Srecko Sostar

Exactly on each point!!!
Now imagine Jehovah telling a "faitfhul slave" or pre-cursor of that "faithful slave" that the only way Jesus is going to distinguish between the 5 wise virgins and the 5 foolish virgins (in our time period) is based on their acceptance of a specific mix of secular chronology and "Bible" chronology.
And it's a chronology that started out as:
Oh look how great Ptolemy is; all astronomers agree that his dates are perfectly well-established! Which soon turned into:
Look how terrible Ptolemy is; his chronology is suspect because he gives different dates than the ones we need prior to 539. Let's go so far as to highlight a book that calls him a "criminal."  Which turned to:
Oh look how great the Nabonidus Chronicle is; it proves that Cyrus overtook him in his 17th year. Which turned to: 
Oh wait, let's stop mentioning the Nabonidus Chronicle; turns out that the number 17 was added by expert secular authorities, and that the same chronicle links him directly to the full length of Neriglissar's reign, which is the one tiny window of vulnerability we still need to raise suspicion about a possible 20 year gap!! Which turned to:
Oh look how great Strm. Cambyses is, it tells us directly that 539 is the only absolute date in ancient history!! Which turned to:
Whoops! Now we have to admit that this only works if we accept the authority of secular experts to correct numerous known mistakes and copyist errors on that same tablet, the astronomical tablets' understanding, and ancient tablet methods for measurements of two eclipses, and the authority of modern experts to date those eclipses taking into account the slowdown of the earth by about 16,000 seconds, and a non-contemporary King's list (like Ptolemy's) that is assumed to be correct, and some secular business contract tablets that help establish the length of the reign of Cyrus and Cambyses, (and which we reject when used elsewhere) and some [hi]stories by much later Greek historians that we don't really trust on most other matters. Which turned to:
Look how great the Olympiad dating system is; if we accept that it has been properly tied to the current BC/AD eras, it appears to tells us that the dates for Cyrus are accurate. Which turns to:
Oh wait! We reject the same Olympiad dating system even from much more recent times when it conflicts with our theory of Artaxerxes which we would like to say is 10 years off.  

The BIG question is …
… is it worth all that effort to prove something happened that really didn’t happen,  in 1914?

…. ah yes ….
…… the “Closed Club”  ….

Before my time, they sold literature for money or exchanged it for some material goods (eg eggs or similar). Later we said that this "voluntere preaching work" was supported by voluntary contributions and that the tenant could give some money of his choice. Later it was stopped because it is money that was not declared as income and taxed.
Apropos the cessation of preaching. I think it's an outdated dogma because new "clarifications" have arrived, about how people being able to turn to God at the last minute and be saved. According to this new explanation, it no longer makes sense to rely on the idea, from the past, of "stopping preaching" and "closing the doors of the contemporary Ark".
George, you have to keep up with the organization! You're behind! lol

It’s not so much the tying of the shoes, but getting the head unstuck from the water bucket.

In Land Surveying it works the same way in spatial location as in temporal location.
You have to have solid data in both systems to fit “System A” to “System B”, and only then can you translate and rotate so there are no gaps or overlap.
Without a solid “benchmark” in BOTH systems, your data will not match.

The news that could signal that times are changing at WTJWorg will be when they announce that donations of any kind are no longer being accepted. lol

The criticism of "larchwood" is now irrelevant, as are any former members or witnesses trying to make a fuss over nothing. The times have indeed changed.

It just makes life easier when people don’t go kicking against the goads over every silly little thing. Save your kicking for when it is important. 
Nathaniel Hawthorne put it this way in The Scarlet Letter: “It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.”
Nobody speculates more boldly than Jehovah’s Witnesses, who, in the main, are able to “conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.”
This can result in dumb situations in which people resist innocuous trends in the greater world because nobody wants to be the first to upset the status quo. In such cases, people quite reasonably look to examples from those taking the lead, It is sort of sheeplike behavior, but then—what does the Bible say about sheep? 
We’re clearing out a lot of nonsense now that you might have hoped would have been cleared out long ago. Times change. If you can change with them without sacrificing any core principles, that’s the thing to do. It makes life easier. You find yourself not taking a hard stand over things that don’t matter. 
I don’t think the GB particularly like saying, ‘Okay, now you can do this or that.’ But apparently they have come to feel sheeplike people need that from time to time. In 2017, they said beards are fine where local norms don’t get in the way. I think they were surprised that no one took them up on it, necessitating a GB update complete with bells, whistles, video history, and chariot:
https://www.tomsheepandgoats.com/2023/12/beards-get-the-green-light.html
 

…
…. It just occurred to me!
The subliminal hidden message with the Norwegian red white and blue “flag tie” is NOT FOR JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES!
… IT’S FOR THE NORWEGIAN COURT SYSTEM OFFICIALS!

JWs, Show Your Fashion Attitude!
lol

When beards were permitted it was explained that was because the view of those in the world had changed.
So what view has changed in the world so that JWs women can wear slacks? 
 
 

I think Anna was exactly correct about this !!                                    Norway Flag

 
Remember the hidden message in the propaganda photograph of captured sailors from the U.S.S. Pueblo that slipped past the North Korean military?
Same idea……
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/north-korean-officials-had-no-idea-what-their-hostages-were-signaling-in-this-photo
 

I try to see both sides of the issue, and both sides and perspectives, so occasionally I think about how the Elders who over 60 years persecuted the brotherhood about the never-ending issue of beards … I myself being called into “the little back room” / “the red room” (some walking out embarresed to tears, with red eyes) / “room 101 (where Winston Smith was tortured with a cage of rats attached to his face) at least five times that I remember, from Virginia to California,Texas, North Carolina, sometimes several times ….. and how these God fearing men of good conscience must NOW feel for having been agents of unwarranted and continuous tyranny that has divided the Congregations, and literally soured the Truth in tens of thousands of Brothers (and their women, girlfriends and wives … destroying, and I do mean DESTROYING the credibility of the Governing Body, and any valuable principles of righteousness they may have tried to impart.
Whew! THAT was a very long sentence…
When I was a young man, I would on Fridays after work to a bar with fellow employees and the Client, ( who expected us to pick up the tab on our overhead account) and we all got thoroughly plastered. No matter how drunk I got I never forgot … in fact I focused on … that I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and it was a great protection , always. After everyone else went home I sat there hyperventilating to burn off alcohol, then took a cab home.
But, I am rambling …..
In over 55 years, because of MANY COMMON SENSE issues like “beards” I can truly say as I worked all over the United States and three foreign countries, the Elders were never an encouragement to me, except in Pittsburgh PA, and Lima Peru.
It will take another 50 years I am afraid, and  soon for me it won’t matter anymore.
But I worry about the young Elders that grew up watching this all , and were either willing or unwilling participants in this and suchlike tyrannies, including “shunning” as it has been practiced since the 1960’s.
I suppose I also worry about the possibility that they are oblivious.

The expression, "the scene of this world is changing", is certainly the reality of WTJWorg, which is changing the scene of its own dogmatic construction by which it oppresses its own followers. 
"You must not greet an excluded person who comes to KH", was the previous order. As of today, that changes and the instruction instructs JWs to give a welcome, but not "too much of a welcome." lol

Or maybe they all still hate beards, but one of them had to sacrifice his personal preferences to show that the GB will lead by example. Perhaps he drew the "short straw" as they say here. 
Maybe next time, another one will go without the tie: 

https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/categories/VODStudio

You know, Georgie, your plethora of “rhetorical“  questions give the impression you don’t know that people are not ants … You ask ten people the same questions, and your questions, often based on your agenda or false information and/or assumptions, will generate 10 honest answers …all different.
For a change, stop asking your thousands of loaded  questions and start making flat statements of what YOU think is correct. 
You might as well, because in the thousands you have asked… I have not yet noticed a single response.
It’s like singing to pigs … you just ruin your voice, AND IRRITATE THE PIGS.
That’s why you get bounced from this forum so often, no matter what new name pops up out of the whack-a-mole hole.
No one answers your endless, never ending questions, transparently due to your desire to be known as the Vicar of Warwick, recognizing your attempts at self aggrandizement by attempting to denigrate others.
I will give you a much needed hint:
It’s not working. It has never worked. It will only fool some of the people, some of the time.…
.…. mostly your self-created upvoting and downvoting and fawning self created clones.
 
 

That is something jw's refuse to do.

There is a portion you have skipped between these these two paragraphs above, and it looks like a recap of the proof of Babylonian dominion over many nations around them (just as Jeremiah 25 spoke of). In Jeremiah the 70 years are not for Judea and Jerusalem, but they are 70 years for Babylon. In this recap, Josephus says that the initial desolation (overpowering and taking of captives) had already begun under the rule Nebuchadnezzar's father, Nabopolassar. Immediately following the sentence about the 70 years:
He then says, "That this Babylonian king conquered Egypt, and Syria, and Phoenicia, and Arabia, and exceeded in his exploits all that had reigned before him in Babylon and Chaldea." A little after which Berosus subjoins what follows in his History of Ancient Times. I will set down Berosus's own accounts, which are these: "When Nabolassar, father of Nabuchodonosor, heard that the governor whom he had set over Egypt, and over the parts of Celesyria and Phoenicia, had revolted from him, he was not able to bear it any longer; but committing certain parts of his army to his son Nabuchodonosor, who was then but young, he sent him against the rebel: Nabuchodonosor joined battle with him, and conquered him, and reduced the country under his dominion again. Now it so fell out that his father Nabolassar fell into a distemper at this time, and died in the city of Babylon, after he had reigned twenty-nine years. But as he understood, in a little time, that his father Nabolassar was dead, he set the affairs of Egypt and the other countries in order, and committed the captives he had taken from the Jews, and Phoenicians, and Syrians, and of the nations belonging to Egypt, to some of his friends, that they might conduct that part of the forces that had on heavy armor, with the rest of his baggage, to Babylonia; while he went in haste, having but a few with him, over the desert to Babylon; whither, when he was come, he found the public affairs had been managed by the Chaldeans, and that the principal person among them had preserved the kingdom for him.
So he is referring to the year 605, and perhaps even a campaign that started in 606. Josephus also mentions that the temple lay desolate for 50 years until the 2nd year of Cyrus which was 537. That places the actual destruction of the temple itself in 587 BCE. But he apparently thinks of the 70 years from about 606 to about 539 (or possibly even 607 to 537). 
Josephus wrote his first history book much earlier, and at that time seemed to think that the temple had been destroyed 70 years before Cyrus, and this is the easier, more common-sense reading of 2 Chronicles, and a possible way to read Jeremiah and Daniel (but not Zechariah). But this time he doesn't actually say the temple was desolate for 70 years, but that it was desolate 'during the 70 years.' And then he specifically speaks of the Temple as "desolate" for 50 years up until Cyrus. That would fit nicely with Zechariah's mention of the 70 years of the Temple itself nearly 20 years after Cyrus. 
(Zechariah 1:12-16) . . .So the angel of Jehovah said: “O Jehovah of armies, how long will you withhold your mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with whom you have been indignant these 70 years?”  . . . ‘This is what Jehovah of armies says: “I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great zeal.  . . . “Therefore this is what Jehovah says: ‘“I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and my own house will be built in her,” declares Jehovah of armies, “and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’
 
And, nearly 20 years AFTER Cyrus, we also see that the lamentations related to Jerusalem's destruction have now been going on for 70 years:
(Zechariah 7:2-6) . . ., men to beg for the favor of Jehovah, saying to the priests of the house of Jehovah of armies and to the prophets: “Should I weep in the fifth month and abstain from food, as I have done for so many years?” . . . ‘When you fasted and wailed in the fifth month and in the seventh month for 70 years, did you really fast for me?  And when you would eat and drink, were you not eating for yourselves and drinking for yourselves? 
The Insight book admits that these 5th month and 7th month wailings were for the anniversaries of the final destruction of the Temple and assassination of Gedaliah. There had been 70 years of such wailing now that it was nearly 20 years after Cyrus.
(Zechariah 8:18, 19) . . .The word of Jehovah of armies again came to me, saying:  “This is what Jehovah of armies says, ‘The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month will be occasions for exultation and joy for the house of Judah—festivals of rejoicing. So love truth and peace.. . .
 
*** it-1 p. 812 Fast ***
The Jews established many fasts, and at one time had four annual ones, evidently to mark the calamitous events associated with Jerusalem’s siege and desolation in the seventh century B.C.E. (Zec 8:19) The four annual fasts were: (1) “The fast of the fourth month” apparently commemorated the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls by the Babylonians on Tammuz 9, 607 B.C.E. (2Ki 25:2-4; Jer 52:5-7) (2) It was in the fifth Jewish month Ab that the temple was destroyed, and evidently “the fast of the fifth month” was held as a reminder of this event. (2Ki 25:8, 9; Jer 52:12, 13) (3) “The fast of the seventh month” was apparently held as a sad remembrance of Gedaliah’s death or of the complete desolation of the land following Gedaliah’s assassination when the remaining Jews, out of fear of the Babylonians, went down into Egypt. (2Ki 25:22-26) (4) “The fast of the tenth month” may have been associated with the exiled Jews already in Babylon receiving the sad news that Jerusalem had fallen (compare Eze 33:21), or it may have commemorated the commencement of Nebuchadnezzar’s successful siege against Jerusalem on the tenth day of that month . . .
 
So assuming 539 is right (and I assume it is) then the Bible chronology supports secular chronology, although Bible chronology contradicts WTS chronology here in Zechariah.

I have to shake my head when I hear a jw say, 'we don't shun family members'.

@xero, You probably noticed by clicking on the Stellarium date/time settings that you can quickly change the view one hour at a time, or one day, or one month, or even one year at a time. In doing this you can quickly see that the moon traverses over nearly the same path from month to month, and therefore readings from one year will seem to recur a few months later and you can often find pretty much the same positions of stars and moon every few years. So it's not surprising that some readings for 588 will also be found in 584 and 580 and 578 and 562 etc., etc. That problem cuts both ways.
That's why lunar readings are not the best test for the kind of comparison being done here. They will not likely appear all that definitive even when the readings fit 568 so much better than 588. 
But some of the planetary observations do not repeat for hundreds of years at a time. That makes them much more reliable for this type of comparison between two proposed years.
So it occurred to me that I don't have the same reason Furuli did to skip the more reliable planetary observations just so that he could focus on the more flexible lunar observations. 
The Watchtower followed Furuli's trick by summarily dismissing the more reliable planetary positions like this:  
*** w11 11/1 p. 25 When Was Ancient Jerusalem Destroyed?—Part Two ***
In addition to the aforementioned eclipse, there are 13 sets of lunar observations on the tablet and 15 planetary observations. . . . Because of the superior reliability of the lunar positions, researchers have carefully analyzed these 13 sets of lunar positions on VAT 4956.
It is actually very obvious why Furuli chose to dismiss the more reliable observations, and call them less reliable. But I won't cherry-pick observations and will go back and include ones that Furuli (and therefore the Watchtower) skipped.
So the next one for me will actually go back to Line 2 that was skipped:
Saturn was in front of the Swallow. The 2nd, in the morning, a rainbow stretched in the west. Night of the 3rd, the moon was 2 cubits in front of [….]