the focus almost exclusively to the basic, fundamental question about the strength of the secular evidence in the Neo-Babylonian period. Why do we rely on it? Why does the WTS rely on secular Babylonian astronomer's evidence for Cyrus in 539? Why does the WTS reject the same evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year?  Is the evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's years actually 10 times better than for Cyrus?
When that question is solved, it also resolves the entire question about the 70 years, the WTS 20-year gap, the years of those kings that came just before and just after. And it will automatically link to the resolution of dates for events like the Fall of Nineveh, the Battle of Carchemish, the death of Josiah, the years of Zedekiah, the BCE dates for the three different exile events reported in Jeremiah 52. And , of course, it should answer the question about the complete lack of evidence for 607 as Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year.  
So in this new thread/topic there would need to be NO discussion of:
the 70 years of Jewish Exile, or the 70 years of Babylonian domination over other nations the purpose of the WTS 20-year gap 1914 Daniel 4, Gentile Times, the length of the 7 times/years, the length of the 2,520 days making up those 7 years Not even any discussion of Bible prophecies or references in: Jeremiah, 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, Zechariah, Daniel.  Just the years of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. Any discussion of other topics can be moved back to this topic/thread.

Turns out that ALL the astronomical events recorded for the entire period agree perfectly well with the Biblical text. Remember that the Biblical text has no BCE dates. There is NO real contradiction between the astronomical events recorded and the Biblical text regarding the Babylonian period.
In fact, the WTS would do much better to follow the same pattern it does for all the other areas where secular history supports the Bible's own version of history. It could be used as evidence to show that there is additional external support for the Bible's accuracy that might have been overlooked.
It's true that there were naysayers about the existence of Belshazzar by Bible skeptics looking for excuses not to trust the Bible. Turns out there wasn't really that much evidence for outright denial, but a lot of skepticism based on other issues with Daniel. But the WTS is guilty of similar skepticism coming from another perspective -- and I don't just mean the admission that no one can identify this Darius the Mede, nor the fact that the WTS rejects the Bible's own chronology of Daniel 1:1 and 2:1. 
Here's an example for another time from "Insight." The Hebrew term transliterated "Ahasuerus" in the Bible is pretty much an expected transliteration for the Persian "Xerxes." (Which can also refer to Artaxerxes.) But notice how the WTS publications deny that the Bible's use of Xerxes/Artaxerxes (Ahasuerus) can refer to him in Ezra, but says it does refer to him in Esther:
*** it-2 p. 613 Persia, Persians ***
From Cyrus’ Death to Darius’ Death. The reign of Cyrus the Great ended in 530 B.C.E. when he died while on a warring campaign. His son Cambyses succeeded him to the throne and was successful in conquering Egypt. Though not referred to by the name Cambyses in the Bible, he is evidently the “Ahasuerus” to whom the opposers of the temple work sent false accusations against the Jews, as stated at Ezra 4:6.
*** it-2 p. 613 Persia, Persians ***
The Reigns of Xerxes and of Artaxerxes. Xerxes, Darius’ son, is evidently the king called Ahasuerus in the book of Esther.
As it turns out, there is really no good reason for the Watchtower to speculate that Ahasuerus/Xerxes is Cambyses in Ezra and Ahasuerus/Xerxes is Xerxes in Esther. The WTS could just as easily have made them both Xerxes and Ezra would actually be giving an even clearer timeline without the unnecessary speculation. I just include it to show how easily and sometimes nonchalantly the WTS will speculate about "outside" history that they believe is contradicted in the Bible. In this case the WTS creates a kind of Bible contradiction about who Ahasuerus was. 
If anyone wishes to discuss, and has the time, there are a few more of these types of WTS-created Bible contradictions, some which might come up anyway in a full discussion of the chronology of the period.

This might be true to a very small extent, but if true, it means that the WTS has no right to claim that 539 BCE was some kind of absolute, pivotal year. 539 is based wholly, 100% on these judgment calls and assumptions. Besides, the date of 587 BCE for the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar is at least 10 times better documented than the 539 BCE date (for the accession year of Cyrus). 
There are some assumptions used, it's true. But these adjustments or "calibrations" to account for the slowing down of the earth have been known about for a long time. And if we were to use calculations from astronomy today and didn't know about the rate of slowing, we would only be off by about 6 hours going back more than 2700 years. 
That means that the eclipses recorded by Neo-Babylonian/Persian/Greek scholars would still have happened on the same day, but the background stars which were also reported in these records would have passed them up 6 hours earlier. The article you point to is admitting the same thing as this article:
https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-eclipses-show-earth-s-rotation-slowing
Overall, Earth's spin has slowed by about 6 hours in the past 2740 years, 
 
----- and here comes the tldr; part to ignore ----------
Even without this data we already knew that the earth's day was getting longer just from satellite data from year to year. Even though the day lengthens by only microseconds at a time, it adds up to hundreds of seconds of difference when you go back several centuries. And when you go back 2,700 years (27 centuries) it's a difference that approaches 20,000 seconds (5.5 hours).
That means that when you look for an eclipse, even if you had a good record of the observation for 685 BCE, trying to calculate it without knowing about the earth's slower rotation, would be about 5.75 hours off from the time you expected. That doesn't seem like much time to be off, but it means that the eclipse will likely be seen on the correctly calculated day, but against a background of stars that are nearly half-way across the sky.
The Babylonian "scholars" recorded those stars in the background, so it makes the eclipse seem like it doesn't match any eclipses in the year given.  That is, until you notice that the same pattern holds for ALL the eclipses and that they make a much better fit for the observation when you realize the earth rotated just a wee bit faster back then.
But it's pretty consistent throughout this period:
Near 700 BCE observations hovered around 20,000 seconds off, or 5.5 hours Near 600 BCE observations hovered around 19,000 seconds off or 5.25 hours Near 500 BCE observations hovered around 18,000 seconds off, or 5 hours Near 400 BCE observations hovered around 17,000 seconds off, or 4.75 hours Near 300 BCE observations hovered around 16,000 seconds off, or 4.5 hours Although I'm rounding to the nearest thousand and relying on the article's regression-line analysis to "average" out the anomalies, you can easily see the pattern. And by the time you reach AD/CE readings you would expect closer to 3 hours off, and that's right where the readings end up.
But those lunar eclipse readings can be double-checked by the half-dozen solar readings during the period from 350 to 150 BCE and these line up even closer to the regression line, helping to confirm the same calculations of "delta-T" [change in time].
The point is that this slowdown of the earth's rotation is only a few hours, not days, but when these calibrations are added to the observations and predictions already observed and recorded in ancient Assyria/Babylon/Persia you can now set a specific formula to account for that curve (parabola). That formula is built into all the major astronomy applications which is why they all give the same results. And it turns out that when you do this, the calculations are further confirmed by making an excellent accounting not just of both the lunar and solar data, but also various planetary calculations that the Babylonians also recorded.

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I believe I mentioned the implication of "we don't know" if I understand the X post. He was referring to Sodom and Gamorra or at least that is what the background image suggests. I won't disagree, there are 10s of thousands of spiritual leaders around the world that don't know the first thing about the proper use of scripture, lol!
Satan is universally recognized for his malevolent nature. Given the opportunity, his destructive tendencies would spare nothing in their wake. Just consider the devastation he has wrought upon humanity and the earth through his sinister influence.
Satan certainly didn't clothe Adam and Eve, unless you're prepared to imagine them sporting a stylish pair of snakeskin boots! Lol!
If we consider the extreme nature of man's evil intentions, some have even used human skin as leather. Anything evil is within Satan's reach. Who knows what other accessories he has? Lol!

"Technically speaking", we can still use Satan as a fashion designer, because he is a "murderer from the beginning", so what would be a problem for him to kill an animal for its skin? 
Figuratively, wearing leather clothing would mean that it was a specific "sign of Satan" characteristic for all those who rebel against God. lol
....,  but "we don't know". lol